of" partaking of flesh and blood;" since in the discourse of any but an Unitarian, it must involve an allusion to the incarnation and divinity of our Lord; your defence of your argument from St John's first epistle is insufficient: the argument is still to be considered as running in a circle, and it was properly adduced as the second among my specimens of insufficient proof.

I am, &c.

N. B. The argument, which Dr Priestley has advanced in the fifth of his Second Letters, in favour of his own interpretation of the phrase "coming in the flesh," from a passage in St Polycarp's epistle, is considered and refuted in the first of the Supplemental Disquisitions.

I

LETTER FIFTH.

The Archdeacon's interpretation of Clemens Romanus defended. -The shorter epistles of Ignatius genuine.

DEAR SIR,

HAVING, to your own entire satisfaction, made good your argument from St John's first epistle, against my exceptions; you proceed to reply to the testimonies which I produced from Clemens Romanus, for the preexistence and divinity of our Lord.

2. When Clemens says, "our Lord Jesus Christ came not in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although he had it in his power," you say, that the coming alluded to was "no coming from heaven to earth; and that the pomp of pride and arrogance, in which our Lord came not, stands for an "ostentatious display" of the miraculous powers which our Lord never made.* To this it is sufficient to reply, that my interpretation rests upon the literal sense of the holy father's words, which you suppose to be figurative; that you have nothing to object to the literal interpreta

* Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 13.

tion, but that it suits not with your own opinions; whereas I have something of great importance to say in its defence; that it is established by the context. "He came not (says Clemens) in the pomp of pride and arrogance, although he had it in his power, but in humility, as the Holy Spirit spake concerning him." The pomp therefore of pride and arrogance, in which our Lord came not, is that pomp, which is the proper opposite of the humility, in which the Holy Spirit had foretold that he should come. For he came not in that, Now to determine what

but in this he came. this humility is, Clemens immediately goes on to cite the prophecies, which describe the Messiah's low condition. The humility, therefore, of an ordinary condition, is that in which it is said the Messiah came. The pomp, therefore, of a high condition, is the pomp, in which it is said he came not, although he had it in his power so to come. The expressions therefore clearly imply, that our Lord, ere he came, had the power to choose, in what condition he would be born.

3. In citing this passage of Clemens Romanus, I dealt very liberally with you; as I trust indeed that I have done in every part of the argument. I cited the passage, as it stands in our modern copies. More ancient copies, those which Jerome used, instead of ag duvaror," although he had it δυνάμενος,

και πες

in his power," had a man duras, although he

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had all things in his power." This appears from Jerome's translation of the passage, which is in these words, " Sceptrum Dei, Dominus Jesus Christus non venit in jactantia superbiæ, cum possit omnia."* Now with this emendation of the last clause, which it seems was an assertion of our Lord's omnipotence, you are welcome to make what you can of the preceding clause, by figurative interpretations.†

4. No figurative interpretations will elude the force of my citations from Ignatius. But it is the

Hieronym. in Esaiam, cap. lii.

+ Dr Priestley, to whom it is a matter of equal ease to bring the holy Scriptures, or the fathers, upon all occasions to speak his own sentiments, finds no assertion of our Lord's omnipotence in this clause of Clemens thus rendered by Jerome: nothing more than an allusion" to the great power of which he became possessed, after the descent of the Spirit of God upon him at his baptism." (See the second of Dr Priestley's Second Letters to me). That is, to affirm that a person hath all things in his power, is, in Dr Priestley's apprehension of the terms, to affirm that at a certain time he had some things in his power. Had any such allusion been intended to the miraculous powers, the verb possit in Jerome's Latin, should have been in one or the other of the preterite tenses. By the use of the present tense, Jerome describes a plenitude of power now enjoyed. This plenitude of power now enjoyed, is alleged as what might have been exercised by our Lord in time past, with respect to the manner of his own coming. It is a plenitude of power therefore ever present to our Lord, now and in time past; and being allowed to be now present, is supposed of necessary consequence to be capable of effects in time past. But this describes nothing less than the attribute of omnipotence. But language is no key to "unlock the mind of a Socinian."

particular happiness of the Unitarian writers, that they are never found at a loss for an expedient. All that I say of the repeated assertion of our Lord's divinity in the epistles of Ignatius, you allow to be true," according to our present copies of his epistles. But the genuineness of them, (you say,) is not only very much doubted, but generally given up by the learned." And lest this assertion should want that appearanee of weight, which an air of confidence gives, you even tax my ingenuity "for concealing a circumstance, which, (you say,) I must have known ;" and you challenge me to prove these epistles, "as we now have them, to be the genuine epistles of Ignatius."*

5. Sir, if the genuineness of these epistles be generally given up by the learned, my ignorance, not my ingenuity, is to be blamed, that I cited them as genuine. I indeed knew nothing of this general giving up. But since the testimony of Ignatius is allowed to be express, if the epistles be genuine from which it is produced; permit me to tell you, in few words, what I know of these epistles.

6. I know that ancient writers mention seven epistles of Ignatius, written upon his journey from

* Letters to Dr Horsley, p. 13.