Having collected and arranged these materials, furnished by those original authors, I applied myself to the reading of all the modern writers of any reputation for learning in ecclefiaftical history, whether their opinions were the fame with mine, or not. But the addition that I made to my own collection of authorities by this means amounted to very little, not more than about twenty or thirty, and thofe, in general, of no great confequence. What more I could have done I cannot tell. By delaying the publication a year or two longer, and revifing the work again and again, I might, no doubt, have made it more complete, efpecially as a compofition. But with me this is no object at all; and the improvement that I might have made in the work in other refpects would not, I think, have been very material.

With great tranquility and fatisfaction, therefore, I now commit this History to my friends, and to my enemies; fufficiently aware that it is not without its defects to

exercise

exercise the candour of the former, and the captiousness of the latter. But no work of this extent, and of this nature, can be expected to be perfect. I have myfelf difcovered great mistakes and overfights in those who have gone before me; and notwithftanding all my care, I fhall not be furprized if those who come after me, efpecially if they walk over the fame ground. -more leisurely than I have done, should find fome things to correct in me. To make this as eafy as poffible, I have printed my authorities at full length. But I am confident, that all my overfights will not invalidate any pofition of confequence in the whole work; and this is all that the real inquirer after truth will be folicitous about.

On no former occafion have I declined, but on the contrary I have rather courted, and provoked, oppofition, because I am fenfible it is the only method of discovering truth; and I am far from wishing that this work may escape the most rigorous examination. It will enable me to correct

any

any

future editions of it, and make it more perfect than it is possible for me to make it at present. I hopé also that the controversy will be continued by men of learning, though I may now think myself excused from taking any part in it. But with respect to this, I do not pretend to have any fixed determination. Every writer who wishes not to mislead the public, is answerable for what he lays before them. At their bar he is always standing, and should hold himself ready to answer any important question, when it is properly put to him.

This I shall have a good opportunity of doing in the Theological Repository, which I have revived, and which is published occasionally ; and, to repeat what I said on a former occasion, “ If any person will give “ his name, and propose any difficulty “ whatever relating to the subject of this “ work, so that I shall see reason to think “ that it proceeds from a love of truth, I “ here promise that I will speak fully to

it, and I shall be as explicit as I possibly

"can." Notwithstanding the pains that have been taken to exhibit me to the public as an unfair and difingenuous writer, I trust that with many, at least, I have fome character to lofe; or if fo much has been taken away that I have but little left, it may be prefumed that I fhall be the more careful of it on that account.

It was my earnest wish to have had the advantage of a public difcuffion of the fubject of this work by a learned Arian before I had proceeded to the compofition of it. I folicited for fuch an opponent both publicly and privately, but without fuccefs ; which I think is much to be regretted. In lieu of this, I have collected the ideas of the Arians in a more private way, and have myfelf endeavoured to fuggeft all that I poffibly could in support of their opinion. It will be seen that I have given particular attention to their doctrine through the whole course of the work; and I must say 'that, I find no evidence of its exiftence before the time of Arius. If I have proved

A

CE this, the hypothesis must be abandoned. For no person can long satisfy himself with saying, it is sufficient for him, if he find his opinion in the scriptures, and that he will not trouble himself about that of others, however near to the time of the apostles. For it will be an unanswerable argument, a priori, against any particular doctrine being contained in the scriptures, that it was never understood to be so by those persons for whose immediate use the scriptures were written, and who must have been much better qualified to understand them, in that respect at least, than we can pretend to be at this day.

ز

My Arian friends, I am well aware, will think that, in this, as well as in a great part of the work, I bear peculiarly hard upon them; and I frankly acknowledge it. I think theirs to be an hypothesis equally destitute of support in the scriptures, in reason, and in history. There is, I even think, less colour for it than for the trinitarian doctrine as it stood before the coun

1