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    defence of the generally-received doctrines of Christianity , still our strong holds are the plain evidence of Scripture , and the concurrent testimony of the primitive Church : —V . 3 . The Bishop begins by mistaking Mrs . Baillie ' s meaning , whose allegation was that the doctrine of the Trinity was " incomprehensible when taken along with the unity of God ; " and he then mistakes his own meaning , which was , the incomprehensibility of the Divine nature , not the incomprehensible nature of the Divine attributes . If the nature of the Divine attributes be a

    " cause of unbelief , " there must always be unbelief while God and rational creatures exist . The Bishop means man's impatience , not God's attributes . " Incredulity" is not natural , but acquired ; nor is it necessarily a fault ; nor are ** vain imaginations" prone to it , but the reverse ; they are the most credulous things in the world . The description of the propensity of this incredulity is a curiosity ; but less so than the concluding discovery that " caution" against it is a " defence" of generally-received doctrines . Such is the complicated and unmeaning verbiage addressed to one of the most " highly-gifted" writers of the present age .

    Inconclusive Reasoning * " 2 . A knowledge of the Old Testament is necessary to the right understanding of those doctrines in the New , which relate to the nature , dignity , and offices of Christ . You are , I perceive , of a different opinion , and for a . reason which is plausible , but , I think , not well founded . ' To the Old

    Testament I do not refer ; for the Jews were the best judges of the peculiar idioms and grammatical distinctions of their own language , and any conclusions founded upon these , which they have at no time entertained or admitted , can be but slight authority . ' ( Viewy p . 5 . ) If our Saviour , and the writers of the New Testament , had made no reference to the Old , your reason for not referring * to it would have had great weight . But the single

    injunction , ' Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are they which testify of me' ( John v . 39 ) , would abundantly more than overbalance the authority of unbelieving Jews . The writings of the Old Testament were , before the publication of the New , the only Scriptures ; and to them Christ repeatedly refers , throughout the Gospel , as proofs that he was the promised Messiah . "—Pp . 6 , 7-

    The sophism of this passage stares one in the face . The Author insists upon sending us to the Old Testament now , after we have the far clearer light of the INew , for the singular reason that the Jews were referred to it before the New Testament was written . We are not to walk by ihe light of the Sun , because before the Sun had arisen we were admonished to use a lamp . Christ proved from the Old Testament that he was the Messiah , i . e . a perFect Teacher ; therefore we can only come to a right understanding of his perfect teachings through the imperfect instructions which preceded " The authority of the unbelieving Jews , " in the particular for which < M « l

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    Bishop of Salisbury ' s Reply to Mrs . Joanna Baillie . 755

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  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1831, page 755, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2603/page/31/