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    element . His party , highly delighted with his success , rend the heavens with applause . But their triumph was short-lived , Peter appeals to the Almighty—prays that the power of the demons might be withdrawn—and the magician left to his fate . Down headlong , in consequence , falls the discomfited Simon 6 with a great noise , and was violently dashed against the ground ,

    and had his hip and ancle bones broken . ' The favour of the populace quickly changes sides . Peter , as he is made to tell us , is now their favourite ; and they cry out , ' There is only one God , whom Peter rightly preaches in truth . ' Easy would it be to multiply instances of the mental weakness of the early Christians —incomparably more easy to fill our pages with such , than to adduce a small number of specimens of intellectual soundness and vigour .

    Amidst the prevalence of mysticism of which we have spoken , utterly unlikely was it that a sound method should prevail of interpreting the Scriptures . The art of writing , what is now often called poetry , is the art of saying quidlibet de quolibet—anything on any subject . So with many of the early Christians . They could prove you any doctrine out of any chapter . If the obvious sense

    did not serve their purpose , a » hidden and allegorical meaning was discovered . Often what was logically termed the secondary sense , was made the primary in importance of meaning and preference of choice . Thus language—4 jie most foreign to the subject , writers forced into their service , \ itterly disregarding the purpose of their author and the connexioji of the cited passage . Quotations are made , the relation of ivhich to the matter in hand is

    merely of a verbal nature , while the sense which they actually convey is alien from , or opposite to , that which they are constrained to afford . How often is the clear expounded by the dark—the simple by the mysterious ! How often is the ambiguous and the wonderful preferred to the simple and obvious . There are not , at the most , more than two or three writers ,

    even of the first ages of the church , whom we can exonerate from these charges . Judging them by the light we now enjoy , we must declare that darkness covered the land , and gross darkness the minds of the people . The true principles of scriptural interpretation were to the early Fathers a profound secret . Observe how Barnabas speaks on the passage which represents Christ as a corner stone . * What then , is our hope built on a stone ? God forbid . But because the Lord hath hardened his flesh against suf-4

    ferings he saith , " I have put me as a firm rock . ' * The Lord , ' says the same writer , * declared , " I will put into them hearts of flesh , " because he was about to be made manifest in the flesh , and to dwell in us . ' Moses , we learn on the same authority , forbade * the swine , to be eaten / meaning , ' thou shalt not join thyself to persons who are like unto swine . ' Neither shalt thou eat of the hyena , ' that is , ' be not an adulterer , nor a corrupter

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    Rise and Progress of the Doctrine of the Trinity . 113

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 113, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/41/