that of Christ. But what could be the blasphemy against God? What, except it were this; that he ascribed divinity to one who suffered publicly as a malefactor? That this was the crime of the blessed Stephen cannot be doubted, when the conclusion of the story is considered. "While," says the inspired historian," he looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God," - that is, he saw the splendour of the Shechinah, for that is what is meant when the glory of God is mentioned as something to be seen, "and he saw Jesus standing on the right hand of God';" the man Jesus in the midst of the light. The Jewish rabble understood his declaration of seeing Jesus in the divine glory as an assertion of his divinity; they, therefore, stopped their ears; they overpowered his voice with clamours, and hurried him out of the city, to inflict upon him the death which the law appointed for blasphemers.2 The holy man died as he had lived, attesting the deity of his crucified Master. His last breath was uttered in a prayer to Jesus, first for himself, and then for his murderers,-"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' "3 Court. Are not the words in our version, "They stoned Stephen calling upon God?" 1 Acts, vii. 55. 2 Acts, vii. 57, 58. Horsley's Letter XII. to Priestley. Witness. They are, my Lord. Court. And the word "God" I perceive to be in italics, by which I understand it to be supplied by the translators, and that it is not in the original text. Witness. It certainly is not in the original text, but the force and the true rendering of the passage in the original is, "They stoned Stephen, invocating and saying, Lord Jesus." 1 Court. That may be the better way of rendering it, but I shall not take it as evidence against Priestley. Witness. My Lord, I do not desire that you should; it is sufficient for us to know that our version gives the full and correct sense of the original ; and it will equally answer the purpose of my testimony, to consider, that, at all events, a prayer was made by the martyr Stephen in his last agonies; and that men pray with the utmost seriousness to that Being whom they conceive the mightiest to save.2 Att. Gen. It is stated in this work of the "History of the Corruptions of Christianity" that the notion of the Trinity in Unity was - 1 Επικαλούμενον is used in the same sense and manner in 1 Pet. i. 17. " If ye call on the Father." 2 "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Rom. x. 13. Ubi voce Kupíov Christum intelligi, ex contextu planum est.-Bull. Prim. et Apost. Trad. p. 392, D Court. Stay. You had better ask if another instance can be adduced, in favour of the disciples of Christ believing their Lord to be God, contrary to any other proposition laid down by the writer in this work. Att. Gen. Can you, sir, produce any other instance to this purpose? Witness. Yes; and one as strong and certain as any previously advanced. I allude to the story of St. Paul's conversion, in which, as it is twice related by himself, Jesus is deified in the clearest terms. This transaction appears to have been a repetition of the scene of Moses and the bush, heightened in terror and solemnity. Instead of a lambent flame appearing to a solitary shepherd amidst the thickets of the wilderness, the full effulgence of the Shechinah, overpowering the splendour of the mid-day sun, bursts upon the commissioners of the Sanhedrim, on the road to Damascus, within a small distance of the city. Jesus speaks, and is spoken to, as the divinity inhabiting that glorious light. Nothing can exceed the tone of authority on the one side, and the submission and religious dread on the other. The Apostle usually recites this story before making a public defence of his belief in Christ, and it had the effect of heightening the resentment of his incredulous countrymen against him. Court. Mr. Attorney General, you may now proceed in the course you were about to take when I interrupted you. Att. Gen. Very well, my Lord.--Now, sir, you have stated it to be asserted by Priestley that the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity was first suggested by Plato and his disciples; what have you to allege against this position? Witness. Priestley in his book asserts, that the notion of the Trinity was suggested, and, as he "first advanced in the second century, by says, converts from the Platonic school." Plato taught, that the Supreme Being included three principles in his divine nature, and that these principles formed a Unity'; and, because Plato has said 1 Gibbon, in the brilliant effusions of his infidelity, says on this subject," that Plato has marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the Christian Revelation." (Rom. Emp. ch. xxi. p. 321.) The three principles are not the principles of Plato, but of the junior Platonists of the second and third centuries, who differ widely from Plato, though the acknowledged founder of the sect. (See Cudworth's Int. Syst. i. iv. 36.) Gibbon boldly asserts, " that the Apostle has bestowed on the fundamental principle of Plato's theology a divine sanction." (Ch. xxi. p. 320.) "His notion of the theology, both of the evangelist and philosopher," says Dr. Craven, must, surely, be extravagantly erroneous. They who are the best acquainted with Plato's theology make its fundamental principles to be these two; God and Matter; both eternal, the one independent of the other. St. John gives no sanction to such a doctrine. The Logos of St. John is a person, not a metaphysical abstraction." See Craven's Jewish and Christian Dispensations, ch.xv. this, the writer of "The Corruptions of Christianity" conceives that the Christians of the second century borrowed their notions of a Trinity from this notion of Plato; and, as the doctrine was a doctrine of Gentile philosophy, it, therefore, could not be one of Divine Revelation. Now, to say that the discoveries of Revelation and the investigations of philosophy cannot coincide, will be to affirm what cannot be proved; and why is it to be supposed that no one part of the doctrine of an inspired writer could be previously taught by wise men not inspired? Many of the moral precepts of our Lord are to be found in works of more ancient heathen authors 1; and were every iota of the Gospel doctrine to be found in the writings of the Greek philosophers, this would not be sufficient to set aside the pretensions of the first preachers of Christianity to a divine commission. But the doctrine of three principles in the Divine On the forgiveness of injuries, Cicero says, Quædam officia adversus eos servanda, a quibus injuriam acceperis." Lib.i. ch. 15. Cicero, also, commends Pericles for saying that a magistrate should not only restrain his hands from doing wrong, but turn his eyes from contemplating objects that excite it. "Decet non solum manus, sed etiam oculos abstinentes habere." Off. i. 40. Juvenal says, Whoever secretly meditates a crime, is guilty of it: Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum Sat. xiii. 208. |