5. Had Chrift been confidered 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 chriftians; nay, more fo than God the Father, with whom, on the scheme of the doctrine of the trinity, they must have known that they had lefs immediate intercourse, But prayers to Jefus Chrift were not used in early times, but gained ground gradually, with the opinion of Chrift being God, and the object of worship. Maxim 14. L. p. 18.

6. Athanafius represents the apostles as obliged to ufe great caution not to offend their first converts with the doctrine of Chrift's divinity, and as forbearing to urge that topic till they were firft well established in the belief of his being the Meffiah. He adds, that the jews, being in an error on this fubject, drew the gentiles into it. Chryfoftem, and the chriftian fathers in general, agree with Athanafius in this representation of the filence of the apoftles in their firft preaching, both with refpect to the divinity of Christ and his miraculous conception. They reprefent them as leaving their difciples to learn the doctrine of Chrift's divinity, by way of inference from certain expreffions; and they do not pretend to produce any inftance in which they taught that doctrine clearly and explicitly. Maxim 13. H. p. 12. L. p. 37. 53.

7. Hegefippus, the first chriftian hiftorian, him

felf

felf a jew, and therefore probably an Ebionite, enumerating the herefies of his time, mentions feveral of the gnostic kind, but not that of Christ being a mere man. He moreover fays, that in travelling to Rome, where he arrived in the time of Anicetus, he found that all the churches he vifited held the faith which had been taught by Chrift and the apostles, which, in his opinion, was probably that of Chrift being not God, but man only. Juftin Martyr alfo, and Clemens Alexandrinus, who wrote after Hegefippus, treat largely of herefies in general, without mentioning, or alluding to, the unitarians. Maxim 8. H. p. 8. R. p. 8.

8. All those who were deemed heretics in early times were cut off from the communion of those who called them felves the orthodox chriftians, and went by fome particular name; generally that of their leader. But the unitarians among the gentiles were not expelled from the affemblies of christians, but worshipped along with those who were called orthodox, and had no particular name till the time of Victor, who excommunicated Theodotus; and a long time after that Epiphanius endeavoured to give them the name of Alogi. And though the Ebionites, probably about or before this time, had been excommunicated by the gentile christians, it was, as Jerom fays, only on account of their rigid

adherence

adherence to the law of Mofes. Maxim 5. H. p.

14. L. p. 25.

9. The Apostles creed is that which was taught to all catechumens before baptism, and additions were made to it from time to time, in order to exclude those who were denominated heretics. Now though there are several articles in that creed which allude to the gnostics, and tacitly condemn them, there was not, in the time of Tertullian, any article in it that alluded to the unitarians; so that even then any unitarian, at least one believing the miraculous conception, might have subscribed it. It may, therefore, be concluded, that fimple unitarianifm was not deemed heretical at the end of the second century. Maxim 7. L. p. 27.

10. It is acknowledged by Eufebius and others, that the ancient unitarians themselves conftantly afferted that their doctrine was the prevailing opinion of the chriftian church till the time of Victor. Maxim 2. H. p. 18. R. p. 25.

11. Justin Martyr, who maintains the pre-exiftence of Chrift, is fo far from calling the contrary opinion a herefy, that what he says on the subject is evidently an apology for his own; and when he fpeaks of heretics in general, which he does with great indignation, as no chriftians, and having no communication with chriftians, he mentions the gnoftics only. Maxim 12. H. p. 17. R. p. 15. L. p. 127.

12. Irenæus

12. Irenæus, who was after Juftin, and who Wrote a large treatise on the subject of herefy, fays very little concerning the Ebionites, and he never calls them heretics. Thofe Ebionites he speaks of as believing that Chrift was the son of Joseph, and he makes no mention of those who believed the miraculous conception. Maxim 12. H. p. 15. Li P. 32. 118.

L.

13. Tertullian reprefents the majority of the common or unlearned chriftians, the Idiota, as unitarians; and it is among the common people that we always find the oldeft opinions in any country, and in any fect, while the learned are moft apt to innovate. It may therefore be prefumed, that as the unitarian doctrine was held by the common people in the time of Tertullian, it had been more general still before that time, and probably univerfal in the apoftolical age. Athanafius alfo mentions it as a fubject of complaint to the orthodox of his age, that the many, and especially perfons of low understandings, were inclined to the unitarian doctrine. Maxim 4. 10. R. p. 26. L. p. 49.

14. The first who held and difcuffed the doctrine of the pre-existence and divinity of Christ acknowledge that their opinions were exceedingly unpopular among the unlearned chriftians; that these dreaded the doctrine of the trinity, thinking that it infringed upon the doctrine of the supremacy of God the Father; and the learned chriftians made. frequent

frequent apologies to them, and to others, for their own opinion. Maxim 10. H. p. 54.

15. The divinity of Chrift was first advanced and urged by those who had been heathen philofophers, and especially those who were admirers of the doctrine of Plato, who held the opinion of a fecond God. Auftin fays, that he confidered Christ as no other than a most excellent man, and that he had no fufpicion of God being incarnate in him, or how " the catholic faith differed from the "the error of Photinus" (one of the laft of the proper unitarians whose name is come down to us) 'till he read the books of Plato; and that he was afterwards confirmed in the catholic doctrine by reading the fcriptures. Conftantine, in his oration to the fathers of the council of Nice, fpeaks with commendation of Plato, as having taught the doctrine of "a fecond God, derived from the fupreme "God, and fubfervient to his will." Maxim 11. H. p. 20.

16. There is a pretty easy gradation in the progrefs of the doctrine of the divinity of Chrift; as he was first thought to be God in some qualified fense of the word, a diftinguished emanation from the fupreme mind, and then the logos or the wifdom of God perfonified; and this logos was first thought to be only occafionally detached from the deity, and then drawn into his effence again, before it was imagined to have a permanent perfonality,