d persons among the laity, who, though they do not call themselves
Arians or Socinians, do yet dissent entirely from St. Athanasius with
regard to their notions of the Trinity, and declare very frankly that the
Father is greater than the Son.

Do you remember what is related of a certain orthodox bishop, who, in
order to convince an emperor of the reality of consubstantiation, put his
hand under the chin of the monarch's son, and took him by the nose in
presence of his sacred majesty? The emperor was going to order his
attendants to throw the bishop out of the window, when the good old man
gave him this handsome and convincing reason: "Since your majesty," says
he, "is angry when your son has not due respect shown him, what
punishment do you think will God the Father inflict on those who refuse
His Son Jesus the titles due to Him?" The persons I just now mentioned
declare that the holy bishop took a very wrong step, that his argument
was inconclusive, and that the emperor should have answered him thus:
"Know that there are two ways by which men may be wanting in respect to
me--first, in not doing honour sufficient to my son; and, secondly, in
paying him the same honour as to me."

Be this as it will, the principles of Arius begin to revive, not only in
England, but in Holland and Poland. The celebrated Sir Isaac Newton
honoured this opinion so far as to countenance it. This philosopher
thought that the Unitarians argued more mathematically than we do. But
the most sanguine stickler for Arianism is the illustrious Dr. Clark.
This man is rigidly virtuous, and of a mild disposition, is more fond of
his tenets than desirous of propagating them, and absorbed so entirely in
problems and calculations that he is a mere reasoning machine.

It is he who wrote a book which is much esteemed and little understood,
on the existence of God, and another, more intelligible, but pretty much
contemned, on the truth of the Christian religion.

He never engaged in scholastic disputes, which our friend calls venerable
trifles. He only published a work containing all the testimonies of the
primitive ages for and against the Unitarians, and leaves to the reader
the counting of the voices and the liberty of forming a judgment. This
book won the doctor a great number of partisans, and lost him the See of
Canterbury; but, in my humble opinion, he was out in his calculation, and
had better have been Primate of all England than merely an A