LETTER TENTH. In Reply to Dr Priestley's third letter, in which he would prove that the primitive Unitarians were not deemed heretics.-His arguments from Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and Irenæus, confuted by the Monthly Reviewer.-The insufficiency of Dr Priestley's reply.-The arguments from Clemens Alexandrinus, and from Jerome, confuted. DEAR SIR, It should seem, that you have some secret mistrust in your own heart, of the proof which you pretend to bring, that the Unitarian doctrine was orthodoxy in the first age; or you would have been less solicitous to shew, that the primitive Unitarians were not deemed heretics. For a proof that confessed orthodoxy was not deemed heresy, or in other words, that the orthodox did never excommunicate themselves, might have been spared. This however, is the subject of your third letter. Your arguments from the apostles' creed, as it is stated by Tertullian; from the little severity with which Irenæus speaks of the Ebionites; and from the respect with which Justin Martyr treats those blasphemers, for that is the appellation by which his regard for them is expressed, have been already so completely answered by my good and able ally,* the Monthly Reviewer, that little is left for me to say upon the subject. 2. I must take this occasion to declare, that you are perfectly right in your conjecture, that I entertain an high opinion of that gentleman's learning in ecclesiastical history. Indeed my opinion of his learning hath been gradually rising, while yours hath been going down :§ and what you predicted is at last come to pass; I think myself happy in the alliance of that able critic. I am informed by your last publication,|| that my valuable ally is the Rev. Mr Samuel Badcock, a dissenting minister at South Molton, in Devonshire. Το what ever denomination of Christians my worthy fellow-labourer may belong, he is learned, and an able advocate of the faith which was at first delivered to the saints, and his alliance will not be disgraceful, though he chooses to fight in a reviewer's armour. Indeed I cannot see for what * «Dr Horsley considers this writer as learned in ecclesiastical history, and may wish to have him for an ally." + In the Monthly Review for January, 1784. + See note (*). $ Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 159. Remarks on the Monthly Review of the Letters to Dr Horsley, &c. reason the alliance of a Christian divine, although he be a reviewer by profession, should be less creditable than that, which you, Sir, so obsequiously court, with Jew, Turk, heretic, and infidel. You seem to think it unfair, that your antagonist should avail himself of the prodigious advantage, which the review gives him, of a cheap and immense circulation.* This complaint, Sir, really comes with an ill grace from you; who are every day diffusing your dangerous doctrines among the common people, in pamphlets published for their benefit, in an ordinary form, to be purchased at the easy price of sixpence, a groat, and even twopence, Some reserve on our part might be proper, if any were observed on yours. But while you invite the most illiterate of the laity to take a part in the dispute, it is our duty to guard them, what we can, from seduction; to take advantage of every mode of cheap and general circulation, that the antidote may be as widely spread, and as easy to be had, as the medicated phials.-I return to my subject. 3. Justin Martyr's respect for the Unitarians of his time, you collect from certain passages, in which, speaking of heretics with the highest indignation, he makes no allusion, as you conceive, Preface to the Letters to Dr Horsley, p, xxi. to the Unitarians. My learned ally replies,* that in one of these passages Justin Martyr expressly alludes to the Unitarians, under the very honourable character of blasphemers of the Christ, whose coming had been announced by the prophets. He remarks, that in this passage Justin couples the name of Christ, with the title "of God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," in a manner which, as it must bring to every learned reader's recollection other passages of the holy martyr's writings, in which Christ and the God of Abraham are described as the very same person, clearly defines the particular blasphemy, which was the subject of the accusation. My learned ally complains, that your translation of this passage is so managed, as to conceal this allusion to the Unitarian heresy; and to convey "no idea of distinction between the Maker of the world and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." He might have added another complaint: that in your translation you have suppressed another clause in the same period, in which certain persons are treated with great severity," who instead of worshipping Jesus" [instead of paying him divine worship, for that is the proper force of the verb ]"confessed him only in name." Your re * Monthly Review for January, 1784, p. 61, 62. ply* is indeed very extraordinary. It consists of three parts. An apology for the omissions; a defence of your argument; a flat denial† that you have made the omissions, for which however you have condescended to apologize. 4. Your apology is, that the omissions were made to shorten a long Greek quotation. But, Sir, the omissions are in your English translation; and the Greek, which is given at length at the bottom of your page, is nothing shortened by them. If the passage was to be shortened, either in Greek or in English, why was this shortening effected by the omission of those clauses in particular, which might seem at least adverse to your argument? Your defence is, that the omitted passages affect not the argument either way. For the whole of Mr Badcock's remark is answered, you say, at once,§ by observing "that it is to no sort of purpose, who it was that Justin meant by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: but who it was, that the heretics he is speaking of meant by the person so described, and whom they meant to blaspheme: and this certainly was not Jesus Remarks on the Monthly Review of the Letters to Dr Horsley, sect. I. + Appendix to the Remarks. Remarks, p. 14. § Ibid. p. 13, |