A threefold manifestation to mankind of the one God WHATELY: Sermons, p. 200. Characters standing in three relations to us. Manifestations of the Godhead Distinct and separate beings Three distinct subsistences; Creators Three divine beings or persons Not three infinite beings Same, p. 203. MILMAN H.of Ch. vol.ii.p.425. : Same, vol. ii. p. 431. HOPKINS: Works, vol. i. p. 62. DWIGHT, Ser. 71, near end. Same, Ser. 39, in vol. ii. p. 8. Same, pp. 371-2. Same, p. 375. Same, p. 373. EMMONS: Wks. vol. iv. p. 107. Same, as quoted by Miller. MILLER: Letters on the Eter. [Sonship, pp. 51-2. Same, p. 272. Same, p. 107. BUSHNELL: God in Christ, pp. Three impersonations existing under finite conditions Same, p. 173. A threefold distinction, out of which arises a threefold manifestation to man POND: Review of Bushnell. HAVEN, in New Eng. for 1850. TITLES, ATTRIBUTES, AND FUNCTIONS OF THE THREE PERSONS IN THE GODHEAD. particular way His Godhead communicated from His Godhead communicated by the ( PEARSON on the Creed, Art. I. & VIII. Father and the Son The Holy Ghost doth execute All divine properties except one The divine nature thinking in one The divine nature thinking in an- The divine nature thinking in an other different way The Son executes other different way God's being in the Christ. church Acts in subord. to the Son and Fa. pp. 48, 452. BARROW: Works, vol. ii. p. 544. HEN. MORE: Myst. of Godl. b. ix. c. ii. BEVERIDGE: Pr. Thoughts, Art. III. (THOLUCK: Theol. Encyc. in Biblioth. EMMONS: Works, vol. iv. p. 109. BUSHNELL: God in Christ, p. 173. § 14. THE APOSTOLIC OR UNITARIAN TRINITY (resumed). As a brief escape from the labyrinth of darknesses and contradictions in which we have been groping, we would again advert to the simple and more scriptural Trinity mentioned in pp. 260-2, and, with the liberal writers whom we quote, breathe an atmosphere of a purer and a more sacred kind. He that goes about to speak of and to understand the mysterious Trinity, and does it by words and names of man's invention, or by such which signify contingently, if he reckons this mystery by the mythology of numbers, by the cabala of letters, by the distinctions of the school, and by the weak inventions of disputing people; if he only talks of essences and existences, hypostases and personalities, distinctions without difference, and priority in co-equalities, and unity in pluralities, and of superior predicates of no larger extent than the inferior subjects, — he may amuse himself, and find his understanding will be like St. Peter's upon the mount of Tabor at the transfiguration; he may build three tabernacles in his head, and talk something, but he knows not what. But the good man that feels the "power of the Father," and he to whom "the Son" is become "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;" he in "whose heart the love of the Spirit of God is spread;" to whom God hath communicated the 'Holy Ghost, the Comforter," this man, though he understands nothing of that which is unintelligible, yet he only understands the mysteriousness of the holy Trinity. JEREMY TAYLOR: Via Intelli 66 gentiæ; in Works, vol. vi. pp. 402–3. so utterly Let it be remarked, that apostolic Trinitarian doctrine unlike the crabbed definitions of a wrangling and unevangelic agebrings the inscrutable mystery of the divine nature to bear immediately upon the affections, under an aspect of pleasurable emotion. How little has this been regarded by angry disputants! How grievously have those misunderstood apostolic orthodoxy who have pursued each other to the death, because not consenting to the same jargon as themselves! We cannot too attentively regard the apostolic method of teaching this great truth, of shedding it into the heart. Our creed, if derived from the Scriptures, speaks to us of "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the love of God, and of the communion of the Holy Ghost." This is the orthodoxy which, when cordially entertained, impels Christians to love each other and all men, and to abound in good works, at sacrifices and offerings, with which "God is well pleased." - ISAAC TAYLOR: Lect. on Spir. Christianity, p. 173. The author of these catholic and Christian views unquestionably means to speak of the "apostolic Trinitarian doctrine," not only in contrast with an orthodoxy, which, while wrangling in unintelligible terms about evangelic faith, is found wanting in the first duties of morality, but also in opposition to Unitarianism. There is, however, no Unitarian who would not cordially admit the apostle Paul's method of teaching Trinitarianism, here recommended; a Trinitarianism which, speaking of Christ, God, and his spirit, restricts the usual name of the Deity to one being or person, in connection with the spiritual benefits of the gospel. Both John and Paul place the essence of Christian theism in worshipping God as the Father through the Son, in the communion of the divine life which he has established, or in the communion of the Holy Spirit, the Father through the Son dwelling in mankind, animated by his Spirit, agreeably to the triad of the Pauline benediction, the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. xiii. 14); and this is the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity in the connection of Christian experience. It has an essentially practical and historical significance and foundation: it is the doctrine of God revealed in humanity, which teaches men to recognize in God not only the original Source of existence, but also of salvation and sanctification. — NEANDER: History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church, vol. ii. p. 56. or We quote the remainder of our author's paragraph, which, though exhibiting his approval of the full development of the Triune doctrine, rather, as we should express it, of a gradual change from Theism to Tritheism, shows at the same time that that development, or that change, was the product, not of "revelation," but of a prying and a diseased intellect: "From this Trinity of revelation, as far as the divine causality images itself in the same, the reflective mind, according to the analogy of its own being, pursuing this track, seeks to elevate itself to the idea of an original Triad in God, availing itself of the intimations which are contained in John's doctrine of the Logos, and the cognate elements of the Pauline theology." Had the monotheistic Trinity of Paul and John, so well depicted by NEANDER, been the only Trinity that had prevailed in the church of Christ, what an amount of logomachy, of error, of strife, and of persecution, would have been avoided! But, unhappily for the interests of Christian truth and love, the professed disciples of Jesus, not content with the practical simplicity of the gospel, sought to "elevate" their minds "to the idea of an original Triad in God," by "availing" themselves of the supposed "intimations which are contained" in the writings of Paul and John, and by blending them with the reveries of heathen philosophers, and the tendencies of the people to give a false direction to their feelings of reverence for moral and spiritual worth. SECT. II. THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD INCOMPREHENSIBLE I am well assured, that God, who made our faculties, will never offer any thing to us to believe that upon close debate does plainly contradict them.-HENRY MORE. § 1. THIS DOGMA, NO LESS THAN TRANSUBSTANTIATION, OPPOSED TO COMMON SENSE. Indeed, that Transubstantiation is openly and violently against natural reason is no argument to make them disbelieve it who believe the mystery of the Trinity in all those niceties of explication which are in the school (and which now-a-days pass for the doctrine of the church), with as much violence to the principles of natural and supernatural philosophy as can be imagined to be in the point of Transubstantiation. JEREMY TAYLOR: Liberty of Prophesying, sect. xx. 16. On another passage, of a similar character, in JEREMY TAYLOR's works, COLERIDGE, in his "Literary Remains" (Works, vol. v. p. 229), says, "It is most dangerous, and, in its distant consequences, subversive of all Christianity, to admit, as TAYLOR does, that the doctrine of the Trinity is at all against, or even above, human reason in any other sense than as eternity and Deity itself are above it." Undoubtedly, the prelate's admission would be "subversive of all Christianity," if a Trinity of co-equal persons in one God were proved to be a Christian doctrine; but this, in our opinion, never has been, and never will be, proved. I was half converted to Transubstantiation by TILLOTSON'S common senses against it; seeing clearly that the same grounds, totidem verbis et syllabis, would serve the Socinian against all the mysteries of Christianity. S. T. COLERIDGE: Lit. Remains; Works, vol. v. p. 333. But, my brethren, as I before hinted, are we safe in at all admitting this principle of contradiction to the law of nature, of apparent violation of philosophical principles, as a means of interpreting Scripture? What, I will ask, becomes of all mystery?... What becomes of that very mystery which we observed FABER put in a parallel with that of Transubstantiation when he commented upon this argument? What becomes of the Trinity? What becomes of the incarnation of our Saviour? What of his birth from a virgin? and, in short, what of every mystery of the Christian religion? Who will pretend to say, that he can, by any stretch of his imagination or of his reason, see |