SECT. III. THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD NOT LESS REPUGNANT TO REASON AND COMMON SENSE, THAN THAT OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

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.

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: Literary Remains, vol. iv. p. 104.

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 mysteries? What becomes of that very mystery which you observe Mr. Faber put upon a parallel with that of transubstantiation, regarding this argument? What becomes of the Trinity? What becomes of the incarnation of our Saviour? What becomes of his birth from a virgin?— in short, of every mystery of the Christian religion? Who will pretend to say, that he can, by any stretch of his imagination or of his reasoning, see it possible how three persons in one God can be but one Godhead? If the contradiction-the apparent contradiction to the laws of nature, as usually observed and understood by us, is to be the principle for rejecting a notion clearly laid down in Scripture, and if the Eucharist, which is more clearly laid down than the Trinity, is to be rejected on that ground, how is it possible, for a moment, to support the doctrine of the Trinity? The very idea is itself, at first sight, apparently repugnant to the law of number; and no mathematical, no speculative reasoning will ever show how it possibly can be? You are content, then to receive that important mystery, shutting your eyes to its difficulties, as you should do. You admit it, because it is revealed in God's word, and still more because that revelation is confirmed by the authority of antiquity. And therefore, if you wish not to be plied with the same arguments as you use against us, you must shut up that method of reasoning, and admit that mysteries are to be tried by the simple word of God, and that

they are to be received at once, in spite of contradiction, apparent contradiction to our senses, simply because God reveals them, who hath the words of eternal life. Dr. WISEMAN: Lectures on the Doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 370-1. [Similarly, many other Roman Catholic authors.]

SECT. IV. — THE DOCTRINE OF A TRIUNE GOD UTTERLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE, AND OPPOSED TO REASON.

This is the great mystery, Three and One, and One and Three. Men and angels were made for this spectacle: we cannot comprehend it, and therefore must admire it. O luminosissimæ Tenebræ! Light darkness!... They were the more Three, because One; and the more One, because Three. Were there nothing to draw us to desire to be dissolved but this, it were enough. DR. THOMAS MANTON: Sermons on John xvii; vol. ii. p. 307. [See also p. 37.]

For that any one should be both Father and Son to the same person [to David], produce himself, be cause and effect too, and so the copy give being to its original, seems at first sight so very strange and unaccountable, that, were it not to be adored as a mystery, it would be exploded as a contradiction. DR. SOUTH: Sermons, vol. iii. p. 240.

I ever did, and ever shall, look upon those apprehensions of God to be the truest, whereby we apprehend him to be the most incomprehensible, and that to be the most true of God which seems most impossible unto us. Upon this ground, therefore, it is that the mysteries of the gospel, which I am less able to conceive, I think myself the more obliged to believe; especially this mystery of mysteries, the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, which I am so far from being able to comprehend, or indeed to apprehend, that I cannot set myself seriously to think of it, or to screw up my thoughts a little concerning it, but I immediately lose myself as in a trance or ecstacy: that God the Father should be one perfect God of himself, God the Son one perfect God of himself, and God the Holy Ghost one perfect God of himself; and yet that these three should be but one perfect God of himself, so that one should be perfectly three, and three perfectly one; that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, should be Three, and yet but One; but One, and yet Three! O heart-amazing, thought-devouring, unconceivable mystery! Who cannot believe it to be true of the glorious Deity? &c. &c.—BISHop Beveridge: Private Thoughts on Religion, Art. iii. pp. 52-3. [See also Private Thoughts, part ii. pp. 88-9.]

F

The doctrine of the Communication of Properties is as intelligible as if one were to say, that there is a circle which is so united with a triangle, that the circle has the properties of the triangle, and the triangle those of the circle. LE CLERC; apud Rev. J. H. Thom's Lecture on the Origin, &c. of the Doct. of the Trinity, p. 46.

The revelation of it [that is, the Trinity] is, I conceive, an absolute demonstration of its truth; because it is a mystery which could not possibly by nature have entered into the imagination of man. Faith in these mysteries is more acceptable to God than faith in the less abstruse articles of our religion, because it pays that honour that is due to his testimony; and the more seemingly incredible the matter is which we believe, the more respect we show to the relater of it. DR. EDWARD YOUNG: Letter on Infidelity; apud J. Scott Porter's Twelve Lectures on Christian Unitarianism, p. 114.

That three Beings should be one Being, is a proposition which certainly contradicts reason, that is our reason; but it does not from thence follow, that it cannot be true; for there are many propositions which contradict our reason, and yet are demonstrably true. SOAME JENYNS: A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion, p. 140, ninth edition.

In this awfully stupendous manner [that is, in the scheme of redemption as maintained by Trinitarians], at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith herself is half confounded, was the grace of God to man at length manifested. BISHOP HURD: Sermons at Lincoln's Inn, vol. ii. No. xvii.; apud Yates's Sequel, p. 17.

When it is proposed to me to affirm, that "in the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;" I have difficulty enough! my understanding is involved in perplexity, my conceptions bewildered in the thickest darkness. I pause, I hesitate; I ask what necessity there is for making such a declaration. ...... But does not this confound all our conceptions, and make us use words without meaning? I think it does. I profess and proclaim my confusion in the most unequivocal manner: I make it an essential part of my declaration. Did I pretend to understand what I say, I might be a Tritheist or an infidel; but I could not both worship the one true God, and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be Lord of all. It might tend to promote moderation, and, in the end, agreement, if we were industrious on all occasions to represent our own doctrine [respecting the Trinity] as wholly unintelligible. DR. HEY: Lectures in Divinity, vol. ii. pp. 249, 251, 253.

......

The most formidable objection to the Nicene and Athanasian Creed is, that it makes such a statement respecting the doctrine of the Trinity, as destroys the idea of full and proper equality of the persons of the Godhead. The Son is made dependent on the Father; and the Spirit also, &c.- PROFESSOR STUART: Comm. on the Romans. Exc. i.

My belief in the Trinity is based on the authority of the church: no other authority is sufficient. I will now show from reason, that the Athanasian Creed and Scripture are opposed to one another. The doctrine of the Trinity is this: There is one God in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. Mind, the Father is one person, the Son is another person, and the Holy Ghost is another person. Now, according to every principle of mathematics, arithmetic, human wisdom, and policy, there must be three Gods; for no one could say that there are three persons and three Gods, and yet only one God..... The Athanasian Creed gives the universal opinion of the church, that the Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Ghost uncreated that they existed from all eternity. Now, the Son was born of the Father; and, if born, must have been created. The Holy Ghost must also have been created, as he came from the Father and the Son.

time when they did not exist.

And, if so, there must have been a If they did not exist, they must have been created; and therefore to assert that they are eternal is absurd, and bangs nonsense. Each has his distinct personality: each has own essence. How, then, can they be one Eternal? How can they be all God? Absurd. The Athanasian Creed says, that they are three persons, and still only one God. Absurd; extravagant! This is rejected by Arians, Socinians, Presbyterians, and every man following human reason. The creed further says, that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God and of man, "not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God." Now, I ask you, did the Divinity absorb the manhood? He could not be at the same time one person and two persons. I have now proved the Trinity opposed to human reason. — JAMES HUGHES, Roman Catholic Priest, of Newport Pratt, county Mayo; apud Bible Christian for Jan. 1839.

[Can language be more explicit in asserting, that the doctrine of a Triune Deity is diametrically opposed to the best use of our rational faculties? and may not the sentiments here expressed be all resolved into the absurd proposition, "We Trinitarians believe in our dogmas, because they are mysterious, unintelligible, and impossible"?]

SECT. V.

SCHOLASTIC TERMS EITHER UNINTELLIGIBLE, AND THEREFORE USELESS OR PERNICIOUS; OR EXPRESSIVE OF IDEAS, AND FOR THAT REASON OUGHT TO BE DEFINED.

[Treating of the term homousion, the great German reformer makes the following judicious observations:] The purity of Scripture ought to be preserved, and man should not presume to speak in his own language more perfectly than God spoke in his. Who understands things belonging to God, better than God himself? Let wretched mortals give honour to God, and either confess that they do not understand his words, or cease to profane them with their own new and peculiar expressions; so that divine wisdom, lovely in its genuine form, may remain to us pure.-LUTHER: Confut. Rat. Latom. tom. ii. fol. 240.

St. Paul left an excellent precept to the church to avoid profanos vocum novitates, "the profane newness of words;" that is, it is fit that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be preached and taught in the words of the Scripture, and with that simplicity, openness, easiness, and candour, and not with new and unhallowed words, such as that of transubstantiation. BISHOP TAYLOR; apud Coleridge's Literary Remains, vol. iii. p. 378.

The schoolmen have much more of this jargon and canting language; and I envy no man the understanding these phrases: but to me they seem to signify nothing, but to have been words invented by idle and conceited men, which a great many ever since, lest they should seem to be ignorant, would seem to understand; but I wonder most, that men, when they have amused and puzzled themselves and others with hard words, should call this explaining things. - ARCHBP. TILLOTSON: Sermons, vol. i. p. 607; Serm. lxxxi.

Essence and hypostasis, substance, subsistence, person, existence, nature, &c. are terms very differently used by Greek and Latin Fathers in this dispute, and have very much obscured this doctrine, instead of explaining it. - DR. WM. SHERLOCK: Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, sect. v. p. 101.

We can believe a thing no further than we understand the terms in which it is proposed to us; for faith concerns only the truth and falsehood of propositions, and the terms of which a proposition consists must be first understood before we can pronounce any thing concerning the truth or falsehood of it; which is nothing else but the agreement or disagreement of its terms, or the ideas expressed