to bend an imaginary faith to a name. Persons, who have thus exercised themselves, have found it impossible to resist the evidence of the simple unity, but have thought it necessary at all hazards to hold fast to the name of trinity. As realities could not be found, they have resorted to modes, and when the substance was wholly gone, they have been contented with shadows. Some have discovered, that a shadow is nothing, and all at once surprized themselves in the fearful ranks of Unitarians. No remedy was left but mystery; and when to the nothingness of a mode is added the darkness of mystery, that must be a barren imagination indeed, which cannot with a tranquil conscience adapt its faith to any measure, and accommodate it to any name.

Having thus spoken of the nature of trinity, and of the infinite variety of opinions, which come under that name, we may now go on to consider the grounds on which it is supposed to be plainly taught in the Scriptures. My remarks in the next letter will be chiefly applicable to the doctrine in its broadest sense, but particularly adapted to that branch of it quoted above from the Calvinistic formulary of faith.

LETTER II.

Doctrine of a Trinity not taught in the Scriptures.

SIR,

Ar the present day, it is common for Trinitarians to discourse of the plainness with which their doctrine is expressed in the Scriptures. They find it in almost every chapter of the Old Testament and the New, and wonder that any one can be so dull, or so perverse, as not to see and confess a truth, which to them shines so brightly.

Many reasons occur, however, which induce those, who have not been so fortunate as to make this discovery in any part of the Bible, to think that the believers in a trinity labour under some deception in this respect, either from their predilections, their zeal for a favourite opinion, or from a combination of causes not difficult to be enumerated. If the doctrine be so plainly taught, it is very natural to ask, how it comes to pass, that thousands and tens of thousands do not find it, who yet inquire with the same advantages, the same motives and vigilance, with a resolution equally determined, and a zeal equally ardent, as those who boast of a better suc cess ?

The details of my last letter throw obstacles not to be surmounted in the way of the notion, that the

Scriptures plainly teach a trinity. The friends of the doctrine themselves are full of differences and contradictions; they agree in nothing; they have no common principles; and when they attempt to explain, they are obscure, and at variance with each other. Their trinities are infinite in number and variety. What stronger proof can be given, that no doctrine which has received the name of trinity, is an obvious doctrine of the Bible? If it were said to be hidden, and found only by patient and deep research, the problem would be much less difficult to solve. It would, indeed, afford something like a plausible reason, why persons have come to such dissimilar results in looking for it. But to tell us a thing is plain, which many cannot see at all, and of which those, who do see it, have no consistent or definite conceptions, if this be not a contradiction in terms, it is a glaring misuse of language.

The opinion, that the trinity is plainly taught in the Scriptures, has not generally prevailed till of late. So far were Trinitarians from holding such an opinion in former times, that in nothing did they exercise their ingenuity more, than in devising reasons why this doctrine should be only obscurely shadowed forth by the Saviour and the Apostles, and why it should be kept wholly concealed from the Jews. This subject merits discussion, not because it affects the Scriptural evidence in regard to the truth or falsehood of the doctrine; but because it is intimately connected with the presumption of making the trinity a necessary article of faith, which all persons

must believe before they can be called christians, or hope for salvation. If the primitive christians knew nothing of this doctrine, it is absurd to clothe it with so much importance; nay, it is actually putting a false character on the religion of Jesus, and deceiving the humble inquirer into a fatal reliance on things, which can have no good tendency on his religious or moral conduct. In this light the subject is worth

pursuing.

Let us go back to the time of our Saviour, and inquire of the people, who listened to his preaching; let us accompany the Apostles in their travels, and ascertain the opinions, which were derived from their instructions; let us refer to the first believers in christianity, to the early and later Fathers, to the Catholics after the Reformation, to some of the first reformers, to the Arminians of Holland, and even to eminent English divines. The train of testimony, which might be brought from these sources, would show with how little discretion the trinity is now affirmed to be plainly taught in the Scriptures, and with how little regard to consistency it is imposed as a necessary article of faith.

In the first place, then, it will not be denied, that the great design of the revelations contained in the Old Testament was to acquaint the Jews with the true nature of God; nor will it be denied, that from all these revelations they had no conceptions of any other mode of existence, than that of his simple unity. It was perpetually enforced on them as a fundamental truth, that the "Lord their God was

one "

No history, either sacred or profane, ac quaints us with a single fact, from which it can be inferred, that the Jews had any knowledge of a threefold nature in the Deity. On the contrary, all history is against such an inference; and the demonstrable certainty, that these people, for whose light and improvement the Old Testament was expressly der signed, never had the remotest suspicion of such a doctrine being contained in their sacred books, is the clearest possible evidence, that it is not plainly taught there, whatever may now be deduced from types, and shadows, and dark sayings, and Hebrew idioms, and double meanings.

And, again, where does it appear, that the people to whom our Saviour preached, understood him to describe God as existing in a threefold nature; Or, to put the question in a more direct shape, where does it appear, that in one instance, he spoke of him as any other, than the one true God? The only history we have of the opinions of that period is contained in the Gospels; and there we are made to know, as distinctly as we can be made know, that Christ ascribes all things to one Being, whom he calls the Father and the Creator. To whom did he offer prayers, render homage, and acknowledge submission? Was it not invariably to one God, the Father? Did he ever address the Holy Spirit, as a separate being called "God the Holy Ghost," or another, called "God the Son ?" Never. His miracles, his divine intelligence, all his superiour powers, he refers to one Being, the Father, not once only, but