On the whole this is a very valuable contribution to the apologetic literature on the subject of the Trinity, for though Leslie, like his predecessors, sometimes has recourse to abstruse arguments to explain the ‘modes’ of the divine presence, yet he is far too acute a controversialist to lay himself open, as Sherlock and South had done, to imputations of heresy on any side; and his general method of treating the question is lucid enough, and full of just such arguments as would be most telling to men of common sense, for whom rather than for profound theologians the treatise was written.

About the same time that this treatise was published, there arose what was intended to be a new sect, or, according to the claims of its founders, the revival of a very old one—­a return, in fact, to original Christianity.  The founder or reviver of this party was William Whiston, a man of great learning, and of a thoroughly straightforward and candid disposition, but withal so eccentric, that it is difficult sometimes to treat his speculations seriously.  His character was a strange compound of credulity and scepticism.  He was ‘inclined to believe true’ the legend of Abgarus’ epistle to Christ, and Christ’s reply.  He published a vindication of the Sibylline oracles ’with the genuine oracles themselves.’  He had a strong faith in the physical efficacy of anointing the sick with oil.  But his great discovery was the genuineness and inestimable value of the Apostolical Constitutions and Canons.  He was ‘satisfied that they were of equal value with the four Gospels;’ nay, ’that they were the most sacred of the canonical books of the New Testament; that polemical controversies would never cease until they were admitted as the standing rule of Christianity.’  The learned world generally had pronounced them to be a forgery, but that was easily accounted for.  The Constitutions favoured the Eusebian doctrines, and were therefore repudiated of course by those who were interested in maintaining the Athanasian heresy.

Whiston had many missions to fulfil.  He had to warn a degenerate age against the wickedness of second marriages; he had to impress upon professing Christians the duty of trine immersion and of anointing the sick; he had to prepare them for the Millennium, which, according to his calculations when he wrote his Memoirs, was to take place in twenty years from that time.  But his great mission of all was to propagate Eusebianism and to explode the erroneous notions about the Trinity which were then unhappily current in the Church.  His favourite theory on this subject may be found in almost all his works; but he propounded it in extenso in a work which he entitled ‘Primitive Christianity revived.’  Whiston vehemently repudiated the imputation of Arianism.  He called himself an Eusebian, ‘not,’ he is careful to tell us, ’that he approved of all the conduct of Eusebius of Nicomedia, from whom that appellation was derived; but because that most uncorrupt body of