not explain away, and particularly the history of the miraculous conception in Matthew and Luke;-that it is very derogatory from the respect and veneration which is due to Christ to represent his character as liable to frailty and infirmity, to restrict his inspiration, and to charge him with prejudice and error;-that to deny the plenary inspiration of the apostles, and of the other writers of the New Testament, is to make revelation useless, by invol ving it in ambiguity and uncertainty :-and that as to the circumstance of saints being assessors with Christ in the high office of judging the world, both men and angels, whatever may be intended by these declarations, it is very evident from the slight and incidental manner in which one of these events is mentioned, and from the great solemnity and frequency with which the other is announced, that they are to be understood in different senses; and that in one case the expressions are to be taken literally, and in the other figuratively.

It is also represented as great arrogance in the advocates for the simple humanity of Jesus Christ to appropriate to themselves the title of Unitarians, an honourable name, to which it is contended that all christians have a just claim, the Trinitarians asserting a unity of essence in a trinity of persons; the highest Arians pleading that they contend for the existence of one God alone, from whom the Logos, who created and supports the universe, derives all his attributes and powers, and in whom all the respect and homage which is paid to this divine person ultimately terminates; and the lower Arians vindicating their claim to the title of Unitarians, because though they admit that the world is made and governed by Christ, who was invested with power and authority for this purpose by the Father, yet they regard the Father as the sole object of all religious worship and homage.

The

The Unitarians reply, that though they do not contend for the infallibility of the primitive christians, they nevertheless think, that as it has been proved that a majority of the unlearned christians in the two first centuries were believers in the proper humanity of Jesus Christ, this fact forms a very strong presumption that such was the doctrine taught by the apostles. The believers in the christian religion could be under no temptation to derogate from the honour of their master, and we know that they had very strong inducements to magnify his rank and dignity beyond the limits of truth, the disciples of Christ having from the beginning been exposed to disgrace and ridicule, as the followers of a crucified Nazarene. It is also much more probable that learned and philosophizing christians would introduce new and refined speculations concerning the person of Christ, than unlettered men in low circumstances, who commonly content themselves with plain facts, and adhere stiffly to old opinions.

That they reject with indignation the charge so often and so unjustly alleged, of mutilating or corrupting the Sacred Text in order to render it subservient to their views and principles: they affirm that their only aim is to distinguish the genuine text from apocryphal interpolation; and that whenever they mark a passage as spurious or doubtful, the grounds of their objection to it are fairly stated and they are willing to rest the validity of their conclusion upon the evidence produced.

That they acknowledge that the Scriptures were written for the instruction of the illiterate as well as of the learned; and they believe that all which is essential either to doctrine or practice is sufficiently intelligible even to the meanest capacity:

That, nevertheless, there is a degree of obscurity necessarily attached to ancient writings, and that a phraseology which is familiar and perfectly intelligible in one age and

country,

country, may be extremely ambiguous and obscure in another, where the habits of thinking and modes of expression may be very different :

That many of those passages upon which the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ, of his superior nature, and of his voluntary incarnation, as it is called, is founded, were not intended to be readily understood even by the persons to whom they were immediately addressed; our Lord himself upon various occasions in his public discourses, and particularly in those recorded by John, adopting a mystical language in order to conceal his true meaning from the Jews, who accompanied him from secular and unworthy motives, to disgust them with his doctrine, and to drive them from his presence: and it is highly probable that the language of Jesus upon these occasions was understood by his disciples in a sense perfectly consistent with his proper humanity. The apostle Paul likewise, in his epistles, frequently makes use of a highly figurative phraseology in order to insinuate a doctrine, viz, the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles, which he did not always think it prudent to mention in direct and unequivocal terms, lest he should give unnecessary offence. The truth of this observation is well known to all who are conversant with that apostle's writings:

That to object to an interpretation as unnatural and far-fetched, is only, in other words, to say that to the objectors the interpretation is unusual; for the meaning of language being perfectly arbitrary, a sense which may be very familiar, and appear perfectly natural, to one, may to another seem harsh and forced :

That the Unitarians deny that they are justly chargeable with attempting to wrest and to distort the sense of the Scriptures, in order to adapt them to their own system; but on the contrary they contend, and they produce evidence to prove, that, according to the rules of fair and

liberal

liberal criticism, the sense in which they explain obscure and disputed texts is the true sense of the sacred writers. And though they readily admit that one positive unequivocal declaration either of Christ or his apostles authorized and instructed by him, would be sufficient to set aside all the presumptions arising from the antecedent improbability of the fact, that, nevertheless, this improbability is to them a reason why they are very slow in yielding assent to any evidence short of the most express and unquestionable testimony, and why they are disposed to examine with the utmost rigour whatever is advanced in proof of a fact so unlikely, so unusual, so contrary to all analogy, and in their estimation of so little use. And they solemnly profess, that, after the most diligent and impartial inquiry, they can find no such explicit and unequivocal assertions of the pre-existence and deity of Christ, nor indeed any evidence whatsoever of these extraordinary doctrines:

That, notwithstanding all that may have been advanced by ancient or by modern writers to solve the difficulty, it still appears to the Unitarians utterly unaccountable that Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who undertook to write every thing concerning the history and the doctrine of Jesus of which it was needful that his disciples should be informed, and the latter of whom has also written an account of the mission and doctrine of the apostles after their mas ter's ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit, by which they were fully instructed in the objects of their mission, should have omitted a fact so material, and so honourable to their master, as that of his superior nature and preexistent state, if they had been acquainted with it; nor is it to be supposed that they would have concealed this fact, from that unworthy timidity and disgraceful caution which the early ecclesiastical writers have imputed to them:

That the divinity, or even the pre-existence of Jesus

Christ was the prevailing doctrine of the majority of christians for the first and second centuries, the Unitarians do not allow; and evidence of the contrary has been produced, which has not been, and which cannot be, invalidated. But they admit that these doctrines, together with other corruptions of the christian religion, were early taught by philosophic christians, who were ashamed of a crucified leader, and of the simple doctrine of christianity; and that they were gradually introduced, and have long prevailed in the church; and that they are now professed by a very great majority of christians. This fact, however, no more proves the truth of these doctrines, than it proves the truth of the real presence of Christ in the sacrament, which is to this day the creed of the majority of christians. And they hope that, as the christian religion has by the energy of truth purified itself from the gross corruptions of Popery, it will go on to clear itself from all remaining errors, till it is gradually brought back to that purity and simplicity with which it first appeared in the world and they regard it as the indispensable duty of every friend to christian truth and to human happiness, to contribute to the utmost of his power, by all prudent, just, and honourable means, to the removal of that rubbish by which the progress of the Gospel is so much impeded.

The Unitarians do not presume to say that God might not, if he had pleased, have revealed other doctrines to mankind by Jesus Christ besides that most important one of a future life. But they profess, that, after reading the New Testament with the greatest attention, this doctrine appears to be the one great object of the christian revelation, which is in this view most worthy of God, and most beneficial to men.

For how lightly soever some may regard the revelation of this doctrine, and how clearly soever they may imagine it to be inferred from the appearances of nature, it is well known that antecedently to the appearance of Jesus Christ the fashionable philosophy of the heathen world