tures, from the commencement of the virgin's "conception, made one perfon-Jefus, accord'ing to the primitive doctrine, was fo united to "the ever living word, that the very existence of "the man confifted in this union.”

"It was," you fay, p. 11," clearly the doctrine of "holy writ, and nothing else, which the Fathers af "ferted, in terms borrowed from the fchools of phi

་་

lofophy, when they affirmed, that the very prin"ciple of perfonality and individual existence in

Mary's fon, was union with the uncreated word. "A doctrine in which the miraculous conception "would have been implied, had the thing not been "recorded; fince a man conceived in the ordinary "way would have derived the principles of his ex"istence from the mere phyfical powers of genera"tion. Union with the divine nature could not "have been the principle of an existence phyfically "derived from Adam; and that intimate union of "God and man in the Redeemer's perfon, which "the fcriptures fo clearly affert, had been a physical "impoffibility."

You add, p. 13, "On the other hand, it were "not difficult to fhew, that the miraculous concep❝tion, once admitted, naturally brings up after it "the great doctrines of the atonement, and the in"carnation."

To these uncouth affertions, expreffed in language utterly unintelligible, and equally unwarranted

by scripture, or reafon, I fhall make no particula reply. He that can receive them, set bin recre them. I fhall only obferve, in genez, nail should profefs myself an opponent of the doctrine of the miraculous conception, I could not with for a fuller refutation of it, than your being able to prove that these very abfurd doctrines do, as 100 fay, neceffarily depend upon it I fail ati, that if Chrift had fo extraordinary a commuti cation with God, in confequence of his baring to father, what must have been the cafe with Aus who had neither father nor mother?

When you fhall fee what I have advanced on this subject, in the fourth volume of my Bird early Opinions concerning Chriff, you will be better qualified to write about it than you were at the bat of compofing this Sermon. This Hy you to nically, p. 12, call my GREAT WORK, prating t twice in capita's. This work, which is now buure the public, and may be in your hands, you are with come to treat ironically, or feriously, as you pleze. But you will lead many of your readers to conclude, that I had my felf called it a great work, whereas I do not recollect that I have any where called it more than a large work, which does not imply to much vanity as, in p. 86, you aferibe to me. If the work should ftand its ground again the fierce at tacks of the Archdeacon of St. Albans, the learned Profeffor of Arabic at Oxford, the more learned Mr. Howes of Norwich, and the other learned of

thodox divines, at home and abroad, whose animadverfions it openly challenges, it may deferve a more honourable epithet than I have yet given it. At prefent it is only a candidate for the approbation of those who are proper judges of its merit.

I am, &c.

LETTER

Mifcellaneous Articles.

REV. SIR,

WER

VI.

ERE I disposed to indulge myself in noticing all the strange pofitions, and inconclufive reasonings, with which your Remarks abound, I should make a much larger work than I fear my readers would care to look through. Having, therefore, abundantly refuted every thing on which you yourself pretend to lay the moft ftrefs, I fhall be very short in my remarks on other things, to which, however, you ftrongly folicit my attention.

I.

As to my construction of the paffage in Arbana fius, we are fufficiently come to an iffue. I am fully satisfied with what I have advanced in fupport of it, and have nothing to add; and, contemptuously as you treat it, p. 32, 1 fhould not feel my felf difpofed to diftruft it on that account, even if I had not the concurrence of such names as Beaufobre and Dr. Lardner in my favour. I do not know that you can produce the name of any writer whatever in favour of your interpretation.

II.

With respect to the paffages from Chryfoftom, you will find in my larger work (if you fhould condefcend to look into fuch a quantity of unfinished literature) that your conftruction of his meaning is contradicted by himself. You yourfelf, however, acknowledge all that I want, when you say, p. 32, "the apostles firft taught what was easiest to be "learned, and went on to higher points, as the "minds of their catechumens became able to bear "them." For, in reality, it makes no difference from whatever motive it was that the apostles did not chufe to teach the doctrine of Christ's divinity, or of the trinity. If chriftians were not taught thofe doctrines, they could not know them, and confequently they must have been unitarians, till they were inftructed in them; and this, as all the Fathers fay, was not till the publication of the gospel of John.

The

The learned and judicious Mr. Bafnage, though a trinitarian, very frankly acknowledges, that Chrift found the Jews in utter ignorance of the divinity of their Meffiah, that his object was, "to accuftom L. "them infenfibly to a mystery fo much above their "reason, and foreseeing that the church would revolt against it." Chryfoftom, he fays, has fucceeded in maintaining this. Hift. des Juifs. L. v. cap. ix.

86

1.3.

III.

You are pleased to ridicule my Logic, p. 13, as confounding being, fubftance, and fubftratum, and you find me unapprized of that great principle,

without which a logician will handle his tools but "aukwardly, that the genus cannot be predicated "of the specific differences." I cannot tell where you learned this curious logic, with which I acknowledge I am utterly unacquainted; and I imagine it is equally unknown to common fenfe. For, according to it, fince men are divided into Whites and Blacks, &c. &c. and the Whites may be fubdivided into thofe of Europe and Afia, &c. and the Blacks into the Negroes of Africa, and other diftin&t fpecies in other parts of the world, it would follow, that it cannot with propriety be faid of any particular Whites or Blacks, that they are men, and it would be ftill lefs proper to say that they are animals or creatures, and leaft of all that they are beings, that is, that they have any existence at all. However, it is unusually modeft in you, to allow that even great men have fallen into the fame error