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But you are disturbed at the thought of the doctrine of more divine persons, more gods, than one, making its appearance so very early in the Christian church, being so directly contrary, as you are persuaded, to the teachings of Jesus Christ and you wish I would in a few words tell you how to reply to those, who maintain, that what was of such antiquity, and so generally received, and has lasted so long, being at present the doctrine of the whole Christian world, must have been true, and have come from the apostles themselves.

Unquestionably, all this appears very specious and imposing; and it is not surprizing that those, who are little acquainted with the history of the early Christians, are dazzled by it: but the following statement of facts.which: may be depended upon, will very easily shew, that it is. fallacious and groundless. For it is, in the first place, far from being exact, to say, that the doctrine of more divine persons, more gods than one, was embraced by any Christians in the time of the apostles. The defection was gradual. The first followers of Christ were all Jews, viz. the apostles, with others mentioned in the New Testament; who adhered strictly to the worship of the God of their fathers, the God who made the world, and all things in it; honouring Jesus Christ, who was born among them, as his extraordinary prophet and messenger, especially promised to their nation, but who was also to be the Saviour and divine in structor of all mankind; and who, after a life of labour and painful exertion to bring men to virtue and immortal happiness, confirmed the truth of his divine mission, by yielding himself up to the torturing and infamous death of the cross, rather than save his life by denying it.

But the false philosophy of some learned men, who embraced Christianity in the time of the apostles, would not suffer them to admit such a degrading idea of the divine head of their new religion, that he should have been thus exposed to pain and death; although it be a circumstance

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cumstance that continually presents itself in the history of the evangelists. Thinking these last to be unlearned men, they probably made light of their testimony on this point, and scrupled not to add, of their own authority, that Christ had existed, how long they did not define, before he came upon earth; asserting also at the same time, that he had only the appearance of a man, liable to sufferings and death; but was not so in reality. There is scarce a fact in all antiquity better attested, than that there were Christians of this cast in the apostles' days, and that St. John wrote against them, in his epistles. Most probably his arguments, from his own personal knowledge, and his warm reproofs, put an end to them, and their unsupported fancies concerning Christ, for we hear little more of them afterwards. These were, however, immediately succeeded by other philosophic Christians; one of whom, Justin the martyr, as he was called, who almost touched upon the times of the apostle John, brought in his doctrine of Platonism, and grafted it upon the gospel, boldly asserting, that Christ was an inferior god, such as was taught by Plato's philosophy, subordinate to the Supreme Being; and this he imagined he found also in the Bible, and used several of the arguments for it, the futility of which Volusian so well exposed, in our second day's conversation, which you have received. And from the time of Justin, to the present hour, those who have stood up for the preexistence, or the divinity of Jesus Christ, have done little else but copy after, and retail the arguments of this truly pious, but much mistaken ancient.

I shall pass over in silence the complicated idolatry into which the whole Christian world fell by degrees after this, and in which it remained overwhelmed and buried for many long ages, till the Reformation.

At that memorable period, the idolatrous worship of images and saints, which had lasted so long, was abolished

by

....

by the generality of Protestants, who separated from the church of Rome. Unfortunately, however, the principal reformers in different countries, Luther, Melancthon, Zuinglius, Calvin, and the English and Scotch divines, did not suffer themselves to enquire, whether there were not also other false objects of worship retained by them, equally prohibited by the divine command; but, without examination, acquiesced in the doctrine of the trinity, as if it had immediately come down to them from heaven, instead of being fabricated, as it truly was, by early heathen Christians, and schoolmen; and formed their new articles and confessions of faith upon it. It still continued to be a crime of the deepest dye to call it in question, and they who persisted in denying Jesus, and the Holy Ghost to be gods equal to the Father, were not suffered to live, but punished with the most dreadful deaths.

But many of lower rank, and of good sense, being now at liberty to read the scriptures, to which they are recorded to have turned themselves with uncommon eagerness and delight, and finding no trinity there, and that the holy Jesus was not God, nor to be worshipped, but the Father only; they had the noble zeal and courage publicly to declare and inculcate this great truth, in various countries, and particularly in our own; for which they were without mercy burnt alive. And we gather from that honest historian, (a) Strype, that this extreme severity probably put a stop to the progress of this doctrine, which was spreading rapidly at that time, in the year 1550.

(a) "Arianism now shewed itself so openly, and was in such danger of spreading farther, that it was thought necessary to suppress it, by using more rugged methods than seemed agreeable to the merciful principles of the professors of the gospel."

Strype's Ecclesiastical Memoirs, Vol. ii. p. 214. Arianism was then a general name for every opinion that opposed the

divinity of Christ.

Protestants

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Protestants now, like the Papists, persecuted those who could not believe Christ to be God, with unrelenting cruelty. Queen Elizabeth, to her everlasting disgrace, lighted again the fires in Smithfield, to burn some unhappy persons, who, among other opinions, did not allow Jesus to be the supreme God. Better could not be expected From her narrow-minded successor, who caused Edward Wightman, of Burton upon Trent, to be burnt alive at Coventry, and (a) Bartholomew Legatt in West-Smithfield; both of them strict Unitarians. The wickedness that was supposed to be in his opinions was all that was alleged against the former: the latter is mentioned by his adversaries as pious, learned, and in all respects an excellent character.

In the next reign, the same opinions were adopted, purely from reading the Bible, by Mr. John Biddle, the Socinian, as he is commonly stiled, by way of reproach. For avowing these, and particularly for denying Jesus to be the Most High God, he was accused, and adjudged to be burnt alive, by the Presbyterian party; but Cromwell, who

(a) The reader will perhaps be curious to see the form of the king's warrant for burning Legatt: the latter part of which is as fol

lows:

"Whereas the Holy Mother Church hath not further to do and to prosecute on this part; the same reverend Father hath left the aforesaid Bartholomew Legatt as a blasphemous Heretick to our secular power, to be punished with condign punishment, as by the Letters Patent of the same reverend Father in Christ the Bishop of London in this behalf above made, hath been certified unto us in our Chancery. We, thereföre, as a zealot of Justice, and a Defender of the Catholick Faith, and willing to maintain and defend the Holy Church, and the Rights and Liberties of the same, and the Catholick Faith: And such Heresies and Errors every where what in us lieth, to root out and extirpate, and to punish with condign punishment such Hereticks so convicted, and

deeming

who better understood (a) the rights of conscience, înterposed to save him out of their hands. He was Master of Arts in the university of Oxford, and a great honour to it, by his learning and singular virtues, as well as courage in the cause of divine truth. And the day will come, may it not be very remote! when that noble seminary, sensible of the peerless unrivalled majesty of the One God. and Father of all, for which this excellent person was at last condemned to die in a dungeon, shall erect a monument of honour to his name.

In the two following reigns, the noble fruits appeared of that free enquiry into the scriptures, which many had been emboldened to make, during the struggles for liberty, and whilst the ecclesiastical power was kept under. Some of the most eminent divines, and dignitaries of the church of England, did not think themselves discredited by living in

deeming that such an Heretick in form aforesaid, convicted and condemned according to the laws and customs of this our kingdom of England in this part accustomed, ought to be burned with fire: We do command you, that the said Bartholomew Legatt, being in your custody, you do commit publicly to the fire, before the people, in a public and open place in West-Smithfield, for the cause aforesaid; and that you cause the said Bartholomew Legatt to be really burnt in the same fire, in detestation of the said crime, for the manifest example of other Christians, lest they slide into the same fault, and that this in no wise you omit, under the peril that shall follow thereon. Witness &c."A narration of the burning of Bartholomew Legatt, &c. in Truth brought to Light, 1692.

37.

(a) It was one of the capital articles of the Protector's government, which redounds highly to his honour; Art. That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ, though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship, or discipline publicly held forth, shall not be restrained from, but protected in the profession of the faith and exercise of their religion, &c. Art. 38. That all laws, statutes, ordinances, &c. to the contrary of the aforesaid liberty, shall be esteemed as null and void."

The law for burning Hereticks was repealed in 1676.

friendship

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