Full text of "The Christian Trinity [microform] : the doctrine of God, the Father; Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit. A discourse preached in Harvard church, Charlestown, February 5, 1860"

egative

30.2

With these things in view, we remark, that the opening of his
preface presents us with a failure, which is completely glaring.
The doctrine of the Trinity is there introduced, in company with
some of the most noxious and violent opinions, which have ever
plagued mankind. It is coupled with the most outrageous tenets
of Catholics transubslantiation and the supremacy of the Pope :
with the hyper-Calvinism, of the " straitest sect " of the Gene-
van Reformer's followers the imputation of Adam's sin :
with the fiercest presumption of high-church tories the divine
right of kings.

With these, it is given over to forlorn obsoleteness, so far as con-

cerns "the generality of those, who on every subject, but theology,

are the guides of public opinion," (pref. p. iv.) and after careful

fielwcrts* lest he be " confounded with a class of writers, with whom

an intelligent Christian would not be thought to have any thing

in common," (pref. p. xxix.) is most pitifully and taskfully, (we

make a word for his own expression, pref. p. i.) dragged up from

its Lethean oblivion, with the heroic (pref. p. xxx.) desire, of rescu-

ing " the true character of our religion," from " corruptions," of

which " the falsehood and fraud " of the " prevailing faith," have

left utterly nothing! ! (pref. p. vi.) We cannot pause, tflT show the

consistency of regarding a doctrine as obsolete, with the generality

of those, who, on every subject but theology, are the "guides of

public opinion," and at the same time, of admitting, that there are

" many enlightened men," who honor it with respect, (pref. p. viii.)

and many other " able and intellectual men," who " sincerely

embrace it :" (pref. p. viii.) of its being thus obsolete, and returned

to the " tanta colluvies rerum" (p. 287.) from which it sprang

and yet, being " the professed faith of the greater part of the Chris-

tian world : " (p. 287.) of its being so professed, by a world abound-

ing if the globe contain them in " enlightened, able, and intellec-

tual men," and yet, of its having so thoroughly extinguished " the

true character of our religion," that nothing of it remains.

But really, a more imposingspecimen of that charity, which believ-
eth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things ; which vaunt-
eth not itself, and is not puffed up, we have never beheld. Come

i s a rhetorical figure, in which, from real or feigned emotion, one
speaks of himself in diminutive terms.

forward, our poor Trinitarian brethren, and hail this Light of the
world, who condescends for your sakes, to drop from his lofty
sphere, 1 among " the .guides of public opinion," in " the depart-
ments of polite literature, moral science and natural religion."
Shake yourselves, from the dust of the dark ages, amid whose
" shapeless, discordant, unintelligible speculations," your doctrine
" drew its origin, " (p. 287.) and where it gathered strength amid
" falsehood and fraud ;" and hail this Deliverer, who has come to
make you candidates, for the " clearer, more correct, and conse-
quently more ennobling and operative conceptions of Christianity,"
(p. 88.) entertained by "the aristocracy of literature:" (pref. p.
x.) conceptions, which are swelling the flood of public sentiment,
and will soon sweep a*,vay those "gross corruptions and absurdities,"
which some have mistaken for our holy religion, (pref. p. xxviii.)

We wish, of course, to put our points in the light of strong relief,
and may, for that reason be excused a little raillery. More soberly
and seriously, however, if Trinitarians are in the doleful con-
dition of bondage, to a creed, of " heartless, revolting, debasing
absurdities ; " (pref. p. xxii.) is this a " Statement," to persuade
them to think so ? is this the apostolic and nurse-like gentleness,
(I Thess:^t. 7.) which is to win souls to Christ ?

We like his title-page. It is altogether unpretending, mildly
defensive, and might attract even prejudice herself. But if this
is to be its commentary, we apprehend, that like the clarion of
war, it will provoke the stout, to buckle on their armor, while the
timid, will flee in dismay.

Approaching the body of the work, after this unconciliatory in-
troduction, in order to show its further failures, in bland and assua-
sive wisdom, we know not that we can take a better guide, than
a remark which fell from Mr. Norton himself, in his review of
Mr. Stuart. He is there attempting to defend Mr. (now Dr.) Chan-
ning, from the charge, of having treated Trinitarians with " con-
tumely," from having made it an object, "to hold them up, in
such an attitude, as to excite disgust, or scorn, or derision," from
having "striven to degrade, and render them contemptible."
" If," says Mr. N., " if Mr. Chanping had said or insinuated,
that those who hold the doctrine in question, treat the Scriptures
with contempt, that, against the convictions of their understand-

ings, they refuse to submit to their plain language ; but in oppo-
sition to this, teach absurdities as articles of faith; if he had said,
that they were concealed enemies to Christianity, &c. we should
have regarded Prof. Stuart's complaints, as not unreasonable."*

We beg our readers to remember, that reason, is a thing perfectly
huge, in the idea of Mr. Norton, and that, therefore, the word
" unreasonable," is to be considered excessively intensive. We
will now follow Mr. N.'s own rule, seriatim.

1. To say, or even insinuate, of Christians, (putting together
the charges, and what in Mr. N.'s view, would be enough to sub-
stantiate them,) that they treat the Scriptures with contempt, is to
render one's self reasonably liable to the charge of treating them
with contumely, of holding them up as objects for disgust, or scorn,
or derision, of striving to degrade, or render them contemptible.

On p. 22, after having, as he supposes, dealt a death-blow to
the Trinity and Incarnation, (which, though glorious to St.
John, (i. 14) is, if possible, more offensive than its fellow, to Mr.
N.) he takes the fixed and lordly position, that we must prove his
arguments, to be essentially wrong, or, as unbelievers, attempt to
show, that Christ and his apostles taught these doctrines. Mr. N.
speaks again and again of his own plainness, i. e. as a plainness,
to which he must descend, to meet the narrow and darkened
minds of Trinitarians, who use arguments, which in " learned
discussions," one ought to be " ashamed to urge." (pref. p. xxix.)
There can be no mistake then, as to the dilemma, which he
would develope here. We must either refute him show him to
be in essential error, or rank ourselves with open Infidels. We
presume, he need hardly have put the word " essential" in small
capitals, to show his superlative confidence, in the impregnable
solidity of his logic. On which horn of the dilemma, then, he
sees us hanging, even our poor eyes can perceive, without the
aid of Unitarian optics.

On page 122, he speaks of Trinitarians, as avowing, encourag-
ing, and abetting doctrines, which are "a solemn mockery, of all
that is most venerable and most essential to human happiness."
He had just been quoting, as examples, some of the most solemn '
and impressive appeals of our Litany : " By the mystery of thy
holy incarnation, by thy holy nativity and circumcision, &c., by

* Christian Disciple, New Series, i. 318.

thy cross and passion, &c., good Lord, deliver us :" appeals, to
which his attention was doubtless turned, by Dr. Channing, who,
in order to degrade the atonement, (horrescimus referentes,) rep-
sented Christ, as on a gallows in the centre of the universe, and
God the Father, executing him as a common hangman ! !*

Here, then, we are in the attitude of Infidels, making a mock-
ery of the most venerable and essential truths of revelation. Need
it be asked, whether a " plain" speaker, would esteem such persons
contemners of the Scriptures? So much, for his adherence to the
first portion of his rule ; and be it here remarked, that we give but
specimens, and by no means all, which might be marshalled, in
thick and hideous array.

2. To say, or insinuate, of Christians, that against the con-
victions of their understandings, they refuse to submit to the plain
language of the Bible, but, in opposition to it, teach absurdities
as articles of faith, is to be reasonably liable to the charge, of treat-
ing them with " contumely," &c.

In one part of his work, Mr. N. labors hard to prove, that the
Bible is any thing, but a plain book, and exhausts much strength
in showing, that even if its exterior do hint of Trinitarianism
(p. 105, top,) its interior, its better sense, i. e. that which his own
penetrating criticism would elicit, is all in favor of his own dogmas
in theology. With the Catholics in olden time, a standing objec-
tion to the free use which the Protestants would make of the
Bible, was, its want of perspicuity :t while the entire perspicuity
of the phrase, " this is my body," was urged as an argument, in
behalf of transubstantiation.J So, doubtless, with him, as with all
who examine and interpret with predetermined notions, the Bible
is a plain or a dark book, as it suits his fancy. But of his criticism
more anon.

Suppose a man to believe doctrines, which, " from the nature of
the human mind, it is impossible should be believed :" (p. 22.)
surely, no plain language of the Bible would teach such doc-
trines. If believed at all, or rather if pretendedly believed, they

* Channing's Works, 1st edition, 423, 424.

t The Occasional Paper, Vol. 3, No. 11. page 15. Lond. 1719. Gerhard
Loci, Theol : Tom. 2, p. 329.
\ Eossuet's Exposition, p. 57.
Note A.

must be believed, because of an anxiety, to save some darling sys-
tem, by no means worth the cost. Belief of this kind, must be,
what the belief of many Trinitarians is caller! (pp. 9 and 10,
at bottom,) " a mere evasion."

Again, as to the absolute necessity of seeing his sentiments and
no other, in the Scriptures, we refer to p. 88, where it is said, that
Trinitarians have interpreted, upon no principles which CAN BE
defended : to p. 105, where it is averred, that, be the true sense of
the Scriptures what it may, their Trinitarian exposition MUST BE
false: to p. 131, where, without the slightest reason, the reading
6el>s in 1 Tim. iii. 16, is declared " spurious," when Dr. Henderson,
and Mr. Stuart,* and Dr. Burton,t have maintained the direct
reverse, and for numerous and most able reasons : to p. 148,
where it is said, " every one MUST PERCEIVE " his version of
Rom. ix. 5, to be in the highest degree proper and natural ; when
the very learned Michaelis has said, " 1, for my part, sincerely
believe, that St. Paul here delivers the same doctrine, of the Di-
vinity of Christ, which is elsewhere, unquestionably maintained
in the New Testament; "J and when even Griesbach himself has
admitted, " there are so many arguments, for the true Deity of
Christ, he sees not how it can be called in question, the divine
authority of the Scripture being granted, and just rules of 'inter-
pretation acknowledged." Such subjects, as a whole system of
principles of interpretation, and all the Trinitarian expositions of
the Bible, ever written, and such texts, as 1 Tim. iii. 16, and
Rom. ix. 5, are hardly matters to be despatched, in half a dozen
lines, in the face of the labors and opinions, of men like these.
But there io not, even a palliative " I think," or any qualifying
word whatever. Nothing, but the inevitable necessity, is before
us, of seeing with Mr. N.'s eyes, or, of being voluntarily blind or
pitiably ignorant. This is his favorite way of putting the case,
leaving us but the equivocal comfort, of this most humiliating
choice.

A few, and but a few instances, are quoted. It is hardly

* Biblical Repository, ii. 1 80.

t Burton's Ante-Nicene Fathers, 158, &c. 2d edition.

t Blomfield's N. Test. ii. 55.

Pref. tg his N. Test. Vol. ii. edition, 1775.

necessary, though it may be useful, to remind our readers, that it
is a good law of interpretation, to give passages that sense, which
the temper, &c. of an individual allows, not to say requires.*

Of Mr. N.'s disposition, his preface seems to teem with proof,
showing it to be dictatorial and contemptuous : not to speak of
other parts, which appear quite ignitible, at least furtive indica-
tions of a temper, that, under no heavy blasts of contradiction,
might mount into a flame. Of course, one is riot to hesitate
about giving his expressions their full scope. Although he has
mach to urge, respecting the "intrinsic ambiguity" of language,
we are not to distil his own, through the alembic of learned
criticism, before we can extract its spirit.

When, then, Mr. N. speaks of the incredibility of the Trinity,
and the pre-eminent incredibility (p. 18.) of that Incarnation,
which angels welcomed with shouts of joy, we suppose him to
mean, that nothing but our wilful blindness or deplorable stupidi-
ty, nothing but falsehood or fraud, (pref. p. vi.) nothing but igno-
rance or bigotry or party spirit, (pref. p. ix.) prevent us from
submitting to his positions. When he speaks of a " must be,"
or a "can be," as he knows "the whole truth," (p. 20.) on
many a recondite subject, it is a "must be." or a "can be,"
from which there is no appeal whatever.

If a shadow of doubt obscure this reasoning page 121, will
disperse it in a moment. There, after quoting those passages
from the Litany, to which reference has been made before, he
asks, "How many join in these petitions, with an intelligent
belief of the propositions contained in them ? I answer, not one;
for, when understood (hey cannot be believed." t And must the
answer be, not one ? and, for fear that should not be strong
enough, not one, with all possible weight of emphasis , as the
underscoring intimates 1

Shades of Pascal and Bacon ! of Hale and Boyle ! of Hooker
and Barrow ! of Usher and Taylor ! of How and Herbert ! I of
Addison and Johnson! of Perceval and Wilberforce ! did ye

* Ernesti's Institutes, Ft. 1. Sect. 2. 5, and chap. 1. 16. Same section.

t Note B.

I How was a statesman, and might have been an ambassador, had he been
chosen. Herbert was, and might have been the same ; but both chose pious
retirement.

Christian Gentleman, p. 167. Eng. edition.

know nothing nothing -of vrbB.t ye were saying, when lan-
guage like this was upon your lips?* Shall one rude dash of a
modern professor's pen write you all fools ? Oh ! if it has come to
this, would it be wonderful if we should say, " patience is stale,
and we are weary of it ?" But let us explain this matter, as we
can. The wielder of such a besom of proscription comes from
an Academy, where an ars critica, and an ars polemica, pecu-
liarly its own, is sometimes taught. Many of our readers may
not know what impressive lessons have been given, in over-
weening confidence, in the schools of Anti-Trinitarian theology.
We give the following, as an illustration. Socintis, once held a
conference with Francken, about the worship of Christ ; for this
" incomparable man," as he was called, never was wise enough,
to reject that notorious practice of the primitive Christians nay,
he even pronounced those, who refused to worship Christ, no
Christians, and persecuted them, down to the grave. Rees's
Racovian Catechism, 199. Francken started at the very out-
set, as have too many of his brethren, " by slighting the mean
learning of every one." t Socinus was, of course, provoked to
give full proof of his " incomparable " powers. But when he
urged certain texts, as conclusive evidence of the correctness of
his views, and Francken retorted, that those texts might be ex-
plained of civil and not religious honor or worship, how,
with what unanswerable argument, did he put him to shame
and silence ? " I AM AS CERTAIN," said he, "op THE TRUTH

OP MY OPINIONS, AS THAT I HAVE THIS HAT IN MY HAND." J

A prostrating, nay, petrifying demonstration ! the formidable
power of which, Mr. N. has fully tested, and, in the instances
above and below, with a boldness and force well worthy his
master, in dialectics and theology. " I have made no propositions
which I do not fully believe ; I have urged no arguments, but
what have brought conviction to my own mind ; I have written
as one, who, being fully persuaded himself, and regarding his sub-
ject as free from all doubt and difficulty, is satisfied that nothing
more is to be done than to explain to others, in intelligible lan-
guage, the views which are present to his own mind." (pref. p.

* Note C.

t Harleian Miscellany, Vol. vii, p. 222.

I Bibliotheca Fratrurn, Pol. ii. 768.

xxix.) We hope the confidence of this passage, and its context, is
their worst feature; but must candidly say, we fear there is a
grievous and ironical contrast, running quite through the whole.*
So much for Trinitarian refusal to submit to the plain lan-
guage of Scripture, against the conviction of the understanding.
We come, now, to the second part of the second specification,
and shall attempt to show, that Mr. N. is reasonably liable, &Cr
since he (not insinuates, the credit must be given him of scorn-
ing so weak a tool as insinuation) most authoritatively and pal-
pably declares, that Trinitarians " teach absurdities, as articles of
faith."

Let us turn to p. 78. There, " Orthodox theology," (i. e. Trinita-
rian, for this is its meaning in N. England,) is represented as
" the peculiar region of words without meaning, of doctrines con- '
fessedly false in their proper sense, and explained in no other; of
the most portentous absurdities, put forward as truths of the
highest import ; and of contradictory propositions, thrown together
without an attempt to reconcile them." But, what must an
"intelligent Christian" think of those, about whom it can be
said, not in sport, but with the deep gravity which feels that it
has "no liberty to trifle," (p. 17.) that their whole creed is
meaningless, that they teach doctrines confessedly false,
that they put forward portentous absurdities as truths of the
highest import, that they uphold contradictory propositions,
without an attempt to reconcile them? Would the pure and
lofty-minded "set them with the dogs of their flock?" Most
surely not. And yet, this is the way to treat and greet a fellow-
Christian : i. e. fellow- Christian, if some have not grown stern
enough, at last, to deny the name of Christian, as well as common
understanding, to a believer in the Trinity.

There are even choicer epithets in store, however, in Mr. Nor-
ton's magazine of niceties, than the above. On p. 86, he com-
pares the doctrines of Trinitarians, to " the monstrous legends of
the Hindoo superstition." On p. 122, he directly calls them
" revolting absurdities," taught too, as essential parts of Chris-
tianity. On p. 292, he declares of them, or of his caricature of
them, (it matters little which, for the object in view,) that their

* Note D.

"absurdity, is as gross as their impiety." We believe he has at
last reached the zenith of climax ; for an absurdity, at once gross,
and as impious as gross, is undoubtedly peerless.

Some might ask here, Would a gentleman write thus? But it
is our consolation to believe, that there are Unitarians, whom' we
sincerely esteem, nay, honor and love, who would approve such
coarse severity as little as ourselves, and think it as ungainful
and unwise.

3. We come now to the third specification, which decides for
us, that any one, who will say or insinuate, that a professing
Christian is a concealed enemy of Christianity, is reasonably lia-
ble to the censure of treating him with " contumely;" of making
it an object, to hold him up to " disgust, or scorn, or derision ;" of
striving " to degrade and render him contemptible."

Could they be esteemed friends to Christianity, who attempted
to draw that from its doctrines, for which there were not, inJts
sacred records, one pretence ? or they, who reduced it to the luck-
less and repulsive plight, of an obsolete and vulgar superstition?
or they, who, in exhibiting it, paid no respect to the reason which
God gave us, when he formed us in his likeness, but rendered it
insulting and degrading to their fellow-creatures ? or they, who,
with all their might, declare it to contain such doctrines, as. if it
were possible for them to have their full influence on men, would
make the God of the Bible an object of utter horror and detesta-
tion? or they, the whole tendency of whose representations of it,
shut men, not up to, according to the expressive metaphor of
Paul, but out of the faith ; in other words, enticed or constrained
them to be infidels?

Is it much less, than "a solemn mockery, of all that is most
venerable" in human reason, to ask, whether such men, can be
friends of the religion of Jesus Christ ? Could the virulent Paine,
or the sneering Gibbon, more effectually undermine Christianity,
than such deplorable abettors of it? Did they ever assail it, with
a more "pernicious opposition," than is ascribed to the "false
systems" of Trinitarians? (p. 293.) Could their baneful and
blighting labors, be depicted in colors of higher glow, in terms of
more abhorrent condemnation? Did Tacitus speak more
bitterly of Christianity, when he called it "a pestilent superstition,"

exitiabilis superstitio ; or of Christians, wben he said, they
"were chargeable with hatred for their kind," odio humani gene-
ris convicti suntl*

But all and every one of the characteristics above, are by Mr.
N. literally and determinately ascribed to Trinitarians. We
cannot lift our brows, from our sorry humiliation, but he has
ready "the hand-writing which is against us," drawn out with a
pen of iron : would he nail it upon our temples, with the spirit of
Jael? For the absence of all pretence of texts, establishing the
Trinity and Incarnation ; see pp. 23, and 47.t For our lowering
Christianity to the level of an obsolete and vulgar superstition ;
see pp. 293 and 122. For our converting Christianity into what, if
it were influential, would make God an object of utter horror and
detestation ; see p. 292. For the last specification, such pages
as p. 86, of the work, and p. vi. of the preface, where he unblench-
ingly declares, that Trinitarian systems " have counteracted the
whole evidence of divine revelation," after which, without one soli-
tary hint at the frightful responsibility of such a venture, he pre-
sumes to lay all the infidelity of nominal Christendom at the
door of Orthodox theology. To the terrors of such a "state
ment," if it were possible to augment them, he has on p. 120,
added a finishing stroke. The doctrine of the Trinity is there
declared to have "a rank odor of the 'HOLY and APOSTOLIC
court of the Inquisition? Persecution, torture, murder, all
that is malignant in bigotry, all that is loathsome in hypoc-
risy, UNMIXED EVIL (p. 287.) has followed in its train" I

O! thou blessed Spiritof celestial wisdom, whose fruit (Gal. v. 22.)
is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, and goodness, are
these words which thine inspiration has taught, "to convert the
sinner from the error of his way, and to hide a multitude of sins ? "
Is this a method of thy choosing, who wast to take, not the
weapons of carnal warfare, but " the things of Jesus, " to show

* Annals, Lib. xv. ch. 44.

t With this complaint, of the want of express passages, we must beg our
readers to compare the concessions on p. 105, and the drift of the section there
closed. Is not here, again, another proof, that Protestants as well as Catholics,
can advocate or object to, doctrines, for either the perspicuity or want of per-
spicuity, in Scripture ? Note A, and the text connected with it.

t Note E.

them unto men, and convince them of sin and righteousness?
Didst Thou sanction such reclaiming tuition, who saidst " Neither;
do I condemn thee; go and sin no more?" Are here, gleams of
his temper, who said, He would not condemn even Sodom and
Gomorrah, if the mantle of ten righteous could be thrown over
their enormities? Has a new commission been issued from the
court of the King of kings, since the annunciation of that great
decree, "[Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord ? "

But we descend to lower, and to some, perhaps, more convincing
arguments. We ask, whether it were too much to expect, that
his own words might fly in the lace of such a denunciator?
" Some of our opponents," he says, " insist, in language which
seem to us extremely presumptuous, that if we reject their doc-
trines, we must also reject the Scriptures, and give up oyr Christ-
ian faith. They are not very scrupulous, in refraining from
the use of those somewhat dishonorable weapons of warfare, in-
sinuations and charges of real or virtual infidelity." * How does
this tissue of judicial asseveration compare with the liberty of
judgment, which an Hon. and highly respectable and esti-
mable gentleman of his own persuasion, says we must not ex-
ceed ? "Without doubt, every man may endeavor to propagate his
own religious sentiments, by reason, argument, and persuasion, and
especially, by showing in his conduct, that they are productive of
all the virtues, including charity; but this does not give him au-
thority to condemn the sentiments of others. He may allege,
that they do not accord with his belief and his convictions ; but he
has no jurisdiction to decide, that they are repugnant to the Scrip-
tures." t How compares it with the language of Dr. Channing,
writing as the oracle of his party ? " Mistake in judgment, is the
heaviest charge which one denomination has now a right to urge
against another." " The fashionable mode of bearing testimony,"
i. e. by terrifying epithets, &c. "is a weapon, which will always be
most successful in the hands of the proud, the positive, and
overbearing."]. How compares it even with .the counsel of Vol-
taire ? " If a man would recommend his religion to strangers or his
countrymen, should he not go about it with the most winning com-
posure, the most insinuating mildness? If he sets out with say.

* Christian Disciple, New Series, i. 397 and 8.

t Letter of Mr. Gray, to Gov. Lincoln, 3d edition, p. 35.

J Remarks on Dr. Worcester's second Letter, pp. 28, 29.

ing, that what he declares is demonstrabty (rue, he will meet
strong opposition; and if he takes it upon him to tell them, that
they reject his doctrine, only because it condemns their passions
that their hearts have corrupted their minds ; that they have only
& false and presumptuous reason ; he excites their contempt and
resentment, and overthrows what he intended to build up." *

Here we at present rest, since for most persons, it is imagined,
enough has been said to show how Mr. N.'s own practice agrees
with his own text, fourteen years old, and with how much justice
he has made himself amenable to rules, his own pen has indited.
We have no desire to pursue what Paley calls the cumulative
argument. The sentiments which will pervade, not to say thrill,
the bosoms of many of our readers, at the disclosures now made,
will inflict on him, we fear, all we could wish, were we disposed to
revenge. In his own expressive words, "a work which offends our
best feelings, can have no power over the sympathies of a well-
ordered mind." (pref. p. xii.) He must write with the prayers
and the temper of the excellent Dr. Hody, if he would gain the
sympathy of such minds for his cause. "Faxit Numen, ut vel
aeterno ego silentio inter non scribentes delitescam, vel semper, ut
virum ingenuum, liberalis ac generosae educationis, veraeque
philosophise studiosum decet, scribam : Veritatis unices indagator,
absque omni styli acerbitate, mitis, urbanus, candidus, ad id,
quod indecens est, adeo non pronus, ut nee movendus." f

But we have not done with this part of our subject. , Mr, N.
has cast his eye over the page of past ecclesiastical history, and
as he has met, here and there, traces of excess and suffering, has
fearlessly ascribed them to the doctrine of the Trinity. In our
note, we have endeavored to cast an eye on the same page, to
see how it reads, for consequences associated with professors of his
own creed. Our readers must decide upon our respective sur-
veys: but we bespeak their deliberation a little longer. We
would cast an eye over later periods, and see what their report
may sanction. And here let it be fully understood, that we are

* Phil. Diet. ii. 165. Holmes' edition, Lond. 1819.
t Body's Prolegomena to Malela's Chronicon, 1691.

amply aware of the delicacy and sensitiveness of the subject we
are approaching, and of our want of right, not to say of will, to
assault the feelings of many, whom we highly respect and es^-
teem ; that we presume, as yet, to draw no inferences, to make
no round assertions, but wish all we say, until^we reach a point, '
which will by and by come up, considered, what we might,
rather than what we do, affirm. With this, now temporary, and,
in a certain case, permanent demurrer, we proceed.

Almost the whole of the offensive portion of Mr. N.'s review
and book, is recorded after one seventh of a century had passed
away, when the fury of polemical controversy had nearly sub-
sided, and when no antagonist, much less a provoking one,
had lashed him into rage, and turned the lenity and charity of
quietude into the acerbity and venom of aggressive warfare.
And yet, then, when he was under so little temptation, to be
harsh or haughty, when the fountains of that stream of calum-
ny, which in 1819, it was said, had been pouring out for more
than eight years, and spreading poison through every possible
channel,* had at least begun to be drying up, when the sober-
ness of maturer years, and the discipline of affliction, (p. 294.)
might have done something, to abate the carking eagerness and
fiery ferocily of a youthful champion, what see we? A con-
version retrograde ? The stream flowing from an opposite di-
rection?

Once, it was the fashion of many, to utter a wail, as mournful
as that of Orientals over the dead, for a denial to them of the
name of Christian, and for an unwillingness to reciprocate their
proffered fellowship.! By and by, a sermon ad captandum bursts
upon the public, in which seems to be taken, the judicial stand,
that claiming Divinity for Jesus Christ is denying his real char-
acter ; and which seems, accordingly, whether expressed or left
unsaid, to authorize the tremendous inference, that all who do
this, must be denied by him, in the day of judgment.

Now comes a bolder herald, and proclaims such " deliriously

* Christian Disciple, 1819, p. 131.

t Vide Dr, Channing's remarks on Dr. Worcester's Letters; copies of
which, we have lately by accident obtained, and read, with a silent comparison,
of things from similar sources now, we may truly say, with an unbelieving
astonishment, which nothing but " litera scripta" could convince.

foolish," (p. 120,) mortals, the virtual causes, of all the infidelity,
on the globe : for there is no infidelity in heathen lands, where
the Gospel was never heard of. And here, it may be recollected,
this charge in its heaviest form, viz : that Trinitarian systems
" have counteracted the whole evidence of revelation," occurs in
Mr. Norton's preface, (p. vi.) the last written portion of his book,
and therefore no mean proof, of its reflex influence upon himself.
At any rate, a preface shows what an author thinks his book
will justify, for as Pascal long since said, the last thing we dis-
cover in writing a book, is to know what to put at the beginning.*
Such is the aspect of history here. What is it in England ?
When Lindsey abandoned "a corrupt Church," with an honesty,
which Evansont and others, who " had not learned the art of
starving," had not the resolution to imitate, his language was the
soft and respectful speech of plaintive self-justification. In time,
he grew bolder, and talked, as Andrew Fuller sayst in his letters
on Socinianism, about the mental debility of his antagonists, and
granted them the boon of his unfeigned commiseration. Simi-
lar, as Fuller testifies, was the case with Robert Robinson.
During the exacerbations of Calvinism, (for he was once a
Calvinist,) the severest epithet he had for Unitarians, was, "mis-
taken brethren." Afterward, when they were his brethren in-
deed, we find him denouncing a man like the great Augustine,
" as a pretended saint, but an illiterate hypocrite of wicked dis-
positions." Even Belsham, that " calm inquirer," when Bishop
Horsley becomes his theme, cannot spare the epithets " ignorant
and pitiful ; "II though Mr. N. has pronounced him, a man
" of various erudition," and blessed with " an unusual strength of
style, and no contemptible powers of arguing.''^ Dr. Priestely, as
we have hinted in a note, pronounced this escharotic theologian,
a falsifier of history, and a defamer of the character of the dead.**

* Thoughts, p. 263, Craig's edition.

i Nichols' Lit. Anecdotes, Vol. vi. Part I. page 483.

t Fuller's Works, Boston edition, 1833. i. 236.

Fuller, i. 234.)

|| Horsley's Tracts, Appendix, p. 612. 3d edition.

IT General Repository, i. 40, 42.

** Bp. Bull fared worse than this, at an earlier date. Of him, it was said by
one, in the name of all the rest, that " no respecter tenderness should be shown
him by any Unitarian." Nelson's Life of Bull, p. 398, 2d edition.

All this, was submitted to, by the members of a " corrupt church,*
who, if they had chosen, might have inflicted on calumniators,
stiff enough to refuse a signature, to the short and sinple formula
required of dissenters, the following penalties: imprisonment
without bail or mainprize, abjuration of the realm, or transporta-
tion!* Did we cross to the Continent, we fear the story of
Socinus and Blandrata and David, would be found to be one
piece of this " coat of many colors," and that of the poor "Mum-
mers " at Geneva, another. The sufferings of David, which
hurried him to a dungeon and a premature grave, a Socinian
biographer of Socinus, cannot shift off from him, as a cause,
without charging them to his party : a'gain, not worth his toil.t
At Geneva, just twenty years ago, the alternative of a Socinian
creed, or a refusal of ordination, (which there, as the issue showed,
was a virtual banishment,) were enforced with "unmixed" reso-
lution. { We go ro further. And now therefore, comes up the
momentous question : what use do we mean to make of these
details, in the note on persecution, and the foregoing pages 1 Do
we mean to say, that Unitarianism leacls men to speak falsely, as
Arius was charged with speaking about his creed, and that
therefore, all the asseverations against Orthodoxy, are forged
and groundless ? No. Do we then mean to demand, an eye
for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and charge as much on Unitarian-
ism, as has been charged on Trinitarianism, and with as much
vehemence? Not necessarily not voluntarily. We are not
lovers of proscription. It is an awful a detestable weapon.
We are not partial to damnatory clauses, either in, or out of, the
Athanasian creed. We know not, (such frail and fallible crea-
tures, do we think men in their best estate,) that we have the
right, and we certainly have not the disposition, to ascribe one of
all the melancholy and humiliating facts, recited or alluded to in
our pages, to the particular faith, or to a particular doctrine in
the faith, of any man professing and calling himself a Christian.
Much rather would we say, in the true if homely language of

* Horsley's Tracts, 346, and Gibson's Codex, 589, 594.
t Harleian Miscellany, vii. 218, 219.
t Christian Observer, 1826. p. 688.

Compare Socrates' Ecc. Hist. Lib. i. Chap. 8, and Petav. Dog. Theol. torn,
ii. Lib.l. ch. 11 and 12.

our articles,* that they are all, severally, and in the aggregate,
the unhappy progeny, of " the fault and corruption, of the nature
of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of
Adam:" of that "infection," which "doth remain, yea in
them that are regenerated." Much rather, would we make this
use of them, than any other: in such facts, we see an over-
whelming proof, of our Savior's declaration, " verily, verily, I say
unto you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king-
dom of God ; " for how can he be fit, if unchanged, for heaven,
and how can he change himself, to be fit, who has so perverted
God's holiest blessings, spoiled even the religion of his spotless
Son?

But if this may not be, if the unsoftened denunciations
which have been instanced, are to be reiterated, if such sweep-
ing inferences, such determinate applications of consequences, as
we have seen, are again to be presented, with the grave, not to
say solemn averment, that they are " fully believed," and are
"free from all doubt and difficulty:" then, we do say, that we
have as perfect a right, to declare all of an odious character, that
has been recounted in connection with Unitarianisrn, the genuine
fruit of that denomination of doctrine. Then, we do say, when
we look at Lindsey, and Robinson, and Belsham, and Priestley,
and the book we are reviewing, behold the effect of this doctrine
upon the temper. Then, "we do say, from all such doctrine
"good Lord deliver us," and grant us instead, the ignorance for
which we are pitied ; ignorance is a hopeful malady, but there is
no cure for ossification of the heart.

Again, we say, we like not proscription. The spirit of our
Church, to speak nothing of our religion, is eminently pacific :
we hope we have caught some of it by long familiarity. We
feel, that we have no right to hurl the firebrands and arrows of
damnatory clauses, and say it is necessary to do so, in order to
prove true, our self-chosen creed. We believe, that we have a
better, a more honorable, a more just way, of illustrating and
commending that creed, which before heaven we believe to be
true. We are ready to say, of every rude assailant, no matter
how able, what Cyprian said of Novatus, " facundiee venenatsej

* Article IX.

jacula contorquens, magis durus, secularis philosophies pravitate,
quam philosophies Dominicee, lenitate ipacificus: misericordi
hostis interfector penitentiee - doctor superbiee veritatis cor-
ruptor perditor caritatis."* We presume to take no higher
ground, than Mr. Gray would allow us, in the letter already
quoted, t We believe that we are right: believe so, from the
bottom of our hearts. We believe, that the notions of Unitarians,
" are repugnant to the Scriptures." To say that we know this
is more than we adventure. We dare not say, we cannot be
wrong. We dare not say, they cannot be right. We believe ;
we express our belief, plainly, fully, unshrinkingly, not daunted
by the face of any mortal man. This belief is with us, a most
precious and sacred thing. The scorn, of the self-named " intel-
ligent," shall not make us blush for it. The frowning dogmatism
of "the aristocracy of literature," shall not brow-beat us into silence
on it. Nay, (as we hope for strength from heaven,) the gleam-
ing fires of persecution shall not burn it out of us. Still, properly
alive to the subject of human fallibility, we only say that we
believe, and there we rest. Decision, belongs to God. To him
we reverentially refer it, and wait with humble hope and silent
patience the disclosures of a future day, a day of UNCLOUDED
LIGHT.

But if while we do thus, if while we assume dominion over
no man's faith,t and by the views we give him of our own, would
only be helpers of his joy, our unaggressive attitude is to be no
safe-guard; but our most valued doctrines, are to be dashed to
the ground, with the imperious and unqualified dictum, not
merely that they " are repugnant to the Scriptures," but such
" revolting absurdities," that " not one," of even the wisest and
holiest among us, has an intelligent belief in them ; if we are to
see these doctrines held forth for a hissing and a bye-word, as
provocative of crimes, which, if charged on us as individuals,
would justify an indictment, to bring him who would proclaim

* Cypriani Opera, edition 1550, p. 37.

i Perhaps not altogether. He says, no man has a right to say, his creed is
in the abstract right. This we admit. He then goes on to 'say, that one creed
is right for one, and another for another. This is contradicting his own position,
and (with due deference) is more than he, or than any human being knows.

J 1 Cor. i. 24.

us guilty of them, before the tribunals of his country; then, we
think, we are perfectly authorized to offer appeals like the follow-
ing. Let the community awake to the consequences, of grant-
ing a toleration, to which intolerance will be the unfailing
requital. Let them mark those, who make longer and more
sonorous clamors than any, about the illiberality and bigotry
and persecuting hostility, of their neighbors. Let them consider,
whether this is attempted with a proselyting aim, to excite that
sympathy, which, to the honor of human nature, is involuntarily
bestowed on oppression. Let them weigh well, whether this din,
is to drown " the clink of hammers," which are forging armor
of higher proof, and for belligerents, who may come forth like
another Thundering Legion, and crush opposition at a blow.
And if they shall think, as we fear they will have top much
reason to do, that intolerant toleration is acting this dangerous
part, then we say, let them be lulled no more, by the deceitful
outcry of persecution and domination.* Let them no longer be
beguiled into a charity, which meets no recompense. Let them
no longer be mocked, by promises of a disenthralling liberality,
which, like the apocalyptic book, are sweet to the taste but bitter
of digestion. Let them remember, that the high authority of
Sacred Writ has taught us, that "false apostles" can assume
the guise of "angels of light: "t that the history of human na-
ture has taught us, that even Atheism, which declares we are
responsible for no opinion whatever, and which therefore grants
unbounded license, of thought and word and action, that even
this, all-denying, all-liberating creed, which at first, smiles on us
like one of the Graces, can at length, rage and howl and ravage,
like one of the unearthly Furies.J

And then, at last, we say, let them beware of systems, which
in the days of their feebleness, have "words smoother than but-
ter," but in the days of their maturity, when they can act the

* When faction or ambition, had conceived the design of a revolution, we
almost uniformly find, that they commenced the plan of its execution, by the
outcry against abuses, and vociferations against tyranny.

Dr. Fletcher on Rel. controversy, p. 207.

t 2 Cor. xi. 13, 14.

t Note F.

potential mood from the " curule chair," clothe themselves in
" Gorgon terrors," and give laws like Draco.

II. The second proposition, about which we offered to say
something, in relation to Mr. N.'s " Statement," was, that it
might possibly be shown to be less abln, as well as less wise,
than some or many may have imagined. He seems to write
e. g. as if he had made new discoveries, in the science of Inter-
pretation. Let us canvass his claim, in this respect.

In the review of 1819, in opening the trenches on Mr. Stuart,
he appears to have found it convenient to attack with wholesale
allegation. Mr. Stuart's is a book, which, to have been answered,
as fully as it was meant to be, ought to have been examined in
detail. It is a work, chiefly of instances of criticism, and such
a work, cannot be contemplated at one view, like a system of
moral philosophy or of political economj'. The easier and more
ostentatious way, to disparage without meeting it, is, to try the
virtue of comprehensive declamation. To us, this appears to have
been relied on. Mr. Stuarts principles of Interpretation, were
assaulted en masse, to be carried by storm, and after a summary
condemnation of them, it was- hastily but conclusively inferred,
that any one, who could profess and maintain such principles,
(the same for substance be it remembered, which Dr. Channing
had avowed and advocated,*) could have, but " extremely loose
and inconsistent notions concerning interpretation," in fine,
that he could have "no settled principles," at all.t The real
and only just ground -of censure, which the review could plausibly
urge, was, that Mr. S. had not given, a formal synopsis of his
principles. But what need of this, for those who had made Dr.
C.'s Sermon, their horn-book ; unless their minds were as much
beclouded, as those of the slaves, to a creed of " heartless, revolt-
ing, debasing absurdities ? "

Mr. N. then brings forward, his own views of interpretation,
which, with the "certainty" of Socinus, the "much spirit and
full assurance " of Anus, and the " slight for the mean learning
of others," of Francken, are, propounded as original, irreprovea-
ble, and overcoming. Like the Roman Catholic, Bishop Milner's
book, they bear on their very front the annihilating appellation,

* Stuart's Letters to Dr. Channing, first edition, p. 7, the edition reviewed
In the Disciple. ,'"'

t Christian Disciple, New Series, 1. 319. ..' ,. .'

"the end of controversy." Of course, we draw nigh, in the
attitude of anxious wonder, to witness the marvellous discovery.
But we behold, what? Not "fair Portia's counterfeit"
that's certain. No: but we are quite persuaded, merely "divinity
of other days ground down to modern use," " things old,"
tricked off in t the paraphernalia of present fashion, like too
much, which makes the uninitiated stare, in our " Libraries of
useful knowledge."* The intrinsic ambiguity of language,
is the astounding novelty, which is to show us, what dull vision
we all have had, and for ages, and to fill us with confusion,
before the grand and final issues, to which, on topics of theology,
it is to be made to lead. The ambiguity of language? Why,
it has not even the credit, of verbal originality. The very word
ambiguity, in relation to the same subject, is found on the pages
of Ernesti, and even on those of old Pfeiffer, "now to the dust
gone down;" while, as to the causes of this ambiguity, when
Mr. N. enumerates but four or five, Morus, the commentator
on Ernesti, enumerates one principal, and five subsidiary.t
Franck, in his hermeneutical lectures, lays down six positions,
all of which, are grounded upon this supposed newly discovered
quality of language. Keil, in his work on interpretation, sug-
gests five rules, to which constant respect is to be paid, for this
very reason : the same number, which is given by the learned
Blackstone, in his well known Commentaries. Jahn, in
his valuable Enchiridion, says, (remembering perhaps what
Jerome had long before said,) that words, in themselves con-
'sidered, have no peculiar sense, they have this, only when
regarded in their connections and relations : t a sentiment to
which the phrase "intrinsic ambiguity of language," comes
near enough to be an echo. Morus, has written ably on the im-
portant distinction between the signification and sense of words,
and his dissertation, (part of which Mr. Stuart himself had already

* Some by old words, to fame have made pretence,

Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense.

Such labored nothings, in so strange a style,

Amaze the unlearned and make the learned smile.

Pope's Essay on Criticism, 324 28.
t Mori Hermeneut, Vol. 1. 44 46.
J Jahn Ench. p. 22. compare Harris' Hermes, 328, 9.

translated in his edition of Ernesti,) may be found in an English
dress, in the Jan. number of Dr. Robinson's excellent periodical,
the Biblical Repository. Any one, who had read or heard of
Bishop Marsh's fourteenth, and fifteenth Lectures, would not be
apt to forget, that the manifold meanings of words, constitute one
of the chief difficulties an interpreter must vanquish. Indeed,
this is a subject, by no means forgotten by a body of men, whom
it is one of the fashions of this age of reform, to undervalue:
we mean the translators of James's Bible. In their erudite pre-
face, (which it would at least be decorous for our tyros to ready
before they presume to ridicule them,) they say, that though as
Chrysostom observes, "whatsoever things are necessary are
manifest? " yet for all that, it cannot be dissembled, that
partly to exercise and whet our wits, partly to wean the curi-
ous from loathing of them for their every where plainness, partly
also to stir up our devotion to crave the assistance of God's
Spirit, that we might be forward to seek aid of our brethren by
conference, and never scorn those, that be not in all respects so com-
plete as they should be, being to seek iu. many things ourselves,
it hath pleased God in his Divine Providence, here and there, to
scatter words and sentences of difficulty and doubtfulness." And
yet, they ask a little further on : " Is the kingdom of God become
words and syllables ? Why should we be in bondage to them if
we may be free ?" In truth, we think we have rarely seen, in
the history of sacred criticism, a finer illustration of independence
tempered with modesty, of a true zeal for liberal inquiry, com-
bined with a just consciousness of the limits of research, than in
.these, (to the dishonor of our age must it be spoken,) most unesti-
mated men. But not to quote from Bishop Gleig, Dr. Camp-
ibell, William Carpenter, and other writers, professedly theological,
we think there are authors, in quite different departments of
learning, not very much more ignorant of the ambiguity of lan-
guage, than Mr. Norton himself. Lyttelton, we suspect, knew
something about it, when he talked,, of "giving truth its due
force, and scorning an embroidered lie."* Johnson, we imagine,
did not think Swift unacquainted with it, when he quoted him
as saying, "A farmer will tell you in two words, he has broken

* Letters, p. 211.

his leg, but a surgeon after a long discourse, shall leave you as
ignorant as you were before."* Addison, must have dreamt of
it, in his essay on Ancient and Modern Learning, when he un-
dertook to tell, why we could in general so poorly appreciate the
wit of antiquity ; and, in sooth, we profoundly query, whether
there was ever a punster,t or a plagiarist,! who had not some insight
of this mysterious subject. John Locke, in his great work on the
mind, has a chapter on the imperfections of words, another on
the abuse of words, and another on the remedies of the foregoing
imperfections and abuses, which ought not to be wholly strange
to one, who graduated from College hi times not exceedingly
olden, though they might be unknown to a stripling of the present
era, for whom Locke is too antiquated to be a text book. Du-
gald Stuart however, who is nearer the bon ton of literature, has
not let the ambiguity of language pass by him, without careful
comment. In his Elements of Philosophy, he regrets the diffi-
culties in which he is involved, by the " vagueness and ambigu-
ity of words," and says he has had frequent occasion to do the
very same thing. Sir James Mackintosh, laments with feeling
"the penury and laxity of language," even in relation to ethical
subjects: subjects of which the Bible is full. II The "heretic"
Tucker, alludes to the same deficiency in language, quite as
emphatically, if he does not lament it.1T And finally, to wind up
this series of theological and un-theological writers, we will quote
the apt and sagacious remark, of the translator of Tittman's
synonymes of the New Testament. " It is easy," he says, u for
perverted intellect or 'unsound scholarship, to assume this
ambiguity, and build on it a false and ruinous dogma, and in
fact, this is the fruitful- source of most heretical opinions."**
Here we intended to have paused, but the sound of a word, has
started a new association with us, as it did with Goldsmith when
writing his " Traveller." We cannot refrain from observing, that

* Idler, No. 70.

t Compare Barrow on Wit, Vol. i. Serm. 14.

| Curiosities of Literature, ii. 152. ,

Vol. ii. p. 2. edition 1814. So also Dr. Reid, Wks 2. 1.

|J Introduot. View of Phil. p. 3.

IT Light of Nature, iii. 260. Camb. edition.

** Biblical Cabinet, No. iii. p. 24.

ecclesiastical history will abundantly show, that the ambiguity
of language, is a thing as long known and well known, as her-
esy itself.

Paul of Samosata, was such an adept in this slippery subject,
that says Mosheim, " repeated ecclesiastical councils were wholly
unable to convict him."* Anus, says Lardner quoting from
Theodoret, was intrusted with the interpretation of Scripture.f
From the frequent and reiterated charges made against him, one
would think, that the ambiguity of language, was a branch in
his professional art, for which he, (and as our note will show,
his,) had a sort of instinctive gust.t Yet Le Clerc, strenuously
defended himself from a charge, of accusing the Fathers gener-
ally, of being more notorious than was reputable for the same
humor of, palate. Really, when we think of these and some
similar things, with references to which our page might be dotted,
we feel quite disposed to yield Mr. Norton the palm, and allow
him to say, without one plea for abatement on our side, that the
ambiguity of language, is a matter, about which the Orthodox
part of the Church has ever been uncommonly ignorant. We
are not anxious to trace our lineage from " the Sons of the Mist."

But to proceed. After supplying us with his new discovery,
Mr. N. goes on to show, the incomparable effects of its application.

Here, unless warned by experience, we might again listen
auribus arrectis. And how great would be our reward 1 This
"intrinsic ambiguity," is to guide, prompt, and enable us to do,
what? It is to assist us, " by directing our attention, to all those
considerations, which render it probable,that one meaning was
intended by the writer, rather than another." (p. 29.) With this,
"new thing under the sun," let any man of discernment com-
pare the definition of Ernesti, that interpretation is the art of
teaching the real sentiment, contained in any form of words, or
aiding us to derive from them, the same idea the writer intended
to convey. II That Mr. N. may have ample competition, with dis-

* Murdock's edition, i. p. 244.

t Works, 4to. edition, 2. 304. also Ceillier Hist. Aut. Sac. iv. 19.

t Note G.

Ars Critica, vol. iii. p. 83.

|| Inetitutio Prolegom. Sec. 3.

ciples of the school he wars with, we subjoin the excellent defini-
tion of Prof. Hahn, translated literally : " That, is the true in-
terpretation of the Scriptures, through which, that sense of them
is spread out before one, which the writers of the Scriptures,
wished and intended, to spread out before him."* We now leave
him, to dispute the wreath for either originality or superior ex-
cellence, as long and as loudly as he will. Only, we do so, with
the expression of our deep regret, that any man should speak
of the ambiguity of language, with an air of triumph, as if his
system could not but be advantaged by it. We have always
supposed, it was to be lamented and not rejoiced in. We re-
member the melancholy uses, to which some, with the air and
manner of reformers, have applied it. In the language of a pow-
erful writer on the study of the Law, " They have robbed their
own minds of a resting place, and they would reduce the minds
of others, to the same unhappy and unsettled condition. With
this spirit, they attack every sentiment, whereon men have been
accustomed to rely : and as words, are the common medium
through which ideas are delivered, they play upon the meanings
of words, till they have thrown everything into that confusion,
which unfortunately for themselves and for others, is so conge-
nial with their debased inclinations."!

Our readers, will perceive at once, we are not covetous of tri-
umph, in a matter of logomachy. But were we really disposed
to enter the lists, and tilt in serious strife with confident pretend-
ers, we should tell them in the outset, that not a few have wholly
overlooked or strangely forgotten, a consideration of even greater
importance than ambiguity of language, viz. : THE MORAL
Q.UALIFICATIONS OP AN INTERPRETER. With an acute head,
a man may have a very dull heart, and mistake egregiously,
even about things otherwise the plainest in the Scriptures:
about those especially, with which his heart has had little con-
cern, in which it has felt no deep and abiding interest, by which
its best and warmest sympathies have not been excited. In the
very words of Mr. Norton, in relation to his " intrinsic ambiguity,"
would we expressively say, " this fundamental truth, this fact

* Biblical Repository, i. 124.

t Letters on the Study of the Law, p. 306.

which lies at the very bottom of the art of interpretation, has
either been overlooked, or not regarded in its relations and conse-
quences." (p. 91.) The Bible itself tells us, that " the natural
man, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness unto him, neither CAN he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned." (1. Cor. ii. 14.) "Why do ye not un-
derstand my speech ?" said Christ to the Pharisees, who regarded
his language as ambiguous : " even because ye cannot hear my
word," was his own infallible solution of the difficulty. (John
viii. 43.) How came Ezra, to have such an enlarged and correct ac-
quaintance, with the law of the Lord ? Because he prepared
his heart to seek it, (Ezra vii. 10.) and as the intense original
might prove, made no little serious exertion to procure the appro-
priate habitude for such an undertaking.*

" Before we come to study," says one of the most pithy works
on practical piety, with which we are familiar, " we must be
willing to learn, and we might say to Christians, who desire to be
instructed in their religion, what a certain philosopher said to his
disciples, Before you come to my school forget what you have
learned in that of others."} "When the Divine apostle," says
Leighton, " preached in the Areopagus at Athens, a great many
mocked and ridiculed him; others said, 'We will hear thee
again of this matter : but certain clave unto him and believed.'
And that we may not think, that this faith in those who believed,
was owing to their uncommon penetration or sagacity, on the
one hand, or to their weakness and simplicity, on the other, of
the two mentioned in Scripture who believed on that occasion,
the one was a philosopher, and the other a wornan."J

Lest however, such authorities should not be sufficiently phi-
losophical, some others shall be annexed. The following from one
of the old French Savans, the Sieur de Charron, is well worthy
notice. " Things," says he, " have just that place in our opinion

* The word translated "prepared," is that used to designate, the patience,
care and solicitude, with which an archer makes ready his bow, and discharges
his arrows. So Ezra " pressed towards the mark. 1 '

t De Villiers on Prejudice against Religion, p. 68. London, 1709. As a co-
ordinate with this, we add the inscription, on the gate of the temple of Epidau-
rus ; " Entrance into these places, is permitted only to pure souls." Clemens
Mex. Stromata. Lib. 5. p. 652.

t Works, Vol. iv. p. 216.

* -.' '.

and esteem, which we think fit to assign them. They are rel-
ished, just as our palate stands at the time, and appear to us,
with those colors with which we ourselves have tinctured them.
Like the eyes of men in the jaundice, or the prisms, that refract
and vary the rays that fall upon the organs of our outward senses,
so does the soul, alter its objects too, and the present constitution of
it, (i. e. state at the time,) is the medium, through which they
must pass to us."* We will add but two more. They shall be
from two of the greatest lawyers, whom the world has ever seen ;
and lawyers know, ab ovo usque ad malum, all the circum-
stances which may affect a man's appetite, for the viands of truth
or error. Says Lord Bacon, in ratification of St. Paul, (1. Tim.
i. 8.) The law is good, only in the hands of him who uses it
lawfully, and he therefore warns judges about a wise use and
application of laws.t Well therefore may we, though with a far
humbler voice, warn all, how they use the laws of interpretation.
Says Jeremy Beritham, in the abstract of his great work on Evi-
dence by Dumont; "Partiality, can influence attention. He
who is under the influence of a bias, a. predetermined notion,
will regard that only which flatters him, will see that only
which he wishes to see, and that which has an unpleasant sense
or aspect, will escape him. Thus the Jews, opposed a vulgar
proverb to all which could be urged by Christ, ' can any good
thing come out of Nazareth ? 't What an unsuspected application
might be made of this high judicial authority, to some modern
expositors of Scripture!

Here we leave this subject, which needs a book, and a very
earnest and solemn one written on it, for the express use of theo.
logians of our day. In dropping it, we improve the opportunity,
to commend the additions, which in regard to it, the judicious Dr.
.Henderson has made to the English Edition of Stuart's Ernesti,
Prof. Lee's Six Sermons on the Study &c. of Scripture,
Dr. Reid's Chapter on Prejudices the Causes of Error, De-
war's Chapter in his Moral Philosophy, on the moral qualifications

* Charron on Wisdom, Vol. i. p. 161, 2. 2d edition, 1707.

i Works. Montague's edition, i. 184.

t Trait6 des preuves judiciaires, Vol. i. p. 47.

Reid's Works, iii. 233.

necessary for pursuing that great subject to advantage, and es-
pecially, the sober and solid, but unfortunately little known work,
of Bp. Van Mildert, on the Interpretation of Scripture viz., his
Bampton Lectures. Bp. Van Mildert has never had sufficient
justice done him, as a critical scholar: if he had had, as well as
some others, we should have heard less of the exclusive praises of
Germany, in the department of Sacred Literature.*

Enough then, of Mr. Norton's claim to discoveries in the sci-
ence of Interpretation : whom are his discoveries to benefit ?
Like all other grand principles or facts, on which this noble
science is founded, are they to be at general use and application?
Are they to be equally serviceable, to all sects, all professions ?
Are they to be sovereignly impartial, and favor no one systema-
tizer, more than they do another ? Not at all, not at all.
Mr. N. doles out the power of interpreting, as frugally as he
does common perception and common honesty, to Trinitarians
corrupted by a creed, of "heartless, revolting, debasing absurdities."
Let Orthodox students open the Bible, and attempt to peruse and
understand it, and there is nothing intelligible upon its pages,
which a keen reason can discern. It is a perfect blank, or like
Ovid's rudis indigestaque moles, a confusion worse confounded.
They are not to be permitted, even TO FANCY that they believe,
what their unfortunate eyes may see there, (p. 121 at bottom,
122 at top.) Whatever be the true signification of the Bible, its
Trinitarian exposition must be false, (p. 105.) Let one, however,
gifted with Mr. Norton's second sight, approach it, and like the
magician with sympathetic inks, he brings out vivid colors, through
which " there is a prospect displayed before us, inconceivably glorious
and delightful." (p.291.) True, we have the advantage of numbers
on our side : our doctrine embraces nearly all of nominal Christ-
endom (p. 287.) But what then ? Daniel, was but one, against a
host of the astrologers and soothsayers of Chaldea, (the orthodox
interpreters of the land,) and yet he perfectly comprehended the
hieroglyphics, which put them all at bay, " and showed the king
the interpretation."

This, most undeniably, is a new discovery. The man who
has found a master-key, to unlock the mysteries of language,

* Note H.

while his fellows have been conjuring for it, and for centuries in
vain, does indeed merit ex abundanti, both of homage and of
praise. Bacon's name and his. should be enrolled on the same
tablet, their statues, fill the same niche in " Fame's proud tem-
ple." But we find an obstacle rising, to hinder the immediate
award, of such high celebrity. The science of Interpretation, we
have always supposed, was founded upon the best settled convic-
tions, of common sense, and facts, of the most constant and no-
torious observation. If there be any science therefore, which of-
fered less temptation than another, to an explorer, we should
suppose it would be this : if any, which could not be made to
bend, to the views and whims and prejudices of a particular in-
dividual or clan, we should name this, as among the foremost of
such a character. The same fountain, sends not forth sweet
water for the white, and bitter water for the red man. And
the same system of principles, which the common sense of all,
and the constant observation of all, found, support, and sanction,
cannot help one man, to all the lights and purities of truth, and
plunge another, with eyes and mind and heart at least as good,
into all the gloom and depravity of error. No : Interpretation is
based and built, as the Common Law is, and hence, a man whose
natural powers are fair, and whose experience considerable, will,
(without naming any of its principles,) reason upon them as cor-
rectly, or even more so, than the mere student equipped cap a
pie in technicalities.* Like the man, whom Lord Mansfield ad-
vised to accept the office of puisne judge, and decide fearlessly,
but never give his reasons, and who did so to great acceptance :
so he, with a right heart, will determine the signification of a
book like the Bible, written in popular language, without those
palpable and gross mistakes, which to Mr. N. supposes all liable, if
not actually guilty of them, who are not directed by his wonder-
working rules.t " Study alone, will not make a great man, nor
a knowledge of the sciences, a philosopher : but we live in an
age, when great words impose, and when men think themselves
eminent geniuses, if they only contrive a set of singular opinions."J

* " For all a rhetorician's rules,

Teach nothing, but to name his tools." Hudilras.
t Note I.
$ Ganganelli's Letters, 1. 178.

Well, has the discerning Smith said, in his Select Discourses ;
(3d edit. p. 184.) "The best way to understand the true sense
and meaning, of Scripture, is, not rigidly to examine it upon
philosophical interrogatories, or to bring it under the scrutiny, of
school definitions and distinctions. It speaks not to us, so much
in the tongue of the learned sophies of the world, as in the plain-
est and most vulgar, (i. e. common ; he wrote about 1650,)
dialect that may be." To this inherent quality of Scripture,
which is the secret of its accessibleness to the community at
large, do we refer the grand anfd abiding fact, of that general and
consentaneous admission of orthodox doctrine, which can be
traced by a broad path-way, through every century, up to the birth-
time of our religion. Does Mr. N. assign for this striking cir-
cumstance, another cause? Let him do it, at the peril of his sys-
tem. He and his party, beshrew the Orthodox, for insulting and
degrading human nature. They, would glorify, nay even
" reverence " it.* Man is not, the miserable and feeble sinner,
which we make him. He is a being, of inherent powers, per-
ceptions, purposes, and aims, for knowledge and for virtue, and
especially for truth. He is not, " gold become dim," but is all
over, as Dr. Channing says, " radiant with the signatures of an
Infinite Spirit."t With these exalted conceptions, whose only
fault (for we heartily wish them true) is their possessing a char-
acter, we once heard a Unitarian ascribe to a most solid and fer-
vent sermon by one of our best preachers, (the character of
romance,) let him, show how it is, that men, those exceed-
ingly good and able beings, have been made to cringe for
eighteen hundred years, (for fifteen hundred at least, the sturdi-
est must say,) to the enslavement of Trinitarianism, and only
here and there, a "few but undismayed," in all that protracted
period, and even now but a scattered few, rari nantes in gur-
gite vasto, had the sense and the courage, to throw off their
shackles, think aright, and maintain their faith with confidence.
With his view of human dignity and energy, may all this be?
Credat Judceus Apella.
Under the influence of interest, says the acute Lawyer, whom

* Channing's Works, 1st edition, 475, 481.
t Election Sermon, p. 8.

we have quoted once before, under the influence of interest,
the natural incredibility of a fact, so far from being a reason for
rejecting it, is often a reason for admitting it.* But pray, what
interest can we have, (especially on this republican soil where
dignities are scarce,) in believing a doctrine so incredible as
the Trinity ; when, if we will only disbelieve it, we may rise
from among the ignoble vulgar, whose whole knowledge is
" tanta colluvies," (p. 287.) to the exalted rank of "the aris-
tocracy of literature," whose intercourse will at once " free us
from essential error," and beatify us with "ennobling and op-
erative conceptions of Christianity." (p. 88.) And can we be-
lieve "a creed, formed in a delirium of folly," (p. 120.) and mistake
this interest, when we are all over "radiant with the signatures of
an Infinite Spirit?" when we would fain, learn of "honorable
men" 1 Incredibilis incredibilitas ! We can swallow this, no
better than the sage old Cud worth, said some "bogglers" of
his day could swallow the doctrine of the Trinity : it being to
them "the very choke-pear of Christianity. "t

We must retract therefore, something of that eulogy which
was mounting to our lips, and which has been again and again
restrained. Yes, for when our eyes are open a little wider, we see
nothing in all this arrogating the exclusive benefit of the principles
of interpretation, but a part of the same indomitable avarice, which
would monopolize the exclusive benefit of the right of private judg-
ment. The right of private judgment ! Of the puling jargon of the
day on this topic, we have heard till our ears have sickened. Just
as if no class of men, and especially under such a government as
ours, which allows all to believe as much or as little as they please,
possessed this precious right, but a few hyper-eulogists of its im-
munities and joys.J But it is too much so. We are the people,
we are the people, is the strain they continually pipe, and with
us, wisdom no doubt shall die. They talk in the spirit, and
partly in the letter of Julian's language to the Galileans, i. e.
, the Christians whom he so styled contemptuously : "It belongs
to us to discourse, it belongs to us to understand the Greek

* Dumont Preavea judiciaires, ii. 252.

t And yet for all this, Cad worth is claimed as a Unitarian i!

J Note K.

tongue, as it belongs to us to adore the Gods; but as for you, ig-
norance and barbarism are your portion, and all your wisdom
consists in saying, I believe." * They are, (so good old Hilary
ironically called them in days of yore, Ep. ad Constantium,)
they are the unravellers of the secrets of heaven. They are exclu-
sively, as the Arian Hunneric said of his own party, veri DivincB
Majestatis cultoresA " They are not ashamed to adopt a style of
speaking, as if they thought themselves morning stars on the verge
of the dark ages, destined to usher in the splendors of true philoso-
phy upon a benighted world."t Do others, claim the privilege of
thinking for themselves 1 Strange pretension! " Singular " pre-
sumption ! They have not the capacity to enjoy the right, or the
sincerity to employ it honestly, and therefore it must be wrested from
them. Aut Caesar, aut nullus, our faith or nothing is the watch-
word. The text of honest Btarton, would hardly be too strong
for them; " We brag and vendicate, our own works, our wisdom,
our learning, all our geese are swans, and we as basely esteem
and vilifie other men's, as we do over-highly prize and value our
own. We will not sutler them to be in secundis, no, not in
tertiis. What! mecum confertur Ulyssesl They are inures,
musccB, culices, prce se, nitts and flies, compared to his inexorable
and supercilious, eminent and arrogant worship, though indeed
they be far from him." " Omnes," exclaims Tertullian," omnes
tument, omnes scientiam pollicentur. Ante sunt perfecti cate-
chumeni, quam edocti. Ipsse mulieres, hereticse quam procaces."||
The rights of conscience, are hardly granted us with the amus-
ing courtesy of Cromwell, who, when he once arrested a monk
for celebrating mass, and the poor man pleaded his right to follow
the dictates of his conscience, answered, that the general
interfered with no man's conscience, but as for the mummery of

* Du Pin. cent. 4. p. 163. Tilleraont. vii. 346.

t Gibbon iv. 401. Phila. edition. 1804.

t Nat. Hist, of Enthusiasm p. 94.

Burton's Anat. of Melancholy, i. 178.

H Tertullian De Pr. Haer. cap. xli. 111. 213.

Was it the perusal of Tertullian, which made a distinguished preacher
and scholar of our day once say in the pulpit, " Girls with their samplers in
their hands dispute about the doctrine of the Trinity " ?

the mass, it was to be exterminated by law of Parliament. For-
tunately, they have not the power of Cromwell, or we might
fare as roughly in their manipulation, as others did from that of
the Arians in the fifth century, "who did not combat by argu-
ment, but by force, and brought their adversaries to silence, not
by reasoning with them, but by cutting out their tongues"!. 1 *

Is this, in view of the example protruded on us, "plain"
speaking ? Let the treatment of such men, as Mr. Stuart, and
Dr. Chalmers, justify it. The former, has studied and com-
mented on Ernesti ; whom most men of discernment, will pro-
nounce at least equal to Le Clerc, in his Ars Critica, " a divine,
conspicuous among those who have contended for the right of
private judgment, and who at the same time, dogmatize very
freely in the use of their own."t The latter, never handled lan-
guage like a tyro. But all this will not answer for a single
instant. Language, is " intrinsecally ambiguous" and both,
speak of grammatical analysis, in such terms, that the former, is
said in his own understanding of the tribute awarded him, "to
have loose and inconsistent ideas of exegesis, or no ideas of it at
all ;" and the latter, with one of those fell swoops of his terrific
pen, by which Mr. N. " demolishes "t an adversary, is doomed
beyond all hope, to THOROUGH IGNORANCE, (p. 98.)

Ought such dauntless proscription, such piercing to the divid-
ing asunder of the joints and marrow, to expect, and still more to
demand a complaisance, to which it is thoroughly a stranger?

Language is " intrinsecally ambiguous." Pray, cannot Mr.
S. and Dr. Chalmers have the benefit of this position? No.
Their assertions are to be taken literally.

But what is easier, than to tear and mangle the assertions of
a very sensible man, and hold them up, when ragged and dis-

* Michaelis Int. N. Test. vi. 428. 2d. edition.

t Lond. Encyc. part 11, p. 1. Le Clerc, says Gibbon, " reduces the reason
or folly of ages to the standard of his private judgment, and his impartiality, is
sometimes quickened, and sometimes tainted, by his opposition to the Fathers."
Dec. and Fall. vi. 2. note.

t We quote this word, for it seems to be a classic usage, on his side of the
house. A book was written in 1767, with this title, * The true doctrine of the
New Testament concerning Jesus Christ, wherein the Trinity is demolish fid,
forever.' See, Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy shaken, iv. 22.

jointed, to scorn and ridicule? This has been done, in the re-
view of 1819, and then and there as say the lawyers-, Mr. S.
declared a mere sciolist, in one of the principal branches of his
profession.

Dr. Chalmers, in his essay on the Evidences, which forms the
article on Christianity in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, is com-
batting near the close of it, those who come to the Bible, with
systems, as tools, to shape it to their liking. In his effort to make
a strong impression, he lets fall the sentiment, that a man must
rather come to it, with his lexicon and grammar.* But is this
" intrinsecally ambiguous" declaration, not qualified? In the
sentences preceding, when he said, that our business with the
Bible, was not one of fancy or speculation, and in the sentences
following, where he speaks of authorities for the import and sig-
nificancy of phrases, of patient and profound philology, we see
the proper shade of signification, which is to be given to his vitu-
perated words. And we see enough, it is thought, to bring a
blush upon the cheek of a man, who, after hackneying the
phrase " ambiguity of language," clings to a mere isolated line,
and on that shadow of a shade of testimony, condemns one of
the first theologians and philosophers of the age, for "thorough
ignorance."

He hides behind a magisterial air,

His own offences, and strips others bare.

Couoper's Chanty.

We shall presume to commend to Mr. N.'s perusal, the essay
of Huet bishop of Avranches, de optima genera interjtretandi ;
who, Catholic if he were, was a scholar and a gentleman, and
not untaught in human nature, at least as it is exhibited at times
in those, who assume the high function, of divining the
thoughts of others. The following accurate delineation of Huet,
respecting licentiousness in interpreting, is particularly worthy
his attention. " Dum enim, de se, bene existimat interpres, et
nimium sibi placet, judicis sibi facile arrogat partes, de que auc-

* Dr. Priestley we suspect, would have approved of this. He upbraids the
clergy of the establishment, for availing themselves of "the ambiguity of lan-
guage," and not adhering to the obvious literal and grammatical sense of it,
Familiar Letters, p. 123.

tore, ad quern con ver tend urn accesserat, confidenter arbitrium
facit. dufficumque ergo sibi non sapiunt, respuit, pro que iis
sua supponit ; si quae ver6 etiam, puncto ipsius, comprobata sunt,
eo tantum omine retinentur, si ita interpreti fuerit visum ; qui
mentis suse foetus, in alienum nidum, serpere, et legitimos, ssepe
exigere patitur." (De opt. &c. p. 17.) The latter part of this, is
so expressive, that we cannot help converting it into English, for
the benefit of less learned readers. " Every thing, which some
interpreters do not savor in an author, they reject ; substituting
their own notions in its stead. Do they find any thing in him
however, agreeable to their own taste, they ask no better reason,
for approving and retaining it. Thus, do some venture to
thrust the offspring of their own brain into another's nest, and
to drive out the lawful nestlings.

Says Cicero, (De Nat. Deor. L. i. $. 1.) what rashness so un-
worthy the gravity and stability of a philosopher, as to conceive
wrongly or to defend absolutely, what he has not thoroughly ex-
amined and does not clearly comprehend ? In sober truth, when
we review the conduct of Mr. Norton, under the guidance of his
own clue, for threading one's way through the Cretan labyrinth
of language, we see a deplorable and glaring inconsistency. His
principles are good. We should "find no fault in him," had he
the politeness to say, they differed only in their costume, the
form of their expression, from those of mighty minds, who have
long and well taught us how to' unravel the intricacies of speech
in all its windings. But he will have no competitor. All before
him, have interpreted upon no general principles, at least upon
none which CAN BE defended, (p. 88.) Oh ! to what " a lower
deep," in the depth of desperation, must a poor man's cause have
sunken, when to say a word even in its defence, is an utter im-
possibility I With such an impracticable writer, such an anti-
republican devotee of the statute of lese-majesty, what can we
do ? Clearly, he is one who mistakes his pen for the caestus of
Entellus, which was heavy enough to knock an ox down : one
with whom moderation would be out of place, and looked upon,
with the contempt of Roche Foucault, who pronounced it synoni-
mous with sloth or languor. Therefore we feel obliged to meet
him, with allegations as broad as his own, and say that he has

utterly failed to sustain his pretensions, in the very science he has
professed to teach ; nay more, that he has failed to show us
conduct, in tolerable keeping with his own positions. Nothing
"can be" clearer, than that his views of interpretation, in them-
selves considered, do not prove true, Unitarianism or any other
ism whatever, but to imitate his own language, (p. 23.) where
he says, " there are men who seem unable to comprehend the
possibility, that the doctrines of their sect, may make no part of
the Christian revelation," we may as vigorously say, there are
men, who seem unable to imagine, that the rules of interpreta-
tion, can be employed to any purpose, by any, but themselves.
Apply these rules to the Bible. They cannot conceive it sup-
posable, that any result but one, will follow ; and that, the one
which would be agreeable to them.* They remind us of Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, who wrote to supplant revelation and prove
it needless, and yet, believed that heaven made a revelation to
himself !t Of Hume, also, who after a pompous introduction
and elaborate sophisms, to prove the impossibility of miracles, in a
self-forgetful moment, has the folly and the impudence to say,
there may be miracles, yet no one " can ever be proved, so as to
be the foundation of a system of religion ! " For this, we are
happy to observe, even a lawyer, without making one pretence
to pious motives, has given him a most abrading castigation, con-
fessing himself in a tone of gentle irony, unable to perceive
41 how a fact proved to be true, is not true for all purposes to which
it is relevant.":!: We fear if Mr. N.'s practice under his own
theory, were prescribed for by one of this excoriating profession,
who sometimes blister a man for " travelling out of the record,"
lie would be treated secundum artem.

We hope Mr. N.'s dread of grammatical interpretation, was
not caught in the company of Dr. Priestley, who once undertook
to manage it to his sore discomfiture, and was advised by Bishop
Horsley who " bound up his wounds," to beware how he again
handled " the briars of criticism. We are not over-anxious to

? Note. L.

t Herbert's Auto-biog. p. 172. Edition 1792.
4 Starkie on Evidence, Am. Edition i. p. 476.
$ Tracts, 3d edition, p. 223.

39 -

tax him with that ignorance, which he, though "no zealot, no
partizan of a sect, no disturber of social intercouse by a spirit of
proselytism," (pref. p. xxxiii.) yet sees infecting like contagion, all
who are so unphilosophical, as in defiance of " a literary aristoc-
racy," to believe in the Trinity and other Orthodox and obsolete
doctrines. We are fain to look, therefore, for some other cause
of his practical inconsistency. And after due examination, we
fear it is neither more nor less, than the indulgence of those pre-
conceptions, against which Dr. Chalmers eloquently inveighs,
and for his smarting truth in doing so, is perhaps rewarded with
the epithet of " consummate ignoramus."

For to us, it is palpably evident, that he begins, with a petitio
principii, and not only so, but an invidious one. He does not
expect, to give a single new conviction, to the great body of en-
lightened men. (pref. p. xxviii.) Like Jerome, in his fastidious
moments, he suspects some latent poison in all Trinitarian
phraseology.* He therefore attaches his own meaning to words
on which the whole controversy turns, and then, by ringing a
score or two of changes, upon his begged definitions, thinks he
has as often demonstrated the fallacy and absurdity of the Trini-
tarian creed.t In direct contravention to the canon of Mr. Grey,
that we have no right to decide that any man's opinions are re-
pugnant to the Scriptures, Mr. N. comes to the Bible, with fixed
notions, "gotten by prolepsis" as Cud worth says, about some of the
most recondite and intangible points of Metaphysics, personal
identity and unity, and a literal and real absurdity ; and the
consequence is, (interpretation out of the question,) that every
Orthodox exposition is at once put hors du combat. He arrives
forthwith, (we cannot wonder,) at the clear deduction, that be the
true sense of the Scriptures what it may, " the Trinitarian expo-
sition must be false." (p. 105..)

This logic, seems so fatal, that we feel disposed to examine a
little, those pellucid premises on which his arguments are
founded.

Personal identity, and unity, and a literal and real absurdity,
are with him matters on which he can only speak in axioms.

* Calvin's Institutes, B. 1. chap. xiii. 8. 5.

t Compare here, the remarks of the facetious and caustic Mr. Withington,,
in the N. Eng. Magazine for 1833, pp. 241, 242.

- 40

But if personal identity, in such creatures as ourselves, be a sub-
ject about which a Locke might be puzzled, and on which the
pen of a Bishop Butler might worthily labor,* what must it be
in relation to an Infinite Spirit, of even one of whose attributes,
we can form no positive conception? Clendon, an old Socinian,
did not think the word " person" a very easy one to manage, for
he wrote a large book on it of upwards of 200 pages, though to
be sure as Leslie said, its sense might be squeezed into a nut-
shellf Unity in man, Mr. N. thinks the simplest of simplici-
ties. But we are as certain he is wrong, as he is, that he is
right. Cases of double consciousness, such as Dr. Abercrombie
has recorded,^ are in their metaphysical character, quite enough
to gravel him. Unity in the Deity, he thinks as easy of compre-
hension, like his whole subject, "free from all doubt and dif-
ficulty ; " (pref. p. xxix.) but we never saw a comprehensible
definition of it, and we never expect to see one : at least in this
world. The best we ever saw, was an incidental one, which fell
from Fenelon in the midst of a lofty inspiration : O unite infinie !
he exclaimed,^ vous entrevois I have but a glimpse of you.
" Quocirca" says Petavius, who has been accused II of particular
favor for the Arians, " unitatis exquisitissimo genere, unus est
Deus." T To us, things like these are no surprise, for we are
well satisfied, that the metaphysical unity of the Godhead, is a
subject on which the Bible has never, yes, never touched.
Unity, is a relative term : it implies an opposite. The opposite .
to it in the Bible, is the multiplicity of the Divinities of Pagans.
All then, which the Bible says, when it asserts that God is one,
is, that he is not an indefinite number of beings, like the 30,000**
worshipped by heathen hordes. But what has this to do with
his metaphysical oneness : his unity in all respects whatever?
Nothing. " For there is one God," says Paul in his first epistle

* Blomfield's Lectures, p. 360. also Bp. Berkley's Works, ii. 215.
t Leslie's Works, i. 441. Leslie, said Johnson, is a reasoner not to be rea-
soned against.

t Int. Powers, 241, &c. also Shaftsbury's Char'ks. iii. 192. (1732.)
Oeuvres ii. 268. 8vo. edition.
|| WalchiiBiblioth. iii. 645.
H Theol. Dog. De Deo. Lib. ii. chap. 8. Sect. 3.
** Gray's Connection, Sac. and Prof. Literature, p. 113.

to Timothy,* And therefore, says the Unitarian, Jesus Christ
cannot be Divine. A most unwarranted conclusion however,
for Paul means merely to say, as his context shows, that the Jew
and the Gentile have not a different, but the same God. To
make any other use of the Unity of God, than the Apostle has
done, is to offend and tamper with inferences, as Mr. N. says
Trinitarians do, whose mode of supposed proof, is " wholly by
way of inference." (p. 24, and his table of contents.) "When will
men learn, that it is quite as easy to err on the left hand as on the
right?

Unity, is compatible with some diversities, as all know: in
ourselves, it is compatible with many, In a being like a pure
and infinite Spirit, it may be compatible with many more : with
what, and with how many, that Spirit who alone searcheth the
deep things of God, (1. Cor. ii. 10) would alone be authorized to
tell. But revelation goes no further than to say, that God is not
multiple, like divinities of wood and stone, or the luminaries of
the heavens, adored by that unfortunate portion of our race, to
whom a true God is a " God unknown." This then, is all we
profess to teach, when we teach biblically, the unity of the Su-
preme Being. Paley, that " decided Unitarian " as Dr. Chan-
ning called him, could find in creation no more of a defining
proof of the Divine unity, than unity of design.t We can find
in revelation, no more defining proofs of it, than a similar exhi-
bition of unity, viz., certain directions, that our religious trust
homage, affection and worship, should all tend one way.% If
any choose to go beyond this, and declare that they can pry
more deeply into the essence of the Godhead, they may, but if

Chap. ii. 5.

t Nat. Theol. chap. xzv.

t Some may think, that if we worship any other name than the Father's, our
homage, &c. does not all tend one way. This is a mistake, arising from a neg-
lect to "compare spiritual things with spiritual," and from judging by our own
impressions of propriety. Suppose e. g. that under the sanction of St John,
(1 Epis. y. 15.) we "desire a petition," i.e. by metonymy the subject matter
of a petition, of Jesus Christ, and name him alone in our devotions. Do we
then neglect the Father ? By no means. The Son answers prayer to the glory
of the Father; (John xiv. 13.) and we doubt not that prayer addressed to him
alone, honor* the Father, as much as prayer addressed to the Father exclusively.
Compare Th. Goodwin's Works, v. 451. a. 5th reason.

(hey ever obtain more than Fenelon's glimpse, and can communi-
cate their information in " words lawful to utter," we will listen
to them, with a gratitude and an eagerness, with which we never
honored teacher before.*t

Unity, is a relative term : so is absurdity. That which is absurd to
one, may beany thing but absurd to another. "Yelleius, theEpicurean
in Cic. de Nat. Deor. says, the immateriality of God, or his freedom
from body, is unintelligible : we should find it very difficult, to con-
ceive the Supreme Being clogged wifeh a body."t " One of the har-
dest morsels to digest in Plato's philosophy, was his doctrine that
God is incorporeal ; which by many was thought absurd, for that
without a body, he could not have senses nor prudence nor plea-
sure.'^ "Is there anything more delicate more sprightly than Pli-
ny's judgment, when he is pleased to set itto work? Anythingmore
remote from vanity? Setting aside his learning, of which I make
less account, in which of them do any of us excel him? And
yet, there is scarce a puisne sophister, that does not convince him
of untruth, and that pretends not to instruct him in the works of
nature."!! " Native and original truth is not so easily wrought
out of the mine, as we who have it delivered ready dug and
fashioned into our hands, are apt to imagine. And how often at
fifty or threescore years old, are thinking men told what they
wonder they could miss thinking of, which yet their own con-
templations did not, and possibly never would have helped them
to."% " There are ideas, which appear contrary to reason, only
because we cannot perceive them, in one point of view ; and
we discover this truth, not only in considering things which are
foreign to our nature, but when we turn our attention on the

*NoteM.

t Mr. N. might smile at this, but we should hope for more complaisance,
from the .author of the following sentiment: " It is permitted to man to see
clearly, even on the most important subjects, only to a certain point, and for a
small distance. Beyond that, our vision is dim." Dr. Ware's Sermon (p. 18.)
at the ordination of Peabody 1820 : the temper of which, differs from Mr. N.'s
book, toto ccelo.

t Key's Norrisian Lectures. B. 3. ch. 10. Sect. 2.

Karaes' Sketches iv. 147.

U Montaigne's Essays i. 317. Edition 1685.

IT Locke quoted in Bp. Gleig's Letters, p 41.

events which come daily under our inspection."* This last au-
thority is profoundly philosophical, and we could dwell on
it long, but must not interrupt the current of our subject, t
Suppose a father to tell his son, that water is made out of fire ;
which to him being a chemist, is well nigh an axiom. To the
son it is a mystery, a gross absurdity, and he refuses to believe
him, perhaps laughs at his parent's unaccountable extravagance.
Then, the Father of all, tells this. father, that he is in a most im-
portant sense, one, and in another as important, three ; but no
sooner is this " enormous tax on his credulity " presented, than
he imitates the stripling who disbelieved himself !

Verily, this is a lame demonstration of man's all-scrutinizing
genius. In the strong phrase of Shakspeare, "Tis reasonless
to reason thus." These things ought never so to be. It should
be felt to be a most rash and infatuated presumption, for a poor
finite creature to declare that he knows " the whole truth" on
any subject whatever. "I wonder," says Owen Felltham, "I
wonder at those, who will assume a knowledge of all things :
they are unwisely ashamed of an ignorance which is not dis-
graceful, for it is no shame for a man not to know that which is
not in his power. We fill the world with cruel brawls, in the
obstinate defence of things, of which we might with more honor
confess ourselves ignorant." J But Mr. N. is troubled with no qualms.
He has the confidence of Phaeton, when he took the reins of the
chariot of the Sun. He has the ingenuity of Prometheus, when
he stole fire from the skies. He can give us light, and not only
so, but all the light which can be had, and not only so, but all the
light which can be had on some of the abstrusest subjects of hu-

* Necker on religious opinions p. 183.

t We are sometimes at a loss to choose between a smile and an ague, when
we meet the extirpating assumption of some, who talk about the intrinsic ab-
surdity, of the doctrine of the Trinity. Such a voracious petitio principii
which like Pharaoh's lean kine, devours all our "well-favored" arguments, at
once, and without remorse, now provokes the risibles, and now awakens con-
sternation. But we must be content with observing, that if Trinitarianism and
Unitarianism may be supposed on a par, before the struggle for argumentative
ascendency is begun: then, if the former win the race it is philosophically cor-
rect, and perfectly so, to call the latter as much of an absurdity, as the former
is gratuitously supposed to be.

t Resolves, p. 65. edition 1820.

man contemplation. He can do all this for our darkened minds, by
means of but one enlightening instrument, which is " intrinsecally
ambiguous."

Gibbon however, the philosophic infidel, was not bold enough
to assume or to arrogate, such semi-divine prerogatives. Even
he, when giving an account of the belief of primitive Christians
in the higher mysteries of their religion, cannot help saying,
" that as often as we deduce any positive conclusion', from a neg-
ative idea, we are involved in darkness perplexity .and inevitable
contradiction."* Gibbon meant perhaps, to have his maxim cut
but one way : if so, he is not the only instance of a self-confident
reasoner, who forgot that truth has a double edge. His position
is sound, (let it have been taken in what temper soever it might,)
and shows abundantly, the indispensable necessity of implicit
reliance on revelation, when we approach such vast themes, as
the properties of a boundless nature. It has a direct and most
significant bearing, upon such subjects, as identity, unity, and
absurdity, which are all negative : such subjects as in our pres-
ent state, can never be described, otherwise than negatively. It
was designed perhaps originally for quite different usage, but
we mistake greatly, if it be not as well fitted for a Unitarian,
as for any other cuticle.

Had Mr. Norton felt, as even this enunciation of Gibbon's
might have made him feel, he would have been sensible with
devout humility, that in one coming to the Bible, preconceptions
are out of place : that even nature, as Butler, (" a man hardly
to be named, without some expression of praise or reverence,")t
has ably argued, teaches us to believe beforehand, that in a rev-
elation, we might " find things very different from what we
should have expected, and such as appear open to great objec-
tions ; " I that therefore, the most appropriate question for him
to ask, would be, not why says the Bible so, but simply, what
does it declare? The besetting sin however, of himself, and of
many in this changeful age, both orthodox and heterodox,
is, that " vanity of philosophising," which Ernesti thus soberly
rebukes, and for which, had he said nothing further, we can

* Gibbon Dec. and Fall iii. 13. Phil, edition, 1804.

t Gen. Repositosy , i. 9.

I Butler'B Works, i. 232. Edinb. 1813.

easily conjecture, why the lax Le Clere has been promoted
over him. " In interpreting," he says, " the only question to be
asked is, what is said, not, what may it be, or how truly may
it be said. In human books, that many things are affirmed
which are false, who does not know? And yet, these false asser-
tions may be truly interpreted. But in divine books, when we
are once satisfied that all which they affirm, is most true, it re-
mains for us but to ascertain what they say."* t

We do fear that the radical defect of Mr. N., is an unwilling-
ness to ask Ernesti's "plain and man-becoming question, 'what
says the Bible,' with a determination to abide the consequences,
teachably and .humbly. He is one of the old Parhermeneutes,
"risen from the dead," who thought themselves privileged to in-
terpret Scripture, according to their own sense of it, and whom
there was found firmness and wisdom enough to condemn, in so
dark an age of the Church, as 692.1 We do think his errors
arise, from a cause not very different from that mentioned by
Lactantius, as one cause among others, of the errors of ancient
heretics : " duidam vero, non satis coelestibus literis eruditi, cum
veritatis accusatoribus, respondere non possent, objicientibus vel
impossible vel incongruens esse : depravati sunt ab itinere recto."}
And from a cause not dissimilar to that, to which Beausobre
charges the errors of Irenseus, in his judgment of these very indi-
viduals : " II fallois surtout, se defendre contre le prejuge" et la
partialite."!! He would hardly find countenance in an assembly,
where Seneca should preside; for in his book concerning a
proper repose for the wise man, (by which we presume he means
among other things, a contentedness not to know "the whole
truth " on some subjects,) even this pagan philosopher thus ex-
claims: "cogitatio nostra, cosli munimenta perrumpit: nee con-
tenta est, id quod ostenditur, scire." IF

We speak this, not because we have dreamed so, for says the

* Ernest! opuscula philologica, p. 224.
f Note N; .

t Bergier Theol. Diet. vi. 233. edition 1829. and 19th canon of the council
in Trullo.

Lact. Instit. Lib. iv. cap. ult. edit. Sparkii p. 406, 7.
|| Hist, de Manich. T. ii. p. 4.
IT Sen. Opera, i. 349. Elzevir edition.

review of 1819, " if we did believe these doctrines, (i. e. Trinity,
&c.) to have been taught by Christ and his apostles, we should
then think that a most overwhelming weight of external evi-
dence, would be necessary to establish the truth of a revelation,
which would appear to us to contain so, much internal evidence
against its truth." * The underscoring belongs to the reviewer.
This is somewhat " ambiguous," to be sure, but Dr. Priestley,
for whom Mr. N. shows and has shown t unqualified deference,
(though his greatest work was made up, as he confessed, by
" looking through " authors,) will furnish the true gloss for it.
"The doctrine of the Trinity, if it had been found there, (i. e.
in the Scriptures,) it would have been impossible for any reason-
able man to believe, as it implies a contradiction, which no
miracles can prove." t We give Mr. Norton the full credit of
this assertion, though he has but " ambiguously " endorsed it :
full credit, without equivocation, mental reservation, or any
qualification whatever. We do undoubtedly fear, that such
"thorough" adventurers, as himself and Dr. Priestley, have PRE-
JUDGED THE CASE, as these references satisfactorily evince, and
that if there were no help for them, in versions and readings,
the " intrinsic ambiguities " of language and " inconclusive rea-
sonings," and in an abasement of the Bible from the rank of a
revelation to that of a mere record of one, II they would not hesi-
tate to discard the Bible, " as a book of riddles, and what is worse,
of riddles admitting of no solution." (p. 21.) We do undoubtedly
fear, that if they were deprived of such resources, they would ac-
tually reject the Bible altogether, or be such miscalled believers
in it, as the Gnostics and Sender, who unblushingly taught, that
there is a great abundance of false opinions and false reason-
ings, in the discourses even of our Lord and his apostles.1F We

* Ch. Disciple, N. Ser. i. 331.

t Gen. Repos. Vol. i. ii. iii.

i Hist. Early Opinions, i. 48. Query. Would not the Dr. have said as much
against all opposers of his pet theory about phlogiston? And where is phlogis-
ton now ?

The language Dr. P. applies to the arguments of Paul. Corruptions of
Christianity, ii. 370.

I) Ch. Examiner, 1828.

IT Storr opuscula i. 20, 21. We believe Dr. Priestley never charged Christ
with error . but surely there was not much, to hinder a man from doing so,
by whom Christ was esteemed " as fallible and peccable as any other prophet !"

almost tremble, when we see them handling with perfect tact
and fearlessness, the same weapons which notorious Infidels
have brandished in their deadly warfare with Christianity. "Su-
perstition," says Hume, and all know well enough what he
means by it, " Superstition being founded on false opinion, must
immediately vanish, when true philosophy has inspired juster
sentiments of superior powers." Essay on suicide!* "Reli-
gion," says Mr. Norton, " must be taken, I will not say out of
the hands of priests, that race is fast passing away, but out
of the hands of divines, such as the generality of divines have
been, and its exposition and defence must become the study of
philosophers." (pref. p. xxxiv.) We will not stop to show, that
these declarations are fairly matched, in sarcasm and self compla-
cency, but as to the policy they recommend, we must say, it has
"a rank odor" of that, by which the apostate Julian attempted
to reform Christianity out of the whole Roman Empire ! t We
feel "a secret dread, an inward horror" creeping over us, when
we compare such omens, and think of Paul's vehement warning
against philosophy, (Col. ii. 8.) and his judicial execration of all
corrupters of the Gospel. (Gal. i. 8.) We fly to baptized philoso-
phy, to see what testimony she will bear before such fearful ad-
monitions ; and at the mouth of Bacon, who in the language of
Chancellor Kent, is " one of the greatest oracles of human wis-
dom," she gives us this ever memorable counsel : " The preju-
dice hath been infinite, that both Divine and human knowledge
hath received, by the intermingling and tempering, of the one
with the other : as that, which hath filled the one, full of here-
sies, and the other, full of speculative fictions and vanities." t

* Phil. Works, iv. 557.

i Tillemont Hist. Ecc. vii. 344, &c. Abbe Bleterie, vie de Julian pp. 260,
265. S. Johnson's "Arts of Julian," pp. 30,&c. edition 1689. The kind-
nets, with which philosophy is to mend us, is aptly exhibited by Hume, (Phil.
Works, iv. 513,) where he says, the only way in which we can cure " the frailty
of human reason," is, " to oppose one species of superstition to another, set
them a quarrelling," and then, " happily escape into the calm regions of phi-
losophy," to feast ourselves, upon the spectacle ! !

\ B. Works, Montag. edition, i. 259. see also the sentiment reiterated, Vol.
ii.129.

NoteO.

And we should wonder greatly therefore, but that clamor had
taught us to be cautious, that any should remonstrate against
the charge, of unbelief in the Scriptures, who will, for philosophy's,
or system's, or reason's sake, treat them with disparagement. If
one so treated the Koran, we are well assured, he would not be
accounted a genuine Mussulman. " Unto God," says Mahomet,
" appertaineth the kingdom of heaven and earth, and the day
whereon the hour shall be fixed, on that day, shall those who
charge the Koran with vanity, perish." * We do not wonder
then, that a Mussulman should suspect of insincerity, any one,
who, while professing to be a Christian, wished to claim his fel-
lowship in the concerns of religion ; and should refuse him a
moment's hearing as -a Moorish ambassador is said to have done,
when formerly importuned by a company of Socinians.t But
our disposition to wonder is vastly excited, nay it stands completely
aghast, before the unrivalled incongruity, of complaining of the
charge just mentioned, and almost before the breath uttering such
a complaint is spent, hurling the same charge t back on an an-
tagonist, and at this incongruity too, in those, who according to
their own principles, " have LEAST OP ALL, any just excuse for

* Sale's Koran, ii. 285. Persian Letters, i. 229.

t Christian Obs. xxvii. p. 91, and Leslie's Works, i. 207. A flippant writer
in the Christian Disciple, N. Series, ii. 409, 10, has insinuated with servile imi-
tation of Priestley, (Horsley's Tracts, 307,) that Leslie forged the letter to the
Moorish ambassador, addressed him by the Socinians, but which he utterly
refused to accept. To this insinuation, we think it quite right to reply, with an
argument at least as valid: there is too much internal probability, for the
truth of such a letter, to permit us to account it a forgery.

I We say the same charge ; but in strict justice we might say, a far heavier
one, in fact the heaviest literally, which can be made against men professing to
be Christians. On p. 86, Mr. N. says, if Trinitarian doctrines are not the doc-
trines of Christianity, they are among " the most insane fictions of human
folly ;" and on p. 293, that if these doctrines are false, then he who teaches
them as Christian doctrines, is the " worst enemy of Christianity." It is idle
to split hairs about this phraseology, " ambiguous " though it may be. There
can be no reasonable doubt, that the author of it esteems Trinitarians, as believ-
ing in the most monstrous fictions of lunatics, and as being more fatal foes to
religion, than the Deist or Atheist. They are its worst enemies in his estima-
tion ; and the worst enemies of Christianity, we fear, can be compared only to
him, who was " a murderer from the beginning," and to those unhappy beings,
who can be forgiven " neither in this world nor in that which is to come.'*

a deficiency in that temper, and a want of those good works,
which our religion requires."*

With keenness, has Michaelis said : "It has been the habit of wits,
to put into the mouths of all the over-zealous Orthodox, disputing
with opponents, ' the Lord rebuke thee Satan.' As most theolo-
gians have done with language like this, it were well that those
who laugh at them, had done with it too." t Thou that abhor-
rest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege 1 Truly, when with
our neighbors, feeling an occasional impulse of " the spirit of the
age," we dream of a reform, and looking around us for ensamples,
better than the 1 past has offered, find such exhibitions as this, in
the very models for perfection, we must be pardoned if we
grow somewhat distrustful, and think that after all there is sage
advice, if not divine authority, in the counsel of Jeremiah ;
" Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where
is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for
your souls." Ch. vi. 16. t

* Priestley's Evidences, p. 274. Boston. 1795.

t Review of Semler, trans'd in Gen. Repository. Vol. iv. 3.
t Note P.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A. (p. 7.)
DOUBLE SENSE.

The two-fold character, which some plastic interpreters give the Bible, is
well illustrated by Dr. Burton Professor of Divinity at Oxford. " In the pas-
sage, before us, Acts xx. 28, he (i. e. Mr. Belsham) wishes us to read, the
Church of the Lord, and by the Lord,. he means us to understand, Jesus Christ.
But it is singular, that at Col. iii. 13. he wishes to read, not as Christ has forgiven
us, b,ut, as the Lord has forgiven us : so that at Acts xx. 28, he tries to evade
an argument for the Divinity of Christ, by understanding the Lord to mean
Christ, and at Col. iii. 13, he evades a similar argument, by understanding the
Lord to mean God ! " Ante-Nicene Fathers 2d Edition, p. 23*.

With the same flexibility, have'we known two Unitarian professors, relax
the expression, ''form of God," in Phil. ii. 6,'so as to have it intimate, but a
partial resemblance, between the Son and the Father, and thus depreciate the
argument for his Divinity; and at the same time, make intensive the expression,
" like unto thee," in Deut. xviii. 18. so as to have it intimate, an exact similitude,
between our Saviour and Moses, and bolster up the argument for his simple hu-
manity !

Is this the cis-atlantic doctrine of accommodation ? We know what Semler's
was in Germany, and that Mr. N. ventured to speak in his Inaugural Discourse,
(p. 35.) somewhat slightingly of the " extravagant and untenable speculations, "
perhaps of him certainly of " some ' ' of his brethren. For such speculations
are the above, the substitute ?

NOTE B. (P. 9.)
ABSOLUTE INCREDIBILITY.

" As to the impossibility, of believing contradictions, I much question the
fact, and whether it would not puzzle the objectors themselves to show, either
that nobody ever believed the Trinity, or that all who did, have understood it
in a sense, that carries no contradiction." Tucker's Light of Nature, iii. 257,
the Cambridge Edition.

Tucker was acounted " a heretic by the Orthodox," and is the man to whose

originality Paley* said he was BO much indebted. Mackintosh's View of Phil.
176, 177.

The late Rev. and now Hon. Mr. Everett, also, (we are quite willing to call
him right honorable for his gentlemanly candor,) understood this subject better
than Mr. Norton. On p. 13. of a sermon preached at N. York, Jab. 20, 1821,
at the dedication of the first Congregational Church, be thus writes : " I do not
mean to say, that I do not think our views of Christianity, rest on stronger foun-
dations of aigument, than any others, essentially different. If I did not think
so, I could not hold them, and be an honest man. But you are Protestants : do
you suppose, that the great and ancient Catholic Church, the Church of
Bossuet, of Massilon, of Fenelon, has no arguments, by which those illustrious
men were able to give a ground for their faith ? Or you are Catholics ': but
do you think, that Luther, and Calvin, and Melancthon, were led without
strong and solid reasons, to adopt what they called the Reformation ? You are
of the Church of England : but do you believe that Howe and Baxter, had
no arguments to defend their dissent ? Or you are a Diosenter : but will you
not allow, that divines like Taylor and Tillotson, had something to say for their
cause ? "

To this, we will only venture to add, that all the great men enumerated in
his sentences, were Trinitarians; and if they had " something to say," "argu-
ments," and " strong and solid reasons," for their differences from one another,
we may be authorized to affirm, without taking an unusual stride beyond the
bounds of modesty, that a, Jortiori, they had such things to urge, in behalf of
their differences from Unitarians.

NOTE C. P. 10.

" Those who think themselves wise, have a delight in themselves, far beyond
that, in which the really prudent dare to indulge. They treat other men impe-
riously : they dispute with fierceness and assurance."

Pascal's Thoughts. Craig's Edit. pp. 14, 15.

Sit ista in Greecorum levitate perversitas, qui maledictis insectantur eos, a qui-
bus de veritate dissentiunt," Cicero de finibus.

NOTE D. P. 11.

Compare with all this, Lardner's account of Arius, vol. ii. 306. 4to, edition.
" He writes with much spirit, and a full assurance of the truth of his opinions,"
and in one of his letters, declares a Unitarian, at least a trimmer, (Eusebius of
Nicomedia,) Orthodox, and those who oppose him, ignorant even 'of the rudi-
ments of Christianity ; pronounces them heretics, their doctrine impious, and
avers, that he would die a thousand deaths, sooner than receive such doctrine,
from such persons. The entire letter of Arius, from which Laidner has can-
didly quoted, is given by Milner, in his Chh. Hist. 12mo. Edit. 1822. vol. ii. 47.

Here then, in the very bud and blossom of Unitarianism, and by one who
was called " affable and courteous," we find bandied, the detestable terms,

* Paloy, Dr. Charming has the aiiurance to call a " decided Unitarian." Letter to 8. C.
Thatcher, p. 24.

"ignorant," "impious,"' and " heretical :" Orthodoxy claimed for self, and
denied to all others, and all this, with the fullest assurance ! * We will only
add to this, something from Mr. Norton's own pen, relative to Bishop Horsley.
" There are many perhaps, unable to perceive the strength of his arguments,
who yet receive an impression, of the goodness of that cause, the confidence of
whose defender, seems never to falter." (Gen. Eepositor y. i. 40.) If this was
meant to imply, that Bishop H. manifested such confidence, to make an im-
pression ; we beg leave to affirm, that the allegation will imply nothing less,
in the case of Arius, Francken, Socinus and himself.

Bruyere, that faithful student of " characters," did not let matters of this
description, escape him. "Nothing," he says, "more nearly resembles a
lively conviction, than an obstinate conceit; whence proceed parties, cabals,
heresies." Bruyere's Works. 6th. Edit. Lond. 1713. i. p. 255.

NOTE E. (P. 13.)
PERSECUTION.

In the text, " the Athanasian creed " is inserted, as well as the doctrine of
the Trinity. Mr. N. must know, that that creed is dropped, by at least every
Protestant denomination, in' the United States. It surely were most unwise,
to attempt to win us, by such invidious representations. If it were mentioned
to our reproach, on account of its damnatory clauses, in bare self-defence we
say, that the quotations from his own pages, are a fair offset against it.

His remarks upon the effects of Trinitarianism, seem to authorize the infer-
ence, that this form of Christianity, and this alone, has belched forth persecution
and its attendant horrors, with the fury of a laboring volcano. If they do,
we most solemnly protest against their partiality and injustice. The subject
of persecution, is one we have studied occasionally with reference to two
questions : what professing Christians first began to persecute their brethren ?
and what persecuted with the greatest severity ?

" We know that persecution is a subject, parallel to what Biblical critics
style in their department, " locus vexatissimus." And we know also, that the
sentiment of a large number, in relation to it, is quite unfavorable to those
who ore imagined to hold strict opinions in theology. Hume undertakes to
palliate ,the pitiless persecution which the early Christians suffered from the
heathen, by supposing they abounded in the provoking qualities, of " impru-
dent zeal and bigotry." (Phil. Wks. Hi. 64.) There are those, who with as
much readiness, and with as little authority, charge every so called persecution,
within the Church, to these same excuseless faults. As if it must always be
true that a certain class of Christians will infallibly be in the wrong.

It will not answer for us therefore, to make such professions of freedom from
zealotry, sectarianism, and proselytism, as are found on p. xxxiii. of Mr. N.'s
preface. We hope, however, that we have not forgotten the maxim of the
judge, of the interpreter, of every candid and honest man : " audi alterant par-
tern" We have of course found differences, in such authorities as Alexander
and Arius, Athanasius and Eusebius of Nicomedia, Tillemont and Philostor-
gius. Gibbon is variable, but both he and Jortin discover, we think, less of

* So Photinus, allowed no creed but his own to bo Orthodox, and called every other, heretical.
Parkei'a Ecc. Historians, p. 975. 3d edition.

impartiality than does even Lardner : very frequently is some emollient gloss
spread with a delicate spatula upon their pages for the Arians; while the
enormities of the Orthodox, stand out awry, denuded and unvarnished. When
there are such contrarieties in testinlony, and when perhaps a court of justice,
might for one reason or another involving their interest, discard the whole,
what shall we do ? We know but of a single way of proceeding, since we
cannot shut the court, and call for other testifiers, none others being accessible,
and that is to believe both sides, and reconcile them as well as W3 can.

With this purpose as a guide, we shall make out such a story as our mate-
rials will allow. Mosheim says, that the principle which justified visiting
errors in religion, when adhered to after proper admonition, with penalties and
punishments, was approved by many, from the very time when Constantine
gave peace and security to the Christians, that this principle, was corrobo-
rated by examples, in the conflicts with the Donatists and Friscillianists, was
unequivocally sanctioned, by the authority of Augustine, and transmitted
down to succeeding ages. (Vol. i. 322.)

Now, in respect to the question, which first persecuted one another, Trinita-
rians or Anti-Trinitarians,*, we may leave out Augustine, who was not born till
354, and the Friscillianists, who sprang up at a still later period. Only, we
would remark of Augustine, that how severe soever his standard for the dues
of a heretic, he earnestly protested against persecution unto death:! an ex-
tremity, from which, had he taken lessons of Unitarians who flourished before
him, he might have learned not to shrink.

The case of the Donatists, did occur, previous to the age of Arius. But they
were generally Orthodox ; or if there were Unitarians among them, as Priestley t
alleges, what was exhibited in the days of Arius, would only render easier, a
solution of their inveteracy, in the manufacturing of trouble. The ground on
which they rested their apology for schism, was, a mere point of exter-
nal order. Still, for that, they hesitated not to sacrifice the peace, and sunder
the unity of the Church. Now, we believe, it is an admitted princi-
ple in politics, that he who will endanger the most precious interests of a
State, for a very small cause, is punished, not in proportion to the abstract con-
sequence of his crime, but the magnitude of the interests he puts in jeopardy.
Treason, may exist in an act, which if not treasonable, would hardly deserve
notice. With these data we say, that if the Donatists, for a mere point of
order, would hazard and wreck the tranquility and unity of the Church, they
merited severe, not to say the severest reprobation. We believe Unitarians
think it a good argument, that Trinitarians deserve weighty censure, since
they make a schism in the Church, for such an insignificant doctrine as the
Trinity. || They ask us, how we can be so presumptuous and cruel, as to rend

* This term is more appropriate than Unitarians, aud is used by Dr. Charming himself. Re-
marks on Dr. Worcester. We have not used it however invariably.

t Epistle to Marcellinus, A. D. 412.

I Ch. History, i. 464.

Blackstone, iv. 16. Paley' Mor. Phil, llth edition, y. 2. pp. 296, 299. In a scale of crimes
" the first degree, should consist of those, which immediately tend to the dissolution of society."
Boccaria, p. Am. Ed. p. 29. " Crimes, that disturb the public tranquillity, _ought to be derived
from the nature of the tiling, and to b'e relative to this tranquillity : such as imprisonment, exile,
corrections, and other chastisements, proper for the reclaiming of turbulent spirits." Mon-
tesquieu, Spirit of Laws, Book XII. ch. iv. also Vattel. B. 1. ch. ii. . 16.

|| Schism, says Dr. Channing, (Letter to Thacher, p. 21.) is the greatest of An ti -Christian
sins 1 teiiiporo, ! O mores .' Quantum mutatus ab iuo !

the seamless garment of Christ, for such " anise, mint, and cummin;" and did
they sit in council upon us, we might have from them such an appeal, in the
shape of no "ambiguous" decree.

If they do, or would do thus, how can they stigmatize the Catholics, for
some pungent >castigation of the Donatists, who were willing to put so much at
risk, for such petty causes, who showed a most unexampled bitterness of
temper, in literally scraping, washing, melting, burning or breaking, chali-
ces or altars or churches : * in rejecting and contemning the validity of all
Catholic ordinanc.es : who showed and persevered in all this bitterness, before
the face of the whole Church, and in spite of the voice of council after council,
and the Emperor himself: and who, some how or other, (excuse it as historians
will,) were associated with, and defended by, the Circumcelliones, as predatory
and ferocious a horde of villains, as ever polluted the earth with their pestifer-
ous visitation ? t

Unitarians, are lovers of social and political order. In Massachusetts, singu-
lar as it may seem, they have been the avowersand maintainers of the principle,
that government should interfere for the support of religion.}: Ought they then
to declaim, against the lifting of the political arm, to crush such a rude and
reckless, most uncharitable and ungentlemanly confederacy of radicals, as
these Donatists ? We think not, and we might go on then to say, that if so
much might be admitted, in respect to them, it would not perhaps be difficult to
prove, that- it was right for Cons tan tine, to secure the peace of the Empire in
the days of Arius, by austere civil enactments. For, if speculative opinions
are not worth polemic toil and pain, if religion consist altogether in certain
emotions, and creeds are matters of indifference; then it is as wrong, (not to
say far more so,) to disturb the harmony, aud blast the comfort of Society, by
waging warfare for the Unity, as for the Trinity of the Godhead. And if so,
how could Arius be excused, for turning incendiary with such little cause, and
lighting a train which almost made the Christian world, a general scene of
conflagration ? But he would not rest. He gave bishops, towns, provinces,
realms, an empire, no peace whatever. The Monarch on his throne, beheld
the wavings of the fiery flood, and trembled to think, that in the fervent heat of
the raging elements around him, the very pillars of his government might
melt away, and the noblest principality on earth be drowned in destruction
and perdition. He lifted his royal voice, and cried aloud, to hush the angry
storm to rest : but his expostulations, entreaties, and commands, flew by like
the idle wind. Is it wonderful, that at last he " girded himself with power,"
and in the tone, and with the menaces of irresistible authority, exclaimed,
" hitherto shalt thou come and no further ? "

But this is hurrying down too fast to a later period. Our question is, which
first persecuted one another, Trinitarians or Anti-Trinitarians? The cases.

* Fleury Ecc. Hist. Lib. xv. Sect. 32.
t Gibbon, iii. 67, c.
I Christian Disciple, N. Ser. v. 282.

Well has Boileau described, the " persecution, torture, murder," which " followed in his
train," and the magnitude of the matter, for which he brought death upon the world and untold;
woes : one syllable !

" Lorsqu' attaquant, le Verbs et sa divinite,
D'uno syllabe impie un saint mot augmente,
Remplit tous los esprits, d'aigreurs si mourtrieros,
Et fit du sang Chretien, couler tant de rivieres."

Boileau Sat. xii. 199.

of the Donatists and Priscillianists, being disposed of, and the authority of
Augustine, having been shown to be pre-quoted, (if we may use a convenient
compound,) the way is how fairly open, to examine the bearing of facts, in the
age of Arius and Alexander, upon this important point.

Arius, was a gifted, learned, affable and courteous, presbyter of Alexandria,
of blameless life and deportment. Still, like Ctesar and many others, honor-
able, wise, great, and even good, " he was ambitious." Disappointed about
elevation to the episcopate,* a subject, which in later times, has spoiled esti-
mable tempers, he was resolved to show, that in talents and learning, he was
no whit behind his successful competitor. He broached new doctrines, gam-
ed many favorites, and made much stir. The spiritual authority of the Church,
was in one way and another exerted against him, no doubt with less gentle-
ness than it might have been, if wielded by another than his rival in the race,
for the " golden apple "of ecclesiastical promotion.

He is at last, excommunicated. Thus deprived of the countenance of the
church, what would a man, " exceedingly well qualified to form a party, and carry
on any enterprize he should engage in,"t as Lardner admits Arius was, what
would such a man chagrined, mortified, and exasperated, do ? Might he not,
permit an attempt, to enlist the multitude or the State in his behalf, and might
he not connive at practices, which in the day of honor, and the station of emol-
ument, he would have scorned ? | This seems consonant, with what we know
of human nature, and Tillemont, quoting from the writers of the age, states
authoritatively, even more than we have presented in the form of supposition.
The Arians he says, "were continually raising seditions and persecutions
against the churh, on the one hand, stirring up the magistrates against her,
by the solicitations of unhappy courtezans whom they had seduced, on the other
exposing Christianity, to the mockery of its enemies, by the shameful behavior
of young girls of their party, running perpetually about the streets. After
this, we must not be surprised, at what the truth constrains Eusebius of Coesa-
rea to say, that the divisions of the people against one another, ran so high in
Alexandria, as to give occasion to the heathen, to make a jest, of the most sol-
emn parts of our religion in their public theatres. "j|

Now, that Arius was excommuuicated, i. e. had ecclesiastical censures passed
upon him, we hardly call persecution. Arius knew what the church was, before
he entered it : he knew that a violation of its creed, would be censured if neces-
sary, by excision from its communion. If knowing this, he still voluntarily en-
tered, he had no right to complain of the corisequences. As well might a for-
eigner, to whom our laws seem unjust, presume to violate them with impunity .IT

* Diet, des cultoa Religioux i. 119. It is doubted in a note in Murdock's Mosheim, i. 343.
Philostorgius Lib. i. ch. 4, says that Arius even preferred Alexander before himself: a modera-
tion however, as Tillemont well says, intrinsecally improbable, and quite estranged from his dis-
position. Ecc. Hist. vi. 242. also Ceillier Hist. Aut. Sac. iv. 402. This need not be questioned a
moment, if we can believe with Lardner, that ho was "exceedingly well qualified to form a
party." He had says a biographer, " MM funds de melancolie, d'inquietude, d'ambition, et un
gotti secret, pour les nouveautes." Biog. Universelle ii. 466.

f Vol. iv. 306. 4to edition.

j Arius, was a poet, and wrote pieces in behalf of his creed, to be scattered among the common
people, not remarkable it is said for their decency, and which had as much of argument in thorn, as
the theological part of Hudibras.

Alexander, in a letter to the Bp. of Byzantium, says, that Arius and his followers attempted
to raise a persecution against him, when the church was at peace. Notes of Tillemont. vi. 737.

II Tillemont, Ecc. Hist. vi. 249.

IF Compare Miller's Lecture on Greeds, in the Addenda to the Spruce Street Lectures, pp. 338,
339, &c. A most lucid, fair, and valuable tract.

The answer is, if you think so, stay away, no one obliges you to come here, but
if you do come, you must conform to our rules, for juridical science teaches
us, that there is no objection to implied powers* in the constitution of an organ-
ized society, and if there be one such power, it is that of self-preservation.

Passing the excommunication of Arius by, we see, if we are not mistaken,
in the statement of Tillemont, something which looks like the beginning of that
practice, to appeal to power without the church, in order to harass those within it,
which in the very essence of persecution, " the head and front of its offending."

To us then, it seems at least plausible, that the charge of first persecuting
brethren, belongs not to Trinitarian Christians.

Nor can we see, in 'the civil penalties and severities, which followed the
great council of Nice, so much the hand of Ecclesiastics, as of an Emperor,
who cared little, which side was right or wrong, so that there were no disturb-
ance within his government. Constantino's severity, as even Gibbon seems to
allow, t arose from pique, at the want of deference shown by both sidos to his
authority.

We fully believe, he called the council, with the " untutored sense of a sol-
dier and statesman," not to determine a creed, about which " a Roman general
whose religion might be still a subject of doubt," would little care : but to
quash disputes, by which the provinces of his noble and extensive empire, were
" distracted with religious discord." We think this " imperfect proselyte," i. e.
to Christianity as he is called by Gibbon, from whom we have all along been
quoting, would have pronounced the same judgment, and inflicted the same
penalties, let the cause have issued as it might. Worldlings would admit as
much, for they, arguing from a worldly knowledge of human nature, would
say, that it naturally became the Emperor, as a politician and a philosopher, to
be more concerned about the safety of a great state, than the petty victory of a
sect of dogmatists. We believe they judge human nature, as it is often exhibited
by men in power, but too correctly. We think therefore, that Constantino
acted the part he would have acted, if neither orthodox nor heterodox, but a
complete indifferentis.t. He wanted political salubrity and peace, and nothing
more. The unsettled condition of his own religious sentiments (to say no.
thing of the authority of Gibbon,) is fully shown, in his speedy recal and
patronage of Arius, and the efforts he made to re-instate him at Alexandria.

The persecution which followed the council of Nice, we then think was
Constantine's alone: the out-breaking of an " unttuored " soldier's will. Mili-
tary chieftains, are not remarkable for lenity, whether their aim be to crush
theological, political, or financial heresy. But do we not believe, that the party
which he happened to espouse, had their persecutions also? O yes, and
enough of them, and enough of them without excuse, to satisfy the most eager
and grasping anticipation of our concessions. Under Constantine's example as
a cover, and with his authority as a shield, they pursued their own favorite
plans, with melancholy, disgusting, and terrific severity. But we must say,
that when the under spoke of the wheel became the uppermost, when in a few
years, the fortunes Arianism revived, and rolled onwards to the summit of

* Story's Commentaries on the Constitut. 1. 418.
t Gibbon, iii. 29, 30.

power, its votaries certainly equalled, and as a moderate and candid authority
says, even eclipsed their oppressors/

And what is very remarkable, they were if possible, more unsparing towards
different sects of their own persuasion,! than towards those of a completely
opposite faith.

" Amid the woods, the leopard knows his kind,
The tiger, preys not on the tiger brood ;"

But Arian, could not show his fellow- Arian, mercy. Perhaps however, this is
more consonant to human nature, than at first sight we may suppose^ We
have rarely if ever, seen more rancorous animosity, than between different par-
ties of the same denomination. Even Solomon has said, the contentions of
brethren, are like the bars of a castle, i. e. you may as easily break through the
gates of a Bastile, as remove the causes which sustain them. Acerrima ferme
proximorum odia sunt, says Tacitus. Witness the Jesuits and Jansenists
among the Catholics, and but we forbear to come nearer home. If any are
suffering from this party spirit, we give them a text' below from Warburton,
for their study, imitation and comfort.

In a short compass then, this is as correct a view as we can give, of the
commencement of persecution, after division and hostility arose in the Church,
through jarring opinions respecting the internal character of the Godhead.

Subsequent to the days of Constantine, in the time of such emperors, as
Constantius and Valens on the Arian side, and Theodosius and Justinian on
the other, we are willing to grant, that it is hardly worth one's while to adjust a
balance, for weighing the alternate vengeance of orthodox or heterodox perse-
cution. We are willing to say, in the general language of Winterberg : . " A
seculo quarto, in orbe Christiano, nihil magis salutem afflxit et imminuit, quam
rixoe et contentiones de dogmatibus, quam inimicitiee in secus sentientes, quam
crudelitas immahissima, in eos, qui decreta partis adversoe tanquam ex tripode
dicta revereri nollent.|| " Our calmer reason," says even Gibbon, M will im-
pute an equal, at least an indiscriminate measure of good and evil, to the hostile
sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the appellations of orthodox and heretics. "IT
We are willing to take and give, at the hands of the infidel historian, if while
doing so, we can bespeak his suffrage, for a man like Athanasius, who/ he
says, " in the various turns of his prosperous and adverse fortune, never lost
the confidence of his friends, or the esteem of his enemies,: " ** a man, who,
when asked by Constantius to grant the Arians a church at Alexandria, an-

* Dr. Walch quoted in Murdock's Mosheim, i. 357. Let the following instance supply the
place of a multitude of quotations. v

" The rites of Baptism, were conferred (conferred !) on women and children, (who for that
purpose, had been torn from the arms of their friends and parents : the mouths of communicants
were held open by a wooden engine, while the consecrated bread was forced down their throats : '
the breasts of tender virgins were either burnt with red hot egg-shells, or inhumanly compressed
between sharp nnd heavy boards." Gibbon, iii. 66.

t Fleury, Ecc. Hist. Lib. xix. Sect. 35.

t Kames' Sketches, iv. 264.

" I believe no one (all things considered,) has suffered more, from the low and vile passions,
of the high and low amongst pur brethren, than myself. Yet God forbid, it should over suffer
me to be cold in the Gospel's interests ; which are indeed so much my own. that without thorn, I
should be disposed to consider humanity, as the most forlorn part of the creation." Warburtou'g
Letters, p. 40.

jl Commentntiones TheologicoD, iv. 423.

** Hist. iii. 39 and 40,

flwered by merely proposing as an exchange of concessions, that the Orthodox
should have a church at Antioch,* and was replied to by his very tolerant op-
ponents, with this very sufficient reason, (at least for them) that " it would be
inconvenient."^ We are willing to do this, till we reach the age of those Goths
and Vandals, whose blind devotion and ignorance, says a writer in the " Pillars of
Priestcraft and Orthodoxy, &c." vol. iv. 270. were first made use of by the clergy,
but who, in his own blind and ignorant zeal, forgot, that these people were
converted by Bp. .Ulphilaa "a decided Unitarian," and were for centuries,
. the. determined advocates, of a " craft " and a " doxy," the prototype of 'which,
says Jerome, made the whole world groan.}: Of these tremendous scourges,
We are compelled to exclaim, that none who bore the Christian name, ever so
outraged humanity as they. To them, unless the Arian Constantius, (Gibbon
iii. 66.) or the Arian Valens, or the hateful Circumcelliones, (Gibbon iii. 69.)
can claim the precedence, is due the infamous celebrity, of devising the pun-
ishment, of burning a fellow Christian. (Gibbon iv. 400.) So relentless was
their bigotry, that it was their last sentiment, in the fearful hour of dissolution.
(Gibbon iv. 401.) So demoniac, was their temper, that it did not spare woman,
and made woman herself unsparing : and this too, in despite of a dignity and
rank, which should have respected themselves, if they could not respect the
same qualities m others. An Arian father-in-law and a king, amputated the
nose and ears of a princess; (Gibbon iv. 273.) and an Arian mother-in-law, and
a queen, seized another princess, whom her "blandishments" could not con-
vert from Orthodoxy, seized her by her hair, dashed her against the ground,
kicked her till 'she was covered with blood, and at last, gave orders that she
should be thrown naked into a fish-pond. (Gibbon, iv. 411.)

The answer to all this may be, that these Goths and Vandals were a short
time before, but perfect savages. True: but had they been good Orthodox prop-
agandists, we are not sure, though we are somewhat suspicious, that their con-
duct would have been accounted a regular part, of the Auto da Fe u train,"
of "persecution, torture, murder, malignant bigotry, and loathsome hypocrisy,"
which has followed the doctrine of the Trinity. And even if they were such
savages, could not the improved religion meliorate them a little ? And if it
could not, how could their Unitarianism be vanquished by such as Theodelinda,
who completed its overthrow, even among her inhuman Lombard subjects, before
the conclusion of the sixth century ?|| Her triumph, (says Waddington p. 102.)
" may be read by the Catholic, without a blush, and recorded by the historian,
without a sigh ; since it was accomplished, if not by the process of rational con-
viction, at least, without the savage inflictions, by which sudden religious
changes are usually effected."

' And again, if the Goth's and Vandals were perfect savages, so were the
original inhabitants of England j and yet when Ethelbert "the most potent
king of Kent," was converted by the Orthodox St. Austin, and might have ex-
tended Christianity in his kingdom, by the force and constraint of civil power,

* Waddington, note, p. 96.

f Priestley's Ch. Hist. ii. 129. The Dr. is said to bo candid. We must certainly give him
full credit for the above quotation.
| Hieron. adv. Lucif. torn. i. p. 145.

4 Murdoek's Mosheim, i. 355, notes. An accident says Gibbon, iii. 262.
II Compare, Fleury, Ecc. Hist. Lib. xxxv. Sect 13. Biog. Univorselle, xlv. 272.

he did not do so, " for he had learnt from his instructors and leaders to salva-
tion, that the service of Christ, ought to be voluntary, not by compulsion." 1 '
In England therefore. Christianity, under Orthodox auspices, grew by the gen-
tle means of moral suasion, and became a nursing mother to the soil; in Afric*
and elsewhere, under Arian auspices, it seemed the genius of " unmixed evil/'
stalking about with giant strides, bathing the ground with blood and searing it
with fire.

Truth requires, perhaps, that this strong statement, be sustained by examples,
in addition to what have been given already. The following may suffice.

Says Limborch, the partial friend of Locke that " decided Unitarian," " some
had their tongues cut out, others their hands, others their feet chopped off,
others their eyes dug out, and others were miserably slain through the extremity
of their tortures. "t This is but a sentence, from a whole chapter on " Arian
persecutions," which were thought quite awful enough, to be introduced as a
prelude to the history of the Inquisition. Says Gibbon : (iv. 399.) " The
cruel and absurd enterprise, of subduing the mind of a whole people, was under-
taken by the Vandals (i. e. the Unitarians) alone." He then goes on to detail,
the horrors of this crusade of crusades out-heroding Herod, this maximum
of inferno-human vengeance, whose design was, not from mistaken zeal, to
recover a lost sepulchre, but with " unmixed " self-will, to make others think,
as that will chose. And he thus shows, how this plan, " steamed up from hell,"
(as Dr. Channing, in an ever memorable argumentumadinvidiam,B&id Unitari-
anism was not,) was consummated. "Respectable citizens, noble matrons, and
consecrated virgins, were stripped naked and raised in the air by pullies, with a
weight suspended to their feet. In this painful attitude, their bodies were torn
with scourges, or burnt in the most tender parts, with red hot plates of iron.
The amputation of the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the right hand, was in-
flicted by the Arians."! " A new mode of conversion, which might subdue
the feeble, and alarm the timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers.
They imposed by fraud or violence, the rites of baptism."! " The Arian clergy,
surpassed in religious cruelty the king and his Vandals ".'/.' t

Would not any one, if these accounts of " persecution, torture, murder," and of
" all that is malignant in bigotry," if not of " all that is loathsome in hypocrisy^"
were read to him without names, believe, that we were extracting, from the
stolen records, of ' The HOLY and APOSTOLIC Court of the Inquisition? ' Would
he not start, as Priestley did, under the scourges of Horsley, and say of us, as
he said of that heavy-handed controversialist, when we told him, that we had
been extracting from the published annals of Unitarianism, that we were falsi-
fiers of history, and defamers of the character of the dead ? But facts, are
" monumentum fere perennius : " they cannot be undone, and would not be
belied, by an Infidel, who said, that the difference between the histories of a
Trinitarian and Unitarian., was that, which exists between sketches by the
pencil of bigotry and the pencil of reason. ||

We will now, but add a word from the " heretic " Tucker, and submit our
view of persecution to the candor of our readers.

* Bede's Ecc. Hist. p. 70. London, 1723,

t Hist, of the Inquisit. p. 72.

I Gibbon, iv. 405.

Horsley's Tracts, pref. p. x.

I) Gibbon, iii. 20, notes.

A for the pretence of this article being the foundation of spiritual tyranny,
this is not true; for history and experience testify, that those who have
erected schemes of tyranny did not find it sufficient for their purpose, but
were forced to build upon additions of their own, such as transubstantiation,
purgatory, the custody of the keys: our modern seducers of the populace pre-
tend tp extraordinary illuminations, peculiar providences, and wonder-working
powers, and Maho'metism, that religion propagated by the sword, totally re-
jects the Trinity for this notable reason, because there cannot be a son without
a mother as well as father. Perhaps nobody was ever hurt barily by his recep-
tion of the creeds, how erroneously soever he may have understood them : it is the
stir made about them, that does the mischief. Any speculative point, as the indi-
viduality of compounds, or Super-addition of a new existence upon their con-
junction, might raise as great disturbances as the disputes between Athanasius
and Arius, if once warmly espoused as a matter of state, or taken up for a
party distinction."*

NOTE F. p. 21.
ATHEISM.

That these expressions about Atheism, are not too strong, let the following
authorities show :

Lord Bacon, gives us an opinion, from what he saw in his day. " If this
bridle," (i.e. ''the fear of government and of speech amongst men," from
which last, it has in our day pretty nearly emancipated itself,) " If this bridle
were removed, there is no heresy, that would contend more, to^spread and
multiply and disseminate itself abroad, than Atheism."

Works, Montag. Edit. i. 216.

Bp. Blomfield, who is well acquainted with London, which has bred all sorts
ofradicalism and infidelity, tells us, that " an intolerant and persecuting spirit,
is. the never-failing characteristic, of the Atheist and the leveller."

B. on the Acts. p. 45. 2d edition.

The Abbe Bergier, who was familiar with France, holds the following language,
at the close of bis article on the Inquisition. " We congratulate the French and
Germans, that they have not the tribunal among them; but we confidently
assure them, that if unbelieving philosophers, had the mastery, they would es-
tablish an inquisition, as rigorous as that of Spain, against all, who would per-
severe in attachment to religion." Theol. Diet. iv. 215.

Hear Robert Hall. " It was late, before the Atheism of Epicurus, gained
footing at Rome; but its prevalence, was soon followed, by such scenes of pro-
scription, confiscation, and blood, as were then, unparalleled in the history of
the world." " An attempt has been recently made, to establish a similar sys-
tem in France, the consequences of which, are too well known, to render it
requisite, for me to shock your feelings by a recital." Works, i. 46. Eng. Edit.
" They are eager to displace a Deity, from the minds of men, that they may
occupy the void : to crumble the throne of the Eternal into dust, that they may
elevate themselves on its ruins." i. 41.

* Tucker'* Light, &c. iii. 959.

Hear even Voltaire. " I would not willingly, lie at the mercy of an Atheis-
tical prince, who might think it his interest, to have me pounded in a mortar,
for I am very certain, that would be my fate. And were I a sovereign, I would
not have about me, any Atheistical courtiers/ whose interest it might be to
poison me, as then, I must every day be taking alexipharmics. So necessary
is it, both for princes and people, that their minds be thoroughly imbued with
an idea of a Supreme Being, the Creator, Avenger, and Rewarder.

Phil Diet. i. 31. Edit. 1819.

We close this series, with the following.

"Upon the whole, as the world within the compass of a few years past, is
advanced in all kinds of knowledge and arts, and every useful branch, of what
they knew before is improved, and innumerable useful parts of knowledge,
which were concealed before, are discovered!; why should we think, the Devil
alone, should stand at a stay, take no steps to his farther accomplishment, and
make no useful discoveries, in his way ? That he alone, should stand at a stay,
and be just the same unimproved Devil, that he was before? No: No: as the (
world is improved every day, and every age is grown wiser and wiser, than
their fathers, so no doubt, he has bestirred himself too, in order to an increase
of knowledge and discovery, and that he finds every day, a nearer way to go
to work with mankind, than he had before."

History of the Devil. 321, 323.

NOTE G, p. 26.

That this original sin of Arius, lost nothing by transmission, two or three
authorities, not to mention others, can clearly evince. Says Severus, " Ariani,
perfidiam suam occultdbant, non ausipalam, crroris sua dogmata, pradicare."
Sulp. Severus Hist. Sac. Lib. ii. Many of the Orthodox bishops, as we are as,
sured by Theodoret, (Lib. ii. ch. 21.) were carried by the Arians, from the*
council of Rimini, to Nice in Thrace, there detained, and cheated into an Ac-
knowledgment of an Arian creed. And this asssurance, comes from a niaff,
whom Du Pin, (cent. v. pt. 2. p. 64.) has to defend from the charge, of writing
history, for the abuse of the Orthodox! Of Eunomius, thus writes Ceillier, in
his Hist. Aut. Sacres : " E auivit ce conceil et envelloppa son impietd une mul-
titude de term.es obscurs et embarrasses." Vol. xiv. p. 84.

NOTE H, p. SO.
MORAL QUALIFICATIONS OF AIT INTERPRETER.

We have spoken strongly, on this subject, in the text, and as some may
think, our observations ought to be better fortified, the following list of authori-
ties is subjoined.

" For we believe, that to be true, which some have affirmed, that were there
any interest of life, any concernment of appetite and passion, against the truth
of geometrical theorems themselves, (as e. g. of a triangles' having its three

angles, equal to two right angles,) whereby men's judgments might be clouded
and bribed ; notwithstanding all the demonstrations of them, many would re-
main, at least skeptical about them." Pref. to Cudworth's Intett. Syst.

" The will, is one of the principal sources of belief ; not that it produces belief,
but that things appear true or false to us, according to the way they are looked at.
The will which inclines to one thing, more than another, turns away the mind,
from considering the qualities of that, which it does not approve; and thus, the
whole mind, led by the will or inclination, limits observation, to what it ap-
proves, and thus forming its judgment, on what it sees, it insensibly regulates
its belief, by the inclinations of the will, i. e. its own preferences."

Pascal's Thoughts, p. 20. Craig's edition.

41 It would be well, if people would not lay so much weight, on their own
reason, in matters of religion, as to think everything impossible and incredible,
which they cannot conceive. How often do we contradict the right rules of
reason, in the whole course of our lives ? Reason itself, is true and just, but the
reason of every particular man, is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and
turned by his passions, his interests, and his vices. Let any man but consider,
when he hath a controversy with another, though his cause be ever so unjust,
though the whole world be against him, how blinded he is, by the love of him-
self, to believe that wrong is right, and right is wrong, when it makes for his
own advantage. Where is then the right use of this reason, which he so much
boasts of, and which he would blasphemously set up, to control the commands
of the Almighty." Dean Swift's Sermon on the Trinity, pronounced by Bp.
Gleig, (Letters p. 203.) the best popular sermon on the subject, he ever saw.

" Thus, good people, should we understand such matters, expressed in the

Divine Scriptures, that the holy table of God's word, be not turned to us, to be

a snare, a trap, and a stumbling stone, to take hurt, by the abuse of our under-

^standing." ~ Homily, 22.pt. 1. An information to them, which take offence, at

' certain places of the holy Scripture.

*In his last hours, said Bp. Butler to his chaplain, " Though I have endeavored
lo avoid sin, and to please God, to the utmost of my power, yet from the con-
sciousness of perpetual infirmity, I am still afraid to die." " My Lord," said
,.the chaplain, " you forget that Jesus Christ is a Saviour." " True," was the
answer, " but how shall I know, that he is a Saviour to me? " " My Lord, it is
written, ' Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.' " " True," said
the bishop, " and I am surprised, that though I have read that Scripture, a thou-
. sand times, I never felt its value till this moment: and now I die happy."

Chr. Disc. JV. 5. i. 368.

One of the most important of the moral qualifications of an interpreter, is, a
sympathy with what he is to interpret. Here was a'passage, without " ambiguity,"
but until the proper sympathy with it, was awakened in the bishop's mind, it
was dark or of no striking significance to him. When that sympathy came,
then came spiritual discernment and spiritual appreciation. The simple propo-
sition, " Jesus Christ is a Saviour," will be a bare and cold historical fact, to
all who have not due convictions and feelings about those sins, which make a
Saviour necessary. When a man can enter, with his heart, into the language
of our sacramental confession, " the remembrance of them, is grievous unto us,

the burthen of them, is intolerable," then, and not till then, will he know how
to interpret, the apparently unambiguous proposition, which has been instanced.

To proceed : " How zealously and earnestly, they ply the people, trith the 1
great duty of searching the Scriptures, and yet, all the world cannot persuade'
.them', either to believe or hear those Scriptures, though speaking never so*
plainly, against their erroneous practices."

Jettison's Countermine, p. 26.

" Several, stamp the characters of Divinity, on an idol which the fancy ha* ,
set up, and wonder, that all mankind do not fall down and worship it. Every '
slight argument that countenances it, is demonstration, and every one that op- .
poses it, is a palpable fallacy. They see it in every text of Scripture, and are
surprised at the unaccountable blindness of other people, that they do not see
it too." . Seed's Sermons, iii. 110.

" For how great soever his acquisitions are, of speculative, knowledge, the
corruptions of the heart, will certainly, sooner or later, seduce and corrupt the
mind." Du Pin's Study of Theology, p. 103.

" Were the minds of all men alike, and rightly disposed, all arguments and
reasons, would work alike upon them all. But interest, partiality, pride, and
other ungovernable affections, cause all the disorders in the mind."

Hon. C. How's Meditations No. 22.

"Scripture, like everything else, is liable to very extraordinary interpreta-
tions; and when men enter upon the study of it, with a disposition to SeMch
into mysteries, or with a prepossession for any peculiar set of tenets, an& atle-
sire to establish these, in preference to every other, they no doubt may run iht
the most extravagant imaginations, and find in the words of God himself some-
thing like a color, for all the perversions and follies of their own disordered
mind."

R. Morehtad's Sermons, Episcopal Chapd Edinburgh, p. 16.

" There is but one precise point, to show a picture in : the rest, misrepresent
by nearness or distance, by being too high or top low. Perspective, will tell us
this nice place in painting; but in thinking and morality, it is not so easily
fixed. Things are often mismarked, both in contemplation and use, for want,
of of application and integrity." Jer. Collier's Essays, i. 240.

" Many qualifications are requisite, in order to judge of some truths, and par- *,'
ticularly those, which are of the greatest importance: proper learning and pen- ; jf
etration, vacancy from business, a detachment from the interest of all parties, .
much sincerity, and a perfect resignation to the government of reason and fore*-. *
of truth." Wollastori's Rcl. of Nat. Edit. 6th. p. 62. .X

" Reason, that divinity of philosophers, totters, is frequently driven from beg
throne, and even deserts those, who have most cultivated her friendship, and!
acknowledged her power." Lord Lyttleton's Lett. p. 20, 21.

" Truth, is a thing, which every man is ready fo declare for, and thinks, he,
has its sure possssion. But then, it must be in his own little sphere, though
ever so contemptible, a hut or house. He must never look abroad, or go out of
doors for it. Every monster of imagination, in his own cell is truth."

Morgan's Physico-Theology p. 269.

' Little 'did this Infidel, like many others, think'that his positions were as ap-
glicabla to himself as to those against whom he wrote. A jprinciple|, is' always
general, and a principle of the science of Interpretation, 'one of the most gener-
al things iii the world : arid "yet, even this science is not prbfected from mo-
nopolizing and one sided views: a proof almost complete, if there were rio
other, that the moral qualifications of an interpreter, are matters of the first

jr 'moment, and to be looked to, before any other qualifications whatever."

Behold another Infidel, unconsciously committing felode se, when he thinks

V only, of slaying his Christian neighbor. "There is indisputably an influence,
exerted by emotions and passions, over the understanding itself. They have
sometimes *the effect, of making that argument appear valid to one man, which
is regarded as inconclusive by another ; in a word, of begetting various opinions
on the same subject." - Essays on Format ion of Opinions, p. 48.

From something which we have lately seen written by the celebrated conti-
nental scholar, De Wette, it would seem, as if he were verging to such views
of the qualifications of an interpreter, as have here been defended.

And now, after showing the necessity of proper moral qualifications for an
interpreter, we might still go on and say, that without these same qualifica-
tions^, even correctly interpreted Scripture is of little use. " Suppose a man,"
BOjapiTascal, " to become convinced, that the proportions of numbers, are truths
Immaterial, (i e. existing independently of matter,) and external, and "depend- '
eht on one first truth, on which they subsist, and Which is called God : I do
not find that man, advanced one step further, towards his Own salvation."

Thoughts pp. 57, 58. or Chap; vii.

There is what is called, a speculative belief in Christianity. But there are

persons, in whose minds such a belief lies as inert and unfruitful, as do cer-

' tain seeds in the ground, when more heat and moisture than usual, is necessary

, to make them germinate. So their Christianity, (if it be Christianity,) requires

; 1the dew of a divine blessing, and the warmth of a faith "that works by love,"

"io make it vital and operative. Compare Rom. ii. 28, 29. *

jsr

> NOTE. I. p. 31.

S 1 '

*^B* ' ' -. . '

V , , UNLEARNED INTERPRETERS.

$ , .'.'.

We cannot help referring here, to Mr. N.'s chosen example, both in his re-
view and book, (and which, of course, we think a very carefully selected. one,)
as far from being particularly happy. "Ye have an unction, from the Holy
One, and ye know all things." 1 John ii. 20. This, is the ambiguous passage,
which is to show how easily common readers may and will mistake, the sense
of .^cripturef; We confess it to be an ambiguous passage, to the cavilling and
querulous theologian. But to one, who had practically and powerfully felt,

* Le Bas's Sermons, ii. 244. Quarterly Review, xvii. 459.

,66

the influence of Christianity, (i. . in common .parlance, a truly converted many)
we really think, the sentiment of the passage, its oriental, costume out of the
question, remarkably plain. . ' r :;.''

John had been speaking, of Anti-christs. Theyiwent out from his brethren,
left the fellowship of Christians; because they were not of them, had no
genuine fellow-feeling with them. But ye, (there is a contrast in ttfe disjunc-
tive, which every unlearned interpreter would feel, little as he might know of
the mysteries, of " ambiguity," ) but ye do, what? Obviously, do not go
out. And why ? Ye have an unction, from the Holy One, and ye know all
tilings.

We ,are confident, with a persuasion "free from oil doubt and difficulty,"
that a right Christian heart, a mind prepared with the -proper moral qualifica-
tions, would interpret the sentiment here, correctly, and without hesitation;
though unskilled in the dubitations and tortuosities of " ambiguity." Nay, we
will go further, we believe, it would come to a true decision, the sooner, for
this very want of skill. We do not think, after all, that language is such an
extremely uncertain medium, for the communication of thought.

The knowledge of what words may mean, is not most helpful, in our humble
estimation. It makes many oscillate, in a manner, amusing to mere curiosity,
but afflicting to anxious philanthropy. It has troubled the world, with men,
who have "piled up reluctant quarto upon solid folio, as if their labors, because
they are gigantic, could contend with truth and heaven."* An honest man,
means one thing, by language: it is only deceivers, who mean many things, or
nothing, by it. " It is saying little," says the powerful author, of the late
Work on fanaticism, " to affirm, that ho composition, whether historical or di-
dactic, (if the language in which it is written be understood,) fails to convey to
readers, of ordinary intelligence, ;the principal intention of the writer) unless
indeed, he be himself wanting m sense, or designedly conceals his meaning,
under ambiguous or enigmatic terms. This is plainly implied, when it is
granted, that language is a good and sufficient means of communication, be-
tween mind' and mind. To affirm any thing less, were to stultify humanity,
and to break up and derange, the entire machinery of the social system. 'All
men, might as well become anchorets at once, if indeed language is found to be
a fallacious medium of intellectual exchange." t

This seems to us, so much like a concatenation of axioms, (as no doubt it
did to its author,) that but for the singular views, about the intrinsic ambiguity,
of language, which have been obtruded on us, we should never have sought,
for such propositions as it contains, the authority of a great reputation. We
say singular, not because we doubt, any more than Mr. N. does, that wotds
are, in themselves considered, intrinsecally ambiguous. We have never
doubted this fact, since we were taught it in college, in different phraseology,
viz. that words are arbitrary signs of ideas. But we fear, that the term "in-
trinsic," has been used, with an emphasis and a frequency, which has made it
convertible for another, quite dissimilar, viz. " invariable." We do fear, that
Mr. N.'s declamation about intrinsic ambiguity, will help some to doubt, some
to speculate, some to evade, and some to be indifferent, because, they will
think j that which is intrineecally ambiguous, is always ambiguous; 1 a conclu-

* Prom Juntos' Loiters, No. sx.
, p. 243.

, not one whit more strange to us, than are to him, the, " to the last degree
ravagant and absurd," conclusions of Paulus, whidi in his view, have no

sion,

extravagant

equals, but Orthodox commentaries ! *

We well know, as Dr. Beattie has taught us, that 'f.it is easy to write plausi-
bly, on any subject, and in vindication of any doctrine, w;hen -either the indo-
lence of the reader, or the nature of the composition, gives the writer an oppor-
tunity, to avail himself, of the ambiguity of language." t But we trust, that i
is not necessary, to prove the sacred' writers, honest men, who would mean
but one}: thing: and we believe, that no sincere inquirer after their meaning,
will be indolent. How then, can the ambiguity of language, be so very trou-
blesome, to such an inquirer ? We cannot think it will be. If the writers of
the Bible, had a " principal intention ; " then, if one only have a spirit in sym-
pathy with theirs, i. e. the right moral qualification, he will catch, this "inten-
tion," sooner, vastly sooner, than the most learned of explorers, who are wan-
dering up and down, seeking for it in the mists of words and phrases, which
they themselves have created. It is easier, than is imagined, for a man to
transfer the cloudiness of his own brain, to. the page he is reading : to think,
When his own heart is out of tune, that the discord exists in what his , heart
does not chime with. But, when there is harmony between what is written,
and the mind and heart, which come in contact with it; then, as in water face
answereth to face, so the mind sees and the heart feels what is written, just as
he "who wrote, meant they should do. To us, this is a subject, which we
thiqk as plain, as others will think it " ambiguous " There are " babes," to
whom it is intelligible, and there are " wise and prudent," from whom, in re-
lation to the Bible, it may " be hidden." But we shall be none the less
" fully persuaded," of the correctness and simplicity of our views, about the
unambiguous character of the language of honest men, guided by the Spirit of
all truth, when studied by sincere and anxious men, whose hearts, the same
Spirit has attuned to unison, with the language they study. This, is a posi-
tion, which even violence shall not wring from us. We will never consent,
to have the humble, unlettered, but genuine Christian, shaken in his faith, and
injured-m his hopes, by the illusive "statement," that language, intrinsecally,
means any thing or means nothing, and that therefore, he must surrender at
discretion, to the dicta of the self-styled wise. No, we tell him, he may even
put them at defiance, and fearlessly follow a sanctified heart. Such a heart
will lead him into all truth, when without it, the wisdom of Solomon'rnight
but "lead to bewilder." || ;.

" He that believeth," i. e. gives God all his confidence, before man, man's
reason, or any thing below, " hath the witness in himself." Ought it not, to
be so ? Ought not God to bless him, who will trust himself, exclusively, with
a degree of light and conviction, which he withholds from others ? Ought not

* Ch. Disc. N.S. i. 410.

t Essay on Truth, Pt. 1. chap. ii. Sect. 9. .

I Home's Introd. 4th Lond. edition, ii. 493. or Int. to Pt. ii. oh. 1. ' .

" Whoever is wise, in the history of human science ; or with philosophic mind, ,has traced'
the characters of the learned, has frequently discovered, that erudition, with .all its industry, is
often more remote from truth, than ignorance with all its stupidity ; and that while the 'learned,
outstrip the vulgar in knowledge, their own prejudice often outstrip their own knowledge."

Dr. Fletcher on Rfl. Controversy, pp. 91. g&

|| Horsley's Nine Sermons, pp. 165, C.

a heart, which is not BO foolish as to trust in itself, to be able to adopt, with
philosophical truth, the words of Dante ? (

" The flood, I answered, from the Spirit of God, *

Rained down, upon the Cov'nants old and new : *
Here, is the reasoning, that convinceth nie '?'

So feelingly : each argument beside, :

Seems blunt and forceless, in comparison."
Paradise, Canto xxiv . 96100. Carey's Translation, slightly altered;

NOTE K. p. 33. , .

/ RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT, FREE ENQUIRY &c.

We were once present, at the delivery of an oration by a distinguished per-
sonage, who siezed an opportunity to dilate on these topics, with enthusiastic
fervor. His remarks were welcomed with vociferous applause, clapping
stamping &o. .,-.... . , , - . , ;

"I presume," said a dry country parson sitting near us, "I presume Sirjit
is the most pious part of the audience, who are expressing their joy on this

occasion."

. , NONE L. p. 38. , .-. : ;

THE PROTESTANT VATICAN.

Protestants complain, of the decrees of the Vatican : must it at last be said to
them, " thou that preachest, a man should not steal " infallibility, " dost thou,
steal " it ? And yet, we are at times almost tempted to exclaim, " Behold !
a greater than " the Vatican " is here." : . .. ;

For in the first place, we may have no principles of interpretation, which
can be even defended, (p. 88.) , '

Should we however survive this deprivation, and attempt to interpret the"
Bible for ourselves, in the honest exercise of " the right of private judgment/'
we are reduced to the verge of syncope, by the drastic dose, that, mean the
Bible what it may, " its Trinitarian exposition must be false." (p. 105.)

Should any strength be yet left us, and we attempt to lisp, that the Bible
correctly interpreted, contains Trinitarian doctrines, we are made " twice 1 dead,
plucked up by the roots," by the decretum alsolutum, " Oh no ! these are not
the doctrines of the gospel."* Most truly, if we can have-no principles of in-
terpretation ; if our interpretations, when attempted, must all be wrong ;
if what we declare to be in Scripture, cannot be found there ; we see not,
how we could be in worse plight, under the ban of the successors of St. -Peter.
This " statement," quite throws into shade, the Bull Unigenitus, winch nullified
but one hundred and one propositions. It nullifies our every possible prop-
osition, and is an Interdict, with a vengeance !

* Ch. Disc. N. S. i. 430, The " cool and dispassionate " impression, -with which Mr. Yates.
closes his Vindication of Unitaiianism, is, " that if it be not certain, that the commonly received
doctrine' of the Trinity, is false, there is an end of all religion, and no certainty upon any sub-
ject." Vind. p. 284.

Well has Chillingworth said : "He that would usurp ~an absolute lordship
over any people, need not put himself, to the trouble and difficulty of abrogat-
ing and annulling the laws made to maintain the common liberty, for he may
frustrate their intent, compass his design, as well, if he can get power and.
authority, to interpret them as he pleases, and add to them what he pleases, and
to have his interpretations and additions, stand for laws : if he can rule his peo-
ple by his laws, and his laws by his lawyers." *

We care little for our Protestantism, if it discharge us from one thraldom*
but to enslave us to a second. If we mutt have an infallible dictator, t it mat-
ters little_ whether he reside at Rome or at Cambridge : for,

" It is a poor relief we gain,
1 To change the place and keep the pain."

Are we to go back to the days of Du Moulin, and with him say : " A prodi;-
gibus thing, that sinners and guilty persons, will take upon them to be infalli-
ble judges of the sense of the laws, whi6h concern their crimes and offences;
that sinful men should be judges of that word, by the which, at the latter day,
they shall be judged ! This, is to subject religion unto men; whereas men
should be subject to religion."

Du Moulin' s .Buckler of the Faith, pp. 25, 26. Oxford, 1620.

NOTE M. p. 42.
THE UNITY OF GOD,

Notwithstanding the admonitions, upon the supposed simplicity of this subject,
given by Bp. Horsleyl and Mr. Stuart, it may be thought, that the positions
of the text, need, further aid. The following authorities, are therefore quoted.,
, Says Dugald Stuart, " the existence of a Deity, does not seem to be an intui-
tive truth." || If then, we have to reason out, even God's existence, much more
must it take a longer process to learn his nature.

But this "nature," says Arminius, "cannot be known a priori.''!! "If,"
ays Locke, " you do not understand, the operations of your own finite mind,
that thinking thing within you, do not think it strange, that you cannot com-
prehend the operations of that Eternal Infinite Mind, who made and governs
all things, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain."** " We may
know that there is a God," says Pascal, "without knowing what he is."tt

Such authorities as these, may teach us generally, that the deductions of
reason about the internal character of the Godhead, must partake of that dim-
ness, into which, says Dr. Ware, our mortal vision is not penetrating enough
to go. .

* Chillingworth's Works, i. 197.

t Le Clerc perhaps, brought the Popery of Toleration into such repute, as to stimulate imita-
tors. He was thought to aim, at " the Inquisitor-generalship in the republic of Letters." Biog
Universelle, xxiii. 515.

Tracts, pp. 286, 7. >

C Letters, pp. 36, 7. 1st edition.

[I Phil. Act. and Mor. Powers, Book iii. chap. 1.

IT Nichols' Arminius, ii. 112. So said Plato, \id. Enfield's Hist. Phil. i. 226.

** Essay, Book iv. chap. 10. $ 19.

ft Thoughts, chap. 7.

We come now to the specific subject, of what is called the Divine Unity, as
a part of this internal character. We say, " what is called," remembering the
language of the "heretic" Tucker, who is so unfortunate, as to let slip the
declaration, that " Unity " is a coined word, as well as " Person," and " Trini-
ty : " * a declaration, which wo believe to be no less true'lhan impartial.

Of course, if our Unitarian friends, stickle too much for, or strive too much
against words of human manufacture, they must find themselves at as great 'a
stand, as others are gratuitously decreed to be. We will imagine them then,
content to let the matter of coined words pass ; albeit we do not tell them, that
if words are so highly " ambiguous," they can with an ill grace complain of ,
those, who now and then make one, with at least the honest endeavor, of avoid-
ing the consequences of this serious imperfection.

In reference then to proof from reason, of what is called the Unity, we appeal
first, to an authority, whom some perhaps will little expect'to hear cited, sci'
licet, Mr. Hume. " Were one Deity antecedently proved," says he, " who were
possessed of every attribute, requisite to the production of the Universe, it
, would be needless, I own, but not absurd, to suppose any other Deity existent.
But while it is still a question ': Whether all these attributes, are united in one
subject, or dispersed among several independent beings ; by what phenomenon
shall we decido the controversy ? " t We might quote much more from him, if
necessary. '

If so acute a mind as Hume's, could see no more luminous proofs of the
essence of Divinity, in Nature, it is not wonderful, that such minds as Paley's
and. Dr. Brown's, should not be more discerning. It is somewhat entertaining,
in relation to Faley, to find him, with that faculty of seeing double, possessed by
some, now claimed as a Unitarian, and now accredited as Orthodox. Dr.
Channing, esteeming him valuable as a retainer, on his side of the question,!
looks upon him as a " decided Unitarian." Mr. Yates, discovering him to be .
o bad witness, for the Unity of God as taught by reason, can discover him, only
in the ranks of Orthodoxy. Dr. Brown, we presume will not be deemed his
associate, in this last posilion, and yet he unequivocally says, that an' attempt
to prove the absolute and necessary Unity of God, from the light of Nature, is
" at best, only a laborious trifling with words."||

We might go further and adduce the testimony of theologians, for we have
before us, references to Van Mastricht, Synop. Pur. Theologiae, Calvin,
Leighton, Gleigi Storr, Pye Smith, Wares, Dwight, Shuttleworth, to say no-
thing of what might be gleaned, from such writers as Bcethius and Grotius,
Addison and How, to whose pages we have also guides : we hope, not alto-
gether " ambiguous." But here, we at present rest.

In closing this note, we cannot but express a little astonishment, at the con-
fidence, with which some have dogmatized upon the subject of Unity. " The
Unity of God," says a controversial writer, " is a simple, indivisible, and per-
fect Unity." Such language, of course implies, that there is a Unity, which is
not simple, which is divisible, which is imperfect, i. e . in other words, that after
all, Unity is but a relative thing. Here then, we ask, how he knows that the

* Light of Nature, iii. 260.
t Phil. Works, ii. 471.
1 Letter to Thachor, p. 24.
Yates' Vindication, p. 147.
|| Brown's Thilos. iii. 449. '

Unity of ,God; is such ia sort of ;Unity, aa he positively affirms it to be ? In order
to bo competent, to such an affirmation, ho must be intimately acquainted,
with ail the sorts of Unity, in existence, and BO intimately acquainted with the
internal nature of God, as to know that one, and one only, of these Unities
belongs to him : and thus, to put his. finger, upon the precise one, which be-
longs to God, he must know scarcely less than the Supreme Being himself.*
At any rate, before he can speak oracularly, upon this subject, ho must kriow r
what Unity in the abstract is. And now we ask: what is Unity, in the abstract ?
We do not even pretend to know, and think, that any modest man, might pause
and falter, before the conclusion of such a mind as Plato's: " Unity can neither
be named, nor spoken of, nor conceived by opinion, nor be known, nor perceived
by any being. "t And shall we dogmatize, upon such a tenuous and intangible
subject, in relation to a, nature, -" higher than heaven deeper than hell
longer than the earth broader than the sea?" Rather, doth it not become us-
to feel as did Klopstock's Eloa, who had been attempting -to fathom the mys-
teries of the Godhead, and who expressed the result, thus sublimely. .

" To the First of beings, to him whom no name can express, no thought con-
ceive, I have just soared ; desiring to see him face to face, in all his tremendous'
glory. . I. reached the suns, that gild the radiant path to heaven, and they were
dimmed. I then ascended to the celestial throne, where darkness progressive,
deepened beyond darkness; but no words 'can express the depth of the sable
cloud, in which the Eternal was involved, nor the awful terrors, with which he
was environed. I stood, amid the profound repose of the fair creation. I sunk
prostrate, adoring the great Omnipotent in silence. "J , .

Metaphysics, as it appears to us, dwindle to an infinitesimal meagreness,
when brought into competition with a being, to whom such language is appli-
cable, for the purpose of measuring his dimensions, or sounding his essence.
We may be thought too yielding, and be told perhaps, that we, add to the per-
plexity of our contemplations, when directed towards God. If so, we shall
reply in the language of Necker: "What becomes in IMMENSITY, of that
insignificant phrase; It is one difficulty more? "

Necker on Religious Opinions. 165.

NOTE N. p. 45.
VANITY OF PHILOSOPHIZING.

Dr. Priestley, would have us believe, that the philosophizing, against which
the sacred writers level censure, was introduced by the Gnostics, but Tittman,
teaches us, that there are no traces of Gnostic philosophy in the New Testament.
We apprehend, one need not go to a sect, for the origin of this propensity :
it is as universal, as human nature. " Vanity," says Pascal, ." is so rooted in
the heart of man, that the lowest drudge of the camp, the street or the kitchen,
must have his boast and his admirers. It is the same with the philosophers."^,

* He must beyond question have attained that elevation to which Lucifer could but aspire,
See Isaiah xiv. 13, 14.
f Taylor's Plato, iii. 161. also By. Berkley's Works, i. 29.

Messiah, Book IX.

Thoughts, chap. 2.

Bacon, complains of this vanity as infecting pretended students of Nature, not
leas than theologians. " For," he says, " as in the inquiry of divine truth, the
pride of man, hath ever inclined to leave the oracles of God's word, and to
vanish in the mixture of their own inventions, so in the self-same manner,
in inquisition of Nature, they have ever left the oracles of God's works, and
adored the deceiving and deformed imagery, which the unequal mirrors of
their own minds, have represented unto them. Nay, it is a point fit and neces-
sary, in the front and beginning of this work, without hesitation or reserve to
be professed, that it is no less true, in this human kingdom of knowledge, than
in God's kingdom of heaven, that no man shall enter it ' except he become first
as a little child.'"* "Glory arid curiosity'," says Montaigne, "are the
scourges of the soul: of which the last, prompts us to thrust our noses into
everything, and the other, forbids us to leave anything doubtful and undecided."!
Much might be written on this subject, but it must be a graphic pen indeed,
which can inculcate lessons about it, so beautifully, so expressively, so almost
divinely, as is done, in two philosophical parables, in the first twenty-seven
verses of the 4th chapter, of the second book of Esdras, and to which the read-
er is referred. May the proper limits of theological research^ become a less
strange thought, and a less novel expression, than it now is, to too many. Then,
we may hope to see return upon us, that happy period, of which Schroeckh
thus speaks, in his compendious history of the Church : " Felix certe eo nu-
mine, Ecclesia hujus rovi fuit, quod, mx ulli doctorum, auderent placita sua
mandatis divinis, venditare; omnes autem, summam religionis, ad sacrarum
literarum auctoritatem revocarent." Hist. Religionis. p. 90. 6th edition.

" We live in a strange age," says an old statesman, " when every one, is in
love with his own fancy, as Narcissus was with his face, and this is, true spiritu-
al pride, the usherer in of all confusions. The Lord deliver us from it;
and grant we may possess our souls with patience, till the great wheel of
Providence turn up another spoke, that may point at peace and unanimity,
among poor mortals. s In these hopes I rest."

Howell's Famil. Letters. Book. iv. Lett. 29. London 1678,

NOTE O. p. 47.

IDENTITY OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

Great names, have led to mistakes, on this subject. There are at present,
three such names, which seem to be quoted, with peculiar zest, Newton's
Locke's, and Milton's. But of the first, we hold it no heresy to say, in the lan-
guage of Davies, " There may be some truth also, in what another foreigner
has said, that in some of his theological writings, Newton has made amends
unto mankind, for his superiority to them in other respects. There is still
more truth, in what his own learned editor said of him, that in the science of
quantity, he was unequalled, but that in matters of religious inquiry, he was
but one of the people. It has been remarked by Gibbon, that the study of the

* Works, Montag. edition i. 267.
" Essays, i. 320. edition 1685.

See Book i. of Davies' Estimate of the Mind.

mathematics has a strong tendency, by the habits of thought which it induces
to incapacitate the mind, for the nice perception and correct appreciation of
moral evidence. It can be matter of just surprise to none, therefore, that a
man, whose mighty faculties were so absorbed in the investigations of that
science, as were those of Newton, should have failed to attain, to a correct
view of a system, whose evidence, from the very nature of the things, can
never be made to assume the form of mathematical demonstration." * We
hold it to be no heresy to say as much, and to say further, that his mind
suffered, as his fellow philosopher declares too many minds have done, " from
the intermingling and tempering with one another,- of Divine and human
knowledge." "And the more confident are we in our position, when Newton's
philosophy is quoted in behalf of Anti-Trinitarianism, since we are assured by
Whiston, that Newton was irreconcilably angry with him, for calling him an
Arian. t As to Locke's Anti-Trinitarianism we find it somewhat hard to ad-
mit it, when in his second Vindication of the " Reasonableness of Christianity,"
Wks. vii. 417, he tell us, it is very hard for a Christian, who reads the Scriptures
with attention, and an unprejudiced mind, to deny the satisfaction of Christ.
And for Milton's, strange as might have been many of his notions, it does
seem to us liberal interpretation, in at least the comparative degree, to quote
his testimony against Orthodoxy; when in relation to his advocacy of a doc-
trine -pre-eminently incredible, it was said of him by the celebrated Mr. Erskine,
at the trial of Cheetham : " The mysterious Incarnation, of our blessed Saviour,
(which this work blasphemes, in words so wholly unfit, for the mouth of a
Christian, or for the ear of a court of justice, that I dare not and will not give
them utterance,) Milton, made the grand conclusion of the Paradise Lost, the
rest from his finished labors, and the ultimate hope, expectation, and glory of
world."

We say these things, contemplating with no diminutive wonder, the strained
efforts of some, to magnify human authorities, t when but yesterday, as it were,
it was the fashion to lessen and to decry them : nay, " none so poor as to do
them reverence." How long is it since we have been told, that the inflexible
decrees and symbols of councils, were worth no more than the parchment or
paper upon which they were engrossed? And shall we now be silenced by the
very tensile decrees and symbols of astronomers, metaphysicians, and poets ?

Ah ! says Montaigne ; " Methinks philosophy has never so fair a game to
play, as when it falls upon our vanity and presumption, when it most lays
open their irresolution, weakness and ignorance. I look upon the too good
opinion man has of himself, to be the nursing mother of all the most false, both
^public and private opinions. Those people, who ride astride on the epicycle of
Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse to me than a tooth-drawer
that comes to draw my teeth : for in my study, the subject of which is man,
finding so great a variety of judgments, so great a labyrinth of difficulties, one
upon another, so great diversity and uncertainty, even in the school of wisdom
itself; you may judge, seeing those people, could not resolve upon the knowl-
edge of themselves, and their own condition, which is continually before their
eyes, and within them; seeing they do not know how that moves, which they

* Davies' Estimate of the Mind, Vol. i. pp. 146, 147.
t Simpson's Ploa, p. 26.

j The supposed l/nitarianisin, of Newton, Locko, and Milton, forms the subject of a Tract !
See No. 77, of the Tracts of the Am. Unit. Association, Nov. 1833.

themselves move ; nor how to give us a description of the springs they them*
selves govern and make use of; bow. can I believe them, about the ebbings and
Sowings of the Nile ! The curiosity of knowing things, has been given to man
for a scourge, says Holy Scripture." * But why a diatribe against philosophy,
it may be asked by multitudes, who are " ever learning, but never able to come
to the knowledge," of the conservative truth, " media tutissimus ibis f" Shall
we adopt, they cry, the exploded maxim, " ignorance is the mother of devo-
tion ? " He is a calumniator, who draws such inferences from our pages. He
is a wilful and malign misinterpreter, who says, we scout philosophy, and who
would therefore bring our arguments into discredit, by insinuating that we dare
not or will not have a mind of our own, and follow through fear, or with hy-
pocrisy, or for gain, " the beaten track." No : we disesteem not philosophy.
To be sure, we would not dwell upon her unrivalled excellence, like some
mistaken chanters of its praise, and let her usurp a dominion, which was never
assigned her, and which she may convert, unless we misconceive omens, into
general and detestable tyranny. We would only tell her, as a plain old-fash-
ioned writer, told certain mistresses of other days, who were disposed to be
peeping into the families of their neighbors, to be " a keeper at home." Then,
we shall hold her, is as " reverend estimation," as a Lady Abbess, would be
held in, by the scrupulous Catholic, within the walls of a convent.t

" The Church," says Chateaubriand, " has never spoken with such severity,
against philosophic studies, as the various philosophers whom we have quoted.
If she be accused of having looked rather coldly upon that knowledge, which,
to use the words of Seneca, cures us of nothing, you must also condemn that
multitude of legislators, statesmen, and moralists, who, in every age, have
protested more strongly than she has done, against the danger, the uncertainty,
and the obscurity of the sciences. Where shall she discover truth ? Is she
to seek it in Locke, so highly extolled by Condillac ? in Leibnitz, who deemed
Locke so weak in metaphysics ? or in Kant, who now attacks both Locke and i
Condillac ? Shall she take up the maxims of Minos, Lycurgus, Cato, Rous-
seau, who banish the sciences from their republics? or adopt the opinion of the
legislators, by whom they are tolerated ? What dreadful lessons, if she but
looks around her ! What an ample subject for reflection, in that well known s
history of the tree of knowledge which produces death ! The ages of philosophy,
have invariably bordered upon the ages of destruction." %

And yet, we are told, that religion is in a crude undeveloped state, and that
it must be taken from the hands of poor mismanaging divines, and entrusted to
philosophers, who will bring it forth in all its glory, like the sun from an eclipse.
We doubt it. We utterly doubt it. Cost what it may, and it will probably
cost enough to say so, we fear we are incorrigible heretics, under the deep
cloud, to use the Roman Catholic phrase, of " invincible ignorance," respect-
ing this very fashionable opinion. It is to us, (rtar&Zov piv, axoiiaov d&,)
it is to us, little better than sing-song. With the firmly persuaded author of
the " Natural History of Enthusiasm," we can go hand in hand, and say,
" True Religion, unlike human science, was given to mankind in a finished

* Essays, ii. 484, 5.

t Each might his several province well command,

Would all but Btoop, to what they understand, Pope,
i Bcautiei of Christianity, p. 301.

form, and is to be learned, not improved : and though the most capacious hu-
man mind is nobly employed, while concentrating all its vigor upon the ac-
quirement of this documentary learning, it is very fruitlessly and very perni-
ciously occupied in giving it a single touch of perfectionment." * To en-
quirers, we should ever give the advice of the saintly Leighton : " Whatever
you do, with regard to other studies, give always the preference to sacred
Christian philosophy ; which is, indeed, the chief philosophy, and has the pre-
eminence over every other science, because it holds Christ to bo the head, in
whom, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid." 1 1 And for our-
selves we desire no better motto, than the profession of Sir Thomas Brown,
in his Religio Medici : " In philosophy, where truth seems double-faced, there
is no man more paradoxical than myself. But in divinity, I love to keep the
road ; and though not in an implicit, yet an humble faith, follow the great
wheel of the Church, by which I move, not reserving any proper poles or motion;
from the epicycle of my own brain. In brief, where the Scripture is silent,
the Church is my text : where that speaks, 'tis but my comment : where there
is a joint silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my religion from Rome or
Geneva, but follow the dictates of my own reason."

To those who think this subject deserving further investigation, the follow-
ing references may perhaps be of some service.
Key's Lectures. Book iv. Art. i. 16.
Powell's Discourses. Hughe's Edition p. 211.
Bonnet's Inquiries. Phila. 1803. p. 296, 7.
Diodati sur le Christianisme. pp. 57, 58.
R. Morehead's Sermons p. 15.
Rollin's Belles Lett. iii. 306,

Bp. Kurd's Works, riii. 121. Quarterly Review, xxx iii. 356. &c.
Christian Obs. 1819. p. 494.

Bp. Berkley's Minute Philosopher, last two chapters.
Tittmanni Opusc. p. 565. &c.
Prof. Lee's Six Sermons &c. pp. 135 143.
Wardlaw's Christian Ethics, Lecture, i.
Chalmer's Bridg. Treatise, last chapter.

It does seem BO curious a matter, even in this age of marvels, to find philoso-
phy exalted to the rank of a Catholicon, that we have not yet unlearned the
amazement, with which we have contemplated its promotion. We cannot for-
get wh'at Le Clerc says, (Hist. Eccles. Sect. 2. an. 101. 21.) that philoso-
phy made the Fathers, inventors of new dogmas. We might harmonize such
a testimony with the recommendation to give philosophy, something " a little
lower " than Papal supremacy, if we could believe with Leibnitz, (Esprit de
Leibnitz, torn. ii. p. 48.) that the Fathers had rejected all which was bad in the
philosophy of the Greeks. But to believe this of them, would be to destroy
that famous argument against the Trinity, viz : that it was all stolen from
Plato. So we are compelled to think, that philosophy has made the good men

* N. Hist, of Enthus. p. 82.

J Works, iv. 253.

I It_may be said, that Mr. N. says almost as much of theology in his pref. pp. xxxiv. and xxxr.
We think not. We are quite sure of Leighton's meaning ; but his words, if somewhat simitar,
are notwithstanding " ambiguous."

$ Lib. Old Eng. P. Writers, iii. pp. 13, 15.

play pranks in theology; and then to hare the name source of witchcraft, re-
commended as excellent to ourselves. This is somewhat embarrassing to our
humble Trinitarian reason, and we freely confess ourselves deficient, in the
commodity of " new light." We must be satisfied therefore for the present
with the "old light" of Erasmus. "Satis est," he assures us, " Satis est ad
consequendam salutem roternam, ea de Deo credere, qure palam de se prodidit
in sacris literis, per selectos ad hoc viros Spiritu suo afflatos; queque post
versans in terris ipse discipulis aperuit; ac demum per Spiritum Sanctum iis-
dem in hoc sclectis discipulis patefacere dignatus est. Haec simplici fide
tenere, Christiana philosophia est : haec puro corde venerari, pura religio est :
per heec tendere ad caelestis vitea meditationem, pietas est: in his perseverare,
victoria est , per hrec vicisse, summa felicitatis est. Geterum hominem, ultra
haec, humanis rationibus de rebus divinis vestigare, pericttlosae cujusdam atque
impiae audaciae est." Erasmi in Evang. Johannis Faraphrasis Cap. i,

NOTE P. p. 49.

We are promised much, if we will fall down and worship " the golden
image," which reason, " the queen of opinion," hath set up. It ought to be
a prodigious temptation, which should induce us to swing loose from ancient
moorings, and attempt to discover a " new continent" in theology, when so
many millions have been safe, happy, and virtuous, (as virtuous we fearlessly
say, as human beings have ever been,) and for hundreds of years, without
doing so. IVhy, should we change ? what vast gain, is to accrue ? It seems
clear as noon-day, that the onus probandi here is not ours, and that the preten-
sions of those who urge a reform, ought to be tested most rigorously, as the
distinguished legal authority on our title-page has ordained.

Is there any temptation to change, in the vacillating course and indefinite
end, if end it could be called, of such a man as Dr. Priestley ? He began with
Calvinism, then he " became an Arian, next a low Arian, and then a Socinian,
and in a little time, a Socinian of the lowest kind, in which Christ is consid-
ered as a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and naturally as fallible and
peccable as Moses or any other prophet." More than this, " he knew not
when his creed would be fixed."* To a man on the eve of a change of opinion,
the question, What am I going to believe, is surely of the most serious moment.
Unitarianism in the history of one of its most celebrated advocates, answers
him, I cannot tell, you must follow your own judgment, withersoever it leads
you, and even make it your boast, (to the correctness of this part of the repre-
sentation, our own ears have been witnesses,) your boast, that you know not
what you shall believe from day to day. And is a man, whent "it is. not
doubted, that all the lest influences of Christian faith, may be felt, and the
Christian life acted out, and the consolations and hopes of the Gospel enjoyed,"
by Trinitarians : is a man readily to abandon their faith, and plunge into " the
vasty deep," with no better guide than that reason, whose " frailty " has been
confessed, by such even as David Hume ? t " There are," (said old Bp. San-

* Mageo on the Atonement, 1st Am. edition, p. 108.

Dr. Ware's Lett, to Trinitarians, p. 9.
Phil. Works, iv. 513.

derson two bundled years ago : What would he say now ?) " There are, God
knoweth, afoot in the Christian world, controversies more than a good manyj-
decads, centuries, chiliads, of novel tenets."* Those may adventure among
them, who will : we question no man's right. Those may hope from such an
adventure, who can : we shall be neither so presumptuous nor so foolish, as to
foredoom them.t All we ask, is, that we be not blamed, as wanting excessively
in fortitude, in honesty, or in intellect, if for our part we choose to be cautious,
and to cling still to a faith, which has been our best comfort on earth, and
which we trust will be our rod and pur staff, in the valley of the shadow of
death. We confess ourselves suspicious of reformers, (if our neighbors like the
acknowledgment better, afraid of them,) for we cannot forget the testimony of
an intelligent, vigorous, and philosophical writer upon the study of Law, in his
chapter on the connexion between that and the study of religion.

" It is curious enough to observe, that many of these searchers after truth,
are men, who have been employed near half a century, in this pretended pur*
suit; and yet, have they not settled one single principle: nay, they are
more full than ever of doubts and conjectures : and as age and fatigue, have
exhausted their strength, and robbed them of their wit, their questions gain in
childishness and folly, what they loose in subtlety and invention; nor is this
a single case, I never in my life, met with an old searcher after truth, but I
found him, at once, the most wretched and the most contemptible of all earthly
beings." Letters on the Study of the Law p. 305.

" ' Tis certain," said even an Infidel, " that the practice of pulling down, is
far pleasanter, and affords more entertainment, than that of building and set-
ting up. Many have succeeded to a miracle, in the first, who have miserably
failed in the latter of these attempts. We may find a thousand engineers,
who can sap, undermine, and blow up, with admirable dexterity, for one single
one, who can build a fort, or lay the plat-form of a citadel."

Shaftslury's Characteristics, iii. 134.

Quantula, heu ! laus est, vel plurima, posse nocere !

Frigidus hoc serpens, hocque cicuta potest.

* Sermons, p. 490. 8th edition, 1689.
t Seed's Sermons, iii. 108. 3d edition.

ERRATA.

On p. 18, for alternative, read alternatives. On p. 20, note, for 1. Cor,
read 2. Cor. On p. 31, for which to, read to which.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

50 707 176

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD, THE F^
AND THE HOLY

DISCOU:

I'KEAOHED IN

HARVARD CHURCH, (

FEBRUARY 5, 1!

BY' GEORGE E.

CHAKLESTO\\
A B K A M E. C

1860.

I; JESUS CHRIST;

RLESTOWN,

JS.

I? E K.

Cjmsiimt

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD, THE P
AND THE U.OLJ

DISCOU

PREACHED I!

HARVARD CHURCH,

FEBRUARY 5, 1

BY GEORGE E

CHARLESTON
A B R A M E. C

1860.

Criniig:

, THE FATHER; JESUS CHRIST;
E HOLY SPIRIT.

OURSE

5EACHED IN

JCH, CHAKLESTOWN,

JARY 5, 1860.

RGE E. ELLIS.

iLESTOWN:
E. CUTTER.

1860.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860,

BY GEORGE E. ELLIS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

-Exchange N, Y, Public Library

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON,
22, SCHOOL STREET.

DISCOURSE.

Eph. ii. 18: "FOR THROUGH HIM [CHRIST] WE BOTH [JEWS AND GENTILES]

HAVE ACCESS BY ONE SPIRIT UNTO THE FATHER."

/^ OD the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit,
" are brought together in this sentence. I have
selected this text for a doctrinal sermon, a sermon
in which I would make every effort in my power,
thoughtfully and conscientiously, to distinguish be-
tween true and false doctrine ; or rather, I should
say, between what is true and what is false concerning
a great Christian doctrine. That doctrine is known
to us under the term "the Trinity;" a symbolic term,
which has been so burdened by statements, defini-
tions, and explanations, as to have lost, if it ever had,
a distinct and positive meaning. While denying and
opposing an element of error in what I understand to
be the popular and prevailing doctrine of which that

NOTE. The reader need hardly be informed that this discourse was greatly
condensed in its delivery. It is now enlarged by a more full exhibition of its
leading points, und by the Scripture quotations, which were only referred to in a
summary way.

term is made to be the symbol, I am infinitely more
concerned with the truth, the serious and most mo-
mentous and most precious truth, which I believe to
underlie the faith connected with the doctrine. I
have no objection to the term, " the Trinity : " on the
contrary, as will appear, I hope, before I close, I
recognize in it an idea, a fact, vital to the Christian
system. The Trinity, as applied to the system of the
Gospel, and as indicating in and through that Gospel
a threefold working of God, expresses to my mind
true doctrine ; but the Trinity as used to state an
imaginary complication in the mode of the divine
existence, and as distributing the Godhead into three
persons, is, to my mind, the symbol of mere human
speculation, vain and erroneous. Whether the term
"Trinity," in any sense that we can attach to it, is
essential to the expression of any great doctrinal
truth conveyed to us by the Gospel, is a question of
such large and various bearings, that, if it were dis-
cussed at this place in my discourse, it would preju-
dice or confuse the line of thought and argument
which I wish to follow. I am content at present with
affirming or accepting the position, that the term
" Trinity " either because the elements of Christian
doctrine furnish a warrant for its use as a term, a
definition, comprehending some Gospel truth ; or be-
cause of the adventitious interest which the term has
acquired as a symbol of doctrine is a convenient

and available one in a discussion concerning some
great Christian verities.

It would seein as if the course of thought and dis-
cussion for fifteen hundred years must have satisfied
all candid persons, bearing the Christian name, that
there is a vitality in the ideas or the faith of which the
doctrine of the Trinity is the more or less happily cho-
sen and adequate expression. Only an amazing self-
conceit, or an individual self-assertion amounting to
arrogance, could resolve all the interest which now
goes with that doctrine into superstition or falsehood.
The doctrine may risk the statement of an error, or it
may fail to state the truth on which it really fastens a
firm hold. It may pass from the range'of the intelligi-
ble and the essential to the sphere of the unintelligible
and the visionary. But that it has hold of a truth, and
has always been the means of conveying infinitely
more truth essential to the Christian system than it
has conveyed of error, is a fact which I could not
deny, without calling in question the providential
oversight of God over the Church of Christ. Is it
not the fair inference of our judgment and confidence,
that, taking the broadest possible view of the doctrine
of the Trinity, it probably contains some essential
truth of transcendent interest and importance, though
it may be cast out of just relations, and not happily
defined in the creeds of Christians?

During the last fifteen hundred years, a proportion

of at least nine-tenths of the nominal and actual disci-
ples of Christ have accepted and cherished, as a vital
and fundamental Christian doctrine, a tenet of belief
expressed by the doctrine of the Trinity. I shall by
and by attempt some definite statement of the essen-
tial meaning of this term, and a definition of the con-
tents of the Trinity ; while I shall refer also to the
infinite variety of conceptions and statements under
which it has been held. At present, I am concerned
to do justice to the fact, that a majority, as large as I
have numbered it, has held, in some shape or form, a
Christian doctrine of the Trinity. And this majority
has embraced its full proportionate share of each class
of professed and nominal Christians ; of the masses ;
of the simple, the unlearned, and the confiding, who
receive what they are taught, without inquiry or dis-
cussion ; and of the learned, the inquisitive, and the
independent thinkers, who have exercised all their ut-
most individual power of thought and scholarship and
devotion in connection with this doctrine. About
one-tenth of those numbered in the Christian fold may
be taken as a fair estimate of the relative proportion
of those who have silently or avowedly dissented from
all the popular conceptions and assertions of the
doctrine of the Trinity. As these have understood
the doctrine through the statements of its advocates,
they have rejected it, sometimes with a most earnest
opposition, as an unscriptural, irrational, absurd, and

mischievous speculation. And, further, as an expres-
sion of individual opinion, I would avow my own
mature conviction, that this proportion of nine-tenths
and of one-tenth, as defining the number of those who
have received and of those who have rejected the doc-
trine, is also a fair measurement of the relation
between what is true and what is false in all the
ideas, convictions, scriptural arguments, Christian tes-
timonies, and practical bearings, identified more or
less closely with the doctrine of the Trinity.

In my first thought and study upon this subject, I
found the doctrine of the Trinity stated in creeds and
church formularies in such a set, dogmatic way, so
confounding the rules of grammar, syntax, and arith-
metic, which I had been learning, that I stood amazed
at the introduction of such intricate and apparently
unmeaning matter into the system of the Christian
religion. I have since learned better ; or, rather, I
have learned to put a broader and a more discerning
and indulgent interpretation upon what Trinitarians
mean by the doctrine : for I have discovered that what
they mean is by no fair construction of terms what they
assert. Intercourse with minds of various workings
with some between whom and myself, as regards our
creeds, it seemed as if there was nothing but painful
difference has satisfied me that we are really most
in harmony just on the very points at which we seem
most discordant. I found the assertion, that in the

Unity of the Godhead there are three Persons, to be
either false or unintelligible ; but I have learned, that,
in that sentence, the word " persons" does not mean
what it means on all the other occasions on which we
use it in speaking and in writing. My next thought
was, if common and very plain words have their
meanings wholly changed when used in doctrinal
discussions, then a doctrine, which is false when
stated under an accepted meaning of a word, may be
perfectly true or approximately true when stated un-
der some arbitrary or peculiar meaning of that word.
The word "man" may stand for a woman, if we will all
agree to use the word " man " for that purpose, in a
sense quite different from that in which we use it on
all other occasions. So it may be true, that three
Divine Persons make but one Divine Being, if these
three persons are not three distinct individuals, but
are only three aspects or manifestations of one Being.
And there is a great deal to be said about the right
and the absolute necessity of using words of fixed
meaning, in variable and peculiar senses, in some com-
plicated and important discussions about truth, divine
and human. Words are not to be our masters, but
our servants. They must not chain our thoughts,
but should yield to the play and range of our
thoughts. Many of the sharpest controversies and
strifes in religion, politics, and law, have centred upon
different meanings attached to words. In order to

express the exact truth attained or the sound opinion
to be received upon some subjects that have long been
debated in the old forms of speech, we want many
new words ; for we shall never come to a full under-
standing or agreement with each other while we use
our old terms. So long as we employ these, we shall
keep alive the old disputes and misunderstandings
associated with them. We need some words which
mean about half as much, and others which mean a
great deal more than those which have long been
used in common speech and defined in dictionaries.
When St. Paul spoke of " the foolishness of preach-
ing," he did not mean " foolish preaching " nor " the
preaching of fools ; " for that ordinance was to him
the loftiest of all the exercises of speech for ends of
wisdom and piety on the sublimest themes ; an ordi-
nance in which angels might exercise their noblest
gifts. But the term " foolishness," as he then used it,
signified simply the seeming inefficiency and poverty
of the mouth-work of preaching to secure the end at
which it aimed.

Now, all the statements in words of the doctrine of
the Trinity are to be regarded as the efforts, or the
results of the efforts, of the human mind to express
or to define an opinion or belief as to the way in
which God is revealed to us in the Christian religion.
I find that the most wise and earnest believers of the
doctrine of the Trinity all agree in this very striking

confession, that every form of language in which they
try to state the doctrine is an inadequate and unsatis-
factory expression of the mew which they hold, and of
the actual doctrine which they understand the Scriptures
to reveal. Language, they say, does not, for this pur-
pose, serve their use. The words which they are
compelled to employ mean either too much or too
little. Their minds seize hold of conceptions or facts
which they are incompetent to announce so as to
convey the whole of a right impression, and nothing
of a wrong impression. They plead that Scripture
itself, when its scattered and fragmentary elements of
doctrine are gathered up and set together, is abun-
dantly distinct and emphatic in implying this doctrine,
while it does not furnish any single sentence ready
shaped for announcing it.

I am by no means intending to convey the impres-
sion, that I am at all reconciled to the doctrine of the
Trinity, so far as it involves a speculative theory about
the internal essence, or mode of existence, of the God-
head, by any elasticity of meaning to be found in the
word " persons," when used to designate a Triad in the
Divine Unity. On the contrary, from first to last in
this discourse, I wish to emphasize my dissent from
every actual and every conceivable form of the doc-
trine of the Trinity which carries with it a theory
or a guess about the interior constitution of the God-
head. I have referred to the play of thought and

fancy with that word " persons," in this connection,
only to avail myself of the confession of Trinitarians
themselves, that, when they say there is a Trinity of
persons in the unity of the Godhead, they do not
mean what they say, but something else. Certainly
the interest here grows upon us to learn what they
do mean. We will not contend till we are informed
just where and how we are at variance.

Again : a further admission is now made by the
intelligent and devout believers of this doctrine.
They admit that it stands alone among all the great
Gospel doctrines, as not allowing of any exposition
or illustration by any analogy from nature or provi-
dence or the fields of speculation. Attempts used
to be made to find such analogies for the doctrine of
the Trinity: as, for instance, in the three angles
of a triangle ; in the three influences of light,
color, and heat, incorporated in the sun ; and in the
threefold dimensions of geometric figure. But such
attempted analogical illustrations of the Trinity in
Unity are now pronounced fanciful and useless. All
efforts to cast the doctrine into a logical formula are
pronounced inadequate and unsatisfactory. In assert-
ing the doctrine, its advocates say, " There are three
Persons in the Unity of the Godhead ; " and they
immediately add, " But mind, the word ' persons ' does
not mean what we mean by it when we use it on all
other occasions."

Now, if we have got to find a new meaning for the
word " person " in stating the doctrine of the Trinity,
it is very evident that the mere word does not involve
the truth of the doctrine. The idea which underlies
the doctrine is the proper subject of our search and
study. Therefore let us utter a word now in the
interest of true magnanimity, which, in this case, is
the interest of Christian candor or charity. For
fifteen hundred years, this high theme has been under
debate among Christians. From the first period,
between the close of the third and the beginning of
the fourth century of the Christian Church, when the
elements from which the doctrine of the Trinity was
afterwards constructed were the themes of discussion,
a passionate strife, always agitating, sometimes even
bloody, has been connected with a long-continued
controversy about the doctrine. There has hardly
been a truce in that transmitted strife. If at one
crisis, whether through the agency of a debate or
through an imperial edict or a pitched battle, the
issue had seemingly been brought to a decision on
the Trinitarian or the Unitarian side, the strife was
soon again re-opened. The speculative rovings of theo-
logians have revolved around the doctrine. Parties
have been formed with sole reference to the single
point with which the doctrine deals. In vain has
it been pronounced a strife of mere words or about
barren mysticisms. It has been continually presenting

itself, to individual minds at least, as the freshest of
all themes, and the most vital and pregnant, too,
in all its relations. Every newly discovered biblical
manuscript, every recovered relic of the primitive
church, every improved lexicon or grammar of the
Greek language, is first of all tested by its bearings
upon the doctrine of the Trinity. These facts are to
be accounted for in a way that shall respect the
most serious exercises of which the human mind and
heart are capable, and which shall have regard to the
providential oversight of the Gospel.

There are indications now, for the first time, of at
least a more profitable and edifying way of treating
all differences, if not also of relieving and removing
such differences on that doctrine. One great point
yielded by Trinitarians is in the admission, that they
cannot state the doctrine in any terms of language
which will correctly and adequately convey their own
meaning. This concession, wisely used, should lead
the way to peace or harmony ; or, at least, to a better
understanding, the want of which has always been a
large lack between the parties in the controversy. In
the mean while, Antitrinitarians, while they may still
insist, as they have always insisted, that the doctrine
of the Trinity, so far as it asserts a triplicate organic
distribution of persons in the Godhead, is a most
unscriptural doctrine, merely speculative and fanciful,
may profitably study with new zeal that evident fact

of Gospel revelation which does distribute the whole
working force and efficiency of the Gospel truth and
power under three divine methods, or agencies, as-
signed respectively to the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. That Trinity in Unity is in the Gospel.
It is the Gospel. And, from my heart, I do believe
that there is wrapped up in that truth the substance
of what is and has been really sought and held in the
doctrine of the Trinity. There are two quite distinct
and very comprehensive grounds on which the pre-
vailing interpretation of the Christian religion insists
so strenuously upon some doctrinal truth which is
stated, or intended or supposed to be contained, in a
doctrine of the Trinity.

1. Something answering to that doctrine is thought
to be necessary in order that fair justice be done to
what is conceived to be the characteristic peculiarity
of the New-Testament Scriptures, in their marked
and re-iterated use of three names, attached respec-
tively to three divine agencies, methods, manifesta-
tions, or operations, of God, as effecting the whole
work of the Gospel. God the Father, Jesus Christ
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are the titles of three
co-operating agencies, joint forces which combine
in that Gospel work. Each of these is recognized in
a distinct sphere of action, fulfilling an assigned
portion of the whole scheme, and combining har-
moniously to complete the purpose in view. Every

class of Scripture readers, from the most scholarly
down to those who spell each word of two syllables
as they read, have before them this emphatic and
distinctive use of the names of the three co-working
Gospel agents, or agencies. Some doctrine of a Tri-
nity is thought necessary or natural, at least, for the
consistent harmonizing of these scriptural materials.
Who will care to dispute this fact 1 ? What candid
reader does not discern in it the facility of the means
by which a doctrine of Trinity in Unity may be
developed "? And who does not discern the readiness
with which an obvious inference from the Scripture
representation of the way in which God works in the
Gospel, may be turned into a wholly unauthorized but
still a venturesome conception about the way in
which God himself exists 1 Still it is plain, that no
challenging or denial of the whole popular faith,
which goes with or is. sheltered under the doctrine
of the Trinity, will be of any avail if it fails to meet
the exact state of mind with which the mass of
Scripture readers assure themselves that " three some-
things " divide in doing and unite in completing the
work of the Gospel. Nor will any doctrine, better
in all respects than that of the Trinity, ever find a
popular acceptance, except through some clear and
adequate development of the contents of the New
Testament, as they distribute the work of the Gospel
among three agents, or agencies.

2. The second ground on which the prevailing
view expressed by the doctrine of the Trinity has
established itself is, as it affords a starting-point for
the development of a system of Christian doctrines.
The doctrine is made to serve the purpose of a great
trunk-truth, from which, first the larger branches,
and then the smaller outshoots, of Gospel teaching,
may radiate. But here the constructive ingenuity of
men is put to service, and allowed its free exercise.
Here, too, come in all the risks, all the uncertainties,
all the misleading tendencies, of speculation, fancy,
and theorizing, upon themes which transcend the scope
of the human faculties. It was through this chan-
nel of speculation, and not through the reading of the
New Testament, that the common doctrine of the Tri-
nity came into the church. Now, we must be very
watchful, in all our dealings with this doctrine of the
Trinity, to distinguish broadly between the two very
different grounds on which it finds support. The
scriptural statements to which it seeks to do justices
are the sole authorities for us. The fair construction
and interpretation of these is a matter of paramount
interest with us. The straits to which men may be
driven in their speculations as they attempt to deve-
lop a doctrinal system, and the fancies or theories
which they may agree to accept, are subjects of
quite another sort of interest to us, and wholly desti-
tute of authority for us. In simply dealing with

the scriptural references to the Father, Jesus Christ,
and the Holy Spirit, the chief question is a matter
about the right exposition of texts. In the develop-
ment of a doctrinal system, an additional element
intermingles; and human fancies supply either the
warp or the woof of the fabric. The careful student
of the course of discussion and controversy on this
doctrine will note two quite different processes used in
arguing for it. One process picks out sentences or
half-sentences through all the books of Scripture, and
works them into a perfect mosaic of fragments, in
order that the composite result may exhibit a Trinity
of personalities in the Unity of the Godhead. The
other process deals with the doctrine of the Trinity,
not so much as finding a statement in the text of the
Scriptures, but as inwrought into the scheme and me-
thod of redemption by the Gospel. The Christian
system, it is affirmed, is built upon the disclosure of a
partition of divine instrumentalities between three
personalities in the Godhead. In this point of view,
the doctrine of the Trinity is made to be the very
arcana, the interior secret, of revelation. The relation
of the doctrine to the organic development and to the
working plan of the Gospel is strongly insisted upon.
Some of the most earnest modern defenders of the
doctrine plead for it, not so much through the stress
of evidence offered for it in the literal statements of
Scripture, as for the sake of the inferential uses and

the doctrinal corollaries to be drawn from it. It is
adopted as a central truth, that it may serve as a
starting-point for the development of a system. Its
affiliated doctrines are made to be dependent upon it.
It becomes the sap-root of the 'Christian vine. In
this case, the usual method of deducing the doctrinal
teaching of the Scriptures is completely inverted.
The doctrine of a Trinity of persons in the Godhead
is pressed upon faith, not because it presents itself
obviously and distinctly upon the very surface-teach-
ing of the Scriptures, but because a system of doc-
trines has been elaborated by the constructive
ingenuity of men, which requires this doctrine as the
main trunk of its organism. And, when all the vital
truths and all the effective methods of the Christian
system are thus referred back to this one doctrine, it
acquires, of course, an immense amount of adven-
titious, traditional, and devotional influence. It gets
incorporated in the faith, and enshrined in the reli-
gious affections, of Christians. It is represented as
the central truth of the Gospel, the main pillar of a
standing or a falling church. Any single doctrine or
tenet, which is thus emphasized and exalted into
chief importance, will become the symbol of a very
deep interest and affection for the disciples of the
system to which it belongs. A trellis, designed to
support a growing vine, will decay while it is serving
its true office ; and then it will come about that the

will support the trellis. Many of the views,
Convictions, and feelings, which Christians have at-
tached to the substance of their .Gospel '.faith, have
passed through ; this transition, from .being the
helps or methods of their faith to being burdens
upon it.

- It is often alleged as a valid reason for receiving
the doctrine of the Trinity in its ecclesiastical or spe-
culative form, that which asserts an actual tripli-
city of persons in the Godhead, that the church,
the fold of Christ, the vast multitude of believers in
every age, with the overwhelming force of a majority,
and with the intense assurance of ardent conviction
and heart piety, have accepted that form of the doc-
trine. The dissentients from it, the opponents of it,
however estimable, however earnest, have been but a
scanty minority; and their arguments and avowals
have always been overborne by the throngs of its
champions. In the great folios of the church's histo-
ries, the names and the pleas of the Antitrinitarians
are said to occupy only here and there a page or a
paragraph, devoted to the mere ripples of heresy
against the rolling tide of orthodoxy. Antitrinita-
rianism, it is alleged, has always been an unpopular
creed, connected with alienation, bitterness, decline of
evangelic faith. Its chief advocates have been isolated
individuals, eccentric, rationalistic, speculative men,
led by prejudice or puffed with conceit. The fellow-

ships for worship, doctrine, or religious action, which
it has organized, have always been dissevered from
the great Christian vine, lopped off, deprived of the
sap of life which permeates each true branch of
the vine; and Antitrinitarians, however kindly re-
garded or estimated on other grounds, have, in their
religious relations, been always warned off by ecclesi-
astical cordons from intercourse on equal terms with
the faithful.

Thus, it is affirmed, stands the case, as it has al-
ways stood, between Trinitarians and Antitrinitarians.
The vast masses, the mighty companies and commu-
nions, alike Roman and Protestant, in the Church of
Christ, have been Trinitarians : the feeble, distrusted,
and excommunicated minority have been Unitarians.
More than this, too, is affirmed. Trinitarianism is
said to be the stock-root, the vital centre, the great
conduit of truth, for the whole system of Christian
doctrine. From that central starting-point all the
contents and materials of our faith are developed, and
made to live and yield their holy impulses of power
and piety. The Trinity is the heart of the Christian
doctrine, as the truth about God is the basis for truth
about all the things of God, especially about his reve-
lations. Every attempt to lead out the great evange-
lical tenets into a system of doctrine requires a central
truth from which all others may radiate. That cen-
tral truth must be of such a divine and transcendent

compass as to serve that commanding use. And such
a truth, it is triumphantly urged, is found in the
doctrine of the Trinity.

I believe I have done justice to all the intended
argument in the oft-repeated assertion of the overbear-
ing and triumphant acceptance and prevalence of the
Trinitarian doctrine. There is argument in the as-
sertion. It may, however, be fairly challenged, and
diminished of its apparent force ; and all candid rea-
soners must admit that there are just and weighty
considerations which reduce its terms so sensibly as
really to impair its cogency. I might, for this pur-
pose, urge the familiar pleas, that the truth is not
always found with majorities, and that opinions are
not to be counted, but weighed. I might call up
some of the fancies and superstitions and prejudices
which have found an almost universal acceptance with
mankind. And then I might proceed to examine this
bulk of testimony for Trinitarianism, and ask what
proportion of the witnesses for it, in the great pro-
miscuous and heterogeneous companies of men and
women composing what is called " the church," have
really made any intelligent study, and reached any
individual results of thought or belief, on this subject;
and what proportion have trusted implicitly to the
teachings of others, merely yielding, acquiescing, and
professing, as common soldiers march, led by those
whom they are willing, or whom they feel bound, to
obey.

But I waive all these possible pleas, perfectly
reasonable, and carrying with them great force of
argument, as all must admit. I waive them simply
for the sake of concentrating all the emphasis of
an answer to the claim of majority and popularity
and prevalence for Trinitarianism on this frank and
sufficient reply; viz., that this doctrine of the Trinity
has been held under such a wide and inconsistent
variety of conceptions and definitions as to destroy
all identity in the doctrine itself. That assertion is
tenable against all impugners, and the cogency of
it is of immense avail for Antitrinitarianism. The
plea of prevalence and supremacy for the church
doctrine of the Trinity must be made to rest upon
some positive statement of the doctrine in intelligible
terms, just as all pleas at law, all claims, all preroga-
tives, all constitutional enactments, all scientific theo-
ries, are held to the utmost possible definiteness in the
assertion of them. But the doctrine of the Trinity,
through all the ages and in all the communions
through which it is traced, and in the advocacy of its
champions, who have written in behalf of thousands
in their respective fellowships, has been stated and
expounded in such an infinite multitude of ways,
vague, unintelligible, confounding or sharp, dog-
matic or inconsistent, that no common element, no
identical idea, appears always and everywhere in
these statements.

I might more than fill my pages with a series of
quotations from Trinitarian advocates, as they have
stated and defined the doctrine; and to each of
these definitions of statements would be added the
confessions or regrets of the writers, that they had
not expressed what is really in their minds, or done
justice to the truth which they wished to set forth.
They have had to state it as best they were able;
and they will urge, that they could not be more
explicit, without being less intelligible. The harder
they try, the more poorly do they succeed; as Calvin
uses the word "persons" in defining the Trinity, and
then regrets that he is compelled to use a word
which fails to convey his right meaning, and does
convey a wrong meaning. And then these same
avowers and champions of the church doctrine of
the Trinity, baffled or perplexed in their efforts to
state it in adequate and intelligible terms, sometimes
proceed to give us the reasons why they are so em-
barrassed and confounded in trying to state a cardinal
Christian doctrine in their mother speech, or even in
one of the learned but dead tongues of men. Some
of them complain of the imperfection and the limita-
tions of language ; of the fetters which words impose
upon ideas ; of the difficulty of transferring to another
mind, in the forms of speech, the exact sentiment, or
form of a thought, held in their own minds. Others
account for their inability to make a satisfactory

statement of the doctrine of the Trinity by reminding
us of the ineffable mystery which invests the mode
of the Divine Existence, and which revelation pene-
trates only to allow faith a distant gaze, without
allowing the tongue to describe its vision.

Now, these various ways of conceiving and defining
the doctrine of the Trinity, followed by the frank and
emphatic confession of their inadequacy as statements
of it, do certainly qualify and reduce the force of the
argument drawn from the acceptance of the doctrine
by the church universal. For when we ask, " What is
the doctrine which has been accepted and believed by
the immense majority of Christians ] " we are utterly
confounded by the forms and phases and shapes in
which the doctrine is set forth. If we try to find in
them all some common features and elements, we only
get back to the barest and vaguest statement in words
or phrases, which was the very statement sought to
be made intelligible by fuller definition ; the defini-
tion, meanwhile, having proved a failure. When any
one, now-a-days, assails the doctrine of the Trinity, he
has to give solid form to a vague outline in order that
he may aim his blows ; and, even then, not one in a
score of them is allowed to have hit the phantom
shape as it expands, contracts, and vanishes.

Neander, the most competent and the most candid
and reliable historian of the Christian Church, has
brought all his learning, vigor of mind, and acuteness

of thought, to bear upon the course by which doc-
trines and dogmas were developed gradually, through
controversies, discussions, and heresies, from the
original staple material of the New Testament, the
traditions of the apostolical age, and the contribu-
tions of human brains. There are two works of
Neander in which a student may pursue the method
of this development of opinions : one, the " History
of the Christian Church ; " the other, " the History of
Christian Dogmas." For any but professional or very
intelligent and scholarly readers, the works are infi-
nitely perplexing ; in parts, actually unintelligible ; so
abstruse and bewildering are the mazes through which
they lead. Neander, however, draws a very lucid dis-
tinction between what he calls the practical and the
speculative doctrine of the Trinity. By the practical
doctrine of the Trinity, he means something wholly un-
objectionable to a Unitarian, something too, which,
as I shall attempt soon to show, is the real and essen-
tial Trinitarianism of the Gospel scheme. By the
speculative doctrine of the Trinity, which it is
doubtful whether the historian himself accepted, as
he expressly denies it to be the fundamental doctrine
of the Gospel, he means the mere dogma which
was the fruit of human brain-work.

I shall attempt, before I close, to indicate the pro-
cess, as traceable in the pages of Neander' s elaborate
and thorough works, by which the ingenious meta-

physics of a human philosophy wrought out the fancy,
that the one God, in his own interior essence and sub-
stance, comprehends three personalities, each of which
is also God. At present, keeping in view the positive
and not the negative object of my discourse, I would
deal at some length with those abundant materials
furnished in the New Testament for distinguishing
and defining the three divine agencies, or methods,
which planned and wrought, and now advance, the
work of the Gospel. We must do justice to those
verbal statements, to that mode of representation, to
that method of instruction, characteristic of the New-
Testament writings, which, however far short they fall
of asserting a triad of persons in the one God, and,
indeed, however irreconcilable they are with that
theosophic mystification of human brains, give us
three names, which answer to and represent respec-
tively three manifestations or directions of one di-
vine force. We shall best vacate the usurped and
always distracting authority claimed by a metaphysical
figment in the most presumptuous venture which it
ever dared in parcelling out the essence of the God-
head by following the lucid method of Scripture
as it parts the work of the Gospel on earth, not the
Being of the Godhead in heaven, into offices assigned
to God the Father, to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy
Spirit.

In view of the historical and practical interest for

Christians attaching directly or indirectly to the
doctrine of the Trinity, it may be expected of every
intelligent and serious person once to read over
carefully and systematically the whole New Testa-
ment, with sole reference to this doctrine. Take a
period in your life, when your mind is most clear and
calm and strong, and pursue the question with such
light as Providence and opportunity shall afford you.
It will be a most rewarding process. All will learn
much by it. It is one way, the chiefest way, for
reaching individual satisfaction and conviction, where
thousands around us are at variance, or are believing
and pleading unintelligently to each other and to
many of their fellow-men. Consider that, within the
small compass of the New Testament, a book which
many persons have read through in a single day,
you have all the material for opinion and authority
on this subject. Give over all thought or care for
fathers of the church or councils : for, in this case,
you may justly follow the spirit of the well-known
reason alleged by the Mahometan caliph in burning
the great library at Alexandria ; viz., that, if the books
in it did not agree with the " Koran," they ought to
be burned ; and, if they did agree, there was no need
of them. If the church fathers and councils followed
the New Testament, we have equal access to their
original authority : if they vary from it, we have
nothing to do with them, nor they with us. From

that date in the history of the Christian Church at
which there began to be other writings than the New
Testament read by Christians to help them to form
opinions about Christian doctrines, there began also
the same intricate, confused, and discordant method
of asserting, disputing, and controverting, which has
steadily increased with the increase of the material
for it in books. If Christian teachers, now-a-days,
could rid their minds of all that they have learned
about the doctrine of the Trinity from all other
sources than the New Testament, Christendom might
start fair in a new an,d unprejudiced attempt to
develop the contents ' of the Gospel on the points
thought to bear upon this doctrine. And now the
mountain heaps of books, and the infinite variety of
opinions, and of phases of opinion, about religious
doctrines, make it perfectly refreshing to turn back
to the original staple material of all this human
manufacture of dogmas in the New Testament. The
common culture diffused among us, in connection
with the acuteness of mind which will generally ac-
company a serious personal interest in such inquiries,
will qualify our lay-people as well as our theologians
to pursue the study of any great doctrinal question
through the New Testament. Let the search be
broad and deep, following on a good position chosen
for a starting-point. After we have read the Bible
by rote or habit, as we have been taught to do, and

after we have received the sort of religious education
attained through listening to preaching, or marking
the current opinions around us, the desire is naturally
prompted at some time within us to study the sub-
stance of the Gospel for ourselves. We try to draw
forth, pr to arrange systematically, according to their
organic relations, the peculiar doctrines of Chris-
tianity. We must have a starting-point; we must
make or find a beginning. The less of our own art
or ingenuity that is engaged in the work, the better.
A prejudiced start is but a forestalled conclusion.
We cannot wholly dispense with our own con-
structive skill. The simple fact, that we are not
satisfied with the unsystematic method of Scripture,
but regard its miscellaneous and desultory contents
only as materials which we intend to work over,
implies that we have a set purpose of assorting or
classifying what we call its texts. The great risk in
doing this always is, lest we should carry into the
Scriptures a system or theory of our own. The risk
is inevitable : it admits only of being held in check,
and of being subjected to correction, by a frequent
review and reconsideration of our system.

The starting-point for a systematic development of
the lessons which we draw from the faithful study
of the New Testament may be thus defined. The
Christian religion brings God into additional, into new,
relations with men. We know God, independently

of the New Testament, simply as our Creator, and as
the sovereign Disposer of our lot. The new Chris-
tian ideas which are attached to him are the ideas of
redemption, of adoption, and of a communion opened
for us with God. These are original and sublime
ideas, expressive of august and precious truths. The
development of them exhausts the substance of Gos-
pel teaching, and fills the whole range of a complete
Christian experience. We are by nature the creatures
of God ; by revelation through Christ, we are made
the children of God, are adopted by him ; and, by
an agency called the Spirit, we are made the sensible
subjects of God's direct influence within our spirits.

I have intentionally stated this great truth of what
is original and additional in the Christian religion, as
respects our relation in it to God, in the simplest
forms of speech. I may have stated it too coldly,
without the glow and fervor and intensity of language
which may be proper for the utterance of so precious
and so comforting a doctrine. The theme invites us
to use the most earnest and ardent outbursts of
kindled feeling. But, at present, let us be content
with a calm and chastened dealing with it. That
method will be the best for impressing the simple
but lofty truth to be taken into our minds ; which is
this, that the Christian religion brings its disciples
into very endearing and very intimate relations with
that august Being whom we know, outside of the

Christian religion, only as our Creator. He adopts
us in Christ, renews and endears the tie which binds
us to him, and opens a tender and constant inter-
course between us. These new relations of God to
the disciples of Christ are the vital elements of the
Gospel. They are the instruments and agencies of its
power. The terms " incarnation " or "manifestation,"
and "fellowship" or " communion " in the Holy Spirit,
are expressions which we have to use as we search our
way into the interior essence of the Christian religion.
We find them as necessary as is the word " Creator,"
which we apply to God as the Maker of all things in
heaven and on earth. What is new in the Christian
religion begins with its original disclosures of some
more near and fond relations to his children than
natural religion ever disclosed or can now verify to
human beings. In the development of Christian
doctrine on these, its original materials for piety and
faith, the terms the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, are made the symbols, the emphatic words,
constantly recurring, used with remarkable signifi-
cance, and with a most lucid meaning.

Now, the point of absorbing interest for us is to
learn what is the substance and the meaning of this
Christian teaching about God the Father, Jesus Christ,
and the Holy Spirit. Wrapped up in the true Chris-
tian doctrine on this high subject lies the whole
working force, the original and constant and essential

vitality, of the Gospel. I have said that nine-tenths
of all the professed disciples of Christ have accepted
some doctrine of the Trinity, as expressing substan-
tially the Christian doctrine on this subject; and I
have avowed my belief or admission, that nine-tenths
also of what that doctrine of the Trinity means to
those who hold it, and of what they intend to believe
and assert in it, is the truth. Substantially, then, I
might profess to receive a doctrine of the Trinity.
Certainly I am more concerned to insist upon the real
truth involved in it, than to protest against what I
conceive to be the portion of error in it, if, in so
doing, I run the risk of seeming to deny its substantial
truth. By and by, I shall try to give expression to
what I regard as that substantial truth. Now I would
intimate what I conceive to be the unscriptural, the
heretical, and the erroneous element in it. I object
to that doctrine as commonly expounded, when it
asserts that there is a triple division in the Godhead ;
when it divides God into a threefold personality, and
distributes the essence of Deity its organic Unity
into a triad of persons known under three titles.
I do not believe, for I do not find revealed, a Tri-
nity of persons in the Godhead. I do believe in a
threefold manifestation or operation of God. I can
distinguish three divine methods, and can distribute
into three specific and appropriate agencies, the divine
workings engaged in the Christian religion. It pre-

sents to me the one God as Creator, Father, Origin,
Governor, of all things, the sovereign Administrator
of the universe; and then as incarnate in Jesus
Christ, the express image of God, in a life mani-
fested, set forth, in a living and teaching witness of
the Divine ; and then, finally, the Gospel discloses to
me, under the title of the Holy Ghost, such a kind
and compass of special divine agencies, working
through such a method, as to make it necessary to
have a definite name or title for them. I find no
partition of the essence of the Godhead, no organic
division of the one personality of the Deity, no
triplicity of existence, involved in this distribution of
divine forces and agencies in the Gospel. Up to
the point in which Trinitarians begin to speculate
about the mode in which God actually exists, I can
follow them. I think I can discern the exact point
a't which they leave the practical and revealed doc-
trine on this subject for the speculative and the
dreamy fancies of their own brains ; and I think I
can understand how and why Trinitarians are induced
to transfer conceptions drawn from the way in which
God is revealed as distributing his divine agency in
the Gospel into three channels, to conceptions about
the way in which he himself may exist.

To give expression to all these relations, the new
and the old, the natural and the revealed, in which

disciples taught by Jesus Christ are represented as
standing towards God, the New-Testament Scriptures
state and emphasize and use, with ever-varying rich-
ness and abundance of illustration, terms recognizing
three methods or directions of divine agency and
influence. These three methods answer to, or are
represented respectively by, the names of God, the
Father ; Jesus Christ ; and the Holy Spirit. The re-
iteration and the emphatic use of these terms, singly
or in conjunction, give a very peculiar character to the
New-Testament Scriptures, drawing a very marked
distinction between them and the Old-Testament
Scriptures. The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apos-
tles, and the Epistles, are all characterized by this
emphatic distribution of the efficient forces of Chris-
tianity among divine agencies, of which the three
names are the symbols. But, as it is in the Acts of
the Apostles and in the Epistles that we have the
most specific and definite details of the methods by
which the Christian religion was planted in different
communities, it would be natural for us to expect, as
indeed we find, that this distribution of divine forces
is more directly presented to our notice in them than
it is in the Gospels. These phenomena of the New-
Testament Scriptures are worthy of very careful study
on their own account. They must be thoroughly
apprehended in all their textual relations by any one
who would do justice to the particular mode, the pre-

else form, in which Christian truth is there presented
to us. It is my own sincere conviction formed, I
humbly trust, after a serious, a faithful, and a patient
examination of all the grounds and materials for an
intelligent opinion that this method in which Chris-
tian truth is presented to us in the New Testament,
furnishes the elements which are erroneously wrought
together and most strangely perverted into a theo-

logical fiction, in the common doctrine of the Trinity.
We are to do justice to that method of Christian
teaching. We are to understand why it is that the
agencies of faith and power, by which the Gospel of
Christ was planted in the world, are distributed
respectively under three names, or titles. The right
view on this subject may disclose to us how the
wrong view originated; where the transition-point
from truth to error is to be discerned; and how the
error will be made to yield to a better apprehension of
the truth, clearly apprehended and loyally maintained.
I will therefore venture to indicate, for others to
try if they see fit, the process which I have pursued
at length in order to attain an intelligent and unbiased
opinion derived from the first and the only authori--
tative sources on this whole subject. Sit down in the
most quiet place of your own retired hours, furnished
with the New Testament, with pen and ink, and with
three large sheets and one half-sheet of fair paper.
Open the book with the Acts of the Apostles, and

read carefully on, with the most concentrated gaze of
your eye and your mind, till you have closed with
the Revelation of St. John. As you read, copy on the
half-sheet of paper that space will suffice for them
all the passages which bring together in one gram-
matical sentence, and which thus refer in connection
to God, the Father ; Jesus Christ ; and the Holy Spirit.
On each of the three sheets transcribe such passages
as make mention singly of God, of Christ, and
of the Holy Spirit; passages appealing to them
respectively, referring to them for faith, for guidance,
for counsel, for strength ; passages ascribing to them
work, offices, glory, gratitude, trust ; passages which
trace to them the planning, the purposing, the
administering, or the accomplishing, any thing, any
enterprise, or any service, in the interest of truth, of
humanity, of revelation, of the Church and Gospel
of Christ.

I will venture still to intimate to you some of the
results to be attained by that method, such as I myself
reached, to be accepted or rejected by you as you
shall verify or test them by your own independent
search. I found not a single syllable, hint, or asser-
tion, which, from the first to the last/ indicated an
occult doctrine about the interior essence of the God-
head as distributing its Unity into a Triad of persons,
each one of which has all the attributes of an unde-
rived and self-possessed Deity, while the three are

still mysteriously one, and the one is mysteriously
three. Not a single sentence of the records suggests
to me such an idea, nor do I know of a single
sentence that can he made consistent with it ; while
the record teaches me much else, very definitely, very
emphatically, that gives me a clear doctrine quite
wide away from such a speculation. The single
sentences which make mention in grammatical con-
nection of God, the Father; Jesus Christ; and the
Holy Spirit, would seem to . be the ones in which
we should find at least the nearest approximation to
a statement of that doctrine of tripersoriality in the
Godhead ; or, at any rate, the elements of the doctrine
should lie in them most facile to such a use, to such
a constructive inference from them. But they are, in
fact, the least available, the most intractable, for such
a use. Every conception, imagination, and idea of
that occult doctrine, concerning the mode in which
God exists, has to be forced into those passages, arid
cannot be deduced from them.

After you have copied out all the texts, the sen-
tences, the lines, or the phrases, which make emphatic
mention respectively of God, the Father; of Jesus
Christ ; and of the Holy Spirit, you will have before
you all the materials through which Christendom has
to draw forth its doctrine about the offices and the
relations expressed by those three names. You will
find that all the planning, helping, and accomplishing

involved in the whole Gospel work is distributed to
the agencies of which those names are the titles.
One or another of those titles comes into use in the
apostolic teaching, and in the intercourse of Chris-
tian disciples, to designate the power invoked, the
help relied upon, the method through which hope,
strength, or success, reaches the subjects of their joint
oversight, instruction, or guidance. There are results
of inexpressible interest, convictions of a very pre-
cious sort, knowledge and faith applicable to many
ends of piety, and all independent of and additional
to the merely doctrinal purpose in view, to be reached
by this process, which is, of itself, so directly helpful
to true doctrine.

Some very remarkable and instructive elements,
which will enter into the results reached by the
process that has been indicated, may here be men-
tioned. The number of the texts on each of the
three sheets of paper that are to present respectively
the passages in which God, the Father ; Jesus Christ ;
and the Holy Spirit, or what is synonymous with
each of those titles, are named, referred to, relied
upon, and credited, for the offices of planning, help-
ing, and accomplishing, ascribed to each of them, will
seem, at first view, about equal. But, if pains be taken
to count the passages, it will be found that the dis-
tinction of the larger number of references, as well
as the other distinctions of eminence and prerogative

and supreme authority yet to be mentioned, goes with
God, the Father.

A more striking and significant element in the
result that will be reached is now to be stated with
the emphasis that befits it. In order to present it in
its full force, I must be pardoned for introducing it
with an illustration by an analogy, which, though
it must be admitted to jar with the solemnity of our
theme, may yet be employed without irreverence.
We are familiar in the concerns of human life, in
matters of the most serious interest as well as in
those of a merely pecuniary and business character,
with arrangements which engage three joint agents,
partners, or incorporated parties, in some common
object. They may differ in age, in knowledge, in
responsibility, in the amounts which they risk, and
in the distribution of their profits. They may divide
among them the trusts and functions which enter
into their partnership. They may be mutually igno-
rant of each other's methods or details of employment.
The whole administrative or executive authority may
be vested in one of them, and the other two may be
merely subordinates to him. There may be two
persons, and the property of a third, without his own
personal agency engaged in the partnership. In all
such joint interests, undertakings, and relations,
and they admit of an infinite variety in their particu-
lars, there may be a parting-out, a distribution, of

functions covering all the concerns that enter into the
common object; and, at every stage and in every ele-
ment of the scheme which engages them, the work
will be most effectively done when each contributes
his full share. Now, so far as this not wholly ap-
propriate illustration will furnish one point for an
analogy, we may avail ourselves of it in the case
before us. God, the Father ; Jesus Christ ; and the
Holy Spirit, are represented in the New Testament
as engaged in the work of the Gospel, as contributing
each some specific element to that whole work,
as uniting in its common object. A selection and
arrangement of all the Scripture references to each
of those respective titles, will exhibit with an amaz-
ing clearness before our eyes and minds a most
exact and appropriate distribution of functions and
services in that common work among the joint agents
in it. Till any one has actually made this disposition
of Scripture passages, he will have no idea what-
ever of the wonderful consistency that characterizes,
in this respect, the writings coming to us from the
different pens which contributed to the New Testa-
ment. Cursory readers may take up the impression,
that there is a sort of indiscriminate assignment of
the works and offices of the Gospel indifferently to
God and Christ and the Spirit ; but this is very far
from being the truth of the case. There is not the
slightest confusion indicated in the use of the three

names, or in the offices, functions, and services
assigned respectively to what is signified by them.
In no single instance is there a trespass by one of
them into the range filled and served by appropria-
tion by the other. In no joint partnership in any
human enterprise, in no distribution of the functions
of government into legislative, judicial, and executive,
or into primary and representative authorities, was
there ever recognized a more exact, systematic, and
consistent partition of rights, duties, and offices, than is
observed throughout the New Testament in assigning
all the work of the Gospel by portions, respectively,
to God the Father, to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy
Spirit. To each of them belongs a specific and dis-
tinct function, range, method, and efficiency. God,
the Father, plans, administers, and directs the work ;
and every element and stage of it which concerns
that supereminent function is uniformly assigned to
him. Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are the sub-
ordinates of God : their offices and authority and
efficiency are derived from him. They come into the
work, at a stage subsequent to its original plan, as
agents and instruments in the working of it ; and, in
all the exalted service which they render, they refer
us back to the prime Source of their own functions,
and accept the work assigned to them as subordinate
service. The merely mechanical labor of my pen,
following the search through the New Testament,

and aided by the corresponding office of the printing-
types, would readily serve to place before the reader
an exhaustive display of all the Scripture passages
to be parted out by the method before us. That
whole exhaustive process is necessary to the complete
exhibition of the contents of the New Testament
as they bear upon this point. But as, for reasons
already given, I would have every earnest inquirer,
who is perplexed by the way in which he finds this
doctrinal discussion pursued by others, perform the
rewarding task of a thorough distribution of texts for
himself, I will attempt a distribution of the passages
found only in four consecutive documents of the New
Testament ; viz., the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistle
to the Romans, and the two Epistles to the Corinthi-
ans. Of course, we must make allowance for the risk
which we incur of breaking the sense and impairing
the full meaning of a passage of which we quote but
a fragment. Occasionally, too, we shall be embar-
rassed, though, perhaps, we shall be more frequently
enlightened as to the main object we have in view,
by the combination, in some sentences, of two of the
scriptural elements which we wish to isolate. Still,
the partition of offices and functions respectively to
God, to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit, is so
luminous and so consistent in the method of it
through the whole record, that the substantial result
of our labor will hardly fail to satisfy us.

To " God, the Father," " the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ," his Father and pur Father,
his God and our God, from the beginning to the end
of the New-Testament record, with all emphasis, re-
iteration, and variety of phrase, and with all the force
and distinctness of which the simplest forms of lan-
guage will admit, is referred the sole and entire su-
premacy in the whole Gospel work. His was the
original scheme, his the chosen time and means, his
the efficiency, his the wisdom and the power and the
love, manifested in the Gospel. In reference to the
world which God designed to make and to govern,
Christ is said to have " had glory with the Father
before the world was." Christ is said also to have
been " slain from the foundation of the world." So
is it said of the disciples of Christ, that God " had
chosen them in him before the foundation of the
world." And Christ said, in prayer to God for these
disciples, "The glory which thou gavest me, I have
given them." So far back into undated ages is the
Gospel scheme, with its agencies of love, represented
as formed in the one Divine Mind. Every stage, in its
preparatory processes and in its earthly development,
is committed to the sole purpose and oversight of
God. And to him, as it advances, the angels of
heaven ascribe glory over the nativity of Christ ; and
to him Christ himself, as well and as dependently as
do the disciples of Christ, addresses all his prayers.

It was God who " so loved the world as to send into
it his Son;" " It is life eternal to know God, and
Jesus Christ whom he has sent." " All things " in
the Gospel " are of God, who is over all, and in all,
and through all."

Turn now to those Scriptures through which our
gatherings are to be made, and mark the office of God
the Father in the Gospel work. Let us bind into one
close-set paragraph of sentences, Scripture statements,
which may be fragmentary indeed, as so selected, but
which shall be honestly chosen for the leading thought
and sentiment, and for the one supreme Name which
is in them. Trusting to the memory of readers and
to the facility of reference, we may omit the notes of
chapter and verse.

[ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.] While Jesus was with his
disciples, after his resurrection, he spoke to them " of the
things pertaining to the kingdom of God." At Jerusalem,
they were to " wait for the promise of the Father," which
they had heard from Christ. Christ told them it was not
for them " to know the times or the seasons which the
Father hath put in his own power." " God hath made that
same Jesus both Lord and Christ." " The promise is unto
as many as the Lord our God shall call." " God raised
from the dead " him whom the Jews had crucified. God
shall again " send Jesus Christ, which before was preached."
" The things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all
his prophets " included the promise, " A Prophet shall the
Lord your God raise up unto you." " Unto you first, God,
having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you."

The disciples " lifted up their voice to God with one accord,
and said, Lord, tliou art God." Herod, Pilate, and the
people of Israel, had combined " to do what God's hand and
God's counsel had determined before to be done." " God
hath given the Holy Ghost to them that obey him." The
Gospel is " the word which God sent unto the children of
Israel by Jesus Christ." " The Gentiles also received the
word of God." While Peter was in "prison, prayer was
made without ceasing of the church unto God for him."
When the apostles come together for counsel or fellowship,
" they rehearse all that God had done with them," " declar-
ing what miracles and wonders God had wrought among
the Gentiles by them," and that " known unto God are all
his works from the beginning of the world." The Gentiles,
embracing the Gospel, " turned to God." Paul " declared
particularly what things God had wrought among the
Gentiles by his ministry." In their prison, " at midnight,
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God." Paul
declared to the Athenians the unknown God, whom they
ignorantly worshipped, as " the God that made the world,
and all things therein;" and as having "appointed a day
for the judgment of the world " by Jesus Christ, whom he
had " raised from the dead." Paul promises disciples at
Ephesus to return to them again, " if God will ; " and,
fulfilling his promise, " he persuaded them of the things
concerning the kingdom of God," and he declared unto
them " all the counsel of God." " And God wrought
special miracles by the hands of Paul." "-So mightily
grew the word of God, and prevailed." The doctrine
which Paul preached was " repentance toward God, and
faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ ; " and, in parting from
those to whom he had preached, he said, " I commend you
to God." It was after Paul had espoused the " heresy " of
the Gospel that he still continued to " worship the God of
his fathers," to hold fast to his " hope toward God," and to

keep " a conscience void of offence toward God." He was
judged for his " hope of the promise made of God unto our
fathers ; " and, " having obtained help of God," he con-
tinued to testify. At Rome, though a prisoner, " he
expounded and testified the kingdom of God " "to the
Gentiles, to whom the salvation of God was sent."
[EPISTLE TO ROMANS.] " Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God
(which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy
Scriptures), concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh ; and
declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead : To
all that be in Rome, beloved of God : Grace to you, and
peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ."
" I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, for you all."
" God is my witness, whom I serve in the Gospel of his
Son." " The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto
salvation." " Therein is the righteousness of God re-
vealed." " The day when God shall judge the secrets of
men by Jesus Christ." " The righteousness' of God is by
faith of Jesus Christ." " Being justified freely by his
grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God hath set forth." " We have peace with God, through
our Lord Jesus Christ." " God commendeth his love to us,
in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
"We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son."
" We joy in -God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." " The
grace of God by one man, Jesus Christ." " Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father."
" Reckon yourselves to be alive unto God, through Jesus
Christ our Lord." " Yield yourselves unto God." " The
gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Ye are " heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." " I
thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." " He spared

not his own Sou." " Whom He did foreknow, He also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son."
" It is God that justifieth." " The love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord." "Thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that
God hath raised him from the dead." "Oh the depth of the
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! For of
Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things. To
Him be glory for ever." " I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, your reasonable ser-
vice." " There is no power but of God." " Every tongue
shall confess to God ; every one of us shall give account of
himself to God." " He that serveth Christ is acceptable to
God." Hast thou faith ? Have it to thyself before God."
" The God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-
minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus ;
that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God,
even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore
receive ye one another, as Christ also received us, to the
glory of God." " That the Gentiles might glorify God for
his mercy." " Now the God of hope fill you with all joy
and peace in believing." " Ministering the Gospel of
God." " I may glory, through Jesus Christ, in those things
which pertain to God." " I beseech you, that ye strive
together with me in prayers to God for me, that I may
come unto you with joy by the will of God." " Now the
God of peace be with you all." "To God, only wise, be
glory, through Jesus Christ, for ever." [1 CORINTHIANS.]
" Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the
will of God, unto the Church of God at Corinth : Grace be
unto you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ. I thank my God always, on your behalf, for
the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ."
" God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellow-

ship of his Son." " The preaching of the cross is the
power of God." " God hath chosen the foolish things of
the world and the weak things of the world," &c. I
declared " unto you the testimony of God, that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of
God." " We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which
God ordained before the world unto our glory." " The
things which God hath prepared for them that love him,
God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit." " The things
that are freely given to us of God." "I have planted,
Apollos watered ; but God gave the increase." " We are
laborers together with God : ye are God's husbandry ; ye
are God's building." " According to the grace of God
which is given unto me," &c. " Ye are the temple of
God." " Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." " We are
ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God."
" God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up
us by his own power." " Glorify God in your body and in
your spirit, which are God's." " God hath called us to
peace." " There is none other God but one." " To us
there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things,
and we in him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are
all things, and we by him." " Do all to the glory of God."
" The head of Christ is God." " Despise ye the Church of
God ? " " God hath set the members, every one of them, in
the body." " God hath set some in the church." " He
will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth."
" Let him speak to himself and to God ; for God is not the
author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the
saints." "I persecuted the Church of God." "We' have
testified of God, that he raised up Christ." " The end,
when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God,
even the Father." " When he saith, All things are put
under him, it is manifest, that He is excepted which did put
all things under him. Then shall the Son also himself be

subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God
may be all in all." " Thanks be to God, which giveth us
the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." [2 CORIN-
THIANS.] "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God, unto the Church of God which is at Corinth : Grace
be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from the
Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be God, even the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of
all comfort," &c. " That we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God, which raiseth the dead," &c. " By the grace
of God, we have had our conversation in the world." " For
all the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in him amen,
unto the glory of God by us. Now, he which established
us with you in Christ, arid hath anointed us, is God ; who
hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in
our hearts." " Now, thanks be unto God, which always
causeth us to triumph in Christ ; for we are unto God a
sweet savor of Christ." w For we are not as many, which
corrupt the word of God ; but as of sincerity, but as of
God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ." " Such
trust have we through Christ to Godward." " Our suffi-
ciency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of
the New Testament." " Not handling the word of God
deceitfully, but commending ourselves to every man's con-
science in the sight of God." " For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ." " That the excellency of
the power may be of God, and not of us." " Knowing that
He which raised iip the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also
by Jesus." " That the abundant grace might redound to
the glory of God." " We know that we have a building of
God in the heavens." " Now, He that hath wrought for us
the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the
earnest of the Spirit." " We are made manifest unto God."

" Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God." u All
things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by
Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconcili-
ation ; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world
unto himself. Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ,
as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in
Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." "We beseech
you that ye receive not the -grace of God in vain."
"Approving ourselves as the ministers of God, by the word
of truth, by the power of God." " Ye are the temple of
the living God." " I will be a Father unto you, and ye
shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."
" Perfecting holiness in the fear of God." " God, that
comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us." " That
our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto
you." " The grace of God bestowed on the churches of
Macedonia." " Thanks be to God, which put the same ear-
nest care into the heart of Titus for you." " For God loveth
a cheerful giver ; and God is able to make all grace abound
toward you." " Which causeth through us thanksgiving to
God." " They glorify God for your professed subjection
unto the Gospel of Christ, for the exceeding grace of God
in you." " Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."
" The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God ;
casting down every thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God." "The measure of the rule which
God hath distributed to us." "I have preached to you the
Gospel of God freely." " The God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I
lie not." " We speak before God in Christ." " Christ yet
liveth by the power of God." " I pray to God that ye do
no evil." "The God of love and peace shall be with
you."

Such is the array of sentences furnished by four of
the separate contents of the New Testament, recog-
nizing and defining the agency of God, " the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father," in the
Gospel. He is supreme in the work ; he planned it ;
he provided ail the instrumentalities of it ; he guided,
re-enforced, and sustained the work in all stages of its
progress. Not a single sentence which we have read
would lead us to conceive of any confusion of the
Unity of the Divine personality ; not an intimation,
as given to the Jewish converts, who had been believ-
ers in the strict Unity of God, that henceforward, as
Christians, they must conceive of him as a Triad of
Persons, or subsistencies. To God alone do the
apostles look as to the source and inspiration of
the whole Gospel scheme. Very much is made, by the
champions of Trinitarianism, of a sentence occurring
in a letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, about the
meetings and the worship of the Christians, when
the sect was new and strange and persecuted. That
functionary had heard, that, in their assemblies, they
" sung hymns to Christ as to a God." This is just such
a report as we should have expected would have been
circulated and caught up about the early Christians
by Pagans. If a sentence had been found in the New
Testament, telling us, that, when the apostles were in
prison, the disciples had prayed to Christ in their

behalf, the sentence would certainly have confused
us. We do read of the prayers of the church on
such an occasion ; but they were addressed to God.

The sole and supreme prerogatives assigned to God,
in all the sentences we have been reading, must, of
course, preclude the assignment of them to any other
than God in the same records, if their contents are
self-consistent. It remains, therefore, for us to test
whether the contents of those records are self-con-
sistent ; that is, whether the offices assigned to Jesus
Christ and to the Holy Spirit, so far as a specific
agency is attributed to each of them, are always dis-
tinctly described as subordinate to the agency of the
Almighty Father. If Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit are but two other titles of the same God of
whom we have been reading, that also will appear
from the records. If specific and dependent and
delegated agencies are represented as committed to
them by God, and if they are found to have fulfilled
them, the records will be luminous in their consis-
tency.

We turn now to those sentences from the Scripture
documents before us, from which we are to deduce
the office and work assigned emphatically to Jesus
Christ in what is called " the Gospel scheme." Many
of the sentences which we have been reading for
what they tell us of God, have contained also a
reference to the name and work of Christ. Let us

clearly understand the object and aim which we have
in view. We are not seeking to gather the materials
for a theory about the " nature of Christ." It is
admitted to be one of the most difficult and baffling
of all the tasks essayed by theologians, in their
attempts to construct a system of Christian divinity,
to work together, digest, and harmonize every sen-
tence, phrase, and scrap of language used concerning
Jesus Christ in the New Testament, and from them
to elaborate a dogma, a consistent and intelligible
theory, about his " nature." Many, who have spent
precious hours and tedious though ungrudged toils
on that work, have rested in the two conclusions,
that it was no design of the New-Testament writers
to give us the full materials of a dogma on that point,
and that no practical or devotional end of the Gospel is
committed to that hard point of theology, while we are
concerned, not with the " nature " of Christ, but with
his offices. We have seen that Christ is spoken of
as having had glory with the Father before the world
was (John xvii. 5). If that sentence stood alone, the
natural inference from it would be, that Christ existed
literally and in fellowship with God before the cre-
ation of the world. But we find that the most
essential and the most helpful rule, in the interpreta-
tion of the oracular sentences of Scripture, is to make
one sentence throw light on another. So we find
that Christ is also said to have been slain before the

foundation of the world (Rev. xiii. 8); and, as this
latter assertion can be verified only as it recognizes a
prospective reference to the death of Christ in the
counsels of God, we might naturally ask, why we
should not interpret the reference to Christ's exist-
ence and glory before his earthly manifestation by
the same anticipatory designs of the Almighty. And
this question would find ground for its affirmative
answer in the fact, that the disciples of Christ are
likewise said to have been chosen and beloved of
God before the world was made " (Eph. i. 4) ; while
Christ also says that he had given them the glory
which God had given him (John xvii. 22). Again :
there are many nice distinctions and many varied
features in the significations of important words,
epithets, and titles, transfigured and impregnated by
natural and by pious uses, and committed to technical
purposes, through which one would have to search
with pains, and not always clearly, in seeking to con-
struct from them a dogmatic opinion. Thus any
diligent Bible reader will discover, what the critical
scholar can only more learnedly illustrate, that the
epithet " first-born," applied to Christ, is a term which
by no means designates always a literal precedence or
priority in the order of time, but is used also to sig-
nify pre-eminence and superiority of quality.

The course of inquiry which I have suggested, and
have thus far followed, will not, however, require any

such deep and elaborate investigations. The instruc-
tion for which we are seeking lies plainly upon the
surface of Scripture. We seek to gather from its
obvious and its lucid statements what is the place
or agency assigned to Jesus Christ in the partition
of the efficient work of planting the Gospel in the
world. That Gospel is indifferently spoken of as
the Gospel of God and the Gospel of Christ. So,
also, the church is indifferently entitled the " Church
of God" and the "Church of Christ." Sometimes
"the name of Christ" stands for his Gospel, or
for his doctrine, or for his truth, or for that Divine
Agency which Christ represents. If we have found
the most explicit and re-iterated statements of the
sole supremacy and entire prerogative of Him who
is called God, or the Father, in the plan and pur-
pose of the Gospel ; so, in strict conformity with
this view, we find that a secondary, a derived, a sub-
ordinate, and dependent agency is uniformly assigned
to Jesus Christ. We do not need to play any varia-
tions of meaning upon the use of the word " person,"
when we apply it to Christ, as theologians are wont
to do when they merge three " persons " in the one
God. The distinctness of Christ's personality, of his
individuality, in that part of the work of the Gospel
which is done on the earth, would hardly allow us to
suppose that he parted with any element of that per-
sonality , in his mode of existence and service in

heaven. Christ is represented to us as the Image,
the Manifestation, the Witness of God, an embo-
diment of the mind and will of God. The most
adequate idea answering to and taking in all that is
written of him and attributed to him would conceive
of him as having been, as having lived, acted, spoken,
and done, just what God himself would have been,
just as He would have^ lived, acted, spoken, and
done, could the Deity himself become a sojourner on
earth, a visible companion to men ; saving only these
two conditions, that the Deity would never have
referred his power and doctrine to one above Him,
nor have offered prayer. Saving only these two con-
ditions, Christ spoke and did as we conceive God
himself would speak and do if he visibly walked the
earth with men. But those two conditions are of
exceeding significance, as limitations of the nature
of Christ. Christ asserted and accepted for himself
an office and a service assigned to him by God. He
pointed from himself upwards. He bowed himself,
he knelt, he struggled, in prayer. He claimed a high
and transcendent office ; but it was an office. He
came upon a service which man could not perform ;
but it was a service. He exercised a mighty power ;
but it was given to him. He was holy, harmless, and
undefiled; but the Father sanctified him, and sent
him into the world. He had power to lay down his
life, and to take it again ; but that commandment he

had received of his Father, He is to reign until all
things are put under him ; though " it is manifest that
He is excepted which did put all things under him."
Exalted titles, transcendent honors, and superhuman
qualities, are ascribed to Jesus Christ, because "it
pleased the Father that in him should all fulness
dwell." But there is no occasion for stumbling, no
inevitable risk of losing sight of the distinction be-
tween him and God ; for though he did say, " I and
my Father are one," he signified what he meant by it,
by praying that his disciples and himself and God
might all be one in the same sense. And in that " he
was faithful as a Son," he referred all that he was and
said and did to the gift of the Father in him. To
him, then, is assigned the office of manifesting God
in a life conformed to some conditions of humanity,
for the purpose of fulfilling the objects of his mission.
" He is the faithful and true witness." God speaks
and acts through him. He exhibits to men the qua-
lities of a divine Sonship, and is made the medium and
channel of that Divine Grace which re-creates human-
ity, restores to it the image of God, and adopts men as
children, ~ sons of the Infinite Father That oracular
sentences and transcendent honors should be connected
with the offices and the name of one who holds this
relation to God and men, is no matter of surprise
to us. We proceed to gather from the Scriptures
the terms of language and of doctrine concerning
him.

[ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.] lt Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and
signs which God did by him in the midst of you," &c.
" God had sworn that he would raise up Christ to sit on
his throne." " This Jesus hath God raised up. Therefore
being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed
forth this which ye now see and hear." " God hath made
this same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and
Christ." " Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the
name of Jesus Christ." " In the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, rise up and walk." " Ye denied the Holy One
and the Just ; and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised
from the dead." " And liis (Christ's) name, through faith
in his name, hath made this man strong." "He (God)
shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto
you ; whom the heavens must receive, until the times of
the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken," &c.
The apostles "taught the people, and preached through
Jesus the resurrection from the dead." " By the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God
raised from the dead, by him doth this man stand before
you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of
you builders, which is become the head of the corner.
Neither is there salvation in any other ; for there is none
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we
must be saved." " They commanded them not to speak at
all nor teach in the name of Jesus." "The rulers were
gathered against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of
a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast
anointed," &c. " With great power gave the apostles
witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." "The
God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and
hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right

hand to be a Prince and a Saviour," &c. " Daily in the
temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and
preach Jesus Christ." " Stephen said, Behold, I see the
heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right
hand of God." " Arid they stoned Stephen, calling out, and
saying, Lord JesuSj receive my spirit." And Christ (appear-
ing to Paul) said, " I am Jesus whom thou persecutest," &c.
" And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues,
that he is the Sqn of God ; proving that this is very Christ."
" Peter said unto him, Eneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee
whole." "Jesus of Nazareth went about doing good, and
healing all that were oppressed of the Devil ; for God was
with him." "Him God raised up the third day, and
showed him openly to us, and commanded us to preach
unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was
ordained of God to be the Judge of the living and the
dead." " The disciples were called Christians first in An-
tioch." " Of David's seed hath God, according to his
promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus." " We believe,
that, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall
be saved." " Barnabas and Paul hazarded their lives for
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." " I command thee, in
the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her." " Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." " Paul
preached, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have
suffered, and risen again from the dead ; and that this Jesus,
whom I preach unto you, is Christ." " God hath appointed
a day in which he will judge the world by that man whom
he hath ordained." " Paul testified to the Jews that Jesus
was the Messiah." " They were baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus." " The name of the Lord Jesus was magni-
fied." "Paul testified repentance toward God, and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ." " The ministry which I
have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the

grace of God." " Eemember the words of the Lord Jesus."
" Felix sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in
Christ." " Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian." At Rome, Paul " preached the king-
dom of God, and taught those things which concern the Lord
Jesus." [EPISTLE to ROMANS.] " Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ in the Gospel of God, concerning his Son Jesus Christ
our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with
power : To all that be in Rome, beloved of God : Grace be to
you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus
Christ." " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it
is the power of God." " The day when God shall judge the
secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel."
" The redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation," &c. " We have peace with
God, through our Lord Jesus Christ ; by whom also we have
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice
in the hope of the glory of God." " In due time, Christ died
for the ungodly." " We were reconciled to God by the
death of his Son." " We joy in God, through our Lord
Jesus Christ." " The grace of God, and the gift by grace,
by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." " So
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were bap-
tized into his death." " Reckon yourselves alive unto God,
through Jesus Christ our Lord." " The gift of God is
eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." " There is,
therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus ; for the law of the Spirit of life [the spiritual life] in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death." " We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."
" Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? From the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." " Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that

believeth." * " We, being many, are one body in Christ."
" Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." " To this end Christ
both died and rose and revived, that he might be the Lord
both of the dead and the living." " We shall all stand
before the judgment-seat of Christ." " I know, and am per-
suaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of
itself." " Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ
died." " He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable
to God, and approved of men." " For even Christ pleased
not himself." " The grace is given to me of God, that I
should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles."
" I have, therefore, whereof I may glory, through Jesus
Christ, in those things which pertain to God." " Greet my
helpers in Jesus Christ." " The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with you." "Now to Him that is of power to
establish you according to my Gospel, and the preaching of
Jesus Christ, to God, only wise, be glory, through Jesus
Christ, for ever." [1st EPISTLE to CORINTHIANS.] " Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, to all that call upon the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord, both theirs and ours : Grace be unto you, and peace
from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." " Even
as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you." " Wait-
ing for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye may be
blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." " God is
faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his
Son Jesus Christ our Lord." " I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." " Every one of you
saith, I am of Paul ; and I, of Apollos ; and I, of Cephas ;
and I, of Christ. Is Christ divided ? " " Christ sent me not
to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, lest the cross of Christ

* I omit, in the connection, the passage in Rom. ix. 5, because I accord with
the judgment of the best biblical critics, alike Trinitarian and Unitarian, that,
properly rendered, it concludes with an ascription to God, thus, " God, who is
over all, be blessed for ever! "

should be made of none effect." " We preach Christ cruci-
fied, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
"Of him are ye in Christ Jesus." "I determined not to
know any thing among you save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified." " We have the mind of Christ." " Babes in
Christ." " Other foundation can no man lay than that is
laid, which is Jesus Christ." " Ye are Christ's, and Christ
is God's." " Let a man so account of us as of the ministers
of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." " We are
fools for Christ's sake, and ye are wise in Christ." " For
though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, in Christ
Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel." "For even
Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." " Your bodies
are the members of Christ." " He that is called, being free,
is Christ's servant." " To us there is but one God, the
Father ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ." " The weak brother
for whom Christ died." " When ye sin against the brethren,
ye sin against Christ." " Have I not seen Jesus Christ our
Lord ? " "I make the Gospel of Christ without charge."
" They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them ; and
that Rock was Christ." "Neither let us tempt Christ."
The cup is " the communion of the blood, the bread the
communion of the body, of Christ." " Be ye followers of
me, even as I also am of Christ." " The head of every man
is Christ, and 1 the head of Christ is God." " I have received
of the Lord Jesus that which I also delivered unto you."
" Ye do show the Lord's death till he come." " Ye are the
body of Christ." " Christ died for our sins, according to
the Scriptures." " He was buried, and rose again the third
day : he was seen of Cephas," &c. " If Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain," &c. " We have testified of
God that he raised up Christ." " If in this life only we
have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."
" As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive." " Christ the first-fruits ; afterwards they that are

Christ's at his coming." " Then cometh the end, when he
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the
Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all
authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put
all enemies under his feet." " Then shall the Son also him-
self be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that
God may be all in all." " The second man is the Lord from
heaven." " Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory,
through our Lord Jesus Christ." " If any man love not
the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema." " The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with
you all in Christ Jesus." [2d EPISTLE to CORINTHIANS.]
" Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, unto
the Church of God which is at Corinth." " As the suf-
ferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also
aboundeth by Christ." " We are your rejoicing, even as ye
also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus." " The Son
of God, Jesus Christ, was preached among you by us."
" Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph
in Christ." " For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ."
" In the sight of God speak we in Christ." " Ye are the
epistle of Christ ministered by us." " Such trust have we
through Christ to Godward." " The light of the glorious
Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God." " We preach
not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves,
your servants, for Jesus' sake." " The light of the know-
ledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ."
" Bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be manifest in our body."
" We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ."
" The love of Christ constraineth us." " Though we have
known Christ after the flesh, henceforth know we him no
more." " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature."
" God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself."
" We are ambassadors for Christ." " We pray you in Christ's

stead." What concord hath Christ with Belial ? " " Ye
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor." " Our
brethren are the messengers of the churches, and the glory
of Christ." " I beseech you, by the meekness and gentle-
ness of Christ." " Bringing every thought to the obedience
of Christ." " If any man trust that he is Christ's, even so
are we Christ's." " The simplicity that is in Christ." " That
the power of Christ may rest upon me." " We speak before
God in Christ." " Ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in
me." " Christ yet Hveth by the power of God." " Jesus
Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates."

Such is the use of the name of Jesus Christ, as
designating one of the forces, or agencies, by which
the church was planted on the earth. Such is the
office, such the range of service, filled by him who
bears that name ; and such was the inspiration of faith
and confidence which the name afforded to those who
wrought by it. Certainly one would think that Jesus
Christ had a full, a distinct, and an intelligible
personality.

The phrase the Holy Ghost, or the Holy Spirit,
is often, in its largest, fullest sweep of meaning, a
synonyme, another title, for God. There are passages
in the Bible, in which, where the word " God " is
now used, we might substitute the expression " the
Holy Spirit ; " and there are other passages, in
which, where the phrase " the Holy Spirit " is used,
we might substitute the word " God," and yet leave

the sense of the passages wholly unchanged, neither
strengthened nor diminished in force, in either case.
But we could not make this substitution in all the
passages in which these terms are now used; and
if any one were to try, for instance, to substitute the
word " God " for the phrase " the Holy Spirit," in at
least a score of important and emphatic sentences in
the New Testament, he would introduce confusion
in the sense. In making the experiment, he would
be as likely as in any other more direct way to disco-
ver the peculiar and most significant purpose which
the phrase " the Holy Spirit " is made to serve in the
New Testament. He would discover that the phrase
is far from being always simply a synonyme for the
word " God." The phrase is, in fact, used to express
a distinct method of divine agencies and influences
appropriated for the specific work of the Gospel,
a method of divine agencies and influences so easily
distinguishable from all other divine agencies, so pro-
minently announced in the Gospel, and so vital to
the Gospel system, as to make it absolutely necessary
that there should be a distinct and emphatic name,
title, form of speech, for designating it. We meet
with the term "Holy Spirit" thrice in the Jewish
Scriptures, -the Old Testament;* but how rare, how
much less emphatic, familiar, and striking, is its use
there, from what it is in the New Testament ! The

* Ps. li. 11; Isa. Ixiii. 10, 11.
9

fact is, that the Gospel appropriates the phrase as if
the Gospel had an exclusive and secured right to it ;
as if the Gospel only knew how to use it; as if the
Gospel had discovered and proved the real purpose
and efficiency of the Holy Ghost, and had demonstrat-
ed all its functions and power. The writings of St.
Paul are strewn all over with the phrase ; and he uses
it as designating a mighty instrumentality, to the
knowledge of which he had come after leaving the
school of Gamaliel for the school of Christ. Indeed,
the phrase is put to such service in the New Testa-
ment as to warrant the conclusion, that its signifi-
cance and use, whatever they shall prove to be, are
original with the Gospel.

This peculiar Christian use of the phrase first
presents itself to our notice, in all its original and
emphatic force, in the Gospel of St. John. The fre-
quent and striking references to the Holy Spirit, near
the close of that Gospel, are in the words of Christ
himself. There is an emphasis, or distinctness, in
these references, which has always engaged the atten-
tion alike of biblical critics and of common readers ;
and such critics and readers alike have gathered
from them a full persuasion, that Christ either re-
ferred in those passages to some divine agency that
had not previously had a distinct recognition in the
faith of his hearers, or that he assigned a wholly new
method and intensity of operation and energy to a

spiritual force of which before they had had only
a dim conception. Either a new divine agent or
agency, or else a new manifestation and disclosure
and operation of a recognized spiritual force, present
themselves as the alternative views to be taken of the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit from the words of Jesus.
In the one or the other of these views, the multitude
of Christian readers have been persuaded that they
must find an article of Christian faith.

An incidental remark, in passing, is called forth to
meet a bold suggestion that has a serious bearing
here. It has been asserted, in the interest of a scep-
tical criticism, that the most peculiar and striking
references to the offices and agency of the Holy Spirit
are found only in the Gospel of John, not in the
other New-Testament writings ; and that this signifi-
cant fact, taken in connection with other marked
characteristics of the fourth Gospel, may favor the
guess, that St. John indulged his own mystic reveries,
his own spiritual dreamings, in his record of Christ's
ministry; and has mingled some devout theosophic
inventions of his own fancy with the transcript from
his memory of the teachings of his Master. To this
sceptical suggestion there is a full and triumphant
refutation within reach of all careful readers. It is
true, that the finer spiritual apprehension of St. John
was the source of a truer sympathy between him and
his Master, and gave to him the hearing ear, the

interpreting mind, and the responsive soul, for some
lessons of his Master not caught or recorded by the
other evangelists. It is true, also, that Christ's doc-
trine of the Holy Spirit is more pointedly, richly, and
with fuller emphasis, set forth by him than by the
other New-Testament writers. St. John alone, of all
those writers, quotes the Saviour as applying to the
Holy Spirit the verbal form of speech which is trans-
lated by the words " the Comforter." The same
original term which is thus translated in the Gospel,
is, in the First Epistle of John (ch. ii. ver. 1), rendered,
by the translators of our version, " an Advocate ; "
and there the term is applied to Jesus Christ : " If
any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous." But it is not true, that
we find only in St. John's Gospel the peculiar and
emphatic doctrine of Christ concerning the Holy
Spirit, or indeed any reference to it that is exclusively,
in the substance and tone of it, a characteristic of the
beloved disciple. On the contrary, this remarkable
fact will disclose itself to every careful reader, that, in
all the other New-Testament writings, there are refer-
ences to the offices and agency of the Holy Spirit,
which would be obscure, if not really unintelligible,
to us, except through the light and the interpretation
thrown upon them by the very statements made by
Jesus Christ himself, as reported by St. John. The
actual work and power referred in the most incidental

way, through the Acts and the Epistles, to the Holy
Spirit, are in practical test and fulfilment of the theory
or the promise of such an agency or agent as recorded
by St. John. That some doctrine of the Holy Spirit
was one of the most novel and effective agencies em-
ployed in planting the new faith, is evident from the
most cursory glance at its early history in the Acts
and Epistles. It would not be possible for us to com-
prehend or to connect an intelligible idea with such
references, if our minds had not been prepared for
them by the words of Christ reported by St. John.
The gift and the effects of the Spirit, as manifested
on the day of Pentecost, answer exactly to, and will
answer to nothing short of, the previous promise of
precisely such a manifestation as related by the be-
loved disciple. But it is not John alone of the four
evangelists who caught and recorded the utterances
of the Saviour about the new agency, or the new
manifestation, called the Holy Ghost. St. Matthew
gives place to the words of Jesus concerning the
unpardonable sin of blaspheming the Holy Ghost
(xii. 32). St. Mark, as does also St. Luke, records
the promise, fulfilled in the Acts and the Epistles,
that the Holy Spirit should prompt the utterance and
the pleas of persecuted disciples, when brought before
the tribunals of their enemies (Mark xiii. 2 ; Luke
xii. 12). And Luke also reports his Master as
speaking distinctly of the Holy Spirit as a grace, or

gift, which might be imparted or , bestowed : " Our
heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask him" (xi. 13).

The full and emphatic references to the Holy
Spirit, as a promised power for the Gospel, re-
corded by St. John, explain all that we find in
the Acts and the Epistles as demonstrations, actual
workings, of the New Power. The significant sen-
tences at the close of his Gospel mystical as they
may be when read there seem, as we read the
following pages of the New Testament, to give us a
key, every ward of which fits into the lock opening
to the treasures of the divine word.

Gathering up, then, the teaching of Jesus concern-
ing the Holy Spirit, as recorded by St. John, we find
that the Saviour spoke his fullest and most tender
words of this sort when the hour was approaching
for him to leave his disciples. He promises the Holy
Spirit as a substitute for his own visible presence,
and as a consolation for his absence. He will pray
the Father for the Holy Spirit, as for another Com-
forter, to abide with them for ever (xiv. 16, 17).* It

* There is some confusion caused to English readers of the New Testament by
an interchangeable use of the pronouns he and it, applied to the Holy Spirit; leaving
the matter in doubt as to whether a person or a thing is thus signified. The confu-
sion arises from the fact, that the original Greek word, translated into English,
Comforter, being of the masculine gender, requires the corresponding pronoun and
relative lie and who ; while the original word, translated Spirit, being of the neuter
gender, requires the pronoun and relative it and which. Our translators, however,
have broken the rule of grammar, and have wholly omitted the article before the
word truth. The true rendering of the text is, " And I will pray the Father, and he

is the Spirit of the Truth, not discerned, not known,
by the world, but known by, dwelling with, and
abiding in, the Christian disciple. This Comforter
the Holy Spirit the Father would send, in the
name of Christ, to teach the disciples all things, and
to bring to their remembrance whatever Christ had
said to them. Again: with some variation of lan-
guage, but with essentially the same meaning, we
have these words : " But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, the
Spirit of the Truth which proceedeth from the Fa-
ther, he shall testify of me " (xv. 26). Yet again
we read : " If I go not away, the Comforter will not
come unto you ; but, if I depart, I will send him unto
you. And, when he comes, he will reprove the world
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. When
he the Spirit of the Truth comes, he will guide
you to the whole truth: for he shall not speak of
himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he
speak : and he will announce to you things that are
to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive
of mine, and shall tell it unto you" (xvi. 7-15).
And finally, as Jesus visibly departs from his dis-

will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever, the Spirit
of the Truth, which the world cannot receive, because it doth not discern it nor know
it: but ye know it; for it dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." As Jesus speaks
of another Comforter beside himself, he must himself have answered to what is meant
by the word ; while the word must also be elastic and comprehensive enough to take
in the signification of " the Spirit of the Truth." Is it not a teaching, inspiring,
guiding influence '?

ciples, we read that " he breathed on them, and saith
unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost " (xx. 22).

Here are the elements furnished us in the Gospels
for opening the following records in the New Testa-
ment, with an intelligent apprehension of that third
evangelic agency through which the Church of Christ
was planted on the earth, and a way of communion
was opened, that has never been closed, between
God and men, through the Spirit of the Truth. On
many of the highest themes of interest to our minds,
we often realize, that large and august conceptions,
even though they may be vague and but in outline,
are far more precious to us than when we try to
stiffen and define them in hard and positive dogmas.
Is it not so with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit?
Let us follow it, however, as we have proposed, into
texts.

The Holy Spirit was to take the place of Christ,
and not to come till he had gone bodily from the
earth. A spiritual influence was to be substituted
for a bodily presence. It was to be within the gift
and direction of Christ. It was the eternal spiritual
power of God, appropriated in a direct way for the
service of the Christian Church, for direct communion
for a believer with God, the channel and instrument
and effective aid of Christian truth. One may almost
say that it was to represent and stand for the whole
executive and demonstrative spiritual efficiency of

God, as monopolized henceforward for the Gospel.
So distinct and efficient an agency as this deserved
a title, a name. It is certainly distinguishable from
those methods of the Divine Power which create
worlds and trees, and make the grass grow. The
familiarity with which we find this Divine Agent or
Agency spoken of, the moment we open the Acts
of the Apostles, must impress every reader. The
very distinct and always exactly defined range of
influence, service, and operation, assigned to it, se-
cures for it all the reverential Christian sentiment
and faith due to one of the triple forces for planting,
sustaining, and extending the church on the earth.

[Ads OF THE APOSTLES.] After his resurrection, Jesus
gave " commandments unto the apostles through the Holy
Ghost : " and he bade them " wait in Jerusalem till they
should be baptized with the Holy Ghost ; " promising them
that they should " receive power after that the Holy Ghost
had come upon " them. We could not substitute the word
" God " in these passages, nor in the large majority of those
that follow. The day of Pentecost saw the promise, record-
ed by St. John, fulfilled. The disciples " were all filled with
the Holy Ghost, and began to speak as the Spirit gave them
utterance." Peter was " filled with the Holy Ghost," when
he spoke to the rulers and elders. When the threatened
believers met to strengthen each other, after they had
" prayed, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Ana-
nias and Sapphira, in " lying to the Holy Ghost, had not lied
to men, but unto God," and had " agreed to tempt the Spirit
of the Lord." Peter, confronting the high priest with his

testimony, said, " We are witnesses of these things ; and so
is also the Holy Ghost, whom [which] God hath given to
them that are obeying him." The seven deacons chosen to
distribute the charities of the church were to be " rulers full
of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom." Stephen, in his martyr-
dom, " full of the Holy Ghost," said to his persecutors, " Ye
do always resist the Holy Ghost." Disciples in Samaria, who
had heard only the preaching of the Baptist, the forerunner
of Jesus, and had not been initiated into the full Christian
doctrine, " had not received the Holy Ghost." When the
laying-on of the apostles' hands had conferred or signified
the communication of that gift, Simon the sorcerer sought
to purchase the power of bestowing it ; but Peter rebuked
him for thinking that " the gift of God might be purchased
for money." " The Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and
join thyself" to the chariot of the treasurer of Candace ;
" and afterwards the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip."
Ananias was sent to put his hands on the converted Saul,
that he " might receive his sight, and be filled with the Holy
Ghost." The persecuted churches, in an interval of peace,
" walked in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the
Holy Ghost." " While Peter was thinking on his vision,
the Spirit said unto him, Three men seek thee." " The
Holy Ghost fell on," and was " poured out," upon the Gen-
tile converts, who " received the Holy Ghost, as well as "
the Jewish disciples. " The Spirit bade Peter go with the
men " who had come to seek him ; and,' as he began to
speak, " the Holy Ghost fell on those to whom he spoke, as
on us at the beginning." It was that " baptism with the
Holy Ghost " which the Lord had promised. So God gave
the like gift " to all " believers on the Lord Jesus Christ.
"And Barnabas was full of the Holy Ghost." Agabus
" signified by the Spirit " that there was to be a dearth.
And again, binding Paul's girdle, he said, prophetically,
"Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews bind its

owner." The Holy Ghost said, " Separate me Barnabas
and Saul ; " and they were afterwards " sent forth by the
Holy Ghost." Paul was "filled with the Holy Ghost"
when he rebuked Elymas. " The disciples were filled with
joy and with the Holy Ghost." " God gave to the Gentiles
the Holy Ghost, even as he did to us," said Peter. The
apostles announce their decision, in council, under the re-
markable terms, "It seemed good to the. Holy Ghost and
to us." What can this mean, but " It seemed good to us,
guided by the Divine Spirit of our Gospel faith " ? Paul and
Timothy " were forbidden of the Holy Ghost ; " for " the
Spirit suffered them not" " to speak in Asia." Some disciples
at Ephesus, taught only in John's doctrine, on being ques-
tioned " whether they had received the Holy Ghost since
they believed," replied, that they "had not so much as
heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." After Paul had
announced the full Christian doctrine, he laid his hands on
them, " and the Holy Ghost came on them." It would be
hard to substitute the word "God " for " Holy Ghost" in this
passage. The believers had certainly heard that there was
a God ; but they had not heard of that special divine spirit-
ual agency which complemented the doctrinal teaching of
Christ. " The Holy Ghost witnessed " to Paul that perse-
cution awaited him in every city. The Holy Ghost had
made the pastors at Miletus the overseers of their flocks.
"The disciples, through the Spirit," warned Paul " not to go
to Jerusalem." [EPISTLE TO ROMANS.] " Jesus Christ,
declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the
Spirit of holiness." " The love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." " Ye
are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit
of God dwell in you." " If the Spirit of Him that raised
up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." " If
ye by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall

live." " For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God." "Ye have received the spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." " The Spirit also
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God." " We have the first-fruits of the Spirit." " Likewise
the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities." " The Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us." " My conscience beareth me
witness in the Holy Ghost." "The kingdom of God is
righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." " Now
the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
through the power of the Holy Ghost." " That the offeriug-
up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by
the Holy Ghost." "Through mighty signs and wonders,
by the power of the Spirit of God." " I beseech you by the
love of the Spirit." [1st EPISTLE to CORINTHIANS.] " God
hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit : for the Spirit
searcheth all things ; yea, the deep things of God." " The
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God."
" We have received the Spirit, which is of God." " The
words which the Holy Ghost teacheth." "The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." "Know ye
not that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " " Ye are sanc-
tified, ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by
the Spirit of our God." " Your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God." " I
think also that I have the Spirit of God." " No man, speak-
ing by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed ; and no
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost."
" There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." "The
manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal." "All these worketh that one and the self-same
Spirit." " For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one
body." [2d EPISTLE to CORINTHIANS.] " God hath given
us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." " The epistle of
Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the

Spirit of the living God." " How shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather glorious?" "Where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is liberty." " We are changed into the
same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the
Lord." "God hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit."
" Approving ourselves as the ministers of God by the Holy
Ghost."

We have thus distributed under their appropriate
heads the sentences found in the scriptural documents
which we proposed to examine, assigning respectively
to God, to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit, the
office and agency appropriated to each of them in
the plan and in the planting of the Gospel. It re-
mains that we bring together all the passages of the
New Testament which present the three evangelical
names in one grammatical sentence.

" Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations ; baptizing them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost." Matt, xxviii. 19.

" For God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him "
[Christ]. John iii. 34.

" Jesus, being by the right hand of God exalted, and
having received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Ghost," &c. Acts ii. 33.

" Stephen, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stead-
fastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus
standing on the right hand of God." Acts vii. 55.

" God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost."
Acts x. 38.

" If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in you, He," &c. Eom. viii. 11.

"I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's
sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together
with me in your prayers to God for me." Eom. xv. 80.

" The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of
God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you
all." 2 Cor. xiii. 14.

" Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of
his Son into your hearts." Gal. iv. 6.

" That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom," &c. Eph.
i. 17.

" For through Christ we have access by one Spirit unto
the Father." Eph. ii. 18.

" In whom [Christ] ye also are builded together for an
habitation of God through the Spirit." Eph. ii. 22.

" Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to God." Heb. ix. 14.

" Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter i. 2.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, that he
might bring us to God ; being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit." 1 Peter iii. 18.

I have already remarked, that the sentences which
thus bring together the names of God, of Jesus Christ,
and of the Holy Spirit, might reasonably be expected
to furnish the most facile materials for the statement
or exhibition of the doctrine of a Triad of Persons in
the Unity of the Godhead, if that be, indeed, a Gospel
doctrine. But how unlike are the simple contents of

thosp sentences to the metaphysics of that doctrine !
Still these sentences, as do the other classes of sen-
tences which we have reviewed, present us with
emphasis the three evangelic names.

Thus we find it to be all through the sacred record.
All the planning and working and aiding arid
strengthening, all the directing and inspiring and

blessing, involved in the planting of the Gospel in
this world, is distributed into three portions ; and
each portion is assigned respectively to God, the Fa-
ther ; to Jesus Christ ; and to the Holy Spirit. No
history, no narrative, is so lucid, as is, in this respect,
the Gospel record. No joint work was ever done in
this world, no partnership or fellowship was ever
engaged in any enterprise, in which the share of each
laborer or agency was so definitely and accurately dis-
tributed and assigned, as is the whole practical work
of the Gospel parted, step by step, act by act, to God,
to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit.

Now, the doctrine of the Trinity, in the largest and
most generous view which we can take of it, is to be
regarded as the result of the efforts of the minds of
multitudes of Christian disciples to do justice to these
plain statements of Scripture. Leave out of view, for
a moment, the vain speculation connected with the
doctrine of the Trinity as an attempt to find a Triad
of personalities in the Godhead, and look at the sub-
ject only practically. Here are three names brought

together to define agents or agencies, partners, co-
workers, joint actors, in the Gospel service. Chris-
tians reverently recognize this combination of
agencies in their divine harmony of purpose and
action ; and then the question arises, " What are we
to think about the relation that exists between these
Three \ " It is at this point that what Neander calls
the " practical Trinity " of the Gospel system assumes
its ground ; and it is also at this point that specula-
tion begins its theoretical systematizing, for the sake
of developing a dogma about the mode of the divine
existence, or about the internal constitution of the
Godhead. The method of thought and the exercise
of faith required for dealing with the practical Tri-
nity are quite unlike those which are engaged upon
the speculative Trinity. The practical Trinity dis-
tributes the divine agencies employed in the work
of the Gospel into three sets of activities, three
directions and spheres of efficiency, each of which
contributes its own joint aid in the Gospel dis-
pensation, God, the Father, planning and perfect-
ing the work ; Jesus Christ manifesting the divine
life ; and the Holy Spirit, which is the demonstrative
spiritual energy of God operating through Christian
truth, being the medium of divine influence to the
heart of the believer. The speculative Trinity
goes far beyond and away from this subjective mode
of conception, and proceeds to construct a theory of

an objective character; viz., that the Divine Nature
unites three distinct personalities, each of which is
essentially and independently God.

Now, when we are told that the vast majority
of Christians in every age have been, and still are,
Trinitarians, we have to ask, What is meant by being
a Trinitarian ? Are we to regard it as the main or
the preponderating element in that title, that every
one who assumes it or bears it signifies thereby, that
he goes beyond the range of all mortal conceptions
to catch and hold the idea that the one God exists
in a Triad of persons ? No : I have read the works
and conferred with the minds of very many avowed
Trinitarians all in vain if I have not certified to
myself, beyond all doubt, this assurance, that it is
not for the purpose of speculating about the mode of
the divine existence or the contents of the Godhead,
but simply to do justice to the evangelical recognition
of three divine agencies in the practical work of the
Gospel, that they embrace the doctrine of the Trinity.
If that inference be true, and I have no more doubt
of its truth than I have of the existence of the sun,
then I feel at liberty to insist that the majority of
Christian believers have accepted only what is defined
as the practical Trinity, in distinction from the specu-
lative Trinity. Their minds are filled with a few or
more of those Scripture sentences which we have

been classifying, but which the mass of readers and

hearers do not classify; and from the blending to-
gether, without discrimination, of the divine works
and offices going with the three evangelic Names,
multitudes acquiesce in inferring that some doctrine of
the Trinity, they know .not exactly what, is necessary
to do justice to the obvious teaching of the New
Testament. All that they design or aim after, or
intend to believe or to accept, is, that, when the
Gospel reveals to them new and endearing relations
with God, adding adoption by him in Christ, and
communion with him by the Holy Spirit, to the
relation of a creature to the Creator, the Gospel
fixes their faith upon three divine Co-workers, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To millions and
millions who have been ranked as Trinitarians, and
have thought themselves Trinitarians, this, and only
this, has been the substance of their Trinitarianism.
They may have assented afterwards, and through a
much less independent and responsive action of their
minds, to the speculative device into which Trinitarian-
ism developed itself ; namely, that, in the one God,
there are actually three persons, or independent and
organic subsistencies. They may have assented to
that speculative theory ; that is, they may have been
willing, when out of their depth in the floods of
mystery or floating in the abysses of their ignorance,
to catch at any buoy that offered them a hold, without
considering that the buoy was floating in the same sea

with themselves. But if any one tells me that the
vast majority of Christians, ranked as Trinitarians,
have puzzled their brains upon that problem of the
Godhead, as a Unit of Being, composed of a Triad of
Persons, I can only say, with due deference, I do not
believe it: nor do I think I should affront charity
if I added, that I know the assertion is not true.
Multitudes have accepted the notion, as taught to
them by trusted guides in religion. Others have
accepted it as a hiding-place, a relief from perplexity,
a way of disposing of complicated doctrines, which,
they are told, are revealed. Others, still, have, after
a fashion, verified the dogma by patching together
sentences and scraps of Scripture into a complex
mosaic of doctrine ; the process and the result being
something as follows : " God the Father, and
Jesus Christ, are certainly spoken of as distinct per-
sons ; the Holy Spirit, though more frequently referred
to as a gift or influence, that can be ' bestowed,' be
' poured out,' or that can ' fall upon,' the subjects
of it, is, at least in two or three sentences, spoken of
as a person: to these three persons divine offices
are assigned, and divine honors and attributes are
rendered: therefore each of them is essentially God,
though God is nevertheless One." Some few persons
have really, and, as they think, with intelligent and
enlightened reverence, certified to themselves the
speculative doctrine of the Trinity, and have assimi-

lated it with the faith of their souls. My own con-
viction is, that this class of persons, who have heartily
accepted the speculative doctrine of the Trinity, after
a thorough and independent study of all its elements
and bearings, does not outnumber those, who, after
the same processes of heart and intellect engaged
upon the doctrine, have rejected it as visionary and
thoroughly unscriptural. Nor must we forget in
this enumeration still another class of persons, who
have intensified and exaggerated the doctrine, and have
mystified their own minds and feelings about it; and
who then speak of it as the very arcana of the Gospel,
its central truth, its wellspring, its pivot>point of doc-
trine.

And yet, notwithstanding all the statements which
I have just made, I have now to note the fact, that
the Orthodox-Church doctrine receives what Neander
terms the speculative Trinity. All those views of
the relation between God, Jesus Christ, and the
Holy Spirit, which regard and interpret the New-
Testament doctrine concerning them as simply repre-
senting to us three modes of manifestation, or three
directions or methods of operation, of the Divine
Essence, are convicted and denounced heresies.
"The church" has repudiated and condemned them
in every shape and phase under which they may be
held. Every opinion on this subject is heretical
which stops, even by a hair's breadth, short of the

ecclesiastical dogma, that, in the Godhead, there are
three independent and co-equal persons. Church or-
thodoxy is not content with any other formula for its
faith on this point than one which asserts that there
is a permanent, essential, and organic basis in the
essence of the Godhead for a Triad of subsistencies.
The Antitrinitarian may go the length of admitting,
that, according to his reading of the New Testament,
and his view of the doctrine to be drawn from it,
some element contributed by the Gospel revelation of
God, the Father; of Jesus Christ; and of the Holy
Spirit, is necessary to constitute the God of the
Christian. But this, too, is "heresy," because it
stops short of the full recognition of three real
and actual personalities in the Godhead. Church
orthodoxy is committed, by its formulas and standards
at least, to the speculative Trinity. How did this
come about 1 The process is known, in every stage
of it, to a thorough Christian scholar; and every
stage of it, too, is evidently seen by him as transpir-
ing within the range of a human philosophy and an
earth-born metaphysics.

Among the passages found in the New Testament,
in which God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are
named in connection in a single grammatical sen-
tence, I omitted to copy one which we read in our
common version of the Scriptures. It is the following
sentence from First Epistle of John v. 7 : " There are

Three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these Three are
One." That sentence, which John never wrote, and
which he never saw; which had no place in Scrip-
ture till comparatively modern times; which is re-
pudiated as an exposed and unquestionable inter-
polation by all competent and honest biblical critics,
Roman Catholic and Protestant, of every sect and
name, that sentence is no unfair type of the pre-
sence in the Christian creed of the doctrine which
the sentence comes very near to stating. We know
the contents of the Christian Scriptures before that
sentence was foisted into them. We know the con-
tents of the Christian creed before it contained a
speculative doctrine of the Trinity. We can trace
the process by which both the interpolated and
spurious text, and the metaphysical and thoroughly
human doctrine, came in where they were not before.
How significant is the fact, how suggestive, at least,
ought it to be to Trinitarians, that the only sen-
tence in the whole Bible which even approximates
to a statement of their doctrine is a corrupt and
fraudulent interpolation of Scripture !

Any one, who is interested to trace the process by
which the speculative doctrine of a Triad of persons
in the Godhead wrought its way into the prevailing
creed of Christendom, can find the information which
he seeks, in the works of Neander, to which I have

already referred. It will require a fixed engagedness
of mind, and a faculty for abstract thought and the
apprehension of subtle distinctions, verbal and sub-
stantial, in any reader, to comprehend what is written
in those pages. The subject-matter is difficult, the
method of its development is necessarily intricate,
and the Germanisms of the writer are an additional

;

embarrassment to the reader.*

The help and information afforded by the great
church historian are especially valuable on two ac-
counts. First, as showing what are the primary
materials in the New Testament for any doctrinal
system, and how these materials were employed by
Christians for more than two hundred years, without
resulting in any such doctrine of the Trinity as was
afterwards received; second, as explaining to us
through what additional elements of speculation and
of constructive ingenuity the doctrine of the Trinity
was gradually developed. Nor is any one, however
his sympathy or faith may be at issue with this
metaphysical intermeddling with themes too high
for the reach of man, in a fit mood of mind or

* Neander was reputed a Trinitarian; but his Trinitarianism is of the most
shadowy character. Probably Unitarians are far better satisfied than are Trini-
tarians with his method of dealing with doctrinal discussions. The latter, however,
are forced to accept his manuals, for lack of better from an equally competent
source. It is not strange that the reluctance to admit some of the damaging con-
cessions made in his candid pages should have led the able and laborious American
translator of his " History of the Christian Church " occasionally to qualify the
strong utterances of the original. The English editor of the American translation,
who professed to " revise " it, has tampered with the work.

heart for reading those pages, unless he can discern,
that, though the themes rise to insoluble mysteries,
there may be even practical benefits in the study
and discussion of them. It is better that human
brains should ache, than that mind or heart should
deny themselves exercise upon the deep things of

God.

The speculative doctrine of the Trinity, which has
received the stamp of orthodoxy in the formulas of
the Christian Church, is wholly and entirely the
result of the constructive ingenuity of the human
intellect. The problem was to develop a dogmatic
conception and statement of the relation that subsists
not merely for the purpose of revelation, but in
the eternal and organic essence of the divine eco-
nomy between God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy
Spirit. Scripture, indeed, furnished materials for the
work, as a quarry furnishes the stock for the archi-
tect ; but the result was a marvellous combination
of the wit of man with the wisdom of God. The
process by which the speculative doctrine was de-
veloped is one of profound and instructive interest in
all its stages, more so, however, in its stages than
in its result, when we regard it purely as a process
pursued by the efforts of the mind, quickened by
the most intense zeal of the spiritual instinct, and
engaging all those antagonisms of the speculative
faculty which are brought into the sharpest conflict

only when they are exercised upon abstract themes.
Scripture, it was agreed on all sides, did not offer a
full-shaped and defined doctrine on the great problem.
That was to be constructed when the time should
come for it. Some seven or eight generations of
Christians lived and died, content to read what we
have been reading from the pages of the New Testa-
ment, without having the help of dogmatic formulas
to guide their belief, however they may or may not
have felt the need of them. They looked to God, the
Father, as the Fountain of Gospel blessedness ; they
believed in Jesus Christ, as the channel through
which it flowed to the world ; and they felt the power
of the Holy Spirit, which incorporated the truth and
the hope with the living experience of their souls.
But they had not engaged upon the metaphysics
which was by and by to perplex " the simplicity that
is in Christ." The elements of the coming conflict
were, however, gathering and working together. The
first debate was raised upon the nature of Christ, and
his organic relation to the Godhead. The Hebrew
mind communicated its idea of Sonship from and
with the Father, an idea that centred in love, in
filial conformity and tender affinity of affection.
The Greek mind contributed, through the Alexan-
drine philosophy, the idea of the Logos, the Word,
which expressed the outgoing and working of the
intelligence of God, or an intermediate operation

between the Divine Essence and the creation, the
first link in the chain which stretches outward from
God. These two ideas furnished the scriptural and
the metaphysical elements to be wrought into a
dogma concerning Jesus Christ. Soon after came in
the subtle question about the likeness or the identity
of substance between the Father and the Son ; and
the question, whether the generation of the Son was
eternal, or dated in some epoch of ages. Neander
intends to deal tenderly with Arius, when he tells us,
that, with some excellent gifts and high qualities, " he
possessed no depth of religious intuition or appre-
hension of Christian truths, and hence had not the
disposition fitted for receiving several dogmas." The
historian adds, " The profound idea, expressed by
Origen, of an eternal, beginningless generation of the
Son, was inconceivable to his matter-of-fact under-
standing." And is it not equally inconceivable to
anybody's and everybody's understanding 1 But I
must not allow mvself to be drawn into the mazes of

the disputation which ends in establishing in terms
the dogma of the Deity of Christ, as defined by
ascribing to him co-eternity and co-substantiality with
God. Still another and quite independent element of
the work of theorizing, needed for the development
of the speculative doctrine of the Trinity, was that
which was presented by the Holy Spirit. The
method of dealing with that element of the theory,

and the stage which had been reached in dogmatizing
upon it, are well defined by Gregory Nazianzen, as
late as A.D. 380, thus : " Some of our theologians
regard the Spirit simply as a mode of divine opera-
tion ; others, as a creature of God ; others, as God
himself; others, again, say that they know not which
of these opinions to accept, from their reverence for
Holy Writ, which says nothing about it" (De Tri-
nitate, ii. c. 29).

Happily for those who cannot read the elaborate
and difficult tomes of church history, there are easily
accessible three documents, symbols of faith, which
present, in a most significant way, first the simple
elements of Christian doctrine ; and then, succes-
sively, the development of ecclesiastical dogmatizing
with them and upon them. The first is the so-called
Apostles' Creed, which is wholly free of Trinita-
rianism; the second is the Nicene Creed, in its
original and modified forms, which exhibits the inci-
pient stages of Trinitarianism in relation to the
Father and the Son; third, the Athanasian Creed,
dating from the fifth century, which presents Trinita-
rianism in its complete development. Marvellous is
the contrast between the tortuous method of doctrinal
statement in that formula and the Scripture sentences
which we have been reading. As a spurious text,
interpolated into the New Testament in the interest
of the doctrine of the Trinity, is no unfair exponent of

the relation of that doctrine to the actual substance
of the Gospel ; so the scholastic subtleties and
the metaphysical puzzles of the Athanasian Creed
may stand as significant symbols of the tricks with
language and the perplexities of thought needed
alike in the statement and in the conception of the
doctrine which it so consistently presents to us. Sup-
pose an attempt, made as an experiment in one of our
public schools, to teach either of the arts of reading,
grammar, arithmetic, or logic, through the help of the
Athanasian Creed! Certain it is, whether or not
the pupils were effectually warned against confound-
ing the divinities therein recognized, it would be
difficult to guard against confusion in "the huma-
nities." Yet that creed is really a consistent, if not
the best possible, result of an effort to grapple with
the metaphysical subtleties with which it deals.
Hard as the creed is, it nevertheless practises a kind
of mercy in its torture ; as it fails to recognize, or to
press upon us, at least one-half of the gnarled and
knotty elements which enter into its whole doc-
trine.

In rejecting, without compromise or hesitation, the
speculative doctrine of the Trinity, we must be con-
tent to bear the censure of so-called Orthodoxy, with
whatever penalties accompany it. Our chief plea
must be, that we cannot conceive that the eminently
practical and intelligible doctrines of the Gospel are

based upon an abstruse and occult dogma about a
Triad of Persons in the Godhead. We are at liberty
to elaborate the contents of the Scripture into a the-
ory more consistent with their teachings : or, what is
better still for most persons, we can learn to live as
Christians, without having any dogmatic theory about
the organic relation that exists between God, the Fa-
ther ; his Son Jesus Christ ; and the Holy Spirit.

Two or three questions, which are uniformly
opened in connection with the long discussion we
have pursued, invite a few closing words.

Shall we call Christ God 1 Well, pause upon the
question. What shall we gain, and what shall we
lose, if we call Christ God 1 Shall he be additional
to the Being whom he himself called God 1 or shall
he be identical with Him ? We had a God before,
the God whom Christ revealed, to whom Christ
prayed. Why should we confuse ourselves in this
profound theme, under the vain hope of relieving
ourselves ] We may, indeed, infer, from the sum of
the Gospel teachings, that we should not have known
the Father but through the Son ; and that the God
in whom we believe testifies of himself to our souls
through the divine life manifested in Christ. So far,
then, as Christ represents and manifests the Father, he
is a part of God ; and what we learn and receive from
him is necessary to complete our idea of God. But

he cannot be to us both the Revealer and the Revealed.
If we accept him as God, we lose him as a manifesta-
tion in the life of humanity.

Shall we pray to Christ 1 No : he himself forbade
us to do that ; and taught us, when we pray, to say,
" Our Father." Nor is there an instance, an example,
in the New Testament, in which the highest religious
homage is addressed to Christ. The martyr Stephen
sends forth an ejaculation on his last breath, " Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit; " but it is to "Jesus stand-
ing on the right hand of God."

Shall we call the Holy Spirit God ? No harm can
come of that. It would be perfectly natural for us to
do it. It is done in the New Testament. Certainly
it is better to do that than to call the Holy Spirit one
of three persons in the Godhead.

Shall we address prayer to the Holy Spirit"? Yes :
it is one way of addressing God. The saints of old
have used that title of the Hearer, as well as of the
Inspirer of prayer. Our devout, our earnest, our
fervent prayers are addressed to God, by the Spirit,
in the name of Christ. Let the prayer be sincere ;
and we may trust that the Father will not reject it
because we choose either of his divine names, or
titles, by which to address Him.