Discourses on the nature, evidence, and moral value of the doctrine of the Trinity

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DISCOURSE I.

Introductory Remarks, and statement of the Doctrine, , . 5

DISCOURSE II.

II

decision of the judgment from this source, or even from a public commitment to a party, is not all. Many minds are prone to acquire a kind of morbid sensitiveness on controverted subjects. They cannot brook opposition ; and being also unable to meet it with argument, a fever is brought on. They hence never bring to such subjects a healthy effort, and consequently, although they might be convinced of truth under other circumstances, they will not under these. Indeed, in such a world as this, it demands no ordinary degree of intellectual vigor and independence, to rise superior to all the impulses of passion and prejudice, and place the mind in a posture of candid inquiry for truth. But it must be done, or God will be disobeyed, and our eternal interests will suffer.

To encourage and sustain such an attempt, let us consider that truth is what it is, and ever will be such, whether we wish or believe it so or not ; and moreover, that any other than a sincere desire to learn and obey divine truth, is infinitely unworthy of immortal minds, on their way to eternity.

If, on as candid and thorough an investigation as we are able to institute, the doctrine of the trinity be found to be supported by conclusive evidence, let us firmly believe it, and with it all the momentous truths which spring from it ; if it be found to be not thus supported, let us forever reject it. Let us cherish but one desire in this matter, and let that be to know the truth and obey it. Why should we cherish any other? We meet here, not as combatants on an arena of theological controversy, but as friends and fellow-pilgrims on the way to eternity. Whatever there be important for us to learn respecting the high relations of our immortal being, we wish to learn. Truth, and only truth, here, is equally important to us all. On a subject thus involving the amazing interests of our eternity, we cannot find it in our hearts to dispute." Every emotion that stirs within, would rather prompt us to sit with entire docility at the feet of the merest child, if we could thereby learn any thing respecting the great and glorious God, and the claims of his being, character and government upon us.

I am not disposed to assume the responsibility of dictating your religious faith. It is the privilege and the duty of every man to examine evidence, and judge for himself, responsible for his belief to God. To his own Master he standeth or falleth. The extent of my duty is to lay before your minds the evidence in the case, and thus leave you to think upon it, and judge for yourselves. Let each of us, then, feel that he has a necessity laid upon him to settle this great question, to settle it for his own soul, and to settle it in such a way as to stand the fires of the last day, and the light of eternity. Most certain it is, that no man can permit his mind to repose in indolent ignorance, or lie under the dominion of prejudice, in respect to so momentous a subject, without incurring immense guilt and danger. God requires of us, both intellectually and morally, according to our capabilities. What we can know of him, we ought to know. Our intellectual powers are indeed limited, and there must of consequence be a limit to our knowledge ; but because we cannot know evejy thing respecting God, we have not therefore an apology for knowing nothing. While forbidden to attempt a step beyond the present limit prescribed to our minds, we are required to advance fully up to it. • Not to come up to it, were indolence ; to attempt a step beyond, w T ere presumption.

If you intrust to your steward a sum of money, with directions how to employ it in your service, there are two ways in which he may fail of his duty. He may fail to employ it at all, and thus incur the charge of indolence, like the wicked and slothful servant in the gospel ; or he may embark with it in unauthorized speculations, and thereby lose the whole, and thus incur the charge of presumption. In either case, he is guilty.

God has committed to us limited powers of intellect, and thus fixed bounds beyond which our earthly knowledge cannot pass. He has given to us our first lesson, commanding us to learn that faithfully, and wait his motion for the second. We may make no intellectual effort upon it, and thus resemble the idle school-boy, who sleeps away his time over his lesson ; or we may attempt what is at present beyond our reach, and thus resemble the silly child, who sometimes affects to read before he has learned his alphabet. Hence, a mind trained to accurate habits will always endeavor to draw the line of demarkation distinctly between what can be known, and what cannot be known, in our present state.

As a general rule, facts, and not the modes of facts, or in other words, the manner in which they come into being or exist, are included in our present compass of knowledge. This may be familiarly illustrated by a case in physical science. We know that the rays of light, by falling upon the eye, and passing through the chrystaline humor, and converging to a focal point upon the retina in the optic nerve, produce in us the perception of seeing. We know the fact that such a perception is produced, but how it is produced, we are utterly unable to determine. We might instance a multitude of similar cases in physical science, but will proceed directly to notice some of those which more immediately concern us as religious beings.

God has revealed to us the fact, that we shah 1 continue to exist as intelligent, conscious beings, after death — that death does not extinguish our being, but changes the mode of it. What that other mode of existence is, no man in this state can know. Yet the revealed fact is perfectly intelligible, and fraught with amazing importance. To deny the immortality of the soul, simply because we do not know how it exists when separated from the body, were no less absurd, than to deny that the rays of light upon the optic nerve produce in us the sensation of seeing, because we do not know how they do it. The proof of the two facts rests upon different kinds of testimony, to be sure — that of the one on the testimony of our consciousness, that of the other, on the declaration of God. But any presumption for or against the facts, resulting from simply our not knowing how to explain the manner of them, is as strong in the one case as in the other. So that, if the positive evidence in the two cases be equally good, the facts are equally certain. — Or, in other words, admitting the truth of the Bible, if the testimony of God be as good evidence as the testimony of our consciousness, it is just as certain that the soul is immortal, as it is that we see the light of day — just as certain that we shall exist forever, as it is that we exist now.

But suppose that one suffer his mind to dwell exclusively on the difficulty of conceiving of the mode of the soul's existence after death. The body is disorganized, and has returned to dust, and disappeared. All that constituted the living, acting man, seems to be lost. ' What can remain 1 any thing ? How can this be 1 ' He imperceptibly begins to doubt the fact ; and if he hold his mind long in this posture, he will doubt in good earnest. Many have done so, until they have actually doubted their immortality ! But here comes in an important auxiliary to evidence. The man wishes for immortality. He does not therefore dismiss the subject rudely, because of an apparent difficulty, for he has a desirable interest involved in it. He therefore looks for evidence of the fact of his immortality, and finds it in the sacred Scriptures. In this case, he is willing to receive testimony from that source ; and correctly concludes to accredit the fact of his future existence, although he knows nothing respecting the mode of it.

Take another instance. God has revealed to us the fact, that he exists in every point of the universe at the same moment. It is an important fact, and every accountable being ought to know it ; but no man, in his present state, can know how God thus exists. It is a mode of existence so entirely different from ours, which limits us to one particular spot at a given time, that we can form no conception of it.

But let us suppose that one could hold his mind for a considerable time upon an abstract inquiry into the mode of the divine omnipresence. — ' A Being present in every point of the universe at the same moment ! — occupying this single place in the perfection of his being, and yet filling heaven and the heaven of heavens ! How can this be ? I do not exist in this manner ; how can God ? ' He would soon begin to doubt the fact, were it not for the impossibility of his long abstracting his mind thus from the evidence of the fact. The evidence of the divine omnipresence is also in this single place, and in every place. Every object which his 2 eye does or can behold in the universe, is a perpetual mirror, reflecting the image of God ; and he must see it. As a reasonable and intelligent man, he is therefore, by his inability to escape the evidence, compelled to admit the fact of God's omnipresence, although he cannot perceive the mode of it.

Take another instance. God has revealed to us the fact, that there is a peculiar distinction in the Godhead, by virtue of which he sustains certain important relations to his moral kingdom, the forms of which are to us developed under the appellations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ,' and that these three are in some way so united, as to constitute one Being. It is an important fact for us to know, because it is essentially connected with the whole system of revealed Christianity. But no man, while in this state of being, can know how God exists thus, because it is a mode of existence unlike any thing earthly. In this respect, as well as in respect to his ubiquity, the mode of his existence is unlike ours ; and to deny that he exists thus, because we do not, and therefore cannot perceive how he does, were the same absurdity as to deny that he exists every where at the same moment, because we do not, and therefore cannot perceive how he does. The cases are parallel. God may exist in this house, as really and as perfectly as though it were his only dwelling-place, although we are informed that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. In another, and not more mysterious sense, he may exist in the person of the man Christ Jesus, in " all the fullness of the Godhead bodily," as really and as perfectly as though that were the only mode of his existence.

By not thus discriminating between what we can know and what we cannot know, many are always learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. They undertake to be too wise. Instead of assuming the modest attitude of strictly inductive philosophers, in the sublime studies of natural and moral science, they launch away into an ocean of distempered dreams and fancies. Thus, while attempting to become wise, they become fools. ' For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the understanding of the prudent. '

Suppose, then, that a man, instead of calmly contemplating the evidence of the fact implied in the trinity of God, hold his mind in exclusive attention to the mode of the fact. ' How is this ? I do not exist in this mode ; how can God ? ' He hesitates — but ah ! here the truth labors; its evidence wants its auxiliary. He does not, as before, wish the fact true ; his prejudice is against it. Perhaps he is unwilling to renounce his cast. He therefore still ponders the imagined difficulty, and begins to be sure it is valid. In the mean time, the proof of the fact is out of his sight, inclosed in the Bible, which he perhaps seldom carefully reads. He has also heard something about interpolations and ambiguous readings ; and although they all amount, in sober fact, to a mere trifle, yet every dust thrown into the scale where the prejudice lies, weighs a mountain. He soon becomes certain that the trinity of God is a doctrine fraught with insuperable objections. ' It is unreasonable ! — a relic of dark ages ! — not a doctrine for enlightened minds.' Such is his real opinion,

Suppose now you could exhibit to him indisputable testimony of the fact in question — such testimony as, to a mind evenly balanced in respect to the subject, would place the fact beyond all doubt. Suppose you could open to him the testimony of God, and there read, that ' Christ is the supreme God, the true God, the great God ; that he made all things, and without him nothing was made that was made ; that angels and archangels in the high heavens cast their crowns at his feet and worship him.' — Suppose you could read to him all this, in language as plain as ever dropped from the pen of inspiration, and what have you accomplished 1 ' O, it cannot be true ! It were absurd to suppose it. That language must mean something else ; or it is an interpolation, and ought not to be there!' Convince that man by testimony from the Bible ? You cannot do it. His mind has come into such a position in relation to this subject, that he sees but just one thing, and that is his objection. An imagined difficulty he is holding, as an opaque body, directly before his eyes ; and he could not see the sun, though it were pouring its noonday beams upon him.

Excepting, in this connection, those who seem not to think at all — who appear lit le else than niere masses of physical organization ; and excepting those who, spending their whole lives in a restless fever of worldly cares and pleasures, never lift their souls calmly upward to God, or send a solicitous thought onward to the ages of their eternity ; and excepting also those whose minds seem only to respond, whose sentiments are the mere echo of the sentiments of others, — passing by all these, and contemplating individuals of character, intelligence, sound judgment, in many other matters, and sober thinkers 2* upon the great truths of religion, we may perceive the action of two causes, even in the minds of such, conspiring to resist the fact under consideration, supposing the fact to be clearly re-* vealed — the first, a habit of continually rumi* nating upon the mode of it, to the neglect of the positive evidence of its existence ; the second, an undue, and perhaps unconscious ascendancy of will — antipathy of some sort— ^resisting the force of evidence.

Remove these causes entirely, and it is believed that every mind, which admits that the Bible teaches the immortality of the soul, would also admit that it teaches the deity of Christ. For, as we have seen, every difficulty in the way of the admission of the one fact, resulting from ignorance of its mode, lies equally in the way of the other fact. 13o far, then, their claims to our credence are equal. The truth is, to a thoroughly scientific mind the supposed difficulty in either case is really no objection at all. But we find, on examination, that the passages of Scripture of unquestionable genuineness and unambiguous import, which explicitly inculcate the deity of Christ, are even more numerous than those which thus inculcate the immortality of the soul. If any doubt it, let them dismiss from their minds all that is adventitious to the fact in question, and give their candid attention as we proceed in our subsequent examination, and see for themselves if it be not so.

We have only to become acquainted with church history, and the history of the progress of the natural sciences, to be convinced of the importance of pursuing the strictly inductive process in our search of truth, and of accurately discriminating between what is and what is not knowable, in the present stage of the human mind. Some have dove into speculations too deep, and because they could not know every thing, have come to the sage conclusion that they could not know any thing for certainty; and so have settled down into a kind of universal, sluggish skepticism. Others have, on the other hand, affected an air of lofty arrogance, and asserted that they know what it is certain they do not know. They have even pretended to grasp the infinite God in their minds, and maintain that he must exist in the same mode in which themselves exist ; when it is certain he does not, and when all the world might perceive that they attempt to dip up the ocean in a thimble.

True science is modest. It knows and defines the present limit of human knowledge, and up to this limit it walks with firm but cautious step, and heavenward eye, but never attempts a step beyond. This modest course is the only one to real knowledge in matters of religion, as well as of general science. It gives to the mind a firm hold on the truth. It enables it to take in what it pretends to know, with an entire and perfect grasp. Thus it is not forever moving upon the w r ave of conjecture. It is not subject to being tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but is rooted and grounded in the faith.

The doctrine of the trinity has been sometimes so stated by schoolmen and divines, as incautiously to involve the doctrine itself with some absurd theory, explanatory of the mode of it ; so that a rejection of the theory would virtually amount to a rejection of the doctrine it attempted to explain. Nor would it satisfy a shrewd mind, disposed to evade the doctrine, to call that perceived absurdity a mystery, and attempt to cover the difficulty over in that way. A mystery is one thing ; a perceived absurdity is quite another; — the former, something not yet revealed ; the latter, something the mind already knows. There are mysteries in the trinity of

God, and so there are mysteries in his unity, his ubiquity, his eternity, and all his other transcendant perfections ; but no absurdities. It is then highly important to keep the distinction clear between fact and theory, and to exhibit the fact in its most naked, intelligible form, in our

STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE.

Sermons and books designed to subvert the doctrine of the trinity, abound with assertions and proofs that God is One. All this is entirely irrelevant to the question at issue. We fully believe that God is one being. We believe the sentiment contained in the inspired declaration against the polytheism of the Gentile nations, * Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' We have implicit confidence in the word of God, and a single declaration from that source is sufficient to settle in our minds the question, which the mere light of nature had never settled, whether there be ' gods many and lords many/ or whether there be but one almighty Being on the throne of the universe. While, however, we believe that there is but one God, we are aware that he does not exist in the same mode in which man exists. The modes of existence may be many ; we know not how many. I wilj illustrate my meaning. The mode of man's existence is such, that he can occupy only one place in the universe at the same moment. The mode of God's existence is such, that he can occupy every place at the same moment. An angel may be one being, existing only in spirit ; a man may be one being, existing in soul and body ; God may be one being, existing in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. An angel may have one mode of existence ; man may have another ; God may have still another. The above is not intended for a definition of the mode of God's existence, but simply an illustration of the fact that there are different modes of being, and that the mode of the divine being is extremely different, in many respects, from ours.

It was the great and final commission to the apostles of Christianity, ' Go ye, disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' Jehovah is thus proclaimed to the world as the object of our religious homage, existing in some sense as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But God is not three in the same sense in which he is one. A triangle, for instance, is one, in respect to its being one triangle — and three, in respect to its sides. The object of this explanation is simply the illustration of one point ; to wit, that there is a certain sense in which God is one, and a certain other sense in which he is three. The sense in which he is one, is expressed by the term being. He is one being. The sense in which he is three, is usually expressed by the term, person. He exists in three persons. The term person is used by way of accommodation, as we apply various other human expressions to God. Some trinitarians have objected to the use of this term, because' objectors to the trinity of God pervert its in-* tended meaning. But what term, taken from human vocabularies and applied to God, is not liable to this abuse ? Not one. The mind that is disposed to take advantage, can do it, not only of this, but of every anthropopathic expression in the Bible employed to represent God.

We must either say nothing about God, or we must apply to him human language ; and he who takes advantage of this, is unkind to his species, because he takes advantage of a circumstance in our present mode of being beyond our control. We have a distinct idea of the existence of the fact which this term represents, but the exact image of the fact, in our present mode of existence, we are incompetent to perceive,

So of all the other natural attributes and perfections of God. The reason is, our apprehensionsof God are obtained by contemplating our own attributes infinitely extended. But so different is the mode of God's existence from ours, that no human quality, by being extended and ex~ alted indefinitely in our imagination, can paint to our apprehension an exact image of the divine quality which it would represent. And even could we thus perceive it in the mind, we could not thus express it in language ; for all the perceptions of one mind must be transmitted to other minds through the media of resemblances. Consequently, that which has no exact resemblance, cannot be exactly represented by language, even if conceived in thought. We use the term person, to designate the distinction in the Godhead, with as much definiteness of meaning as many other terms applied to God, which all do and must adopt who speak of that Being. But if any cannot contemplate God in the person of the Father, and in the person of the Son, and in the person of the Holy Ghost, without associating with the term person the whole idea of a human being, and thus making, ipso facto, three Gods, or rather three infinite men ! of Jehovah, they will probably do well to keep clear of this, and as far as possible of all other anthropopathic expressions, applied to God. Let them beware how they say God sees, lest they must suppose that he has human eyes ; let them not say God hears, lest they must suppose he has human ears. Let them also beware how they call God a rock, lest they suppose him a solid mass of matter ; let them not venture on the language of inspiration, and say that God repented, lest they should impiously presume that he has sinned ! Let them enter into a more abstracted and sublimely rational contemplation of Jehovah, in all his revealed endearing relations, as him ' whom no mortal eye hath seen or can see.'

The word, person, is used only to represent the distinction in the Godhead necessarily implied in the revealed fact of the deity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. If no word can be employed to represent that distinction which does not trouble them, let the distinction remain unrepresented ; only let them receive the ultimate revealed fact.

By discriminating, in regard to the divine trinity, between the fact itself and the mode of the fact, it will be perceived that we are not chargeable with believing what we do not comprehend. In strict language, no mind can believe what it does not comprehend. It may and does believe in the existence of multitudes 3 of facts, which involve incomprehensibles; but the facts themselves, the precise things which the mind believes, it must clearly perceive.

What then are the facts which we believe respecting the trinity? They are these — That Jehovah exists in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — that the Father is divine, that the Son is divine, that the Holy Ghost is divine — that these three are so far distinct (a distinction not exactly Kke any thing human, yet in some respects so much resembling the distinction of human persons) as to render pertinent and to authorize the scriptural application of the personal pro^ nouns to each, I, the Father; Thou, the Son; He, the Holy Ghost — that Jehovah, in each of these persons, sustains important relations to his creatures, and the great system of moral govern^ ment, just so far peculiar to each as is represented in the Bible — and finally, that these three, existing in perfect eternal union, constitute the one glorious Being, who is the only living and true God. The revealed fact that God exists thus, is what we profess to believe ; how he exists thus, we do not understand. So also we believe the fact that God exists every where at the same moment ; but how he exists thus, we do not know. We clearly apprehend the fact, that the soul and body of man coexist r but how they coexist, we 'do not pretend to have learned. We believe the fact, that man continues to exist as a conscious being beyond the grave ; but with the mode of that existence, we are at present unacquainted. A candid and enlightened mind will not hesitate to acknowledge, that every supposed difficulty lying against the fact of the divine trinity, as involving mystery, lies equally against the fact of the divine ubiquity, the coexistence of soul and body, the existence of disembodied souls, and thousands of other facts in the moral and physical sciences ; the existence of which facts is unquestionable, the modes of which as yet unexplained.

But we are told that men have attempted to explain the mode of the trinity, and that they have explained it in different ways. And what if they have I So of other facts. Men have attempted to explain the mode of the coexistence of mind and matter ; and they have explained it in different ways. What then? It is still a fact that mind and matter do coexist, just as they did before a theory was ever framed upon the subject.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the fact, that the planets move round the sun in elliptical orbits. Soon after appeared a host of theorizers upon the mode of the fact. One conjectured that the planets were sustained in their orbits by some gaseous fluid ; another, that they were impelled and guided by certain mysterious laws of attraction and repulsion ; another, that the fact was produced by the immediate efficiency of God — and so on. What then ? Why, we find that the fact announced by Sir Isa c is still as good as ever. The planets do still move round in their orbits, just as they did in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The different theories of men have not disturbed them at all.

At a much earlier period, Jehovah announced to mankind some important facts respecting himself. Soon after, men began to theorize upon the mode of these facts ; and different men have sometimes framed diffjrent theories. What then ? All the developed facts still exist, as in the begin ing; the different human theories explanatory of their mode notwithstanding. Facts in the divine trinity, the modes of which are as yet unknown, are thus practically admitted to exist. Mankind have not been laboring for ages to explain what has no existence. But because they have not succeeded to explain the modes of these facts, some have concluded to disclaim the very existence of the facts themselves ! An easy expedient, to be sure ; but is it worthy of an intelligent, judicious mind, professing to appreciate evidence ? What 1 practically adopt a principle, by virtue of which you may disclaim the very existence of Jehovah, and of all that your eyes behold, and of even your own existence too ! Go, child of yesterday ! immerse thyself in thy wisdom — live and die in it ! But God shall at last demonstrate thy wisdom to be folly.