by John, but more especially by Mark, whether he was an epitomizer of Matthew, as fome have fuppofed, or not; because the fact being quite fingular, and of an extraordinary nature, he could not have thought it unworthy of being recorded in a profeffed history of Christ.

All the Jewish chriftians are by Irenæus called Ebionites, and he always defcribes them as believing Jefus to have been the fon of Jofeph; and only Origen, and Eufebius, who probably copied him, speak of any of them as believing the miraculous conception, and this is only in one paffage of Eufebius. In another paffage he speaks of the Ebionites in general (and he has no other name for any Jewish chriftians) as disbeliving it.

It is probable alfo, that many Gentile christians difbelieved the miraculous conception. Juftin Martyr fpeaks of no unitarians but such as were of this opinion. Some of them certainly were fo in the time of Origen; and from the circumstance of the followers of Paulus Samofatenfis faying

that

that Jefus was born at Nazareth, it is probable the ancient Gentile unitarians in' general gave no credit to the account of his being born at Bethlehem, and confequently not to the miraculous conception. In that early age, therefore, the unitarians had feen no reafon which induced them to believe it, and no new authority has been difcovered fince that time.

The early Gnoftics did not believe the miraculous conception, though their fyftem would have inclined them to admit it; and Marcion exprefsly maintained, that the original copy of Luke's gofpel did not contain that hiftory.

4

If Jefus be not the son of Joseph, there is no evidence of his being defcended from David, which the Jews confider as a neceffary characteristic of the Meffiah, and there is no prophecy that announces his miraculous birth.

SEC

SECTION V.

Some of the Ufes that may be derived from the Confideration of the Subject of this Work.

I.

FRO

ROM the variety of opinions that we have been reviewing, we may fee the great use of what is generally called Metaphyfics, or the importance of gaining clear ideas concerning fubjects of the most general and comprehenfive nature. A little goòd fenfe and discernment of this kind would have intirely prevented the rife of the doctrine of the trinity. It would have been seen at once, that it was abfurd to fuppofe, that a mere attribute of any being could be converted into a fubftance; and therefore that Chrift, or the Son, could never have been the original and proper wifdom, or power of the Father; at first, a mere property, as reafon is in man, and afterwards a perfon, truly distinct from him, and capable of having fentiments, and a sphere

of action of his own, fo as to become incarnate, while the Father remained in heaven. Still more evident, if poffible, is it, that found metaphyfics would have revolted at the fuppofition of three divine perfons making no more than one god. This must have been immediately perceived to be an exprefs contradiction, fuch as no miracles could prove.

2. The fubject of this work may likewife ferve to fhew us the ufe of true Philofophy. Had not this fcience been in its very infancy at the time of the promulgation of christianity, the doctrine of prolations would have been entirely exploded. For we fee nothing in nature that could authorize us to fuppofe, that a part, protruded from an intelligent being (whether feparated from it or not) could of itself become a distinct intelligent being of the fame kind. A branch or flip from a tree is by no means a case of fimple prolation, much lefs would it ever have occured to any perfon, that the beings thus prolated and derived from another, could be drawn back into that being from VOL. IV. which

Y

which they fprung, which was a doctrine in the oriental philofophy. Befides, if natural prolations be the foundation of analogical reasoning, with refpect to the Supreme Being, we must admit both a power of infinite multiplication, and also that there may be numberless derived intelligences in all respects fully equal to the original ftock, which was never admitted, even by the Gnoftics. The doctrine of prolation can only be exemplified by the derivation of a river from a fpring, or a canal from a river; but this is very remote indeed from the cafe of any thing that is endued with life, and ftill more remote from that of beings which have intelligence.

Had the nature of light, and its relation to the fun, been known to Philo, and the christian Fathers, they could never have availed themselves of it, to favour their doctrine of the occafional perfonification of the divine logos, which led to that of its permanent perfonification, as this led to the doctrine of the perfect equality of the Son to the Father.