I believe, indeed, you went no farther than Mofheim for it. Jerom, in his epiftle to Pammachius, Opera, vol. I. p. 496. fays, that Origen adopted the Platonic doctrine (and you, Sir, are an admirer of Plato) of the fubferviency of truth to utility, as with refpect to deceiving enemies, &c. as Mr. Hume, and other fpeculative moralifts have done; confidering the foundation of all focial virtue to be the public good. But, Sir, it by no means follows from this, that fuch perfons will ever indulge themfelves in any greater violations of truth than those who hold other fpeculative opinions concerning the foundation of morals.

Jerom was far from faying as you do, that " he re"duced his theory to practice." He mentions no inftance whatever of his having recourfe to it, and is far, indeed, from vindicating you in afferting, p. 160. that "the art which he recommended he

fcrupled not to employ; and that, to filence an "adverfary, he had recourfe to the wilful and de"liberate allegation of a notorious fa'fehood." Here, Sir, is much more in the conclufion than the premises will warrant. Many perfons hold fpeculative principles, which their adverfaries think must neceffarly lead to immorality; but those who hold them should be heard on the fubject; and the conclufion will not be juft, unless they themselves connect immoral practices with their principles. I find, Sir, that the characters of the dead are no fafer in your hands than thofe of the living. I am unwilling to fay a harsh thing, and I wifh to avoid it the more,

Jeft

left I should be thought to return railing for railing; but really, unless you can make a better apology for yourself, than I am able to fuggeft, you will be confidered by impartial perfons, as a falfifier of biftory, and a defamer of the character of the dead, in order to ferve your purpose.

I am, &c.

LETTER V.

Of Herefy in the earliest times.

REV. SIR,

Afferted that the unitarians were not ori

ginally confidered as heretics, and for this I have adduced a variety of arguments, one of the principal of which is, that the apoftle John, though, according to all the evidence of antiquity, he could not but have known that unitarians were numerous in his time, never cenfures them; whereas he writes with the greateft indignation against the tenets which belonged to the oppofite fyftem of Gnofticifm. I obferved the fame with refpect to Hegefippus, Justin Martyr, and Clemens Alexandrinus. I now find the fame to be true of Polycarp and Ignatius, and

that

that even Irenæus, Tertullian, and Origen, did not treat the unitarians as heretics.

You infit upon it, however, that John does cenfure the unitarian doctrine; which is curious enough, when, according to your account, there were no Ebionites or Nazarenes, that is, none who denied the pre-existence of Chrift, till long after the time of John. But, paffing this, you acknowledge that the phrafe coming in the flesh alludes to the proper humanity of Chrift, and therefore refpects the Gnoftics; but you maintain that it likewife alludes to a prior ftate; fo that we may neceffarily infer from it, that he was a being of a higher rank before his coming ia

the flesh.

You fay, p. 27. "The attempt to affign a rea"fon why the Redeemer fhould be a man, implies both that he might have been, without partaking of the human nature, and by confequence that, in his own proper nature, he was "originally fomething different from man; and "that there might have been an expectation that " he would make his appearance in some form "above the human." But it is certainly quite fufficient to account for the apostle's ufing that phrafe coming in the flesh, that in his time there actually exifted an opinion that Chrift was not truly a man, but was a being of a higher order, which was precifely the doctrine of the Gnoftics. That before the appearance of the Meffiah, any

perfons

perfons expected that he would, or might come in a form above the human I abfolutely deny.

"A reason," you fay, p. 27, "why a man should "be a man, one would not expect in a fober man's "difcourfe." But certainly, it was very proper to give a reason why one who was not thought to be properly a man, was really fo; which is what the apostle has done.

As you call upon me fo loudly to give any proof that the phrase coming in the flesh is defcriptive of the Gnoftic herefy only, and not of the unitarian doctrine alfo, I fhall give an answer that may perhaps fatisfy you, which is, that it is so used in the epiftle of Polycarp, the difciple of John. In a paffage in this epistle, in which the writer evidently alludes to the Gnoftics only, he introduces this very phrafe, coming in the flesh. See fect. vi. vii. in Abp. Wake's tranflation, p. 55. Being zealous "of what is good, abftaining from all offence, "and from falfe brethren, and from those who "bear the name of Chrift in hypocrify, and who "deceive vain men. For whofoever does not con"fefs that Jefus Chrift is come in the flesh, he is "Antichrift, and whofoever does not confefs his

fuffering upon the crofs is from the devil; and "whofoever perverts the oracles of God to his own interests, and fays, that there shall be neither any refurrection, nor judgment, he is the first"born of fatan. Wherefore, leaving the vanity "of many, and their falfe doctrines, let us return E

66 to

"to the word that was delivered from the be"ginning."

Had this writer proceeded no farther than the fecond claufe, in which he mentions thofe who did not believe that Chrift fuffered upon the cross, it might have been fuppofed, that he alluded to wo claffes of men, and that the latter were different from those who denied that he came in the flesh. 'But as he goes on to mention a third circumftance, viz. the denial of the refurrection, and we are fure that those were not a third clafs of perfons, it is evident that he alluded to no more than one and the fame kind of perfons by all the three characters. I conclude, therefore, that the apostle John, from whom the writer of this epiftle had this phrafe, ufed it in the fame fenfe, and meant by it only those persons who believed that Chrift was not truly man, i. e. the Gnoftics.

Befides, is it not extraordinary, that if this apoftle conceived the indignation that you fuppofe him to have entertained against the unitarians, he fhould give no intimation of it except in this one ambiguous expreffion? You own that he marks the Gnoftics clearly enough, and expreffes the strongest aversion to them. How came he then to spare the unitarians, who have been fo odious fince? You must own that, in the courfe of his gofpel, he inferts many expreffions which, when literally interpreted, militate ftrongly against the doctrine of the divinity of Chrift; as when, according to him,

our