The Trinity A Hindrance to the Spread of Christianity, By Hugh Hutton Stannus

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It is well known to those who enter upon missionary work that the doctrine of the Trinity presents an almost insuperable difficulty in the effort to make converts of Jews, Muslims, Parsees, and others. A Japanese once said, "What a contempt you must have of our understanding if we are expected to receive instruction like this ". Five times a day the Muslims repeats, "There is no God but one God," as a kind of protest against the theory of a Triune Deity. The well educated Muslim tells the Christian missionary that the doctrine of the Trinity is neither in the Old Testament nor the New, but is an after-thought grafted upon the primitive Monotheistic creed which Christ himself taught. Of the intelligent Hindoos, the late Rev. Rowland Williams (who made Hindoo mythology a special study) is compelled to acknowledge that Christianity, in its prevalent form, can never win the general assent of the Oriental mind, and that only the simple religious ideas and precepts of the Gospel—the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the grand sentiments which harmonise with the intuitive moral judgment—can exercise long and lasting influence upon the Hindoo race.

In addition to the difficulties with Muslims and Pagans, it is scarcely necessary to repeat the thrice-told tale of the absolute repugnance of the Jews to the theory of a three-fold Deity. We know there are some controversialists reckless enough to say that the Jews were once Trinitarians and may be so again. This was not the view of Bishop Beveridge, who writes, "The Jews have had the law above three thousand years, and the prophets above two thousand years, yet to this day they could never make the Trinity an article of their faith ". And Bishop Bloomfield says, in reference to some who hold that the Jews once believed in the Trinity—"I confess that I am not prepared to go to the full length of these positions. I think it in the highest degree probable that the Jews expected a Messiah who would be a sharer in the divine nature, but not one who should be equal with God ".

The following lines, the composition of a Jew, fully illustrate this position:—

When thou canst wash the Ethiopian white, 
Govern the winds, or give the sun more light, 
Cause by thy word the mountain to remove, 
Control the seas, or hurl the bolts of Jove,— 
Then hope (but not till then) to turn the Jews 
To Christian doctrines and to Christian views. 
For Christian faith, say conscience is thy guide, 
The Jews, for conscience' sake, 'gainst it decide. 
One God thou callest Three, and Three but One; 
The Jews acknowledge God as One alone. 

It would not be difficult to fill pages with the testimony of many learned historians and divines, that the Jews have through all ages believed and upheld the simple and absolute unity of God as one person. They lay great stress on the words, "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah". When these words are read in their services they emphasise them by repetitions. Canon Farrar, in "Early Days of Christianity", in evidence of the Monotheism of the Jews, gives the following, on the authority of Berachoth: "Thus, as regards Monotheism, we find that in repeating the Shema, or daily prayer, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God' (Deut. vi. 4), whosoever prolongs the utterance of the word One (echad), shall have his days and years prolonged to him". There is similar evidence by Dr. Adam Clarke in his "Commentary", under Deuteronomy vi. 4. The Unity of God is the first and great commandment of Moses, and it is also the first and great commandment of Christ. During the earliest period of Christian history the ablest advocates of Christianity were Jews. At the present time the Jewish race is scattered over all the earth, bearing its testimony to the truth of the doctrine of one God in one person. There is a widespead belief that the Muslims have been raised up by Divine Providence as a protest against the doctrine of the Trinity. Their voice is heard, their worship is felt, over the cast of Europe, and in Asia and Africa as well. Some 30 millions of Muslims are leavening our great empire of India with a Monotheistic theology. It is very questionable if Islam, which has hindered the progress of Christianity in the East, would have had any existence at all in the world had the Church kept to the Monotheism of the New Testament. The Parsees also and the Hindus constantly proclaim the doctrine of the undivided unity of God. Some years ago when we had a serious difference with the Queen of Oude, and referred in one of our proclamations to the Christian religion, the following reply was issued by her command:—"In the [Queen of England's] proclamation it is written that the Christian religion is true, but no other creed will suffer oppression; and that the laws will be observed towards all. What has the administration of justice to do with the truth or falsehood of religion? That religion is true which acknowledges One God and knows no other. Where there are Three Gods in religion, neither Muslims nor Hindus, nay, not even Jews, Sun-worshippers, or Fire-worshippers, can believe it true".

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