is, of the weak and unguarded state in which Trinitarians have left the
separate personality and deity of the Holy Ghost. I do not wonder at
their preference for that word, _Ghost_, in this connection. It
materializes the word Spirit, puts the true idea out of immediate sight,
and is so far a preparation for introducing the conception of a third
_person_, which never would naturally have arisen from the use of the
more intelligible expression “the Holy Spirit,” “the Spirit of God.” I
apprehend that all minds, though long familiarized with the idea of a
plurality of persons in the godhead, would be greatly shocked, if that
plurality was conceived to be either more or less than the mystic number
three. A multitude of deities, discharging different offices, but
partaking of the one Essence of the godhead, would be thought a
completely Heathen conception—and a reduction of the present orthodox
idea, so as to represent only two persons in the one God, would strike a
Christian mind as scarcely less pagan. Yet upon Trinitarian principles
this is evidently a mere prejudice of Custom. There is no more reason,
so far as our understanding is concerned, for there being three persons
in the godhead than for there being only two, and whether there be one,
two, three, or a countless number, is a question to which our Reason
ought to be entirely indifferent, having no _a priori_ opinion or
principle of its own upon the subject: and submitting to the letter of
the Revelation with equal readiness, whether it distributes the Essence
of the Deity among a Trinity, or among any other plurality of minds. Now
I would ask Trinitarians whether they have schooled themselves into
submission to this principle—whether they would receive four persons in
the Godhead as readily as they receive three, provided the same mode of
inferential interpretation which now establishes the Trinity, succeeded
in showing that a further distribution of the essence of the godhead was
required, in order to make our Theology consistent with the exact
wording of the Scriptures. I apprehend that most minds amongst us would
revolt at the idea of four persons in one God, _contemplated as a mere
possibility_. Yet surely in a Trinitarian this would be very
unreasonable. As a _Scripture_ doctrine he might reasonably discard it
as unfounded—but as a possibility, as a subject on which, previous to
Revelation, he ought to have no prejudice whatever, he must on his own
principles have no objection to the plurality of divine persons
extending to any number, and be as prompt, to submit his faith to five
as to three, provided five can be shown to be the proper inference from
the words of Scripture. A consistent Trinitarian must feel no _a priori_
objection to any number of divine persons united together. Having
conceded that on this subject his Reason is no guide, and his Nature no
analogy, there is but one question he has a right to ask,—“Is it so
written?”
And even if it should be granted that Scripture reveals three divine
persons and reveals no more, yet upon his own principles, a consistent
Trinitarian should be cautious in asserting that there _are_ no more.
Scripture nowhere asserts that there are _only_ three persons in the
godhead—and surely it is being wise above what is written, for a
Trinitarian to confine God’s essence within the limits in which He has
been pleased to reveal Himself, and to make the communications He has
opened upon us the measures of the infinite possibilities of His being.
A Trinitarian reverently and with becoming modesty stating his own
doctrine, and not presuming to know more of God than is revealed, ought
to content himself with saying—that Scripture discloses three divine
minds in one Deity, but that whether there are any _more_ than three,
Scripture does not declare, and he would hold it arrogant to assert. If
the Unitarian is wise _contrary_ to what is written in confining the
unity of God to one person; the Trinitarian is wise _above_ what is
written in confining it to three persons, and with less excuse, for that
one is neither more nor less than one is at least a natural
supposition—but after having admitted that one may be three, there is
nothing but precipitancy and dogmatism in determining that it can be
_only_ three. A consistent and scripturally modest Trinitarian should
simply state, that God his Father, God his Redeemer, and God his
Sanctifier, contained all the revelation that was required for the
salvation of his soul—but as to whether there might not be other divine
persons in the plurality of the godhead, he held it to be a high
mystery, which he did not presume to speak upon—that only these were
revealed, and therefore he knew no more, but yet he did not dare to
assert that his necessities, the requirements of a being so feeble,
comprised and exhausted the whole capabilities and personalities of the
godhead. But Trinitarians are not so modest. They charge the Unitarian
with presumption for limiting the divine essence to one Person—and then
they proceed themselves, with no warrant from Scripture, and none _they_
assert from Reason, to limit it to Three.
If two not three had been the favourite mythological number, if a
Duality and not a Trinity had been the Platonic conception, then, I am
satisfied, that the Christian world, though it might have witnessed the
deification of the Christ, would never have heard of the separate deity
of the Holy Spirit. And this assertion is amply borne out by the
historical fact, that the deification of the Spirit followed afterwards
as a consequence from the deification of the Son, and that the earliest
form of the charge made against the Platonizing Christians by stricter
believers in the unity of the Deity, states the whole extent of their
heresy to be that of introducing a _second_ God,—nothing as yet being
said about third.
It is well known to all in whom duty has so far prevailed over distaste,
as to make them turn in sorrow the heavy pages of Ecclesiastical
History, that there was no discussion respecting the divinity of the
third person in the Trinity until nearly the end of the fourth century.
Nothing can surpass the cool and easy confidence which sets aside this
undeniable fact by boldly asserting that up to this time the doctrine
was never disputed—and that the absence of evidence in support of this
doctrine only arises from the absence of doubt, that nobody stated what
nobody denied. What, the separate deity and personality of the Holy
Ghost never doubted, and yet not one prayer addressed to Him in
Scripture, not one ascription of praise, not one doxology in which his
name is introduced, so that when the Church desired to associate the
third person in the honours of Christian worship it could find no
Scripture formula, and had to make one for the occasion;—not one debate
for nearly four hundred years upon the deity of the Holy Ghost, although
the deity of the Second Person, to whom the Third Person even after his
deification was held to be subordinate, was constantly debated, and yet
the doctrine never doubted nor denied! Now if the doctrine was never
doubted or denied, since the doctrine of the deity of the Son was most
certainly both doubted and denied, why is it that the Holy Spirit does
not appear as the Second person in the Trinity instead of the Third—why
is it that the Council of Nice previous to this time, when the doctrine
_began_ to be doubted and denied, asserts the deity of the Father, and
the deity of the Son, but does not assert the deity of the Holy
Ghost—and why is it that the earliest charge against the philosophizing
Christians was that of introducing a _second_ God, if there was already
a second divine person acknowledged, and therefore the true charge
should have been that of introducing a _third_? It is remarkable that
the same very learned writer, the late Professor Burton, who is the
great Trinitarian authority upon these subjects, after having resolved
the absence of controversy into the possible absence of doubt as to the
deity of the holy Ghost, records the very first instance in which the
Holy Spirit is introduced into a doxology of the Church as taking place
in the fourth century. He quotes Philostorgius the Arian historian, who
declares, “that Flavianus of Antioch, having assembled a number of
monks, was the first to shout out, Glory to the Father, _and_ to the
Son, _and_ to the holy Spirit; for before his time some had said, Glory
to the Father, _through_ the Son _in_ the holy Spirit, which was the
expression in most general use; and others, Glory to the Father, in the
Son and holy Spirit.”[524] Gibbon relates this matter thus. He is
speaking of a temporary triumph of the Arians over the Athanasians, and
of the means employed by the Athanasian laity to manifest their
unwilling acceptance of the Arian Bishops. “The Catholics,” says the
historian, “might prove to the world, that they were not involved in the
guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical governor, by publicly
testifying their dissent, or by totally separating themselves from his
communion. The first of these methods was invented at Antioch, and
practised with such success, that it was soon diffused over the
Christian world. The doxology, or sacred hymn, which celebrates the
glory of the Trinity, is susceptible of very nice, but material
inflections; and the substance of an orthodox or heretical creed, may be
expressed by the difference of a disjunctive or a copulative particle.
Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody were introduced into
the public Service by Flavianus and Diodorus, two devout and active
laymen, who were attached to the Nicene faith. Under their conduct, a
swarm of monks issued from the adjacent desert, bands of
well-disciplined singers were stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the
Glory to the Father, AND the Son, AND the Holy Ghost, was triumphantly
chaunted by a full chorus of voices: and the Catholics insulted, by the
purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the throne
of the venerable Eustathius.” Out of such disorders in the Church, from
the rebellious device of laymen to insult an heretical Bishop, sprung
the doxology of our present creeds.
It is very instructive to look a little closely into some of the
passages from the early Fathers which are brought by Trinitarians as
evidence of the recognition of their doctrines by the primitive Church.
There is unquestionably much vague language that will readily coalesce
with the conceptions of a modern orthodox believer; but as soon as you
examine with any strictness, you find that though they use language very
loosely, nothing could be further from their modes of thinking than
modern orthodoxy. For instance, we find the Son and the Holy Spirit
mentioned as objects of a Christian’s reverence—but it is very
remarkable how many of these cases occur when the writers are defending
themselves against a charge of Atheism, as if they were desirous when
repelling such charge to show how many sources of veneration their
religion disclosed. The early Christians who believed in only one God
were called Atheists by the Heathens. To believe in only one God was in
their estimation the next thing to believing in none at all. Those who
believed in many gods were likely enough to call the Christians
Atheists, just as in the present day lecturers in Christ Church call
Unitarianism a God denying Heresy.[525] In vindicating themselves
against this dangerous calumny the early Christians were naturally led
to extend rather than to diminish their objects of worship, and
accordingly in a passage quoted by Professor Burton, from the earliest
Father on whom dependence can be placed, we find not only the Son and
the Spirit, but interposed between the Son and the Spirit, the angels of
Heaven, associated together in their reverence. Hence the passage is
quoted by Roman Catholics in support of the worship of Angels. And if it
is good for the one purpose, it is equally good for the other; nay, if
it is any proof of the separate deity of the Holy Spirit, it is equally
proof of the deity of the angels who are mentioned before him. The
passage is from Justin Martyr whom Professor Burton places A. D. 150.
“Hence it is that we are called Atheists: and we confess that we are
Atheists with respect to such reputed gods as these: but not with
respect to the true God, the Father of justice, temperance, and every
other virtue, with whom is no mixture of evil. But Him, and the Son who
came from Him and gave us this instruction, and the host of the other
good angels which attend upon and resemble them, and the prophetic
Spirit we worship and adore, paying them a reasonable and true honour,
and not refusing to deliver to any one else, who wishes to be taught,
what we ourselves have learnt.”[526] There is another passage from
Justin Martyr, also given by Burton as evidence of the early recognition
of the Trinity, but which is manifestly nothing more than the natural
anxiety of the writer when meeting a charge that perilled his life, the
charge of Atheism, to show the full extent of his sentiments of
reverence. “That we are not Atheists,” says Justin Martyr, “who would
not acknowledge, when we worship the Creator of this Universe, and Jesus
Christ who was our instructor in these things, knowing him to be the Son
of this true God, and assigning to him the _Second_ place. And I shall
prove presently, that we honour the prophetic Spirit in the _third_
rank, and that we are reasonable in so doing.”[527] Now let it be
recollected that these two passages, extending as far as possible the
objects of a Christian’s reverence, occur in Justin Martyr’s Apology for
Christianity against its Gentile oppressors, in which he complains that
the Christians were treated as Atheists, and unjustly punished for not
worshipping the gods. I shall only quote one other passage exhibiting
the modes of thinking respecting the Holy Spirit among the early
Fathers. It is from Origen, A. D. 240, perhaps the most eminent of them
all, and shows clearly, notwithstanding the frequent vagueness and
obscurity of their writings, how far they were removed from modern
Trinitarianism, and that their forms of thought were derived from
Platonism much more than from Christianity, or more strictly from
Platonism engrafted on Christianity. He is speaking of the Son, and
commenting on those words at the beginning of St. John’s Gospel—“all
things were made by him.”
“If it is true,” says Origen, “that _all things were made by him_, we
must inquire whether the Holy Ghost was made by him: for as it seems to
me, if a person says that the Holy Ghost was made, and if he grants that
all things were made by the Logos, he must necessarily admit that the
Holy Ghost was also made by the Logos, the latter preceding him in order
of time. But if a person does not choose to say that the Holy Ghost was
made by Christ, it follows that he must call him unproduced, if he
thinks that this passage in the gospel is true. But there may be a third
opinion, beside that of admitting that the Holy Ghost was made by the
Logos, and that of supposing him to be uncreated, namely, the notion of
there being no substantial individual existence of the Holy Ghost
distinct from the Father and the Son. We, however, being persuaded that
there are three hypostases (persons), the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, and believing that nothing is unproduced beside the Father, adopt
this as the more pious and the true opinion, that all things being made
by the Logos, the Holy Ghost is more honourable than all of them, and
more so in rank than all the things which were made by the Father
through Christ. And perhaps this is the reason why he is not called the
very Son of God, there being only one who by nature and origin is Son,
viz. the only begotten, who seems to have been necessary to the Holy
Ghost, and to have assisted in forming his hypostasis, not only that he
might exist, but also that he might have wisdom, and reason, and
righteousness, and whatever else we suppose him to have, according to
his participation in those qualities which we have before mentioned as
attributed to Christ.” “Such,” says Burton, “is this extraordinary, and
I must add unfortunate passage of Origen, which I have quoted at length,
and have endeavoured to translate with the utmost fairness. If the
reader should decide from it that Origen did not believe in the eternity
of the Holy Ghost, he will think that the enemies of Origen were not
without grounds when they questioned his orthodoxy. It is not my
intention entirely to exculpate him. He is at least guilty of
indiscretion in entering upon such perilous grounds and in speculating
so deeply upon points which after all must elude the grasp of human
ideas and phraseology.” Professor Burton calls this passage
“unfortunate,” for no reason that we can see, except that it discloses
too plainly Origen’s ignorance of Modern Trinitarianism, and shows too
clearly in what sense we are to understand the Platonic language of the
Fathers.
There are two modes of proof by which Trinitarians undertake to
establish the separate existence of the Holy Spirit as a third person in
the godhead. The first mode is by inferences from such passages of
scripture as seem to attribute the titles and offices of deity to the
Holy Spirit. The second method of proof is by independent considerations
of Theology which profess to demonstrate the necessity of a third person
in the godhead in order to compleat the work of man’s salvation.
Trinitarians say, that Scripture both calls the Holy Spirit God, and
assigns to Him a work which none but God could accomplish. Now in both
these respects we have not a shadow of difference with the Trinitarians.
We believe as firmly and we hope as fervently as they do, that the Holy
Spirit is God, and that the Holy Spirit has connections with our souls
which none but our God could hold. We have no controversy with the
Trinitarians, when they assert the Deity, and Personality, and
Operations of the Holy Spirit. It is a mere piece of controversial
dexterity to put these points prominently forward as the true grounds of
our difference—and, whether designedly or not, an unfair impression is
produced against us, by such a mode of statement, as if we were deniers
of the deity and agency of the spirit of God—if indeed any meaning could
be found in such a denial, supposing we were extravagant enough to make
it. To deny the deity of the Spirit of God, would be a proposition as
absolutely without meaning as to deny the humanity of the spirit of man.
We were told by the Lecturer in Christ Church to whom this subject was
committed, that it was of no avail for Unitarians to advance passages in
which the Holy Spirit signified not God himself, but his power and
influence exerted upon man, for that these occasional meanings of the
expression were fully conceded; and that what we have to do, is to
disprove the Trinitarian interpretation of _other_ passages which
attribute to the Holy Spirit, deity, personality, and operation. Now the
Trinitarians must allow us the privilege of taking our faith from
ourselves, not from them, and in carving out for us this employment, the
Lecturer at Christ Church would set us to the task of disproving our own
convictions, of overthrowing our own interpretations, of answering and
opposing _ourselves_. There is only one point of difference between the
Trinitarians and ourselves upon this subject, and that is the only point
to which their arguments never have a reference. They maintain and we
maintain that the Holy Spirit is God. They concede and we concede that
the expression “Holy Spirit” in scripture frequently signifies that
portion of God’s spirit which is given to man naturally or
supernaturally. They maintain however that the Holy Spirit is, not the
one God, but a third person in the godhead—_and here we separate from
them_, maintaining that the Scripture evidence for such a distribution
of the Godhead among several persons is totally imaginary, and that the
theological reasons for such a distribution betray the most arbitrary
and unworthy limitations assigned by man to the infinite and spiritual
nature of God. Now will it be believed that when Trinitarian
controversialists treat this subject they uniformly put forward those
views of it which we do not deny, as if we denied them, and they as
uniformly pass over the only point of difference between us, and avoid
all close grappling with it, laboriously proving that the holy Spirit is
God, which of course we believe, and then taking for granted that he _is
a third person_ in a Trinity, leaving the argument at the very point
where argument ought to have commenced? Will it be believed that the
Lecturer at Christ Church exhausted his strength and time in assiduously
proving that the spirit of God was God, and that it had understanding,
will, and power? Will it be believed that of nearly a three hours’
lecture, certainly not more than five minutes was devoted to the only
point of difference between us—that the common parts of our faith were
laboriously proved—if indeed such an identical proposition, as that the
spirit of God is God, can be called faith—and the single controverted
part left intact? I in my turn take the liberty of declaring that it is
of no avail that Trinitarians adduce passages of scripture attesting the
Deity, Personality, and Operations of the Holy Spirit, for that this is
conceded, if an identical proposition can be conceded,—and that what
they have to do is to prove that the spirit of God is not the one God,
but a third person in the godhead—and if the Lecturer had devoted his
three hours to this, the only point in controversy, he might have
greatly aided, or greatly injured his cause, and have afforded an
opportunity for testing the mutual strength of our views in a way which
is now not possible. Disappointed of finding the controversy conducted
with any closeness by the Lecturer in Christ Church on the only point by
us denied, namely a deity of the Holy Spirit, personally separate from
the deity of our one God, I turn to a published sermon of Dr.
Tattershall’s, in the hope of finding some discussion of our true
difference from an associated authority. But here unfortunately again
precisely the same principle is pursued of proving what is not denied,
and of passing most slightly over the only point of difference. In a
sermon consisting of thirty-four pages just three are devoted to the
matter in controversy,[528] and these I grieve to say occupied with
reasonings so verbal and unsatisfactory, that one is amazed that a manly
and reverential mind could offer or could accept them as the solid and
substantial proofs of a doctrine that affects to such an extent the
being and nature of God. I think it not unbecoming here to declare, that
with respect to the two modes of proof adopted by Trinitarians to
establish the separate deity of the Holy Spirit, the Scriptural proof,
and the Theological proof, I have long and laboriously sought in their
own writers, for some distinct controversial statement of the scriptural
and theological adjustments of this subject; I have examined their
scholars and critics for the verbal part of the argument, and their
divines for the theological part of it, and nowhere can I find anything
definite or tangible to grapple with or oppose. It is at least my
conviction that never was so serious a doctrine as that of a third
person in the godhead admitted upon evidence so small, and I cannot
conceal my strengthened impression, that it has glided into most minds
as an easy consequence from the deity of Christ. Again we avow our
belief that the Holy Spirit is God, but we declare that we cannot find
any scriptural evidence that he is a separate God (personally) from God
our Father, or any theological evidence that He performs a work within
our souls, which work may not be performed by God our Father. If
Trinitarians wish to establish their own doctrine, it is to these two
points that they ought to confine themselves.
Abandoned then to our own methods of discussing this subject by
opponents who assert a doctrine that we deny, and prove only those
portions of it that we admit, I shall endeavour to ascertain, first, the
Scriptural meaning of the expression, “the Holy Spirit” or “Spirit of
God.”
I shall examine the more difficult passages which are usually appealed
to in this controversy.
I shall examine what Trinitarians call “the work of the Spirit,” in
order to ascertain whether it requires a third person in the godhead, or
whether God our Father is not sufficient for it.
And I shall close with some statement of our own views of the
connections of the spirit of God with the spirit of man.