task, which we feel to be derogatory to our consequence, though it is accomplished by a single observation, and proceed to demonstrate that they were Hebrews. One consideration is, we believe, adequate to lay the question at rest, and to dissipate the stupid dream in which our author has so long and so securely reposed. And difficult as may be the task of distinguishing between different shades of Deism, which melt into each other in so soft a gradation, that their conterminous boundaries are not easily perceived; one distinction, we imagine, still separates the faith of the Unitarian and the Jew. The notion of a military and temporal deliverer, will not, we trust, be easily reconciled, by those senseless perverters of the most obvious meanings, with the character of Him who was the Prince of Peace. Such, however, was the notion but too generally maintained by the Jews of their Messiah *; and such the common notion which Philo and Josephus have associated with that term +. The ludicrous mistake into which this notion led Josephus is sufficiently notorious; in the very scene of our Lord's miracles, and some years after his ministry was closed, he hailed the Emperor Vespasian as the Christ to whom he looked for salvation. The proofs of Philo's conversion, and of the conversion of the Essenes, whom he has eulogised, rest upon a foundation which involves consequences not less superlatively absurd. The description which he has given of the Therapeutæ, those primitive Christians, with whom the Unitarians of the present century seem as affectionately disposed to fraternize, as the Papists were of the past, was demonstrably written some years before the Gospel was preuched §. These facts speak for themselves. We merely mention incidentally, as a further specimen of the accuracy with which our author bas commenced his vigorous attack upon the orthodox faith; that his notion of the identity of the Essenes and the Therapeutæ, whom he takes leave to confound, without offering any apology for the liberty, has been censured as a gross error. And we are further so rude as to insinuate, by way of corollary, that his notion of the identity of the Epaphroditus, who was known to Josephus with that Epaphroditus, who was freedman to Nero, has been conceived to rest upon a chrono *Vid. Basn. Hist. des Juif. Liv. II. chap. xvi. § 20. p. 403. Patr. Apostol. Tom. II. p. 146. ed. Cleric. 1724. logical logical blunder*, which supposes a man to be in existence in the reign of Trajan, who was certainly put to death in the reign of Domitian. We have dwelt thus particularly on the subject of our author's "Introduction," as it contains the fundamental principle on which his entire system is built. On reducing Philo and Josephus from the rank of primitive Christians to their proper level • Vid. Huds. in Joseph. contr. Apion. Tom. II. p. 1329. n. f. Whist. in Joseph. Jew. Antiq. Proœm. p. 2. n. ". Josephus inscribes his Life" to Epaphroditus, vid. Joseph. Vit. § 76. Tom. II. p. 39. ed. Haverc. specifying in the course of it, that K Agrippa II. was then dead; Justus of Tiberias having deferred the publication of his history until that occurrence took place, that the falsity of his statements might not be detected; Id. ibid. $65. p. 33. Justus, however, fixes the death of K. Agrippa to A. D. 100. ap. Phot. Bibliothec. Cod. xxxiii. which perfectly accords with the statement of Josephus, that Justin's history was conpleted during the life of Vespasian and Titus, though the publication of it was deferred twenty years after the time when it was composed. Joseph. ibid. p. 33. Now as Vespasian died A. D. 80, before which time it is not probable that Justin completed his history of the Jewish war, which was not terminated until A. D. 79: if we allow for the 20 years during which it remained unpublished, it brings down the time when Josephus, in addressing Epaphroditus, speaks of that history as published, and of Agrippa as dead, to A. D. 100. Nothing however is more certain than that the Epaphroditus, who was freedman to Nero, was put to death by Domitian, A. D. 95. Vid. Dio. Hist. Lib. LXVII. cap. xiv. p. 1113. He cannot of course form any middle term to connect the Epaphroditus who was known to Josephus with the Epaphroditus who was known to St. Paul But, in truth, we have only to compare the description of Josephus, Vit. § 76. p. 39. Antiq. Jud. Proœm. § 2, Tom. I. p. 2. with that of the Apostle, Phil. ii. 25-30. in order to discover the ludicrous absurdity of conceiving them the same person; Josephus having courted the favour and protection of the one, while the other is commended to the respect and protection of the Philippians. The title under which Josephus addresses his patron, is κράτισε ἀνδρῶν Ἐπαφρόδιτε; which is precisely the title St. Paul gives to Festus, Act. xxvi. 25. οὐ μαίνομαι, κράτισε Φῆσε, Ι am not mad most noble Festus: as "the most noble Epaphroditus" must have conceived him, had he found himself addressed in the following terms, τὸν ἀδελφον καὶ συνεργόν καὶ συςρατιώτην με ὑμῶν de άórov. These last words, instead of proving that the Apos tle's fellow-labourer, was the most noble Epaphroditus, a Procurator to Trajan, justify the received notion that he was the humble Epaphroditus, who was afterwards bishop of Philippi; vid. Bevereg. in Canon. Apost. ii. Patr. Apost. Tom. I. p. 458. col. 1. among among infidel Jews, the force of their testimony, which under any view must have been perfectly harmless, when cited against Christianity, now wholly vanishes into smoke. And whether their evidence is adduced against the miraculous conception, or the introductory chapters of the Gospels, by which that doctrine is proved, it is entitled to just as much respect as may be due to the "Nizzachon" of Rabbi R. Lipmann, or "Calm Inquiry" of Mr. Thomas Belsham, works which we conceive to rival each other as much in piety, as in learning and sense. Our author having thus laid his foundation, proceeds on the main object of his work. His first part, which is divided into ten chapters, consequently opens with disclosing the source from whence the orthodox opinion has originated relative to the Divinity of our Lord. In this pious undertaking, " Mr. Jones (who) professes to be an ardent and patient enquirer, guided only by the evidence of facts, and not by the authority of the learned," has contrived to demonstrate this repugnance to owe any thing to the labours of the learned, by the equally liberal use and parsimonious acknowledgment which he makes of Dr. Lardner's laborious collections. The authorities which he thus musters, he directs to that point, to which, as may be easily conjectured, the reasoning of the Unitarian champion primarily tends. "The Heathens, it is well known, believed in the existence and agency of many gods. These, as they supposed, often appeared in the shape, or entered the bodies of men. When Jesus Christ appeared, and exhibited, in the miracles which he performed, the proofs of his divine mission, the conclusion was natural, that he was himself one of the gods, acting by virtue of his own power, and not with the authority of Jehovah. A Jew, who disbelieved the Pagan gods, would more rationally infer that he was the servant of God-endued with power to prove the truth of his delegation. But the spirit of Paganism dictated to its votaries a very different inference; and this dictate will appear the origin of the Divine nature, which has ever since been imputed to Jesus of Nazareth." P. 47. Thus far, however, we are brought round by this ingenious mode of advancing, to the precise point from whence we set out. From this representation, which our author proceeds to confirm and exemplify, by the convenient assistance of Dr. Lardner, it appears, that the heathens were found polytheists at the beginning, and continued such to the last. But this is but a small part of the merit of this argument, which is a happy exemplification of that method of superabundant proof, which in establishing twice as much as is requisite, virtually proves nothing nothing at all. From this reasoning it as certainly follows, that Paul and Peter, and the other Apostles, were deified not less than our Lord; for they also were men preternaturally empowered, who by working miracles gave evidence that they were gods. If such was the effect of that miraculous power, with which the primitive ministry was endued, our author must again disprove twelve parts out of the thirteen, which compose his own demonstration, before he can be admitted to have advanced a single step in his proof: for it is peculiar to those who maintain the orthodox faith, to deny the divinity of the twelve apostles with the same stedfastness that they assert the divinity of Christ. But on proving thus much, we conceive he will leave his original proof as inefficient and hollow as we could desire. But we can probably help this sophist to a distinction, which will enable him to extricate the question out of that happy perplexity into which it blunders under his explanation. If therefore we may be allowed to state the truth, in a manner little known to Unitarian logicians, without suppressing the better part of it, the question between the Orthodox and Unitarian will assume a very different hue. Let the purblind sophist therefore restore that part of the argument which has been thus dexterously or unwittingly suppressed; let him acknowledge prophecy as well as miracles to form the proof of our Lord's divinity; he will thus possibly unriddle the mystery in which the question between us is otherwise inextricably involved ;-how Christ was received as God, while his Apostles were merely acknowledged as men. In fact, on this species of divine demonstration, the founders aud apologists of Christianity have invariably insisted from the first. It is the proof to which the Apostle St. Peter appeals on the first preaching of the Gospel ; it is the proof to which the Evangelist St. Matthew appeals in the opening chapters of the first part of the sacred canon which he composed. The long list of Christian apologists, who have contended for the faith, from St. Barnabas to St. Athanasius, never deviate from this line of proof†, which was con * Comp. Act. ii. 14. 16. 25. 30. 33. 34. Matt. i. 22. 23. ii. 6. 15. 17. iii. 3 &c. + S. Barnab. Epist. cap. i. ii. Patr. Apost. Tom. I. pp. 56. 60. S. Ignat. Ep. ad Smyrn. capp. v. vii. Patr. Apost. Tom. II. pp. 35. 36. J. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 286. d. sqq. ed. Par. 1675. Tertul. adv. Jud. cap. vù. p 188. sqq. ed. Rigalt 1675. S. Iren. adv. Hær. Lib. iv. cap. xi. p. 239. S. Cypr. adv. Jud. Lib. II. cap. ii. sqq. p. 92. ed. Ox. 1682. Orig. contr. Cels. Tom. I. p. 365. d. sqq. ed. Bened. Euseb. Dem, Evang. Lib. IV. cap. xv. p. 171. sqq. Lib. V. per tot. p. 202. sqq. S. Athan. contr. Arian. Orat. I. cap. xiii. p. 417. cap. lii. sqq. p. 456. &c. ed. Bened. secrated secrated by the observance of their inspired predecessors. The modern Unitarians, we are sensible, emulating a different example, reject the prophetical part of the demonstration, which, we are likewise sensible, was rejected by their precursors, the primitive Ebionites; and as the proof of genuine Christianity is in all ages conclusive, the consequences of this rejection of its evidence, are, under all circumstances, the same. The he retics of either age not only reject the conclusion which this evidence establishes, that Christ was incontestibly God, but demonstrate their sense of its conclusiveness, by rejecting those parts of the Scriptures as spurious, by which this pure, this essential doctrine of Christianity is infallibly proved. We have, however, yet another exception to put in against the deductions of the researcher. The conclusion which he labours to establish, as it is insufficient in its intention, is likewise unfounded in fact. We have still to observe, that however admirably calculated the methods of Evangelical demonstration were to attain the purposed object, such is the obstinacy and fully of the human heart, that they generally failed of their end. The Heathens, some very partial instances excepted, neither admitted the divinity of our Lord, nor admitted his miracles to be a proof of it. We retain, unfortunately for the credit of the contrary assumption, adequate accounts, delivered on the testimony not merely of Christians, but of Heathens and Jews, of the effects produced by the display of miraculous power, which distin guished the ministry of our Lord. Instead, however, of proving the despised and crucified Galilean a god, whose humiliation and sufferings but ill accorded with their gross notions of the glory of a divinity, they very effectually proved him a magician. Celsus be any authority, such was the effect which was wrought on the Heathens +. If the Talmudists be any authority, such was the effect produced on the Jews. The Christians fully confirm the truth and evince the antiquity of this representation; not merely by the methods in which they countervailed the prejudices of both parties, but by the explicit allegation of their words. From the age of Justin Martyr to that of St. Athanasius, evidences might be easily accumulated § in P. 346. * S. Epiphan. Hær. xxx. cap. xviii. Tom. I. p. 142. b. ed. Petav. + Vid. Cels. ap. Orig. Lib. I. cap. xxviii. Tom. I. Vid. Buxtorf. Lex. Talmud. v. 7, p. 1460. Just. Mart. Apol. Maj. p. 72. a. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 296. a. S. Iren. adv. Hær. Lib. II. cap. xxxii. 4. p. 166. Arnob. adv. Gent. Lib. I. p. 25. ed. Varior. 1651. Orig. contr. Cels. Lib. I. cap. Ixviii. p. 302. Euseb. Dem. Evan. Lib. III. cap. v. p. 125. a. Id.. contr. Hierocl. p. 512. d. S. Athanas. de Incarn. Verb. cap. xlviii. Tom. I. p. 89. e. proof |