Chapter XXX: Preface (2)

The argument, that because _three words_ follow one another, without any expressed distinction, they must all refer to subjects of the same nature, co-equal and co-extensive, and this, too, as the strongest, indeed the only direct evidence of a Trinity in the Godhead, is really one of those arguments for a doctrine of revelation, which a mind with any reverence knows not how properly to discuss. I am glad to be able to say, that Dr. Tattershall pronounces this to be only a _presumptive_ proof of the separate personality of the Holy Spirit, that is, in fact, no proof at all, but merely such a hint as might lead to the presumption that there may be additional evidence, and which, therefore, in the absence of such additional evidence, amounts to nothing. If any one, however, advances such an argument, we have only to ask first, is any one really content to rest such a doctrine on such a proof, and call this Revelation? and secondly, to advance in our turn, other passages of Scripture, where this principle of interpretation cannot be maintained. If the concurrence of the words, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, necessarily implies that each of these refers to a person who is God, and that when taken together they make up the entire nature of God—then, I ask, what is the necessary inference from such expressions as these,—“I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and _the elect angels_, that thou observe these things?”—1 Tim. v. 21. Now if the argument is conclusive that infers in the one case the deity of Jesus, it must be equally conclusive, when it infers, in the other, the deity of the elect angels. The Trinitarian answer will be,—“We know that the angels are not God, and in accordance with this knowledge, we interpret the passage:” and equally do we answer, that when such a passage is given us as _proof_ of the deity of the Lord Jesus, we know that he was a man, and in accordance with this knowledge do we interpret the passage. Other instances might be given of similar modes of expression:—“And all the people greatly feared the Lord _and Samuel_,” 1 Sam. xii. 18; and more strikingly still, Rev. iii. 12, _where the name of a place_ is associated as a religious idea, with the names of God and Christ. “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of Heaven from my God, and [_I will write upon him_] my new name.”

There is only one other passage in which these three expressions occur together; and it must have a precisely similar explanation: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” Now here the expression “_communion_ of the Holy Spirit,” fixes the meaning of the passage. The word communion signifies “participation,” “a having in common.” Thus St. Paul speaks of “the communion of the sufferings of Christ,” Philipp. iii. 10. In this sense, then, it can have no reference to a person, and must signify simply a participation of that spiritual presence, comfort, and power of God, which was the promise and the witness of the religion of the Christ. In explaining such passages, we have again and again to recal ourselves to the belief, that we are actually considering the strongest Scriptural assertions of the doctrine of a Trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead. The first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians closes thus: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.” Who thinks of inferring the equality of Paul with Jesus? And yet, if such a mode of reasoning is allowable, from the close of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, it is impossible to give any reason for its not being equally conclusive when applied to the close of the first Epistle of the Corinthians. But such verbal reasonings are in every way unworthy of the solemn character of revelation, nor can the mind long dwell upon them without feeling how painfully they interfere with the sentiment of Reverence, and what a lowering it is of Christ and Christianity to place them in such lights.

The portion of Scripture, however, which is mainly relied upon to prove the _distinct_ deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, is that most solemn and faithful promise of Christ to his disciples, in which the Spirit of Truth is described as a Comforter which the Father would send in his name, and who, when he came, would testify of Jesus, and bring to their remembrance all things that he had said unto them, but which they had not understood. Now let us connect this promise of a Comforter previous to his death, with a similar promise after the resurrection, and then endeavour to ascertain the meaning. In the first chapter of the Book of Acts, at the eighth verse, it is written, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” Now we shall find that the Holy Spirit which came upon them was the Spirit of Truth, a truer knowledge of Christ, a portion of the Spirit of God, a sympathy with and an understanding of the Mind of the Father of Jesus, which they did not possess before;—in the one case comforting them for the loss of their friend and their master, by giving them a participation of his and of his Father’s Spirit,—in the other case, qualifying them spiritually to be witnesses unto him, to be his Apostles and Preachers, an office for which their previous misconceptions of the true character of the Christ, their alienation from the true Spirit of God, as manifested in Jesus, had totally disqualified them. Why it was that Jesus must “go away,” in order that the Spirit of Truth might come unto them, in order that the Spirit of the world should be separated from their ideas of the Christ, and the Spirit of God take its place, we shall fully see. Previous to the death of Jesus, the views of the Apostles respecting their Messiah were Jewish and worldly—after the Resurrection and Ascension they became Christian and Spiritual. How was it that Jesus must personally leave them, in order that the Spirit of Truth might come unto them? “It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”

The Death, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of the Christ, introduced a necessary change into the conceptions of the Apostles; these drove out of their Messianic idea the spirit of the World, and introduced into it the spirit of God. They could not retain their Jewish ideas of the reign of the Messiah, in connexion with the crucified Jesus. If they held by their Jewish faith on this matter, they must abandon Jesus. If they held by Jesus, they must abandon their Jewish ideas, and remodel their faith. But God takes care that they shall hold by Jesus: and this is His mode of spiritualizing their conceptions of Christ and of Christianity. God lifts him from the dead and places him in Heaven. The Christ returns to earth to show that God was with him; and he ascends into Heaven, to repel the imagination which otherwise might possibly arise, nay, which actually had arisen, that even yet he might raise his standard on the earth, and realize the gigantic illusion of the Jew. By this means, the Apostles were placed in this position:—they must retain their faith in Jesus, for how could they battle against God, or hold out against such evidence as the Christ rising from the tomb, and the Christ passing into the skies;—and yet if they are to regard Jesus as their Messiah, they must modify all their Jewish views, and conceive of the Christ anew. And accordingly this was the plan and process of their conversion, of their introduction to the true Christianity, of their baptism into the Spirit of God. Since Jesus was thus evidently the Christ, and yet could not be adapted to their Jewish views, of course all their Jewish views must yield, and adapt themselves to _him_. His life and destinies were the _fixed_ facts, with which their conceptions of the Christ must now be harmonized. You now see how when the Spirit of Truth came upon them, it testified of Jesus, it took of his and showed it unto them, it threw illumination upon words and deeds of his, which, when contemplated from the Jewish point of view, caught not the sympathies of their souls, and like invisible writing, waited for the heat and light of Truth to fall upon them, and bring out the meaning. His Death struck down a principal part of their errors: and his Exaltation forced upon them a new idea of his kingdom. Never again could they confound the Messiah with a temporal prince. Whatever Christianity might be, henceforth it must be connected with the immortality of Heaven. Christianity could not be separated from the Christ, and the Christ was with God; and they remembered his prayer and promise, that they were to be with him where he was.

All this would necessarily be suggested to them from their identifying the Christ with the risen Jesus. Nothing more would be necessary to unfold this train of spiritual thought. It was the first fulfilment of that profound prophecy, “When the Comforter is come, even the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me, and shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” And this Spirit of Truth did lead them into all truth—it gave them no new revelation, but it called to their remembrance, and taught them to understand a revelation which Jesus had before offered to them in vain—and so, in the words of his own promise, it glorified him, for it “took of his, and showed it unto them.” The Apostles were now in a position to look upon the Christ from a right point of view, and to receive the Spirit of Truth and God. The scales of illusion dropped from their eyes, and they began to see Jesus as he was. From the hour that circumstances constrained them to draw their Christianity from the life and destinies of the Christ, their minds began to open, and the Spirit of Truth to teach them all things, and to call to their remembrance whatsoever Jesus had said unto them, no longer dimly understood, but irradiated with moral light, because seen in right connexions, and explained by the interpretation of events. Who can retain his fancies in opposition to direct experience? and experience was now enlightening the Apostles. How could they go on dreaming of an Earthly Prince, when their Christ was in the skies? From that hour their souls began to be transfigured, and they walked in the light of the other world, and the Christ to whom they looked became their leader to Immortality. How could they go on in their unspiritual imaginations, when the Captain of their Salvation stood constantly before their eyes, a crucified man, and a risen immortal? From that hour they became soldiers of the Cross, and their only victories were over themselves, and the powers of evil; and the only battle-cry of the Son of Man, when idol after idol fell prostrate before the Truth, and their Master in the skies, in the successes of his faith, led on the movements of humanity, and, wherever his spirit struck root, banded a new force against the enemies of man, and mustered fresh hosts for conquest. How could they go on in their national arrogance, and in their sectarian intolerance, when they were obliged to draw their moral notions of Christianity from the life of Christ, and that spoke such different lessons? From that hour their anti-social temper began to soften, their exclusiveness to bend and give way, their deep-cut lines of national distinctness to disappear in the fully developed features of our common humanity. In the light of _his_ Spirit, what _could_ they be but children of God, and brethren of mankind? They had to harmonize his Kingdom with his Character, and that led them into all truth. They had to read the glory of God in the face of Christ; and the light that beamed there was grace and truth. They had to take their Christianity from the Master’s life, and that kept them right. Its lesson was of the one fold, and the one shepherd—of the one God and Father of all, and of one type of the connexions between humanity and Heaven—one Mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus. And so at last, when fitted for it by the teaching of events, the Spirit of Truth, at once their Comforter and their Teacher, descended upon them, and then they became “witnesses unto him.” They read his life anew, and reported it to the world, and the world read it too, and has ever since been studying that exhaustless revelation. They saw in it more and more of the Saviour’s spirit and purposes, and after the illumination had come upon them, the providence of God so disposed the external events that affected the infant Church, that they went forth bearing the light that lighted them unto all the world. Persecution scattered them from land to land, and they went carrying with them their priceless treasure. They were hunted from city to city, but all the faster flew the Gospel. The stake received them, and it became as a new cross of Christ, and the blood of his martyrs witnessed unto him. Are we speaking of the same men who in Gethsemane’s garden forsook their Lord and fled—who in the Temple Court denied him to his face—who, when he was led to the Cross, abandoned him in terror, and when he died there, laid their heads in the dust, because their poor ambition was fallen to the earth? Are they the same men, who in the Gospels are narrow-minded, ambitious, and false—that in the Acts of the Apostles come forth bold, resolute, spiritual witnesses for Jesus, and dauntless martyrs to his truth? We can scarcely believe that we are reading of the same men, when we turn from the page of the Evangelists to the record of their deeds, _after_ the Death and the Ascension of the Christ annihilated their errors, and the Spirit of Truth and of God had fallen upon them. Contrast the prayer,—“Lord grant us to sit on thy right hand and on thy left in thy kingdom,” or, “Lord wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”—with this, “Lord, thou art God, which hast made Heaven and Earth, and the Sea, and all that in them is; who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the Earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done: And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word; by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus!” How came this difference? What passed over them and turned them into new men? The Spirit of Truth had come unto them, that great Comforter, the Spirit of understanding and of God: they saw it all, and they were worldly and weak no more, but strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might? And this Comforter never again left them; the truth broke upon them and became their stay for ever,—it was the Spirit of God dwelling in them, and abiding for ever, his imperishable light in the soul, once given never to be withdrawn. It was just the difference between Spiritual light and Spiritual darkness, in their effects upon character. It was just the difference between the spirit that is of the world, and the spirit that is of God. It was just the difference between our nature when it is right and when it is wrong with God; when it is stumbling in darkness, the dupe of illusions, and when it is furnished with everlasting principles, and walking in the light of life. In the Gospels they are men palsied by the feebleness of error—in the Acts of the Apostles they are men omnipotent in the power of Truth. Is this change in their characters capable of being accounted for? Yes, if you grant the facts of Christ’s history,—but not otherwise. How otherwise you are to get across the chasm between the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, I know not. Take those facts as causes, and the bridge is easy. What a step is it from the fishermen of Galilee to the Apostles of Christ—from the ignorance of Jewish peasants, to the Communicators of the mightiest impulse that Society has ever felt, the agents of the mightiest influence that ever Providence has put forth upon the soul of man,—the creators of new institutions, new forms of character, new civil relationships;—before whose preaching religions and empires fell,—at whose word Liberty first started into life, not as a spirit of opposition, but as the gentle child of brotherhood and love,—and who are still in the monuments they have left behind them, the heralds of human progress and the revolutionizers of the world! Who will deny that the spirit of God was here? Not we: we are ready to maintain it against the world. Who denies that the spirit of God still accompanies his Gospel? Not we: we believe it in the depths of our hearts. How wonderful the impulse, these men gave, and still give to the heart of the world! What difficulties had they to conquer! their own characters, and violent prepossessions—and they conquered these. The curse of the Priest, the arm of the Ruler, the scoff of the People—and they conquered these. The attractions of Heathenism; the licentiousness of its morality; the gracefulness of its idolatry; its religion for the senses; its philosophy for the sceptic; its indifference to speculative truth; its equal regard for all gods, and all forms of worship that would only be content to dwell together in peace,—and they conquered these. Think of this wonderful History, and say whether you can explain it except as the New Testament explains it. What would account for the fortunes of the Apostles, if Christianity was not from God? The world of Causes and Effects is but a game of Chance, if such things can be, and their origin an accidental imagination, their foundation a falsehood or a dream. Who will account for such men being enlightened against their own wills, and forced into the front ranks of humanity contrary to their own desires—if the history is not true? But rob not the History of its true power—take not the spirit of life out of the gospel—by telling us of a third person in the Trinity whom Jesus sent to supplant the free minds of the Apostles. No, it was the free spirit of God acting upon the free spirit of men that opened their eyes to see the things that were hidden from them before; and they walked forth in the light of these wondrous events, and looked now upon their Christ as those from whose spiritual sight the bandage of the world had been taken away. The Comforter, which is the Spirit of TRUTH, came unto them, and taught them all things, and rectifying their former misconceptions took of the things of Christ, and showed it unto them. He spoke not of himself. He added nothing to the revelation already made by Jesus:—the divine characters were already impressed on the life and destinies of the Christ—and the Spirit of Truth guided them to it, and brought out the full meaning of the already finished revelation. Still does the world want light to read that revelation. Still does many an interpreter come to the reading of it with a Jewish veil upon his heart. But there is new light still to break forth out of God’s word. Although it would almost seem as if another day of Pentecost would be needed to drive out the spirit of the world, the spirit of system and of man, by the mightier Spirit of God—and to guide our exclusive tempers, our sectarian and narrow hearts into the religion of reality—of the merciful and perfect Christ, full of grace and truth.

It is impossible to display with any minuteness the confusion that is introduced into the Scriptures by the supposition that the Holy Spirit is a third infinite Mind associated with the Father and the Son. In one passage it is said, “If I cast out devils by _the Spirit of God_, then the kingdom of God is come unto you;” in another passage it is said, “If I with _the finger of God_ cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come unto you.” Are we to understand then different things by “the Spirit of God” and “the finger of God,”—or do they not both plainly signify the power and presence of the One God who wrought in Christ:—“the Father who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.”

In one passage it is said, “Wait for the promise of the Father—ye shall be baptized with _the holy spirit_ not many days hence.” In another passage of the same writer it is said, “Tarry ye in the city, until ye be endued with _power from on high_.” Are we to understand by the Holy Spirit anything different from ‘power from on high:’ or rather are we not to understand by both the fulfilment of the promise of the Father by His own power and presence?

In one passage it is said, “We are his witnesses of these things, and so is also _the Holy Spirit_, which God hath given to them that obey Him.” In another passage it is said, “The _works_ that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.” Is it not evident then that _the works_ which the Apostles did, were the works of God, His spirit working by them, witnessing to the truth of their testimony?

If the Holy Spirit is a distinct Person from God the Father, then the third Person, and not the first person in the Trinity, nor the second person, must on the Trinitarian view be regarded as the Father of Jesus, for it is written, “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” And yet the Trinitarian hypothesis is, that it was neither the third person, nor the first, but the second person in the godhead, that took humanity into union with his deity. But there is no end of these painful inconsistencies. So again Jesus is said to be raised from the dead by God, and again to be “quickened by the Spirit:” but surely the Trinitarian hypothesis would require that the divine nature of the Christ, the second person in the Trinity, should raise up the human Jesus, with which it had been united. Who will harmonize these things for us? Who can without pain, nay, without asking pardon of God for the irreverence, contemplate His spiritual nature in such representations?

It is said of the Holy Spirit, that He would not speak of himself. Can He then be a distinct God in the unity of the godhead, and not speak of Himself? Is this the reason that Scripture contains no proof of his separate existence? Is it not evident that the Spirit of Truth, _added nothing_ to the revelation that was in Christ, but brought it out, _illuminated_, by an after influence on the minds of the Apostles, what he said and did?

It is said in Scripture that no one knows the Son but the Father—and that no one knows the Father but the Son:—but if the Holy Spirit is a third person in the godhead, equal in every respect, this must be an erroneous statement.

The last scriptural proof I shall give that the Holy Spirit is not a third infinite Person in the godhead is the very decisive one that Scripture offers not a single ascription of praise or glory to Him, and contains not a single doxology in which He is included. Could this be so if he was really and distinctively God? Scripture contains ascriptions of praise to Christ, and even to the Angels; it connects together the names of God and Christ, in innumerable cases where it makes no mention of the Holy Spirit.—John v. 17. xiv. 21. “Father!—this is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Now if Trinitarianism is true, the Father, and even with the addition of Jesus Christ whom He has sent, does not constitute the only true God.

“Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”—1 John i. 3.

“Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”—2 John i. 3.

“He that abideth in the doctrine of the Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.”—2 John i. 9.

“For whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels.”—Luke ix. 26. 1 Tim. v. 21.

“He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”—Rev. iii. 5.

“And every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.”—Rev. v, 13.

Now if it be a fact that there is not one scriptural ascription of glory to the Holy Ghost, how is it that the Church of England can so confidently say, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: _as it was so in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be_.” The beginning that is here spoken of must have _begun after_ all the books of the New Testament were written. We have already traced in ecclesiastical history the beginning of that doxology, in the latter part of the fourth century—and a beginning in its attendant circumstances not very reputable, nor such as should be countenanced by those who preach submission to _Church Authorities_.

The learned and profound Lardner, modest as learned, remarks upon the assumption contained in this doxology of the prayer book, “as it was in the beginning.” “Doubtless this is said by many very frequently, and with great devotion. But can it be said truly? Does not that deserve consideration? Is there any such doxology in the New Testament? If not, how can it be said, to have been _in the beginning_? Are not the books of the New Testament the most ancient, and the most authentic Christian writings in all the world? It matters not much to inquire, when this doxology was first used, or how long it has been in use, if it is not in the New Testament. And whether it is there or not may be known by those who are pleased to read it with care: as all may, in Protestant countries, where the Bible lies open, to be seen and read by all men.” (Postscript I. to “A Letter on the Logos.”)

Weak and almost incredibly insufficient as is the _scriptural_ evidence for a third Person in the godhead, the _theological_ evidence is still weaker and more arbitrary; and betrays most fully those inadequate conceptions of the divine nature which form the supports of all the popular creeds and churches. You are aware of the Trinitarian argument for the necessity of a _second_ person in the godhead; for these orthodox theologians presume to reason upon abstract principles about the nature of God to an extent that the Unitarians whom they condemn for this very practice never have approached to and which indeed we hold to be arbitrary and presuming to the last degree. We are gravely told by divines who profess the utmost humility and a horror of all speculation, that if God was one Being in the sense that we are one, He would have no resources in his own Nature enabling Him to forgive Sin; and that if there were not at least two persons in the godhead, the one to make atonement and the other to receive it, our Father in Heaven would be placed in these circumstances,—either He must forgive, and since his Law had been broken without the infliction of an adequate penalty, exhibit his Character without TRUTH; or He must refuse to forgive, and retaining his Truth, exhibit his Character without MERCY. Now when _a human reasoner_ lays down these preliminaries as necessary parts of the constitution of the divine mind, I am amazed that he has ever after the conscience to charge other men with rash speculations on the subjects of Theology, or with reasoning upon abstract principles about the things of God. Atonement _is_ made for every sin: in that the Trinitarian is right. The sinner bears upon a burdened soul the weight of the cross, and faints in sorrow. Through a crucifixion and an agony does every erring heart return to God. The penalty is paid in bitter shame and tears, in the consciousness of degradation and of eternal loss, in the deep humiliation of a spirit that has quenched within it the divine flame, and treated with no respect the image of God in which it was made. Can such a being sin and escape without atonement—can a spiritual creature darken the angel and cherish the animal, and yet pay no penalty, start at last with no horror, and throb with no remorseful agony? No—the sinner must die in his sins, if he is to escape the piercings of his better nature, the open eye of his conscience fixed in awful steadiness of gaze upon the terrors of his state. Who that has ever felt a throb of penitence, who that has ever known the prostration of a soul awakened to a sense of sin, the deep misery of the purer spirit looking sorrowfully on the debasements of our being, as Christ looked upon Peter, who that has ever felt these things will deny that sin, every sin, has its atonement, and instead of questioning the _vicarious_ sacrifice as too dreadful, will not rather put it away from him only as too easy, too unreal, too remote from the sense of individual agony and burden, to meet and satisfy the inward and untransferable reality? We blame not the Trinitarians for speaking of the atonement required by sin. We blame them for not treating that subject with sufficient strictness, with sufficient severity, with sufficient energy of application to individual consciences. How much more awakening it is to tell a man of the atonement that he pays within, of the cross that is laid upon his humiliated heart, than to tell him of a metaphysical necessity in God’s nature that required the death of an infinite being, the blood of God, for this awful expression is used and defended at Christ Church,[531] to make satisfaction for the offence of a finite creature. This is the arbitrary assumption of Trinitarianism that requires most to be exposed, that the sin of a finite being is an infinite quantity, and that his penitence cannot atone for it, for his penitence is not infinite. Now the men who assert this strange thing, should at least be cautious how they charge Unitarians with arbitrary reasonings and speculations. Can Reason exhibit, or does Scripture any where say, that the sin of finite man is infinite in the sight of God, and yet unless this most extravagant of all propositions can be established the whole Trinitarian Theology falls to the ground, for then the only atonement for sin will be the crucifixion of the erring and repenting spirit, and none more dreadful can be given or conceived. I am perfectly aware that cautious and refined controversialists would not assert the infinite character of man’s sinfulness, and that they would explain away the doctrine of the Atonement; but the Lecturers at Christ Church are not cautious controversialists, they have no notion of such refinements, and they do assert it without abatement. If God’s unity, says one of them,[532] was like man’s unity, He could not forgive, yet preserve His holiness. And therefore I suppose, since man has no tri-personal resources in his unity, that _he_ can forgive only because his holiness is of an imperfect kind, and as his holiness becomes more strict he will less readily forgive, so that when he becomes quite perfect he will be quite implacable. But perhaps the Trinitarian _resource_ in this difficulty, is that _man_ too forgives, yet keeps his truth and holiness, in consideration of the atonement offered for all sin. The immoral plea that man is not the _Lawgiver_, cannot be offered by those whose difficulty is one respecting holiness. A holy mind is as much bound by the laws of holiness, as if it was itself the Lawgiver.

I have introduced here this arbitrary, metaphysical, and unscriptural speculation, employed by the Trinitarians to establish, _a priori_, the necessity of a second person in the godhead, only to prepare you for a similar mode of reasoning which is applied to prove the necessity for a _third_ person in the godhead. There are works, they say, carried on in the soul of man, that require a Third Person, another infinite Mind in the godhead. Solemnly we say that this is making too free with the infinite nature of God. What are those works, or what works can be conceived, to which God our Father is not adequate? Is it not very like irreverence for a human being to say,—_my_ salvation cannot be carried on by one infinite and perfect Spirit, but requires three infinite and perfect Spirits? Ought not such conclusions of Reason as these to be very distinctly supported by Revelation before they are advanced with any boldness, and other men called no Christians, and treated accordingly, for no other iniquity than that of humbly refusing to speak so confidently of God’s nature, and to put these limitations upon Him without proof? But even supposing that the orthodox reasonings about the nature of sin were correct, and the inability of one perfect mind to forgive his creatures, and rescue a sinner from his sins, established, what necessities remain that require the existence of a _third_ infinite Mind—what operations within the human soul are to be carried on, for which God the Father and God the Son are not sufficient? I know nothing more wonderful than that the Christian world should at this day admit the existence of a third person in the godhead, without ever raising the question, or having the doubt suggested to them, is not God our Father _sufficient_ for these things? I intreat you to discard from your minds the Trinitarian assertion that we deny the operations attributed by them to the Holy Spirit—we do not deny them—the connexions of the Spirit of God with the spirit of man we hold as the most solemn, intimate and blessed truth, the very soul of worship, of hope, and of spiritual life—take away this, and religion has neither power nor meaning—but we do deny that the Spirit of our Father is insufficient to maintain every spiritual connexion with the souls of his children; we bring the secret griefs, penitence, and aspirations of our being to Him who heard the prayers and strengthened the soul of Christ;—and when light descends upon us, so that we almost hear the encouragements of His voice, and see the beckonings of His hand, we know that it is the Spirit of our Father who sends the blessing from above, and gives to them that ask.

We entreat Trinitarians to address themselves to this particular point, and to explain to us the moral or metaphysical necessities that require a third person in the godhead, and render two perfect and infinite Minds inadequate to the work of Man’s Salvation. They are very explicit and full in their statement of _reasons_ exhibiting the incompetency of one infinite spirit to save a sinner, and necessitating the introduction of a second—we ask them to be equally explicit in explaining to us the inadequacy of _two_ BEINGS, each of them possessed of the full perfections of godhead, to rescue, teach, comfort, and bless, that not naturally unkindred spirit of man, which Scripture tells us is ‘the candle of the Lord,’ and ‘the inspiration of the Almighty.’ It will not serve the Trinitarian theologians to refuse us this explanation on the grounds that they take the doctrine as it is revealed, and inquire no further—for they _do_ enter into very copious explanations of the theological necessity for a _second_ person in the godhead, and they very confidently state it as a fact in divine metaphysics, that if the resources of God could not have supplied two infinite minds, no sin could ever have found a pardon—and if after this readiness of explanation respecting the second person they refuse us all explanation respecting the third, the conclusion will certainly be suggested, that they offer no explanations only because they have none to offer. Conceding for a moment the fundamental principles of Trinitarian theology, that the Father of our spirits could not receive the penitence of His children and shed His blessing upon their returning hearts, until forgiveness was rendered possible by a co-equal and co-eternal God meeting the demands of a Righteousness that, if dwelling in only one perfect Mind, could not pardon;—what is there I ask _after_ the sacrifice of Christ had removed the difficulty, and opened the communication between God and his children, and left the divine spirit free to love, and operate upon, the justified,—what is there remaining to restrict the workings of the Omnipotent and Omnipresent Spirit of God our Father—to render him incompetent for our sanctification, in addition to the previous incompetency for our redemption, which Trinitarians are so far from scrupling to assign to Him that they make it a first principle of their theology, and attempt to prove it by Reason.

Our One God they tell us, in the human sense of oneness, would be a helpless Being: on their very first sin, his children would be plucked out of His hands, and find him a God unable to save. Or, if He could forgive the repentance of His creatures, it would imply a Morality so lax, that He would be a God not worth serving.[533] To such dizzy heights of Theology do Trinitarians who abjure Reason in religion carry their reasonings upon the nature of God, and look into the dread profound, and speak confidently, as if they understood it all. Again I say, let us grant them all this, and still the question remains that never has been answered, after the sacrifice of Christ has set at liberty the Spirit of our Father to come freely into loving, regenerating, and sanctifying contact with the spirits of his children, what necessity is there for a _third_ person in the godhead to bless and save our souls, or what works are to be carried on _within_ us, which God the Father and God the Son are not competent to perform? Has not the spirit of our Father access to His children, who are brought nigh to Him through Christ; and if so, what is the office and what the need of a third infinite Mind? We acknowledge with all our soul’s devotion that every thing good in man comes, yes, and comes immediately, from the Spirit of our God; but is not our Father with us, and is His Spirit straitened that he cannot save? On this matter we abide with the Apostles who say:—“Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” We are told that the Holy Spirit uses ‘the word,’ as its instrument, in the work of spiritual regeneration. If so, the Holy Spirit must be God our Father, for the Apostle goes on to say:—“Of his own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” “Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.”[534] Now here, whilst no mention whatever is made of the Holy Spirit as a separate agent, the peculiar offices of the Comforter are ascribed to the spirit of our Father, and, what to Christians is equivalent, the spirit of Christ, for who hath seen _him_, hath seen all that man can see of the moral perfections and spirit of our God. And not with Apostles only, but with Christ himself, do we abide in the blessed faith of our Father being our Comforter. “Holy Father, keep, through thine one name, those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world I kept them through thy name:—I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” Here Christ prays to God the FATHER to sanctify the spirits of the disciples, when _he_ should be no more with them to instruct and keep them. Now Sanctification is assigned by Trinitarians to the Holy Spirit as his peculiar office. What then can be more clear than that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of our Father in communication with his children, and that this was the Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, a portion of the true spirit of God, which the Christ prayed his Father to communicate to his darkened disciples,—to take away the Jewish veil from their hearts, and to guide them into the blessed light of the pure gospel!

The Apostles pray to the Father to be a GUIDE[535] and COMFORTER[536]: Jesus Christ prays to the Father to be a Sanctifier and Enlightener; these are the works, and _the only works_, ascribed by Trinitarians to the Holy Spirit. No reason has been offered in the present Controversy for the necessity of a third person in the Godhead to be the agent of these operations; nowhere in orthodox theology have I been able to find a reason: I respectfully invite the attention of our opponents to this neglected point. Let them not mistake our demand. We do not deny that the works of the Holy Spirit can be done by God alone: but we ask for a reason why God our Father is not sufficient for these things. Until this question is satisfactorily answered, it must be evident that the Trinitarian Theology is entirely arbitrary.

It is not a little remarkable that Bishop Sherlock, in attempting to prove that the Holy Spirit performs the work of the Gospel _within_ the mind, by the very texts that he himself adduces identifies this Holy Spirit with the Spirit of God our Father; “No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him.” “No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” “He that is of God, heareth God’s word.”[537]

There was only one of the operations ascribed to the Holy Spirit by the Lecturer in Christ Church, to which I could not give my assent. We were told that the Holy Spirit interpreted the Scriptures to all true believers. I believe that some portion of the Spirit of God is in every man who loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. I believe that every one who does His will, knows of the doctrine whether it is of God. Morally and spiritually, I do believe that the Spirit of God is still a witness to the truth of Christ. The Spirit of the Father was in Christ, and to those who love him and keep his commandments the Father still cometh, and maketh His abode with them. And so far we know that we are of the truth, because we love and are partakers of the Spirit that dwelt in Jesus. But if any man presumes to extend this sympathy with the Spirit of the Christ from moral to _controverted_ truth, and to pretend that he is not only spiritually but intellectually instructed, so that he has not only a living faith, but a true creed, we abandon him to his conviction, satisfied that however sincere, it is unscriptural and a delusion. How can men persuade themselves that it is humble, that it is Christian, that it is in the spirit of a modest self-knowledge, to pretend to this intellectual infallibility, that God not only inspires the holiness of their wills, but protects their judgment from all error? When we ask those who tell us that only _their_ creeds can save, what infallible interpreter preserves _them_ from all doctrinal error, they do not scruple to proclaim that the Spirit of God is their instructer in the controverted tenets of theology.[538] Now we only ask how this can be made clear either to other men, or to themselves? Have they alone sincere convictions on these subjects? Have they alone sought the truth with the toils and prayers of earnest and humble minds? Have they alone emptied themselves of all prejudice, and desired only the pure light from God? Have they alone put worldly considerations from their hearts, and left all things that they might follow Christ? What evidence is there in their position, or in their sacrifices, that only the Spirit of God can be their guide, for that they are manifestly self-devoted to the cause of truth? Are _they_ the meek adherents to persecuted principle, so that against the outward storm nothing short of the inward witness of the Spirit can be their omnipotent supports? Do they alone give evidence by the scorn and insult which they cheerfully bear for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s, that they must be taught of God, for that no men could endure this social persecution unless God was with them? Ah, my friends, does it become the followers of popular opinions to turn to the persecuted, and say, _we_ who float upon the world’s favour, we who have no sacrifices to bear for conscience’ sake, we to whom godliness is a present income (πορον) of all that men most love—we give evidence of being supported through all this peace and popularity by the Holy Spirit—but _you_, whom we persecute and scorn, you whom we lecture and libel, you who have to bear upon your inmost hearts the coarse friction of intolerance and of rude fanaticism, you, though you have to endure all this, give no evidence that your convictions of Christ and your faith in God are dear unto you,—you are voluntary sufferers, and the distresses of your position, which we shall aggravate in every way we can, are no proof that you stand the rude peltings of the pitiless storm, only because you dare not abandon conviction, or turn away from what you believe to be the light of God within you? I ask can any thing surpass the unmitigated Popery of all this, except its unmitigated cruelty and injustice? How is it that the Minister of a state religion, the preacher of popular creeds, whose lightest words raise echoes of assent—who gets the support and sympathy of crouds on far easier terms than others get bare toleration and existence, can so remove from him all self-knowledge and mercy, as to have the heart to tell the man whom he persecutes, _we_ who have every thing to gain from our religion and nothing to lose, give evidence of being supported through all this ease and triumph by the Spirit of God, but you, who in this world have every thing to lose by your religion, and nothing to gain, give no evidence of having the Spirit of Truth, and are lovers of your own selves more than of Conscience and of God?[539] We suspect them not, God forbid we should, of being immorally tempted and biassed, and with a true sincerity we declare that we have no sympathy whatever with the ungenerous vulgarity of such a charge,—but at the same time, they ought to be aware, and if they were truly generous in their turn they would be aware, that all the _outward_ marks by which men may judge of the sincerity of convictions, and the strength of inward reliances, and allegiance to God, are upon _us_, not upon them.

The other offices assigned to the Holy Spirit besides that of being an infallible interpreter to the orthodox, were the following:—to bring our souls into sympathy and union with the Spirit of Jesus—to draw us by spiritual affinities unto the Christ; to sanctify our nature through communion with the holy One, cleansing the temple of the spiritual God; to govern our moral being, and supply the diviner impulses that lift us to imperishable things, and teach us to love and to pray aright; and to give us through the spiritual witness within ourselves, a pledge and earnest of the loving purpose of God, and of the glory that remaineth.—Must we indeed renounce these connexions of our spirits with the Spirit of our God, unless mechanically settling the distribution of offices, we receive these influences through the departmental arrangements of the Trinitarian Theology? Will God our Father not come to us and make His abode with us, if we are unfortunate enough to find no evidence in Scripture for a third infinite Mind associated with him, and carry up to Him the unbroken sum of our love, our faith, our worship, and our prayers? Will He reject us only because we pour out our all before Him, and knowing Him to be all-sufficient, feel our derived spirits to be at every moment within the shelter of His parental presence?—And yet, if the Trinitarians were right, if only a believer in a tri-personal God could hold these spiritual connexions with the source of all good, the fountain head of all holiness and hope, if these were the only conditions on which our souls could feel life from above—then should we become the most grateful, the most devoted, the most submissive of their disciples—we would entreat them to show us the way of knowledge, that we might ascend unto the hill of the Lord, and stand in His holy place,—and to lift up for us, in mercy, the everlasting doors of our darkened hearts, that the King of Glory might come in;—and we would flee from our Unitarianism as we should from Atheism, for it would be Atheism if it closed our access to the Spirit of God.