tice to Dr. Priestley to acknowledge, what indeed he ought to have acknowledged for himself, that in this misinterpretation of the platonic fathers he is not original; that he hath upon his side the respectable authority of two very eminent divines of the Roman church, Petavius and Huetius." Of this, I assure you, Sir, I was quite ignorant; but I see no reason to be ashamed of such company, or of any company, in the

cause of truth.

That any mere external display of powers, as you say, p. 57, should ever be termed generation, is so improbable, from its manifest want of analogy to any thing that ever was called generation before or since; that such an abuse of words is not to be supposed of these writers, or of any person, without very positive proof; and in this case you advance nothing but a mere conjecture, destitute of any thing that can give it a colour of probability.

If the Logos had had an actual personal existence, with all its proper and separate powers, from all eternity, how could he be said to be generated, when he only exerted those powers in a particular way? For since, according to your hypothesis, he was always an intelligent person from the beginning, he must have exerted his intellectual faculties in some way or other from all eternity, as much as the Father himself; and was the exertion of the faculties of the Father in the creation of the world ever called a generation of the Father, by those who supposed creation to be a work of his, performed in time, after the lapse of an eternity in which nothing had been created? And yet, according to you, this language must have been equally proper with respect to the Father as with respect to the

Son, both having been intelligent persons from all eternity.

You say, p. 52, "After all that Dr. Priestley hath written about the resemblance between the ecclesiastical and the platonic trinity, he has yet, it seems, to learn, that a created Logos, a Logos which had ever not existed, was no less an absurdity in the academy, than it is an impiety in the church. The converts. from platonism must have renounced their philosophy before they could be the authors of this absurd, this monstrous opinion. As the notion that this doctrine took its rise with them 'betrays a total ignorance of the ge nuine principles of their school, it is easy to foresee that the arguments brought in support of it can only be founded in gross misconstruction of their language."

To this I can only say, that you discover a total ignorance of what I have asserted, and I do not know how to express myself more intelligibly than I have done. I have no where said or supposed that either the Platonists, or the platonizing christians, held that the Logos was created, or that it had ever not existed; but only that, whereas it was originally nothing more than a property of the divine mind, it assumed a sepa rate personal character in time. The Logos of the Platonists had, in their opinion, always had a personal existence, because Plato supposed creation to have been eternal; but this was not the opinion of the pla tonizing christians, who held that the world was not eternal; and therefore, retaining as much of platonism as was consistent with that doctrine, they held that there was a time when the Father was alone, and without a son; his Logos or reason being in all that time

the same thing in him that reason now is in man; and of this I have produced abundant evidence.

I cannot close this letter on the personification of the Logos without making some observations relating to the first account we have of it.

That Christ had a proper permanent pre-existence, as the Logos of the Father, first distinctly appears in the writings of Justin Martyr; and from his labouring the point so much as he does, and especially from his providing a retreat in case he should not be able to prove it, it is most probable that he was the first who started it. However, he also mentions a different opinion on the subject, which probably preceded his own, and paved the way for it; and this was not very remote from the unitarian doctrine.

It was, that the emission of the Logos, as a person, was an occasional thing, and intended to answer particular purposes only; after which it was absorbed into the divine essence again. On this scheme the Logos might have been a real person first at the creation of the world, and again when it was employed in the divine intercourse with the patriarchs, and the children of Israel, in the intervals of which it might have been deprived of its personality; and lastly, have recovered it at the birth of Christ, and have retained it ever after. Whereas, the opinion of Justin was, that, after the first emission of the Logos at the creation of the world, it was never again absorbed into the divine essence.

"There are," says he* (to abridge what he says on this subject)" I know, who are of opinion, that the power, Suva, which proceeded from the Father of

* Dialogi pars secunda, edit. Thirlby, p. 412.

all, and appeared to Moses, or to Abraham, or to Jacob, and which, in different circumstances, was called an angel, a glory, or a man, remained a power inseparable from the Father*, just as a beam of light is inseparable from the sun t, which is in the heavens, and which, when it sets, it carries along with it. Thus the Father, whenever he pleases, they say, makes this power to come out of him, роndav; and whenever he wills, he calls it back into himself again. And in the same manner they say he makes angels, But that angels are permanent beings, I have already shown; and that this power, which the prophets call God, and an angel, is not like a beam of light, but remains numerically distinct from its source, I have shown at large; observing that this power, Suvau, is produced by the power and will of the Father, but not so as that the Father loses any thing by its emission, but as one fire is lighted by another-It is called Lord in the history of the destruction of Sodom, and rained fire from that Lord who was in heaven, and who was the Lord of that Lord who was on earth, as his Father and God; being the cause of his being, of his being powerful, and of his being Lord, and God f."

We see in this passage in how plausible a manner, and how little likely to alarm men of plain understandings, was the doctrine of the divinity of Christ as it was first proposed. At first it was nothing more than

Ατμητον δε και αχώριστον του πατρος ταυτην την δυναμιν ύπαρ. χειν. Ρ. 412.

+ A beam of light was then imagined to be something connected with the sun, and not matter emitted from him, and not returning to him.

† Ος και του επί γης Κυρίου Κυριος εστιν, ώς πατηρ και θεος, αιτίος τε αυτῷ του είναι και δύνατῳ και κυρίῳ και θεῳ. p. 413.

the divine power, occasionally personified, (a small step indeed, if any, from pure unitarianism,) and afterwards acquiring permanent personality; but still dependent upon the will of God, from whence it proceeded, and entirely subservient to him; which was very different from what is now conceived concerning the second person in the trinity. I am, &c.

LETTER VII.

Considerations relating to the Doctrine of the Trinity. DEAR SIR,

I CANNOT help, in this place, making a few remarks on some of your observations with respect to the doctrine of the trinity, your ideas of which appear to be those which are commonly termed Athanasian; implying a perfect equality in all the three persons. Indeed, as a strenuous advocate for the church of England, they can be no other.

I.

"The advantage," you say, p. 69. "to be expected from these deep researches, is not any insight into the manner in which the three divine persons are united; a knowledge which is indeed too high for a man, perhaps for angels; which in our present condition at least is not to be attained, and ought not to be sought. But that just apprehension of the christian doctrine which will show that it is not one of those things that ' no miracles can prove' will be the certain fruit of the studies recommended. They will lead us to see the