that it was the intention of the sacred writers to represent Christ either as the supreme God, or as the maker of the world under God.

There is another hypothesis, of some modern Arians, which represents Christ as having pre-existed, but not as having been the creator or governor of the world, or the medium of all the dispensations of God to mankind. But those texts of Scripture which seem to be most express in favour of Christ's pre-existence do likewise, by the same mode of interpretation, represent him as the maker of the world; so that if the favourers of this hypothesis can suppose the language of these texts to be figurative, they may more easily suppose the other to be figurative also; and that, whatever obscurity there may be in them, they were not intended to refer to any pre-existence at all.

The passages of Scripture which are supposed to speak of Christ as the maker of the world are the following, viz. John i. 3. Eph. iii. 9. Col. i. 15. Heb. i. 1, &c. These, I will venture to say, are the texts that most strongly favour the notion of Christ's pre-existence; and no person can doubt but that, if they must be interpreted to assert that Christ preexisted at all, they, with the same clearness, assert that he was the maker of the world. But if these texts admit of a figurative interpretation, all the other texts, which are supposed to refer to the preexistence only, will more easily admit of a similar construction.

construction. These two opinions, therefore, viz. that Christ pre-existed, and that he was the maker of the world, ought, by all means, to stand or fall together; and if any person think the latter to be improbable, and contrary to the plain tenor of the Scriptures, (which uniformly represent the supreme being himself, without the aid of any inferior agent, or instrument, as the maker of the universe,) he should abandon the doctrine of simple pre-existence also.

In what manner the proper Unitarians interpret these passages of Scripture may be seen in my Familiar illustration of particular texts of Scripture, in several of the Socinian tracts, in three volumes, quarto, and especially in Mr. Lindsey's Sequel to his Apology, p. 455, to which I refer my reader for a further discussion of this subject.

It is only of late years that any persons have pretended to separate the two opinions of Christ's pre-existence, and of his being the maker of the world. All the ancient Arians maintained both, as did Dr. Clarke, Mr. Whiston, Mr. Emlyn, Mr. Pierce, and their followers; and I do not know that any other hypothesis has appeared in writing, except that it is alluded to in the Theological Repository.

IV. ARGU

IV. ARGUMENTS FROM HISTORY AGAINST THE DIVINITY AND PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST; OR A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE EVIDENCE FOR THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS HAVING HELD THE DOCTRINE OF THE SIMPLE HUMANITY OF CHRIST.

N.B. To each article is subjoined a reference to publications in which the subject is discussed: H. C. signifying the History of the Corruptions of Christianity, vol. i. and H. O. the History of early Opinions concerning Jesus Christ. To each article is also subjoined a reference to the following Maxims of Historical Criticism.

1. IT is acknowledged by early writers of the orthodox persuasion, that two kinds of heresy existed in the time of the apostles, viz. that of those who held that Christ was simply a man, and that of the Gnostics, of whom some believed that Christ was man only in appearance, and others that it was only Jesus and not the Christ (a pre-existent spirit who descended from heaven and dwelt in him) that suffered on the cross. Now the apostle John animadverts with the greatest severity upon the latter, but makes no mention of the former; and can it be thought probable that he would pass it without censure, if he had thought it to be an error; considering how great and how dangerous an error it has always been thought by those who have considered it as being an error at all? Maxim 12. H. C. p. 9. H. O. vol. 3, p. 260.

2. The

2. The great objection that Jews have always made to Christianity in its present state is, that it enjoins the worship of more gods than one; and it is a great article with the Christian writers of the second and following centuries to answer this objection. But it does not appear in all the book of Acts, in which we hear much of the cavils of the Jews, both in Jerusalem and in many parts of the Roman empire, that they made any such objection to Christianity then; nor do the apostles either there, or in their epistles, advance any thing with a view to such an objection. It may be presumed, therefore, that no such offence to the Jews had then been given, by the preaching of a doctrine so offensive to them as that of the divinity of Christ must have been. Maxim 12, 13.

3. As no Jew had originally any idea of their Messiah being more than a man, and as the apostles and the first Christians had certainly the same idea at first concerning Jesus, it may be supposed that, if ever they had been informed that Jesus was not a man, but either God himself, or the maker of the world under God, we should have been able to trace the time and the circumstances in which so great a discovery was made to them; and also that we should have perceived the effect which it had upon their minds; at least by some change in their manner of speaking concerning him. But nothing of this kind is to be found in the Gospels, in the book of Acts,

or

or in any of the Epistles. We perceive marks enow of other new views of things, especially of the call of the gentiles to partake of the privileges of the gospel; and we hear much of the disputes and the eager contention which it occasioned. But how much more must all their prejudices have been shocked by the information that the person whom they at first took to be a mere man was not a man, but either God himself, or the maker of the world under God? Maxim 13. H. O. vol. 1, p. 23.

4. All the Jewish Christians, after the destruction of Jerusalem, which was immediately after the age of the apostles, are said to have been Ebionites; and these were only of two sorts, some of them holding the miraculous conception of our Saviour, and others believing that he was the son of Joseph as well as of Mary. None of them are said to have believed either that he was God, or the maker of the world under God. And is it at all credible that the body of the Jewish Christians, if they had ever been instructed by the apostles in the doctrine of the divinity or pre-existence of Christ, would so soon, and so generally, if not universally, have abandoned that faith? Maxim 6. H. O. vol. 3, p. 158. H. C. p. 7.

5. Had Christ been considered as God, or the maker of the world under God, in the early ages of the church, he would naturally have been the proper object of prayer to Christians; nay, more so

than