the private opinion of an apostle. They required some supernatural evidence that his doctrine was from God; and we have no account of the apostles proposing to them this article of faith, and alleging any such evidence for it. Chrysostom says, that "if the Jews were so much offended at having a new law superadded to their former, how much more would they have been offended if Christ had taught his own divinity!" May it not be supposed, therefore, that they would have required as particular evidence of a divine revelation in the one case as in the other? And what remarkably strong evidence was necessary to convince them that the obligation of their law did not extend to the Gentiles? Would they, therefore, have received what Chrysostom considered as the more offensive doctrine of the two, without any pretence to a particular revelation on the subject?

It may be said that all the caution of which we have been speaking was necessary with respect to the unbelieving Jews only, into whose hands these gospels and the other writings of the New Testament might fall. But how impossible must it have been to conceal from the unbelieving Jews the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, if it had been a favourite article with the believing Jews! If this had been the case, it could not but have been known to all the world; and therefore all the offence that it could have given would have been unavoidable. So that this supposed caution of the evangelists, &c., would have come too late, and would have answered no purpose whatever.

This caution, therefore, must necessarily have respected those persons into whose hands the gospels, &c., were most likely to come, and who would give the most attention to them; and these were certainly the believing Jews, and the Christian world at large, and not unbelievers of any nation. And we are authorized to conclude, that in the opinion of the writers who have spoken of it, of whatever weight that opinion may be, this caution in divulging the doctrine of the divinity of Christ was necessary with respect to the great body of Christians themselves, and especially the Jewish Christians. Consequently, they must have supposed that, at the time of these publications, which was about A. D. 64, the doctrine of the divinity of Christ was not generally held by Christians, and that there would have been danger of giving them great offence if it had been plainly proposed to them by the apostles themselves. At this time, therefore,

it

may be inferred, that, in the opinion of these writers, the Christian church was principally Unitarian, believing only the simple humanity of Christ, and knowing nothing of his divinity or pre-existence.

From the acknowledgment which these orthodox fathers could not help virtually making, (for certainly they would not do it unnecessarily any more than yourself,) that there were greater numbers of proper Unitarians in the age of the apostles, it seems not unreasonable to conclude that there were great numbers of them in the age immediately following, and in their own; and their knowledge of this might be an additional reason for the opinion that they appear to have formed of that prevalence in the apostolic age. Would those fathers have granted to their enemies spontaneously, and contrary to truth, that the Jews were strongly prepos sessed against the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and that the Unitarians were a formidable body of Christians while the apostles were living, if it had been in their power to have denied the facts? The consequence of making these acknowledgments is but too obvious, and must have appeared so to them, as well as it now does to you, which makes you so unwilling to make it after them.

You say that the Unitarian Jews, mentioned by Athanasius, were not Christians, and that the Gentiles, to whom they taught the doctrine of the humanity of the Messiah, were mere Heathen Greeks. "Have you forgotten, Sir," you say, "have you never known, or would you deny what is not denied by candid infidels, that the expectation of a great deliverer or benefactor of mankind was universal even in the Gentile world about the time of our Lord's appear. ance." This, however, I do very much question, and I should be glad to know the names of the candid infidels who have acknowledged it.

An expectation of a Messiah certainly existed among the Jews, and of course among their proselytes; but if any such idea had been universal among the Gentiles, so as to interest them in discussions about the nature of this great deliverer, as whether he was to be God or man, &c., we should certainly have perceived some traces of it in their writings. It might have been expected that, on account both of the interesting nature and of the obscurity of the subject, there would have been different opinions about it; that it would

1

Letters, p. 97. ́(P.):- Tracts, p. 202.

have been a common topic in their philosophical schools; and that their historians would have given some account of the origin and foundation of this universal opinion.

You will produce, I suppose, Virgil's sixth eclogue. But, Sir, can you believe that even Virgil himself really expected any such person as he describes? The use that the poets might make of a vague report of a prophecy, brought probably from the East, and ultimately from the Jewish Scriptures, (but seriously believed by no person that we know of), merely to embellish a poem, is one thing; but the actual and universal expectation of such a person is another.

LETTER XI.

I am, &c.

Of the Time when Christ began to be considered as God, and the Opinion of the Ancient and Modern Jews with respect to the Messiah.

REV. SIR,

I TOOK the liberty to request that you would endeavour to fix the time when the apostles and primitive Christians began to consider Christ as God, or even the maker of the world under God; taking it for gratited that at the first they supposed him to be a mere man. This, I thought no person living would have denied. That the Jews expected only a man for their Messiah, is clearly supposed by Justin Martyr and all the Christian fathers. The Jews of their time were perpetually objecting to the Christian doctrine on account of their making Christ to be a God, and I have no doubt but that the expectation of the Jews at this day is the same with that of their ancestors two thousand years ago.

You, Sir, have, however, ventured to deny all this. Speaking of the apostles, you say, that "from their first acknowledgment of our Lord as the Messiah, they equally acknowledged his divinity. The Jews," you say," in Christ's day had notions of a Trinity in the Divine nature. They expected the second person, whom they called the Logos, to come as the Messiah. For the proof of these

On this subject the opinion of the fathers is unanimous, and against Dr. Horsley. They say, indeed, that the doctrine of the Trinity may be proved from the Old Tes tament, but that it was delivered so obscurely on account of the proneness of the Jews to idolatry, that they did not understand it. Theodoret says, Emsion yap Εβραιοις εγραφεν, οἱ μονον τιμάν ειώθασι τον πατέρα, αναγκαίως το δι' αυτε προσέθεικε i. e. "The Jews had been accustomed to worship the Father only, and for that reason the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews was obliged to say, By him let us offer sacrifices to God continually." In Heb. Opera, III. p. 461. (P.)

assertions I refer you to the work of the learned Dr. Peter Allix, entitled, The Judgment of the Ancient Jewish Church against the Unitarians; a work which, it is to be hoped, Sir, you will carefully look through, before you send abroad your intended View of the Doctrine of the First Ages concerning Christ."*

When my stock of amusement from the writings of Bishop Bull is exhausted, which is by no means the case at present, I may perhaps throw away a few shillings on this Dr. Allix.t In the mean time, without entering into a large discussion on the subject, I shall only ask you a question or two relating to it, and you may answer me out of Dr. Allix if you please. Inform me, then, if you can, how our Saviour could possibly, on your idea, have puzzled the Jewish doctors as he did, reducing them to absolute silence by asking them how David could call the Messiah his Lord, when he was his son or descendant. For if they had themselves been fully persuaded, as you suppose, that the Messiah, though carnally descended from David, was in fact the maker and the God of David, and of them all, a very satisfactory answer was pretty obvious. Or, without asking any other question of my own, what say you to Facundus, quoted above, [p. 202,] who says, that "Martha and Mary would never have said to Christ, If thou hadst been here, had they thought him to be God omnipresent." He adds, "neither would Philip have said to him Shew us the Father, if he had entertained any such idea of him."

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Facundus also says, that the Jews always had expected, and in his time did expect, a mere man for their Messiah. "They did not know," he says, " that Christ, the Son of God, was God, but they thought that Christ would be a mere man, which any one may perceive that the Jews at this time also think."§

I am willing, however, to consider a few of the things which you have advanced in order to give some degree of plausibility to this strange hypothesis." So far," you say, "as they" (the apostles)" believed in Jesus as the Messiah,

• Letters, pp. 107, 109. (P.) Tracts, pp. 213, 216.

+ Some account of Dr. Allix's opinion, and also of the confutation of it by Prideaux and Capellus, may be seen in Mr. Lindsey's Apology, p. 88, Note. (P.) Ch. iii. Ed. 4. 1782, pp. 102, 103. See Prideaux (Pt. ii. B. viii.), Ed. 2, 1749, IV. pp. 783, 784.

See Matt. xxii. 45, Vol. XIII, p. 290.

§ "Sed non propterea Christum Dei filium, Deum sciebant; hominem autem purum arbitrati sunt. Christum.Quod etiam nunc putantes Judæos quilibet videbit." L. ix. C, iii. p. 139. (P.)

in the same degree they understood and acknowledged his divinity. The proof which I have to produce of this from holy writ consists of too many particulars to be distinctly enumerated in the course of our present correspondence. I shall mention two, which to any but a decided Unitarian will be very striking; Nathaniel's first profession, and Peter's consternation at the miraculous draught of fishes. It was in Nathaniel's very first interview with our Lord that he exclaimed, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God! thou art the King of Israel!' and this declaration was drawn from Nathaniel by some particulars in our Lord's discourse, which he seems to have interpreted as indications of omniscience. When Simon Peter saw the number of fishes taken at a single draught, when the net was cast at our Lord's command, after a night of fruitless toil, he fell down at the knees of Jesus, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' Peter's consternation was evidently of the same sort of which we read in the worthies of earlier ages, upon any extraordinary appearance of the light of the Shechinah, which was founded on a notion that a sinful mortal might not see God and live."

With respect to Nathaniel's calling Jesus the Son of God, [John i. 49,] this phrase was, in the mouth of a Jew, synonymous to the Messiah, or Son of David, and it is fully explained by the subsequent expression of Nathaniel himself, viz. King of Israel; and, therefore, the Jewish doctors, expecting nothing more in their Messiah than a glorious King of Israel, such as David had been, could not give any satisfactory reason why David should call him Lord, having no notion of his spiritual kingdom extending to all mankind. If the mere appellation Son of God, implies equality with God, Adam must have been a God, for he is called the Son of God, Luke iii. 38. Solomon also must have been God; and so must all Christians, for they are called Sons of God, John iii. 2; John i. 12; Rom. viii. 14; Phil.

ii. 15.

As you are so intimately acquainted with the fathers, you must have known the construction that Chrysostom puts upon the language of Nathaniel; and as he was unquestionably orthodox, I should have thought that it might have had some weight with you. He says, that "in this speech Nathaniel confessed Christ as a man, as appears by his adding, Thou art the King of Israel."†

* Letters, p. 107. (P.) Tracts, p. 214. + In Johan. Opera, VIII. p. 106. ́ (P.)