us to know the times and the seasons, it being no part of the prophetic office, or within the commission of Christ himself, as Messiah, to reveal this secret to them. As the Son of man he was ignorant of many things: as the Son of God, his wisdom was infinite.1

Priestley. Have not the Catholic writers, from the earliest to the latest times, unanimously declared God the Father to be greater than the Son, even according to what you esteem as his divinity?

Witness. They have; but they believed and asserted this, not owing to a difference of nature, or from any essential perfection which is in the Father and wanting to the Son; but only by Fatherhood, or his being the Author or Original; inasmuch as the Son is from the Father, not the Father from the Son.

Priestley. With respect to the language of Clement, which the witness renders by saying, "The person of the Son is most intimately united to the Almighty, or God the Father;" it should be translated "the person of the Son nearest to the Almighty," which, if it signifies any thing, makes for us; for by how much more intimately the second person is united to the first, so much the more magnificent titles may be assigned to him: but as

Defen. Fid. sect. ii, ch. 5,

the second person is not the first, however intimately united to him, so, by consequence, neither is Logos, or the WORD, God Almighty, notwithstanding the intimacy or closeness of any union with him.

66

Witness. I repeat it, that there is no passage in the writings of the Fathers where the expression Almighty God," the attribute of Jehovah alone, is more unequivocally referred to Jesus Christ, than the one I have before quoted from Clement, namely, "He who hath the Almighty God, the WORD, is in want of nothing." And though the WORD be Almighty God, and is nearest and most intimately united to him, yet he is not God the Father; still, as Clement says "he is the perfect WORD, born of the perfect Father, he may be called, and really is, God Almighty."2 - Farther on, the same Father speaks of Christ as "the almighty and rational WORD." - Again, in allusion to 2 Cor. xi. 2.: "For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ;" instead of using the name of Christ, he explains the one husband by "the Al

1 This was the objection which Gilbert Clerke made to Bishop Bull.

2 Clem. Pædag. i. c. 6. p. 92.

See Bull's Animadv. in Tract. Gilb. Clerke, p. 272.

3 Pædag. i. 9.

F

mighty God."-Again, he quotes Eph. iv. 11, 12.: "He gave some Apostles," &c.-where "He" evidently means Christ, who is named just before; but it is remarkable that Clement begins the quotation thus: "The Almighty God hath given;”— and, lastly, he speaks of the WORD as "the Almighty Power, and Omnipotent Will."2 It surely is impossible, either to require more proof on this point, or to expect any more decisive and clear.

Att. Gen. Sir, we will no longer detain you. Call Charles Leslie.

Court. Who is this Witness? and against which of the Defendants does he appear?

Att. Gen. This Gentleman, my Lord, has done infinite service to the cause of Christianity in his defence of it against Deists, Jews, Papists, and Unitarians; against each of whom he has conducted his arguments, in the judgment of the learned, in a manner to carry conviction to almost every reader, and at the same time with a spirit of such true wisdom and charity, as has gained him the approbation of all. I do not call upon him as evidence so much against any one of the Defendants, as

1 Strom. iii. 12.

2 See Clem. Strom, iv. 21., and v. 1.

Burton's Test. of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 143.

against the system which one and all have embraced: I might, indeed, fairly produce him against two of them in particular, as having revived objections which he had long previously refuted.

Court. Well, proceed.

Att. Gen. You, sir, are the author of "The Socinian Controversy," written in six familiar dialogues now, let me ask, what is it that you there adduce which you are now ready to support against the religious system of the Defendants ?

Witness. In that work I set out, and I still persist in declaring, that the Unitarians have, from first to last, levelled their objections against the great fundamental doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, on the pretence of such doctrine being a novelty suggested by a heathen philosopher, and introduced in the early times of Christianity. Upon this basis of error they have raised an unsound superstructure after their own fancies. History has been misconceived and misapplied, and Scripture has been distorted, to support their opinion; and from conceiving the doctrine to be contrary to their natural reason, they have endeavoured to make Revelation conform to their understanding.1

Att. Gen. You mean, then, to assert that the doctrine of the Trinity is both the doctrine of Scripture, and that which was the belief of the

1 First Dialogue, p. 223.

primitive Church; and hence, that the doctrine of Christ's sole humanity is a corruption of the primitive faith; and, consequently, that it is a heresy? Witness. That is precisely my meaning.

Att. Gen. What do the early Fathers say with respect to the divinity of Christ?

"2

Witness. Barnabas, who lived A. D. 72., says, "It was to Christ that God spoke, when, before the foundation of the world, he said, 'Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness." 1 Justin Martyr, who wrote A. D. 150., declares it heresy to say that these words were spoken to the angels. "The Father there speaks to the Son, to one numerically different from himself, to an intelligent person. Irenæus, who wrote A.D. 185., says, that "God spoke these words to the Son and to the Holy Ghost;" and in this he is directly followed by Tertullian 3, who flourished A. D. 200. And, lastly, Origen, who lived A. D. 240., confirms all this by saying, "None could raise the dead, but he who had heard from the Father, Let us make man in our image;' and none could command the wind and seas, but he by whom they, and all things else, were

1 Ep. c. v. p. 60.

2 Dial. cum Tryph. p. 265.

3 Jun. adv. Her. 1. v. c. 15. Tertul. adv. Pæx. ii. 12.