sh and insolence. It seems to me impossible,
that Whitaker can have written well on the subject of Mary, Queen of
Scots, his powers of judgment being apparently so abject. For instance,
he says that the grossest moral improbability is swept away by positive
evidence:--as if positive evidence (that is, the belief I am to yield to
A. or B.) were not itself grounded on moral probabilities. Upon my word
Whitaker would have been a choice judge for Charles II. and Titus Oates.

Ib. p. 267.

Justin therefore proceeds to demonstrate it, (the pre-existence of
Christ,) asserting Joshua to have given only a temporary inheritance
to the Jews, &c.

A precious beginning of a precious demonstration! It is well for me that
my faith in the Trinity is already well grounded by the Scriptures, by
Bishop Bull, and the best parts of Plotinus, or this man would certainly
have made me either a Socinian or a Deist.

Ib. 2. p. 270.

The general mode of commencing and concluding the Epistles of St.
Paul, is a prayer of supplication for the parties, to whom they were
addressed; in which he says, 'Grace to you and peace from God our
Father, and'--from whom besides?--'the Lord Jesus Christ'; in which
our Saviour is at times invoked alone, as 'the Grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with you all'; and is even 'invoked' the first at times as,
'the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all'; shews us plainly, &c.

Invoked! Surely a pious wish is not an invocation. "May good angels
attend you!" is no invocation or worship of angels. The essence of
religions adoration consists in the attributing, by an act of prayer or
praise, a necessary presence to an object--which not being
distinguishable, if the object be sensuously present, we may safely
define adoration as an acknowledgement of the actual and necessary
presence of an intelligent being not present to our senses. "May lucky
stars shoot influence on you!" would be a very foolish superstition,
--but to say in earnest! "O ye stars, I pray to you, shoot influences on
me," would be idolatry. Christ was visually present to Stephen; his
invocation therefore was not perforce an act of religious adoration, an
acknowledgment of Christ's deity.

[Footnote 1: The Origin of Arianism Disclosed. By John Whitaker, B.D.
London, 1791.]

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NOTES ON OXLEE ON THE