first, and were asked if it was warm, would, in order to induce their companions to follow them, say, "O yes, it is very, very warm;" when it was evident by their very articulation that they could hardly speak for cold. Now, Sir, I pay less regard to your verbal declaration, in judging of your real feelings, than to your embarrassed method of making it. On this subject of subscription and establishments, I would take the liberty to recommend to your particular attention our friend Mr. Berington's late tract on the Rights of Dissenters. It will instruct you, and the age in which it is written. By such writings as these the Catholics, becoming truly what their name imports, will no longer lie under the odium that their intolerance in former times has entailed upon the character, (though in fact an intolerance of which all Protestant churches that have had power have sufficiently shared with them,) and will teach us that liberality and moderation which many of us have yet to learn. You, Sir, in particular may learn from this treatise the important doctrine of the independence of the true church of Christ on any civil power in the world, and to be more proud of being frowned upon, than of being favoured by, any state, flattered as you are with the honours and emoluments it has to bestow. It will shew you that what you are now so proud of are your chains, though made of gold, whether at present you feel the weight of them, or not. Should his vigorous mind emancipate itself entirely, as it has already in part, from its present subjection to church authority, (by which, however, the greatest men in all ages have been unfortunately enslaved,) and he should find himself at liberty to range at large, under the conduct of reason alone, he will not, I am persuaded, do things, as you have done, by halves. He will not be diverted from the glorious pursuit of truth by any golden apples that may be thrown in his way, or exchange one set of chains for another, fancying that he has no choice but of those which suit him best. I am, &c. LETTER VI. Of the Doctrine of the Trinity, and particularly of Distinctions in the Godhead. REV. SIR, As you do not profess to controvert what I have undertaken to defend with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity; but content yourself with an authorative ipse dixit on the subject, I have no occasion to consider what you have advanced in favour of it, either from metaphysical considerations or from the Scriptures, especially after that most clear and masterly reply which Mr. Clark has made to your Address, as far as those articles are concerned. I shall therefore do little more than shew your inconsistency with yourself in subscribing to such a doctrine, as an example to young and incautious men ; and to apprize them of the fatal snares into which they may be drawn by such subscriptions. For it will appear that you must have put great force upon your mind in attempting to reconcile your subscription with reason and scripture. As a maxim on which to set out in the discussion of this subject, and in which I entirely agree with you, you say, that "a thing may be said to be contrary to reason, which contradicts some other proposition, which is either selfevident, or which can be undeniably proved from one that really is so." You also disclaim "a blind, implicit faith which has no proper object to which our ideas can be attached." You then assert, that "every single part of the Athanasian Creed is strictly and logically true, though not perhaps expressed in the most unexceptionable words."§ Let us now see how you explain the parts of this logical creed on such rational principles. You say, that "there is a real distinction in the Godhead, whatever the nature of this distinction be;" and, that "these distinctions have been made known to us under the idea and appellation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."¶ That there may be something in the Divine nature that may be denominated by the term distinction, (whether it be one distinction or three distinctions; for you use both the expressions,) cannot be denied, because it is a subject concerning which we know nothing at all. But that revelation evidently points it out to us, is surely saying too much; when no mention is made in revelation of any distinction in the Divine nature at all, and when this is a mere hypothesis of your own, to explain other propositions, which also are not to be found in the Scriptures. However, let us proceed as well as we can with your account of this threefold distinction in the Divine Being, so necessary to your system, and compare your idea of it with • See supra, p. 89. § Ibid. p. 41. (P.) VOL. XIX. † Address, p. 27. (P.) H Ibid. p. 7. (P.) (P.) that which is laid down in the Athanasian Creed, all the parts of which you say are strictly and logically true. You disclaim, indeed, being able" to give any complete illustration of this abstruse matter;" but let us see what you produce, as offering" some faint resemblance of the Trinity;"† for a faint light is better than absolute darkness. You say, that "the three persons do not make three Gods, any more than the King of England, George the Third, and the Elector of Hanover, are three men, though each of them, separately taken, may be affirmed to be a man." To make a distinction in the Divine Being corresponding to this idea, would be saying that God is a self-existent being, the maker of the world, and the God of the Jews. But this amounts to no such distinction in his being, or nature, as your hypothesis requires; for they are only dif ferent characters of the same undivided person. As yet, therefore, we are as much in the dark as ever with respect to a Trinity in the Divine Nature. Your next illustration is that of "the will, the memory, and the understanding, as three really distinct powers in the human soul."§ But this is an illustration of a very different kind from the former, and can never apply to the same case; so that if this be true, the other is false. For none of these distinctions can be predicated of the whole undivided soul, as the former are of the whole undivided Godhead; since you would not say that either the will, the memory, or the understanding, was a complete soul; as you affirm the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to be each of them completely God. Still more unhappy is your comparison of this threefold distinction in the Divine nature to the three branches of a tree," each of which," you say, "has every requisite to form a complete plant." On this idea the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are indeed each of them God, but then they are distinct parts of another God, which comprehends them all; so that in reality you make four Gods, the tree being a plant, and each of the three branches another distinct plant; for the stem of the larger plant, out of which the three smaller ones issue, cannot be comprehended in any of the three. This method of making distinctions in the Deity was perhaps suggested to you by the Litany, in • Address, p. 11, (P.) § Ibid. (P.) + Ibid. p. 10. (P.) Ibid. (P.) which you solemnly invoke first the Father, then the Son, then the Holy Ghost, and lastly the Trinity. Here, indeed, is your tree, with its three branches. I wonder still more at your comparison of the Trinity to a polype," which," you say, " may be divided into various parts, each of which becomes a perfect animal;" because these parts are not perfect animals till they are entirely separated from each other, and therefore cannot be said to be, or to constitute, but only to have been, and to have constituted one polype. On this idea there was a time when the Father, Son and Holy Ghost had no separate existence, but were united in one divine nature, which could only be said to contain the elements out of which they were afterwards formed. If there be any thing, Sir, in this exhibition that exposes your plain and obvious doctrine of the Trinity to ridicule, do not say that I suggested it. Certainly, then, there is nothing in any of these comparisons that throws the least light on the curious propositions of the Athanasian creed; viz. that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are each of them God, none of them "afore or after other; none greater or less than another, and yet not three Gods, but one God." You absolutely disclaim the use of the term person when applied to God, as having the same meaning, and drawing after it the same consequences, as when applied to men; because then, as three persons make three men, the three persons in the Godhead would make three Gods."t To what idea, then, does the word person correspond, when it is predicated of these distinctions in the Divine nature? For, without some ideas you must agree with me, that no proposition, nothing concerning which any thing can be affirmed or denied, can be framed. You do not tell us what this idea is in itself, but only between what two other ideas it is to be found. For you say, it is not a mere relation, mode, or conception; but something between this and the idea annexed to the word person as applied to men." But still, if you do not fix the distance of this idea from each of the two extremes between which it is situated, we have nothing determinate, and therefore still nothing concerning which any thing can with certainty be affirmed or denied. Besides, there are ideas between which there can be no proper medium, and such are ideas which have no relation • Address, p. 11. (P.) † Ibid. p. 10. (P.) ‡ Ibid. p. 11. (P.) to each other, as these of mode and person, between which your nondescript idea lies. Would it not be ridiculous, for example, to talk of an intermediate idea between tall or short, which are modes, and the man Mr. Hawkins, who is a person, and to form propositions concerning this intermediate idea? Such ideas as these cannot be shaded off into one another, like two different colours. They admit of no comparison, and have nothing at all of an intermediate nature between them. So that the thing you so earnestly contend for, is an absolute nonentity. You may just as well make propositions concerning something between the smell of an apple and the sound of a drum, or between the colour scarlet, in a cardinal's hat, and the figure of a lawn sleeve on the arm of an English prelate, that may happen to come across your imagination, as concerning any thing between a mode and a person. Archimedes asked for something to stand upon when he proposed to move the earth; but you, Sir, proposing to effect still greater things, require nothing at all to stand upon. Still, then, we are totally without ideas concerning this threefold distinction in the Divine nature, and are, therefore, unauthorized to affirm any thing about it. It is a mere business of Abracadabra, or, to use your own term, Blictri;* as if you had said, the Father is Blictri, the Son Blictri, and the Holy Ghost Blictri, and these three Blictris make one God. Nay, since you deny the use of the word person, or of any other term in the whole compass of language, to which any ideas have ever been annexed, we have neither ideas nor words for this curious distinction. So that it is no better than saying the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Ghost is, and that these threes are one God, with this additional absurdity, that the term God, which denotes all the three, is, in its entire sense, applicable to each of the three. Surely, Sir, there is nothing in the Scriptures, which were written for the use of plain persons, that requires this strange logic to make it intelligible. In what does this differ from "a blind, implicit faith which holds out no proper object to which our ideas can be attached?"† which you disclaim. It is precisely that very thing. You say, that "we have a general idea annexed to the word distinction," but I have examined all your illus • Address, p. 7. (P.) + Ibid. (P.) ↑ Ibid. (P.) |