THE Fathers Vindicated: OR, ANIMADVERSIONS On a late Socinian Book entitled, The judgement of the Fathers Touching the TRINITY, against Doctor Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith.  
BY A Presbyter of the Church of ENGLAND.  
LONDON: Printed for Ri. Chiswell, at the Rose and Crown in St. Pauls Church-Yard, MDCXCVII.   

THE Fathers Vindicated, Touching the TRINITY.   

THE CONTENTS.  

CHAP. I. A Character of M. N. and of the Scheme that he hath formed of the Newness of the Opinions of the Trinity, and of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. page. 1.  
CHAP. II. A General Enquiry in M. N's System. p. 8.  
CHAP. III. A Review of the Witnesses which M. N. brings in general for the Opinions of the Unitarians before the first Council of Nice. p. 22.  
CHAP. IV. That neither the Authors of the Apostles Creed, nor Clemens Romanus, were of the Opinions of the Unitarians. p. 41.  
CHAP. V. That the nazarenes, the Ebionites, the Minaeans, and the Alogians, were justly looked upon as heretics. p. 64.  
CHAP. VI. That neither Hegesippus, nor the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem, were of the Opinion of the Cerinthians, or the Ebionites: And that the Alogi were heretics as well as the Cerinthians. p. 77.  
CHAP. VII. That Justin Martyr was no Innovator. p. 93.  
CHAP. VIII. That the Notion of the {αβγδ} did not come from the Platonicks, but was the ancient Notion of the Synagogue, and of the Apostles of our Saviour. p. 110.  
CHAP. III. A Review of the Witnesses which M. N. brings in general for the Opinions of the Unitarians before the first Council of Nice. p. 22.  
CHAP. IV. That neither the Authors of the Apostles Creed, nor Clemens Romanus, were of the Opinions of the Unitarians. p. 41.  
CHAP. V. That the nazarenes, the Ebionites, the Minaeans, and the Alogians, were justly looked upon as heretics. p. 64.  
CHAP. VI. That neither Hegesippus, nor the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem, were of the Opinion of the Cerinthians, or the Ebionites: And that the Alogi were heretics as well as the Cerinthians. p. 77.  
CHAP. VII. That Justin Martyr was no Innovator. p. 93.  
CHAP. VIII. That the Notion of the {αβγδ} did not come from the Platonicks, but was the ancient Notion of the Synagogue, and of the Apostles of our Saviour. p. 110.    

ERRATA.  

page. 12. line 24. lege {αβγδ}.  
P. 24. l. 16. l. Theodotus.  
P. 41. l. 16. l. Hermas Pastor.  
P. 42. l. 18. l. Century.  
P. 59. l. 19. l. nunquam eum  
P. 68. l. 7. l. Christians that  
P. 99. l. 10. l. Catalogue  
l. 16. l. Elentherus  
P. 107. l. 12. l. {αβγδ}    

THE FATHERS VINDICATED Touching the TRINITY, &c.  

CHAP. I. A Character of M. N. and of the Scheme that he hath formed of the Newness of the Opinions of the Trinity, and of the Divinity of Jesus Christ.  
SIR,  
THO' I have a great regard to the Commands that you lay upon me, yet it is not without some Unwillingness that I have undertaken to examine the Book entitled, The judgement of the Fathers concerning the Trinity, against Dr. Bull: For the Reverend and Learned Dr. Bull is best able to do this himself, and can do it with very great ease: and his Adversary being a Man who seems to have in him a great confidence of Temper, joined to as great Affectation of Novelty; I have little Inclination to be concerned with him. However, I have learned to obey; especially where my Obedience may be thought to do service to Truth.  
M. N. is of the Opinion of Francis David, who denied the Lawfulness of invoking JESUS CHRIST, 
Tom II. Soc. p. 710.& 711.  and was for that reason detested by Socinus, as a heretic, that renounced the Principles of Christianity, and had a design to bring in among Christians the Jewish Ideas about the Person of the Messiah.  
Socinus was a zealous Assertor of the Authority of the Holy Scriptures, and proved it with such Arguments, as cannot be answered: Especially for the Books of the New Testament; he hath shew'd with great judgement that they can't be suspected of having been corrupted by any Party or Sect among Christians. 
De Authorit. Scr. C. 1.§. 3.  And where any Text makes evidently against his opinion, yet nothing could provoke him to question the Authority of it. Whosoever is conversant in his Writings, can't but see what infinite pains he hath taken to evade the force of divers of those Texts which prove the Godhead of our Saviour. But M. N. little considering the pains that Socinus hath taken, and without giving himself any trouble to confute Socinus's Arguments, to prove the Purity of the Books of the New Testament; boldly asserts, that the Gospels and Epistles have been falsified by those whom he calls Trinitarians; who, as he tells us, have added to them what they pleased. 
P. 30, 31.& p. 63. col. 1.  This Accusation he often repeats with a groundless assurance.  
So that now the state of the Dispute is wholly changed from what it was with Socinus, and the Learned Writers of his Sect. It seems we must no longer contend for the Divinity of our Saviour, or the Doctrine of the Trinity: But our Controversy now with M. N. and his colleagues, is principally about the Purity of the Holy Scripture, just the same that we have with some of the Mahometans, who accuse the Christians of having corrupted the Gospels. And though at this distance from turkey, God be thanked, we are in no danger of that Sect, yet we are not so secure against the Deists and Atheists, who are chiefly concerned in this controversy, as being the professed Enemies of the Christian Religion. The Socinians do profess themselves Christians; but yet one can hardly think them in earnest that writ at this rate. They are either downright Deists, or they are certainly in a great forwardness towards it; of which they were warned long since by Socinus himself. 
Tom. I. p. 327. Tom. II. p. 773. c. 1.  He warned those of his Sect that denied the Worship of Christ, as our M. N. expressly doth; that if they went on, they would become Deists and Epicureans.  
However, you desire me to let you know my Thoughts of this Book of M. N. and to examine the Plan which he hath formed of the Belief of the most Primitive Antiquity, concerning the Trinity, and the Divinity of our Saviour; which at your desire I will endeavour to do.  
If we may believe M. N. he brings us up to the very beginning of the change; and doth all he can to persuade the World, that he sets forth the Manner of it; so that for the future there will be nothing more easy than to judge of the Truth and Apostolical Antiquity of the Doctrine of the Unitarians.  
But see in a few words what M. N. teacheth us of the ancient Faith: He telleth us the Holy Scripture faith nothing, either of the Trinity, or of the Godhead of our Saviour. So that according to the Scripture, there is but one Person, as well as one Nature in God: and, That Jesus Christ is but a mere Man, miraculously born of the Virgin by the virtue of the Holy Ghost; endued with a power of doing Miracles, and at last taken up into Glory to govern the Church, and the World, at least, as far as the Church is concerned in it.  
He tells us the Apostles writ that Creed which is commonly called by their name; and that they delivered no more than that Creed in the confession of Faith which they prescribed to all Christians.  
He would have us believe that the first Bishops of Jerusalem, and the first Bishops of the greatest Cities in the World, who were Successors to the Apostles, adhered to this belief without any alteration, till the slaughter and dispersion of the Jews under Hadrian, that is till about the year of our Lord 135.  
The Jews that were converted by the Apostles and their successors, and the Heathens that were converted by the Apostles, and by Apostolical Men out of Palestine, continued till then, as he tells us, in the opinion of the present Unitarians.  
About that time, or at least about the year 150, when all the Protestants, as M. N. tells us, 
P. 15. B.  agree that the Doctrine of the Church began to be corrupted, Justin Martyr thought fit to set up the Doctrine of the Trinity. He averred that Jesus Christ was the Eternal Word: He proved it against Trypho the Jew, by the Apparitions of God that are related in the Old Testament.  
He tells us that as soon as Justin Martyr had published his Conference with Trypho, a great number of Christians quitted the simplo Notions that they had of the Deity, to perplex themselves with those new Ideas of the Trinity. That they then took up the Doctrine of the Godhead of Jesus Christ, which was an Opinion never before heard of. This Belief spread abroad, and took so generally, from Justin Martyr's time to the Council of Nice, that although the ancient Christians, whom he calls the nazarenes, the Mineans, the Ebionites, the Cerinthians, and the Alogians, defended the ancient Doctrine concerning the Unity of God, and rejected the Belief of the Trinity; and of the Godhead of the Saviour, properly so called; yet the multitude of those that believed the Trinity, and the eternal Godhead of Jesus Christ, prevailed in the first Council of Nice; and made this heresy pass into an Article of Faith.  
This, Sir, is the System of M.N. which he establishes by divers considerations out of Antiquity, and which he makes as probable as he can, by answering Dr. Bull's Arguments, with all the dexterity and confidence that he is Master of.  
I desire you would not expect that I should dispute with M. N. about all that he alleges, and particularly about that which he saith against Dr. Bull. The Doctor, who will probably wait for all the Three parts of M. N's Book, of which he hath yet published, but the first, will be very well able to do right both to himself and his cause.  
Nor will I take notice of all that he saith, without authority, and yet with as much confidence as if he had all authority in himself. It is enough to let the Unitarians see how rash their Champion is in his Assertions, to abate something of the Veneration which they have for an Author of so little judgement or Modesty.  
To do this with the more clearness and usefulness; I think it the best way.  
First, To examine his System in General.  
Secondly, To inquire into the Authorities, that he brings to justify it.  
And Thirdly, To make it appear, that he hath no ground to accuse Justin Martyr, as he doth, of Innovation.  
I think I may under these three Heads take in all that is worth considering in his judgement of the Fathers.   

CHAP. II. A General Enquiry into M. N's System.  
WE shall first give a general Account of his Opinion, concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity, and the Godhead of our Saviour.  
I. He saith, That the writings of the Old Testament have nothing in them to ground the Belief of a Trinity, and of the Godhead of the Messiah. He saith Justin Martyr is the first that hath gathered both the one and the other out of the Writings of the Old Testament. Herein M.N. agreeth with the present Jews.  
But to say nothing of what Jesus Christ and his Apostles have taught of this Matter, about which he makes a great stir to little purpose; it's plain, that the first Christians are against him in the Disputes that they had with the Jews before Justin Martyr had written. And this it will be no hard Matter to prove.  
1. It is scarce to be conceived; that Justin Martyr, having a Jew to dispute with, should go about to convert him with a new Notion of which himself was the first Author; and not only so, but that he should have the confidence to publish in the face of the World a private Dispute, which he had with a Jew upon that subject.  
We may well imagine, that a Socinian, who rejects the Trinity and the Godhead of our Saviour, would easily agree with a Jew about these Opinions, and leave them out of the dispute, to make the Christian Religion more easy and agreeable to a Jew. But supposing that before Justin Martyr these Doctrines had never been heard of, and that Justin thought he had discovered them in the Writings of the Old Testament, is it probable, that he would have made them such principal Points of the controversy in disputing with a Jew, And that he would have pretended to ground them upon Authorities out of the Old Testament?  
2. We need but consider the manner how Justin disputes with the Jew to be satisfied, That he did not advance any new Doctrine.  
He proposeth two Questions. The First, Whether Jesus is the promised messiah? Which he saith he can maintain against Trypho, though he should not aclowledge Jesus to be any more than mere Man. The Second, Whether Jesus Christ had a Being before his Incarnation? Whether he was God? Whether he was born of a Virgin? Which he affirms to have been the Doctrine of the Prophets, and of Jesus Christ himself. Justin advanceth these Propositions, as being such as were generally received among the Christians. He quotes his Authorities out of the Books of the Old Testament; and carefully confutes the different Solutions which the rabbis used to evade these Arguments: Which sheweth, that his Proofs were drawn out of Scripture, and were not new to the Jews; but that the Dispute having continued ever since the Apostles times, the Jews had been diligent in finding Answers to these Objections; and that, as it often happens among them that pled for a bad Cause, they were already divided among themselves; such an Answer as hit the Fancy of one Rabbin, being not satisfactory to another. It will be sufficient to bring one Example of it, out of many that I could produce.  
Philo the Jew, 

De opif. Mundi p. 16. c. De confus. ling. p. 395,& 396. De profug. p. 460,& 461. Et de nomin. mutat. p. 1048,& 1049. De epif. Mund. p. 32.  
Et de plant. Noe p. 217.   long before the Year of our Lord 40, in explaining these Words of God, Let us make Man in our own Image, makes this Reflection, {αβγδ}, This implieth the taking in of others as fellow Workmen. And elsewhere he maintains, that Man was made in the Image or Likeness of the Word. The Christians having afterward alleged that Passage for the Proof of the Trinity, the Jews were obliged to say, some of them that God spake to the Angels, others that he spake in the Plural because of his Majesty, and others that he spake to the Elements, out of which the Body of Man was to be composed. These Answers, being invented before Justin's time, 
P. 285. B. C. D.  he mentions, and rejects them with Scorn. It appears then, That the Christians before Justins time did believe the Trinity, because the Jews in his time were so divided among themselves as I have shown, and made such different Answers to the Objection which was made to them by the Christians. But I shall show, that the Jews before Justin's time accused the Christians of acknowledging the messiah to be true God, as well as Man. This will plainly appear by what followeth.  
We need but consider in what manner Justin speaks of those among the Christians, that rejected the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and believed him to be a Man born of Joseph and Mary, for that is what he expresseth in these Terms, {αβγδ} A Man born of human Parents, which he opposeth to {αβγδ}, A man born of a Virgin. 
P. 267.  See how he expresseth himself, {αβγδ}. {αβγδ} For there are some among us who confess that that he is CHRIST, but affirm him to be Man born of human Parents; with whom I do not agree; nor would it be said by most of them that are of my Opinion; for we have been commanded by CHRIST himself, not to believe the Doctrines of Men, but to believe those things, which were published by the Holy Prophets, and taught by CHRIST himself. The word {αβγδ}, as it is here opposed to the word {αβγδ}, hath a great extent in the Greek; it signifies the far greater number, and the {αβγδ}, that here Justin Martyr speaks of, he considered as such a sort of Christians as those whom Tiberius would have made, if the Senate would have consented to it, by procuring the Apotheosis of Jesus Christ because of his great Miracles, without examining whether he were born of a Virgin, 
Tertul. Apolog c. 5.  or of Joseph and the Virgin. But withal it appears, that Justin Martyr, together with the {αβγδ}, that is the Body of the Christians, were of the Opinion which he defends against Trypho's Objections; and that they defended it, as grounded upon the Authorities of the Apostles, and of Jesus Christ himself.  
Certainly if we give ourselves the trouble to examine the Pains that Rabbi Jochanan takes to instruct the Babylonian Jews, of whom he was the Chief, how to answer the Christians who proved the plurality of Persons in the Godhead, out of the Books of the Old Testament, we shall see that it was not a Doctrine brought up by Justin Martyr after Hadrians's time. 
Gemara in cap. 4. lib. Sanhedrin fol. 38. col. 2.  This Rabbin particularly answers the Arguments which the Christians drew from those words, Gen. I. 26. Let us make Man in our own Image, together with the like words, Gen. XI. 7. Come, let us go down and confounded their Language, and likewise from Deut. IV. 7. from 2 Sam. VII. 23. from Dan. VII. 9, And he reports a more ancient Objection drawn from that which we red of the Angel, that conducted the Children of Israel in the Wilderness. Exod. XXIII. 21. Can any one that hath not lost his Reason, imagine that Rabbi Jochanan, who lived amongst the Jews a little after the Year of our Lord 170, and in a country that was almost always at War with the Roman Empire, should go about to confute the Notions of Justin Martyr, whose name it is not likely he had ever heard of, if these Notions had not been common to all Christians? At least if he had seen that these Notions generally gained ground in the Belief of the People, would he not have spared his pains in answering those Arguments, and taken a shorter way to confute this Doctrine, by showing that it was a new thing which he had seen the very beginning of, and that it was not yet so much as the common Opinion of those that were separated from the Synagogue?  
M. N. saith that those Doctrines of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and of the Trinity, were not delivered in any of the Books of the New Testament; but that they have been invented since the writing of those Books: And yet the Jews reject these Books on this very account, because they contain these Doctrines; which, say they, are contrary to what hath been delivered in the Old Testament. It might seem a very strange thing that the Jews should find these Doctrines in the Gospels, and the other Books of the New Testament; and that the Unitarians, who call themselves Christians, and therefore ought to be much better acquainted with these Books, should not be able to discover any such thing in them. Or if it be shown them that these Doctrines are there, in those very places which the Jews object against, that the Unitarians should dispute against the natural Sense of the words, and endeavour to elude it with forced and far fetched Interpretations. But the Strangeness goes off, when we see that these Gentlemen do not believe themselves. We cannot but judge so of this Writer, who, though he disputes and denies as confidently as the rest, yet confesses at last that these Doctrines are in the New Testament; for he says they were foisted in there by the Trinitarians. And for this, if you will not take his word, you have Mahomet's that said it before him.  
But that the first Disciples of the Apostles did not receive from them the Doctrines either of the Trinity, or of the Godhead of our Saviour; of this he is certain, because they were not known before Justin Martyr's time. 
Plin. lib. X. Epist. 97.  If so, what could Pliny the Younger mean? Who, after he had informed himself of the Worship of the Christians, about the year of our Lord 106, gave this account of it to Trajan, That the Christians worshipped Christ as a God; for it was in their public Worship that, 
Luciani Philopatris  he saith they did carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere, say a Hymn to Christ as God. What could the Author of the Philopatris, that goes under the name of Lucian, mean by teaching that the Trinity is the God of the Christians? 
V. Bulli def. Fid. Nic. p. 124, 125.  This Author was contemporary with Justin Martyr, and very well knew the Christian Religion, and attributes this Doctrine to St. Paul the Apostle. What could be the meaning of Trypho, who was Justin's Adversary, 
Justin. M. adv. Tryphonem.  in objecting it so often to the Christians that they worshipped Jesus Christ as a God? What could be the meaning of the Philosopher Celsus, that flourished under M. 
Orig contra cells. p. 51, 〈◇〉 162.  Aurelius, when he reproached the Christians with believing the Divinity of our Saviour, as a Doctrine that was generally condemned both by the Jews, and by the Gentiles?  
Though M. N. knoweth but little of the Writings of those times, and therefore may be excused for thinking others to be as ignorant as himself in these matters; yet he ought not to take all the World to be such Fools, that he may pass upon them what he will by his bare Affirmation. But it is plain that he doth so in these following Instances, which have no other bottom but his vain Imaginations. Justin Martyr published his Dialogue about the year of our Lord 140. It is a Dispute with the Jews in defence of the Christian Faith. Well, what then? He tells us that Justin advanceth a Doctrine before wholly unheard of, concerning the Person of Jesus Christ, and the Nature of God; namely, that Jesus Christ is God, and that he ought to be worshipped; that he was begotten of the Father before all Creatures; that there are in the Godhead Three that are different numero, though not {αβγδ}. He tells us farther, that as soon as Justin had published this Work, which was in Greek, and which was unknown to the greatest part of the Christians, all the World forsook the Ideas which they had before of the Deity, and of the Person of our Saviour; and that they began every where to worship him, whereas they before looked upon him as a mere Creature. He tells us that hereby they gave a new and just Scandal to the Jews, and made the convert Gentiles return to the Idolatry which they had forsaken. He saith, the nazarenes and the Ebionites opposed themselves to this Innovation; but all in vain; for all the World was so enchanted with this Novelty, that they run into it blindfold. It was followed and embraced both by Clergy and People throughout all Nations.  
Surely M. N. must believe that Justin M. had Apostles whom he sent to all parts, and bestowed on them the gift of Tongues, and of working Miracles; otherwise how could he be able in thirty years to overthrow that Gospel which Jesus Christ, and his Apostles, and their Successors, had been now near an hundred years in establishing? For not long after this, about the year 170, 
L. I. c. 2, 3,& L. III. c. 4.  Irenaeus declares that the common Faith of the Churches all over the World was that of the Trinity, and of the Godhead of our Saviour. The Apostles also of Justin Martyr must necessary have been more powerful than our Saviour's Apostles. For according to Trypho the Jew, and according to M. N. the Gospel would have been much more probable, if it had not been perplexed with the Doctrines of the Trinity, and of the Godhead of the messiah.  
What is singular in this System of M. N's. is, that according to him the Jews were not sensible of this change, nor did they ever reproach the Christians with it; that the Pagans and their Philosophers did not take notice of it, nor ever objected it against the Christians; that all the Christians throughout the whole Roman Empire received the change without the least dispute; that those without the bounds of the Roman Empire received it without any the least repugnance; in a word, that these Christians, that were so ready to run to Martyrdom for the defence of their Religion, which in the esteem of M.N. had been so very reasonable in case there had been nothing in it of the Trinity, and of the Godhead of Jesus Christ; were still more ready to throw away their Lives in defence of a Doctrine that was new, and that M. N. thinks more extravagant and absurd than any that was ever before heard of in the World.  
We learn from an Anonymous Author, 
Enseb. Hist. Eccl. V. 28.  that writ in the beginning of the Third Century, that Artemon boldly affirmed that which M. N. maintains at this time, viz. that the first Disciples of the Apostles knew nothing of the Trinity, nor of the Incarnation of the Word; and that the Doctrine which affirms that Jesus Christ was a mere Man, was the Doctrine of the Christian Church, till the time of Victor Bishop of Rome, and of Zephyrin, that is till about the year of our Lord 190, or 200. M. N's Assertion is a little more within compass. He contents himself with saying that the Doctrine of the Unitarians was the common opinion of the Christian Church till the time of Justin Martyr. So that he allows the Doctrine of the Trinity, and of the Godhead of our Saviour, to be fifty years older than Artemon did. Another Unitarian Writer, that may be a little modester than M. N. may afterwards happen to reform his account, and so carry up the Original of the Faith that we defend as high as the time of Jesus Christ, or the Apostles; and yet he may oppose it at last as M. N. doth, by questioning the Authority or the Purity of the Scriptures.  
But after this General Reflection upon M. N's System, which may be sufficient to overthrow the whole design of his Treatise against Dr. Bull, we shall enter into a more particular Consideration of what he sets forth, to give some sort of account of the chimerical System which he hath framed.   

CHAP. III. A Review of the Witnesses which M. N. brings in general for the Opinions of the Unitarians before the first Council of Nice.  
M. N. makes no scruple of charging Dr. Bull with unfair dealing, for bringing the Authority of but twenty Doctors, whom he calls Approved Men, to prove the consent of the whole Church to the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity before the Council of Nice, when he can produce two hundred that held the Unitarians Doctrine upon this point; and thereupon he triumphs over the Doctor for having imposed upon his Reader, by the liberty which he hath taken to pick out what Authorities he pleased, and to reject such as condemned his opinion.  
But M. N. is grossly mistaken; for Dr. Bull hath followed the Method of Vincentius Lirinensis, which is approved by all Christians, and by M. N. himself: It is this, that a Doctrine is to be accounted catholic, when it hath the approbation of all, every where, and at all times. That the belief of the Divinity of our Saviour had this Character the Doctor hath proved by above twenty Witnesses, which he hath brought out of several places of them that lived in several Ages, before the first Nicene Council, which Witnesses were looked upon always as Orthodox in those times. Twenty Authors of this Character are sufficient to establish this truth.  
If Dr. Bull hath qualified these twenty Witnesses as approved Fathers, he might very well call them so, both because these Authors have been always looked upon as true Disciples of the Apostles, and also because the Doctor hath quoted only such Books as the Church hath always reputed authentic or worthy of those illustrious Authors.  
M. N's two hundred pretended Witnesses, whose works are perished by reason of their Errors, are a Dream of his own; and consequently are of no authority in the least to be thus opposed in a heap to the Fathers that are proposed by Dr. Bull.  
But who after all are these Witnesses that in those Apostolical times maintained the Doctrine of the Unitarians? M. N. reckons among his Witnesses: Theodotion, Symmachus Paulus, Samosatenus, Theodorus of Byzantium, Apollonides, Hermophilus, Lucianus, the Authors of the Apostolical Recognitions and Constitutions: Melito Bishop of Sardis, the nazarenes, the Ebionites, whom he supposeth to have had great Churches in Palestine, in Syria, and in Arabia, and the Mineans that were spread all over Asia; moreover all the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem.  
All this is but a Chimaera of M. N's, who Fancies what he pleaseth, and afterwards Disputes for it, as if he writ for none but ignorant People.  
1st. We have Reason to wonder, how M. N. came to forget Artomon, who is mentioned by the Fathers of the Second Council of Antioch, as the first Author that held the Opinions of Paulus Samosatonus, which they condemned about the Year 270; so obscure and unknown were the Names of the rest of them at that time.  
2ly. Why doth he not take Care to oppose to Dr. Bull's Witnesses, some Authors that were Succcessors to the Apostles, and that lived in the Ages next their Times? For he doth not quote any Writer, but such as lived after Justin Martyr's time; and Melito the most ancient of his pretended Witnesses presented his Apology to M. Aurelius, about the Year of our Lord 169, or perhaps some years later.  
3ly. How unreasonably doth he couple the Unitarians, that thought Jesus Christ to be mere Man, or begotten of Joseph and Mary, or of Mary by the operation of the Holy Ghost, to such as Lucian Presbyter of Antioch, and the Authors of the Recognitions and Constitutions, who owned the Divinity of Jesus Christ and his Pre-existence, tho' their Conceptions of the Divinity were very imperfect, and not very agreeable to the Scriptures and good Sense? The Arrians as M. N. tells us, and particularly Eusebius of Caesarea were the greatest Enemies of the Unitarians: Nevertheless he doth them the Favour to reckon them among the Unitarians, to oppose them to the Witnesses that are brought by Dr. Bull. It is plain that he doth this to abuse ignorant People, who do not examine so closely into Matters. The Arians did own the Pre-existence of the Word, and proved it from Texts of both Old and New Testament; and the Unitarians and Socinians reject it as a Doctrine that hath no ground in Sacred Books. But for all that M. N. takes in those that maintained the opinion, which was afterwards defended by Arius, among the Disciples of Artemon and Paulus Samosatenus, as some kind of Officers take in any that come in their way to make a false Muster, not regarding how fit they are for service, for they intend them only for a present show.  
Let us look a little more particularly into the Characters of M. N's Witnesses. The most ancient of them is Melito Bishop of Sardis, whom one would not have expected in his Roll, for this Melito writ a Treatise with this Title, {αβγδ} which is as much as to say, about the Incarnation. And yet M.N. 
Euseb. L. IV. c. 26.  list's him for an Unitarian because he writ another piece entitled, {αβγδ} M. N. infers from this Title, that Melito held that Jesus Christ was a Creature; but thereby he only betrays his Ignorance. For it appears by the Title of the Book that Melito was so far from designing to prove that Jesus Christ was but a Creature, as M. N. falsely imagines, that he writ it to show that Jesus Christ was not a Creature, but the only Son of God by Generation properly so called. His scope being to solve an Objection which was made against the Filiation of the Son, out of that Greek Translation of the VIII. of Proverbs in which the Divine Wisdom saith {αβγδ} God created me in the beginning of his way; which Passage Justin M. hath considered in his Dialogue with Trypho, 
P. 284.  and the other Fathers have explained it against the Objections of the Arians. That this is no ill grounded conjecture, will appear by the Testimony of an Author, that writ in the beginning of the Third Century against the heresy of Artemon, who reckons Melito among the defenders of our Saviours Divinity. 
Eusch. L. V. c. 28.  Nam Irenaei quidem,& Melitonis, & reliquorum scripta, quis est qui ignoret, in quibus Christum Deum simul& hominem praedicaverunt? For who is there that doth not know the works of Irenaeus, and Melito, and others, in which they have set forth Christ both as God and Man?  
The Second Witness that M. N. reckons upon, is Theodotion, who was by some People, as Jerom tells us, affirmed to be an Ebionite. Epiphanius saith, that he was a Pagan by Birth, and turned Christian. But what fort of Christian? He professed the Opinions of Tatian, of martion, and of Ebion. After this he turned Jew, renouncing Christianity and receiving Circumcision. He learned Hebrew, and translated the Old Testament in the time of the Emperor Severus. This is M. N's mighty critic, and his Witness of the highest Authority. I must Confess, that some of the Greek Churches had so good an Opinion of Theodotions Translation of Daniel, that they preferred it before the Septuagint Version. But how doth this prove that Theodotion, if he was sometimes an Ebionite, was therefore looked upon as an orthodox Christian, or one to whose judgement they ought to pay any great deference? Besides, who doth not know that the Syrian and Latin Churches, who had the Septuagint translated into Syriack and Latin, did constantly follow the Septuagint in the Book of Daniel?  
Symmachus is another of M. N's Witnesses, but he is just such another as Theodotion, that is, only such a one, as a Writer, that regarded his Credit, would be ashamed to reckon of his side. Symmachus was by Religion a Samaritan; he left the Samaritans because they had not a sufficient value for his Merits, and embraced the Jewish Religion; he was disgusted at the Jews because they also did not prefer him as he thought he deserved, and therefore he turned Christian; afterwards he went over to the Ebionites, and undertook to writ for their Opinions. This he did in a commentary upon S. Matthew's Gospel, not that which we have, but the nazarenes Gospel, which all Christians since have looked upon as an apocryphal piece, and a mere Forgery. Hath not M. N. great reason to triumph in the Merits of such an Author?  
Now for another of his Witnesses, no less remarkable than the former. He brings in Theodotus a Currier, who was born at Byzantium, and came afterwards to live at Rome. There he was Excommunicated by Pope Victor, for being the first Teacher of this heresy in that City. He was the more remarkable, because Artemon, or some of his Disciples afterwards, had the impudence to say, that Victor himself was a maintainer of this heresy, and that before Victors being Bishop of Rome, the Doctrine that asserted Jesus Christ to be mere Man was received by the Church without any Contradiction. These are the words of that Writer. 
Euseb. V. c. 28.  Quomodo eos non pudet hujusmodi calumnian adversus Victorem concinnare, cum certo sciant Theodotum coriarium, qui defectionis illius Deum abnegantis parens& author fuit, primusque Christum nudum hominem esse asseruit, per Victorem à communione ecclesiae ejectum fuisse. Nam si, ut aiunt, Victor eadem sentiebat quae illorum docet impietas, cur Theodotum opinionis illius authorem ab ecclesiâ removit? How are they not ashamed, saith he, to throw this calumny upon Victor, when they very well know that Theodotus the Currier, who was the Father and Author of that apostasy of denying God, and who was the first that asserted Jesus Christ to be mere Man, was cast out of the Communion of the Church by Victor? For if, as they say, Victor was of the opinion which they impiously hold, why did he excommunicate Theodotus, who was the Author of that Opinion?  
As for Apollonides and Hermophilus, who are produced by M. N. with such high Characters, he must either be wholly voided of shane, or he hath never red that part of Eusebius which I have now quoted. For see the Character which this Anonymous Author in Eusebius gives of them. After having set forth that they despised the simpliplicity of the Scriptures, and studied only human Learning and Sciences, making them a rule by which to judge of matters of Faith, He accuseth them of having corrupted the Sacred Books under pretence of Correcting them; he offers to convict them of having falsified the Scriptures by comparing the Copies that were in their hands, and by showing the diversity of Readings that was to be found in their own Copies. This Corruption he chargeth particularly on the Copies that were revised by Theodotus, and those that were revised by Asclepiodotus. He sheweth that Hermophilus had also made several Corruptions in the Text, and that Apollonides had done the like in a first and second review. And then he makes this reflection upon the bold Impiety of these Men; Quantae porro audaciae sit ejusmodi facinus, ne ipsos quidem ignorare credibile est. Aut enim sacras scripturas à Sancto Spiritu dictatas esse non credunt, ac proinde infidels sunt; aut semetipsos Spiritu Sancto sapientiores esse existimant, ac proinde quid aliud sunt quam Daemoniaci? Neque enim negare possunt hoc facinus à se admissum esse, cum ipsorum manu descripta snt exemplaria, neque ab illis à quibus in Christianâ side instituti sunt ejusmodi codices acceperint, Nec ostendere possint exemplaria, ex quibus sua illa deseripserunt. And for such a Crime as this, it is scarce to believed, that they could be ignorant how horrible a thing it is. For they must either believe, that the Holy Scriptures were not dictated by the Holy Ghost, and then they were Infidels; or they must think that they are wiser than the Holy Ghost, and if so, what are they but Daemoniacks? Nor can they deny that they are guilty of this Crime, for the Copies are of their own hand writing, and they neither received such Books from those who instructed them in the Christian Faith, nor can they produce the Originals out of which they transcribed them.  
Paulus Somasatenus Bishop of Antioch was a true Socinian, for he acknowledged nothing more than human to be in our Lord Jesus Christ. He succeeded Demetrius in that See, but soon after his coming in, he was discovered to be an Impostor that concealed Heretical Notions. Whereupon they assembled a Council against him at Antioch. There at first he avoided Condemnation by making before the Council, and all the people there assembled, a satisfactory Profession of the catholic Faith, after he had used many vain endeavours to disguise his Opinions. Afterwards he relapsed into his heresy which himself had condemned, and he was so well discovered and convicted of it, that he could not escape being condemned in a very numerous Council, that was assembled upon his account out of several Provinces of the Roman Empire. And in a Synodical Epistle yet extant, they acquainted the world what kind of Man he was. Particularly they shew'd how he made the Episcopal Dignity a means to heap up excessive riches; they shew'd, his Ambition, in having joined to his Episcopal Office, the temporal Dignity of being Ducenarius, which rendered him formidable to all the people of Antioch; his Vanity, in seeking applause in the Church as if he were on a Theatre; and his Licentiousness, in keeping young Wenches in his house, and suffering his Clergy to do the like, and so indulging them in their Lewdness, that he might be himself supported in his. This is the brave Man whom the Unitarians so highly exalt.  
Domnus being set up in Pauls room, could not get Possession of the Bishop's house in Antioch; that City being then in Possession of Zenobia Queen of Palmyra, who was half a Jew, and therefore could not but favour Paul, being so near her in Religion. But soon after, the Emperor Aurelian having got Possession of the City, and there conquered Zenobia, received Complaints from the Church of Antioch against Paul, who, notwithstanding his deprivation, kept possession of the Bishop's house, and also from Paul who complained of the Injustice of those that condemned him. Aurelian being willing to gratify them that were most capable to do him Service, and not willing to concern himself otherwise in their Affairs, referred the consideration of these complaints to the Bishops of the dioceses' of Rome and Millan. They condemned Paul as a heretic, whereupon he was driven out of the Bishops house by command of the Emperor Aurelian. 
Euseb. L. VII. c. 27.& seque  After which we hear no more of him, but that his Sect was continued by one Lucian Priest of that City, who was therefore excommunicated by three Bishops of Antioch sucessively.  
This Lucian our Author will have to be the same with the famous Lucian Priest of Antioch, who was martyred about sorty years after the outing of Paulus Samosatenus. We cannot blame our Socinians that they are willing to adorn their Sect with his Name, for did so the Arrians before them, being taught so to do by their Master Arius, who pretended to be this Lucian's Disciple, as appears by his Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, whom he calls Collucianist, because they both held the Opinions of Lucian. But as it is certain that no Man can be both Arrian and Samosatenian, 
Epiphan. Haeres. 69. p. 732.  for the Arrians Anathematize the Samosatenians as damnable heretics, so that Lucian the Martyr was of neither of those Sects, it appears by the Creed which is yet extant, and by other Testimonies which the learned Dr. Bull hath brought together in the Book that M. N. pretends to answer.  
For the Apostolical Recognitions and Constitutions; these Books do not at all make for M. N's Opinion, because they are full of Arrian Doctrines, which are not consistent with those of our Unitarians. But M. N. hath a mind to show that he is not too scrupulous in his choice of Witnesses. Though he condemns these very Writers of extravagancy, for believing that they saw sufficient Proofs of the Pre-existence of Jesus Christ as to his Divinity in the Books of the Old and New Testament, but nothing comes amiss to him, he knows how to make use of any thing that comes in his way, whether it makes for him or against him. Which Licentiousness of his in a matter of so great importance as this is, will not recommend him to the good esteem of any judicious Reader.  
But hitherto he hath brought his Authorities single, now he comes with whole Armies of them together. He tells us of whole Churches of the Minaeans, or otherwise of the nazarenes, that were in the time of S. Jerom spread all over the East. This, saith M. N. is what S. Jerom shows in his 89th. Epistle, which was to St. Austin.  
One that understands the Notitia of those times, can scarce tell where to find these pretended Churches which M. N. proposeth as Authorities for the Unitarian Doctrine: And indeed it is in vain to look for them; for in a word, they were no other than Jews, such as were in the Body of the Synagogue, who were by the Pharisees accounted nazarenes, and so condemned as heretics, because tho' they professed judaisme, they notwithstanding acknowledged Jesus Christ to be the messiah whom God had promised to their Nation. See the words of S. Jerom. Usque hody per totas Orientis Synagogas inter Judaeos haeresis est, quae dicitur Mineorum,& à Pharisaeis nunc usque damnatur: quos vulgò Nazaraeos nuncupant, qui credunt in Christum filium Dei natum de virgin Maria, & eum dicunt esse qui sub Pontio Pilato passus est& resurrexit: in quem& nos credimus: said dum volunt& Judaei esse& Christiani, nec Judaei sunt, nec Christiani. There are at this time in all the Synagogues amongst the Jews of the East some heretics that go by the name of Minaei, who to this very day are condemned by the Pharisees and called nazarenes; they believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God born of the Virgin Mary, and they say it was he who suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rose again the Third day from the Dead. This could be no other than the same Jesus in whom we believe. But while they would be both Jews and Christians, they become neither Jews nor Christians.  
Must he not have lost all sense of shane that goes to impose thus upon his Reader? It is true, that S. 
Upon Isa. C. V. v. 18.  Jerom tells us, That the Jews cursed the Christians in their Synagogues by the Name of nazarenes, and still to this day they give that Name to all that aclowledge Jesus Christ to be the messiah; thinking thereby to persuade us, that because Jesus Christ lived at Nazareth, which was in the Tribe of Zabulon, therefore by consequence he could not be the promised messiah. But doth it follow from thence that the nazarenes or the Minaeans, of whom S. Jerom speaks before, were not Members of the Synagogue? And being so they were properly Jews and not Christian Unitarians.  
I have but one thing more to say in this place, of the Witnesses which M. N. brings against Dr. Bull, being afterwards to speak of the Cerinthians, of the Ebionites, and of the fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem. But here I cannot but take notice how he endeavours to impose upon his Reader, 
Upon Euseb. L. V. c. 11.  when he quotes Valesius, and makes him say; that the Errors that were in the Books of some of the ancient Writers, soon made their Works to be neglected, and at length to be totally lost. M.N. being now to hunt about for Witnesses, catcheth up these among the rest, imagining that all those whose works are perished were Unitarians, and among the rest he reckons Papias, Hegesippus and Clemens Alexandrinus.  
But he wrists the words of Valesius; for he speaks of Errors in general, and not particularly of those of the Unitarians. Tis a plain Mark that the thing was so; because its certain, that Clemens Alexandrinus was reckoned among the Defenders of the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the Author that refuted Artemon in the beginning of the Third Century, of whom there is a Fragment in Eusebius. 
L. V. c. 28.  I shall make the same appear of Hegesippus in what followeth, and it will be easy to judge by Parity of reason that the like holds true of Papias.   

CHAP. IV. That neither the Authors of the Apostles Creed, nor Clemens Romanus were of the opinions of the Unitarians.  
SINCE my principal Design is only to show the vanity of M. N's System, I shall not stay to examine what M. N. objects against Dr. Bull's Authorities. The Doctor, as he saith, brings his Authorities from forged pieces, which he makes use of as if they were Apostolical writings, such as, the Epistle of Barnabas, Hermas, Pastor, and the Epistles of St. Ignatius, upon all which M. N. Criticizes to make a show of his Learning in Antiquity.  
It would be ridiculous to enter the Lists with M. N. in a dispute concerning the Antiquity, or the Authority of those pieces that are quoted by Dr. Bull, these Subjects having been sufficiently handled by learned Men of the first Rank; and it is in vain for M. N. to expect, that his few petty Objections will carry the Point against their Arguments and Decisions.  
But for Dr. Bull, it is enough to have proved that these pieces were written before the first Council of Nice, which the Socinians accuse of having innovated, and that they plainly teach the Doctrine which the Council of Nice have defined. This is what M. N. hath not ventured to deny.  
But let us suppose, if he pleases, and if he thinks it will do him any service, that these pieces were forged in the beginning, or even in the middle of the second Centery, as M. N. pretends, doth it follow, that the Testimony of these Authors is of no value, or consideration to prove that the Divinity of our Saviour was the current Doctrine of those times in which these pieces were written? M. N. hath very little judgement or Consideration if he thinks so.  
These, saith he, were forged pieces; but he cannot deny, First, But that they did hold a considerable Rank among the Ecclesiastical Books, in the times before the first Nicene Council, and that many Churches red some of them publicly with great veneration. Secondly, If they were forged he cannot deny but that it was for some other end, than to make this Doctrine of Jesus Christ's Divinity to be received in the Church, one needs but red them to make him agree to all this.  
As for Ignatius's Epistles, M. N. supposeth that they were invented to confirm the Authority of Ecclesiastical Orders, and from hence he takes occasion to show his Talent in railing against the Clergy. But then that these pieces might pass for genuine, the Forgers of them must have spoken of the person of Jesus Christ, as he was generally spoken of in those times in which they lived. So that M. N. gets nothing by all this, unless he can pretend that Justin Martyr, or some of his first Disciples that made these counterfeit pieces, conformed them to his own Principles and Opinions.  
But how wisely doth M. N. suppose, that Clemens Alexandrinus might take that piece which goes under Barnabas's Name to have been written by Barnabas the Apostle, notwithstanding that the Writer of it plainly taught and maintained that Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ; and yet M. N. in the Chapter next before, had affirmed that Clemens's Hypotyposes were slighted and lost for this reason, because they so much abounded with the Seed of Arianism and Unitarianism? After this we have no great reason to rely upon M. N's judgement.  
I shall not take notice of his insipid railleries upon Pionius's Revelation about St. Ignatius's Epistles. There are none but weak People that look upon it as truth. But one must make himself very ridiculous to take occasion from thence to doubt of Polycarp's Martyrdom, which was asserted by the Church of Smyrna, whereof he was Bishop, in their Epistle that is extant in Eusebius. Those that show their Wit in taking advantages against Truths of History, from the Fables that were invented in obscure times, show they have very little strength either of Wit or judgement. A Judicious Man will always take care not to confounded Truth with Fable, nor will he go to disprove a Matter of Fact, or a certain Truth by a Fable that was tacked to it in after ages. For while he affects to make the ignorant laugh at the ridiculousness of the Fable, he will only stir up the indignation of the Lovers of Truth, who cannot endure to see it treated in that manner.  
I shall now consider the Witnesses that M. N. brings against us as of uncontestable Authority, and which he saith, prove the Doctrine of the Unitarians to have been universally received by the Church in the time of the Apostles and of their Successors, until Justin Martyr's time, whom he is pleased to brand with the Infamy of being an Innovator in the Christian Faith. To this end he musters up the Apostles as Authors of the Creed, St. Clemens Romanus a Disciple of St. Paul, and the Primitive Churches that were planted by the Apostles, under the names of nazarenes, Mineans, or Alogians, and the Author of the Recognitions, who, if we may believe him, were all Unitarians.  
If we ask him, why he reckons the Authors of the Creed among the Unitarians, he tells us, that they have made no mention either of the Trinity, or of the Divinity of Jesus Christ; but that they have described our Lord Jesus Christ as a Man, though not as a common one because of his miraculous Conception. If we ask him, why he affirms that the Apostles were Authors of that Creed, he tells us, that Vossius and Dupin denied it was theirs, only because this Creed passeth over in silence the Mysteries which the Papists and Protestants look upon as the foundation of their Religion, and thereupon he takes a great deal of pains to confute Vossius and Dupin.  
It is indeed a Question of no very great importance, whether or no the Apostles were Authors of this Creed. But setting aside that matter for the present, here are Matters of Fact to be considered.  
1st. Though it is certain that the Apostles did teach their Catechumens, whether Jews or Pagans, an Abridgement of the Christian Doctrine; yet no one hath spoken of it before Irenaeus, who giveth us a form of Christian Doctrine much differing from that which hath been in the Roman Church.  
2dly. We do not red that this form was in use among any of the heretics that were known in the first or second Century.  
3dly. Most part of the Articles of the Creed were framed in opposition to the Heresies which arose in those ancient times. For example, the Article which saith that the Father of Jesus Christ was the Maker of Heaven and Earth, was opposed to the heresy of martion. The Article that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, was opposed to the heresy of Cerinthus, who held that Jesus was a mere Man, and that the Christ descended upon him in the shape of a Dove, and left him again when he was ready to die.  
Those that upon a critical Examination of the Antiquity of the Creed, have denied that it was composed by the Apostles, had not the least thought of the design which M. N. layeth upon Vossius and Dupin. Nor could M. N. suspect them of such a design, unless he imagines, as there is reason to believe he does, that all the Trinitarians, and also the Arrians, have for above 1500 years repeated this Confession of Faith, without being sensible how inconsistent it was with their Belief, and that Vossius and Dupin were the only Men that did perceive it, yet did not dare to show that they did; but left it to M. N. to discover what they thought, and he hath been so kind as to do it for them.  
Whatever we judge in this matter, if M. N. had thought of what he writ,  
1st. He would have made the same reflection in this place, that he did in condemning Barnabas's Epistle. There he proved that the ancients could not really believe it to be Barnabas's; for if they had, they would have reckoned it among the caconical Books. This reasoning is just and solid, but it destroys all that M. N. hath writ, to prove that this Creed was composed by the Apostles, and that they dictated it in so many words; for where is that Ecclestastical Writer that ever reckoned the Creed which we call the Apostles, among the caconical Writings of the New Testament? And doth M. N. who is so witty upon the Revelation of Pionius about St. Polycarp's Martyrdom, take that for genuine, which we red in a Sermon that goes under the name of St. Austin, how every one of the Apostles contributed his Article to make up the number of twelve in the body of this Creed?  
2dly. What did M.N. think of, when he affirmed so positively that Rufinus, who writ about the year of Christ 400. was the first that explained the Apostles Creed? Did not the Church of Jerusalem pretend to teach their Catechumens the Apostles Creed, upon which their Bishop St. cyril writ his Exposition? Yet we see their Apostles Creed differs very much from that which we have in Rufinus, and Rufinus doth not pretend that his Apostles Creed was used any where else but in Italy. By what Authority can M. N. make it appear, that the Church of Jerusalem left off the Creed of the Apostles to be used by them of Aquileia, and framed another for themselves that was unknown to the rest of the Christian World?  
I believe M. N. will never be able to persuade any reasonable Man, that the Church, if it had received the Creed from the Apostles, in the same terms in which we have it, would ever have consented to let it be altered; nor would the Bishops have dared to substitute another, there having been one already at Jerusalem; nor would the People, who had learnt it before their admission to Baptism, have ever received another from them; at least the imposing of it would have caused terrible divisions.  
It is very well known how Arianism prevailed in the East for sixty years, all which time the Arians without doubt put another sense on that Article, And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord. But after all, the People retained the Orthodox Sense of the Article; and the Ears of the People that had been baptized into the belief of the Trinity, were more pure than the Lips of their Teachers that endeavoured to impose upon them.  
But is not M. N. wholly singular in his judgement of this matter? He pretends, with his head full of the Unitarian Opinions, to give us the sense of the Creed, and would make us believe that the Authors of it were Unitarians. But they that first quoted the Creed as an Abridgement of the Doctrine of the Church, were of a far different opinion; namely Irenaeus, who was probably as old as Justin Martyr, not elder than he, and who wrote within twenty years after him, being Bishop of Lions at that time; and Tertullian, who writ within fifty years of Justin Martyr, and was very well red in the Writings of the first Christians. Yet both these were so far of Justin's opinion, that they looked upon those as heretics who would not aclowledge the eternal Divinity of Jesus Christ. How came they to strike in so early with Justin, and to suffer him so to impose upon them in so great a point of the Christian Faith? Were they so simplo as not to discover that he put a quiter different sense upon this Article from that which the Apostles designed when they made it, and which continued among all the Apostles Successors till the year of our Lord 150, which Irenaeus must needs have known, being then above thirty years of age when Justin writ, and Tertullian, though he was younger, could not but have red or heard of this Innovation.  
But not to rely only on the Authority of Irenaeus and Tertullian, for the sense of that Article about the Person of Jesus Christ; we know the Jews understood very well the meaning of the words, Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; for they knew, as may be seen in several places in Philo, that the word {αβγδ}, Lord, was equivalent to that of {αβγδ}, or God; only that the first expresseth the Empire of God. How much better then was it known to the Christians? who, as Pliny saith, in his time, before Justin Martyr was born, sang in their Assembly a Hymn to Christ, as God. The title of only Son is of the same power with {αβγδ} among the Jews, as I shall show from Philo, who often calls him the First-born; and St. Paul represents him under the same Idea, as being Heir of all things, 
●… b. ●….  and by whom God made the World; and therefore justly the Object of Adoration of the Angels.  
Since we have not left us any Explication of the Creed by the Cerinthians or the Ebionites, which they could pretend to have received from the Apostles, M. N. must pardon us if we stick to the Notions, which the Fathers declared that they did receive from the Apostles, I say such Fathers as Irenaeus and Tertullian, who were the first that mentioned that Rule of Faith, especially since they are conformable to those Notions of the ancient Synagogue, and to the Writings of the New Testament.  
But have we not reason to admire the Fickleness of M. N's judgement in letting himself discover a mighty Secret for an opportunity of showing his critics? He tells us there are shrewd Presumptions, that to the Institution of Baptism by our Saviour in the Gospel of St. Matthew, these words have been added, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. What are those Presumptions? He tells us only this one; It appears in the Acts, and Epistles of the Apostles, that the Apostles never baptized in that form of words, but only in the name of the Lord Jesus. But who  told him that those words, In the name of Jesus, were the form in which they baptized? I should have thought those words had signified no more than baptizing them to be Disciples of Jesus, as baptizing into Moses, or baptizing in the name of Paul, signifies no more than baptizing them to be the Disciples of Moses or of Paul. And if these words were not the very form of Baptism, how can he say, that those other words, which Christ prescribed as his form, were never used by the Apostles, and therefore these words were foisted into the Gospel of S. Matthew by some Impostor? It would have been a very great satisfaction if he had  told us whether he made this Discovery by comparing our S. Matthew with the nazarenes Copy, which is perhaps to be found in MS. in some Libraries. But this would be to ask too much of him; for though he will not allow us this form that is in S. Matthew, he doth at the same time admit of the Apostles Creed, which is really no more than that form of Baptism, or the Profession of believing in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost, which they made before they were baptized.  
That which he tells us of S. Clement, is altogether new. Photias, saith he, and Petavius, and Huetius, three great critics, lament that S. Clement was only an Unitarian; because he gives the Person of Jesus Christ but very mean Characters, and infinitely below those of Divinity. M. N. quotes some passages of Clement, which he thinks have nothing in them too high; and because S. Clement in his Epistle, where he quotes that glorious Description which S. Paul hath made in his first Chapter to the Hebrews, did not quote the 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12th Verses, where Jesus Christ is called God, and where the Creation of the World is ascribed to him; tho' M. N. pretends thata convenient Solution may be put upon these words of S. Paul, ye he boldly affirms that it appears S. Clement acknowledged nothing in Christ more than Humanity; and that these five Verses of the first Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews might well have been added by the like fraud, that hath been used in many places of the Epistles and Gospels. His reason for it is, that S. Clement, who is said to have interpnted the Epistle of S. Paul to the Hebrews, could not be ignorant of the great Title of Jesus Christ, and would without doubt have expressed it, if he had designed to extol the Dignity of the Person of our Saviour.  
What a heap of false Suppositions is this? First, it is false that Photius believed S. Clement to be an Unitarian. It is possible, that Photius might not observe in reading S. Clement's Epistle, that he treats Jesus Christ as God. But if Photius did not give all the attention that he could in reading, doth it follow from thence that Clement was an Unitarian? 
§. 1.&§. 58.  We have by good fortune S. Clement's Epistle preserved to us, and we may judge of it ourselves: when he wisheth, The Grace of God, and his Peace, may be multiplied through Jesus Christ, to them of Corinth; and adds at the end, the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. What doth he mean, but that Jesus Christ may distribute the Grace of God? 
§. 16.  And is not that the Sense of S. Paul, who wisheth, that Grace and Peace may be multiplied from God, and from Jesus Christ?  
When he saith, that our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the sceptre of the Majesty of God, did not come, {αβγδ}, in the Pomp of Grandeur and Pride, as he well might; but with all humility, as the Holy Spirit had spoken of him Isaiah LIII; doth it not show that he followed the Description of S. Paul, who tells the Philippians; that our Lord Jesus Christ being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God; or did not affect to seem equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a Servant? Doth not this show, that, according to S. Clement, our Lord Jesus Christ was in being before he choose the form in which he appeared?  
How can M. N. 
§. 21.  who doth not believe that we ought to adore or call upon Jesus Christ, reconcile this Expression of S. Clemens, {αβγδ}, &c. Let us pray to our Lord Jesus Christ, whose Blood was given for us? For this {αβγδ} properly signifies the Prayers that are made to God with adoration.  
What doth Clemens mean, 
§. 32.  when he saith that Jesus Christ was born of Abraham according to the flesh? Doth it not appear that he was well acquainted with S. Paul's distinction, Rom. IX. 5. Whose are the Fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever, Amen?  
I don't mention that which he saith in§. 36. where he quotes the first of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where S. Paul, who follows the terms of Wisdom, VII. 26. exalts him above the Angels, as being the Son of God, and ascribes to him an Empire over all things, such as is described in Ps. CX. of which Empire no creature is capable.  
But I would fain know of what sort of Unitarians M. N. will have Clemens to have been? was he an Ebionite? No For he is continually quoting the Writings of S. Paul, which the Ebionites rejected. Was he a Nazaren? No For he quotes not only S. Matthew's Gospel according to our Greek Copy, but also the other Gospels, except S. John's; which was not then written. Was he a Cerinthian? No For he quotes the Writings of the Old Testament. Sure this must have been a strange sort of Unitarian.  
I know very well that M. N. observes that the title of Chief Priest is the most glorious Character that Clement gives to Jesus Christ, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, which is that we speak of. But after all, he ought not to be ignorant, that that title in the style of the first Christians, as well as the ancient Jews, was the title of the {αβγδ}. This may be proved from several places of Philo. 
Quis rerum divin. haer. p. 509. B.C.  But I shall content myself with quoting this one. Caeterum illi angelorum principi Sermoni antiquissimo hoc eximium donum concessit Pater oimpotens, ut in confinio stans, facturam à factore discerneret. Idem supplex immortalem appellat pro mortalibus deprecans,& à summo rege legatione ad subditos sungitur. Quod donum tam libenter accipit, ut jactet etiam, dicens,& ego steteram medius inter vos& dominum, videlicet nec ingenitus ut Deus, nec genitus ut vos, said inter extrema medius, apud utrosque agens obsidem; apud Creatorem, ut sides siat nunquam cum deleturum aut deser●… rum universum genus revolutum in perturbationem ab ordine; apud creaturam vero, ut ea certam spem habeat, nunquam Deo propitio curam operis sui defore. Nam ego denuncio creaturae pacem ab eo qui bella tollit Deo, pacis custode perpetuo  
Secondly, it is not true, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written originally in Hebrew, though some of the ancients have thought so upon a very light conjecture, because, say they, he must have written in Hebrew to those who were Hebrews by birth. One needs but red it attentively, and compare Rom. 12. with Heb. 10. and Heb. 1. with Coloss. 1. to see, that it is an Original, and that it was written by S. Paul himself, as well as his other Epistles. No Man of judgement, except M. N. could have thought otherwise, supposing that the nazarenes, to whom the Epistle to the Hebrews was directed, were so numerous in the East, because it highly reflects upon them to have lost the Original Tongue of that very Epistle, which was written to their Forefathers, and to have kept only the Greek Copy of it.  
Thirdly, it is the highest presumption to conclude, because S. Clemens quotes only that which goes before, and that which follows in the first Epistle to the Hebrews, that those five Verses were foisted in after the Epistle was spread abroad and better known. At this rate of judging by Quotations, one that would take the pains to observe, might reject a great part of the Bible, and we could not be certain of any.  
But saith M. N. the Epistle to the Hebrews was not reckoned a genuine piece of Scripture any where in the West, nor in many Churches in the East before the end of the fourth Century; and that might have made it the more easy to have been corrupted. In this he shows what it is to meddle with things that he doth not understand. It can't be denied, and this very Writer acknowledges, that Clemens Romanus quoted this Epistle, in the Epistle which he writ in the name, and by the order of the Church of Rome; so that by his own confession it was owned in the West in the Apostles times.  
Irenaeus, who also writ in the West, quotes the Epistle to the Hebrews: Tertullian and S. Cyprian, who lived in Africa; all these quoted it as caconical. But to put this matter out of question, S. Peter the Apostle is a Witness above all exception to prove that S. Paul writ an Epistle to the Hebrews.  
That which made several of the ancients doubt of its Authority towards the middle of the third Century, was the business of the Novatians, who made use of its Authority to justify their refusing to admit to public Penance such as had fallen into Idolatry to avoid persecution. But after all, if one seriously considers M. N's method, it tempts one to wish that he was sent to preach the Gospel to the Mahometans, of whom some maintain,( as well as he) that the Gospels and Epistles have been corrupted by the Christians in many places, and that the Christians have soisted in what they pleased that made for their opinions.  
Now for another instance of M. N's honesty, where Dr. Bull hath quoted a place in Clement's second Epistle to the Corinthians, that might have solved the Objection. {αβγδ}. The words signify, Brethren we ought so to think of Jesus Christ as of God, as of the Judge of the quick and the dead. There can no other Sense be put upon them, though M. N. saith they must be thus translated: Brethren we ought to think of Christ, as we do of God, namely, that he also is our Judge. If it is want of skill in the Greek that makes M. N. commit such Error, and rail so at Dr. Bull for his own Ignorance; let the Socinians look them another Champion, for there is no Grammarian but will say he deserves to be whipped for construing it so. {αβγδ}.... and {αβγδ} are said of the same Person, if I know any thing of Grammar. Photius understood it as Dr. Bull hath, and M. N. thinks Photius sincere. But what need we care whether Photius was a good Grammarian or no. 
§. 10.  Doth not Clemens explain himself about the Preexistence of Christ, when he saith, Jesus Christ who hath saved us, being first a Spirit, and afterwards becoming flesh, and so he hath called us? No, saith M. N. let the Grammar be how it will, the Scriptures declare that Jesus Christ is Judge because he is a Man. Poor Man! Could he be capable of judging, that is to say, of knowing the Hearts, if he was but a Man? It is not said simply, as M. N. pretends it is, that Jesus Christ is to judge because he is a Man, but because he is the Son of Man, by Excellence; he that is described by Daniel in the VIIth of his Prophesies, that is the messiah, who was to be so, the Son of Man, as to be also the Son of God.   

CHAP. V. That the nazarenes, the Ebionites, the Minaeans and the Alogians, were justly looked upon as heretics.  
I Am now come to the nazarenes, the Ebionites, the Minaeans and the Alogians; whom M. N. represents to us as the true Depositaries of the Faith of the Apostles: And he endeavours to persuade us, that the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem, and Hegesippus, who calls them Orthodox, and all the Bishops and People in the World that were in their Communion, were true Unitarians.  
Dr. Bull having acknowledged, that if the Jews, who were converted by Jesus Christ and the Apostles in Judaea, and who continued their Assemblies till the destruction of Jerusalem, did not own the Divinity of Jesus Christ, but believed him a mere Man, that Question is at an end between the Socinians and us. M. N. sets himself to prove; First, that the first Christians were called nazarenes and Minaeans in Judaea. Then he proves from Epiphanius, that the Cerinthians who observed the Law of Moses, and the nazarenes began at the same time. He saith, that the Ebionites were the same with them, only they had a different name; because, tho' some of them believed Jesus to be born of the Virgin and of Joseph, and the rest acknowledged him to be conceived of the Holy Ghost without Joseph, they still agreed that he was but a mere Man, which was the reason of Origen's saying that all the Jews that believed Jesus Christ to be the messiah were called Ebionites. From all this he concludes, that the first Disciples of Jesus Christ, and of the Apostles, rejected the Doctrine of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and that the Body of these nazarenes, under the Government of the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem, preserved the true Faith of the Apostles touching the Person of Jesus Christ; that is as much as to say, they held the Opinion of the Unitarians.  
It is not necessary to repeat what I have formerly said of the Minaeans, from the Testimony of S. Jerom in his 89th. Epistle to S. Austin, that they were in the Synagogue, and that they were not a Body of Christians. I shall only take notice, that the Name of Minim, that is to say, heretics, was never originally given to any People, Sect; or Party of Christians. It was the Name which the Pharisees gave to the Jews that were Sadducees: Afterwards the Pharisees gave it to those that rejected their Traditions, whom they looked upon as heretics for that reason. Afterward the Jews gave that Name to the Christians, because in teaching that Jesus was God they seemed to destroy the capital Article of the Jewish Religion, which is the Unity of God. But most particularly they gave that name to such Christians, as, tho' they continued in Communion with them, did nevertheless aclowledge Jesus to be the messiah.  
As for the nazarenes, I aclowledge that the Christians were at first called by that Name in Judaea: But I deny that those, whom they afterwards called nazarenes or Ebionites, were the Body of the Apostles Disciples, that were established at Jerusalem or in Palestine.  
To convince M. N. of this, I desire he will consider: First, That those who followed the Doctrine of the Apostles in Palestine, were indeed called nazarenes, but only by the Jews; because they acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth for the messiah, whom the Jews looked upon as a false Prophet. It is in this sense that they call the Disciples of Jesus Christ heretics, and their Doctrine an heresy.[ Act. 24.14.] In this sense they have continued to call the Christians nazarenes in that Curse which they pronounce in the Synagogue against all Christians, as Justin Martyr saith[ against Trypho p. 323.]  
But this Name of nazarenes came afterward to have another signification among the Christians, as may be seen in the ancient Writers. And this begun without doubt after the Disciples of Jesus Christ were called Christians, which was first at Antioch, as St. Luke tells us, in the Acts.  
And indeed we do not see that the nazarenes were known after that time except among the Jews, who called the Christians so by way of reproach. Tacit. An. 15. calleth them Christians hat were persecuted at Rome by Nero in the Year of our Lord 64. After that, Nero made Laws against them by the name of Christians. Pliny speaks of the Christians in Bithynia in Trajan's time. The Emperour Hadrian sent a Writing to Minucius Fundanus Pro-consul of Asia, 
Eus. H. E. IV. 9, 10.  in favour of the Christians. The Author of the Epistle to Diognetus, which is among the Works of Justin Martyr, describes the Life of the Christians, but doth not call them nazarenes, yet he calleth himself a Disciple of the Apostles. Justin Martyr witnesses that even all the heretics took the general name of Christians. And those whom Barchocba persecuted in Palestine are called Christians: But they are never called nazarenes by Justin Martyr, who describes the Jews cruelties against them. Where then were the nazarenes, who were so famous according to M. N. and who, if we may believe him, were the only true Christians in Palestine?  
Epiphanius speaks of nazarenes as heretics; 
Haer. 29. Sect. 7.  but he can't decide whether they believed Jesus Christ to be a mere Man, or to be God. Indeed Irenaeus doth not speak of these nazarenes, whom he would not have forborn to call heretics, believing as he did the Divinity of Jesus Christ, if they had denied it in his time, and especially if they had made any considerable Body. Eusebius saith nothing of them. S. 
C. 4.  Jerom mentions them in his Treatise of Ecclesiastical Writers, but doth not tell us their Opinions. Theodoret saith, that the nazarenes, and the Ebionites were heretics, that appeared under the Reign of Domitian. It is plain, that these ancient Doctors would not have been at such a loss to show the Belief of the nazarenes, if there had been great Churches through all Asia, as M N. imagines. For these Fathers would( without doubt) have known these nazarenes, and would have learnt their Opinions from the Books of their Authors.  
2dly. The primitive Names, such as that of nazarenes, are not always a mark of Succession in Doctrine. No one doubts that the Apostles Disciples were first called Christians at Antioch; and yet M. N. must aclowledge, that the Christians at Antioch and all over the World, held the same Faith with his pretended nazarenes at Jerusalem. How then should it come to pass, that Paulus of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, should be condemned as an heretic; who according to M. N. was a true Nazaren.  
3dly. How chanceth it that M. N. doth not observe what Epiphanius saith, that the Cerinthians and the nazarenes began at the same time? If by the nazarenes M. N. understandeth the first Disciples of the Apostles at Jerusalem, they began immediately after our Savour's Ascension, and not under the Reign of Domitian. As for the Cerinthians, Epiphanius assures us, that they began at Antioch a little before the Decree of Jerusalem, that is to say, about Seventeen years after our Saviour's Ascension. For if we may believe Epiphanius, it was against Cerinthus's Doctrines, that the Assembly was held at Jerusalem. But after all, the ancient Tradition which is delivered by Irenaeus from the mouth of Polycarp, saith, 
Lib. III. c. 3.  that Cerinthus was rejected at Ephesus by S. John; probably after his return from Patmos, that is after the Year of our Lord 96.  
4thly. How can M. N. reconcile all this with what he says, that the Apostles Creed was the rule of Faith in this Primitive Church? Were the Ebionites or the Symmachians( who believed Jesus Christ to be born of Joseph and Mary) also of the Body of the Apostolical Church, 
Orig. ●. V. p. 272.& 274.  and reckoned true nazarenes? This was a strange Communion. The Ebionites had the Apostles Creed. Then they believed Jesus Christ to be conceived of the Holy-Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, and notwithstanding communicated with such, as believed Jesus Christ to be born of Joseph and Mary.  
5thly. Is M. N. in earnest when he saith, That Origen maintains that all the Jews who acknowledged Jesus Christ to be the messiah were called Ebionites, and that the Ebionites are nazarenes, and consequently the ancient School of the Apostles? Hath he forgot that Origen accounted the Ebionites to be heretics? 
Orig. against cells. L. V. p. 272.  M. N. is forced to aclowledge that he accounted them such; and so he calls them and distinguishes them from the Church.  
6thly. What doth M. N. think of, when he condemns Epiphanius for saying that the Ebionites rejected S. 
L. III. c. 26.  Pauls Epistles, 
Againct. Cel. L. V. p. 274. Haeret. Fabul. L. II. c. 1.  and called him an Apostate? Doth not Irenaeus say the same thing. And Origen in his piece against Celsus? The like is also related by Theodoret.  
7thly. I should be glad to know, if the nazarenes, or the Ebionites, or the Cerinthians were the same with those in the Apostles times, whom the Jews called nazarenes. Why doth not M. N. receive the Gospel of the nazarenes, and why doth he reject it, as Apocryphal and Superstitious. Did these first Christians, who ought to have served for a Pattern to all others, invent a Gospel that was rejected by the other Sects?  
8thly. It would be well if M. N. would let us know how S. Matthew's Gospel, such as we have it with the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, and S. Lukes Gospel came to be received as caconical, after they had been rejected as supposititious pieces by the Ebionites and the Symmachians, who were both of them nazarenes?  
9thly. How came it to pass that the Ebionites, that is, the true Unitarians, continued in Communion with the Cerinthians, who affirmed that S. John's Gospel was written by Cerinthus, and not by S. John the Evangelist?  
But it is time now to undeceive M. N. if it be possible, and to give him a more faithful Account of the Cerinthians, and of the Ebionites, 
L. I. c. 25.  than that which he hath set before us. See what Irenaeus saith of them. Cerinthus asserted, that the World was not made by God, but by a certain Virtue wholly different, and very far from that Principality which is over all things, and which knew nothing of the God that is over all. As for Jesus Christ, he believed it impossible that he should be born of a Virgin, and therefore taught that he was born of Joseph and Mary like other men; tho' he did excel other men in Prudence and in Wisdom. He saith, that the Christ descended upon Jesus, from the Principality which is over all things, in the Likeness of a Dove, and then Jesus Christ revealed the Father, who before was not known; and that at last Christ, who was not capable of suffering, forsook Jesus, and left him to suffer Death.  
For the Ebionites, their Doctrines were not altogether so impious, but they received no other Gospel but S. Matthew's, and rejected the Apostle S. Paul as an Apostate. They observed all the Ceremonies of the Law, and lived as Jews, and adored Jerusalem, as being the house of God. This is what Irenaeus saith of them; 
Ibid. L. I. c. 26.  who also ascribes to them the Belief that Jesus Christ was born of Joseph and Mary; which was common to them with the Cerinthians: 
L. III. c. 24.  And saith that in this they followed the Doctrine of Aquila, and of Theodotion. If there was any of them afterward, who believed Jesus Christ to have been conceived of the Holy Ghost without Joseph, they must have received this Belief after Tertullian's time. 
De earn Christi, c. 18.  For he speaks of them as Irenaeus doth.  
How can M. N. forbear blushing for his Folly, in looking on these People as the Disciples of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, and affirming that the Christian Church was composed of such execrable Wretches? Could such as these receive the Apostles Creed? Could they look upon the Apostles as their Masters? Could they pass for Christians in the judgement of any Man, that is himself a Christian? M. N. ought to think himself obliged to those that defend the Trinity, and the Godhead of our Saviour, for having delivered the World from these people, who rejected the most Sacred Principles of the Christian Faith; and for having preserved to the Evangelists and Apostles the right which Jesus Christ had given them of being the Teachers of his Religion.  
As for the pretended Gospel of S. Matthew, which was in the hands of the nazarenes, it is easy to convince M. N. that he hath spoken at random when he builds so many things upon what he had heard of it. If he had been acquainted with S. Jerom his Works, he would have found some Quotations out of that Gospel of the nazarenes, which would have undeceived him. S. Jerom cites that Gospel in Ezek. 16. in Isai. 8. and in Matth. 13. and brings these words, as the words of our Saviour; Modo me arripuit matter mea, Spiritus Sanctus. Now my Mother the Holy Ghost hath possessed me. I am sure M. N. will never find these words in the true Gospel of S. Matthew. And for the sense of them, as it depends upon the knowledge of the Jewish Tradition, which M. N. condemns and despises so much, it will be a Riddle to him for ever, although they are easily understood by those who are acquainted with the Jewish Notions.  
After all, when M. N. is pleased, to make all the Christians that came out of the Synagogue to be called Ebionites, and grounds his Assertion upon a passage of Origen, who saith, that those among the Jews, who received Jesus Christ for the messiah are called Ebionites; 
Ibid. L. II. p. 56.  he imposes upon his Reader. For Origen doth not say, that these Jews left the Synagogue to make separate Assemblies. 
Ib. Contr. cells. L. II.  What Author ever did say so? Origen speaks of people that lived in the Body of the Synagogue; much like what S. 
Jer. Ep. 89. ad Aug.  Jerom saith in the passage that I have quoted. And indeed Origen exposes Celsus for his ignorance, in making a Jew speak to Jews that were converted to Christianity, otherwise then he ought to have done, for want of knowing that these Jews whom the Christians called Ebionites continued in the Body of the Synagogue, and observed the Laws of it. Tho' otherwise they confessed that Jesus Christ was the messiah promised to their Nation.   

CHAP. VI. That neither Hegesippus, nor the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem, were of the opinion of the Cerinthians, or the Ebionites: And that the Alogi were heretics as well as the Cerinthians.  
IT is easy to be judged from all this; how solidly M. N. refutes Dr. Bull, who maintains from a passage in Hegesippus that the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem were Orthodox, and acknowledged the Divinity of Jesus Christ; and that all the other Bishops in the World, and particularly those of Rome were Orthodox, because they held Communion with the Bishops of Jerusalem.  
M. N. pretends on the other side: 1st. That Hegesippus in his accounts of heretics, doth not account the Cerinthians and the Ebionites among the heretics: From whence it follows that he did not think them heretics, but Orthodox, and therefore Hegesippus was himself of their Opinion.  
2dly. That this appears, because Hegesippus was a Jew by Nation; that all the Jews converted to Christianity being Ebionites, according to Origen, Hegesippus was also a Nazaren or an Ebionite; and that the nazarenes being accounted by Hegesippus to be Orthodox, therefore the Fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem must have been nazarenes, and that all the rest of the Christian World was Nazaren, because in Communion with them.  
It is enough to put one out of Patience to have such a Man to deal with. M. N. saith Hegesippus was an Ebionite, that is, denied the Divinity of Christ. What Proof does he bring for this? He was originally a Jew. I will grant it him if he pleases. And that Hegesippus mentions S. Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew: I grant that also. But what then? Will M. N. from thence infer, that Hegesippus was an Ebionite? That is a small piece of Sophistry. The Ebionites, who were Jews of the Synagogue, had in Hebrew a Book which they called S. Matthews Gospel; but it was not the same that we all now make use of. For the Ebionites had taken the liberty to cut off the genealogy of our Saviour, and what else they pleased out of S. Matthews Gospel, and had added to it what they thought fit, as I have shown by S. Jerom his Testimony. And because Hegesippus was a Jew by Birth, that he was therefore an Ebionite: What a consequence is this? He was not a Jew of the Synagogue, but a Christian by profession; and he might as well make use of the pretended S. Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew, as S. Jerom could translate it into Latin without being an Ebionite.  
Secondly, Hegesippus converss'd at Rome with Anicetus, Eleutherus, and Soter, and found them of the same opinion with the fifteen first Bishops of Jerusalem: So according to M. N. all the other Bishops in the World, who were in their Communion, were Ebionites and nazarenes. If this consequence were good, I wonder how Hegesippus came to say, that the Church was pure from heresy no longer than till the beginning of the second Century. He ought to have said that the Church had preserved her virginity till this time, that is till the year 170. Whereas he saith expressly, that the heretics peeped out of their holes, and began to corrupt the Apostles Doctrine immediately after their Deaths.  
Thirdly, If Hegesippus did not take the Cerinthians for heretics, how came it to pass that he continued for so long a time in Communion with the Roman Bishops, namely with those three great Bishops Anicetus, Eleutherus, and Soter? For that these Bishops accounted them heretics, it sufficiently appears from Irenaeus, who accounted them heretics; and was not in Communion only, but in high esteem with those three Bishops, as well as was Pothinus Bishop of Lions, whom he succeeded in his bishopric.  
But, saith M. N. Hegesippus, giving an account of the heretics of his time, did not reckon the Cerinthians among them; and Valesius was in the wrong to insert the words, Et alii, to take them in. But herein M. N. betrays his Ignorance as well as his Rashness. Hegesippus speaks of the Sects that were among the Jews before Jesus Christ, and shows that from them arose several heretics among the Christians: Such as the Simonians, the Menandrians, the Marcionites, the Carpocratians, the Valentinians, the Basilidians, and the Saturnilians. Was he obliged to speak of all the heretics, when he was only speaking of those which owed their Original more immediately to the Heresies of the Synagogue?  
But besides, it is easy to convince M. N. of the falseness of his position, as to Hegesippus his Belief.  
First, It is certain that he came to Rome in the time of Anicetus, who began in the year 150, and he lived there at Rome to the time of Eleutherus, who began in 170, and died in the year 185. This is what Eusebius tells us, 
L. IV. c. 2.  that Hegesippus himself witnesseth. He declares that he lived in the Communion of the Church of Rome, and of its Bishop. Now this Bishop was of the same opinion with Irenaeus, who was in Communion with him, and who reckoned the Cerinthians and the Ebionites to be heretics; therefore Hegesippus reckoned them heretics as well as Irenaeus did.  
Secondly, It is certain that Justin Martyr, who died at Rome under persecution, was always looked upon as Orthodox in the Questions about the Nature of Jesus Christ. Now he is the first that treated of Heresies, and writ an History of their Authors. 
Et in Eus. H. E. IV. 2.  He witnesseth it himself in his Apology. Those that came afterward, as Irenaeus who writ against Heresies in Eleutherus's time, 
L. III. c. 3.  as appears from himself; and Hippolytus, who as far as we can judge followed him, did but copy from Justin. Now it is certain that Irenaeus and Hippolytus accounted the Cerinthians and the Ebionites heretics after Justin Martyr. Therefore the Church of Rome, in which Irenaeus and Hippolytus lived for many years in great credit, and consequently Hegesippus accounted the Cerinthians and the Ebionites heretics.  
To avoid this consequence, it must be supposed that the Church of Rome changed its opinions all on a sudden after Hegesippus his departure from Rome; that Irenaeus changed in like manner, with all the Christian Gauls; that those who were Orthodox in Justin Martyr's time, became all of them heretics in the space of fifteen or sixteen years; and that, when a small difference among the Western Churches about Easter-day, had troubled the peace of the Church, and given occasion for several Assemblies of the Bishops to compose this difference, all the Churches changed their Faith almost in a night, without perceiving it, without making the least reflection, or being at all moved: The Catechists changed their Instructions to the Catechumens; the Bishops the style of their Sermons, and of their Christian Common Prayers; those that writ against the Jews and the Pagans altered all their Ideas, and the whole method of the controversy: All the People changed the form of their Prayers; and in a word, that all went to bed, Ebionites and Cerinthians, and did awake in the opinions of Justin Martyr; and all this when most part of them had never heard of Justin Martyr's Books, nor of his Conference with Trypho the Jew, in which M. N. saith that he advanceth new Hypotheses about the Person of our Saviour Jesus Christ.  
We are now come to the Alogi, whom M. N. takes for the Christians that were converted from Pagans, as those that were converted from Jews according to him were nazarenes. So taking into the number of the old Unitarians, all those that were converted by Jesus Christ and his Apostles. He supposes then that they bore the name of Alogi, because they denied the Logos or Word, of which S. John speaks.  
Epiphanius is the first that hath mentioned the Alogi; and he gave them that name of his own head, as he declares twice in his Refutation of them; and, as M. N. himself acknowledgeth. Epiphanius tells us that they appeared after the Quartodecimans; that is, after the year of our Lord 190. They adopted the opinions of Cerinthus and Ebion, which had made Jesus Christ to be a mere Man, and to be born of Joseph and Mary. Against which opinions S. John's Gospel and his Epistles were written, as saith Irenaeus; and these pieces giving their Disciples some trouble, they set themselves to elude the force of them. First, to make the three first Gospels contradictory to S. John's, to destroy the authority of it. And, Secondly, they were so ridiculous as to assert that that Gospel and the Revelation were written by Cerinthus, and not by S. John.  
It is probable that Epiphanius would by this term of Alogi, intimate such heretics as rejected S. John's Gospel and the Revelation: both because they rejected the {αβγδ}, and because they denied the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the prophesy times promised in the Gospel. For Irenaeus speaks of certain heretics without naming them, of whom he saith: 
L. III. c. 2. p. 259. C. D.  Alii vero ut donum Spiritus frustrentur quod in novissimis Temporibus secundum placitum Patris effusum est in humanum genus, illam speciem non admittunt, quae est secundùm[ Joannis] Evangelium, in qua Paracletum se missurum Dominus promisit; simul& Evangelium,& Propheticum repellunt spiritum. Infelices[ verè] qui Pseudoprophetae quidem esse volunt, Prophetiae vero gratiam repellunt ab Ecclesia: Similia patients his, qui propter eos qui in hypocrisi veniunt, etiam à fratrum communicatione●se abstinent. Datur autem intelligi, quod hujusmodi neque Apostolum Paulum recipiant. In ea enim Epistola quae est ad Corinthios de Propheticis charismatibus diligenter loquutus est,& scit viros,& mulieres in Ecclesia prophetantes. Per haec igitur omnia peccantes in spiritum Dei, in irremissibile incidunt peccatum.  
These however are the People that M. N. calls the body of the Pagans that were converted to Christianity. He represents them to us, as the body of the Church; and his proof for it is, because Theodotus about the year 190, forsook the party of the platonic Christians, who believed the Preexistence of our Saviour, and joined himself to the Alogi. And after this, he spits his venom at Eusebius, for affirming that Theodotus was the first that made Jesus Christ a mere Man.  
What Injury hath poor Eusebius done to M. N? He was according to M. N. a great Unitarian; though he calls Paul of Samosata,( the Unitarians Favourite) an heretic and Disciple of Artemon. Eusebius hath not said one word of what M. N. ascribes to him concerning Theodotus: He only relates a pretty long passage out of an Author that had writ in the beginning of the third Century against the heresy of Artemon, a famous Unitarian. 
Apud ●us. H.E. ●. V. c. 28.  This nameless Author saith that Theodotus, whom he looks upon as the first Author of the Unitarians Doctrine, was excommunicated by Pope Victor; from whence he infers that Victor was not of the Unitarians opinion as they supposed him to be, pretending that their Belief had been the general opinion of the Church, and of the Apostles Successors, until the time of Victor and of Zephyrin, Bishops of Rome.  
But how doth all this prove that the Alogi were the Pagans that were converted by the Apostles? They are People that rejected the Gospel of St. John, his Revelations and Epistles, as the Cerinthians had done. That is, they were Cerinthians; or if you please they were those who are described by Irenaeus as a sort of heretics. Theodotus, as M. N. truly saith, being excommunicated by Victor, went over to their party; what then? doth this prove that they were the body of the Church that were converted by the Apostles from among the Gentiles? It certainly shows that they resolved not to aclowledge the Godhead of Jesus Christ; and therefore thought they must reject the Gospel of S. John, and his other Writings. And yet they shewed more honesty in doing so than the Socinians, who have thought that they might receive S. John's Gospel, and yet deny the Divinity of Christ, which Julian the Apostate, confessed to be clearly expressed by S. John.  
After all, I cannot but wonder how M. N. can think of the choice of Witnesses that he hath made to confirm his System, without being ashamed of them himself. The nazarenes who were his converted Jews, received no other Gospel but that of S. Matthew, and that very much adultered. The Ebionites, who were another sort of his converted Jews, rejected all the Epistles of S. Paul. The Alogi, who were his Gentile-Converts, rejected all the Works of S. John. And all this for the Hundred and fifty first years of Christianity, and something longer. How then came the Books of the New Testament to be afterwards so well received at Jerusalem, and in Judaea? And how came they to be after that so well known all over the World?  
By M. N's reckoning, the Trinitarians that were born after Justin Martyr's time, must have come and opened the eyes of the Apostolical Churches among the Jews, and also among the Gentiles; for it was by them that the Apostolical Books came to have their due authority. And therefore let M. N. magnify his Primitive Unitarians as much as he will, he shall never persuade any considering Man to believe, that they who made so bold with the Apostles, as to reject so many of their Books, did not also reject what they pleased of the Apostolical Doctrines; or that the Apostles Doctrines were not preserved by them that rescued out of the hands of those heretics so many of those Books which the Socinians do now aclowledge to be Divine Scriptures.  
The last Monument or Remain of the Apostolical Succession, which agrees with the Socinian Doctrine concerning our Saviour, saith M. N. are the Recognitions, ascribed to Clemens Romanus. He calls the Author of these, an Ebionite; though he believeth it was a piece falsely put under the name of Clement. M. N. doth very well to show his fair dealing in this. He hath rejected Barnabas, Hermas, and Ignatius, as suppositious Authors, and therefore of no authority in this controversy. And yet now he gravely quotes these Recognitions as a monument of the Apostolical Succession. Is there not a great deal of Justice in this? But then, it seems, others of the Primitive Unitarans were Forgers, as well as Cerinthus; he was not the only Man of this trade, though perhaps he was the first of them; for he forged Revelations and Visions under the name of S. John, which gave the occasion to them, that as M. N. elsewhere observes, would have Cerinthus to be the Author of the Revelation. Now here is another of their gang that forges a Book under the name of Clemens, the Disciple of the Apostles.  
But how came M. N. to know that the Author of the Recognitions was an Ebionite? he tells us, he took Dupin's word for it. But he would have done better to have red the Recognitions himself, and then he would have seen that this Author favours the Arians, and not the Ebionites.  
After this it appears with how much vanity, and how little reason, M. N. concludes all the Successors of the Apostles were Unitarians. He doth indeed quote a long passage of the Author that writ against the Artemonites, in the beginning of the third Century, who saith that those heretics had the insolence to affirm this: For they boast that their Doctrines continued in peaceable possession of the Churches that were planted by the Apostles, and by their Successors, till the times of Victor and of Zephirin.  
But the same Author confutes them with several Arguments. 1. From the authority of Scripture. 2. From the Works of some of the Fathers whom he quotes, such as Justin, Miltiades, Tatian, Clemens of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and Melito. Whereupon M. N. observes that Justin who lived in the middle of the second Century, is the first that he hath name; and from thence he infers that Justin was the first that set up the opinion of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. A pretty piece of Sophistry! as if the quoting of five or six of the Fathers who defended the Godhead of Jesus Christ before Victor and Zephirin's time, was not amply enough to destroy the assertion of Artemon, which was the thing he designed to confute. If Artemon had been of his opinion, would not he have been a fool to put off the beginning of the Doctrine of our Saviour's Divinity to the time of Victor, who lived above thirty years after Justin Martyr's death?   

CHAP. VII. That Justin Martyr was no Innovator.  
IT is nevertheless upon this ridiculous foundation, that M. N. endeavours to prove that Justin Martyr was the first that innovated; in affirming that it was the {αβγδ} that appeared to the ancient patriarches under the Old Testament, and that was called by the name of Jehovah; from whence he concludes the Pre-existence, and the Divinity of the {αβγδ}, or Word.  
To show that Justin was an Innovator, and asserted this without ground, M. N. brings divers considerations upon several passages of the Old Testament, where it is said that God appeared, or that God spoken; in which passages the Socinians endeavour to prove that it was an Angel, and not God that is spoken of. And besides, he brings the authorities of some of the ancients, and late Writers, that contradict Justin Martyr about these notions.  
But he doth this with very little judgement: For the question is not, whether Justin brings some proofs to confirm the Pre-existence and Godhead of the Word, that the other Orthodox Fathers did not think fit to make use of; but whether Justin was the first that advanced this Doctrine among the Christians, being the product of his own Brain, and before unheard of. His Dialogue with Trypho plainly shows the contrary: It was writ about the year 140. He there sets forth the Ebionites, or the Cerinthians, as People that made no great body among the Christians; which would have been very impertinent in one that had first brought up the opinion of the Godhead and Pre-existence of our Saviour: and the Jew would have laughed at him for proposing to him the belief of a Doctrine that he had never heard of before from any other Christian.  
But, in truth, that the Christians held this Doctrine of the Godhead of Jesus Christ was known to the Pagans, as appears by Pliny's Epistle to Trajan, and the Philopatris that is among Lucian's works; where the Doctrine of the Trinity, and of the Godhead of Jesus Christ, and of the procession of the Holy Ghost, is set forth and explained by that scoffing Heathen, as dictinctly as it is at this day by any Orthodox Divine; and it was known to the Jews to be an opinion of the Christians, and that a principal one; as appears by Justin's Dialogue with Trypho.  
The controversy between M. N. and the Church, turns upon this question, whether Justin Martyr was an Innovator or not; that is, whether the Doctrine of our Saviour's Pre-existence is the ancient Doctrine of the Apostles, and the Primitive Christians? Or whether we have abandoned the Faith of the Apostles and first Christians, and taken up a fantastical notion that was invented by Justin Martyr?  
This question being of so great importance, ought to be considered with a more than ordinary attention. Justin presented his first Apology, which is the second in his Works now extant, to the Emperor pus in the year of our Lord 139. He afterward writ his Dialogue against Trypho, which contains a dispute with a Jew about the truth of the Christian Religion. This appears, 
Dial. p. 340.  because in his Dialogue he speaks of his Apology. Justin lived at Rome afterward till he writ his second Apology,( the first in his Works) and in the year of our Lord 150. he suffered Martyrdom there, being prosecuted by Crescens an Heathen Philosopher.  
Here is a Man of great eminence among the Christians of his time, who lived in the Metropolis of the Roman Empire in the times of Hyginus, pus, and Anicetus, being Bishops there; and who was so far of their Communion, that his Pen served twice to stop the fury of two Persecutions by two famous Apologies that he wrote in behalf of the Christians.  
In his first Apology, representing to the Emperor the Faith that was then professed by the Christians, he saith expressly, that they believed the Trinity, and also the Incarnation of the Word: which shows that it was not a new Doctrine, unheard of before that time, nor such as came then into Justin's head while he was writing his Dialogue with Trypho. It is also to be observed that this Justin, who defended the Trinity, in his Dialogue against Trypho, doth no less maintain the Unity of God, as he hath done also in his Treatise of the Monarchy of God; though our Unitarians can't tell how to reconcile this with the Doctrine of the Trinity.  
He writ his Dialogue against Trypho about the year 140. For in that Dialogue he sheweth plainly, that the Jewish War was then but newly ended. He lived ten years after in the eye of the World, and writ several Books after this; so the Church could not but be fully acquainted with his opinions. But for all that, he continued peaceably in the Communion of those great Bishops, whom M. N. calls nazarenes, Cerinthians, and Ebionites, and his memory is still blessed among Christians.  
But this is not all; for during his abode at Rome he lived in Communion with Polycarp, Disciple of S. John, who came thither under the Emperor pus, and was in Communion with the Roman Bishop Anicetus. He learnt( without doubt) from Polycarp the abhorrance which S. John had for Cerinthus, to that degree that he would not go into the House where Cerinthus was bathing, for fear it should fall upon their heads. He was also in Communion with Hegesippus, who came to Rome while Anicetus was Bishop there, and continued there till the time of Eleutherus. That there was an acquaintance between them, is more than probable. For Justin, though a Pagan before his conversion, was born in Samaria then called Neapolis; and Hegesippus was also a Native of Palestine. Hegesippus witnesseth that he communicated with Anicetus, with Soter, and with Eleutherus; and that then all the Churches were in the same Faith. After this, how can Justin Martyr be looked upon as an Innovator?  
But to go to the bottom of M. N's System, let us consider it a little farther. Justin writ a Book against Heresies, which was the common store-house of all those Fathers that writ next after him upon that Subject; as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, &c. Now these Writers agree in treating the Cerinthians and the Ebionites as pernicious heretics. See Irenaeus, L. 1. c. 25, 26. and the Latin Dialogue of the Heresies that is in the end of Tertullian's Book of Prescriptions, which is but an abridgement of the Book of Hippolytus. Now it is certain, that Irenaeus as well as Hegesippus lived in Communion with the Roman Bishop Eutherus, and Eleutherus had lived in Communion with the foregoing Bishops that had communicated with Justin Martyr; it follows therefore that in those times, Justin was never looked upon as an Innovator.  
One needs but red the Dialogue with Trypho, to be satisfied that Justin Martyr defends in it the Doctrine of the Apostles, and of the whole Church till his time.  
1st. When he represents his Conversion to Christianity, he tells us, that it was by the Instructions of an old Man whom he did not know, and whom he met with in a Solitary place, whither he was retired to meditate upon Philosophy.  
2dly. Justin reckons all those as heretics, who were distinguished by the Names of their Masters, without naming any: But there were none at that time whom this Character fitted better than the Ebionites and Cerinthians.  
3dly. Justin( as I have said before) doth mention a sort of Dissenters among Christians, plainly meaning the Ebionites; and represents them as a very small number in comparison of the generality of Christians, 
Just. p. 267.  that believed the Godhead of our Saviour.  
4thly. Trypho doth from the Unity of God raise an Objection against the belief of the Trinity that was acknowledged by the Christians, 
P. 269, 7.4.  and looks upon the belief of that small number, namely of the Ebionites, to be the most consistent with reason.  
5thly. 
P. 268.  If there had been no other Christians but Ebionites, at the time of this Conference of Trypho with Justin, nothing could have been more impertinent than Trypho's question, whether those that observed the Law, and withal acknowledged Jesus Christ to be the messiah, were capable of being saved? For the Ebionites did both observe the Law, and receive Jesus as the messiah. And they according to M. N. were the Body of the Christian Church.  
6thly It appears that the Christians went by no other Name in the time of Justin, then that of Christians: 
Ib p. 287.  and not by that of nazarenes, as M. N. supposeth.  
7thly. Justin doth every where lay it down for a Rule, that Jesus Christ is the Object of Divine Worship for all Christians.  
8thly. Trypho derides Christian Religion in general, because it teaches the Incarnation of the Word in the Womb of the Virgin, whereas for his part he should have thought it reasonable to have acknowledged him to be only a Man, who upon the account of his Justice had been raised to the Dignity of messiah.  
9thly. 
Ib. p. 291, 292.  Justin doth generally speak with horror against divers Heresies that had then risen up against the Church according to our Saviours prediction. 
Ib. p 307, 308.   
10thly. He constantly represents the Christians of his time, as being endowed with the gift of Miracles, and the power of casting out Devils in the Name of Jesus Christ, 
P. 311.  as of the true God. A Power, which we do not red that the Ebionites or Cerinthians ever had, or did ever pretend to it: And which Irenaeus made a distinguishing Character between the catholic Church and all Heretical Assemblies. 
iron. L. IV. c. 45.   
11thly. Justin protests that the Christian Faith which he defends is the same that was spread all over the World, 
Just. M. dial. p. 345.  even in the most barbarous and unknown Countries: Which certainly he would not have dared to affirm in the face of all Jews and Unitarians, if they could have disproved him, and especially if there had been so many Unitarian Churches as M. N. hath imagined.  
Now when I look back upon all these Considerations, I can't persuade myself that M. N. hath ever red the Dialogue between Justin and Trypho. I rather believe that he hath red in Eusebius, that Justin Martyr was the most ancient Author that the Anonymous of the Third Century quoted, to prove the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the Godhead of the messiah was taught before the time of Victor, who excommunicated Theodotus of Byzantium; and that thereupon he imagined, though without ground, as I have shewed, that Justin was the Author of the Doctrine of the Trinity, and of the Divinity of our Saviour. And as M. N. is a Man of extraordinary Confidence, he thought he might venture this System abroad, since it would be so highly acceptable to those of his Party, and would seem very specious to all others that could not gain-say, or that would not take the Pains to examine it.  
The especial Charge against Justin Martyr is this, That he was the first that ventured to say, it was the {αβγδ} that appeared to the patriarches and Fathers of the Old Testament, which according to the Socinians was either God, or an Angel that spake as Ambassador from God, and consequently as God. And if so, it then followeth that Justin was an Innovator.  
But they are much mistaken in thinking that Justin advanceth any new thing in affirming the {αβγδ} to be a Divine person, and in saying it was he that appeared to the Fathers, when he hath the Apostles before him, S. Paul in the first Chapter to the Hebrews, and S. John in the Preface of his Gospel, affirming that the {αβγδ}, or Word, was God, and that it was he by whom the World was created, and without whom was not any thing made that was made.  
He hath likewise, both in the one and in the other, followed the ancient Divinity of the Jews, such as we find it in the Writings of Philo, who writ before S. Paul and S. John; and in a time when the Jews had not invented the Evasions, which Justin reproaches them with in his Dialogue with Trypho. Now Philo doth positively affirm, That it was the Word who appeared to Abraham and to Sarah, 
Gen. 18.  and whom Abraham calls his Lord. He also affirms, that he was the same who appeared to Hagar in the desert, and who changed the name of Jacob into Israel. Which Word, Philo indeed sometimes calls an Angel, but he calls him also the Son of God, begotten of God, and his first born. I shall quote the places in the next Chapter.  
One would think that this being so well known to the Jews, as appears by so many several places in Philo, M. N. might have spared his accusing the Christians of having foisted the name of Christ in the 9. Ver. of the X. Chapter of the 1. Epistle to the Corinthians, to confirm their Doctrine of the Pre-existence of Jesus Christ; whereas in the ancient Copies it was, Let us not tempt God, as Grotius pretends it ought to be red according to the Alexandrian Manuscript.  
M. N. confesseth that Epiphanius charges this upon martion, and not on the Orthodox Christians. But I do not see what reason Epiphanius could have to accuse martion of this; for Irenaeus, who was more ancient than the Alexandrian Manuscript, hath quoted the passage in these Terms, 
iron. IV. 35. p. 385.  Let us not tempt Christ; and surely Irenaeus, who is there disputing against the heretic martion, whom he accuses of having falsified the Epistles of S. 
L. ●. c. 25.  Paul, would take care not to use the Copies which martion had falsified.  
2dly. Supposing in some Manuscript they had red the word {αβγδ}, as Epiphanius would have it instead of {αβγδ}, the mistake might easily be committed in Manuscripts wherein such common words they generally writ only the first Letters K or X with a v over the Head. And is not the word {αβγδ} sufficient to denote Jesus Christ, according to the ordinary Style of the New Testament? It is certainly so, according to Epiphanius, who saith, {αβγδ}, that Christ and Lord denote the same person.  
M. N. Will not allow of this gloss of Epiphanius; but he would oblige us in showing that which Epiphanius did not; namely, what design of Marcion's it could serve, to change the term of {αβγδ} into that of {αβγδ}; for it is not credible, he would corrupt the Text only for his pleasure, and not to serve any design. But this change was so far from serving Marcion's Hypothesis; that it would have been quiter on the contrary. He denied that the God of the Old Testament was the Father of Jesus Christ. He rejected the Old Testament, and could not endure it should be said, that the Jews were under the care and conduct of Jesus Christ, whom he set forth as the Author of a Gospel that was opposite to the Law and the Prophets. It was therefore contrary to his Design to make that corruption of the Text which Epiphanius charges him with by changing {αβγδ}. into {αβγδ}, which overturned all these Principles. According to him the Jews never had any thing to do with Jesus Christ; but wholly depended upon the creator of Heaven and Earth, whom martion would not allow to be the Father of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And therefore to make the Apostle say, that the Jews tempted Jesus Christ in the Wilderness had been to make the Apostle speak against himself. It was with the some design that instead of reading, but with many of them God was not well pleased, he had put, but Christ was not well pleased with many of them. But he had not carried his falsification far enough, for which Epiphanius laughs at him, for he had left these terms that the Rock was Christ, which was sufficient to justify the reading of Irenaeus, Let us not tempt Christ, against the Authority of the Alexandrian Manuscript. This, I hope, is enough to show with what rashness M. N. asserts, that it is only since the Council of Nice, that the Fathers have taken advantage of this corruption of martion.   

CHAP. VIII. That the Notion of the {αβγδ} did not come from the Platonicks, but was the ancient Notion of the Synagogue, and of the Apostles of our Saviour.  
WHAT I have said in general of the Doctrine of Philo, who was the most considerable of the Jews at Alexandria, and lived under Caligula, to whom he was sent by his Nation as their public Agent or Orator, is sufficient to show, that the Notion of the {αβγδ}, and of his appearings under the Old Dispensation, was no new Doctrine, nor first advanced by Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho.  
Nevertheless M. N. either for want of due consideration, or in hopes of carrying it off by the help of his critics, doth obstinately maintain that Justin's Notion of the {αβγδ} is a platonic Notion; and that though it was afterward adopted by some Christians, yet it was not known to the Apostles and their next Successors.  
What Dr. Bull quotes from the Jewish Writers to prove, that the {αβγδ} was known to the Jews, is in no wise satisfactory to our Author. He saith that those Jews were all of them, either fantastical Cabalists, or Commentators upon the Writings of the Old Testament; but Men of no Authority, or Persons obscure and unknown, such as Rabbi Tanchuma; or they were Christians that writ under the name of Jews, as the Author of the Books that go under the Name of Philo. Now let us see whether M. N. hath any ground for being so very confident.  
The Notion of the {αβγδ}, saith M. N. is a platonic Idea, that was adopted by some Christians. This is a very bold Assertion. He takes the Liberty to say what he pleases of Books, that go under the name of Philo, which I have already quoted: But all that he saith is mere Talk without Proof. And it were strange if all the World reject Books that have not been questioned for so many Ages, because an angry Man resolves to cry them down.  
Let us but see what Philo saith of the Subject we now treat of, and then let any equitable Reader judge, whether M. N. hath reason to accuse Justin Martyr of having advanced platonic Ideas, when he speaks of the {αβγδ}.  
What follows, is the Doctrine of Philo concerning this Subject; which I have reduced to some Heads to avoid repetition; and I have quoted the several parts of his Works for it, which it would have been too tedious to transcribe.  
He saith, that though, there be but one God, yet there are in him two Sovereign {αβγδ}, or Powers, his Goodness or Bounty, and his pvissance. His Goodness by which he hath created, and his pvissance by which he governs, and that the {αβγδ} or Word is a third Power, by which he unites those two other Powers: So that it is by the Word, that he is both powerful and good. And he saith, that the two Cherubims were the Symbols of this truth. 
Philo de Cher. p. 112. E. de confus. Ling. p. 337. de Migr. Abrah. p. 367. B.   
He represents the Divine Word, as being inferior to God, but without being distant from God; and so being he that governs those two Divine Powers, both that which Creates and that which Rules, and so that governs all. Which, saith he, was typified by the Presence of God above the Cherubims. 
De profugi●, p. 466. B. C. D.   
He saith, that it was the {αβγδ} or Word, that formed and created the World. 
De Mundi Opif. p. 4. D.& p. 5. C.& Alleg. L. I. p. 44. B.  And that it was the {αβγδ}, that was the Organ of God to form the World. 
De Cher. p. 129. C.   
He calls the {αβγδ}, the Image of God; 
De Mundi Opif. p. 6. C.  and saith it was by him that he formed the World, 
De Monar. L. II. p. 823.  and that he governs it. 
De Migr. Abr. p. 389.   
He affirms, That these words, Let us make man in our own Image, show that God took in others to work with him. 
De Op. M. p. 16. C. De cons. Ling. p. 336. &c.  and the Image of God in Man is the Character of the {αβγδ} or Word which is eternal. 
De Plant. Noe p. 217. A.   
He saith that the Soul was formed after the Image of the {αβγδ} or Word. 
De Opif. Mund. p. 32. E.   
He saith, That the {αβγδ} or Word, is as the house that God dwells in. 
De Migr. Abr. p. 389. B. De Somniis p 574. E.& p. 575. B.   
He shows plainly enough, that in the VIII. of Prov. he understood by the Wisdom of God there spoken of, a Person, and not an Atttribute. 
Alleg. L. p. 48. A. p. 52. A, B.  Where he saith also, that it is the {αβγδ}, or Word of God. 
Ib. p. 54. E.& lib. quod deter. pot. insid. p. 165. C.   
He saith, that the Word is the Interpreter of God, that he was begotten of God, and that he giveth Testimony to us from God. 
Alleg. Leg. L. II. p. 99. D, E.   
He saith, that the Word is also called an Angel. 
Ib. p. 39. D.   
He affirms, that it was the {αβγδ} or Word, that appeared to Abraham and to Sarah, Gen. 24. and whom Sarah called my Lord. 
Ib. p. 101 D.   
He affirms, that it was the {αβγδ} that appeared to Hagar in the desert 
De profug. p. 451. B. & de Somniis p. 600. D.   
He saith, it was the {αβγδ} that changed Jacob's name, Gen. 32. 
De nomin. mut. p. 1088.   
He saith, that the Manna typified the {αβγδ}, or Word of God. 
Alleg. Leg. L. II p. 93. B. Quod debt. pot. insid. p. 176. E. De profug p. 470. A. B. L. III. Leg. Alleg. 1103. B.   
He giveth an Idea of the Eternal Generation, when he affirms, that of that which is Divine there is nothing cut off, but only it is extended. 
L. Quod debt. pot. ins. p. 172. A.  And when he speaks of the Communication of the Spirit without its being divided. 
De Gigant. p. 287. C.   
He affirms, that it is the {αβγδ} or Word, that is the Son of God; whom the Prophet Zechary calls Oriens. 
De conf. Ling. p. 329.   
He saith, that the {αβγδ} or Word is the true High Priest, of whom the ancient High-Priests were but Emblems. 
De prof. p. 666. B, C, D. de Somn. p. 597. C. De vit. Mos. L. III. p. 673. C.   
He sets forth the Divine Word, as the Mediator between God and Man at the time of the Deluge. 
L. quia rerum div. h. p. 509. B. C. De vit. M. L. III. p. 673. C.   
I believe after this, N. M. is not very well satisfied in the care that hath been taken in preserving the Works of Philo. But though they had been all lost, the Truth, which M. N. opposes with such bold and yet vain conjectures, would not have suffered much by it. For Philo was but one Jewish Doctor, though he flourished in the time of our Saviour Jesus Christ. But I should be glad to know M. N's thoughts of an Author of a quiter different character from Philo.  
Doth he believe that the Gospel according to S. John was written by S. John, or by Cerinthus? He that believeth the Cerinthians to have been Apostolical Men, must believe S. John's Gospel and the Revelations to have been the Work of Cerinthus, and not of S. John. No, saith M. N. the present Unitarians aclowledge the Gospel and the Revelations to have been written by the beloved Disciple of Jesus Christ, that hath given them those lights, which the Cerinthians and the Alogians had not.  
I am very glad it hath: but how can M. N. after this maintain that the notion of the {αβγδ} is a platonic Idea? Is it likely that S. John, who, setting aside the advantages he had by being the Disciple of Christ, was but an honest Fisherman, had red the Works of Plato? Was Plato known to the Fishermen upon the Lake of Tiberias? or were his Works translated into Syriac, which was the only Language they knew? If not, then it is a strange extravagance in M. N. to suppose that the notion of the {αβγδ} is a platonic Idea. S. John was no doubt well acquainted with the Writings of the Old Testament, and what he said of the {αβγδ} or Word, with plain reference to the first Chapter of Genesis, and other places of the Old Testament; he learnt it not in the School of Plato, but in that of the Holy Ghost, who inspired him, and who was the same that dictated the Books of the Old Testament.  
But after all, is this style only proper to S. John, who was the last Evangelist that writ? The Evangelist S. Luke is quoted by Justin Martyr, as well as the Epistle to the Hebrews, both as caconical Books; and we know that they speak of the {αβγδ} or Word. 
luke. I. Heb. X. Joh. I. Rev. XVI.  Justin also quotes the Writings of S. John, both Gospel and Revelations. And in all these, there is mention of the Word in this notion; the Pre-existence and Godhead of the Word is plainly set forth in them. Socinus endeavours to elude the proof of it in S. John's Gospel, by explaining the word beginning by the beginning of the Gospel. M. N. corrects Socinus for that, and agrees with us that the {αβγδ} signifies the Virtue by which God created the World, and only differs from us in the question, whether that all-creating {αβγδ} or Word was a Person.  
After this, it is easy to judge with what reason or sense M. N. rejects the Authorities that Dr. Bull brings to show that the notion of the Pre-existence of the {αβγδ}, was not unknown to the Jews at the time when S. John writ. For my part I can't but wonder, setting raillery aside, how he could satisfy himself with what he brings to evade the force of Dr. Bull's Arguments.  
The Jews, saith he, believed the messiah was to be a mere Man, as it appears by the Books of the New Testament, and by those of Justin Martyr. From thence he would infer, that the Jews before Christ's time believed nothing of the Pre-existence of the messiah; and therefore that the passages drawn from the Books that were written before Christ's time, particularly from the Wisdom of Solomon, are of no authority against the Jews to prove that they have varied from their Fore-fathers in their notions of the messiah. If this reasoning is good, then Christ and his Apostles did them wrong in charging the Jews with so many Errors, on this account, of their corrupting of the Ideas of their Forefathers.  
Dr. Bull sheweth that in the Book of Wisdom, there are notions of the {αβγδ} that brought up Israel out of Egypt, and that he was a Divine Person in the judgement of the Writer of that Book. M. N. can't deny this, but he hath two ways to make it signify nothing. The first is, by speaking of that Divine Person with a scurrilous Wit. The other is, by bearing us down with a conjecture of Grotius, that though this Book was written by a Jew, yet some Christian or other, who was a Greek, happening on it, hath given it us in the Greek Tongue, but with divers additions to it taken from the Christian Religion. For the first of these, it proves nothing but what we know already, that M. N. presumes there are Readers that will be scoffed out of their Religion. For the second, it is certain that this Book in Greek as we have it, was quoted by Philo the Jew 
Apud Euseb. de Praep. Ev. p. 323. Clem. ad Cor.§. 3,& 27. , and Clemens Romanus, and afterwards at least forty times by the Fathers of the second Century, who looked upon it as a Book of undoubted Antiquity. And it seems very probable, that St. Paul did reflect on a passage in this Book,( Wisd. VII. 26.) when he was writing his Epistle to the Colossians, Col. II. 15. and again in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb. I. 3. which places M. N. may consider at leisure. The Jews therefore that were converted to Christianity must have known this Book; and looked upon it as a Book that contained the ancient Sentiments of their Synagogue.  
For the Jewish Cabala, or Tradition, which the Learned Dr. Bull recommends to his Reader, it is only their traditional Sense of Texts of their Scriptures, which they anciently understood of the messiah. Now for this sort of Jewish Tradition, it is certainly of great use to them that are to dispute against the Jews. But if M. N. will not be so just to allow this Tradition, all the World is not so obstinate as he. We find in the ancient Writings of the Jews such express notions of the Doctrines which the Socinians dispute against, that they either must have been forged by Christians, or the Jews before Christ's time must have had quiter other notions of these matters than those which the modern Jews have. We agree that these notions were not those of the common People; and it appears plain enough from hence, that when Jesus Christ spoken of himself in such terms, the Jews could not but see that he attributed Divinity to himself; the multitude who expected a mighty Conqueror for their messiah, seemed surprised at it, and were ready to ston him. These Traditions that we speak of, were the Ideas of such as had taken more pains in studying the Sacred Writings, and had collected the sense of them by attentive Meditation. That this was so, we learn from Philo the Jew, who makes a great difference between the Explications of the Law that they gave to the People whom he calls {αβγδ}, and those which they reserved for such as had attained to a greater degree of knowledge in the Mysteries of their Religion. This may be seen in his Treatise de Sacrif. 
De Sacr. Ab.& C. p. 153. B. Ed. Paris. A.D. 1640.  Abel.& Cain, where he is showing the Providence of God in events, which the Pagans looked upon as merely accidental.  
M. N. doth like himself in abusing Dr. Bull, and putting tricks upon his Reader, when he bears him in hand that these traditional Expositions of the Scripture were the very same that were rejected by our Saviour, and exclaims against the Doctor for using Arguments against the Socinians that are drawn from a Law, which was set up by the Pharisees, and condemned by Jesus Christ.  
Indeed if we admitted of the Authorities of the Jews before Christ's time, as a part of Divine Revelation that is not contained in the Books of Moses, M. N. would have reason to bring the authority of Christ against such Jewish Traditions. But here is a quiter different case now. The Jews having stifled those ancient notions of a messiah, that according to their Prophesies was to be God as well as Man, we make it appear from the Books of their Ancestors, which were left, and which contain the Old Explications of their Synagogue before Christ's time, that they had such Explications, as they are now forced to reject, or else they must yield up the cause to the Christians.  
Now what hath M. N. to say against our use of such traditional Expositions? He either must deny that we have a right understanding of the old Jewish Paraphrases, or that they are not so ancient as they are reputed, or else he must aclowledge that the Jews, who are now of the same opinion as himself concerning the nature of the messiah, have altered their belief concerning it since our Saviour's time.  
I shall not endeavour to refute what M. N. saith to take away the authority of two Hebrew Books that Dr. Bull quotes for the confirming of those Expositions. M. N. according to his great stock of Learning, calls one of them an obscure Rabbi, and the other the unknown Book Tankumam. The obscure Rabbi that he speaks of is Moses Bar Nachman, commonly called Ramban or Moses Girundensis, one of the highest note among the Jewish Commentators. The unknown Book called not Tankuman, but Tanchuma, is as well known among the Learned Jews, as any of their ancient Books that are now extant. M. N's ignorance of these things might well be excused; for he was not bound to understand Hebrew: yet we must needs tell him, that it is not very modestly done of him to pass a Judgement upon Authors that he neither knoweth, nor is able to understand.  
I will not spend time in answering what he saith of the Works of Philo the Jew, that they were written by one Philo a Christian, who lived in the second Century after Christ. This is truly an unknown Rabbi to all Mankind but M. N. for he is the first that ever mentioned him. But he shows by his Critical Remarks on this occasion, that he hath as little skill in Christian Antiquity, as he hath shown in Hebrew Writers.  
Philo speaks frequently of the {αβγδ} that was employed by God in the Creation of the World, and in the Production of his other Works. Now the question is, whether he borrowed this notion from the Synagogue, or from the Platonicks? That is easy enough to be decided, because whatsoever he says of this matter, he always grounds it on the Books of Moses and the Prophets, without once mentioning Plato upon the Idea of the {αβγδ}.  
I ought also to observe that Clemens Alexandrinus, who hath many quotations out of Philo's Works, of which some are lost, reckons him not a platonic but a Pythagorean. But certainly M. N. must have lost his reason, if he maintains that the Works which bear the name of Philo were written by a more modern Author than him that writ the Apology for the Jews to Caligula, whom M. N. can't deny to have been Philo of Alexandria, that went to Rome as their Agent within seven years after Christ's Death. The Style, the Notions, the quotations from his other Writings, and what other Authors who lived after him have quoted from him, are to a Reader of any ordinary judgement such convincing Arguments, that they were written by the same Author, that one that will go about to prove the contrary loses his time and his labour, and so will he that giveth him an answer.  
I am not ignorant that some of the ancients after Eusebius have imagined, that Philo did in his Treatise of the Therapeutae describe the first Christians of Egypt; and some of them have gone so far as to say, Philo might have seen S. Peter at Rome, and turn Christian. But all this is nothing else but mere groundless imagination; they are such vain conjectures that those that attentively red Philo's Works, and particularly what he saith of the Therapeutae, and that have any knowledge of Church-History, can't but pity those that let such Fathers opinions be imposed upon them by the name of Eusebius and his Followers.  
I believe I have by this time sufficiently answered all that is worth considering in M. N's Judgement of the Fathers. According to the Scheme that I proposed. I did not think it worth my while to take notice of several faults that are here and there in his Work, but fall immediately upon the principal ones; my chief design being to show the Falseness and Absurdity of his System, which I presume to say I have done.  
I have not taken notice of an accusation which he comes up with very often, viz. that those of the Orthodox Party were always Persecutors; because it is so notoriously false, that there was no need of refuting it. M. N. confesseth that the Doctrine of the Trinity, and of the Divinity of our Saviour, was publicly and generally received after Justin Martyr's time; and that the Primitive Christians still lived under Persecutions from the Pagan Emperors till Constantine's time. What therefore can he mean by this accusation against the Defenders of the Trinity? The first Persecutions unto blood that can be found any where among Christians, were by the Arians; and those M. N. himself is pleased to reckon among his Unitarians. With what confidence therefore can he affirm so false a thing, as that is that the Doctrine of the Trinity hath been kept up only by Violence and Persecution?  
But there is a blacker Calumny behind, which he throws upon the whole body of Christians; as if they had corrupted the holy Scriptures to make them speak in favour of their Doctrines of the Trinity, and of the Godhead of our Saviour. He says, in pursuance of this design, they added and left out as themselves pleased: and if their Divisions among themselves had not hindered, they would not have left us any remain of genuine Christianity. This is indeed calumniating stoutly; but the dirt will not easily stick with sober and learned Men. For of what Scripture doth he say this? The Writings of the Old Testament, those were always in the hands of the Jews, and are so still; so that they can't be corrupted by Christians. For the Scriptures of the New Testament, it is no less ridiculous to accuse the Christians of corrupting them in favour of these Doctrines. For if their Divisions, as he saith, have hindered them from doing this since the times of the Christian Emperors, then the same have hindered them always; for there have been always divisions among Christians, enough to make them watch one another, and to hinder them from joining together in the corrupting of the Scriptures.  
M. N. may truly say, that the Orthodox Party did in the second and third Centuries complain of the Impudence of the heretics in falsifying the sacred Books: and it is to the party of those, whom we call Orthodox Christians, that we owe the preservation of these Books, and the restitution of their Authority, which was so vigorously attacked by most of the heretics. If M. N. will take advantage of some various readings that are in the several old Manuscripts, or ancient Versions, let him fall on as soon as he pleases; let him exercise his critics upon these Texts, and he shall soon have an answer.  
I cannot say that M. N. had a design to gratify the Deist in this; though in many things he writes as if they had employed him. But in this accusation which he repeats so often, and in such virulent Language, he sheweth plainly a design to make the Clergy odious, and bring them under suspicion of having intended to destroy the holy Scriptures, and to change the Christian Religion. For this we must leave him to the Justice of God, who seeth the Hearts, and will render to every Man according to his Works.  
I might easily have justified the authorities which Dr. Bull hath quoted to prove that the Doctrine of the Divinity of Christ was brought down by Succession from the Apostles till Justin Martyr's time; and it would have been easy enough, after the light that I have given into M. N's System, to have shewed the vanity of his Objections against them. But I thought that would have engaged me into too great a length. And since Dr. Bull is still alive, and possibly may not think fit to let him escape without some Animadversion, I thought it not so proper to take the business out of his hands; especially since the Doctor hath laid in matter enough for it in those very Books that are written against by this Author.  
To conclude; As it was wholly in obedience to your Commands that I composed this small Treatise, so I leave it entirely at your disposal, to do with it accordingly as your great Wisdom shall think fit, to which I shall ever pay an absolute Submission. I am with the most profound respect,  
Yours, &c.  
FINIS.