infected with the errors of Paul of Samosata. But Dr. Priestley was misled by a supposititious title to a probably spurious work, in his copy of Athanasius. The Benedictine, which is the best edition, adjudges the Epistle from which the citation is made to an era almost a century lower than the time of Athanasius; and the learned editors assign apparently very good reasons for their decision. Athanas. vol. ii. p. 33. ed. Par. 1698. The Epistle indeed alludes twice to Paul of Samosata, but its object is to refute the doctrine of the Nestorians. The matter of complaint is also totally different from that which Dr. Priestley supposes: for the writer does not represent the obnoxious opinion as one which had already existed and been extensively received among the people, but he speaks of it as a new doctrine which injured many: -- ἡ καινοτομία βλάπτουσα τους πολλούς.

It is very conceivable that a sentiment, which did not at all profess to oppose a received doctrine, but only to give a new and plausible explication of it, would be readily received by so many as to justify the writer's words. But this is altogether different from Dr. P.'s interpretation. Indeed I am persuaded that if all his citations were subjected to a strict examination, it would frequently appear that he had misunderstood them.

V. Upon the whole of this case, if I may presume to express my opinion, it is briefly as follows:

1. The evidence is not sufficiently clear and unexceptionable, to warrant our deducing the conclusions which Dr. Priestley and his followers have drawn with so much confidence. In another place, vol. iii. p. 773, Origen represents the multitude (oi móλño) of Gentile believers as shocked at the doctrine of the Ebionites, and protesting against it.

2. All the information which has reached us relative to the Ebionites, though it sufficiently establishes their reception of Jesus as a merely human teacher, and though it warrants our belief that they were the only existing body of Jewish Christians in the days of Origen, goes also to shew that they were scarcely intitled to be esteemed Christians at all. Their rejection of the authority of the apostle Paul, and their enmity to his person and character, plainly mark them as something very different from N. T. Christians. They are, I conceive, the very people whom Mr. Belsham has elsewhere held up to just censure for VOL. II. 3 B

their "ignorancë,

their envy and malice, their daring corruptions of the Christian doctrine, and their rancorous opposition to the liberty and the spirit of the gospel." * I request the reader to turn to p. 488 of this Volume.

3. It appears a probable supposition, that such Jewish believers as received and adhered to the whole Christian doctrine, including of course the abrogation of the Levitical œconomy, did not long subsist as a separate body; but that, before the time of Justin they had fallen into the general mass of Christians, in the several countries where they lived. The whole tenor of the system and practice of religion, as taught by the apostle Paul, forbad the keeping up of a separate communion: and those who still kept up "the wall of partition," in direet contradiction to divine authority, were anti-apostolic and con*sequently anti-christian. It is, therefore, no matter of surprize that Origen has denominated them as little differing from carnal Jews. But surely they are not the parties to whom we should look for a correct exhibition of primitive Christianity.

vi. I cannot but think that there is great weight in the argument in favour of the popular orthodoxy of the earliest age, from the Hymns which we have good evidence for believing have descended from an antiquity little, if at all, short of apostolic. The ancient distinction of hymns from psalms was, that the latter might turn upon any religious subject, and be in any form, meditative, hortatory, or didactic; but the former were spécifically addresses to the Deity. Chrysost. in Ep. Col. Homil. ix. - vol. xii. p. 217. G. J. Vossii Comm. in Ep. Plinii, p. 50. Now Pliny, in his well-known Epistle to Trajan, written four or five years after the death of the apostle John, says that it was the custom of the Christians, whom he was persecuting, semble on a stated day, before dawn, and to join in singing a hymn to Christ as a God." To this practice Tertullian refers: “Each one is invited to sing a hymn" [canere unde carmen, Suvos vid. Vossii Etym. Ling. Lat. et Facciolati Lex.] "to God, from the holy scriptures, or of his own composition." Apol. cap.39. Depicting the misery of unsuitable marriages, he asks, "What shall the husband sing to her, or she to him?

Disc, on the Death of Dr. Priestley, p. 610.

to as

Where is the invocation of Christ ?" Describing the conjugal happiness of sincere Christians ;-" Their psalms and hymns respond, and they emulate each other in singing to their God. Christ rejoices to see and hear such things, and sends them his peace." Ad Uxorem. lib. ii. cap. 6, 9. See also his Apologeticus, cap. 2. To a particular Evening Hymn Tertullian in another passage, and Cyprian, probably allude; but Basil (De Spiritu Sancto, cap. 29. Op. vol. ii. p. 219, ed. Par. 1619.) indubitably cites it, as being in his time very ancient, of an unknown author, handed down from their fathers, and in use among the people. In a fragment attributed to Caius, about the beginning of the third century, we read; "How many psalms and hymns have been written from the beginning by faithful brethren, which praise Christ the Word of God acknowledging his Deity." Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 28. Routh. Reliq. Sacr. vol. ii. p. 22. iii. p. 300. More than sixty years after, the opponents of Paul of Samosata complained of him for abolishing "the psalms to our Lord Jesus Christ," under the pretence of their being the composition of recent authors: but if that were the fact, the subject and design of the compositions are shewn by the preceding evidences not to have been recent.

Of these venerable and simple compositions, two still remain.* The one, the Morning Hymn, has been transferred (as have many other inestimable fragments of the devotions of Christian antiquity,) into the Liturgy of the Church of England. It stands at the close of the Communion Service, immediately before the benediction. The Greek text may be seen in Grabe's Septuagint, at the end of the Psalms, (for it occupies this situation in the celebrated Alexandrian Manuscript,) in Archbishop Usher's Diatriba de Symbol. Vet. p. 41. in Duport's Greek Liturgy, in Bishop Andrews's Preces Privatæ, p. 352. and in Thomas Smith's Miscellanea, pars i. p. 144. Lond. 1686. The other, the Evening Hymn, is that referred to by Basil. It is in Usher, Andrews, Smith, and Dr. Routh's Reliquiæ Sacræ, vol. iii. p. 299. Being very short it is here translated:

"Jesus Christ! Joyful Light of the holy glory of the eternal,

* Besides one, in a turgid style, in the works of Clemens Alexandrinus, who died about A. D. 220. Opera, p. 266, ed. Par. 1629.

heavenly, holy, blessed Father! Having now come to the setting of the sun, beholding the evening light, we praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of God. Thou art worthy to be praised with sacred voices, at all seasons, O Son of God, who givest life. Wherefore the universe glorifieth Thee."

The common use of songs of praise like this is a striking evidence of the general faith of Christians, in the age when *they prevailed.

vii. This whole argument from the supposed concessions and reluctant admissions of the Christian Fathers, is not yet, I venture to say, so fully investigated as that positive conclusions can safely be drawn from it. An excellent service would be rendered to learning and religion, if a competent, impartial, cautious, and indefatigable scholar, possessed of sufficient leisure and the requisite opportunities, would dedicate his time and labour to the accurate study of the fathers of the first four centuries. The object would be to extract ALL their evidence, "but with a particular attention to the circumstantial and indirect, on the state of religious belief. Mr. Belsham has well described the kind of evidence to be collected, in his encomium upon Dr. Priestley's great work: "The evidence which the learned historian of Early Opinions chiefly produces, and upon which he lays the principal stress, is that of inadvertent concession, of incidental remark, of complaint, of caution, of affected candour, of apology, of inference, which, though indirect, is, at the same time, the most satisfactory to the inquisitive and reflecting mind. It is that species of evidence which judicious readers so much admire in Dr. Paley's Hora Pauline, and similar to that by which the rapid progress, and consequently the truth, of the Christian religion is established by the unwilling testimony of heathen writers." Vindication, p. 90. But, to say nothing of theological prepossessions, such a work would require a much larger measure of accurate learning than Dr. Priestley possessed, and much more time and patience than he bestowed upon his History of Early Opinions.

"Those times," says Semler," are extremely obscure, which are marked only by the names and writings of Justin, Tatian, Irenæus, and Tertullian; and which lay very near to the first

public establishment of Christian communities. It is evident that they transmit to us very little of historical knowledge that can be depended upon and it is scarcely possible to think that, from those uncertain and doubtful books the want of true and honest history can be supplied." Semleri Dissert. de Variâ et Incerta Indole Librorum Tertulliani; at the close of vol. v. of the edition of this father, by him and C. G. Schütz.