There is scarcely any thing, however, too absurd or too extravagant for a Trinitarian to say, or suppose, when he is called upon to fence round, and to defend, the idolatrous doctrine of the Trinity; to the blasphemous absurdities of which he has surrendered his judgment. He has so many absurd positions to maintain, that he becomes familiar with absurdity; and is ever ready to take any amount of it under his guardianship. When (certain) scripture(s) are pressed upon him, he says, “Oh, Christ spake this only in his human nature!” When Christ said, “my Father is greater than I,” “Oh!” says the Trinitarian, “he meant that only in his human nature!”—“he is ‘inferior” to the Father, as touching his manhood,” says the creed, “but “equal’ to him, as touching his Godhead.” When Christ spake of some things which “he did not know, as they had been reserved by his Father, in his own power,” “Oh!” says the Trinitarian, “he only meant that he did not know them in his human nature: but, in his divine nature, he knew them perfectly!”—thus, directly, charging Christ with the grossest duplicity and falsehood! O, ye slow of heart to believe all that Christ hath spoken!
What can be thought of the following, “extravaganza,” in the way of allegation, put forward to enable the parties to shirk an extinguishing argument?—It being plain and palpable, that neither in the prayers of the patriarchs and prophets of old, nor in those which Christ himself addressed to heaven, nor in the form of prayer he prescribed to his disciples, is to be found one expression, which, even by the most inventive and robust imagination, could be tortured or twisted, so as to bear the feeblest semblance of a precedent for a prayer to a Trinity, or which could, by any amount of ingenuity, be construed so as to afford a presumption, of, even the most equivocal, recognition of a Trinity—it has been alleged, “that the different persons of the Trinity were not made known to men, till they became successively revealed:” and that therefore a Trinity of persons was not known, or believed in by any body, till after the resurrection of Christ, and after the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost; and that, consequently, the absence of any allusion to the existence of a Trinity, in the prayers of Christ, and those who went before him, goes for nothing!! Yes! so blinded in their minds have Trinitarians become, that they will adopt any supposition, however absurd,—they will, in short, believe, or profess to believe, any thing, rather than be forced into an admission of the truth; because, to admit the truth would be to give up their idolized creed— to give up those long, and blindly, cherished doctrines which are seducing them away, and drawing them away, after false modes of worship. How naturally prone the heart of man is to idolatry! The gods many, and the lords many, of the heathen, tell us of this. The “Golden Calf,” even of that highly favoured people the Jews, tells us of this.
Could I have fervent charity towards Trinitarians, and not adjure them to reflect, whether they may not be sitting in the chair of those of whom the apostle Paul spake, when he said, “Now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of DEITIES: speaking lies in hypocrisy having their conscience seared with a hot iron!”—l Tim. iv. 1, 2.—The word which I have, here, translated “deities” is, in our English translation, incorrectly translated “devils.” The word in the original Greek means “deities,” or objects of veneration and worship, as I have rendered it—.
But, allowing the Trinitarian the full benefit of his “seared-conscience” supposition—that Christ, while in the world, had been keeping his disciples in the dark, and that it was only after his resurrection from the dead, they had discovered that in him they had had a God, incognito, amongst them; and, further, that, it was, only, after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they had found that a third God, called “The Holy Ghost,” had made his “début” amongst them; neither of which Gods had ever before been heard of, since the foundation of the world— even allowing the Trinitarian the full benefit of this, to say the least of it—very large—supposition; we may observe that we should, under such circumstances, most certainly, have expected to receive very early intimation of all this from the apostles: we should have expected to find them taking the very earliest opportunity, of offering their public homage to the several persons of this newly-discovered “Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity”—We should have expected, also, that their forms of prayer would, very speedily, have acquired the orthodox mould, and would, soon, have been found, in this respect, not one whit behind even our Litany itself—we should have expected, too, that they would not have failed to leave on record, a very explicit and welldrawn-out exposition, of all these wondrous things which had so unexpectedly come to light: something that would have been a “proto-type,” however unworthy, of “The Athanasian Creed,” that was to be. We should, most certainly, have expected that at least Paul, the intellectual Paul—that man of subtile and philosophic mind—that man of watchful solicitude for the interests of the truth—we should have expected that he, at least, would have addressed himself to this, it may have been difficult, but all-important, task—.
But, no!: we find nothing of all this. The apostles, filled as they were with the Holy Spirit, never spake of any God but “one,” “the God and Father of all.” They never prayed to any God but “one,” “the God and Father of the holy child Jesus.” They never penned an exposition of the mysteries, and blasphemies, and nonsense, of “the Athanasian Creed.” —How will Trinitarians account for this? What is the next “supposition” they will make to help them over this difficulty?—it will require an “incomprehensibly” large one to be of much service to them!
But let us dwell, for a little, upon the question, as to whom the apostles exclusively addressed themselves in prayer. One of their first public prayers, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is recorded in the fourth chapter of the “Acts of the Apostles.” Let us note it carefully. It is as follows:– “And, when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord thou art God, who 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 a vain thing? 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 thy hand to heal, and that signs, and wonders, may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.”—Acts iv. 24-30.
Is there no mention of a Trinity here? In this public prayer, offered up, so recently after the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit, is there no mention made of the Trinity?—not even an allusion to it? How unaccountable!— According to the Trinitarian supposition, the apostles had very recently discovered, in the resurrection of Christ, that he who had gone out and in amongst them was no less than “the co-equal and co-eternal” of that God whom they had formerly worshipped; and, further, that, immediately succeeding that event, they had found that a third divinity, “co-equal and co-eternal” with the other two had alighted in their midst, on a mission of love and mercy, and had filled their hearts with his divine presence!—Should we not, therefore, have expected that, under such felicitous circumstances, the apostles would have taken this earliest, and very fitting, opportunity, to testify their ready admission of these successive claims upon their divine fealty; and would have signalized the occasion, by a public, and emphatic, and explicit, declaration of the wondrous, and, to the Jews, perchance, incredible, things which had just come to light? This, however, they did not do. These recreant apostles, the predecessors of our worthy Episcopal staff, so recently commissioned to go out and preach the gospel to every creature, and to call upon all to worship the “Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity,”—consisting of three persons, each by himself being God and Lord, the glory being equal and the majesty co-eternal, and to proclaim that all who would not think of the three, and worship the three, should, without doubt, perish everlastingly!—these miscreant apostles impiously refuse to recognise, or admit, the claim of more than one of these personages to divine honours!—Should not our worthy archbishops and bishops, immediately, meet in solemn conclave, and repudiate, for ever, any connection with such reprobates! and blot out, for ever, the names of the twelve apostles from their calendar of saints; and refuse, for all time coming, to acknowledge their having any claim to the distinguished honour of being their predecessors? I do not see how any consistent Trinitarian could say that this ought not to be done.
Might it not, I ask, be fairly presumed that these apostles were justly chargeable with, at least, “the sin against the Holy Ghost,” in not having mentioned even him, in their prayer? Might not the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, very justly, have said that these apostles were “a stiff-necked and rebellious race,” who would still persist in addressing themselves to only one of their number; while the existence of “the whole three” had been revealed to them by such strong and full evidence? and might they not, very justly, have abandoned them for ever?—Were the Trinitarian supposition true, the apostles must have been so abandoned of heaven. Was this, however, the case? No: on the contrary, we find that when they had prayed, as above recorded, “the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the holy spirit, and spake the word of God with boldness”—Acts iv. 31. That God, to whom they prayed—the God and Father of the holy child Jesus —recognised in them, those who worshipped him “in spirit and in truth.” He heard their prayers, and answered them. I have said enough, conclusively to settle the quesion, for ever, as to the being whom the apostles and disciples worshipped; and to whom, when they prayed, they exclusively addressed themselves. The God whom the apostles worshipped, and to whom they prayed, was “the God and Father” of “the holy child Jesus.” They did not pray to the holy child Jesus himself, “the second person of the Trinity;” nor did they pray to the Holy Ghost, “the third person of the Trinity.”—They did not discover after the resurrection of Christ, that he had been a God, incognito, going out and in amongst them, and eating and drinking with them; nor did they discover that a third God, in the shape of the holy spirit, had made his appearance amongst them on the day of Pentecost. No: they knew of no God but “one,” and that one was “the God and Father of all.”
Although, however, the apostles did not recognise, in the holy child Jesus, a hitherto unknown deity, they recognised in him what was, to them, equally consolatory and equally cheering, namely, “the long promised Messiah.” And although they did not recognise in the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the appearance of a third deity amongst them; they recognised, in that divine manifestation, what was to them equally satisfactory, namely, no less than the Holy Spirit of “Jehovah,” the God in whom they and their fathers had trusted.
I have said that, although the apostles did not recognise, in the holy child Jesus, a hitherto unknown deity, they recognised in him the long promised Messiah. Yes: Jesus was the Messiah promised unto their fathers. The question has been often put to me, “Well, if Christ was not God, what then was he?” To this I answer—He was “The Messiah”—the Messiah promised unto the fathers—and he was neither more nor less than this. All things which Moses, in the law, and, which the prophets did write of the Messiah were fulfilled in the holy child Jesus, to the letter; but in him, who is the second person of the Trinity, not a single one of those promises could, by any possibility, have been fulfilled. --NO: NOT A SINGLE ONE of THEM!
No comments:
Post a Comment