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 ge nerally 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-ex, istence.

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 great 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 prepossessed against the doctrine of the divinity of Christ,

and that the unitarians were a formidable body of chris tians while the apostles were living, if it had been in their power to have denied the facts? The consequence of making these acknowledgements 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, p. 97, " 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 appearance." 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 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.

I am, &c.

LETTER XI.

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 granted 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, p. 107, that " from their first acknowledgement of our Lord as the Messiah, they equally acknowledged his divinity. The Jews,” you say, p. 109," in Christ's days 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 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. Allixt. 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

* 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 Testament, 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, Eπɛdŋ γαρ Εβραίοις εγραφεν, οἱ μόνον τιμαν ειώθασι τον πατερα, αναγκαίως το δι αύτου προσεθεικε. 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, vol. iii. p. 461.

† 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.

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, 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 Show us the Father, if he had entertained any such idea of him."

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, p. 107, " as they (the apostles) believed in Jesus as the Messiah, 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 unita

Sed non propterea Christum dei filium, deum sciebant; hominem autem purum arbitrati sunt Christum.-Quod etiam nunc putantes Judæos quilibet videbit. Lib. ix. cap. iii. p. 139.