relieved by you, Sir, out of this perplexity,

into which

you

have thrown us."

We are, &c. your obliged,

Postscript.

Of Dr. Priestley's hiftory of early opinions concerning Jefus Chrift.

HAVING omitted the mention of this work of Dr. Priestley's in its proper place, when recommending to you his theological writings, I shall take the present opportunity of faying fomething of it, the most curious and valuable of them all: and I rifque nothing in adding, that it could only be executed in the manner it has been done, by a fuperior genius, like his own; and also one, who to fo much patient, unremitted industry, could add fo many ingenious devices and mechanical arrangements to abridge his labour in forting the vast materials before him, fo as to finish in a few years, what would have required very many in the ordinary way, without fuch invention.

HERETOFORE, many chriftians, who faw that there was no foundation in the fcriptures

for

for the divinity of Chrift, or for his being any thing more than a man with an extraordinary commiffion and power from God, did not know what to make of some the earliest christian writers embracing a contrary opinion, viz. of his having preexifted, before he was born of his mother Mary, at Bethlehem in Judea.

This difficulty Dr. Priestley folved in a moft fatisfactory manner, in the former part of his Hiftory of the corruptions of chrif tianity; by fhewing, that this early unfcriptural doctrine concerning Christ, arose intirely from a few learned heathen converts, who mixed their philofophy with the gofpel; and by proving alfo from authentic history, that the whole body of jewish chriftians, converted by the apoftles themselves, did not believe either the divinity, or the preexistence of Jefus Chrift. From which it is indubitably to be inferred, that the apostles never taught fuch a doctrine concerning Chrift; as it is out of every degree and limit of probability, that they who had been taught by them, fhould have so immediately deserted their doctrine, upon a

matter

matter fo important. And he fhewed this opinion to have been at first nearly univerfal among gentile as well as jewifh chriftians, these few philofophizing men excepted.

He also pointed out by what steps thele men were drawn on to make Jefus Chrift the fupreme God; which, in the space of three centuries, they accomplished: but could not, all the while, bring the bulk of chriftians to accede to their doctrine, who continued to be unitarians, fuch as the apoftles themselves, and the first converts to the gofpel.

This work of Dr. Priestley's, was not fuffered to pafs without being controverted by several perfons, among whom Dr. Horfley, lately promoted to the fee of St. David's, much distinguished himself; though by no means to his credit with learned men, and judges of the fubject. For perhaps there hardly ever was an inftance, in which a controverfial writer, was fo intirely baffled, and confuted in every thing advanced by him, both from fcripture, and early antiquity, to invalidate Dr. Priestley's pofitions; as has been verified with refpect to Dr. Z Horfley.

Horfley. And this is the opinion of not a few among the learned, who are far from favouring Dr. Prieftley's peculiar fentiments. To form a true judgment yourselves of the cafe, I would refer you to Dr. Priestley's Letters to Dr. Horfley, Archdeacon of St. Alban's, Part ii. and Part iii: to which, in point of honour, and for the fake of truth, he ought to make a juft reply; or to give up the caufe, and own he cannot defend it.

In confequence of this difcuffion of the subject with Dr. Horfley, yet not with a view to add to his triumphs over him, but for his own fatisfaction, and that of others, the learned more efpecially, Dr. Priestley undertook this his laft herculean work (a). In this he has brought to light, and displayed a vaft accumulation of evidence, unknown before," to prove the truth and the antiquity, as he himself speaks, of the proper unitarian doctrine, in oppofition to the trinitarian and arian hypothefes ;" deriving. his information from the first fources only,

having

(a) "The hiftory of early opinions concerning Jefus Chrift, compiled from original writers, proving that the "chriftian church was at first unitarian, in four vols. 1786.”

having perufed all the original authors from the beginning, and produced almost 2000 paffages from them; and having many others in referve, equally important, if needed, to establish the facts for which he pleads.

Concerning however this large field, or more justly to speak, this overgrown wood of christian antiquity, which our author alone hath cleared up, and in which he hath made such discoveries; I would beg leave to obferve to you;

1. That before he led the way, we were all much in confufion, and had no distinct ideas concerning that great corruption of the gofpel, and of genuine chriftianity, called Arianifm; I mean the doctrine which makes Jefus Chrift to have been a great preexiftent fpirit, next to the eternal God, and deriving his being from him; who condefcended to come into this world of ours, and to animate a human body, shrunk from his original dignity and power, first into the ftate of an embrio, next into that