not only the effect of disgusting persons of taste, but of obscuring religion itself. As they are seldom defined, and never exchanged for equivalent words, they pass current without being understood. They are not the vehicle they are the substitute of thought. Among a certain description of Christians, they become by degrees to be regarded with a mystic awe; insomuch that, if a writer expressed the very same ideas in different phrases, he would be condemned as a heretic. To quit the magical circle of words, in which many Christians suffer themselves to be confined, excites as great a clamor as the boldest innovation in sentiment. Controversies, which have been agitated with much warmth, might often have been amicably adjusted, or even finally decided, could the respective partisans have been prevailed on to lay aside their predilection for phrases, and honestly resolve to examine their real import. In defiance of the dictates of candor and good sense, these have been obstinately retained, and have usually been the refuge of ignorance, the apple of discord, and the watchwords of religious hostility. ROBERT HALL: Review of

Foster's Essays; in Works, vol. ii. p. 243.

I may understand many things which I do not believe; but I cannot believe any thing which I do not understand, unless it be something addressed merely to my senses, and not to my thinking faculty. A man may with great propriety say, “I understand the Cartesian system of vortices, though I don't believe in it; but it is absolutely impossible for him to believe in that system without knowing what it is. A man may believe in the ability of the maker of a system, without understanding it; but he cannot believe in the system itself, without understanding it. —THOMAS ERSKINE, Esq., Advocate: Essay on Faith, p. 25.

Words which we do not understand are like words spoken in an unknown language: we can neither believe them nor disbelieve them, because we do not know what they say. For instance, I repeat these words, τοὺς πάντας ἡμᾶς φανερωθῆναι δεῖ ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ βήματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ. Now, if I were to ask, "Do you believe these words?" is it not manifest that all of you who know Greek enough to understand them may also believe them; but, of those who do not know Greek, not a single person can yet believe them? They are as words spoken to the air. But when I add that these words mean, "We must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ," now we can all believe them, because we can all understand them. - DR. THOMAS ARNOLD: Sermons on the Christian Life, pp. 291-2.

The danger of being not merely not understood, but misunderstood, should be guarded against most sedulously by all who wish not only to keep clear of error, but to inculcate important truth, by seldom or never employing this ambiguous word ["person"] without some explanation or caution. For if we employ, without any such care, terms which we must be sensible are likely to mislead, at least the unlearned and the unthinking, we cannot stand acquitted on the plea of not having directly inculcated error. . . . . To claim an uninquiring assent to expressions of man's framing (however judiciously framed), without even an attempt to ascertain their meaning, is to fall into one of the worst errors of the Romanists. ARCHBISHOP WHATELY:

Elements of Logic, Append. I., art. “Person.”

To the admirers of this liberal-minded primate, it would have been gratifying, had he stated, a little more clearly and candidly than he has done, his own conceptions of the theological import of the word "person;" and had he told them, whether, when speaking of the three persons in the Godhead, he means three names, relations, offices, characters; three somewhats; or three distinct intelligent agents. The tendency of the article, however, seems to us favorable to some form or other of the Sabellian theory.

Not only have professed theologians, but private Christians, been imposed on by the specious religion of terms of theology; and have betrayed often a fond zeal in the service of their idol-abstractions, not unlike that of the people of old, who are said to have beaten the air with spears to expel the foreign gods by whom their country was supposed to be occupied. For my part, I believe it to be one of the chief causes of the infidelity which prevails among speculative men.

The schoolmen are express in pointing out, after Augustine, that the term [persona] was adopted, not to express any definite notion, but to make some answer where silence would have been better; to denote, by some term, what has no suitable word to express it. "Tres nescio quid” is the expression of Anselm, in his "Monologium." — BISHOP HAMPDEN: Bampton Lectures, pp. 55–6, 133.

By the concessions of eminent Trinitarians, we have, in this section, exhibited a very obvious though an often-neglected principle, that, especially in matters of religion, no phraseology should be adopted which does not express ideas or sentiments capable of being understood. With regard, then, to the unscriptural words used to set forth the doctrine of the Trinity, there is only one alternative, either to acknowledge that they have no import, and should never be employed; or to allow that they are representatives of ideas, and should be clearly defined or explained. According to the former

admission, the dogma of a tripersonal Deity is barren, unintelligible, unmeaning; consisting of words devoid of thoughts, or involved in sounds without any signification. Agreeably to the latter, in keeping with which "hypostasis," ," "person," and other terms, are explained so as to be understood, the same dogma is, as we have previously shown, resolvable only into one of two principles, - Tritheism or Sabellianism; three Gods or three relations; a Trinity of eternal beings, either equal or unequal, either selfexistent, or, as respects two of the agents, derived and dependent, -or a sort of Unitarianism, which, while adhering essentially to the tenet of God's oneness, would annihilate, by its mysticism, the clear distinction made everywhere in the Christian Scriptures between the universal Father and his only-begotten or best-beloved Son.

We would not oppugn the motives of our Trinitarian brethren, or question the sincerity of their professions. With all her absurdities, Orthodoxy has held in her ranks many great and excellent men, some of them an honor to their race. But the wisest and the best often deceive themselves; and there are few who do not feel easily persuaded of the truth of opinions, which, though inconsistent with reason, are hallowed by tradition or by early and pious associations. An assent may therefore be given to propositions expressing the dogma of a Triune God, from a feeling, that, though unintelligible or contrary to common sense, they may be true; but assuredly there can be no real, unqualified, rational conviction of their truth. If a man says that there are three somewhats, distinctions, or diversities in one God, but has no conception of the meaning of the terms employed, he cannot be said to believe this proposition, any more than he could be said to believe it, if, without previous concert, he heard it announced in a language of which he was ignorant. If he states that there are three intelligent, infinite, equal persons in one infinite, intelligent, supreme being, and is unable, as we have proved, to attach any other signification to the word " person," with its qualifying epithets, than to the word "being," he virtually affirms that three beings are only one, which is an absurdity. And if, varying again the expression, he asserts that there are three names, relatives, characters, or impersonations in the one God, this he may indeed believe; but, so soon as he declares that one of these names, relatives, characters, or impersonations, addressed the others, or sent them into the world, either as equals or subordinates in the divine nature, he employs terms which are either nonsensical, or have no meaning.

Having thus, by the aid of its friends, shown that the Trinity in Unity, or Unity in Trinity, is a doctrine opposed to human reason, we proceed, in the next chapter, to use weapons drawn from the same armory, with the view of demolishing the position, that Trinitarianism is contained in the records of divine revelation.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE TRINITY IN UNITY, AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST, NOT DOCTRINES OF REVELATION.

SECT. I. THE TERMS "TRINITY, TRIUNE GOD, PERSON, HYPOSTASIS, HOMOOUSION," ETC., UNSCRIPTURAL AND IMPROPER.

All mysteries in the world are wholly supported by hard and unintelligible terms. SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

WE ought to believe that there are three persons and one essence in the Deity,—God the Father unbegotten, God the Son consubstantial with the Father, and God the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. But, though you attentively peruse the whole of Scripture, you will never find these sublime and remarkable words, "Three persons; one essence; unbegotten; consubstantial; proceeding from both.". COCHLEUS; apud Sandium, pp. 4, 5.

The word "Trinity" is never found in the Divine Records, but is only of human invention, and therefore sounds altogether frigidly (frigide). Far better would it be to say "God" than "Trinity."

There is no reason for objecting to me, that the word “homoousion" was made use of in opposition to the Arians. It was not received by many of the most eminent men, JEROME himself having wished to abolish the term; and, on this account, they did not escape peril. . . . But, though from my soul I abhor the word "homoousion," and am unwilling to employ it, I shall not therefore be a heretic. MARTIN LUTHER: Postil. Major., fol. 282; Confut. Rat. Latom., tom. ii. fol. 240.

The word "consubstantial” (óμoovσios), I confess, is not to be found in the Scripture. - JOHN CALVIN: Institutes, book iv. chap. viii. 16. The phrase, "Holy Trinity, one God," is dangerous and impro- LAMBERT DANEAU: Resp. ad Genebrard. cap. iii.; Opuscula,

per.

p. 1327.

The words "Trinity," "homoousion,"" hypostasis,' 99866 procession," &c. (which, for the better expressing of the catholic sense, they were forced to use), were not expressly to be found in the Holy Scriptures. BP. SANDERSON: Ad Clerum, a Sermon preached Oct. 8, 1641, p. 6. The words " Trinity," "person,” “homoousion," and others of a similar kind, besides being ambiguous, . never occur in the ScripPHILIP LIMBORCH: Theologia Christiana, lib. vii. cap. 21,

tures. $13.

...

This doctrine [that from the eternal essence there proceeded, from all eternity, two other essences, the Son and the Holy Spirit] cannot be expressed in an intelligible manner in the phrase, style, and dialect of the Holy Scripture alone; which may give no small cause of suspicion, were there no other reason besides, that it is not the doctrine of the apostles. There is no authority upon earth that can oblige us to substitute any expressions invented since the time of the apostles to those that these holy and inspired men themselves used. JOHN LE CLERC Abstract of Dr. Clarke's Polemical Writings, p. 126.

:

In p. 113, LE CLERC says that he prefers to Dr. Samuel Clarke's views the common opinion as to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

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It must be allowed that there is no such proposition as this, that one and the same God is three different persons," formally and in terms, to be found in the Sacred Writings, either of the Old or New Testament; neither is it pretended that there is any word of the same signification or importance with the word "Trinity," used in Scripture, with relation to God. — DR. ROBERT SOUTH: Considerations concerning the Trinity, p. 38.

......

The title of "Mother of God," applied to the Virgin Mary, is not perhaps so innocent as Dr. MOSHEIM takes it to be. . . . The invention and use of such mysterious terms as have no place in Scripture are undoubtedly pernicious to true religion. THEOPHILUS of Antioch [who died about the year 181, was] the first who made use of the word "Trinity" to express the distinction of what divines call persons in the Godhead. The Christian church is very little obliged to him for his invention. The use of this and other unscriptural terms, to which men attach either no ideas or false ones, has wounded charity and peace, without promoting truth and knowledge. It has produced heresies of the worst kind. DR. ARCHIBALD MACLAINE : Note in his Translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, cent. v. part ii. chap. 5, § 9; and Chronological Tables, cent. ii.