that "no promise of any particular immunities was made to Jewish christians upon condition that they renounced the Jewish law." But presuming, which is not improbable, that the Hebrew christians had taken no part in the rebellion, he supposes that the emperor might distinguish between rebels and good subjects. He then takes for granted, that the emperor did make this distinction; and assumes, without a tittle of authority from ecclesiastical antiquity, that they abandoned the Mosaic institute, because, "if they had not discarded the Jewish rites, they might have been mistaken for Jews," and been debarred the immunities of the Ælian colony. In this forlorn and deplorable condition, resting wholly upon gratuitous assumption, unsupported by history, and contradicted by chronology, is this learned prelate constrained finally to leave this his favourite church. Still, however, he is unwilling absolutely to give it up. "The disturbed foundations of the church of Ælia are," says he, p. 499, "again settled. I could wish to trust them to their own solidity to withstand any future attacks."

But though the right reverend polemic thus sued for peace, his active and determined adversary would neither desist from the contest, nor grant him quarter. After having stated in his Letters to the Lord Bishop of St. David's, p. 53, "that all the accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem by Adrian are absolutely inconsistent with the supposition of any such church;" that "they all say that no Jew, without making any exception in favour of christian Jews, was allowed to remain in the place, and they expressly speak of the new church as consisting wholly of Gentiles, who made use of the Greek language;" and appealing once more to the concurring opinion of Fleury and Tillemont, he adds, " to this mass of evidence from the clearest facts and the strongest probabilities,

during the interval when "Jerusalem was no more," and while Ælia was building at another place? But, no doubt, his Lordship would have referred him to his former most ingenious and satisfactory reply, p. 375: "If they were not dwelling at Ælia, Dr. Priestley, if he be so pleased, may seek their settlement."

your

your Lordship opposes a mere idle story picked up by Epiphanius, of Aquila being appointed by Adrian to superintend the works at Jerusalem, and being converted to christianity;" and he reminds the bishop that, "according to Epiphanius, this must have happened before the war began." "Your Lordship," he concludes, "may well say that I have embarrassed your argument with chronological difficulties; and when chronology is against a man, he is naturally against chronology."

In reply to the bishop's concluding remark, Dr. Priestley says, p. 57, "My Lord, in humble imitation of your Lordship's style, I will say, the foundations of your church of Trinitarian Jews at Jerusalem, after the time of Adrian, are again, and I will venture to say for ever, overturned: and a church, the foundations of which were attempted to be laid on the grossest calumny, and on the ruins of the fairest character that christian history has to exhibit, would not expect any better fate. And it has fallen where it ought to have done, on the head of the architect." He adds, "If your Lordship should make a fresh attempt to rebuild this favourite church, I hope you will lay its foundations deeper than on an idle story of Epiphanius.-Also condescend to give some small degree of attention to the humble subject of chronology. Otherwise, how pompously and magisterially soever your Lordship may write, a plain tale will be sufficient to put you down." Dr. Priestley concludes with a spirited challenge to the newlycreated bishop to resume the controversy. "Come

forth then again, my Lord, and to all your powers of language be pleased to add those of argument. To use your own high platonic language, Come forth with the full projection of all your energies, and, if possible, overwhelm

me at once."

To this animated challenge the right reverend adversary made no reply. The oracle was silent. The warfare was accomplished. The prize was won. And both the contending parties retired from the field equally well satisfied with the result of the conflict; Dr. Priestley with his VICTORY, and Dr. Horsley, with his MITRE.

NOTE.

NOTE.

THE other questions which were agitated by these keen and learned polemics were of very subordinate importance. The venerable archdeacon having pledged himself to prove that the divinity of our Lord was the belief of the very first christians, appeals in his Eighth Letter, Tracts, p. 164, to a work of great antiquity, under the title of the Epistle of Barnabas, which, though it is admitted not to have been written by the companion of Paul, the learned writer contends to have been a production of the apostolic age, and addressed by a Hebrew christian to his Jewish brethren. From this epistle he cites the following passage: "The Lord submitted to suffer for our souls, although he be the Lord of the whole earth, unto whom he said the day before the world was finished, Let us make man after our image and likeness." He adds two or three other passages of the same import. He then remarks, that the writer mentions this doctrine "as an article of their common faith; he brings no arguments to prove it; he mentions it as occasion occurs, without showing any anxiety to inculcate it, or any apprehension that it would be denied or doubted." And he triumphantly concludes, "This, Sir, is the proof which I had to produce. It is so direct and full, that if this be laid in one scale, and your whole mass of evidence drawn from incidental and ambiguous allusions in the other, the latter will fly up and kick the beam."

To this argument Dr. Priestley replies in the second of his Second Series of Letters to Dr. Horsley, by reminding his antagonist of the doubts entertained by many learned men of the genuineness of this epistle, and of the certainty of numerous interpolations, and those such as respect the very subject in question. Adding, "I must see other evidence than this from Barnabas, before I can admit that the divinity or pre-existence of Christ was the belief of the apostolic age."

This reply sufficiently invalidates the testimony of the pseudo-Bar nabas. But an answer still more satisfactory is supplied by the learned Jeremiah Jones, who was not, as Dr. Horsley states, Tracts, p. 127, "the tutor of the venerable Lardner," but the relation and pu pil of the very learned Samuel Jones of Tewkesbury; who was also the tutor of Maddox bishop of Worcester, Butler bishop of Durham, and Secker archbishop of Canterbury; to which catalogue we may add the name of a person who was fully their equal in literary celebrity, and, if not restrained by principles of conscience, had been equal In ecclesiastical dignity, the learned and pious Dr. Samuel Chandler, many years the able and admired pastor of the highly respectable presbyterian congregation of the Old Jewry. Jeremiah Jones, who, to the great loss of theological literature, died young, in the second volume of his admirable

admirable Treatise on the Canon of Scripture, republished a few years ago by the University of Oxford, part iii. ch. 37, after a very full and impartial inquiry into the subject, states it as his opinion, which he substantiates by abundant evidence, "that the epistle was written not by Barnabas, nor by any other Jew, but by some person who was originally a Pagan idolater; that it is an apocryphal book, and was never read in the churches till the time of Jerome; that it contains many assertions which are absolutely false, and a great number of trifling, silly, and idle things." And upon the whole he concludes, from its having been cited "only by Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, that it was forged at Alexandria; and because there are so many pious frauds in it, that it was the forgery of some such person as corrupted the books of the Sibyls, and that it was written about the middle of the second century." Such is the direct, full, and decisive evidence derived by the archdeacon from the testimony of Barnabas to the orthodoxy of the primitive Hebrew church. We give him this Barnabas'.

I cannot conclude this long note without adding a word or two upon the subject of Origen's much-injured character. The archdeacon had charged this venerable man with "the allegation of a notorious falsehood," in asserting that the Hebrew christians in his time had not abandoned the law of their ancestors: Tracts, p. 156. Of this heavy charge he adduced the existence of his far-famed church at Ælia as a proof. But soon discovering that the foundations of this church were too weak even for its own support, and much more to bear the weight of this new and unprecedented attack upon the veracity of Origen, and being anxious to repel the severe retort of Dr. Priestley, that he was a defamer of the dead," the learned dignitary applied himself with great industry to look out for some plausible confirmation of his criminatory allegation. And the success of his researches was worthy of the cause. Two passages only are produced by the archdeacon, Tracts, p. 350, to state which, in the reverend aceuser's own translation, is to demonstrate the futility of the charge. In the second book of the Answer to Celsus, Origen says, It is my present purpose to evince Celsus's ignorance; who has made a Jew say to his countrymen, to Israelites believing in Christ, Upon what motive have you deserted the law of your ancestors?....And how confusedly does Celsus's Jew speak upon this subject, when he might have said MORE PLAUSIBLY, TIJαYWTEрov SOME of you have relinquished the old customs upon pretence of expositions and allegories. Some again expounding, as you call it, spiritually, nevertheless observe the institutions of our ancestors. But some, not admitting these exposi

"I shall tax the veracity of your witness-of this Origen." Horsley, p. 156.

tions, are willing to receive Jesus as the person foretold by the prophets, and to observe the law of Moses according to the ancient customs."

"In these words," continues the archdeacon, "Origen confesses all that I have alleged of him. He confesses, in contradiction to his former assertion, that he knew of three sorts of Jews professing christianity....one of whom had relinquished the observance of the literal precept."

But where is this self-contradiction to be found? Celsus ignorantly charged ALL the Hebrew christians with having deserted the customs of their ancestors. Origen, who knew that few or none of them had done so, replies, that Celsus's Jew would have talked not more truly, but more PLAUSIBLY, more consistently with his assumed character, and more like the truth, if he had only said that some had relinquished their old customs, while the majority adhered to them. But the bishop says in his laboured reply to Dr. Priestley's Defence of Origen, Tracts, Disq. v. "Plausibility and truth, in this use of the word plausibility, are the very same thing." They might be so in his Lordship's vocabulary, but they are not so in common acceptation. To say that his Lordship's assertions are plausible, is very different from allowing that those assertions are true. Dr. Priestley, in the first of his Third Series of Letters, supposes that Origen might allude to a few who had relinquished their ancient customs, though the majority had not. But this supposition, though not improbable, is by no means necessary to justify the character of Origen.

Another passage, upon which the archdeacon places his finger, ibid. p. 353, as substantiating his charge against Origen, is in the first book of the reply to Celsus. Origen, defending the translation of Isa. vii. 14, "Behold a virgin shall conceive," alleges that the word Alma, which the LXX. translate 'virgin,' and others a young woman,' is put too, AS THEY SAY, in Deuteronomy xxii. 23, 24, for a virgin.'

The fact is, that in all our present copies the word Alma, by, does not occur in Deuteronomy, but another word, bina, which always signifies a virgin.' And the archdeacon charges Origen with prevarication for citing the text in this doubtful manner. "Was it unknown to the compiler of the Hexapla what the reading of the Hebrew text in his own times was? If he knew that it was what he would have it thought to be, why does he seem to assert it upon hearsay only? If he knew not, why did he not inform himself?"

In truth, it is difficult to say why Origen uses this indefinite phrase. His copy might differ from the modern ones, or his judgement might be doubtful, or he might possibly have forgotten at the instant what the exact reading was, and his copy might not be at hand for him to consult; but whether any or none of these suppositions be correct,

surely