LETTER XIII.

Considerations relating to the Doctrine of the Trinity.

REV. SIR,

I own I was particularly desirous of hearing what you could possibly say on the subject of my seventh letter, in which I advanced some general considerations relating to the doctrine of the trinity; but, unfortunately, you "content yourself," p. 136, "with giving only a general reply to some parts of that letter. A particular answer," you say, "to the several objections which it contains would lead me into metaphysical disquisitions, which I wish to decline, because in that subject I foresee that we should want common principles and a common language.'

Now I make no doubt, Sir, but that if it had been possible for you to have given any plausible answer to the difficulties started in that letter, you would have found some principle, common or uncommon, on which to found it, and some language also, which might have been intelligible to me and your readers. But as you profess that you do not expect to convince me, it would have been quite sufficient for your purpose if you could have found common principles and common language for others.

I am the more concerned at your silence, as I was in hopes of having some further account of your own peculiar notion of the necessary origin of the Son from the Father's contemplation. of his own perfections; but to my great mortification I find not one gleam of more light on this curious subject. You said that this

doctrine was agreeable to the notions of all the fathers, as well as to the sacred writers, and I challenged you to produce any authority for it, except what exists in your own imagination. In my opinion, nothing can be conceived more absurd than the idea of the necessary production of an intelligent being, possessed of actual substantial personality, equal in all respects to the original intelligent being, from the mere self-contemplation of that original being's perfections. I said that nothing in the Jewish Cabbala could be more absurd. You intimate, p. 149, that I may know but little of the Jewish Cabbala; but for my purpose it is quite enough, that it is a known proverbial expression to denote the extreme of absurdity; and if so, whatever the Jewish Cabbala may really be, (of which I may perhaps know as much as yourself, and of which we may each of us soon learn enough from Basnage,) the phrase could not be misapplied *.

I find, however, a few other things on the subject of that letter which are curious enough; so that, for the amusement, if not the instruction of my readers, I shall make some observations on them.

*The learned Prelate, in the fourth Disquisition annexed to the edition of his Tracts in controversy with Dr. Priestley, has laboured much, not indeed to defend the mysterious doctrine of the Son's generation from the Father's contemplation of his own perfections, but to prove that he was not himself the inventor of the sublime mystery. In his appeal to the writings of the fathers the Bishop totally fails: nor does he succeed much better in those of the schoolmen. The first plain example of this curious doctrine is found in a treatise published under the sanction of the Council of Trent, entitled "Catechismus ad Parochos," in which" the true believer is exhorted to pray that may be thought worthy to be allowed to see what that wonderful fecundity of God the Father is, that, contemplating and exerting his intelligence upon himself, he should beget a son, the exact counterpart and equal of himself." Melanchthon appears to have entertained the same extravagant notion, and Zanchius reproves it. At any rate it is sufficiently apparent that the honour of the invention does not appertain to Bishop Horsley."--Ed.

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I.

In the first place, I still think that you yourself are not perfectly orthodox; for besides your virtual dis approbation of the damnatory clause in the Athanasian creed, p. 165, you allow a real superiority in the Father. "If," you say, p. 145, "from such expressions as my Father is greater than I, you would be content to infer that the Almighty Father is indeed the fountain and the center of divinity, and that the equality of godhead is to be understood with some mysterious subordination of the Son to the Father, you would have the concurrence of the ancient fathers, and of the advocates of the true faith in all ages.' But give me leave to say, that any proper subordination, mysterious or not mysterious, implies inferiority, and is an infringement of the doctrine of the perfect equality of the three persons; so that it cannot be, as your creed says, none is afore or after another. You say, p. 149, "I maintain the equality of the three persons in all the attributes of the divine nature. I maintain their equality in rank and authority with respect to all created things, whatever relations or differences may subsist between themselves." But their equal superiority to all created beings is no proof at all of any proper equality among themselves. If so, all men would be equal among themselves, because all men are superior to brutes.

Your notion of a real subordination, which must imply inferiority, and indeed imperfection, in 'any of the persons in the trinity, is certainly not the orthodoxy that took place after the council of Nice, and that of the Athanasian creed.

II.

I now come to something still more extraordinary. "I maintain," you say, p. 148, "that the three persons are one being-I maintain that each person by himself is God; because each possesses fully every attribute of the divine nature." Then, Sir, I assert, that you maintain as palpable a contradiction as it is in the power of man to form an idea of. The term being may be predicated of every thing, and therefore of each of the three persons in the trinity. For to say that Christ, for instance, is God, but that there is no being, no substance, to which his attributes may be referred, were manifestly absurd; and therefore when you say, that "each of these persons is by himself God," you must mean, and in effect say, that the Father separately considered, has a being, that the Son likewise, separately considered, has his being, and likewise that the Holy Spirit, separately considered, has his being. Now, Sir, if you will be pleased to count them up, you will find that you have got three beings as well as three persons, and what can these three beings be but three Gods, without supposing that there are three co-ordinate persons, or three Fathers, three Sons, or three Holy Ghosts." If you like an algebraic expression better than this, it will stand thus, 1+1+1=3. Have the courage then, Sir, to speak out, and say what you must mean, if you have any meaning at all, that you worship three Gods.

But you say, p. 148, that "these three persons are all included in the very idea of a God, and that for that reason, as well as for the identity of the attributes in each, it were impious and absurd to say that there

are three Gods." If there be any foundation for this remark, it must be impossible for any man to have an idea of a God without having at the same time an idea of these three persons; and then either there cannot be any such thing as an unitarian, denying these three persons in the godhead, or else all unitarians are in fact atheists, having no idea of any God at all.

As you seem to have bewildered yourself very much upon the subject of three persons and one God, I shall enter a little further into the metaphysical analysis of it. By the words being, substance, substratum, &c. we can mean nothing more than the foundation as it were of properties, or some thing to which, in our idea, we refer all the particular attributes of whatever exists. In fact, they are terms that may be predicated of every thing that is the subject of thought or discourse, all the discrimination of things depending upon their peculiar properties. So that whenever the properties differ, we say that there is a corresponding difference in the things, beings, or substances themselves. Consequently, if the Father, Son, and Spirit differ in any respect, so as to have different properties, either in relation to themselves or to other beings, we must, according to the analogy of all language, say that they are three different beings or substances.

Supposing again, that there is what you call an identity of attributes in each of them, so that, being considered one after the other, no difference could be perceived even in idea, as may be supposed to be the case of three men, who should perfectly resemble one another in all external and internal properties; and supposing, moreover, that there should be a perfect coincidence in all their thoughts and actions; though there