CHAPTER XI.

The Trinity-One great cause of the rejection of the Trinity by the Unitarians-The tri-personality not acknowledged by the New Church-Christ's Temptations-The Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit-addition of the English translators of the Bible.

WITH regard to the Doctrine of the Trinity, the New Church fully believe in a Trinity-but at the same time they differ from the Trinitarians of the Old Church. If Unitarians believe in the Inspiration of Scriptures, they must also believe in a Trinity. The cause of their disbelief, doubtless, is the little confidence they feel in the writers of the Bible: they are prone to look upon this volume as a human work, and not as invariably the dictation and word of God. They do not believe in a plenary divine inspiration, therefore they do not look upon the Bible as a fixed and invariable standard of faith and action. They do not scruple to call it fallible. By doing so, they commit the gross error of depriving the Christian world of any religious standard. Happily for them, however, there is now some hope of brighter light dawning upon them; and this through an advocate of their own cause: we allude to an article published in the Christian Examiner, the " organ of the Unitarian denomination" in this country, for December, 1843. The article is entitled, "Inspiration of the

Scriptures."

"Be

It is a matter of great surprise to me, how any one can doubt the full and entire Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, after he has attentively read the following passage in the Bible, viz.; (Colossians ii. 8, 9.) ware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." (1. John ii. 22, 23.) "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father."

(John xiv. 6-10.)

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the Truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us." Then in a manner that implies reproof for their dullness of apprehension, "Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me ?" (Phillippians ii. 5-8.) "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Colossians i. 15-17.) The Son of God "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature for by him were all things made that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.' (John i. 1-3, 10, 14.) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. For the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (Hosea xiii. 4.) "Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no God but me: for there is no Savior besides me." (Isaiah ix. 6.) "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, THE MIGHTY GOD, the EVERLASTING FATHER, the Prince of Peace." (xlii. 8.) "I am the LORD, that is my name; and

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my glory will I not give to another." (xliii. 3, 10, 11.) "For I am the LORD thy GOD, the Holy one of Israel, thy SAVIOR. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD and besides me there is no Savior." (xlv. 15, 21, 22.) Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior. ---Have not I the LORD and there is no God else besides me, a just God and a Savior: there is none besides me.--Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God and there is none else." (xlviii. 17.) " Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Ísrael; I am the LORD thy God which teachest thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldst go." (lxiii. 16.) "Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; thou, LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer: thy name is from everlasting."

Although in the New Church the Trinity of Jesus Christ is cordially acknowledged, the tri-personality is not. Here we extract from the tract No. 1., entitled "The True Object of Christian Worship," &c. "Doctrine of the Trinity,"

&c.

"The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.' Where, let us ask, do the Scriptures say that these are three separate persons? It is wonderful how a dogma, which is iable to such embarrassing objection as this, could ever obtain so general a reception in the world. To the question, 'where does the Scripture affirm the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be three separate persons?' no answer can be offered. This will scarcely appear credible to those whose knowledge of Scripture is not extensive, who must be amazed to learn, that a doctrine which has for ages been received in the Christian Church, and is still upheld as the palladium of the Christian religion, has not a single text to support it. Yet such is the fact. The tri-personality of the Godhead is so completely the offspring of human invention, that even the word 'person,' applied to the Lord under any of his characters, occurs but once in the whole Bible, and even there it is a mis-translation. In the epistle to the Hebrews it is said in the common translation, that the Son is the brightness of the glory of God, and the express image of his person.' But the Greek word (hypo

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stasis) here rendered 'person,' properly denotes substance, or the ground of being. How the doctrine of a trinity of persons gradually crept into the church is thus: Paul very properly applies the term hypostasis to express the inmost ground of the Divine existence. The Greek Fathers, as they are called, aware that a distinct principle in the Godhead must be denoted by each of the terms, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and wanting a word to express it, borrowed this word hypostasis,' and applied it indiscriminately to all three; whereas Paul had used it in reference to the Father alone. Still, though the Greek fathers began to speak of three 'hypostases' in the Divine nature, they had no idea of three persons as now understood. The Latin Fathers who came after, being in want of a word in their language to express what the Greeks meant by hypostasis,' made use of the equivocal term, person, which in classic authors sometimes bears the same signification as its derivative English word person;' but more frequently denotes the character which any one bears or assumes: hence the characters of a drama are still called, in technical language, Dramatis persone. It was in this sense that the early Latin Theological writers used the word; and thus when they spoke of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as distinct persona, they only meant to say that three characters enter into the nature of the One Individual Divine Being. Afterwards, when doctrines were introduced which required three separate Divine Beings to sustain them, (which doctrines were entirely unknown in the first ages,) the term persona began to be used in its other sense, and to be defined to denote an individual substance of a rational nature. Still the truth was not entirely lost sight of; for every one knew that the term had also another meaning; and in this more appropriate sense, they whose perceptions of truth were more clear would understand it.But the greatest mischief took place when the word was introduced into other languages, aud dropped in its passage that signification which alone rendered it at all proper, as applied to the three Essentials of the Divine Nature. Thus the word 'person' in English, never means a character, but always a distinct, separate individual being; when, therefore, a plain Englishman is told that in the Godhead there

are three persons, no other idea can be presented to his mind but that of three distinct, separate, individual Gods, which is altogether a false doctrine, and distracts the mind in the very first principles of religious belief, deprives it of any distinct object of worship, and perverts the important doctrine of the Divine Trinity to a signification quite foreign to the Scriptures, and which never entered into the thoughts of the early Christian writers, either Greek or Latin. Surely it is high time for the church to return from her wanderings, to worship no longer a divided but a UNITED Trinity; and to behold it in that One Divine Person, which assumed on earth the name of Jesus Christ: for in him,' as the apostle declares,' dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.' (Col. ii. 9.)

"The view then of the Divine Trinity which clears the subject from all perplexity, is briefly this: By the Father, when mentioned in Scripture, is not meant a God distinct from Jesus Christ, but His inmost principle of divine life, or the Soul of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is a divine, infinite, Internal spiritual principle, and is the Godly Essence Itself. In analogy to which, there is in every man a soul which is not like the Lord Jesus Christ's, substantial, spiritual, Life Essence Itself, but is a recipient of spiritual life (said to be derived from his earthly father) and is a finite Internal Spiritual Principle. By the Son is meant a spiritual principle in the Lord Jesus Christ, which is less internal, and may be called external in contra-distinction; it is a principle derived from the spiritual principle of the virgin mother, and naturally most particularly belongs to the material body which was also derived from the mother. In analogy to which every man has that external spiritual principle which is said to be also, together with the material body, derived from his mother. The idea of this external spiritual principle may be better understood by the thought of that which is called First Impulse. And in the New Church language it is called the external man. The other is called the internal man, of which latter we may have a clear idea by thinking of that something which ponders and deliberates inwardly, and, as it were, consults, advises and converses with the external man-or impulsive feeling or thought. By the Holy Spirit is meant that Ac