in

too and manly, the very one only Moft High, differing nothing from the archetypal idea, by whom thefe many and incredible things were formed *." The Being fpoken of in the first part of this latter fentence, and characterifed as "the very one only Moft High," is plainly the Father; and "the archetypal idea, by whom thefe many and incredible things were formed," we have feen before to be the myftical title of the Logos. Yet the Father is here declared exprefsly, to " differ nothing" from the Logos. In origination of existence, the Son" lies up clofe to," or is the bofom of," the Father. He is thus the nearest" to him, and there is no boundary of distinction between them." But in the quality of his existence, in the nature which he thus received by origination from the Father; the Son differs nothing" from the Father, and the Father differs nothing" from the Son. They are fubftantially the fame, though they are relatively different; and the very next to each other, because they are relatively different, and yet fubftantially the fame. And I fhall close all my proofs out of Philo on this head, with one that feems to close them completely; by declaring the Logos to be fo fubftantially one with the Father, as to be called the One only felf-fufficient God."Unity," we are informed, cannot by nature receive either addition or fubtraction, being the image of the only full God; for the other things. are foft in themselves, and, if ever they have been even stiffened, they are kept together by the divine Logos; for he is the glue and bond, who hath filled all things out of his effence; but be, who formed the connexion and contexture of every thing, is properly full of himself, not needing any other at all."

In perufing the preceding quotation from Philo, with its illuftrations, our readers may poffibly (as we confess to have been the cafe with ourfelves,) be like poor Alma,

"The more the reads, the more perplext,

"The comment ruining the text."

Leaving the text and commentary to the reflections of the learned reader, we fhall only afk, whether, fince it is acknowleged that Philo ftudied philofophy in the fchool of Alexandria, it be not at least as probable, that he borrowed the term Logos, and his leading ideas and language on the fubject, from the Hebrew fcriptures? If fo, the writings of this fubtle Jew afford no proof that the Jews, before the time of our Saviour, were believers in the doctrine of the Trinity, nor even in the

• Ρ. 1067. Αυτο δε τέλο το μεσικον και γραμματικον, ετι δε δικαιον και σωφρον, Φρονιμον τε και ανδρείον, εκ αυτο μονον το αιώθατω, μηδὲν ίδιας αρχετυπο διαφέρον, αφ' ε τα πολλα και αμύθητα εκίνα διεπλάσθη.

* + P. 506507. Μονας δε είτε προσθηκαν είτε αφαίρεσιν δεχεσθαι πέφυκεν, είκων στα το μόνο πληρες θεε. χαυνα γας τα τε άλλα εξ εαυτών εν δε τε και πυκνωθεν είη, λόγῳ σφίγγεται θείῳ κάλλι γαρ επι και δεσμο εις, τα παντα της εσίας εκπεπληρωκως. Ο δ' ειρας και συνέβηνας έκαςα, πλήρης αυτό εαύτε, κυρίως εσιν ε δεηθεις επιςε τοπαράπαν.

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derived

derived divinity of their Meffiah. The learned world need not to be informed (though Mr. W. feems to wish them to forget,) that Philo platonized.

Mr. W. cites, as authorities in the prefent question, the book of the Wisdom of Solomon; a paffage from Epicharmus quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus and Eufebius; the Sybilline Prophecies, as they appear in Virgil's Pollio; the second book of Efdras, the Teftaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, (first brought into Europe in the thirteenth century, and printed in Paris, 1549,) the book of Baruch, and Eufebius's Preparatio Evangelica. Mr. W. quotes paffages from each of thefe books, and comments on them to prove that the Jewish theology, like the Chriftian, was founded on the principles of the Godhead of the Saviour; and it is pronounced, as the decifive and demonftrative refult, that the original opinions of the Jews all fixedly centered in the belief of a Trinity in the Godhead.' The way being thus prepared, the author proceeds to fhew that the Jews, who, till the time of Chrift, had continued to worship a God of three perfons in one substance, and the second of these perfons as peculiarly the Lord of Nature and the God of their nation,' on a fudden, at the beginning of the second century, forfook their ancient creed, and took up a new belief in the mere humanity of their Meffiah; and that the monfter, Arianifm, thus generated among the Jews, was afterward tranfmitted by them to Chriftians and Mohammedans.

6

Mr. W. fpeaks of a certain point of time which was the grand pivot of the Jewish faith; on which a revolution was performed, of fuch a magnitude as to change the whole pofition of the globe, as it were, and totally to invert the poles of it. His main proofs, in fupport of this fudden change, are taken from the dialogue of Juftin Martyr with Trypho the Jew, written about the year 155; in which Trypho is introduced as maintaining the doctrine of Chrift's pre-exifting divine nature, to be not only paradoxical but foolish, and as declaring that the Jews all expected Chrift to be born a man off men. The caufe of this wonderful change in the opinions of a whole nation of Jews, by which they at once caft down their Meah from the throne of the Godhead to a state of fimple humanity, is thus explained:

So evidently had the Jews then [in the time of Juftin Martyr,] made a grand turn in that prime principle of theology, which they had profeffed for fo many ages before. The turn indeed is an amazing one. They had veered round the whole compafs of their belief, in this point; and the needle now ftood pointing to the oppofite pole. And as this had been effected, no doubt, by a gra

dual

dual advance of variation; fo was that variation, we may be fure, produced by the concuffions which their faith received from the affaults of the Chriftians. In the violence of their oppofition to the Chriftians, and in the animofity of their zeal against these new profeffors of their own theology, they abandoned their theology, in order to be diffimilar to them. With the natural trepidation of minds, that have more of paffion than principle within them; they precipitately ran from them and from themselves, at once.

But, befides this general reafon, they had a peculiar one of their own. They would feel most forcibly the ftrong reproach of the Chriftians against them, derived from the Divine Nature of their Meffiah. They had crucified him, when he came to them. They had thus crucified the Son of God, the God of their fathers and of themselves. This crucified perfonage the Chriftians had now received for their God, denominating themselves from his Greek appellation of Meffiah, and difcriminating themselves by the adoration of his Divinity. And, in order to escape from this horrible imputation, the Jews were impelled by every fenfe of fhame, and inftigated by every principle of paffion, to alter the tone of their belief in this point, and to deny what they had fo long acknowledged. They thus retired from the holy ground, on which they and their fathers had ftood pofted for fo many ages; and fell back to new ground, that bordered on the very region of infidelity.'

Whether it be not more probable that the faith of Trypho had always been the faith of the Jews, except fo far as it had been corrupted by Gentile philofophy, than that fuch a strange and unparalleled revolution in national faith fhould have taken place within a fhort space of time, from a caufe, the very exiftence of which is problematical, we leave the reader to determine; and fhall follow our author in his application of a point, which he has made out fo much to his own fatisfaction.

Mr. W. accumulates quotations to prove, that the Chriftians of the first and fecond century acknowleged Chrift's divinity; and he thence infers, that the Jews feparated from them into Unitarians. To corroborate this inference, he next endeavours to fhew that the Jews at first mutilated their own fcriptures, in order to get rid of feveral paffages, which most exprefsly declared the divinity of the Meffiah; and he afferts, that, in the fecond century, with a bold and daring range of impiety, they fuperfeded their whole code of fcripture at once, by the formal introduction of their written Caballah, in order to elude the pofitive declarations of God about their Meffiah by fome infolently alledged traditions of men.'-The Arianifm of the Jews at the time of our Saviour being thus eftablished, he goes on to affert that both Mohammedans and Chriftians were indebted to the Jews for this herefy. With respect to Mohammed,

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Mohammed, he infifts at large on his ignorance, and on the grofs contradictions of his Koran, in order to prove that he must have been indebted to foreign inftruments in this work of impofition; and on the authority of a Dominican Friar, who vifited Bagdat in 1210, he afferts that the first and foremost of his affiftants, Abdia Ben Salon, was a Jew; (afterward called by Mohammed, Abdollah Ebn Salem;) who, for ten years together, firft wrote all the pretended revelations of the prophet. To this fource, he refers every appearance of Arianifm in the Koran, and concludes this part of his argument as follows:

In this manner has the fpirit of Arian Herefy, fucceffively marked the two grand fyftems of Judaism and the Koran, throughout their whole fubftance. It began with the Jews, and was taken up by the Mahometans. It was the fpurious child of Judaism, and became the adopted brat of Mahometanism. And it now remains an evidence of Jewish perverfenefs, a proof of Mahometan ftupidi. ty; a defection from the Law, a rebellion against the Gospel; and only then in its proper and natural place, when it is united with the glaring contradictions, with the wild blunders, with the naked fenfualities, and with the licenfed perjuries, of the Koran.'

To account for the introduction of Arianifm among the Chriftians, Mr. W. fuppofes the Sadducees, during the time of our Saviour, to have been tinctured with Socinianifm; and he imagines that their herefy, meeting with the orthodoxy of the Pharifee, and forming a middle kind of fyftem, produced Arianifm even in the days of our Saviour; which gradually spread, till the whole nation of the Jews became Arians,

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Nor did their Arianifm (adds the author) ftop here. At first it arofe a little cloud out of the fea, like a man's hand." But in a fhort time the Heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain." All the Jewish horizon was involved in the gloom. It even fpread a deep fhade of darkness, over the Chriftion. Before the end of the first century, as we have already feen, this herefy had already infected the Jews very deeply. Before the beginning of the fecond, as we fhall immediately fee, it was conveyed by the Jews to the infant church of the Chriftians. The FIRST Arians that ever exifted under the Gofpel, were two JEWS. And their names have been configned to an infamous immortality, for the fact; EBION and CERINTHUS.'

On the nature of the herefy of thefe two Jews, whom Mr. W. calls the Caftor and Pollux of Arianifm, he expatiates at large, to prove that they were not Socinians, but Arians. allo quotes many paffages from the orthodox Chriftian Fathers, in which, Arianifm is branded as the offspring of Judaifm.

In conclufion, Mr. Whitaker traces the progrefs of Arianifm to the prefent time; induftriously loads with cenfure several great

great names, particularly Clarke and Chillingworth; declaims, with much indignation, against modern Socinians; and adds a prayer to the Logos.

Having mentioned Dr. Prieftley's opinion concerning the plenary infpiration of Chrift and his apoftles, he proceeds:

The only excufe which can be made, for fuch a Deifical flight of impiety, is what I have pleaded in favour of Mr. Whifton; what is feemingly fuggefted to us here, by the Doctor's overleaping all the intermediate operations of his own mind, coming at a bound to the conclufion, and even speaking of this as known to be adopted and avowed before, when no adoption appears, and no avowal is noticed; and what, I would fain hope, will prove a valid excufe in that day, when the Infulted Saviour fhall become an Avenging Judge, and an eternity of fortune fhall be fufpended on his tongue. At least the Doctor has, with a melancholy usefulness to the whole world of Chriftianity, fhown us the regular progrefs of Arian infidelity confummated in his own hiftory; and appears before us at this moment a ftriking and folemn evidence himself, that to deny the Divinity of our Saviour, does, by the neceffary impulfe of endeavouring to vindicate the denial, by the judicial curfe of God upon the redoubled impiety, and by a precipitate gradation of abfurdity from both, draw the mind at laft to deny the very infpiration of all our fcriptural writers, to deny even the very infpiration of our grand and oral Teacher Himfelf, and confequently to charge BOTH, with FOLLY and with FALSHOOD in their inftructions; fo to fhelter finally from refutation, in the blafphemies of Judaifm, of Heathenifm, and of Hell.'

We truft, for the honour of Chriftianity, that there are few of its friends, who will be able to read thefe ebullitions of uncharitable zeal, without perceiving how grossly inconfiftent they are with the spirit and doctrine of him who faid, "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

Of the prayer addrefled to the Logos, under the character of the guardian God of our religion, the great Subftitute of God the Father, the following is the conclufion:

Thus acting, O Lord our Saviour, we fhall be "fighting that good fight of faith," which one of thy apostles, the favourite of them all, and the very apostle of Love himself, has been fighting before us. We fhall be contending, like him, against the CERIN THUSES of the prefent day. Nor fhall the poor and cold spirit of our meanly philofophical times, damp the ardours and check the exertions of our zeal; in this Chriftian, this Apoftolick contest. "No! With thee for our Patron, our Benefactor, and our God; and with thy majestically amiable St John, for our example and pattern, we will rife above the puny effeminacy of modern faith, and mount up into the bold and manly tone of primitive decifivenefs. We will difdain alike the Pharifaick contumacy, and the Sadducean Arianifm, of the Jews, their rejection of thee for their Meffiah, and their denial of thee for their God. We will alfo difdain the

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