ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOURTH LETTER. THE Author of the three first Letters to a Protestant Divine, which have been for some time before the Public, having been called upon for a fourth, by an additional one received from the Divine, which not only required him to consider, and reply to, a variety of passages in Scripture, supposed to be favourable to the Trinitarian hypothesis; but also to bring forward many others, which establish and confirm the sentiments of the Unitarians, and to institute a comparison between the Unitarian and Trinitarian systems, with a view to determine, which of them is best calculated to meet the wants and wishes of fallen man, and finally to become the universal religion; presents himself once more before an enlightened public, who will judge whether he has succeeded in proving that the preference is decidedly due to that of the Unitarians, and that it is the only religion which can ever be universal. He is obliged to the learned Editor of the new edi iv ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOURTH LETTER. tion of the theological and miscellaneous works of Dr. Priestley now publishing, Mr. Rutt, for the very correct information, that the spurious text mentioned, page 231, as having had so much influence on the mind of that excellent and liberal-minded Trinitarian, the late Dr. Doddridge, was not, as the Author had apprehended, 1 John v. 7. the Doctor having inserted that text between brackets, and referred to it as doubtful; but another, namely, Rev. i. 11. "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last," which we have the authority of Archbishop Newcome, and Griesbach, and the host of MSS. cited by the latter, for pronouncing to be equally spurious, and striking it out altogether, as they have both done. Though this does not in the least affect the Author's argument, which the Doctor's reliance upon either text will support, yet he is happy to be afforded an opportunity of doing justice to the memory of Dr.Doddridge, who, it certainly appears, did not rely upon 1. John v. 7. when, in consequence of the strong and well founded remarks of Sir Isaac Newton against its authenticity, it had ceased to be quoted as an authority, by most judicious critics, though it was not then so universally exploded, as it has been since it received the coup de grace from the hands of the late Professor Porson. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE author avails himself of the opportunity afforded him by the publication of a second edition of his two first Letters, to submit to the consideration of the Public an additional Letter, written in answer to a third received from his friend. It will shew the present state of the controversy, and enable the reader to judge how far the author has succeeded in the explanation of many very important passages of Scripture which bear most strongly upon the questions in difference between the Unitarians and Trinitarians. TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE Divine's first letter occasioned by the author's quoting in conver- sation John x. 30-36 as being adverse to the Trinitarian hypothesis. p. 1.-Re- marks in proof of this, and of our Lord having intimated, that though he might have called himself Joy, God, or a god, in that inferior sense of the word in which the prophets were so called, he had not done even this, but only said, that he was the Son of God. p. 2.-Objections to the Divine's state- ment, that the word of God which came to the prophets, was the eternal Logos.-That Heb. i. 1. proves Christ to be the Son of that God who spoke by the prophets; and consequently if the latter were the eternal Logos, there must be a quaternity of Gods. p. 3.-Strange that the word of a being, because figuratively personified, should be supposed to designate one person, and the being whose word it was, another.-Absurdity of so construing 1 Sam. iv. 1. p. 4. -Meaning of the word 'blasphemy' imputed by the Jews to our Lord, according to Scripture phraseology: shewing that it might be spoken not only of God, but of kings, and other persons in high stations. 1 Kings, xxi. 13. p. 4.—Our Lord himself the best interpreter of his own expression, "I and my Father are one." John x. 30.-His construction of it, that they were one in sentiment or design, exemplified by John xvii. 11. p. 5.-His own interpretation of his de- clarations, that his Father had sent him into the world, and that he was in his Father, and his Father in him, as given in John xvii. 18, 21, 23, shews, that he did not mean his being sent from another world, or that his being was iden- tified with that of his Father. p. 6.-But one creed in the New Testament, namely, that Jesus is the Christ.-All that has been added to it is mere The author gratified to learn what could be advanced on John x. 27-36, by his friend's learning and ingenuity. He is aware that some of the Greek fathers, after the doctrine of the Trinity had made considerable progress, quoted John x. 30.-Reply to the observation, that they must have known their own language better than we do, exemplified by the different construc- tions of modern Acts of Parliament. p. 8.-No wonder that one of the fisher- men of Galilee, writing in a foreign language, should, after two or three cen turies, be sometimes misunderstood, and constructions put upon his writings which he never intended; but rather surprising that he should never have ex- pressed himself so clearly upon difficult subjects, that by comparing one part of |