I think we may go farther. We have no reason for thinking that _this_ was the sort of evidence which convinced the apostles themselves, and first teachers of the gospel;--if indeed in the very first years the doctrine was at all conceived of. It cannot be shown that any one believed in the moral perfection of Jesus, who had not already adopted the belief that he was Messiah, and _therefore_ Judge of the human race. My friend makes the pure immaculateness of Jesus (discernible by him in the gospels) his foundation, and deduces _from_ this the quasi-Messiahship: but the opposite order of deduction appears to have been the only one possible in the first age. Take Paul as a specimen. He believed the doctrine in question; but not from reading the four gospels,--for they did not exist. Did he then believe it by hearing Ananias (Acts ix. 17) enter into details concerning the deeds and words of Jesus? I cannot imagine that any wise or thoughtful person would so judge, which after all would be a gratuitous invention. The Acts of the Apostles give us many speeches which set forth the grounds of accepting Jesus as Messiah; but they never press his absolute moral perfection as a fact and a fundamental fact. "He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil," is the utmost that is advanced on this side: prophecy is urged, and his resurrection is asserted, and the inference is drawn that "Jesus is the Christ." Out of this flowed the farther inferences that he was Supreme Judge,--and moreover, was Paschal Lamb, and Sacrifice, and High Priest, and Mediator; and since every one of these characters demanded a belief in his moral perfections, that doctrine also necessarily followed, and was received before our present gospels existed. My friend therefore cannot abash me by the _argumentum ad verecundiam_; (which to me seems highly out of place in this connexion;) for the opinion, which is, as to this single point, held by him in common with the first Christians, was held by them on transcendental reasons which he totally discards; and all after generations have been confirmed in the doctrine by Authority, _i.e._ by the weight of texts or church decisions: both of which he also discards. If I could receive the doctrine, merely because I dared not to differ from the whole Christian world, I might aid to swell odium against rejectors, but I should not strengthen the cause at the bar of reason. I feel therefore that my friend must not claim Catholicity as on his side. Trinitarians and Arians are alike useless to his argument: nay, nor can he claim more than a small fraction of Unitarians; for as many of the them believe that Jesus is to be the Judge of living and dead (as the late Dr. Lant Carpenter did) must as _necessarily_ believe his immaculate perfection as if they were Trinitarians.