putable; but the account given by the one may be balanced by that of the other. Summary View, No. 10.

3. Accounts of any fet of men given by their enemies only are always fufpicious. But the confeffions of enemies, and circumftances favourable to any body of men, collected from the writings of their adverfaries, are deferving of particular regard.

4. It is natural for men who wish to speak dif. paragingly of any fect to undervalue their numbers, as well as every thing elfe relating to them; and it is equally natural for those who wish to speak refpectfully of any party, to reprefent the members of it as more numerous than they are. Summary View, No. 13.

5. When perfons form themselves into focieties, fo as to be distinguishable from others, they never fail to get fome particular name, either affumed by themselves, or imposed by others. This is neceffary, in order to make them the fubject of converfation, long periphrafes in difcourfe being very inconvenient. Summary View, No. 8.

6. When particular opinions are ascribed to a particular class of men, without any distinction of the time when thofe opinions were adopted by them, it may be prefumed, that they were fuppofed to hold thofe opinions from the time that they

received

received their denomination.

No. 4.

Summary View,

7. When a particular description is given of a clafs of perfons within any period of time, any person who can be proved to have had the proper character of one of that clafs may be deemed to have belonged to it, and to have enjoyed all the privileges of it, whatever they were. Summary View. No. 9.

8. When an hiftorian, or writer of any kind, profeffedly enumerates the several species belonging to any genus, or general body of men, and omits any particular fpecies or denomination, which, if it had belonged to the genus, he, from his fituation and circumftances, was not likely to have overlooked, it may be prefumed that he did not confider that particular fpecies as belonging to the genus. Summary View, No. 7.

9. Great changes in opinion are not usually made of a fudden, and never by great bodies of men. That hiftory, therefore, which reprefents such changes as having been made gradually, and by eafy steps, is always the more probable on that account. Summary View, No. 16.

10. The common or unlearned people, in any country, who do not speculate much, retain longest any opinions with which their minds have been much impreffed; and therefore we always look for the oldest opinions in any country, or any class of

men, among the common people, and not among the learned. Summary View, No. 13, 14.

11. If any new opinions be introduced into a fociety, they are most likely to have introduced them who held opinions fimilar to them before they joined that fociety. Summary V. No. 15.

12. If any particular opinion has never failed to excite great indignation in all ages and nations, in which a contrary opinion has been generally received, and that particular opinion can be proved to have exifted in any age or country when it did not excite indignation, it may be concluded that it had many partizans in that age or country. For the opinion being the fame, it could not of itself be more refpectable; and human nature being the fame, it could not but have been regarded in the fame light, fo long as the fame ftrefs was laid on the oppofite opinion. Summary View, No. I.

11, 12.

13. When a time is given, in which any very remarkable and interefting opinion was not believed by a certain clafs of people, and another time in which the belief of it was general, the introduction of fuch an opinion may always be known by the effects which it will produce upon the minds, and in the conduct of men; by the alarm which it will give to fome, and the defence of it by others. If, therefore, no alarm was given, and no defence of

it was made, within any particular period, it may be concluded that the introduction of it did not take place within that period. Summary View, No. 2, 3. 6.

14. When any particular opinion or practice, is neceffarily or cuftomarily accompanied by any other opinion or practice; if the latter be not found within any particular period, it may be prefumed that the former did not exist within that period. Summary View, No. 5.

It will be perceived that the whole of this hiftorical evidence is in favour of the proper unitarian doctrine (or that of Chrift being a mere man) having been the faith of the primitive church, in oppofition to the arian no less than the trinitarian hypothefis.

were

As to the arian hypothefis in particular, I do not know that it can be traced any higher than Arius himself, or at least the age in which he lived. Both the gnoftics and the platonizing chriftians equally far from fuppofing that Chrift was a being created out of nothing; the former having thought him to be an emanation from the fupreme being, and the latter the logos of the Father perfonified. And though they fometimes applied the term creation to this perfonification, still they did not suppose it to have been a creation out of nothing. It was only a new modification of what exifted before. For God, they faid, was always rational (λoym✪) or

had

had within him that principle which afterwards affumed a perfonal character.

Befides, all the chriftian fathers, before the time of Arius, fuppofed that Chrift had a human foul as well as a human body, which no arians ever admitted; they holding that the logos fupplied the place of one in Chrift.

Upon the whole, the arian hypothesis appears to me to be destitute of all fupport from chriftian antiquity. Whereas it was never denied that the proper unitarian doctrine exifted in the time of the apoftles; and I think it evident that it was the faith of the bulk of chriftians, and especially the unlearned chriftians, for two or three centuries after Christ.

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