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Unessential Terms.

of expressing it is not used. We inquire then whether it is necessary to find that a conventional term is used in Scripture before we admit the doctrine which it conveys?

We have said, in the words of the Tract, we do not find that God is revealed to be Three. We do indeed find that THREE are revealed to be GOD: that the Son has the same divine attributes with the Father, that the Holy Spirit is represented with personality and as exercising divine offices; but that there are three persons in the Godhead we admit is not said from the beginning to the end of the Bible. Satisfying ourselves that Christ is Supreme God, and the Holy Spirit equal, and in the same manner, divine, we leave the whole matter where the Bible leaves it, and would prefer, if it were possible, never to use or hear the words persons, subsistencies, or distinctions. These are not essential to the admission of the fact of the equal Deity of Father, Son, and Spirit. When it is said therefore that these terms are not found in the Bible, the proof of the Deity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit is not invalidated,

Questions to a Trinitarian.

in three Gods.

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But it will be said, if you believe in the equal deity of Father, Son, and Spirit, you believe We reply, we believe in the divine unity as much as our friends who have improperly assumed the name of Unitarian. We believe that there is one God, and that there is none other but he. It will then be - asked, how can the Father Son and Spirit each be divine, and yet there be but one God? The attempts of Trinitarians to answer this question, has given rise to the use of the words Trinity, persons, hypostasis, essence, distinctions, which, if they had confined themselves to the mode of teaching in the Bible, would never have been used. We should no more think of answering such a question than a missionary would undertake to answer the following question proposed by a native, How can your God be in all places at one and the same time. The fact is all that we are concerned to know.

It would have been much more satisfactory, therefore, if the author, instead of directing his arguments against the dogmatic form of the doctrine assumed merely for concise statement

62 The Truth divine—its name human.

in controversies and creeds, had said, I do not find that Christ or the Holy Spirit are revealed in the Bible to be divine. No one we believe will say that we are quibbling about the word Trinity; it is not so; we are obliged to notice the subject in this way because superficial readers lay great stress on the fact that the word is not found in the Bible. We never thought that it was in the Bible. We knew the fact when we formed our belief; it is not essential therefore to an admission of the deity. of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. We prefer

to treat the subject after the manner of the sacred penman who as we think give abundant proof of the deity of the Son and Spirit, and then leave us to our own inferences respecting the mode of the divine existence. So that the first argument is wholly irrelevant to the deity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit.

But it will be said, 'If you believe that the Son and Spirit are divine, you must believe that God is three in one, whether you choose the word Trinity or not. But that God is Three in one, we do not find revealed!' Suppose that we should say, 'You assert that God is every where present at one and the same

Proof by Illustration.

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time. If so, you must believe that God is an indivisible essence; but that God is an indivisible essence we find nowhere revealed in the Bible.' The proper reply would be, That God is an indivisible essence is only a necessary deduction from our belief in his Omnipresence; the latter is the main truth; having established this you may infer at your pleasure that there is an indivisible essence, hypostasis, or by whatever name you please to express his nature. Suppose however that we should then publish a book against the Omnipresence of God and make in the first argument, We nowhere find it revealed in the Bible that God' is an indivisible essence!

6

The second argument of the Tract, is, that while the doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in express terms, that of the sole divinity of the father is taught in language the most explicit and direct. The writer proceeds:

"There are only three texts which speak of the Father, Son, and Spirit in formal connexion, and neither of these declares them to be three equal persons in the Divinity. Now is it possible this should be the case if the doctrine were true? Is it possible that the Apostles should

64

Mode of Teaching in the Bible.

never name them together but three times, and then not speak of their being one God!"

We consider it a sufficient answer to this inquiry to say that the very fact of their being named together, in such passages as are here referred to, affords a very high degree of probability that they are equally divine. We cannot account for it that the man Christ Jesus, and Divine Influence' should be associated with the name of Jehovah in the form of Baptism and in the Apostolic benediction, upon any other supposition.

"But does it (the form of Baptism) say that they are three persons? No, it does not say that they are persons at all. Does it assert that they constitute one God? No."--all which we consider à better specimen of rhetorical than of logical reasoning. We must regard the manner in which the writers of the Bible communicate the most important truths. Do they ever philosophize? Do they in any one instance explain the mode? Do they ever attempt to exhibit a truth in its metaphysical or supernatural relations? If Paul had explained the mystery of the resurrection, or had employed the 9th of Romans to show