SECTION XII.

ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE OF A TRINITY OF PERSONS IN THE GODHEAD.

A complete list of the texts, both in the Old and New Testament, on which Trinitarians chiefly rely as asserting the doctrine of three equal persons in the Godhead.

1. Isa. xxxiv. 16. "My mouth it hath commanded, and his Spirit it hath gathered them."

2. Isa. xlviii. 16. "The Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me."

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

4. 2 Cor. xiii, 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all."

Before any attempt to examine these passages, the candid reader is requested to consider seriously whether they even approximate towards the evidence that might reasonably be expected of three equal persons in the Godhead, if the doctrine were true, and were what it is said to be,→ "The fundamental doctrine of the gospel, the belief of which is essential to salvation." Suppose the Unitarian should collect all the passages which assert the Unity of God, and that they should be as few in number, and should seem as irrelevant to prove that God is one, as these do to prove that God is three, what would the Trinitarian say to such an array of witnesses? Would he not be likely to treat them with

silent contempt? But let us not take it for granted that these four texts contain no proof of the Trinity. Let us examine them. The first two on the list, are brought forward by Mr. Wardlaw, p. 15, as "the most prominent passages" in the Old Testament, in proof of the Trinity. But as he has not told how they prove the Trinity, we can only conjecture what his argument would be. As the pronouns my and his, in the first text on the list, are printed in small capitals, we may suppose they were thought to denote two per. sons in the Trinity. But how the proof of the third person is to be made out I cannot conjecture. To this argu

ment, if it can be called an argument, I reply-The learned and critical Dr. Adam Clarke, though a strenuous advocate for the Trinity, in his Commentary on this passage, says, "My mouth (for the mouth of JEHOVAH.) Five MSS. (three ancient,) read Jehovah, and another is so corrected: so likewise the Septuagint." In Dr. Thomas Coke's Commentary, it is rendered, "The mouth of Jehovah hath commanded," &c. Coke was a Trinitarian. Mr. Yates thinks that in the original Hebrew there is nothing corresponding to the pronoun my. Trinitarian Commentators, in general, so far as I have had opportunity of examining, understand the passage in a similar manner, following the Septuagint.

2. The second text on the list is the one chosen by Dr. Dwight, late President of Yale College, for the only Sermon, out of two hundred and thirty-four, which is entitled the "Trinity." But as he has not intimated how it favors the Trinity, I cannot conjecture. To say that God is the speaker, in this text, is absurd. Who could send God? The prophet Isaiah, or Christ, is evidently the speaker. As he was sent by God, so he was led forth to the execu tion of his prophetic office by the Spirit of God.*

*Page 32, Mr. Robbins remarks upon this text thus: "The speaker is Christ, for he a little before, Hearken unto me, O Jacob says,

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3. "Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

The Common Version strongly favors a sense of this apostolic commission, which the original Greek does not suggest, and which Jesus could not have intended.

To baptize in the name of another, signifies, in the English language, merely to baptize by another's authority, as his representative. But no scripturist thinks that this was the meaning of our Saviour. "The name" of a person very often signifies the person himself. The following passages illustrate this remark. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee."-Ps. ix. 10. "The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee."- -Ib. xxii. 1. "The name of the

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Here the name

LORD is a strong tower."-Prov. xviii. 10. of God means God himself. This is called pleonasm, or redundancy. It is an idiom in which the Hebraistic Greek much abounds. When brought into a language which, like ours, has not the same idiom, it only tends to obscure the sense. It ought to be omitted in an English Version. In some places in the New Testament, we find it employed in connection with baptism, while in others it is omitted, withthe first, I also am the last ;' an appellation often given to him." This statement needs qualifying. The phrase, "I am the first and the last," occurs three or four times in the Prophecy of Isaiah, and is in every instance applied to Jehovah; not once to Christ. See Ch. xli. 4, xliii. 10, xliv. 6, xlviii. 12.

Had Mr. Robbins, instead of the 12th verse, quoted the 13th-" My hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens;" a well known designation of Jehovah, and which is never given to Christ in the whole Bible, his readers would perceive, at once, that Jehovah, and not Christ, is the speaker in the 12th and 13th verses; and that some one else is the speaker in the 16th verse; where a new subject begins, as the paragraph [¶] indicates. The phrase, "the first and the last," is applied to Christ, in two or three instances; in Rev. i. 17, ii. 8, and probably xxii. 13. Rev. i. 11, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last," is certainly spurious.

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out altering the sense. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read,—“ baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus."—viii. 16, and xix. 5. But in several places in the Epistles, the pleonasm is omitted, and we read, baptized into Jesus Christ'

baptized into his death'-' baptized into Christ.'-Rom vi. 3; Gal. iii. 27. Thus it is obvious, that to be baptized in the name of Christ, is the same as to be baptized into Christ.

The preposition is, which is translated 'in,' is variously rendered in passages where the construction in the Greek is the same. It is translated 'in,' 'into,' and 'unto.' be baptized into a person or thing, is the same as to be baptized to or unto a person or thing.

Το

Now if we omit the redundant word name, as St. Paul has very properly done in several places in his Epistles, and render the preposition to, or unto, as it is in 1 Cor. x. 2, the whole passage may be thus translated.

"Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit."

But how is this passage made to favor the doctrine of the Trinity? It is done by assuming what never has been, and never can be, proved.

1. It is taken for granted, that because the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are connected together in the commission to baptize, each of them must be God. But if this assumption be admitted, it will prove too much. It will prove that each, of other persons and objects connected with God in a religious act, is God. For the illustration, see page 59.

2. It is taken for granted that baptism is a rite of such a character, that, to be baptized "to" or "unto a person or object, or "in the name" of a person or object, necessarily implies that such a person or object is God. But if this assumption be admitted, it will prove too much.

It

will prove that Moses is God, and that the death of Christ is God. For the ancient Israelites "were all baptized unto Moses in a cloud and in the sea." All that "were baptized unto Jesus Christ, were baptized unto his death." See 1 Cor. x. 2, Rom. vi. 3. See also 1 Cor. i. 13.

To be baptized to or unto a person or object, or in the name of a person or object, evidently implies, not that such a person or object is an object of worship, but a subject of faith. Moses, and the death of Christ, were not objects of worship, but subjects of faith. In this sense we are to understand the commission under consideration. Persons baptized according to this commission, did not thereby profess to worship, but to believe in, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this sense it is understood by many Trinitarian critics. Archbishop Tillotson calls baptizing persons in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, "baptizing them into the Christian faith.”—Vol. VI. p. 141. So Dr. Whitby, in his Paraphrase—“ Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name (or, into the belief) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

It does not appear that the Apostles understood the commission as a formula to be used in the administration of baptism. There is no proof that they ever used it as such. On the contrary, we read of their baptizing unto Christ, and in the name of Christ. They probably considered baptizing unto Christ, or in the name of Christ, equivalent to haptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit; that is, baptizing unto a belief of the Christian religion, To profess Christianity, was to name the name of Christ. They that were baptized unto Christ put on Christ, or took his name, and were called Christians thereby conforming to the true spirit of the commission. Father, Son, and Spirit, were mentioned in the commission, because they