of their ministry, they continued to speak of him in the fame ftile; even when it is evident they must have intended to speak of him in a manner fuited to his state of greatest exaltation and glory. Peter uses the fimple language above quoted, of a man approved of God immediately after the descent of the fpirit, and the apostle Paul, giving what may be called the chriftian creed fays, 1 Tim. ii. 5, There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He does not say the God; the God man, or the fuperangelic being, but fimply the man Christ Jesus ; and nothing can be alleged from the New, Teftament in favour of any higher nature of Christ, except a few paffages interpreted without any regard to the context, or the modes of speech and opinions of the times in which the books were written, and in fuch a manner in other refpects, as would authorize our proving any doctrine whatever from them.

From this plain doctrine of the scriptures, a doctrine fo confonant to reafon and the antient prophecies, christians have at length come to believe what they do not pretend to have any conception of, and than which it is not poffible to frame a more exprefs contradiction. For while they confider Chrift as the fupreme eternal God, the maker of heaven and earth, and of all things vifible and invifible, they moreover acknowledge the Father and the Holy Spirit to be B 2 equally

equally God, in the fame exalted fenfe, all three equal in power and glory, and yet all three conftituting no more than one God.

To a perfon the least interested in the inquiry, ic muft appear an object of curiofity to trace by what means, and by what steps, fo great a change has taken place, and what circumftances in the hiftory of other opinions, and of the world, proved favourable to the fucceffive changes. An opinion, and especially an opinion adopted by great numbers of mankind, is to be confidered as any other fact in history; for it cannot be produced without an adequate caufe, and is therefore a proper object of philofophical inquiry. In this cafe I think it not difficult to find caufes abundantly adequate to the purpose, and it is happily in our power to trace almost every step by which the changes have been fucceffively brought about.

If the intereft that mankind have generally taken in any thing will at all contribute to interest us in the inquiry concerning it, this history cannot fail to engage our attention. For perhaps in no business whatever have the minds of men been more agitated; and speculative as the nature of the thing is, in few cafes has the peace of fociety been fo much disturbed. To this very day, of fuch importance is the fubject confidered by thousands and ten thousands, that they cannot

write or speak of it without the greatest emotion, and without treating their opponents with the greatest rancour. If good fenfe and humanity did not interpofe to mitigate the rigour of law, thoufands would be facrificed to the cause of orthodoxy in this fingle article; and the greatest number of fufferers would probably be in this very country, on account of the greater freedom of inquiry which prevails here, in confequence of which we entertain and profefs the greatest diversity of opinions.

The various steps in this interefting history it is now my business to point out, and I wish that all my readers may attend me with as much coolnefs and impartiality as I truft I fhall myself preferve through the whole of this investigation.

SECTION I.

Of the Opinion of the antient Jewish and Gentile Churches.

THAT the antient Jewish church must have held the opinion that Chrift was fimply a man, and not either God Almighty, or a super-angelic being, may be concluded from its being the clear doctrine of the fcripture, and from the apostles having taught no other; but there is fufficient evidence of the fame thing from ecclefiaftical history. It is unfortunate, indeed, that there are now extant fo few remains of any of the writers who immediately fucceeded the apostles, and especially that we have only a few inconfiderable fragments of Hegefippus, a Jewish christian, who wrote the hiftory of the church in continuation of the Acts of the Apoftles, and who travelled to Rome about the year 160; but it is not difficult to collect evidence enough in fupport of my affertion.

The members of the Jewish church were, in general, in very low circumftances, which may account for their having few perfons of learning among them; on which account they were much despised by the richer and more learned gentile

christians,

chriftians, especially after the deftruction of Jerufalem, before which event all the chriftians in Judea (warned by our Saviour's prophecies concerning the defolation of that country) had retired to the north east of the fea of Galilee. They were likewise despised by the gentiles for their bigotted adherence to the law of Mofes, to the rite of circumcifion, and other ceremonies of their antient religion. And on all these accounts they probably got the name of Ebionites, which fignifies poor and mean, in the fame manner as many of the early reformers from popery got the name of Beghards, and other appellations of a fimilar nature. The fate of these antient Jewish christians was, indeed, peculiarly hard. For, befides the neglect of the gentile chriftians, they were, as Epiphanius informs us*, held in the greatest abhorrence by the Jews from whom they had separated, and who cursed them in a folemn manner three times, whenever they met for public worship.

In general, these antient Jewish christians retained the appellation of Nazarenes, and, it may be inferred from Origen, Epiphanius, and Eufebius, that the Nazarenes and Ebionites were the fame people, and held the fame tenets, though fome of them fuppofed that Chrift was the fon of Jofeph as well as of Mary, while others of

* Hær. 29. Opera, vol. i. p. 124.

them