The Testimony Of History by Hugh H. Stannus 1899
"Christianity conquered Paganism, but Paganism infected Christianity. The rites of the Pantheon were introduced into her institutions, and the subtleties of the Academy into her creed."—Macaulay.
If there be one fact in the history of the Christian religion more striking and demonstrable than another, it is this, that our religion started its career with a purely Monotheistic theology. We have already shown that there is not a single sign in the pages of the Gospels, or of the Acts of the Apostles (the first records of our religion) of any attempt to introduce any different theological conception of the Unity of God than that which for ages had been known to the Jewish people. ["The systematic doctrine of the Trinity was kept in the background in the infancy of Christianity, when faith and obedience were vigorous".—Dr. J. H. Newman's "Arians of Fourth Century",. II i., p. 160.]
It would appear that the Christian religion is not singular in the changes which have taken place since its first promulgation. Writers on such religions as those of the ancient Egyptians, the Brahmins, and others, contend that a much greater theological simplicity marked their earlier than their later career. ["It is apparent to me that the Christian religion has been corrupted from very early times, and that these corruptions have been mistaken for essential parts of it, and have been the cause of rendering the whole religion incredible".—The Duke of Grafton.]
No historian ignores the serious conflicts which took place during the third and fourth centuries in the Christian Church. Mosheim says that "it is certain that human learning and philosophy have at all times pretended to modify the doctrines of Christianity, and that these pretensions have extended further than belongs to the province of philosophy on the one hand, or is consistent with the purity of the Gospel on the other". [History of the Christian Church: Second Century.—"The Hellenic philosophy operated from without, as a stimulating force, upon the form of the whole patristic theology, the doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity among the rest".—Schaffs History of Christian Church, vol. i., p. 284. "Those who maintained that learning and philosophy were rather advantageous than detrimental to the cause of religion, gained by degrees the ascendant".—Mosheim, Second Century, Part 2. As there are numerous editions of Mosheim's work, and various translations, we quote passages as under the century in which they are to be found. Our quotations are from Maclaine's translation, 1810.]
The Platonic philosophy, Gibbon says, "anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries [the Trinity] of the Christian revelation". Bishop Horsley concedes that "Platonic converts to Christianity applied the principles of their old philosophy to the explication and confirmation of the articles of their faith. They defended it by arguments drawn from Platonic principles, and even propounded it in Platonic language". [Collected Charges, p. 130; London 1830. A school of Platonists at Alexandria (see "Cudworth's Intellectual System") taught, that in the Godhead were (1) The supreme good: (2) the mind or intellect: (3) the soul. And that the second was generated from the first, and the third was dependent on the first and second. All Church historians affirm, with Bishop Horsley, that the Platonic doctrines were forced on the attention of the early Christians. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, used to tell the Arians to go and learn the Trinity from the Platonists. St. Augustine confesses that he was in the dark about the Trinity until he read some Platonic writings "which the providence of God had thrown in his way."]
Mosheim says of the first three centuries, "Nothing was dictated to the faith of Christians in the matter [of the Trinity]; nor were any modes of expression prescribed or requisite to be used in speaking of this mystery". Similarly, the late Bishop Hind remarks, "It seems to have called for no explanation, and is not even spoken of as a mystery". "These doctrines", says Dr. Olinthus Gregory, "concerning the nature of the Trinity which in preceding ages had escaped the vain curiosity of man and had been left undefined by words and undetermined by any particular set of ideas, excited considerable contests through the whole of this [fourth] century". Surely a doctrine of which it is so repeatedly said, by Trinitarian historians, that "we find no trace of any words" which set it forth during the first centuries; that "there was no mode of expression prescribed in speaking of it"; that "it was left undetermined and undefined by any set of ideas"; that it "called for no explanation"; that it "was kept in the background"; "that it was not even spoken of as a mystery"—could not have had much influence in that primitive, heroic, and martyr age of the Church, even if it then had any existence among Christians.
It is generally admitted that the three creeds, the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, mark successive stages of development in the doctrine of the Trinity. Mosheim says of the first two centuries of Christianity, "The Christian system as it was hitherto taught, preserved its native and beautiful simplicity, and was comprehended in a small number of articles. The public teachers inculcated no other doctrines than those taught in the Apostles' Creed. . . . Everything beyond the reach of common capacities was carefully avoided". It was the Council of Nice, A.d. 325, which introduced the Nicene Creed. But it was the Council of Constantinople, A.d. 381, that gave the finishing touch to the doctrine which the Council of Nice had left imperfect of Three Persons In One God, and that branded with infamy all errors and set a mark of execration upon all heresies.
From this time the arm of the State came forth to sustain what the subtleties of philosophy had introduced into the Christian Church. Here is a decree—21st Feb., A.d. 380— of which no one can mistake the meaning:—"We, the three Emperors, will that all our subjects follow the religion taught by St. Peter to the Romans, professed by those saintly prelates, Damasus, Pontiff of Rome, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, that they believe the one divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of majesty co-equal in the Holy Trinity. We will that those who embrace this creed be called Catholic Christians. We brand all the senseless followers of other religions by the infamous name of heretics, and forbid their conventicles to assume the name of Churches. We reserve their punishment to the vengeance of Heaven, and to such measures as divine inspiration shall dictate to us". This decree appeared in the names of Gratian, Valentinian II., and Theodosius. It was the official notification of the doctrine of the Trinity; and thus, as Dean Milman puts it in his "History of Christianity", "the religion of the whole Roman world was enacted by two feeble boys and a rude Spanish soldier." Waddington, a Trinitarian, says that only two years after the Council of Constantinople, "Theodosius addressed the Arians, A.d. 383, thus, 'I will not permit throughout my dominions any other religion than that which obliges us to worship the Son of God, in unity of essence with the Father and the Holy Ghost, in the 'adorable Trinity'. ... As Theodosius persevered inflexibly against the Arians, and his severities were attended by general and lasting success, the doctrine of Arius, if not perfectly extirpated, withered from that moment rapidly and irrecoverably". The testimony of Gibbon is very similar- "In the space of fifteen years Theodosius issued no less than fifteen severe edicts, more especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; and to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favour, the judges should consider them as the illegal productions of either fraud or forgery".
It is clear, that toward the close of the fourth century, the Church had arrived at a period when a new nomenclature had been successfully introduced into its creeds and prayers. The simple and Scriptural Monotheism of the Jews, and of the first Christian Church, was completely gone. ["In the article of the Trinity, the Christian conception of God completely defines itself in distinction alike from the abstract Monotheism of the Jewish religion, and from the polytheism and dualism of the heathen".—"Schaff's History of the Christian Church," vol. i., p. 282.]
The doctrine of the Trinity, the offspring of heathen mysticism, philosophy and sophistry, was set up. This change did not come without serious conflicts, protests, and convulsions. The whole of the fourth century bears witness to this. Men of learning espoused different sides in this theological warfare. The mass of the people raised their voice against the innovation. Epiphanius writes, A.d. 350, that the short, plain argument of the body of the people in his time was, "Well, friend, what doctrine now? Shall we acknowledge one God or three Gods"? [See Priestley's "History of the Corruption of Christianity", and also "Early Opinions", for other similar statements. "For nothing is more manifest than this truth, that the noble simplicity and dignity of religion were sadly corrupted in many places when the philosophers blended their opinions with its pure doctrines"..."The sacred and venerable simplicity of the primitive times, which required no more than a true faith in the Word of God, and a sincere obedience to His holy laws, appeared little better than rusticity and ignorance to the subtle doctrines of this quibbling age".-Mosheim, under the Fourth Century.]
Other disputes quickly sprung up on nice points. One of these was on the question whether we ought to say "One of "the Trinity suffered in the flesh", or "One person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh". On this pretty puzzle there were many different opinions. From that day to this the doctrine of the Trinity has been the subject of differences so constant and serious that we are inclined to think Christendom will soon say, what Archbishop Tillotson once said of the Athanasian Creed, "I wish we were well rid of it". [Letter to Bishop Burnet. The Council of Ephesus (431) decreed that Mary was "the mother of God". After this a dispute arose on the question of Anne, the mother of Mary, whether she should be called, "the mother of the mother of God", or, "the grandmother of God". One absurdity paves the way for another.]
In concluding this part of our task, we cheerfully acknowledge the fact that, on the question of the Unity of God, men of equal intelligence and devotion are found on different sides. The names of illustrious divines, scholars, and others, who for fifteen hundred years have graced the Church and the world with their learning and goodness, and who at the same time believed in the doctrine of the Trinity, are well known. But it is also true that in the earlier period of the Church, as in modern times, not a few whose names are household words in Christendom for virtue and learning have held the Scriptural and Unitarian view of God. [We claim not only the first apostles and teachers of Christianity, but the great body of the "noble army of martyrs and confessors", of the ante-Nicene period, as having held the strict unity of God. The ante-Nicene fathers invariably spoke of Christ as subordinate to the Father. In the third and fourth centuries there was a Trinity held up to be believed in, but not a Trinity of equal persons in the Godhead. "All the learned men in the second century agree in saying that the Christians worship only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob".—Bouzique. The following are words of Origen, "We must pray only to God, the Father of all, to whom the Saviour prayed. • • • In this we are all agreed, and are not divided about the method of prayer". The prayer of Polycarp, when he was tied to the stake, shows very clearly to whom prayer was then addressed: "O Lord God Almighty, the Father of thy well-beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received a knowledge of Thee".
John Milton was a careful and industrious student of the Bible. Yet the following are words of his, in a treatise he wrote against the Trinity:—"For my own part, I adhere to the Holy Scriptures alone, I follow no other heresy or sect. If, therefore, the Father be the God of Christ, and the same be our God, and if there be none other God but one, there can be no God beside the Father".
Sir Isaac Newton, it is well known, was a devout reader of the Bible. Yet all acquainted with his theological opinions admit that he adopted Unitarian views. He says:— "There is One God, the Father, ever living, omnipresent omniscient, almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and one mediator between God and men—the man Christ Jesus. The Father is the invisible God, whom no eye hath seen or can see. All other beings are sometimes visible. All the worship (whether of praise, or prayer, or thanksgiving) which was due to the Father before the coming of Christ, is still due to him. Christ came not to diminish the worship of his Father".
With Milton and Newton there is another name constantly associated, as sharing the same distinguished mental rank, John Locke. The evidence of his Unitarian belief is so complete that no one now denies that he held the same theological opinions on this subject as the poet and the philosopher. He had well considered the Scriptural, and also the historical, arguments for and against the Trinity. He says, "The fathers before the Council of Nice speak rather like Arians than the orthodox." ..." There is scarcely one text alleged by the Trinitarians which is not otherwise expounded by their own writers." . . . It [the Trinity] is inconsistent with the rule of prayer directed in the Sacred Scriptures. For if God be three persons, how can we pray to Him through His Son for His Spirit"?
Towards the close of a long and active life, the celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts was constrained to abandon his former Trinitarian views. We have the clearest evidence of this in his "Solemn Address to the Deity", in which occurs the following:—" Dear and blessed God, hadst Thou told me plainly in any single text that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three real, distinct persons in Thy divine nature, . . . I should have joyfully employed all my reasoning powers, with their utmost skill and activity, to have found out this inference, and engrafted it into my soul. . . . The Deity is not made up of three such distinct and separate spirits".
With the names of Milton, Locke, Newton, and Watts, we can associate those of Chillingworth, Lord Falkland, Sir M. Hale, Dr. Samuel Clarke, Whiston, Whitby, Benson, Lardner, Porson, William Penn, Sir W. Jones, Hales of Eton, and others, who made the Bible and theology a speciality of their studies. Poets like Akenside, Barbauld, Rogers, Joanna Baillie, Roscoe, Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson; and philosophers like Priestley, Franklin, Hutcheson, Price, Rittenhouse, Cavendish, and De Morgan, also embraced this simple faith in One God, the Father. It was adopted in the last century by five eminent Bishops of the Established Church, Rundle, Clayton, Watson, Law (of Carlisle), and Law (of Elphin). Brewster says that "England may well be proud of having had Milton, Locke, and Newton for the champions of Protestantism";—and we can also say that our views of the absolute unity of God have been honoured by the testimony of these and other learned men. Still we place our reliance, for religious truth, on the Word of God, not on the wisdom of man. To the law and the testimony we appeal—to the Bible, and the Bible only, as the religion of Protestants.
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