cond took the book and read-the word that "was made flesh was God, that is, said he, by "nature. The third took the book, read the

same words, and said I do not know what the

nature of God is, so that I fear to say Jesus "Christ is God by nature: I do not know fully "what the nature of God is not, and therefore I "dare not say that Jesus Christ is so God by of"fice that he cannot be God by nature. In this "difficulty I apply to the inspired apostle, and he ແ says nothing. I respect his silence, perhaps he "knew no more: perhaps God who inspired him "ordered him to add no more. Like him there66 fore, I will call Jesus Christ what he calls him, pay him all the homage he pays him, and be si"lent on a subject, which I do not fully under" stand."*

The evidence I have thus produced is conclusive; and till any person can produce counter

* Village Discourses, p. 246. Ed. 1805. By this discourse, and more particularly by another in the same volume, entitled The death of Jesus Christ obtained the remission of sins, it appears that the sentiments of the author on the doctrine of the Atonement, were the same as those he afterwards expressed in his letter to Mr. Lucas.

On this important doctrine of the gospel, the remark of a modern writer, who, although he would fain be thought the champion of orthodoxy, is by many of his brethren strongly suspected of heresy, is not unworthy of notice. "If we say a

way was opened by the death of Christ for the free and con"sistent exercise of mercy, in all the methods which sove"reign wisdom saw fit to adopt, perhaps we shall include EVE

evidence and of a later date, I may safely affirm -Mr. Robinson never embraced Socinianism.

"

Respecting the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, it is equally clear that some change took place in the opinions he had defended in his popular work on that subject. One of his friends, Timothy Brown, Esq. of London, informed me,"That Mr. Robinson in a conversation with him as they were walking together in the fields, acknowledged that this change was occasioned by a serious perusal of Mr. Lindsey's Examination "of the above performance:" but to what extent the change took place, it is impossible with any degree of precision to determine. The doctrine of three co-equal, distinct persons in the Godhead, he had for many years discarded, long before he wrote his Plea, and during the height of his popularity. The Athanasian creed, that mass of unintelligible jargon, and profaneness united, in which is pronounced the sentence of eternal damnation on every one who does not "keep it "whole and undefiled," he justly abominated, and thought the man who really believed it, prepared to receive any absurdity: indeed it may be questioned, whether it is possible for a man seriously

RY MATERIAL IDEA WHICH THE SCRIPTURES GIVE US

46 OF THAT IMPORTANT EVENT."-The Gospel its own witness. By A. Fuller. p. 261.

This appears to be an accurate statement of Mr. Robinson's opinion. Mr. Fuller, therefore, and all those who think with him, must allow our author to have been, on this point, quite sound!

to "believe it faithfully". In conversing with the clergy of the established church, and the evangelical clergy amongst the rest, on this subject, I never found one who did not confess, that he could not pronounce the sentence of eternal damnation on such men as Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Burnet, Doctors Watts and Doddridge, not one of whom was a believer in the creed; yet, awful to reflect, every clergyman hurls this damnatory sentence, in the solemn offices of devotion, whenever he reads the creed, to all and every part of which he has given his unfeigned assent and

consent!

By the last document of Mr. Robinson's sentiments on this subject it appears, that they were nearly the same with those of Paul of Samosata, bishop of the church at Antioch, in the third century. Ecclesiastical historians do not perfectly agree in their representation of his sentiments. Mr. Robinson's account is the fairest that can be given on this occasion, as it shews the sense in which he understood them; and is consequently the best explanation of his own" Paul thought "Jesus a man, inhabited as it were by the Deity, " and therefore to be called God, as a mansion is "named from the family resident in it.-He did "not offer prayer to Jesus, but to God through "him. The opinion of Paul in the third century, was evidently that held by Artemas in the "second."

Mr. Robinson's sentiments on some other points were not dissimilar from the bishop's, and the treatment they experienced, was equally remarkable. "Paul," adds our historian, 66 seems to have paid very little regard to the clerical character, "for he dressed and acted like other citizens, ap

66

peared in public places, and exercised the friendly office of arbitrator in his own church, “ and that of a public magistrate in the city. Envy and orthodoxy united to suppress this man: "the neighbouring teachers pretended he taught heresy, and they assembled at Antioch to de"liberate on the subject. It was not easy to con"vict him of heresy, for he had a genius lofty, "and far superior to their vulgar prejudices; they were word-mongers, he was a man of SOUL!"*

After all the unjust odium which has been cast on Mr. Robinson for his supposed heterodoxy, the change of his sentiments does not appear to have been greater that that of a man, who, considering his talents, his virtues, the variegated excellencies of his character, may, perhaps, be pronounced the principal ornament of the dissenters Doctor ISAAC WATTS. It is an indisputable fact, that this pre-eminently great and good man in the latter part of his life rejected the commonly received notions on the Trinity. His latest opinions on the subject appear to have been:-"That the Fa

* Ecclesiastical Researches. P. 62.

K

"ther in the strictest sense is the only true God; "that Jesus Christ his son, consists of a human "body and a pre-existent soul; that in this person, thus constituted, the Deity permanently "resides; and that the Holy Spirit, is not as has "been generally described, a proper person, but "the influence, energy, or power of God."* It is not yet, however, become the fashion to damn Doctor Watts for a heretic, except amongst the Athanasian creed-mongers: on the contrary, his biographers, the late Doctor Gibbons of London, Doctor Williams of Rotheram, and Mr. Parsons of Leeds, men most justly esteemed by the religious world in general, and by their own denomination, the Calvinistic independents, in particular, do not seem, in their respective accounts of Doctor Watts, to have thought that his heresies had cast even a shade on his character; indeed they have not thought them worth mentioning. The account they have given of some of the docter's conversations in his last illness I beg leave to transcribe, for the encouragement of those plain

A Faithful Enquiry after the ancient and original doctrine of the Trinity, &c. By Dr. Watts.

Mr. Robinson's successor, Mr. Hall, whose talents as a preacher, as to the matter of his discourses, were only inferior to those of his predecessor, it may be remarked, was not a Trinitarian, as he did not believe in the personality of the Holy Spirit; and yet he never met with such unworthy treatment, as his predecessor, but was always welcome to the most orthodox pulpits.