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ly to declare that John was not that light: or how he could affirm, that the wisdom which he had spoken of but as an attribute, was made flesh, and became a person, visible and tangible :-in short, let him try if he does not find, both in the translation and the explanatory notes, as much unintelligible jargon as was ever crowded into the same compass; nay, as is even, according to Mr. Wakefield's notion, to be found in the Athanasian creed itself. This however is called a candid and critical investigation of scripture; and this, it is to be remembered, is the latest,* and therefore to be supposed the best digested production of the Socinian school: it comes also from the hands of a writer certainly possessed of classical erudition, a quality of which few of his Unitarian fellowlabourers in the sister country are entitled to boast.

But to add one instance more, of the ingenious mode of reasoning, employed by these writers on the subject of Christ's pre-existence in the 8th chap. of John we find our Saviour arguing with the Jews; who, on his asserting that Abraham had seen his day, immediately reply, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM. The inference from this, that our Saviour here declared himself to have existed before the time of Abraham, appears not to be a very violent one; his answer being immediately and necessarily applied to the remark made by the Jews upon his age, which rendered it impossible that he could have seen Abraham: so that this passage will be admitted to be one of those that "seem directly to assert the pre-existence of Christ." Now in what way have Socinus, and his followers, got rid of this " seeming contradiction to their opinions?" Пew Abgaaμ yeva, eyeit, must be thus translated: Before Abram can be ABRAHAM, that is, THE FATHER OF MANY NATIONS, I must be-THE MESSIAH, or Saviour of the world. This famous discovery, which belongs to Socinus, was indeed esteemed of a nature so far above mere human apprehension, that his nephew Faustus Socinus informs us, he had received it from divine inspiration.--Non

Notes on all the Books of Scripture, by Dr. Priestley, have issued from the press since the first edition of this work: and to the exposition there attempted of the introduction of St. John's gospel, the remarks which I have made on Mr. Wakefield's translation, apply as aptly as if for that they had been originally designed. Whoever has a curiosity to discover whether Mr. Wakefield or Dr. Priestley be the more unintelligible, may consult Notes, &c. vol. iii. pp. 18, 19, compared with Mr. Wakefield's comment already referred to. In addition to this work, there has yet more lately been given to the public from the Socinian press, what the authors are pleased to call An improved Version of the New Testament. What new lights this improved Version has thrown upon this part of scripture, will be seen when we come more particularly to notice this performance in another part of this volume.

sine multis precibus ipsius, Jesú nomine invocato, impetravit ipse. (Socinus contr. Eutrop. tom. 2. p. 678.) This sublime interpretation has, it must be confessed, been relinquished by later Socinians, who in imitation of Grotius, consider Christ as asserting only that he was before Abraham in the decree of God. But how this could serve as a reply to the objection of the Jews, respecting priority of actual existence; or how in this Christ said any thing of himself that was not true of every human being, and therefore nugatory; or why the Jews upon a declaration so innocent and so unmeaning, should have been fired with rage against him as a blasphemer; or (if the sense be, that Christ existed in the divine mind antecedent, not to Abraham's birth, but to his existence in the divine mind likewise) what the meaning can be of a priority in the divine foreknowledge, I leave to Mr. Belsham and his assistant commentators to unfold. Indeed this last interpretation seems not to have given entire satisfaction to Socinians themselves, as we find from a paper signed Discipulus, in the 4th vol. of the Theol. Repos. in which it is asserted, "that the modern Unitarians have needlessly departed from the interpretation given by Slichtingius, Enjidinus, and other old Socinians, and have adopted another in its stead, which is not to be supported by any just grammatical construction." This gentleman then goes on to furbish up the old Socinian armour, and exults in having rendered it completely proof against all the weapons of orthodoxy.

Mr. Wakefield however seems to think it safer to revert to the principles of Grotius's interpretation: and accordingly having fortified it against the charge of grammatical inaccuracy, he presents it in somewhat of a new shape, by translating the passage, Before Abraham was born, I am HE-viz. the Messiah. By which, he says, Christ means to imply, that "his mission was settled and certain before the birth of Abraham." That Mr. Wakefield has, by this construction, not only avoided the mystical conceits of Socinus's interpretation, but also some of the errors chargeable on that of Grotius, cannot be denied: but, besides, that he has built his entire translation of the passage upon the arbitrary assumption of an ellipsis, to which the texts quoted as parallel furnish no support whatever, it remains, as before, to be shown, what intelligible connexion subsists between our Lord's answer, and the question put to him by the Jews. If he meant merely to say, that his mission as the Messiah had been ordained before the birth of Abraham, (which is in itself a tolerable strain upon the words even of this new translation,) it will require all Mr. Wakefield's ingenuity to explain in what way this could have satisfied the Jews, as to the possibility of

Christ's having actually seen Abraham, which is the precise difficulty our Lord proposes to solve by his reply. Doctor Priestley, in his later view of this subject, has not added much in point of clearness or consistency to the Socinian exposition. He confesses, however, that the "literal meaning of our Lord's expressions" in the 56th verse was, that "he had lived before Abraham," and that it was so considered by the Jews: but at the same time he contends that our Lord did not intend his words to be so understood: and that when he afterwards speaks of his priority to Abraham, his meaning is to be thus explained; "that in a very proper sense of the words, he may be said to have been even before Abraham, the Messiah having been held forth as the great object of hope and joy for the human race, not only to Abraham, but even to his ancestors." (Notes, &c. vol. iii. pp. 329, 330, 333, 334.) Such is what Dr. Priestley calls

proper sense of the words, BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS, I AM. I have here given a very few instances, but such as furnish a fair specimen of the mode of reasoning, by which those enlightened commentators to whom Mr. Belsham refers, have been enabled to explain away the direct and evident meaning of scripture. I have adduced these instances from the arguments which they have used relating to the pre-existence of Christ, as going to the very essence of their scheme of Christianity, (if such it can be called,) and as being some of those on which they principally rely. I have not scrupled to dwell thus long upon a matter not necessarily connected with the subject of these discourses, as some benefit may be derived to the young student in divinity, (for whom this publication has been principally intended,) from exposing the hollowness of the ground on which these high-sounding gentlemen take their stand, whilst they trumpet forth their own extensive knowledge, and the ignorance of those who differ from them. These few instances may serve to give him some idea of the fairness of their pretensions, and the soundness of their criticism. He may be still better able to form a judgment of their powers in scriptural exposition, when he finds upon trial, that the formula of interpretation, which have been applied to explain away the notion of Christ's preexistence, from the passages that have been cited, may be employed with the best success in arguing away such a meaning from any form of expression that can be devised.

Thus, for example, had it been directly asserted that our Lord had existed for ages before his appearance in this world: it is replied, all this is true, in the decree of God, but it by no means relates to an actual existence. Had Christ, as a proof of his having existed prior to his incarnation, expressly de

clared that all things had been created by him: the answer is obvious he must have been ordained by the divine mind, long before he came into being, as by him it had been decreed, that the great moral creation, whereby a new people should be raised up to God, was to be wrought. Should he go yet farther, and affirm that he had resigned the God-like station which he filled, and degraded himself to the mean condition of man: a ready solution is had for this also-he made no ostentatious display of his miraculous powers, but offered himself to the world like an ordinary man. If any stronger forms of expression should be used, (and stronger can scarcely be had, without recurring to the language of scripture) they may all be disposed of in like manner.

But should even all the varieties of critical, logical, and metaphysical refinement, be found in any case insufficient, yet still we are not to suppose the point completely given up. The modern Unitarian commentator is not discomfited. He retires with unshaken fortitude within the citadel of his philosophic conviction, and under its impenetrable cover, bids defiance to the utmost force of his adversary's argument. Of this let Dr. Priestley furnish an instance in his own words. Endeavouring to prove, in opposition to Dr. Price, that the expressions in John vi. 62. What, and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? furnish no argument in favour of Christ's pre-existence, he uses the following remarkable language-that "though not satisfied with any interpretation of this extraordinary passage, yet rather than believe our Saviour to have existed in any other state before the creation of the world, or to have left some state of great dignity and happiness when he came hither, he would have recourse to the old and exploded Socinian idea of Christ's actual ascent into heaven, or of his imagining that he had been carried up thither in a vision; which, like that of St. Paul, he had not been able to distinguish from a reality: nay, he would not build an article of faith, of such magnitude, on the correctness of John's recollection and representation of our Lord's language; and so strange and incredible does the hypothesis of a pre-existent state appear, that sooner than admit it, he would suppose the whole verse to be an interpolation, or that THE OLD APOSTLE DICTATED ONE THING AND HIS AMANUENSIS WROTE ANOTHER." (Letters to Dr. Price, pp. 57, 58, &c.)-Thus is completed the triumph of Unitarian philosophy over revelation: and thus is the charge of incredulity against the pretended philosopher of the present day refuted. For what is there too monstrous for his belief, if you except only the truths of the Gospel?

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No. II.-UNITARIAN OBJECTIONS TO THE RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE OF STATED DAYS.

PAGE 18. (b) That the day on which the Saviour of men laid down his life for their transgressions, should have attached to it any feelings of reverence, or should be in any respect distinguished from the number of ordinary days, has long been denied by different classes of dissenters from the established form; forgetting that its celebration was designed to awaken livelier feelings of devotion, by associating circumstances; and not reflecting that the argument which went to prove, that no one day could possess a sanctity above another, should have carried them much farther, and have ended in the abolition of the Sabbath itself. The writer however, already alluded to in the last number, has, in his answer to Mr. Wilberforce's most excellent and truly pious work on the present state of religion, completely removed the charge of inconsistency, by directly asserting that "Christianity expressly abolishes all distinction of days." "To a true Christian," he observes," every day is a Sabbath, every place is a temple, and every action of life an act of devotion" "whatever is lawful or expedient upon any one day of the week, is, under the Christian dispensation, equally lawful and expedient on any other." (Belsham's Review, &c. p. 20.)

Lest we should however imagine that this writer means to impose upon Christians so severe a duty as to require them to substitute for occasional acts of devotion, that unceasing homage, which the unbroken continuity of the Christian's Sabbath, and the ubiquity of his temple, might seem to demand; he informs us, (p. 133.) that " a virtuous man is performing his duty to the Supreme Being, as really, and as acceptably, when he is pursuing the proper business of life, or even when enjoying its innocent and decent amusements, as when he is offering direct addresses to him in the closet, or in the temple." And thus we see the matter is rendered perfectly easy. A Christian may be employed through the entire of his life in worshipping his God, by never once thinking of him, but merely pursuing his proper business or his innocent amusements. This, it is true, is a natural consequence from his first position; and gives to the original argument a consistency, which before it wanted. But is consistency of argument a substitute for Christianity? Or could the teacher of divinity at Hackney have expected, that from such instructions, his pupils should not so far profit, as to reject not only Christianity, but many of them the public worship, and with it the recollection of a God?-It may be

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