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CHAPTER VII.

GOD IS ONE. THE FATHER ONLY, THE TRUE GOD.

SECT. I. THE EXISTENCE OF A TRIUNE GOD NOT DISCERNIBLE BY THE LIGHT OF NATURE.

What more could fright my faith than Three in One? - Dryden.

By the light of nature we may discern the existence, the unity, and the providence of God, but not in respect to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for the mystery of the Trinity is completely hidden from our natural light. SALMERON: Commentarii, tom. iv. p. 505.

From the principles of nature the Trinity cannot be made known THEODORE HACKSPAN: Notæ in Difficilia Scripturæ Loca,

to us.

tom. i. p. 534.

What is there in the whole Book of God that nature, at first sight, doth more recoil at than the doctrine of the Trinity? How many do yet stumble and fall at it! — DR. JOHN OWEN: Divine Origin of the Scriptures, p. 132.

Though the Divinity be as to his nature one in essence, yet that he is three in hypostasis we believe, not from any thing our reason dictates, but from the word of God, and therefore by an act of pure faith; nor discovered to the world by any light of nature, but supernaturally revealed in time, and necessarily, since revealed, to be believed. — JOHN EVELYN: The True Religion, vol. i. p. 119.

We cannot subscribe to the opinion of such of our theologians as have endeavored to prove, to confirm, and by tedious similitudes to illustrate, this mystery, by arguments derived from nature. ... The doctrine of the Trinity, we confess, is a mystery which man, how distinguished soever for wisdom and industry, could not discover by the mere consideration of himself and the creatures. HERMAN WITSIUS: Dissertations on the Apostles' Creed, Diss. vi. 5, 15.

“God” is the name of a being absolutely perfect; and the light of nature teaches us that there is but one such Supreme Being, or but one God; but nature does not teach us that there are three divine persons, who are this one God. - DR. WM. SHERLOCK: Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 216.

Thus much I confess, that, take the thing [that one nature may subsist in three persons] abstract from divine revelation, there is nothing in reason able to prove that there is such a thing; but, &c. — DR. ROBERT SOUTH: Sermons, vol. iv. p. 288.

It is a vain attempt to go about to prove this [the doctrine of three persons in one divine essence] by reason; for it must be confessed, that we should have had no cause to have thought of any such thing, if the Scriptures had not revealed it to us. BISHOP BURNET:

Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. I. p. 42.

The doctrine of the Trinity... cannot be learned from the light of nature; for then we should certainly be able to behold some traces or footsteps thereof in the works of creation and providence, that so this might be understood thereby, as well as the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as the cause is known by its effect. DR. THOMAS RIDGLEY: Body of Divinity, vol. i. p. 230.

Where is the people to be found, where the individual, who learned the doctrine of the Trinity from the works of nature? I cannot suppose it would ever have suggested itself to a single mind, had it not been communicated, probably among the earliest revelations of God. ROBERT HALL: Letter 68; in Works, vol. iii. p. 274.

But we have seen there is no evidence that ever such a revelation was made.

If a man were to hold a protracted correspondence by letter with a stranger, that correspondence would reveal feeling, judgment, reason, passion, imagination, and all the other natural properties of the man; because the contents of his person will both yield, and dominate in, the matter of the correspondence, and will thus appear in the revelation made by it. Now, the world of nature is to God's person what the letter is to man; and is it not remarkable, that this world of nature —– looked upon, studied, and lived in, for four thousand years — had awakened no suspicion or thought of a threefold nature in its Author (excepting perhaps in the questionable instance of the Platonic Trinity), and has not even to this day? If there were any such constitutional metaphysical threeness in the divine nature, is it credible that an expression of God, so vast and manifold, would not have made even

a conspicuous show of it? I state no such conclusion. . . . I state a simple fact, for which I am not responsible. - HORACE BUSHNELL : Christ in Theology, p. 166.

With all the temerity of speculation, it has been reserved, we believe, for the nineteenth century to demonstrate so abstruse and incomprehensible a doctrine as that of the Triune nature of God. It had been attempted before to show, that such a tenet was not inconsistent with reason; and so far as it is practicable, in this way, to remove the difficulties which the mind encounters in assenting, on mere authority, to a proposition which it can neither deny nor comprehend, the effort were well enough. But now they have discovered that such a condition of Deity is not only rational, but necessary; absolutely essential to eternal existence and the work of creation; and, if their premises be correct, the most simple and obvious thing imaginable. The argument is presented by a recent author as follows: It first assumes, that any being, even the Self-existent, could not be conscious of its own existence, without the cognizance of some object extraneous to itself; and if not capable of self-consciousness, much less of creation, or any other act of Deity. Hence the necessity of the eternal existence of a second person, — of a contemplator and a contemplated, the Father and the Son. It next assumes, as a primary truth or an unquestionable premise, that the necessary two could not exist in harmony, in unity, without the intervention of a third as the medium of union; and this brings us to the idea of a Trinity, absolutely, and in the nature of things, necessary. For this last point, this doctrine of a spiritual mordant,

the intervention of a third

substance, in order to effect a union, what is this but metaphysical chemistry? And, if chemistry is pre-eminently an empirical science, who has experimented thus far? And did he conjure, or how confine spirits in his crucible? What were the tests? and where, pray show us, the laboratory of this modern alchemist? And yet, grave doctors of theology gravely announce such dogmas for the edification of those who count it wisdom to wonder at the lofty strides which reason is taught to practise. But to return to the former part of this argument, - that self-consciousness is not possible without an apprehension of something besides self. Grant the truth of this premise, and how do we know it? Who shall demonstrate it? Or how was it discovered? But is the premise true? If it be, we have only to say, it is hugely at odds with common experience; nor will it, without further light, appear to all to consist with the higher efforts of reason and

metaphysical analysis. It is certainly at variance with the first principles of the Cartesian philosophy. For that, in running down the celebrated anti-climax, — the dubito, cogito, sum, — arrives at a conviction of the Me, without even a suspicion of the Not Me; it discovers and surveys the whole region of self-consciousness, in entire ignorance if that be not the universe. Nay, it next seriously doubts whether it be possible "by means of thought," that is, as we understand, by any process of abstract reasoning, to overstep this boundary, to proceed from the inner to the outer, to advance from a consciousness of self to the knowledge of a second reality. What is this but a house divided against itself? And let it fall. PROFESSOR H. M. JOHNSON, in Methodist Quarterly Review for January, 1853; fourth series, vol. v. pp. 32-3.

—

In his Introductory Essay to Coleridge's Works (vol. i. pp. 42–3), Professor SHEDD, while contending for what he calls "the position of the Christian theology, that, irrespective of His manifestation in the universe, antecedent to the creation, and in the solitude of his own eternity, God is personally self-conscious, and therefore Triune," and for the rationality of the doctrine of the Trinity, which, he says, " contains the only adequate and final answer to the standing objection of Pantheism, viz., that an Infinite Being cannot be personal, because all personal self-consciousness implies limitation," confesses at the same time that "such abstruse and recondite speculation," namely, as to the necessity of a Trinity in the divine nature, "is very apt to run into" "the pantheistic conception of the Deity" which it is intended to destroy.

If this be one of the results of investigations so daring and so irreverent, and the professor himself refers as an example to "the Trinity of Hegel," it is not surprising that "for the last two centuries," as he says (p. 41), "it has been customary among English and American theologians to receive the doctrine of the Trinity purely on the ground of its being revealed in Scripture" (or, which would be more correct, on the ground of its being deducible by reason from a combination of the elements of various texts); and that "attempts to establish its rationality have, in the main, been deprecated."

See the section on the irrationality of the dogma of a Triune God, p. 317.

In the last chapter, it was acknowledged by many divines belonging to orthodox churches, that a Trinity in Unity, or a Unity in Trinity, is not a doctrine of express revelation; and here it is admitted, that the same doctrine receives no countenance whatever from the light of reason and of nature. It will now be shown, from similar authorities, that the unity and self-existence of God constitute a fundamental principle of both natural and revealed religion.

SECT. II. - THE UNITY OF GOD A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF BOTH NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION.

There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit; invisible; without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, &c. - WESTMINSTER DIVINES.

§ 1. IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE DIVINE UNITY.

When we come to compare events, and to take them all into our minds at once; when we observe that there is an unity of design in them all, considered collectively, we ascribe them all ultimately to one great Intelligence, and consider him a person....... There is one thing never to be forgotten for a moment; that is, the unity of God. Scripture and reason jointly proclaim there is but one God: however the proofs of the Divinity of the Son and Holy Ghost may seem to interfere with this, nothing is to be allowed them but what is consistent with it. The divine nature, or substance, can therefore be but "one substance;" the divine power can be but "one power." -DR. JOHN HEY: Lectures in Divinity, vol. i. p. 8; ii. pp. 250-1.

The denial of that doctrine [the unity of God] would be an error of still more alarming magnitude than the denial of the distinction of persons in the Godhead. . . . . . . There may be some diversity of opinion respecting the degree of certainty with which the doctrine may be learned by the light of nature; but in the doctrine itself, that God IS ONE, as a doctrine fully certified by revelation, and according with every principle of enlightened reason, there is perfect agreement. DR. RALPH WARDLAW: Unitarianism Incapable of Vindication, pp. 99, 301.

If he [Dr. Drummond] had taken the trouble to examine authentic documents of churches that believe that there are three persons in the Godhead, or the writings of persons who are held in any esteem by us, he would have found that the unity of God is always insisted upon as the very foundation of all religion.- JAMES CARLILE: Jesus Christ the Great God our Saviour, p. 28.

Among all the different explanations [of the doctrine of the Trinity] which I have found, I have not met with any one which denied, or at least was designed to deny, the UNITY OF GOD. All admit this to be a fundamental principle; all acknowledge that it is designated in cha