previous to Mary's
conception, and was literally and physically the carpenter's son, and so
asserted the mere humanity of the Redeemer, 'but,' he adds, 'they
admitted I know not what unintelligible exaltation of His nature upon
His Ascension by which He became no less the object of worship than if
His nature had been originally divine.'[456] He acknowledges that the
Cerinthian Gnostics denied the proper divinity of Christ, but, he adds
very pertinently, 'if you agree with me in these opinions, it is little
to your purpose to insist that Justin Martyr's reflections are levelled
only at the Gnostics.'[457]

Like Waterland, and indeed all defenders of the Catholic doctrine,
Horsley fully admits the difficulties and mysteriousness of his subject,
'but,' he asks, 'is Christianity clear of difficulties in any of the
Unitarian schemes? Hath the Arian hypothesis no difficulty when it
ascribes both the first formation and perpetual government of the
Universe not to the Deity, but an inferior being? In the Socinian scheme
is it no difficulty that the capacity of a mere man should contain that
wisdom by which God made the universe?'[458]

Horsley rebukes his opponent in severe and dignified language for
presuming to write on a subject on which, by his own confession, he was
ignorant of what had been written. In reply to a passage in Horsley's
'Charge,' in which it was asserted that Priestley's opinions in general
were the same as those propagated by Daniel Zuicker, and that his
arguments were in essential points the same as Episcopius had used,
Priestley had said that he had never heard of Zuicker, and knew little
of Episcopius; he also let slip that he had only 'looked through' the
ancient fathers and the writings of Bishop Bull, an unfortunate phrase,
which Horsley is constantly casting in his teeth.[459] On the positive
proofs of his own position, Horsley cites numerous passages from the
ante-Nicene fathers. He contends that in the famous passage of
Tertullian on which Priestley had laid so much stress, Tertullian meant
by 'idiotae,' not the general body of unlearned Christians, but some
stupid people who could not accept the great mystery which was generally
accepted by the Church. He shows that the Jews in Christ's time _did_
believe in a Trinity, and expected the Second Person to come as their
Messiah. He maintains that when Athanasius spoke of Jews who held the
simple humanity of Christ, he meant what he said, viz., Jews