phrase as it is included in it in this passage of St Barnabas. And even then the only just inference will be, that the phrase is used variously, in a more restrained or larger signification, as may suit the particular occasion on which it is intro'duced; but that in its full and natural import it affirms the incarnation,

But in truth Dr Priestley seems to deal by St Polycarp as by St John; by the disciple as by the master. Devoted himself to the Unitarian doctrine, he takes it with him as a principle in the study of St Polycarp, as of the New Testament, that the creed of St Polycarp, as of all the primitive Christians, was Unitarian. Then, whatever expressions occur alluding to opinions of a different cast, he interprets in the sense in which he and his Unitarian brethren would use them. From these expressions, so interpreted, he goes back to his original prejudice, that St Polycarp held and taught an Unitarian creed, as to a conclusion which he hath drawn, and can teach others to draw, from St Polycarp's own writings. Alas! the sum of all such reasonings is no more than this: I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY am an Unitarian ; therefore such was Polycarp. And the basis of this argument is the supposed infallibility of JoSEPH PRIESTLEY.

DISQUISITION SECOND.

Of Tertullian's testimony against the Unitarians, and his use of the word IDIOTA.

DR PRIESTLEY has made it an occasion of great triumph to himself and to his party, that he has caught me tripping, as he thinks, in my Greek and Latin, in the translation which I have given, in the ninth of my Letters in Reply, of a certain passage in Tertullian's book against Praxeas, which is produced by him as an acknowledgment of Tertullian that the Unitarians were in his time the majority of Christians, and is represented by me as an assertion of the contrary. None but an idiot, as Dr Priestley conceives, in the learned languages, would imagine that the English word "idiot," which I have used in my translation of that passage, might in any sense render the Ins of the Greek or the Idiota of the Latins, which is the name by which, with other adjuncts, Tertullian describes the Unitarians of his time. Dr Priestley says in the nineteenth of his Second Letters, sec. 3. "What will be said of the man who can translate Idiota, idiot?" He hath now for some' considerable time been receiving the incense of his own applause, and the triumphant acclamations of his party, on the occasion of this victory

gained over his daring adversary, on the very ground on which the enemy had taken his stand with particular security. But it will be time enough to bind the laurel on their chieftain's spear, when they are sure he is in possession of the field.

In the seventh of his Second Letters, Dr Priestley says to me, "I will venture to say that it properly signifies [the word Idiota in Latin, or dis in Greek properly signifies] an unlearned man, or a person who has not had a liberal education." This Dr Priestley ventures to affirm, and this I venture to deny. The word Iding hath ten distinct senses; which I shall recite in order.

I. A private person; i. e. a person in private life, in opposition to a person in public office or employment, civil or military. In this sense the word is chiefly used by the orators and historians, and by all writers who treat of popular subjects; and this is its first and proper sense, as it is of all its senses the most immediately connected with the sense of the adjective 1, from which the substantive as is immediately derived.

II. A person in low life, one of the common people, in opposition to persons of condition. This is nothing more than an intension of the former

sense; private life in the extreme becoming obscure and low.

III. A laic, as distinguished from a clerk. This sense the Greek fathers easily grafted upon the first; the church being considered as a polity of its own kind, in which the clergy bear the public offices, the laity are citizens in private life. In a sense nearly allied to this, the word seems to be used by St Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. 16, to denote a private member of a congregation as distinguished from the minister.

In

IV. A person unskilled in any particular science or art, in opposition to the professors of it. The word, thus used, rather expresses the want of professional skill than of ordinary knowledge. this sense the word is sometimes constructed by the Attic writers with a genitive of the thing, and by ordinary writers with an accusative, either with or without a preposition. deros idealny isla. Plat. in Tim. idang lele, xala lelo, or as meos lato.

V. A person deficient in any particular talent, habit, or accomplishment. In this sense the word is sometimes constructed with a dative of the thing. In Tw how, 2 Cor. xi. 16. In this sense the word is used by St Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. 23, 24, to denote a common Christian, not endowed with

any of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, as distinguished from persons so gifted.

VI. A person generally unlearned; one who has not had a learned and liberal education. In this sense, in conjunction with the epithet gaal, the word is applied to the apostles by the rulers of the Jews. Acts iv. 13.

VII. The plural dala, signifies individuals; citizens, individually considered, as distinguished from the collective body, the state.

VIII. The plural, is a collective name for the illiterate vulgar, in particular reference to their general want of accomplishment in literature, the sciences and the arts. Ο πολύς όμιλος, ὡς ἰδιωίας οι σοφες a. Lucian.

IX. Hence among philosophers and sophists, and pretenders to that sort of taste which is now called virlu, it became a name of reproach which they gave to those whom they thought disgracefully deficient in those accomplishments which they valued and admired in themselves. Thus the great Roman peculator, seeking to hide his avarice under a mask of affected taste for the works of the Greek masters, reproached his accusers with idiotcy in this sense of the word. Erat apud Heium sacrarium- -perantiquum, in