that the circumstances under which the disputed expression circumstances which can properly belong to real existence occurs are such as to make a recourse to allegory probable; alone; whereby virtue is described as a celestial nymph, and and secondly, that the expression itself has those usual marks justice equipped with her balance, her fillet, and her sword. by which, in every rational composition, such figures of But for these distinctive marks of allegory, we may in the speech are distinguishable. present instance inquire in vain. There is nothing either triThe motives are four, and four only, which can induce a fling or impossible in the literal sense of our Saviour's .exreasonable man to depart from that general propriety of lan-pression, and it is difficult, therefore, to show, on what pringuage, to violate which, without sufficient reason, is a trans- ciples of criticism or common sense the apostles could gression at once against good sense and natural feeling; and have understood their Master any otherwise than literthese motives are as follow: ally.

First, if he desires to perplex the judgment and to tax the But, further, the personification of an abstract quality, ingenuity of his readers or auditors: Secondly, if a future (since it is in this manner that our learned antagonists event is to be dimly shadowed, which it would be inconve- desire to understand the term of Holy Ghost or Spirit of nient to express beforehand with too much precision: Third- God,) is only then either proper or intelligible, when the ly, if a disagrecable truth is to be cloaked under a less offen-name assigned to the imaginary person is the known and consive form and, Fourthly, if an apt illustration of the subject stituted representative of the species which we desire to comimplied is afforded by the outward circumstances of the fable, prise; as justice is the abstract term for a succession of just or allegory, or metaphor. actions; temperance and mercy for repeated conquests over

The first of these motives is that harmless love of supe- our animal inclinations and continual gentle affections; and riority, which, from the time of Sampson downwards, has virtue, in general, for that habit or disposition of mind which vented itself in hard questions and enigmas, but which, produces all the several actions of justice, temperance, and however harmless, the gravity of our Saviour's character, no mercy.

less than the peculiar solemnity of his discourse and the When, therefore, we speak of virtue as a celestial nymph, mournful occasion on which it was delivered, must effectually and when we dress out justice in that garb which she wore prevent us from expecting to find in his gracious promise of in the ancient pantheon, our hearers are well aware that neia Comforter. ther corporeal beauty nor material weapons can, any other

Of the remaining three, the first had been answered on wise than figuratively, be possessed by either the one or the former occasions by the several figures under which our other.

Lord described, beforehand, his death and its painful circum- But if an abstract idea be personified under any other name stances; the second by those various comparisons of the than that which conventionally and usually represents it; if vineyard, the fig-tree, the entrusted talents, which he em- I speak of the awful beauty of Arete, or menace my audiployed to reprove his countrymen for their impenitence and tors with the sword of Themis, it is impossible that those, spiritual pride: and, of the last, an instance may be found in who are not apprised that Arete and Themis imply in Greek his manner of instituting the Eucharist, where, by bestowing on the bread and wine the name of his body and blood, he exemplified in them his own approaching sufferings.

what virtue and justice do in our own language, should understand by my expressions any other than real individuals, of whom the one is literally stately and fair, and the other so But, in the promise now under consideration, if it be still armed as I described her. No one, therefore, in his right regarded as allegorical, not one of all those ends is answered, mind, if he did not really desire to deceive, would make use for which only we can suppose that allegory would be em- of similar expressions, or employ a name to represent an abployed by the wise and holy Jesus. There was no necessity stract idea, of which that name was not the proper representfor concealing, nor did, in fact, our Lord conceal from his ative. But no series of actions, no moral or physical quality disciples the nature of the comfort which they were to receive; can be instanced which the Holy Ghost can be said to repreno reproof was softened, no aptness of illustration obtained sent. He may be the giver of virtue, but he is not virtue by attributing such celestial favours to the distribution of an itself; he may dispense either wisdom, or goodness, or imaginary agent, and we must, therefore, continue slow to power, but however he may, in himself, be strong, or good, or believe that the agent introduced is imaginary. wise, his name is not synonymous with any one of these

With still more reason, however, we may require our several accidents or habits. If the term of Holy Spirit do learned antagonists to point out to our attention in the tenour not represent a person, it will be difficult to say of what idea of our Saviour's discourse some one or more of those charac-it is the proper or natural sign, and it is most natural thereters and notices, the want of which must render any figura- fore, and most reasonable to suppose, that a person was tive expression whatever, (I will not say enigmatical, for to thereby intended. enigmas themselves these principles apply,) but altogether But this probability is still further increased, if the effects fallacious or unmeaning. described be attributed to an agent, which, according to the preconceived opinion of my hearers, and in the conventional meaning of the word, is a real existence or intelligence, and competent, without any figure at all, to produce the phenomena ascribed to it.

They are notices like these, indeed, which, however conveyed, afford, in fact, the only difference between fiction and falsehood; between a parable and a lie; between the forged adventures of an imposter and the imaginary incidents of a romance; between an incorrect and unnatural description of objects and events, and the elegant illustration of those events and objects by the use of metaphor or allegory.

Had Socrates, when speaking of that invisible monitor by whose dictates he professed to be guided, described it under the name of his prudence, his foresight, or his conscience; I do not mean that it is always necessary that the author (though he still might have imputed to it the actions of a or orator should introduce his illustrations with a definite preceptor of a friend ;) it would have then been clearly underpreface that he is about to speak in parables; that he should stood that his language was metaphorical, and that by the prefix to his flowers of language the formal title of enigma imaginary personage of prudence, conscience, or foresight, he or metaphor; or guard us, with the fantastic caution of the meant only to express a natural process of his intellectual facEnthusiast of Geneva, against believing that fishes can ulties.

speak, or that the trees of the wood can assemble to elect But, when Socrates declared himself to have received adtheir monarch. The same notice is more elegantly, and as vice and intelligence from a friendly demon, his countrymen effectually given, first, when the circumstance related would must have understood, (and he, doubtless, intended that they be trifling or out of place in our present discourse, unless it should so understand him,) that he was attended by one of had some deeper meaning than our outward words imply, those beings superior to man, whom, under the name of Deand, secondly, when the assertion, if literally understood, mon, they were accustomed from their infancy to fear, to prowould be in itself absurd or impossible. pitiate, to adore.

By the first of these marks, when our Lord had shadowed In like manner, if we had read in the book of kings, that out to his countrymen their own impenitence and final ruin, the disobedient prophet was overtaken, in his return from the Jews were able to perceive that the tale of the fig-tree Bethel to Jerusalem, by destruction sent from God, we might, was spoken against themselves. By the guidance of the certainly, have understood the words send and overtake to be second, we readily understand that, when Christ gave the poetical ornaments only, and have interpreted the story by the name of his own blood to that fluid which the apostles well simple circumstance that the prophet had died on his journey. knew to be ordinary wine, he could only mean that his blood But when we are told by the sacred historian that a lion was should in like manner be poured out or spilt. And it is on sent to destroy him, that would be a strange hypothesis inthe same identical principle of the impossibility of a literal deed which should maintain, that the whole is an allegorical meaning, that we understand and employ the figure of per-description of an apoplexy or a stroke of the sun, and that the sonification, whereby abstract qualities are represented under animal called a lion was entirely unconcerned in the slaughter

But, in the present instance, and with those Jews and Jew-[such outward marks of his favour, that ye shall have little ish Greeks to whom the gospel was first delivered, the name reason to regret my departure from the world. Ye are heirs of Spirit, it is acknowledged by all, was no less appropiate to to my miraculous powers, and shall, with a commission dea particular class of animals than with us the names of lion, or rived from me, and in a field of utility far more extensive than man, or eagle. It meant, we know, like the demon of the that in which I have laboured, succeed me as teachers of Greeks, a race of sentient and intelligent beings, and, though righteousness." This he might have told them on Socinian it included in its wildest range the whole sweep of immortal principles, but how different are such expressions from those and immaterial existence from the Almighty to the human of "the Father shall send you another comforter,"-" the soul, it was most generally used to designate the inhabitants Spirit of Truth, who is with you, and shall be in you.” “If I go not away, the comforter will not come; but if I depart,

of the invisible world.

It is little to our present purpose to inquire how far the I will send him unto you." above application of the word (of which the Hellenis- It has been objected, however, that the Holy Ghost, or tic va is a translation) was an essential or primitive fea- Spirit of God, was understood by the Jews themselves in a ture of the Jewish theology; whether its meaning were orig-different sense from that which they applied to the term of inally confined to breath, or air, or acuteness of intellect; or Spirit in general; that it was a customary and conventional whether, as is surely more probable, the suspicion of invisible figure to express a particular operation of God's grace, and was coeval with the knowledge of visible existence, and the was strictly synonymous, in the usage of the ancient synamost subtile substance which was obnoxious to sense, was gogue, with the modern term of inspiration. And, in aid naturally employed to designate that still purer mode of being of this opinion, two passages have been frequently cited: which was only perceptible by their fears. But, whether the the one of St. Jerome, where, after accusing Lactantius of doctrine of Spirits were primitive or no, or whatever degree of denying the personality of the Holy Ghost, he calls such deantiquity we assign to its prevalence; whether it went up nial a Jewish heresy; the other of Maimonides, who defines with Moses from Egypt, or passed with Ezra from Babylon; that Spirit by which the prophets spake, to be "an intellectin the time of Christ we know the name was used to express ual power communicated to them by God."

a real or fancied personage, of power and knowledge excell- But that these passages are sufficient for the purpose of our ing those of man; of wisdom more refined as being unshack-antagonists, the following reasons may induce us to do more led by sensual imperfections; of strength not less to be dread-than doubt.

ed because the arm which smote was unseen.

The meaning of Jerome was possibly no other than, under It was the denial of such a race which divided the Saddu- the name of a Jewish error, to stigmatize the peculiar doccees from the great majority of their countrymen; it was to trine of a single sect, and to tax his antagonist with Saddutheir agency that the Jews were accustomed to ascribe every cism. And it may be also worthy of notice, that, if Jerome phenomenon of nature, and every accident which befel the had no better foundation for his charge against the Jews than body or the mind, and our Saviour himself, when he returned he had for that which he has brought against Lactantius, the from the dead, was apprehended to belong to their number. synagogue of his time was, in this instance, but a very little But, to such a being, all the actions which Christ ascribed way removed from the kingdom of God. Lactantius, though to his promised Comforter were strictly and peculiarly appro- that particular work be lost to which his accuser chiefly repriate. The guardianship of a Spirit was perfectly intelligible fers, has left enough behind him to evince the grossness of to those who believed in tutelary Genii: that a person of this the calumny; and, though he ascribe, in common, as may be kind might dwell with them and be in them was the universal hereafter shown, with many others of undoubted orthodoxy, faith or superstition of the East; and to the actual illapses or the name of Spirit both to God in general, and, more parinhabitation of such good or evil intelligences, the ravings of ticularly, to the Son of God in his pre-existent majesty; he madness, and the lofty strains of prophecy, were imputed by distinguishes, nevertheless, in his description of the Saviour's the common voice of antiquity. The Sibyll was supposed, at baptism, the Spirit, peculiarly so called, both from the Father the time of inspiration, to labour with a present Deity. It and the Son. Nor have any of the ancient Christians more was not the Damsel of Philippi, but the Pythonic demon happily illustrated the difference between the accidents of within her, who recognized in Paul and his companions the material existence, and the eternal and intelligent emanations servants of the Most High God; and when the fiend was of an eternal intelligence, than this pious and eloquent chamcast out, or the Divinity had retired, the power of the pro-pion of the faith, whom, on the accusation of one whose phetess was gone. warmth too often rendered him unjust and uncharitable, the

It was not then, by any communicated energy, but by their orthodox have, without inquiry, been ready to fling into the actual presence and prompting, that the beings of the invisible hands of a party at least sufficiently anxious to obtain any world were supposed to give to man either supernatural illustrious accession to their number.

knowledge or supernatural power. Had our Saviour men- If we should concede, however, to the assertion of Jerome aced his disciples with a visitation of the evil spirit, we are and the similar testimony of Epiphanius, that the majority sure that they would have understood him literally; the spi- of the Jewish nation did really, in their time, deny the Perrits of fear, of infirmity, of dumbness, were all, in the mytho-sonality of the Holy Ghost,-yet will not the prevalence of logy of the Rabbins, supposed to be real personages; nor has such an opinion in the fourth century after Christ, be regardany adequate reason as yet been assigned, why their notioned as a sufficient evidence of the original doctrines of the of the spirit of truth should vary from this general analogy. synagogue. Those doctrines may be naturally supposed, în It is said that the Messiah conformed his expressions to the the course of twelve generations of mutual bitterness, to have usual language of the time, without heeding whether the receded considerably from the ancient confession in every notions which that language implied were, in themselves, point which favoured or resembled the tenets of their Chrisphilosophical or accurate? That, as he was content to as-tian rivals. And the more recent, and therefore less forcible cribe, in contradiction to the truth, and in compliance with authority of Maimonides is liable to the further objection, popular superstition, corporeal disease to an incorporeal that this ingenious writer has evinced himself in several inagent; he was content, in like manner, to express supernatu- stances disposed to depart from the usual tenor of Rabbinical ral gifts under the name of a visiting or protecting spirit? orthodoxy. Disgusted with the legends of his countrymen, The first of these suppositions, if it be not altogether blas- and anxious to obviate the discredit which their dreaming phemous, is, at best, of a questionable character; nor will commentators had thrown even on the Law of Moses itself, those, who believe the Lord Jesus to have been, himself, all the system which he has embodied in the More Nevochim, wisdom and truth, be inclined to allow, that, under any cir- is, throughout, a sort of freethinking Judaism, as much at cumstances whatever, he would have lent his sanction to a variance with the general confession of those whose cause false notion of the manner in which his Father governs the he pleads, as the works of Crellius and Socinus with the preworld. But the conduct ascribed to him in the second part of vailing tenets of Christendom.

this hypothesis is more, far more, than a simple acquiescence And that, in fact, no small number at least of the more in error. The wisest and best of men may suffer, under par-learned Jews, even so late as the fourth century after Christ, ticular circumstances, a mistaken opinion to pass unexplained; acknowledged the Spirit of God as a distinct and intelligent but that man is neither wise nor good who, in making a being, is shown by the positive assertion of Eusebius, (who promise, unnecessarily employs such terms as are likely to quotes the Hebrew doctors as assigning him a local habitadeceive his hearers. Jesus might, surely, have engaged to tion in the region of the air;) by the fact which will be hereendue his disciples with supernatural power or celestial after more minutely proved, that the Christians of the circumknowledge, without the introduction of any fabulous ma- cision, however in other respects heretical, in the Personality chinery. "My Father," he might have said, "when I am of the Holy Ghost agreed with the Gentile Churches; and taken away, will bestow on you such internal comfort and above all, by very numerous passages in the Rabbinical

works themselves, which speak of him in terms altogether portion, if it shall appear on inquiry, (as it will, I apprehend, inapplicable to a virtue or abstraction only. By these wri-appear to all who inquire with sufficient candour and diliters the Holy Ghost is expressly opposed to him, whom we gence,) that, of those believers for whose use, in every age know the Jews regarded as a person, the spirit or power of of the world, the promise of our Lord was, apparently, inevil; he is said to dwell in the hearts of men as another and tended, the great majority have, in every age, adhered to the a better soul; he is called a Holy Guest who honours the literal interpretation.

Sabbath with his presence; we find him described in their If of a numerous assembly, the major part misconceive usual jargon as the Spirit of the Window whereby God's the purport of an oration, the mistake will be, in common glory is revealed, and the Spirit by whom the dead are raised. life, attributed to a wilful or involuntary defect of clearness And, as it cannot be said that our souls are enlightened in the orator; he will be supposed to have purposely conand our bodies raised by the same or a similar operation; as cealed his meaning from the passions and prejudices of the the acts described are distinct, the Spirit by which they are vulgar, or to have failed from natural infirmity in producing effected must, plainly, be an Agent, not a process; a Dispen- that effect on their understandings which was the ostensible ser of various graces, not any single grace personified. object of his endeavours.

It is needless, therefore, to refer to the fux or vas of Philo, But neither mysticism nor weakness can, without the and the Binah of the Cabbalists, to ascertain the ancient wildest impiety, be imputed by any Christian sect to our creed. It is true, indeed, that these Hebrew testimonies fall common Master. He came to give light to mankind, and he very short of that standard of knowledge which the Christian would employ, we may be sure, in that glorious mission, the Church has attained; and that the rank of the Holy Spirit, means which were best adapted to his end. The manner, and his union with the Deity, were imperfectly, if at all, then, in which the majority of the Christian church have, comprehended, by the Jews of any sect or era. But, neither in every age, agreed to understand any expression of their can this admission be allowed to militate against the truth or Lord, (though this agreement will be no absolute proof that importance of this article of the Catholic faith, without aban- their interpretation is true,) yet will it certainly go a considdoning at the same time the resurrection of the dead, and all erable way to persuade a candid man that it is so. those other features of our religion, which it was a part, at And the presumption of its truth will be stronger still, if least, of the Messiah's office, to reveal, or assert, or ex-we find that, in this majority of believers, those ages are plain. included which come nearest to the time of the apostles,and that in antiquity, no less than universality, it has the advantage over the opposite opinion.

The illumination, in fact, of the moral creation of God, during the course of his dealings with mankind, has, like the advances of the physical day, been gradually and slowly pro- For, though nothing, doubtless, of divine authority, (and gressive. The darkness of ignorance has been dispelled by no authority can be absolutely conclusive which is not dia process almost similar to that which chases every morning vine,) be ascribed to those remoter periods: yet, as every the darkness of night from a part of the creation; and the stream, in proportion to its length, is exposed to adulteration; leading truths which almighty wisdom has thought fit to re- and as every machine gathers rust by the very act of continveal to mankind have been enveloped, at first, amid the uance; so is it reasonable to compare, as far as possible, our clouds of type and mystery; in promises which might sharpen own opinions with the opinions of those ages, when the very the attention of the soul, and in shadows which might soften youth of Christianity exempted her from some of those corto her eyes the too sudden glare of wonder and miracle. ruptions which are the attendant curse on time. But, in the At first, with the first men and early Patriarchs, we are weight of antiquity, no less than of numbers, the orthodox introduced to the thin dawn and twilight of Revelation; the lay claim to victory. covenant taught by the mystery of the serpent's head, and by To such a claim, however, two leading objections have the institution of bloody sacrifices. Then came the dawn of been made: the first, that the ancient Christian writers were day, but faint and cloudy still with ceremonies and allegory, incompetent judges of scripture; the second, that those wriand Christ appeared afar off, and reflected from the face of ters to whom we appeal were the favourers of a small, though Moses. Still it grew lighter and more light as, to successive learned party, who were themselves the corruptors of that generations, successive Prophets announced, with increased faith which was primitive, and, till their success, universal; precision, the approach of the destined Messiah; till, bear- and who brought from Alexandria, among other Platonic abing in himself the full brightness of the Godhead bodily, surdities, the doctrine for which I now contend. with healing on his wings, the sun of righteousness arose! These objections are neither of them new, and each has True it is, that of the glorious prospect which the Chris-been already answered. So old they are, indeed, and have tian day-spring opened to mankind, the component features been so often refuted, that the time might seem but wasted were not new, though a new splendour encircled them; the which is spent in their discussion, were it not needful, that roses of Sharon and the trees of Paradise were not then so long as they are urged they should not be urged unnofirst planted, though their beauties were then first discerni- ticed; lest the pertinacity of our antagonists should assume ble; and the mountain of God's help had stood for ages, the garb of victory, and they should pretend, at length, to though its form was indistinct before. the triumphant possession of that field on which a superior arm has long since laid them breathless.

When the secret of a knot is unravelled in our presence, we wonder that what is now so plain should have so long The accuracy or intelligence of the ancient fathers as interescaped discovery; and thus, we are told, did the hearts of preters of Scripture, I am little concerned to vindicate. As the disciples burn within them, when they found that all the divines they were little better, and as critics, too often conmysteries of the new covenant had been originally contained siderably worse, than many among the moderns, who must in the old, in those ceremonies which had occupied their never hope to be referred to in the schisms of contending hourly attention, those prophecies which had been read to nations. But it is not as expounders of the gospel, but as them every Sabbath day. historians of public opinion, that the theological writers of But, till the knot is untied, its artifice is still an enigma; former ages are chiefly entitled to our respectful notice. till the problem is solved, its component parts appear irrecon- Were their original observations less valuable than they are, cilable: the mystery of the triune Godhead, though it be (and it is vain to deny, to many at least, among their number, implied, is not expressly revealed in the scriptures of the the praise of natural acuteness, of extensive learning, and informer covenant; nor can we expect from those Jews who so defatigable diligence,) yet, as contemporary witnesses to the erroneously estimated the character of their Messiah, any ancient faith of the churches of Christ, the dates at which accurate idea of the yet more mysterious Comforter. It is they flourished must always give importance to their decisenough for the purpose of our present argument to have ion; as in a question of prescription we are accustomed to shown that, among the countrymen of Christ, the Holy refer to the evidence of the oldest neighbour, though that Ghost was not considered as a merely abstract notion; that neighbour have no other quality but age, which can induce us the spirit, which God caused to dwell with his saints, was to pay a deference to his opinions. believed, like other spirits, to be a real and sentient exist- It is proved, then, in answer to the first objection, that, to ence; and that no reason, therefore, remains, which could in- our present purpose, the early Christian writers are not induce the disciples to understand their Master's simple lan-competent authority; since they are not adduced to decide guage in a figurative or parabolical meaning. It is almost whether the doctrine under examination be absolutely true or needless to add that it is, therefore, highly improbable, that false, but only whether it was really the prevalent opinion in such a meaning was intended by one whose object was, not those ages with which they were best acquainted. to perplex and deceive, but to confirm, to enlighten, to console.

And this probability will be augmented in a tenfold pro

To the second objection, which refers the introduction of those opinions which we call orthodox to the commencement of the second century from Christ, and to the labours of Jus

tin, Irenæus, and Tertullian, we may first reply, that this hy-relating to the divinity of the Son, of the Personality of the pothesis is directly contrary to the witness of such primitive, Holy Ghost, of a nature which affords even the slightest inor, as they are usually called, apostolic writers, as have ternal reason to suspect interpolation or imposture. They are transmitted any portion of their work to posterity. The pass-either pious ejaculations under circumstances wherein the ages are well known which have been produced from these soul of man would naturally revert to prayer; or they are ar venerable relics in affirmation of the divinity of our Lord guments or illustrations connected with the discourse which Jesus Christ. It is more to my present purpose to observe, contains them, and, therefore, not to be excluded without inthat, on the personality of the Holy Ghost, their testimony is jury to its general texture. And, above all, the comparative equally decisive. vagueness of their expression may prove them to have proHermas, whom St. Paul salutes by name in his Epistle to ceeded from devout and simple minds, while incidentally the Romans, opposes in his "Shepherd" the Spirit of God to speaking of truths which it was not their immediate business the evil demon, in terms which can only suit the opposition to defend. The hand of interpolation would have been coarser of one real person to another. The work of Hermas is, in- and more decisive; and, if the object had been to enforce the deed, confessedly allegorical; yet is it, apparently, to an at-Trinitarian opinions, the expressions employed, we may be tentive reader, no difficult task to distinguish in what parts sure, would have been far more technically orthodox. The he is speaking by a figure, and in what expressing his own moderate tone and general nature of those passages where the serious conviction; and when the good or evil genius is Triune Godhead is implied, may convince us at once that the spoken of, we have no reason to believe that he is not in ear-text is not in these instances corrupted, and may induce us nest, or that any other individuals are intended than Satan also to believe that those tenets had been hitherto very little and the Spirit of God. questioned, which are mentioned thus unguardedly. But, whatever doubts may exist as to the meaning of Hermas, If, then, we should admit the assertion to be accurate, that none can be entertained as to that of Clement, the fellow- a majority of Christians were, in the days of Justin and Terlabourer of the same great apostle; who, as quoted by Basil, tullian, averse from the orthodox doctrine, we might rather no less than in that epistle which only now exists in the Sy- conclude that a departure from ancient principles had taken riac translation, but of which Wetstein, no incompetent judge, place among the more ignorant believers, than that, in the so strongly urges the authenticity, attributes life, and anxiety, second century, those doctrines were new to Christian ears, and active agency to the Holy Ghost, in the same manner as which had been taught in the church by Clement and Ignato the Father and the Son. tius and Polycarp.

Ignatius, in like manner, in his Epistle to the Magnesians, In truth, however, those passages of Justin and Tertullian, (a work which has stood the severest test of criticism,) de- which have been advanced with inuch parade of learning and scribes the apostles as rendering a like obedience to all the no little scorn of those who have ventured to explain them several persons of the Trinity. And the blessed Polycarp, in differently, may be proved, on a candid inquiry, to apply to his expiring prayer, as preserved by those brethren of the purposes far different from that for which they are ordinarily Church of Smyrna who attended his captivity and wept around cited, and, instead of convicting the orthodox doctrine of the flames of his martyrdom, gives glory to the Holy Ghost novelty, are, on the other hand, very strongly in its favour. in almost the very words of our present doxology, Tertullian complains in his treatise against Praxeas, that This form of praise, indeed, which was recognized by Dio- certain Christians, whom he grants to be the majority of the nysus of Alexandria as the ancient order of Christian invo-church, though he at the same time objects to them, that they cation; which concluded the hymn of the martyr Athenogenes; were, "simplices, imprudentes et idiotæ," having been conand that yet more ancient Canticle is xx, which was verted from the worship of many false divinities to that of the in the fifth century of universal and immemorial usage among one true God, and not understanding how this unity was to the meaner Christians; is in itself an illustrious evidence of be believed together with the trinitarian distinction of perthe ancient opinion of the church, and may prove that in the sons, were alarmed at the thoughts of such distinction. And earliest times, as now, the unlearned majority were orthodox. hence it is inferred (to use the words of one, who, if not the It was, we learn from Basil, a pious and popular custom to most distinguished, is at least the most forward of the modern return thanks in this form to the three persons of the Godhead apostles of unitarianism,) that, "the majority of Christians, by name, when first the lamp was lighted in the evening. being plain unlearned men, zealous for the divine unity, warmly Now, to customs of this sort, when they are universal, and resisted the trinitarian doctrine which some philosophic Chrisabove all, perhaps, when they are confined to the uninstructed tians were then endeavouring to introduce." and the poor, we can hardly ever err in imputing a very high It is impossible not to regret that this ingenious person, degree of antiquity. For an unwritten prayer to grow into no less than several greater names on both sides of the congeneral usage may require, as it should seem, the lapse of troversy, have referred to Tertullian for the purpose of contromore than a single century; and those of our order, whose versy only, and have, therefore, regarded the present passage duty has thrown them among the peasantry of the remoter as distinct and insulated, not only from the general purpose provinces, will have had ample occasion to observe their te- of that work to which it belongs, but from the immediate and nacity of ancient customs. In the hymns, the legends, and necessary context. To this we owe those idle verbal criticisms the artless devotions of our English poor, it is often not im- on the insignificant word "idiotæ," and the application of possible to trace the relics of superstitions long since passed those rules of language and propriety to the fiery presbyter of away, of Pagan and Roman Catholic prejudices; but seldom, Carthage, which would have been applicable, perhaps, to a indeed, can we find a form of recent introduction among those Roman of the Augustan age. But if, instead of tearing in habitual ejaculations of prayer or praise, which lull poverty pieces a detached expression, we refer to the work itself, we to rest on her rugged couch, or welcome in the hard and shall find that Tertullian was not complaining of the diffi wholesome repast of labour. In a cottage family the religious culty which he experienced in introducing a new doctrine instruction of the young invariably devolves on the aged; the into the church, but that he was deploring the progress child is taught by his grandmother the same words which she which a recent (a very recent) error was making in the west herself had, in like manner, learned during her infancy; and of Christendom.

thus, from year to year, the same address goes on, acquiring Far from complaining that those opinions which were adan additional sanctity in each successive generation. It will verse to a faith in the trinity, were the result of deeply rooted not be pretended by our learned antagonists, that the use of prejudice, he speaks of them as "a novelty of yesterday," and the Doxology can possibly have been of Pagan origin; and reminds his fellow-Christians that this, "like every former they will be perplexed, I apprehend, to assign to a custom heresy, may be confuted on the simple principle, that whatwhich, in the days of Basil, was popular and immemorial, a ever has been from the beginning is true." Now, without less than apostolic antiquity. discussing the truth or falsehood of his principle, it is evident, But, be that as it may, the sentiment which it conveys is that the simple fact of his adducing such a rule of faith is althe same, as we have seen, which, amid the smoke and ashes together inconsistent with the conduct of one who was labourof martyrdom, could raise the hopes and inspire the courage ing either to corrupt or reform an ancient opinion, or who of the last surviving disciple of the last apostle, the beloved had offended the ears of the church by the introduction of hearer of him who was himself the beloved of the Lord. If philosophical novelties. His language is that of the jealous Polycarp were mistaken, who shall hope in these latter days asserter of antiquity, the strenuous guardian of established to unriddle an evangelist's meaning? If St. John himself doctrines: it is (and in their contest with heretics, this is the had erroneously expounded the promise of his friend, we may almost uniform characteristic of the Catholic party) the dewell close the volume of Scripture in despair, till the lion of fender, not the assailant, who addresses us. But, if a Prothe tribe of Judah shall return to open its seals. testant in Rome, or a Socinian in England, were endeavourNor are the testimonics of the Apostolic Fathers, whether ing to disseminate his tenets among the people, he would

not, we may be sure, exhort his hearers to stand on their Jesus was a prophet sent from God, and that he was an eterancient paths, and beware of new-fangled teachers;-his nal and almighty Person incarnate."

arguments would be directed against the folly of inveterate That this is the general tendency of Justin's argument, our prejudice, and he would urge the necessity and reasonableness antagonists themselves will not, I apprehend, deny: nor, from of judging for ourselves, without regard to the canons and such a statement can it by any means appear, either that precedents of our fallible predecessors. Tertullian has been Justin thought (which we know from his strong expressions called by Mr. Belsham a philosophic Christian: but he must elsewhere he certainly did not think) the doctrine of the have been an idiot in the strictest modern meaning of the Trinity unimportant to Christianity, or that the persons whom term, to have spoken as we find him speaking, had not the he mentions as holding opinions adverse to that doctrine doctrine of the trinity been already in prescriptive possession were, in his time, the majority of Christians. Whatever, of the minds of men. indeed, were their number, it is apparent that those individWhat, then, is the meaning of his complaint? Exactly uals denied not only the Divinity of Christ, but his birth from that which every jealous supporter of established doctrines a virgin, and that they must therefore have differed not from brings forward, with whatever reason, on the appearance of a Justin only, and the orthodox Christians of later times, but new religion, the progress which it makes among the vulgar. from Socinus and Crellius themselves. And though the And this progress, exaggerated, as usual, in such cases, by modern Unitarians have made so large advances on the scephis fears and jealousies, he ascribes, with sufficient candour, ticism of their more cautious and more learned predecessors, to the inherent and admitted difficulties of the established yet have few of them, as yet, attained so lofty a pitch of freecreed, and the consequent eagerness with which the lower thinking as to reject the authority of St. Matthew and St. orders flocked to a preacher who professed, like Praxeas, to Luke, and to degrade our Saviour to the mortal son of Joseph vindicate the unity of God, and to reconcile, as he undertook the carpenter.

to do, that attribute with the divinity of the Lord Jesus.

But, further, it is apparent, that it was the interest of Justin, For, let not the modern Unitarian expect to find in Praxeas so far as the success of his argument was concerned, to asor Noetus a precursor of Socinus or Priestley; or anticipate, sign as much of weight as could with truth be assigned to from the transient success of the ancient heretics, an abun- the number and authority of these dissidents, since we find dant harvest of converts to the modern reformation! What-him urging their example on Trypho. He calls them, however were the opinions of Sabellius, (of which our accounts ever, τινὰς hot πολλὰς, far less πλεόνας or πλείςτες—“ certain, are too contradictory to enable us to form any adequate judg- that is, not "many persons." And the force of the word vis ment,) the doctrines of Praxeas are sufficiently known, and is so far opposed to the notion of any considerable number, have no parallel, perhaps, in modern error, except the visions that it is known to be almost equivalent to oxig, "a few." of Emanuel Swedenborg. He taught, indeed, one only per- Justin repeats, however, and repeats it with considerable son in the Godhead; but he taught that this person was no earnestness, that he himself was far from assenting to an other than that God who was, at once, the Creator, the Re-opinion so degrading to the Lord whom he worshipped; and deemer, and the Comforter of mankind; who was born of a he concludes by declaring, as our antagonists themselves unvirgin, crucified under Pontius Pilate, and afterwards de-derstand the following sentence, that he should continue in scended in a shower of fire on the apostles in the day of Pen- his present sentiments, even though the majority of Christecost. In other words, he united the several offices of the tians should maintain the contrary. trinity in the single person of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to their own interpretation, then, the sentence

To that Unitarianism, which, as described by Mr. Belsham is obviously hypothetical; "In case it should so happen," he himself, would rob us of every rational ground of confidence is made to say, "that the majority of Christians should emin the mercy of heaven; which casts on us again the burthen brace such an opinion, even in that case I would not assent of those iniquities, under which the whole creation hath to it." The Syrian martyr, then, might rather seem to congroaned and travailed; which reduces the Messiah to an template the future possibility of encroaching heresy, than to earthly prophet, of whom we are ignorant whether he is in acknowledge that tenets similar to those of Socinus and Dr. Heaven or no, to whom we owe no gratitude for favours now Priestley were, at that time, the prevailing sentiment of the received, from whom we have nothing to hope or to fear, church.

to that Unitarianism the Christians of Rome and Africa were, It may be doubted, however, with reason, whether the in the age of Tertullian, strangers. The tenets of Noetus and words themselves of Justin be capable of that rendering Praxeas I am far from being inclined either to believe or de- which Thirlby and Waterland have given them, and which fend; their inconsistency I shall have occasion, in the course only, though those learned men contemplated no such conseof these lectures, to expose: but thus much may, at least, be quence as possible, can be applied to support the Socinian hyurged in favour of their comparative innocence, that the foun- pothesis. The sentence, si ed av st Tauta tain of salvation is not, by their means, rendered dry; and moi doğálovтes sito,-which Waterland translates, "whom that, while they strangely confound the person of the Re- I assent not to, no not though there were ever so many condeemer with those of the Father and the Comforter, they curring to tell me so," is convicted by such a rendering of leave us, nevertheless, the consolation of an almighty Sa- a solecism of the most obvious kind, inasmuch as curriequal, viour, and an all-sufficient sacrifice for sin. a verb in the indicative mood, can with no propriety be placed

The complaint, then, of Tertullian, cannot, if rightly un-in opposition to io in the optative. If Justin, then, had derstood, be regarded as adverse to the antiquity or univer- desired to express the sentiment which they impute to him, sality of those opinions for whose orthodoxy I now am his words, if he had spoken good Greek, would not have been pleading. And the words of Justin, in which he admits that is à ouvrídquaí—— εδ' ἂν εἴποιεν, but οἷς & συντίθωμην, ἐδ' ἂν some revered the virtues of Christ, who refused to believe πλῶςτοι ταῦτα μοι δοξάζουσες εἴποιεν.

that the Supreme Being should be born of a woman, and But though the language of the Syrian martyr is doubtless suffer by a shameful death, will be found, on examination of far from classical, yet will not it be easy to find in his works their context, and the occasion on which they were spoken, any similar instance of contempt for the rules of grammar; altogether as little favourable to the system of our antagonists. nor can that be considered as judicious criticism, which, Justin, it will be recollected, having already nearly worsted whether for the sake of avoiding a fancied tameness of exhis Jewish adversary on the point that Jesus was the expected pression, or of serving the ends of a sect, will adopt an unMessiah, the rabbin, as usually happens with the weaker grammatical sense, when another may be obtained without party, diverts the argument to that which had only incident-violating any principle of diction. The particle av is, in the ally become a question, our Lord's pre-existence and divinity. present passage, plainly, not disjunctive, but expletive; and Justin, therefore, reminds him, as any disputant would in the only sense of which the words are capable, is one disuch a case have done, that the Deity of Jesus was not the rectly adverse to that which the Socinians would have them point under immediate discussion; that, on whichever side convey, an assurance, namely, that there were not many the truth might lie as to the peculiar tenets which Justin who, in the days of Justin, disbelieved our Saviour's Deity. himself maintained on this mysterious subject, Trypho was Οἷς ὁ συντίθεμαι, ἐδ' ἂν πλεῖςτοι μοι ταῦτα δοξάζοντες εἴποιεν. not therefore justified in resisting the arguments drawn from Quibus neque ipse assentior, nec multi sane hæc mihi the ancient prophets, to prove the general fact of our Saviour's opinione ducti dixerint."

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mission from God. "There are some," he continues, "I do And that this is the proper rendering is apparent, if we not think them right in such their opinion, but there are some consider, that in the days of Justin, and little more than a who allow that Jesus is the Christ, though they deny his century from the death of our Lord, it is contrary to all evimiraculous incarnation. We may, then, discuss the first of dence to suppose that the authority of the church was carried these questions distinctly from the other, since there is, in to a height so pontifical, as that even a question could sugfact, no necessary connexion between the proposition, that gest itself of a man's submitting his faith to the decision of