NOTE.

THE other questions which were agitated by these keen and learned polemics were of very subordinate importance. The venerable archdeacon having pledged himself to prove that the divinity of our Lord was the belief of the very first christians, appeals in his Eighth Letter, Tracts, p. 164, to a work of great antiquity, under the title of the Epistle of Barnabas, which, though it is admitted not to have been written by the companion of Paul, the learned writer contends to have been a production of the apostolic age, and addressed by a Hebrew christian to his Jewish brethren. From this epistle he cites the following passage: "The Lord submitted to suffer for our souls, although he be the Lord of the whole earth, unto whom he said the day before the world was finished, Let us make man after our image and likeness.” He adds two or three other passages of the same import. He then remarks, that the writer mentions this doctrine "as an article of their common faith; he brings no arguments to prove it; he mentions it as occasion occurs, without showing any anxiety to inculcate it, or any apprehension that it would be denied or doubted." And he triumphantly concludes, "This, Sir, is the proof which I had to produce. It is so direct and full, that if this be laid in one scale, and your whole mass of evidence drawn from incidental and ambiguous allusions in the other, the latter will fly up and kick the beam."

To this argument Dr. Priestley replies in the second of his Second Series of Letters to Dr. Horsley, by reminding his antagonist of the doubts entertained by many learned men of the genuineness of this epistle, and of the certainty of numerous interpolations, and those such as respect the very subject in question. Adding, "I must see other evidence than this from Barnabas, before I can admit that the divinity or pre-existence of Christ was the belief of the apostolic age."

This reply sufficiently invalidates the testimony of the pseudo-Barnabas. But an answer still more satisfactory is supplied by the learned Jeremiah Jones, who was not, as Dr. Horsley states, Tracts, p. 127, "the tutor of the venerable Lardner," but the relation and pupil of the very learned Samuel Jones of Tewkesbury; who was also the tutor of Maddox bishop of Worcester, Butler bishop of Durham, and Secker archbishop of Canterbury; to which catalogue we may add the name of a person who was fully their equal in literary celebrity, and, if not restrained by principles of conscience, had been equal in ecclesiastical dignity, the learned and pious Dr. Samuel Chandler, many years the able and admired pastor of the highly respectable presbyterian congregation of the Old Jewry. Jeremiah Jones, who, to the great loss of theological literature, died young, in the second volume of his admirable

admirable Treatise on the Canon of Scripture, republished a few years ago by the University of Oxford, part iii. ch. 37, after a very full and impartial inquiry into the subject, states it as his opinion, which he substantiates by abundant evidence, "that the epistle was written not by Barnabas, nor by any other Jew, but by some person who was originally a Pagan idolater; that it is an apocryphal book, and was never read in the churches till the time of Jerome; that it contains many assertions which are absolutely false, and a great number of trifling, silly, and idle things." And upon the whole he concludes, from its having been cited "only by Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, that it was forged at Alexandria; and because there are so many pious frauds in it, that it was the forgery of some such person as corrupted the books of the Sibyls, and that it was written about the middle of the second century." Such is the direct, full, and decisive evidence derived by the archdeacon from the testimony of Barnabas to the orthodoxy of the primitive Hebrew church. We give him this Barnabas'.

I cannot conclude this long note without adding a word or two upon the subject of Origen's much-injured character. The archdeacon had charged this venerable man with "the allegation of a notorious falsehood," in asserting that the Hebrew christians in his time had not abandoned the law of their ancestors: Tracts, p. 156. Of this heavy charge he adduced the existence of his far-famed church at Ælia as a proof. But soon discovering that the foundations of this church were too weak even for its own support, and much more to bear the weight of this new and unprecedented attack upon the veracity of Origen, and being anxious to repel the severe retort of Dr. Priestley, that he was "a defamer of the dead," the learned dignitary applied himself with great industry to look out for some plausible confirmation of his criminatory allegation. And the success of his researches was worthy of the cause. Two passages only are produced by the archdeacon, Tracts, p. 350, to state which, in the reverend accuser's own translation, is to demonstrate the futility of the charge.

"In the second book of the Answer to Celsus, Origen says, It is my present purpose to evince Celsus's ignorance; who has made a Jew say to his countrymen, to Israelites believing in Christ, Upon what motive have you deserted the law of your ancestors?....And how confusedly does Celsus's Jew speak upon this subject, when he might have said MORE PLAUSIBLY, TIJAVITɛpov. SOME of you have relinquished the old customs upon pretence of expositions and allegories. Some again expounding, as you call it, spiritually, nevertheless observe the institutions of our ancestors. But some, not admitting these exposi

"I shall tax the veracity of your witness-of this Origen." Horsley, p. 156.

tions, are willing to receive Jesus as the person foretold by the prophets, and to observe the law of Moses according to the ancient customs."

"In these words," continues the archdeacon, "Origen confesses all that I have alleged of him. He confesses, in contradiction to his former assertion, that he knew of three sorts of Jews professing christianity....one of whom had relinquished the observance of the literal precept."

But where is this self-contradiction to be found? Celsus ignorantly charged ALL the Hebrew christians with having deserted the customs of their ancestors. Origen, who knew that few or none of them had done so, replies, that Celsus's Jew would have talked not more truly, but more PLAUSIBLY, more consistently with his assumed character, and more like the truth, if he had only said that some had relinquished their old customs, while the majority adhered to them. But the bishop says in his laboured reply to Dr. Priestley's Defence of Origen, Tracts, Disq. v. Plausibility and truth, in this use of the word plausibility, are the very same thing." They might be so in his Lordship's vocabulary, but they are not so in common acceptation. To say that his Lordship's assertions are plausible, is very different from allowing that those assertions are true. Dr. Priestley, in the first of his Third Series of Letters, supposes that Origen might allude to a few who had relinquished their ancient customs, though the majority had not. But this supposition, though not improbable, is by no means necessary to justify the character of Origen.

Another passage, upon which the archdeacon places his finger, ibid. p. 353, as substantiating his charge against Origen, is in the first book of the reply to Celsus. Origen, defending the translation of Isa, vii. 14, "Behold a virgin shall conceive," alleges that the word Alma, which the LXX. translate 'virgin,' and others a young woman,' is put too, AS THEY SAY, in Deuteronomy xxii. 23, 24, for a virgin.''

The fact is, that in all our present copies the word Alma, py, does not occur in Deuteronomy, but another word, na, which always signifies a virgin.' And the archdeacon charges Origen with prevarication for citing the text in this doubtful manner. "Was it unknown to the compiler of the Hexapla what the reading of the Hebrew text in his own times was? If he knew that it was what he would have it thought to be, why does he seem to assert it upon hearsay only? If he knew not, why did he not inform himself?"

In truth, it is difficult to say why Origen uses this indefinite phrase. His copy might differ from the modern ones, or his judgement might be doubtful, or he might possibly have forgotten at the instant what the exact reading was, and his copy might not be at hand for him to consult; but whether any or none of these suppositions be correct,

surely

surely no human being but the Archdeacon of St. Albans would have ventured upon such feeble grounds to have taxed the character of the great and venerable Origen with notorious falsehood. "What an appetite," says Dr. Priestley," must a man have for calumny, who can seize upon such a circumstance as this to gratify it !" Third Series of Letters, p. 15.

Nor is it to be supposed that the archdeacon himself would have preferred so serious a charge upon such frivolous pretexts, had he not been completely misled by the visions of Mosheim. For had the fable of the Hebrew orthodox church at Ælia been true, Origen must have known it, as he resided for some time in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and he would in that case have merited the imputation of a want of veracity. But this ground being untenable, and the learned dignitary having alleged his accusation of the venerable Father in such broad and unqualified terms, he probably thought it necessary in vindication of his own character to search for other proofs of his charge against that of Origen: with what success the reader is now competent to judge.

The reader may now likewise form a just estimate of the truth of a curious observation in a late Quarterly Review, that "Dr. Priestley was regarded as a giant in theological controversy, till he was vanquished by a giant greater than himself." How far Bishop Horsley, conscious as he evidently was of the infirmity of his argument, which he in vain endeavoured to conceal under the pomp and colouring of his language, would have relished the equivocal compliment of the same Reviewers in their critique upon his posthumous sermons, that "his principal forte was Theology," may not be so easily ascertained.

To the liberal and enlightened author of the masterly "Dissertation upon the Evangelical Sects," in the last Number of this Literary Journal, the Unitarians, in common with the rest of their non-conformist brethren, are under great obligation, for his manly and unequivocal avowal of the grand principles of religious liberty, and his indignant reprobation of persecution in every form. While the Unitarians can boast of their Lardners, Lindseys, Jebbs, Wakefields, and Tyrwhits, and many other names living and dead, whose claim to literary celebrity would not have been deemed equivocal had they imbibed their learning in royal colleges or national institutions, they can forgive the sarcasm of the worthy Reviewer that their doctrine "appeals to the vanity of the half-learned, and the pride of the half-reasoning." But they cannot suppress their astonishment that this able critic, who does not appear to be an enemy to revelation, should, in reply to a most judicious and important observation of the Barrister, "that Christ never required faith in his disciples, without first furnishing sufficient evidence to justify it," have ventured to affirm that the Barrister "makes this assertion in direct contradiction of many plain texts, and of the whole spirit of the whole gospels." We indeed have not so learned Christ.

The candid writer, allowing that Unitarianism is "the most harm

In the fifth Disquisition annexed to his Collection of Tracts, Dr. Horsley, then Bishop of St. Davids, labours, but without success, to establish his impeachment of Origen's character upon the ground of these two passages, from his answer to Celsus; and having convicted Dr. Priestley of two or three trifling inaccuracies, he concludes with the following illiberal reflection: "This art, which Dr. Priestley is so apt to employ, of reducing an argument, by well-managed abridgements, to a form in which it may be capable of refutation, indicates so near a resemblance between the characters of Origen and his Hyperaspistes in the worst part of Origen's, that perhaps I might not be altogether unjustifiable, were I to apply to the Squire the words which Mosheim so freely uses of the Knight; Ego huic testi, etiamsi jurato, qui tam manifesto fumos vendit, me non crediturum esse confirmo.'

Dr. Priestley, disdaining to enter any further into the defence of Origen's character, in reply to the above calumnious insinuations of the bishop against himself, says, Fourth Series, p. 85, "To this conjunction of myself with Origen I heartily say, Amen. May my cha racter be that of this great man with all its faults, and then it will be as far removed as I wish it to be from that of the present Bishop of St. Davids, whom I scruple not once more to call, as I have abundantly proved the truth of the accusation, a falsifier, though I believe not a wilful falsifier, of history, and a defamer of the character of the dead."

less of all heresies," declares his opinion that "it never can become a popular doctrine." The writer of this note once entertained the same opinion; and that at a time when, from a conviction of the truth of the Unitarian doctrine, he thought it his duty to make an open pro fession of it. He has since learned from experience to place more confidence in the energy of Truth when proposed in a plain and undisguised form. If the critique was written by the respectable author to whom it is attributed by common rumour, he will permit the writer of this Note to lay claim to a more convenient station for observing the progress of Unitarianism, than the Reviewer, with all his acknowledged talents and resources, can possess in the "antres vast and desarts idle” of the North. The Unitarians do not complain of decreasing numbers and empty chapels. Their want is that of popular, enlightened, and faithful ministers to large and crowded auditories. And the philosophic Reviewer may, if he pleases, smile at the fond credulity of the writer while he avows his firm conviction, that the only effectual check which can be given to that torrent of absurdity and enthusiasm which threatens to overwhelm the country, and which excites just alarm in every considerate mind, is, not by opposing nonsense to nonsense, and fanaticism to fanaticism, but by the calm, dignified, and irresistible progress of reason, truth, and virtue; by the prevalence of Unitarian principles, of the Lancasterian system of education, and of a firm, temperate, and truly primitive christian discipline.