simply, not
Christian Jews, as Priestley asserted.

There is a fine irony in some of his remarks on Priestley's
interpretations of Scripture. 'To others,' he says in his 'Charge,' 'who
have not the sagacity to discern that the true meaning of an inspired
writer must be the reverse of the natural and obvious sense of the
expressions which he employs, the force of the conclusion that the
Primitive Christians could not believe our Lord to be a mere man because
the Apostles had told them He was Creator of the Universe (Colossians i.
15, 17) will be little understood.'[460] In the famous text which speaks
of Christ as 'come in the flesh,' for 'come _in_ the flesh' Priestley
substitutes 'come _of_ the flesh.' 'The one,' says Horsley, 'affirms an
Incarnation, the other a mortal extraction. The first is St. John's
assertion, the second Dr. Priestley's. Perhaps Dr. Priestley hath
discovered of St. John, as of St. Paul, that his reasoning is sometimes
inconclusive and his language inaccurate, and he might think it no
unwarrantable liberty to correct an expression, which, as not perfectly
corresponding with his own system, he could not entirely approve. It
would have been fair to advertise his reader of so capital an
emendation, an emendation for which no support is to be found in the
Greek Testament or any variety of manuscripts.'[461] In a similar tone,
he trusts 'that the conviction of the theological student that his
philosophy is Plato's, and his creed St. John's, will alleviate the
mortification he might otherwise feel in differing from Dr.
Priestley.'[462]

One of the most important and interesting parts of Horsley's letters was
that in which he discussed the old objection raised by Priestley that
the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was borrowed from Plato. There is,
and Horsley does not deny it, a certain resemblance between the Platonic
and the Christian theories. The Platonist asserted three Divine
hypostases, the Good Being ([Greek: tagathon]), the word or reason
([Greek: logos] or [Greek: noys]), and the Spirit ([Greek: psyche]) that
actuates or influences the whole system of the Universe (_anima mundi_),
which had all one common Deity ([Greek: to theion]), and were eternal
and necessarily existent.[463] Horsley can see no derogation to
Christianity in the resemblance of this theory to that of the Christian
Trinity. He thinks that the advocates of the Catholic Faith in modern
times have been too apt to take alarm a