they would only be convicted of a mistake: and adds, that this question should be entirely separated from that of Jesus being the CHRIST-the MESSIAH. "For (I translate the most important part of the passage) there are, (I said) my friends*, some of us (literally, some of our sort) who, confessing him to be Christ, yet declare him to be a man descended from men. With these persons I do not agree; nor would most of those who believe with me say what those persons sayt." Here we find the original tone of mind which the apostles had endeavoured to produce among Christians in respect to abstract doctrines. The point to which Justin alludes is one which most divines among us consider as the very essence of Christian faith. Justin himself, with almost all his contemporary Christians of Gentile extraction, believed that Christ had existed, in a nature approaching to the divine, before he became man. But, instead of flinging curses and anathemas at the Nazarenes, or the Ebionites (it is not quite certain to which of these primitive Unitarians he alludes), he modestly expresses his dissent from them, without, however, questioning their Christianity.-No doctrine concerning the nature of things, either in God or in man, was as yet supposed to be a part of the Gospel revelation. The surrender of the will to the will of God through Christ, the hope of salvation under his guidance, and through that faith in his promises which produces obedience to his precepts-such were, in the opinion of the best Christians, down to the middle of the second century, the only conditions of Christian fellowship.

This tolerant and charitable temper had, indeed, nearly disappeared about one hundred years after Justin; but it was not absolutely extinct. The pious, the learned, though mystical and fanciful, Origen has recorded his regret at the intolerance

* Trypho is represented in the Dialogue as attended by some companions. + Καὶ γὰρ εἰσί τινες, ὦ φίλοι, ἔλεγον, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡμετέρου γένους, εἶναι ἄνθρωπον δὲ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γενόμενον αποφαινόμενοι, οἷς οὐ συντίθεμαι, ουδἄν πλεῖστοι ταυτα μοι δοξάσαντες, εἴποιεν. Bishop Bull contends that, instead of ἡμετέρου, we ought to read ὑμετερου. But, besides that there is not the least authority from manuscripts for this change, what difference would this make? Justin's argument depends entirely on the concession, that the Divinity, or rather the superhuman and Godlike nature of Christ, is not the essential point in question, but only his being the promised Messiah.

Flourished about A.D. 230.

which was already prevalent in his time. In allusion to the Ebionites, a Christian sect of whose real character and doctrines (as it constantly happens in ecclesiastical history) we can know nothing with certainty, except that, to the orthodox party, they were an object of the most violent and unqualified abuse, Origen has a remarkable passage. Having related the affecting history of the blind man, near Jericho, who, in spite of the threatenings of the multitude, persevered in his prayer for sight till he obtained that boon from Jesus, Origen compares the Ebionite Unitarians to the blind man, and the Gentile Christians (who were then approaching to the notions to which the Council of Nice, supported by imperial power, gave ascendancy) to the multitude who would not allow the blind to implore the mercy of the Saviour. "Nevertheless (says Origen), although the multitudes command him to be silent, he cries much the more, because he believed in Jesus, though he believed in him rather humanly*, and in a loud voice says to him, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me." In this truly modest and tolerant spirit were the Ebionites of his time treated by the profoundly learned, excellent, and cruelly persecuted Origen. "How different (observes the pious TRINITARIAN Neander, marking his own words for emphasis), how totally different, many things whould have been if men had, in this spirit of love and liberty, allowed free course to the grace of the Saviour over all who call upon him; if they had considered the various points of view of the Christian progress towards the ripeness of manhood in the faith; and had not determined to reduce by force the various kinds of minds to one and the same measure+!"

But a totally opposite spirit had already obtained ascendancy among Christians. The presidents of congregations who had

* πιστεύων μεν ἐπὶ τὸν Ιησούν, ἀνθρωπικώτερον δὲ πιστεύων. It is this identical notion-that to believe Christ's nature to he only human, is to form a low conception of him—it is this explaining the Scriptures according to sentiment, which has made, in all ages, the Athanasian interpretation so popular. The whole passage of Origen is to be found in his Commentary on Matthew, part XVI, vol. 3, pp. 773 and 774. Paris. ed. Delarue.

+ Neander, Geschichte, vol. 1, part 2, page 408. He adds, that Origen was aware of the fact, that the Ebionites, whose prejudices were thoroughly Jewish, condemned the apostle Paul as a corruptor of the Gospel. Yet Origen did not reject those men as necessarily unchristian !

monopolized the title of Bishops, formerly common to all Presbyters, were now fully aware of the importance of establishing the exclusive claims of one party against all others, to be considered as the sole possessors and distributors of genuine Christianity. Forming an united body, upon the plan of the political confederacies of the Greeks, the majority of the Christian bishops became a most tyrannical aristocracy. The love of power and of gain combined with their very general narrow-mindedness, ignorance, and intolerance, in transforming those passions which, for the sake of distinction from the animal appetites, might well be called the SPIRITUAL PASSIONS, into the highest and most important virtues. ORTHODOXY, i. e. the spurious philosophical notions which this confederacy had adopted in connexion with the Gospel, was made essential to Christianity. Whoever did not hold the same views, was declared an enemy of Christ and religion and as the confederacy extended itself over the face of the Roman empire, the unfortunate being who incurred the condemnation of his Bishop, in some obscure town of a semibarbarous corner of the Roman territory, was regularly hunted down by all the orthodox associates, till, as it actually happened to multitudes in later times, he was forced either to submit, or to take refuge among the barbarous nations, who in such cases were always found more charitable and humane than the Christian clergy. Thus ORTHODOXY converted the religion of love and charity into a source of some of the worst evils which have oppressed mankind, and which even the rapid progress of knowledge in our own days, seems still unable totally to subdue.

LETTER V.

ON THE PRIDE OF REASON.

"Je vous applaudis fort lorsque vous voulez que la foi soit fondée en raison; sans cela, pourquoi préfèrerions-nous la Bible à l'Alcoran ou aux anciens livres des Bramiens? Aussi nos théologiens et autres savans hommes l'ont-ils reconnu, et c'est ce qui nous a fait avoir de si beaux ouvrages de la vérité de la religion Chrétienne, et tant de belles preuves qu'on à mises en avant contre les païens et autres mécréans anciens et modernes. Aussi les personages sages ont toujours tenu pour suspects ceux qui ont prétendu qu'il ne fallait point se mettre en peine des raisons et preuves quand il s'agit de croire; chose impossible, en effet, à moins que croire signifie réciter ou répéler et laisser passer sans s'en mettre en peine, comme font bien des gens, et comme c'est même le caractère de quelques nations plus que d'autres." Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais: quoted by Victor Cousin, Hist. de la Philosophie, t. ii, p. 474.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

THE notion of Orthodoxy, among Protestants, like some hotly hunted debtors, has been obliged to leave its pursuers at fault, by crossing into another jurisdictional district. Orthodoxy, finding itself unsafe in the domains of argument, flies towards those of moral sentiment; and just at the moment when it might be expected to surrender, it turns sharply round, and boldly charges REASON with SIN. This is an alarming change. Before this moral discovery, we exerted our reason to the utmost of our power, confident that we had no spiritual danger to fear: now, most unfortunately, we are made to suspect that our sin may be great in proportion to the power of our arguments. What, indeed, in common language, we call PRIDE, is usually connected with power, and the existence of the latter is, for most people, a pretty strong presumption of the presence of the former. It must therefore happen, that, when reason is accused of pride, the charge will appear already more than half-substantiated, if reason has been too hard for the opponents. Power of any kind, unless it can reward and punish to a certain degree, is not an enviable possession. I have no doubt that if a sin, to be called PRIDE OF SIGHT, had been as necessary to some influential class, as the PRIDE OF REASON is to the orthodox

parties all over the world; every long and sharp-sighted man, who wished to live in peace, and avoid the scandal of discovering things, which his neighbours either could not or would not see, would now be obliged to wear spectacles.

PRIDE OF REASON? What can it be? I confess that having, for a long time, been honestly endeavouring to find out the exact meaning of that phrase, as applied in theological controversy, I have not yet quite deciphered it. It might be expected that those who use it would explain it; but they will not take that trouble. I shall therefore be obliged to try what I can do in making out what they mean.

PRIDE is a vice: no one who uses that word doubts it. But what does it consist in? Few stop to ascertain that point.I go, in the first place, to Cruden's Concordance, a book remarkable for definitions or descriptions of important words, frequently used in the Scriptures, and am disappointed to find none. But, fortunately, Dr. Johnson gives no less than seven meanings of the word. Out of this number, however, only two, as implying something wrong, can be of service in my present inquiry.

1st. "Inordinate and unreasonable self-esteem."

2d. "Insolence, rude treatment of others; insolent exultation." We will, if you please, treasure up these two explanations of the great lexicographer.

I have laid it down, as unquestionable, that pride means a vice; and I find a proof of the unfavourable signification of the word, in the established phrase honest pride. If pride did not, essentially, signify something wrong and vicious, it would not be necessary to qualify it, in certain cases, by means of the addition, honest. The existence of such a phrase as the one last mentioned, clearly shews that there is a human sentiment, which has no proper name in English (I do not recollect any modern language that possesses it), and which is expressed by that of a vice, modified by another word, which signifies something virtuous. What, then, is that sentiment? What do we mean by honest pride? I believe these words signify consciousness of worth, or dignity of mind, free from presumption above others. There is nothing vicious in this feeling; on the contrary, it is acknowledged (except by those extravagant ascetics,