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    deuces , place that authenticity and that sense beyond contradiction to the end of time . 7 . The doctrine of Christ ^ diviliity was suggested by the genius of Heathenism . " All the early heathen

    converts , however sincere , were therefore prejudiced in its favour , and adopted it as a happy expedient of removing the scandal of the cross and expediting the progress of his religion in the world at large . But as the sense of this celebrated text , at that

    early period , was most obvious , and the object which the Apostle had in writing it universally known , the learned pagan converts could not hope to conceal the meaning of the verse without concealing the verse itself . For this reason they avoided to make

    it the subject of public discussion , and , whenever opportunities occurred , excluded it from the copies of the Scriptures in general use . The same learned advocates soon perceived that the latter part of the text might ,

    without much violence , be represented as inculcating not only that Christ is God , but that he is one in essence with the Father , and thus laying a foundation for the mystery of the Trinity .

    8 . That a doctrine so opposite to the spirit and object of Christianity should be generally received even in heathen countries till time had removed the apostles and their immediate converts , and till a knowledge of the events which called forth the

    writings of the New Testament had been effaced from the public mind , appeared , doubtless , impracticable . But by keeping the verse and its new interpretation concealed from the generality of Christians , the corrupters

    of the gospel might hope gradually to introduce the mystery which it was intended to support into the churches in general , one after another , till the majority regarded it as an essential article of the Christian .

    faith . Now we arc assured that measures , which had this object in view , were adopted and put m force for many iiges after the second century .

    From this period to the fifth century , the I satin Church had its disciplinu nrcanx ; and the ( ircck its k ( jv < jhov foyfj . cL , or accrqt doctrine , which was withheld from the public at large , and communicated only to the initi-

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    ated , and that after a prepar £ titiii : © f great severity and a l < mg tritil of ttreir fidelity . The fathers who suppon these facts , are Origen , Clement , < rf Alexandria , Eusebius , Chrysostom Jerome , &c , and the writers among the moderns who have brought them to light are not such men as Lardner

    and Priestley , who might be dis posed to trace the mysteries of Christianity to corrupt sources , but Casauban Bengelius and the Bishop of Salisbury , whose known orthodoxy could could not fail to prompt them to reject facts so suspicious and unfriendly to their system , if they could consistently with truth .

    9 . The motives which induced tie first advocates of the divinity of Christ to exclude the disputed text from the copies in general use , induced also the Greek and Latin fathers to

    pass over it in silence . Yet there is a large proportion of them who have quoted it either partially or altogether . And it is to be noted as a remarkable fact , that their mode of

    quotation is characterized by two circumstances of a peculiar nature , which stamp the authenticity of the verse and its true interpretation with the very impress of truth . The earliest writers had the most powerful

    motives to be on their guard in this respect : those motives diminished with the lapse of time , that is , with the prevalence of corrupt Christianity . Accordingly , Tertullian , about the close of the second century , is

    the most sparing in his quotation , as he cites only the last clause , Qui tres sunt unurn , and is careful to annex his own interpretation of unms ' su 6 sta ? itice . Fifty years after , Cyprian goes a step farther , adding , nt scrip turn est , thus shewing that the

    words of lertullian were some portion of Scripture . At the interval of a century , Cyprian was followed by Athanasius , who quotes the verse more fully , giving us the important information that John was the

    author of that scripture . In the fifth , an orthodox emperor gave the ascendancy to that faith : the Disch Tfllna Arcani was dissolved , and the

    verse was henceforth produced without restraint . But though the verse was fully produced from this period , it was never produced without some artilice to keep out of sight its true

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    754 Concise P * i ew of the Evidence for the Text of the Three ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1826, page 754, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2555/page/54/