The different Opinions of Dr. HORSLEY and Dr. PRIESTLEY, briefly stated.

THAT my readers may more eafily form a clear and comprehenfive idea of the nature and extent of this controverfy, I fhall, in this place, briefly state the principal articles on which Dr. Horsley and myself hold different opinions.

1. Dr. Horsley infifts upon it, that the faith of the primitive chriftian church must have been trinitarian, because that doctrine appears in the writings of Barnabas and Ignatius. I fay that, admitting thefe works to be genuine in the main, they bear evident marks of interpolation with refpect to this very fubject, and therefore the conclufion is not just.

2. Dr. Horsley fays, that those who are called Ebionites, did not exift in the age of the apoftles, and also that, though they believed the fimplé humanity of Chrift, they probably held fome mysterious exaltation of his nature after his afcenfion, which made him the object of prayer to them. I fay the Ebionites certainly exifted in the time of the apoftles, and that this notion of their holding fuch an exaltation of his nature, as to make him the object of prayer, is highly improbable.

3. Dr. Horfley fays, that those who are called Nazarenes by the early chriftian writers, believed the divinity of Chrift, that they did not exift till after the time of Adrian, and had their name from the place where they fettled in the North of Galilee, after they were then driven from Jerufalem. I maintain that thefe Nazarenes no more believed the divinity of Chrift than the Ebionites, and that, together with them, they were fuppofed, by the chriftian Fathers, to have exifted in the time of the apoftles.

4. Dr. Horsley maintains that there was a church of orthodox Jewish chriftians at Jerufalem, after the time of Adrian; for that the body of Jewish chriftians, who had before obferved the law of Mofes, abandoned their ceremonies after the deftruction of the place, in order to obtain the privileges of the Ælian colony, fettled there by Adrian. Origen who afferts that the Jewish chriftians had not abandoned the laws and cuftoms of their ancestors, Dr. Horsley fays muft have known the contrary, and therefore afferted a wilful falfhood. I fay that Adrian expelled all the Jews, whether christians or not, from Jerufalem, that the chriftian church afterwards fettled at Jerufalem confifted wholly of Gentile converts, and that the teftimony of Origen, agreeing with this, is highly worthy of credit.

5. Dr. Horfley maintains, that though he finds no unitarians in the apoftolic age, a cen

fure was intended for them by the apostle John in the phrase Chrift came in the flefb. I affert that, the unitarians did exift in great numbers in the time of John, but that he did not censure them at all; and that the phrafe Chrift came in the fleft, relates to the Gnostics only.

6. Dr. Horsley afferts, that the unitarians, from the time that they made their appearance, were confidered as beretics by the orthodox chriftians, and not admitted to communion with them, and particularly that they were included by Juftin Martyr among thofe heretics whom he charges with blafphemy. I affert that in Juftin's time, and much later, the unitarians were not deemed heretics at all, that Juftin did not even allude to unitarians in either of his two accounts of beretics in general, and that the blafphemy he speaks of refpected the Gnoftics only.

7. Though Tertullian fays the idiota, who were the greater part of chriftians were unitarians, and shocked at the doctrine of the trinity, Dr. Horsley afferts that he only meant to include a fmall number of them in that class, and those fo ignorant and ftupid as to deserve to be called ideots. I maintain that by idiote he only meant unlearned perfons, or perfons in private life; and I alfo maintain that even in Origen's time, and long after, a great part of these chriftians were unitarians, and in communion with the catholic church; that the term berefy was long used as fynonymous

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fynonymous to Gnosticism, and that the original ufe of the term frequently occurs even after the unitarians were deemed to be heretics.

8. Dr. Horsley maintains that by the Jews who held the fimple humanity of Chrift, Athanafius meant the unbelieving Jews only, and that the Gentiles who were by them converted to that belief, were unbelieving Gentiles. I fay the Jews were chriftian Jews, and their converts chriftian Gentiles.

9. Dr. Horley maintains that the Jews in our Saviour's time, believed in the doctrine of the trinity, that they expected the fecond person in the trinity as their Meffiah, and that they changed their opinion concerning him when the chriftians applied it to Chrift. I fay. that the Jews were always unitarians, that they expected only a man for their Meffiah, and that they never changed their opinion on that fubject.

10. Dr. Horley fays that the apostles confidered Chrift as being God from the time that they confidered him as the Meffiah. I say that they confidered him as a mere man, when they received him as the Meffiah, and that we find no evidence in their history, or in their writings, that they ever changed that opinion concerning him.