the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jefus Chrift, by whom are all things, and we by him.

Is not Christ here spoken of as intirely diftinct from God, and could the apoftle confider the title of God, as at all applicable to Chrift, when, in the plaineft language poffible, he thus gives it exclufively to the Father, To us there is but one God the Father? It is not one God the Trinity, consisting of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, according to the ftrange uncouth language of your Litany, but God the Father only. Can any language refpecting the person of Christ be plainer than this of the apoftle? And yet our adversaries are continually, but most impudently, reproaching us with departing from the plain and literal sense of the fcriptures, and with putting figurative fenfes upon them. Judge now for yourselves, whether this be the case or not, and whether they must not have recourse to strange fubterfuges, and perverfions of fcripture language, to find their doctrine of the Trinity in fuch paffages as thefe, or hold it in any confiftency with them.

I do not wish to tire you by enlarging on fo very plain a fubject as this. Only read the fcriptures for yourselves. Though they are often ill tranflated, by persons who, believing the doctrine of the Trinity themfelves, have represented them as more favourable to it than they ought to have done, yet their general sense is still fufficiently clear in favour of the proper unity of God, and the proper humanity of Chrift. He is every where fpoken of as our brother, a man, in all things like unto his brethren; fo that when we are called heirs of God, we are faid to be joint heirs with Chrift Jefus. Rom. viii. 17. Does fuch language as this at all agree with the doctrine of the divinity of Chrift? Would it not be a strange degradation of a God, to represent him as receiving an inheritance in common with men ?

If you wish to read the reafoning of others on this fubject, and particularly the tract fo much recommended by Mr. Burn, p. 70, which he fays has gone through three editions, do me, do yourselves, and the argument, the juftice

to read at the fame that piece of mine to which it is one of I believe, not less than twenty answers, all of which have not prevented the spread of the doctrine which I contend for in it, and of which I believe not less than thirty thousand copies have been fold. It is entitled An Appeal to the ferious and candid professors of Chriftianity on the following fubjects, viz. the use of reafon in matters of religion, the power of man to do the will of God, original fin, election and reprobation, the divinity of Christ, and atonement for fin by the death of Chrift, to which in the laft editions, has been added, a concife hiftory of thefe doctrines, fhewing when, and how they came to be adopted by chriftians. There is alfo fubjoined to it an account of the trial of Mr. Elwall, for writing against the divinity of Christ, at Stafford affizes, before Judge Denton. The laft edition was printed by Pearfon and Rollafon, and is fold for four-pence, and the tryal of Mr. Elwall is printed feparately by Mr. Swinney, and fold for two-pence. I would also recommend to your notice another small tract of mine intitled, Ageneral view of the arguments for the unity of God, and against the divinity and pre-existence of Chrift, from reason, from the scriptures and from history, of which the third edition is now felling, price two-pence. If you wish to know more particularly what I have to fay of those texts of scripture, of which the Trinitarians avail themselves, as favourable to their doctrine, confult another cheap tract of mine, intitled, A familiar illustration of certain passages of Scripture relating to the subjects above mentioned, price four-pence.

If you have leisure, perufe my larger Hiftory of the Corruptions of christianity, and alfo my Hiftory of early opinions concerning Jefus Chrift, in which is clearly defcribed the rife of the doctrine of the Trinity, and where I prove that the great body of primitive chriftians were strict Unitarians; but that the philofophizing chriftians, offended at the humiliating idea of having a crucified man at the head of their religion, after fome time adopted the opinion of his being of a nature higher than the human; and that this exaltation of him went on, till they made him to be God equal to the

Father;

Father; but that this was a work of time, and not accomplished in less than about four hundred years after Christ.

You may, in some measure, perceive the progress of men's opinions on this fubject in the three creeds which are adopted by your church. The first called the Apostles' creed, is Unitarian; for in it God the Father Almighty, is spoken of as quite diftinct from Jefus Christ our Lord. In the second, called the Nicene creed, composed A. D. 325, Christ is called God of God, and Light of light, the meaning of which is that Chrift, though truly God, is not God of himself (auloeos) which the Father alone was then called, but that he derived his divinity from the Father, and therefore was fubordinate to him. But in the third, or Athanafian creed, (compofed nobody can tell when, or by whom, but certainly after the time of Athanafius, who did not believe any fuch thing) all idea of fubordination is intirely taken away; and of all the three perfons it is declared, that none of them is greater or less than the other, none of them afore or after the other.

These three creeds, you clearly fee, are inconfiftent with each other, though a common reader may not perceive it, and therefore the fame church ought not to retain more than one of them.

You may now, my friends, judge in fome measure for yourselves, whether there be any reafon for the violent clamour that your clergy are raifing against the Unitarians, in general, and myself in particular, as if, poffeffed by a contaminating demon we held fome ftrange unfcriptural and damnable doctrine; and whether, on the contrary, we do not speak the words of truth and soberness. In my Appeal, to which I referred you before, you will find reafons equally plain and convincing for the truth of the other doctrines which offend your clergy fo much, because they are contrary to those which make part of their system.

All I wish is that you would think, and judge, for yourfelves, and then say whether fome reformation of your public fervices might not be very eafy and practicable. Do

you

you,

for example, think that your liturgy would be a worse, that is a lefs edifying service, if fuch things as thofe I quoted above, and that are fo offenfive to pious Unitarians, were. left out. It is only in a few places that such things as these occur; and if the rest of the service, which has nothing of this kind, give you no offence, why might not the whole be made uniform, all the prayers being addreffed to God the Father, as the greater part of them actually are. Then, notwithstanding all our differences of opinion, we might all worship together, like brethren, and fellow chriftians, and even the difference of Unitarian and Trinitarian, not appearing in the public forms, would give no offence in private.

If you chofe to have an establishment, that is, if it was thought proper that the ftate fhould make provifion for religion out of the public funds, and give falaries to the minifters of it, it would be a truly Christian establishment, in oppofition to a Heathen, a Mahometan, or a Jewish one; and not, as it now is, a Trinitarian establishment, in oppofition to an Unitarian one.

I am, &c.

LETTER XVIII.

Of Mr. Burn's Letters, in Answer to mine.

My Friends and Neighbours,

AFTER waiting a confiderable time from the promise

of their Speedy publication, I have received, and you, no doubt, have feen, Mr. Burn's Letters to me, in answer to mine; and as I informed you of what I thought of Mr. Madan's Letter, I will now tell you as plainly what I think of these. They discover a temper extremely chagrined, and fretful. The writer is evidently embarraffed in his argument, unwilling to retract his accufation, evidently falfe

and

and injurious as it was; and without any regard to evidence, either from reafon, or from fact, he fill avows the worst opinion of myself and my tenets. It is really painful to see a chriftian, and a clergyman, perfifting as he does in the great crime of calumniating his neighbour, without the least fign of repentance, or remorfe, fo that according to the rule of the gofpel, he is at prefent in a state of mind which difqualifies him for receiving forgiveness of God or man, Let us hope, however, that in time he will fee his conduct in its true light, and make the public acknowledgment that his cafe requires; and then no perfon will be more ready to forgive an offending brother, than myfelf. It will be a fad thing indeed if, like Cardinal Beaufort in the play, he should die withoul giving any fign of repentance, or hope of mercy.

"To the continuance of our correfpondence two things,' he fays, p. 71, "are indifpenfable, the one that I confine "myfelf to the question, and the other that whatever I may "think proper to advance on the fubject, it be addressed to "himself perfonally." With respect to the former rule, I fhall obferve it more strictly than he has done; but with regard to the latter, I strongly suspect that I shall oblige him the most by not observing it at all. For then he will have an excuse for discontinuing a correspondence, which you may perceive is unpleasant to him, and which it is faid that his friends, if not himself, wifh that he had never begun.

The profeffed object of his original Letter to me was to prove that "I rejected the apoftolic teftimony concerning "the perfon of Chrift." In anfwer to this I fhewed him that, fo far from rejecting this authority, all my writings on the subject proved that I confidered it as being infallible, that I had conftantly appealed to it, and had endeavoured to ascertain what the opinion of the Apostles really was, as defirous to difcover, and abide by it. Was not this keeping to the question, and did not he ramble very wide from it, when he entered upon the difcuffion of the doctrine of inSpiration in general ?

Now,