the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[35] of heaven and earth, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Son he considers as the second cause of all things pertaining to our salvation, and consequently as the intermediate object of our faith and worship, to whom also he ascribes the title of God, but in an inferior and subordinate sense. The last article relates to the Holy Spirit, and is as follows:—‘I believe that there is one principal minister of God and Christ, peculiarly sent from heaven to sanctify the church, who by eminence and intimacy with God is singled out of the number of the other heavenly ministers or angels, and comprised in the Holy Trinity, being the third person thereof; and that this minister of God and Christ is the Holy Spirit.’ The subjoined scriptural illustrations of these articles contain much acute and ingenious criticism on the texts which have been chiefly insisted on, on both sides of this controversy; but his concessions of the title God, as applied to Christ, and of the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit, involve his argument in difficulties and obscurities, of which an expert opponent would not fail to take great advantage. The ‘Testimonies,’ &c., among other decisive proofs that the opinions of these early fathers were very remote indeed from what has passed for orthodoxy in later times, contain several of the remarkable passages which have since been rendered so familiar by Dr. Priestley's ‘History of the Corruptions of Christianity,’ and the controversy to which it gave rise.

No one acquainted with the temper of those times will imagine that such publications as these could come abroad without exciting the most vehement indignation againt their author, and calling