We must pass on now to the unity of God. By this is meant that there is one, and only one, supreme and absolutely perfect being. This is the cardinal doctrine of the great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, and is accepted by many who would not class themselves under any of these systems. The history of religion shows that monotheism does not rest on a necessary intuition of the religious nature. In feeling after its object it has found a prolonged satisfaction in inferior conceptions, and, observing the multiplicity rather than the unity of nature, has believed in many finite gods. But what satisfied the childhood of the spirit could not satisfy its manhood. To the great prophetic souls of the Hebrew race came the revelation that there was only one God, from whom proceeded the one universal law of right, to whom must be given an undivided worship. Thus the heart was gradually freed from its perturbations, and drawn towards the one central Spirit in whom alone it could find perfect satisfaction and peace. Among the Greeks a similar result was reached by the path of speculation. Philosophy could not rest in mere manifoldness, but sought for unity, some permanent and determining principle, behind the unceasing drift of phenomena. Heraclitus grasped the idea that all change was governed by an inviolable law of reason, and that therefore the universe itself was one, the constantly varying expression of eternal Thought. Thus both religion and reason are unable to pause in their upward flight till they reach the absolutely perfect, the supremely holy, and the supremely wise Cause of all, who is necessarily one. The tendency to polytheism is not indeed altogether outgrown; for it offers to the lower feelings of religion nearer and more mundane deities, who seem capable of closer sympathy with the struggling human heart. But all the higher spirits have acquiesced in the doctrine of the unity of God, and have felt that the most intimate life that pervades their lives, the love that comes and rests upon their weariness, the grace that in privation is sufficient for them,

the mandate of righteousness that will not be denied, are the very presence within them of the one Lord of all.

We might pause here; but it is an impressive confirmation of the result reached by this a priori method that our accumulating scientific knowledge accords with the vaticinations of religion and philosophy. The discovery of the transformation and conservation of energy shows that in the phenomena of nature we are confronted, not with various independent agents, but with various modes of one and the same activity. So far as we can carry our exploration the same laws everywhere prevail, and a universe of such inconceivable vastness that the imagination simply faints before it is bound into one by the most subtle ties. Gravitation is found far beyond the confines of the solar system. Heat darts across the millions of miles that separate us from the sun. Light visits us from distances which we can measure only by the years that it has taken to reach us, and stars too remote for any eye to see them through the most powerful telescope record themselves on the photographic plate. Spectrum analysis has revealed our own familiar chemistry in orbs divided from us by vast reaches of space, which can no longer be regarded as desert; and it would almost seem as though the universe were such a mass of sensitive tissue that each event impressed itself upon the whole, and our daily walk sent a tremor through Orion and the Pleiades. All this accords with the belief in one universal sway.

CHAPTER II

DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

IN discussing the unity of God we might be content with what has been already written, and leave in the region of the incomprehensible the high metaphysical questions respecting the mode of God's eternal being, and of his relation to the world and to man. But it is alleged by the greater part of Christendom that within the essence of the one God there is a trinity of persons; and as this doctrine is regarded, not as a lofty speculation about which men may differ, but as of radical importance in the formation of the Christian character, it is necessary for us to bring it under review. Although I can find no evidence which to my own mind is satisfactory that it was any part of primitive Christianity, I wish to treat with all seriousness a belief which has been tenaciously held by some of the master spirits of our race, and which has not only been maintained by those who were brought up to regard it as an essential condition of salvation, but been embraced by men of rare intelligence whose early prejudices were all against it.

When we come to the technical terms and definitions of the theologians, we are tempted to look upon the whole discussion as a piece of irreverence, prying with vain conceit into the mysteries of God; but it is saved from this charge by the fact that the dogma is accepted as a part of Divine revelation, which therefore at once demands unhesitating belief and requires perfect accuracy of expression. It has been generally maintained that it lies completely beyond the

range of our natural faculties, and that therefore reverence consists in withholding criticism, and receiving it by an act of faith on the sole authority of the revealer. Some mystics indeed believe that for them the mystery has been dissolved in a rapturous intuition. Thus St. Teresa says, 'Our Lord made me comprehend in what way it is that one God can be in three Persons. He made me see it so clearly that I remained as extremely surprised as I was comforted, . . and now, when I think of the Holy Trinity, or hear It spoken of, I understand how the three adorable Persons form only one God and I experience an unspeakable happiness."1 But those who have not this mystic consciousness have generally admitted that their reason is at fault. Thus the Formula of Concord exhorts all pious minds. . . to close the eyes of their reason, and bring their intellect into captivity to the obedience of Christ';2 and Quenstedt says, 'The mystery of the Trinity is ὑπὲρ νοῦν, ὑπὲρ λόγον καὶ ὑπερ πᾶσαν κατάAnyw... Not even the possibility of this mystery can be had ληψιν from the light of nature, since to reason consulting its own proper principles it seems absurd and impossible."3 Gregory of Nyssa had expressed the same opinion long before; and the Catholic view is summed up by Thomas Aquinas in the conclusion that it is impossible to arrive through natural reason at the knowledge of the Divine persons of the Trinity.'5 This is not in itself an irrational state of mind provided the Divine authority is adequately guaranteed; but it is obvious that when what purports to be a revealed dogma appears to our best reason to be 'absurd and impossible,' the revelation 1 Quoted by Professor James, Gifford Lectures, pp. 411 sq. 2 Solida Declaratio, p. 787 sq.

3 Quoted by Grimm, Institutio theologiae dogmaticae evangelicae historicocritica; ed. sec., 1869, p. 213, note 7.

4 Μὴ μέντοι δύνασθαι λόγῳ διασαφεῖν τὴν ἀνέκφραστον ταύτην τοῦ μυστηρίου βαθύτητα. Cat. Orat. 3.

5 Impossibile est per rationem naturalem ad Trinitatis divinarum personarum cognitionem pervenire.' Summa theologica, Pars I, Qu. xxxii, Art. i.

will require to be established by evidence of quite demonstrative force, and it may be that the incredibility of the contents will far outweigh any arguments that can be produced in its support. Where we are confessedly dealing with probable evidence it is simply treason against the truth to shut the eyes of our reason, and blindly swallow whatever is presented to us as a word of God. This, I suppose, would now be generally admitted by competent theologians; and as the old bases of infallibility have been undermined, there has been a tendency to bring the doctrine of the Trinity into the high court of reason, and insist that, even if we could not have discovered it for ourselves, it is the only view in which the reason can rest with satisfaction. We must now turn to the dogma itself, and speak of it in detail.

The starting-point of the doctrine is undoubtedly to be found in the primitive Christian experience as it is disclosed to us in the writings of the New Testament. God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Holy Spirit are constantly referred to, and it is clear that they enter into the inmost heart of Christian faith. It was felt that the secret meaning, the holiest idea, of Divine Sonship had been revealed in Christ. Consequently the reality of the Divine Fatherhood was apprehended with a new vividness of conviction; and this was accompanied by a sense of Divine power operating in the souls of believers, producing permanent and universal effects in sanctified lives, as well as some outward manifestations of a more sporadic and transitory character. It is clear that this experience would give rise to a variety of problems as soon as the mind began to reflect upon its significance, and upon the precise meaning and mutual relations of the terms through which it was originally expressed; and the final ecclesiastical answers to these problems constitute the dogma of the Trinity. It is admitted that that dogma is nowhere stated in the Bible, and that it is only by a process of reasoning that the several propositions of which it consists are inferred from a variety of passages,