On the error of the Romanist and the Socinian, who both allege that in the opinion of the Fathers and the Primitive Church, the doctrine of the Trinity is not set forth in the Scriptures.

HAVING made it our object in this dissertation, as far as practicable, to give the words of other men, rather than our own, we shall cite a passage from Chillingworth, one from Mr. Jared Sparks, and one from Bishop Bull, on the subject proposed, and then, by plain quotations from the Fathers, show the true state of the question.

'I would show you,' says Chillingworth, arguing with his adversary against the infallibility of the Church of Rome, (see Preface to the author of Charity Maintained, §16,) that divers ways the doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them, undermining the doctrine of the Trinity, by denying it to be supported by those pillars of the faith, which alone are fit and able to support it, I mean Scripture, and the consent of the ancient doctors.'

17. For Scripture,' continues he, 'your men deny very plainly and frequently, that this doctrine can be proved by it. See, if you please, this plainly taught, and urged

very earnestly, by Cardinal Hosius, De Author. Sac. by Gordon. Huntlæus, by Gretserus and Tannerus, and also by Vega, Possevin, Wickus and others.' Again, p. 45. § 18. 'And hath not your great antiquary Petavius, in his notes upon Epiphanius, in Hær. 69. been very liberal to the adversaries of the doctrine of the Trinity, and in a manner given them for patrons and advocates, first Justin Martyr, and then almost all the Fathers before the Council of Nice, whose speeches, he says, touching this point, cum orthodoxæ fidei regula minime consentiunt ?'

We are exceedingly surprised to find a writer of character and talent, such as Mr. Jared Sparks, quoting these sentiments of Chillingworth, in such a manner as to lead his reader to suppose that the opinions of Chillingworth and of the Romanists were the same. His language is this; (vid. 'Inquiry into the comparative moral tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian doctrines.' A. D. 1823. p. 159.) 'On this subject, Chillingworth says to a catholic, 'as for scripture, your men deny very plainly and frequently that the doctrine (of the Trinity) can be proved by it;' and in the note, Mr. Sparks, referring to the above work, and to the very section, alleges that Chillingworth refers to sundry authors in support of the assertion.' But inasmuch

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as Mr. Sparks has chosen to leave the authority of Chillingworth in this seeming accordance with his own views, we shall cite another sentence, which is in the very next section of the piece referred to, p. 46. You see,' says Chillingworth, addressing his Roman Catholic antagonist, 'with what probable matter I might furnish out and justify my accusation, if I should charge you with leading men to Socinianism; yet do I not conceive, that I have ground enough for this odious imputation. And much less should you have charged Protestants with it, whom you confess to

abhor and detest it, and who fight against it, not with broken reeds, and out of the paper fortresses of an imaginary infallibility, (which were only to make sport for their adversaries;) but with the sword of the Spirit—the Word of God; of which we may say most truly, what David said of Goliah's sword, offered him by Abimelech, non est sicut iste, there is none comparable to it.' Now it is somewhat singular that Mr. Sparks could not find Chillingworth's sentiments, although they were in the sentence which went immediately before, and in the section which immediately followed the passage which he has quoted.

The key to this mistake, may be found in Mr. Sparks' undertaking to prove the following startling propositions. 'The opinion,' says he, that the Trinity is plainly taught in the Scriptures, has not generally prevailed till of late. p. 150. Again p. 151: Let us go back to the time of our Saviour-let us accompany the apostles in their travels and ascertain the opinions which were derived from their instructions-let us refer to the first believers in Christianity— to the early and later Fathers-to the Catholics after the Reformation to some of the first Reformers-to the Arminians of Holland-and even to eminent English Divines. The train of testimony which might be brought from these sources would show with how little discretion the Trinity is now affirmed to be plainly taught in the Scriptures; and with how little regard to consistency it is imposed as a necessary article of faith.' Again, p. 155: Athanasius allows that Christ did not make known his deity to the Jews, and endeavors to account for it by intimating that the world could not yet bear such a doctrine, and he adds, 'I venture to affirm that even the blessed disciples themselves, had not a clear knowledge of his deity, till the Holy Spirit

came on them at the day of Pentecost.'-Theodoret speaks to the same purpose. Before his death and sufferings, the Lord Christ did not appear as God, either to the Jews generally, or to his apostles. Chrysostom further says, that Mary, the mother of Jesus, did not herself know the secret of his being the Supreme God, &c.'

'From these sentiments of the Fathers,' says Mr. Sparks, (p. 157,) 'it may justly be inferred that in their opinion no such doctrine as the Trinity, nor even the Deity of Christ, is plainly set forth in the Scriptures.'

We perceive, therefore, that Mr. S. had undertaken to prove that some English Divines, to wit, Chillingworth, for one, and the Fathers, generally, agreed with himself and the Roman Catholics in the position, that THE SCRIP

TURES DID NOT PLAINLY TEACH THE DOCTRINE OF THE

TRINITY AND THAT THE FATHERS KNEW IT. We have shown that in the case of Chillingworth he was utterly mistaken, and we shall presently show that in the case of the Fathers he has been equally misled. We should do injustice, however, to Mr. Sparks, if we did not notice a far more striking instance of his skill in misapprehension, for which we Episcopalians are specially indebted to him. In a note to page 174-5 of the work to which we have referred, he has quoted in full the first part of the Litany in our Book of Common Prayer, and then gravely assured his readers that If we are to understand language in its common acceptation, the above extract inculcates the wor ship of four Gods. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity, are here worshipped separately and respectively under the title of God.' So then, we have the most solemn part of our Liturgy branded with the serious charge of being a little worse than Tritheism. Trinitarians, in general, as he supposes, worship three Gods; but the

poor Episcopalian worships Four. Is this a specimen of the 'progress of intelligence, and the improvement of the moral faculties' with which Dr. Channing compliments the supporters of his sentiments? Our ideas of morality and truth may be old-fashioned, and 'behind the age,' but we, do sincerely trust, for the honor of our national literature, that Mr. Sparks' historical labors stand on much safer and higher ground, than his Christian fairness, or his Theological accuracy.

It may doubtless, however, seem strange that the Romanists, who adhere to the doctrine of the Trinity, should countenance the notion that the Fathers before the Council of Nice did not hold the same. Let us, therefore, quote the learned Bishop Bull's account of this anomaly, and we shall behold a humiliating but useful example of the power of polemic zeal, in shutting the eyes of men to the plainest truth, when they think it in their way.

Speaking of Petavius, to whose eminent learning and abilities as a great man and deeply skilled in every kind of literature,' he had before borne testimony, Bp. Bull observes as follows: (g) 'I should have thought that this man, who was a Jesuit, wished to serve the cause of the Pope, rather than of the Arians. For if he could have established the assertion that the Catholic Doctors of the first three ages for the most part fell into the same error which the Nicene Council afterwards condemned in Arius, these two inferences would readily follow: 1. That but small reliance could be placed on the Fathers of the first

(g) Putarim hominem, Jesuitam scilicet, Pontificiae potius quam Arianæ causæ consultum voluisse. Ex eo enim quod Catholici Doctores trium primorum saeculorum plerique omnes eundem plane er. rorem errarunt, quam postea in Ario ut hæresim damnavit synodus Nicaena, (quod contendit Petavius) hæc duo facile consequentur: L Patribus trium primorum sæculorum, quos imprimis appellare solent Catholici Reformati, parum tribuendum esse; utpote quibus nondum sa