against the objections of its unreasonableness,* from which we make a quotation.

"It is strange boldness in men," says Bishop Stillingfleet, "to talk of contradictions in things above their reach. Hath God not revealed to us that he created all things; and is it not reasonable for us to believe this, unless we are able to comprehend the manner of doing it? Hath not God plainly revealed that there shall be a resurrection from the dead? And must we think it unreasonable to believe it, till we are able to comprehend all the changes of the particles of matter from the creation to the general resurrection? If nothing is to be believed but what may be comprehended, the very being of God must be rejected, and all his unsearchable perfections. If we believe the attributes of God to be infinite how can we comprehend them? We are strangely puzzled in plain ordinary finite things; but it is madness to pretend to comprehend what is infinite; and yet, if the perfections of God be not infinite, they cannot belong to him.

"Let those who presume to say that there is a contradiction in the Trinity, try their imaginations about God's eternity, not merely how he should be from himself, but how God should co-exist with all the differences of times, and yet there be no succession in his own being; and they will, perhaps, concur with me in thinking that there is no greater difficulty in the conception of the Trinity than there is of eternity. For three to be one is a contradiction in numbers; but whether an infinite nature can communicate itself to three different substances, without such a division as is among created beings, must not be determined by bare numbers, but by the absolute perfections of the Divine nature: which must be owned to be above our comprehension."

The justly celebrated and admired John Howe has, among his works, a short treatise on this subject, entitled "A calm Discourse of the Trinity in the Godhead," in which there is a very lucid and satisfactory exposition of the perfect consistency of this doctrine with the conceptions of the human mind, and of the impossibility of

* London, 1697.

finding in it anything either absurd or contradictory* to our reason, and to the constitution of our compound nature, or to our present knowledge of what is possible, though beyond our comprehension.

Another work has not long since been published on the doctrine of Triads,† of which it has been said, "This is decidedly the most original work which has appeared for some time." The design of the author is to illustrate the doctrine of a Divine Trinity, by tracing a triplicity of character, not only in Scripture, but in every part of the natural and moral world. The mass of evidence which he has gathered together is truly astonishing, and exhibits, not only vast labour, pursued with untiring patience, but likewise a familiar acquaintance with the languages and literature, both of ancient and modern times. His great aim, throughout the whole of his remarkable work, has been the discovery and advancement of truth, of which he feels himself the influence and value. All is subservient to this; and therefore while he displays great ingenuity and much keenness of perception, he never suffers himself to be influenced by mere fancy. He demonstrates the existence of a triform impression on the human mind, as exemplified in the singular frequency of the tertian form of expression in speaking and writing, and in our ideas of superstition, law, majesty and dominion; he shows the same impression as prevailing in the physical world, in the theology of the heathen, and throughout the Scripture, as well in its facts as in its mode of expression.

From what has been advanced, it will be seen that the doctrine of the Trinity is, not only not contradictory to reason and to the invisible things of God, which are clearly seen in all his works and ways, but that it is in consonance with the eternal power and Godhead as manifested in our own wonderful constitution, and as displayed in all his works and ways.

* The reader will do well to consult this Treatise, particularly § ii.-xii., pp. 307-11.

In the Albion, which contained large extracts from it, many others have supposed that traces of this doctrine are imprinted on all the works of God.-Baxter's Works, vol. 2, pp. 14, 15, Fol. Ed. Cheyne's Phil. Prine. of Revealed Religion, pp. 99, 113. Owen's Works, vol. 10.

See Howe, as above.

But it is further objected that the very term Trinity, is of human origin, and is not Scriptural, and that, therefore, the doctrine itself, is unwarranted by the Word of God. But this objection comes with a very ill grace indeed, from those who claim so much for the office and power of reason. For all that is proper and competent to reason, and essential to the progress and improvement of knowledge we earnestly contend, since it is both our right and duty to know all that we have the means of knowing, as well as to be willing to be ignorant where knowledge is withheld. Now, the analogy between Natural and Revealed Religion, which is found to exist in so many essential particulars, is equally striking, as it regards the form in which truth is placed before the human mind in each of these departments of knowledge. Revelation, like nature, presents a vast collection of particular facts, not arranged scientifically, but apparently without any order, symmetry, or system. As in nature every fact or object is single, and found, as it would seem to the ignorant and uninformed, in apparent isolation or disunion; so have the inspired writers delivered their sublimest doctrines in popular language in an incidental isolated form, or in connection with some history or precept, and "have abstained,-as much as it was possible to abstain, from a philosophical or metaphysical phraseology." In nature, and in Revelation also, it is found that the earliest formations were the most simple, and adapted to a lower condition in the one case of animal, and in the other of mental and spiritual developement, until both were at length, brought to that finished state which was best adapted to the whole of man's earthly history and necessities. This being the case, reason has the same office and duty to discharge in reference, both to nature and revelation. First, the facts or truths as they actually and certainly exist must be discovered, and then they must be arranged, classified, and systematized, in order that from them may be deduced general truths and comprehensive systems of knowledge. Otherwise, the human mind would know nothing of the natural world but particular facts, and as it regards revelation, instead of being, as the Apostle says, "perfect," that is, able to comprehend the more

wagi na mysteries of the Christian faith, sall be but babes in Christ," acquainted ute ist, or elementary principles of religion, Die a arrive at the full measure of the staeet mer in Christ Jesus."

nature and revelation, therefore, the facts or ng known with sufficient certainty, "the proass vinparison, deduction, analysis, and combinawhich alone, we can form comprehensive syses of sowledge, cannot be carried on with conce and perspicuity, without the use of general

The propriety, therefore, of using such general terms eyess our knowledge of the particular facts or truths Sture, which we have classified and arranged, ess on the same foundation as the use of general small scientific investigations, namely, that they we abbreviations of language, and serve as instruments Dought." "The proper consideration is, whether the cs and facts for which they are used as a compenCas notation, are not asserted and implied in the Scrip

“་་ ་་་

therefore, we find not the word TRINITY in Scripvet, if we do find in Scripture what amounts to a proof of the TRUTH that word expresses;—if it is ved by Scripture that God is in essence, that is, naeer Godhead, only ONE, and that he will not give his e to another, and if the Son as begotten, and the So as proceeding,-are, nevertheless, both declared to Arally and truly God,-then it follows by the inevitaSe necessity of intuitive reason, that these three persons e severally God, and yet that God is one,—that is, that

IN A TRINITY. The facts being found in Scripture, human reason must stultify itself, refuse to follow its own intuitive and necessary conclusion from the sos; and contrary to its right, office, and duty, in erence to all other truth, and especially as we have wain reference to revealed truth, refuse to employ a oral term for its own convenience, as an instrument hought, and as a medium of instruction.‡

suith, ill, p. 421.

Ib.

tee Owen's Works, vol. 10, pp. 471, 472, 503, 504, and 511.

And who are they who would dethrone and silence reason, in this her legitimate and proper office? The very persons who would insist upon our adopting the term Unity, which is not Scriptural, and not only the term unity, but this term with a metaphysical explanation of the meaning, requiring us to believe that the infinite Jehovah, the ever existing and uncreated source of all being, is such an one as his own finite creatures, and that he, therefore, is, and can be only an absolute and personal unity; and all this, as we maintain and believe, in plain and palpable contrariety to the facts found in revelation? How many other terms also, such as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, do they and we employ in presenting in what is believed a convenient and general form, the individual, isolated, and unsystematised statements of Scripture, in reference to God and man, time and eternity, doctrine and duty.

It would, therefore, be just and proper to deny the doctrine of the divine ubiquity or omnipresence, and many other truths, because the terms by which they are described are not found in Scripture, as to deny that of the Trinity because the term Trinity, is not found in Scripture. If this doctrine is not directly, positively, and in explicit definition declared in Scripture, this is equally true of other fundamental articles of religion, admitted by Jew and Christian, such as the being of God, the existence of angels, the resurrection of the dead, and future retribution, which, though evidently derived from the inspired penmen, and now invariably received among the professors of Judaism, do not, in the volumes of holy writ, appear in the form of plain propositions, as, that God is, that angels exist, that the dead shall be raised again, and, that men shall be rewarded according to their actions; but being frequently intimated and assumed, posterity is satisfied, that, with the ancient Hebrews, they formed a very essential and prominent part of their theological system.*

We have no zeal for the term Trinity any more than for the terms person, unity of God, omnipresence, &c.,

*See Oxlee's Christian Doctrines, Explained on Jewish Dunc., vol i, pp. 33, 34, on the objection to the term God-man, or the anthropos. See Burgess' Tracts, pp. lxiv.-lxvi.