doctrine of the Trinity a mystery; and all the analogies by which it is
attempted to give it this appearance, will instantly vanish on near
inspection. It does not follow, because a mystery is something which we
cannot understand, that everything unintelligible is a mystery; and we
must discriminate between that which is denied admittance to our reason,
from its fulness of ideas, and that which is excluded by its emptiness;
between a verbal puzzle and a symbolical and finite statement of an
infinite truth. If I were to say of a triangle, each of the sides of
this figure has an angle opposite to it, yet are there not three angles
but one angle, I should be unable to shelter myself, under the plea of
mystery, from the charge of bald absurdity; and the reply would be
obviously this: ‘Never was anything less mysterious put into words; all
your terms are precise and sharp, of definable meaning, and suggestive
of nothing beyond: the difficulty is, not in understanding your
propositions separately, but in reconciling them together; and this
difficulty is so palpable, that either you have affirmed a direct
contradiction, or you are playing tricks with words, and using them in a
way which, being unknown to me, turns them into mere nonsense.’ If to
this I should answer, that the contradiction was only apparent, for that
the _three_ and the _one_ were affirmed _in different senses_; and that
it would be very unfair to expect, in so deep a mystery, the word
_angle_ to be restrained to its usual signification; I should no doubt
be called upon to explain _in what novel sense_ this familiar term was
here employed, since, in the interval between the expulsion of the old
meaning and the introduction of the new, it is mere worthless vacancy.
And if, then, I should confess that the strange meaning was some
inscrutable and superhuman idea, which it would be impossible to reach,
and presumption to conjecture, I should not be surprised to hear the
following rejoinder; ‘you are talking of human language as if it were
something more than an implement of human thought, and were like the
works of nature, full of unfathomable wonders and unsuspected relations;
_hidden properties of things_ there doubtless are, but _occult meanings
of words_ there cannot be. Words are simply the signs of ideas, the
media of exchange, invented to carry on the commerce of minds,—the
counters, either stamped with thought, or worthless counterfeits. Nay
more, in this monetary system of the intellectual world, there are no
coins of precious metal that retain an intrinsic value of their own,
when the image and superscription imprinted by the royalty of
intelligence are gone; but mere paper-currency, whose whole value is
conventional, and dependent on the mental credit of those who issue it:
and to urge propositions on my acceptance, with the assurance that they
have some invisible and mystic force, is as direct a cheat, as to pay me
a debt with a bill palpably marked as of trivial value, but, in the
illegible types of your imagination, printed to be worth the wealth of
Crœsus.’
“Verbal mysteries,” then, cannot exist, and the phrase is but a fine
name for a contradiction or a riddle. The metaphysics which are invoked
to palliate their absurdity, are fundamentally fallacious; and equally
vain is it to attempt to press natural science into the service of
defence. In the case of a Theological mystery, we are asked to assent to
two ideas, the one of which _excludes the other_; in the case of a
natural mystery, we assent to two ideas, one of which _does not imply
the other_. In the one case, conceptions which destroy each other are
forced into conjunction; in the other, conceptions which had never
suggested each other, are found to be related. When, for example, we say
that the union, in our own constitution, of body and mind is perfectly
mysterious, what do we really mean? Simply, that in the properties of
body there is nothing which would lead us, antecedently, to expect any
combination with the properties of mind; that we might have entertained
for ever the notions of solidity, extension, colour, organization,
without the remotest suspicion of such things as sensation, thought,
volition, affection, being associated with them. The relation is
unanticipated and surprising; for thought does not imply solidity: but
then neither does it exclude it; the two notions stand altogether apart,
nor does the one comprise any element inconsistent with the other. It is
evident that it is far otherwise with the union of the two natures in
Christ; the properties of the Divine nature, omnipotence, omniscience,
omnipresence, directly exclude the properties of the human
nature,—weakness, fallibility, local movement and position; to affirm
the one is the _only method we have_ of denying the other; and to say of
any Being, that besides having the omniscience of God, he had the
partial knowledge of man, is to say that _in addition_ to having _all_
ideas, he possessed _some_ ideas. All the natural analogies at which
theologians hint in self-justification, fail in the same point. They
tell me truly that it is a mystery to me how the grass grows. But by
this is meant only, that from the causes which produce this phenomenon,
I could not have antecendently predicted it; that if I had been a fresh
comer on the globe, the meteorological conditions of the earth in spring
might have been perceived by me without my suspecting, as a sequence,
the development of a green substance from the soil. We have again an
example of an unforeseen relation; but between the members of that
relation there is not even a seeming contradiction. Nor do I know of any
other signification of the word mystery, as applied to our knowledge or
belief, except in its usage to express magnitudes too great to be filled
by our imaginations; as when we speak of the mysterious vastness of
space, or duration of time: or, viewing these as the attributes of a
Being, stand in awe of the immensity and eternity of God. But neither in
this case is there any approach to the admission of ideas which exclude
each other; on the contrary, our minds think of a small portion,—take
into consideration a representative sample, of those immeasurable
magnitudes, and necessarily conceive of all that is left behind, as
perfectly similar, and believe the unknown to be an endless repetition
of the known.
It is constantly affirmed that the doctrines of the Trinity, and of the
two natures in Christ, comprise no contradiction; that it is not stated
in the former that there are three Gods, but that God is three in one
sense, and one in another; and in the latter, that Christ is two in one
sense, and one in another.
I repeat and proceed to justify my statement, that if, in the
enunciation of these tenets, language is used with any appreciable
meaning, they are contradictions; and if not, they are senseless. I
enter upon this miserable logomachy with the utmost repugnance; and am
ashamed that in vindication of the simplicity of Christ, we should be
dragged back into the barren conflicts of the schools.
“If,” says Dr. Tattershall, “it had been said that He is ONE GOD and
also THREE GODS, then the statement would have been self-contradictory,
and no evidence could have established the truth of such a
proposition.”[165] Now I take it as admitted that this being is called
ONE GOD; and that there are THREE GODS, is undoubtedly affirmed
_distributively_, though not _collectively_; _each_ of the three persons
being separately announced as God. In the successive instances, which we
are warned to keep distinct, and not confound, of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, _proper Deity_ is affirmed; in three separate cases,
all that is requisite to constitute the proper notion of God, is said to
exist; and this is exactly what is meant, and all that can be meant, by
the statement, that there are three Gods. I submit then that the same
creed teaches that there _are three Gods_, and also that there are _not
three Gods_.
From this contradiction there is but one escape, and that is, by
declaring that the word God is used in different senses; being applied
to the triad in one meaning, and to the persons in another. If this be
alleged, I wait to be informed of the new signification which is to be
attached to this title, hitherto expressive of all the ideas I can form
of intellectual and moral perfection. _More_ than this, which exhausts
all the resources of my thought, it cannot mean; and if it is to mean
_less_, then it withholds from Him to whom it is applied something which
I have hitherto esteemed as essential to God. Meanwhile, a word with an
_occult meaning_ is a word with no meaning; and the proposition
containing it is altogether _senseless_.
But the favourite way of propounding this doctrine is the following:
that God is three in one sense, and one in another; Three in Person, but
only One _Individual_, _Subsistence_, or _Being_. The sense, then, if I
understand aright, of the word _Person_, is different from the sense of
the words _Individual, Being, or Subsistence_; and if so, I may ask what
the respective senses are, and wherein they differ from each other. In
reply I am assured, that by _person_ is to be understood “a subject in
which resides” “an entire set or series of those properties which are
understood to constitute personality; viz. the property of _Life_, that
of _Intelligence_, that of _Volition_, and that of _Activity_, or _power
of Action_.”[166] Very well; this is distinct and satisfactory; and now
for the _other sense_, viz. of the words _Individual_, _Being_, and
_Subsistence_. About this an ominous silence is observed; and all
information is withheld respecting the _quite different meaning_ which
these terms contain. Now I say, that their signification is the _very
same_ with that of the word Person, as above defined; that when you have
enumerated to me a complete “set of personal attributes,” you have
called up the idea of an _Individual_, _Being_, or _Subsistence_; and
that when you have mentioned to me these phrases, you have made me think
of a complete set of personal attributes; that if you introduce me to
two or three series of personal attributes, you force me to conceive of
two or three beings; that a complete set of properties makes up an
entire subsistence, and that an entire subsistence contains nothing else
than its aggregate of properties. To take, for example, from Dr.
Tattershall’s list of qualities which are essential to personality; tell
me of two _lives_, and I cannot but think of two individuals; of two
_intelligences_, and I am necessitated to conceive of two intelligent
beings; of two _wills_ or powers of action, and it is impossible to
restrain me from the idea of two Agents; and if each of these lives,
intelligences, and volitions, be divine, of two Gods. The word
substance, in fact, will _hold no more_ than the word person; and to the
_mind_, though not to the ear, the announcement in question really is,
that there are three persons, and yet only one person. Thus men “slide
insensibly,” to use the words of Archbishop Whately, “into the
unthought-of, but, I fear, not uncommon, error of Tritheism; from which
they think themselves the more secure, because they always maintain the
Unity of the Deity; though they gradually come to understand that Unity
in a merely _figurative_ sense; viz. as a Unity of substance,—a Unity of
purpose, concert of action, &c.; just as any one commonly says, ‘My
friend such-an-one and myself are one;’ meaning that they pursue the
same designs with entire mutual confidence, and perfect co-operation,
and have that exact agreement in opinions, views, tastes, &c., which is
often denoted by the expression _one mind_.”[167]
No doubt this excellent writer is correct in his impression, that the
belief in three Gods is prevalent in this country, and kept alive by the
creeds of his own church. And how does he avoid this consequence
himself? By understanding the word Persons, not in Dr. Tattershall’s,
which is the ordinary English sense, but in the Latin signification, to
denote the _relations_, or _capacities_, or _characters_, which an
individual may sustain, the _several parts_ which he may perform; so
that the doctrine of the Trinity amounts only to this, that the One
Infinite Deity bears three relations to us. This is plain Unitarianism,
veiled behind the thinnest disguise of speech. Between this and
Tritheism, it is vain to seek for any third estate.[168]
The contradiction involved in the doctrine of the two natures of Christ
is of precisely the same nature and extent. We are assured that he had a
perfect human constitution, consisting of the growing body and
progressing mind of a man; and also a proper divine personality,
comprising all the attributes of God. Now, during this conjunction,
either the human mind within him was, or it was not, _conscious_ of the
co-existence and operation of the divine. If it was not, if the earthly
and celestial intelligence dwelt together in the same body without
mutual recognition, like two persons enclosed in the same dark chamber,
in ignorance of each other, then were there two distinct beings, whom it
is a mockery to call “one Christ;” the humanity of our Lord was
unaffected by his Deity, and in all respects the same as if disjoined
from it; and his person was but a movable sign, indicating the place and
presence of a God, who was as much foreign to him as to any other human
being. If the human nature had a joint consciousness with the divine,
then nothing can be affirmed of his humanity separately; and from his
sorrows, his doubts, his prayers, his temptations, his death, every
trace of reality vanish away. If he were conscious, _in any sense_, of
omnipotence, nothing but duplicity could make him say, “of mine own self
I can do nothing;” if of omniscience, it was mere deception to affirm
that he was ignorant of the time of his second advent; if of his
equality with the Father, it was a quibble to say, “my Father is greater
than I.” I reject this hypothesis with unmitigated abhorrence, as
involving in utter ruin the character of the most perfect of created
beings.
The intrinsic incredibility then of these doctrines, involving, as they
do, “clear immoralities and self contradictions,” would throw discredit
on the claims of any work professing to reveal them on the authority of
God. And whether we listen to the demands of Scripture on our
reverential attention, must depend on this:—whether these tenets are
found there or not. And to this enquiry let us now proceed.
One remark I would make in passing, on the supposed value of the theory
of the two natures, as a _key_ to unlock certain difficult passages of
the Bible, and to reconcile their apparent contradictions. Christ, it is
affirmed, is sometimes spoken of as possessing human qualities,
sometimes as possessing divine; on the supposition of his being simply
man, one class of these passages contradicts us; on the assumption of
his being simply God, another. Let us then pronounce him both, and
everything is set right; every part of the document becomes clear and
intelligible.[169]
Now which, let me ask, is the greater difficulty: the obscure language,
which we wish to make consistent, or the prodigious hypothesis, devised
for the reconcilement of its parts? The sole perplexity in these
portions of Scripture consists in this,—that the divine and the human
nature are felt to be incompatible, and not to be predicable of the same
being: if we did not feel this, we should be conscious of no opposition;
and the ingenious device for relieving the bewilderment, is to deny the
incompatibility, and boldly to affirm the union. If you will but believe
_both_ sides of the contradiction, you will find the contradiction
disappear! What would be thought of such a principle of interpretation
applied to similar cases of verbal discrepancy? It is stated, for
example, in the Book of Genesis, that Abraham and Lot received a divine
communication respecting the destruction of Sodom; and the bearers of
the message are spoken of, in one place, as Jehovah himself; in another,
as angels; in a third, as men.[170] What attention would be given to any
interpreter who should say; ‘it is clear that these persons could not be
simply God, for they are called men; nor simply men, for they are called
angels; nor simply angels, for they are called God: they must have had a
triple nature, and been at the same time perfect God, perfect angel, and
perfect man?’ Would such an explanation be felt to solve anything? Or
take one other case, in which Moses is called God with a distinctness
which cannot be equalled in the case of Christ: “Moses called together
all Israel, and said to them: ... I have led you forty years in the
wilderness; your clothes have not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is
not waxen old upon thy foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye
drunk wine or strong drink; that ye might know that _I am the Lord your
God_.”[171] What relief, let me ask, should we obtain from the
difficulty of this passage, by being told that Moses had two natures in
one person, and must be received as God-man? Who would accept “a key”
like this, and not feel that in loosening one difficulty, it locked fast
another, and left us in labyrinthine darkness?
II. When a Trinitarian, and a Unitarian, agree to consult Scripture
together, and to bring their respective systems to this written
standard, it is essential that they should determine beforehand what it
is that they must look for: what internal characters of the books are to
be admitted in evidence; what kind and degree of proof each is entitled
to expect. Each should say to the other before the Bible is opened,
“Tell me now, distinctly, what are the marks and indications in these
records, which you admit would disprove your scheme: what must I succeed
in establishing, in order to convince you that you are mistaken?” The
mutual exchange of some such tests is indispensable to all useful
discussion. I am not aware that any rules of this kind have ever been
laid down, or I would willingly adopt them. Meanwhile I will propose a
few; and state the phenomena which I think a Unitarian has a right to
expect in the Bible, if the Athanasian doctrine[172] be revealed there,
and its reception made a condition of salvation. If the criteria be in
any respect unreasonable, let it be shown _where_ they are erroneous or
unfair. I am not conscious of making any extravagant or immodest
petition for evidence.
If, then, the existence of three Persons, each God, in the One Infinite
Deity,—and the temporary union of the second of these Persons, with a
perfect man, so as to constitute One Christ,—be among the prominent
facts communicated in the written Revelation of the Bible, we may expect
to find there the following characters:
(1.) That somewhere or other, among its thousand pages, these doctrines
so easily and compendiously expressed, will be plainly stated.
(2.) That as it is important not to confound the three persons in the
Godhead, they will be kept distinct, having some _discriminative and not
interchangeable titles_; and, moreover, since each has precisely the
same claim to be called GOD, that word will be assigned to them with
something like an impartial distribution.
(3.) That as, in consistency with the UNITY, the term God will always be
restricted to _one only being or substance_; so, in consistency with the
TRINITY, it will _never_ be limited to ONE PERSON to the exclusion of
the OTHER TWO.
(4.) That when the PERSONS are named by their _distinctive divine
titles_, their equality will be observed, nor any one of them be
represented as subordinate to any other.
(5.) That since the MANHOOD of Christ commenced, and its peculiar
functions ceased, with his _incarnation_, it will never be found
ascribed to him in relation to events, before or after this period.
All these phenomena, I submit, are essential to make scripture
consistent with Athanasianism; and not one of these phenomena does
scripture contain. This it is now my business to show.
III. (1.) Is then our expectation realized, of finding somewhere within
the limits of the Bible, a plain, unequivocal statement of these
doctrines? Confessedly not; and notions which, in one breath, are
pronounced to be indispensable to salvation, are in another admitted to
be no matters of revelation at all, but rather left to be gathered by
human deduction from the sacred writings. “The doctrine of the Trinity,”
says a respectable Calvinistic writer, Mr. Carlile of Dublin, “is rather
_a doctrine of inference and of indirect intimation_, deduced from what
is revealed respecting the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and
intimated in the notices of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, than
a doctrine directly and explicitly declared.” And elsewhere the same
author says, “_A doctrine of inference ought never to be placed on a
footing of equality with a doctrine of direct and explicit
revelation._”[173] If this be so (and the method of successive steps by
which it is attempted, in this very controversy, to establish the
doctrine of the Trinity, proves Mr. Carlile to be right), then to deny
this mere _inference_ is not to deny a _revelation_. But why, we may be
permitted to enquire, this shyness and hesitancy in the scriptures in
communicating such cardinal truths? Whence this reserve in the Holy
Spirit about matters so momentous?[174] What is the source of this
strange contrast between the formularies of the Church of England, and
those of the primitive Church of Christ? The Prayer-book would seem to
have greatly the advantage over the Bible; for it removes all doubts at
once, and makes the essentials most satisfactorily plain; compensating,
shall we say, by “frequent repetitions,” for the defects and ambiguities
of Holy Writ? Nay, it is a singular fact, that in the original languages
of the Old and New Testaments, _no phraseology exists in which it is
possible to express the creeds of the Church_. We give to the most
learned of our opponents the whole vocabulary of the Hebrew and the
Greek Scriptures, and we say, “with these materials translate for us
into either language, or any mixture of both, your own Athanasian
Creed,” They well know, that it cannot be done: and ought not then this
question to be well weighed? if the terms _indispensable_ for the
expression of certain ideas are absent from the Bible, how can the ideas
themselves be present? Scarcely can men _have_ any important notions
without the corresponding words,—which the mind coins as fast as it
feels the need; and most assuredly they cannot _reveal_ them. Let us
hear no more the rash assertion that these tenets may be proved from any
page of scripture; we frankly offer every page, with unrestricted
liberty to rewrite the whole; and we say, with all this, they cannot be
expressed.
(2.) Let us proceed to apply our second criterion, and ascertain whether
the divine persons, whom it is essential to distinguish, _are_ so
distinguished by _characteristic titles_ in scripture; and share among
them, with any approach to equality, the name of GOD.
It is self-evident, that a _verbal revelation_ can make known
_distinctions_ only by _distinctive words_; that if two or more objects
of thought receive interchangeable names, and the term which had seemed
to be appropriated to the one is transferred to the other, those objects
are not discriminated, but confounded. We require, then, separate words
in scripture to denote the following notions; of the One Divine
Substance, or Triune Being; of the First, of the Second, of the Third
person, in this infinite existence;—of the Divine Nature and of the
Human Nature of Christ. For the Trinity, it is acknowledged, there is no
scripture name; unless, indeed, the plural form of the word God in the
Hebrew language is to be claimed for this purpose; and thus an attempt
be still made to confirm our faith by argument which an orthodox
commentator calls “weak and vain, not to say silly and absurd.”[175]
“From the plural sense of the word Elohim,” says the great Calvin, “it
is usual to infer that there are three persons in the Godhead. But as
this proof of so important a point appears to me by no means solid, I
will not insist upon the word. Let me then warn my readers against such
VIOLENT INTERPRETATIONS.”[176] “I must be allowed,” says Dr. Lee, Arabic
Professor in the University of Cambridge, “to object to such methods of
supporting an article of faith, which stands in need of no such
support.”[177] Of the first person in the Trinity, the word “_Father_,”
it is to be presumed, may be considered as the distinctive name; of the
Second person, the terms _Son_, _Son of God_, and _the Word_ or _Logos_;
of the Third person, the phrase _Holy Ghost_, _Spirit_, _Paraclete_; and
of the human nature of Christ, as distinguished from the Second
distinction in the Trinity, the names _Jesus of Nazareth_, _Son of Man_,
the _Man Christ Jesus_. If these names be _not_ distinctive, there
certainly are no others; and if there be none at all, then the
_distinctions themselves_ are not impressed upon the record; they are
altogether destitute of signs and expressions, and must be pronounced
purely imaginary. Meanwhile we will assume the titles, which I have just
enumerated, to be appropriated to the purposes which have been assigned.
To the use of the words _Father_ and _Son_ I shall have particular
occasion to revert.