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scended into Hades , rose again on the third day , and was translated into heaven . He was called the Image of God , the Saviour , the Preserver , the Resurrection , the Eternal Life . ' These characteristics , ' proceeds Faber , ' cannot have been borrowed from the history of Christ , for they were ascribed to the Great Father long before the advent of our Saviour . ' What conclusion then is to
be drawn from these singular similarities ? The answer is appropriately given from sources similar to those whence the information is quoted , namely , noted Trinitarian writers . 6 half-converted heathens may have applied the fabulous history of Adonis ^ Hessus or Chrishna , the Son , to the true or scriptural account of Adon , Jesus , or Christ , the Son
For as T . H . Home observes , " when the philosophers of Greece and Rome embraced the Christian religion , too many of them retained the tenets of their respective sects , and blended them with the pure religion of revelation / ' Tytler also says , " The early church suffered much from an absurd endeavour of the more learned of its votaries to reconcile its doctrines to the tenets
of the pagan philosophers . " ...... ' Those priests who , " says Faber , tC were allowed to retain their ceremonies ; those votaries of the Great Father who , embracing indeed Christianity , but unwilling to relinquish their long fostered superstitions , soon contended that Jesus was but one of the manifestations of him . " —p . 18 . Such , then , was the rise and progress of the Christian doctrine of the ' Trinity in Unity ; ' and thus , backed by unquestioned authorities , our author proceeds to discover , for every main point of modern orthodoxy , its archetype in elder heathenism . ' The Everlasting Jehovah dying on the cross ; ' * God died for us ;' 1
The God of Nature died f ' For their Creator dies ; c My Saviour and my God , * ( p . 21 , ) and scores of other quotations from received and generally venerated writers , are shown , so far from being illustrations of any doctrines peculiar to Christianity , to be mere plagiarisms from Pagan mythologists and poets . And some curious corollaries are drawn which would be ludicrous , did
not their subject render them awful and distressing to the ingenuous mind . Thus , ( p . 23 , ) * As Christ was hungry and thirsty , as he ate and drank , was weary and slept , sighed and groaned , must not Jehovah have been a hungry , thirsty , eating , drinking , weary , sleepy , sighing , groaning God ? ' and the like propositions . ' Fie , this is profanity ! ' some reader exclaims . Be it so ; it is , however , inevitable on the orthodox scheme , and it is
proper that such doctrines , in all their bearings , should be well understood . Let therefore the orthodox look to it . The Investigator is free from the . charge . We are next led to the discussion of these * peculiar doctrines / as they are attempted to be proved from Scripture . First , from the proem to John ' s Gospel : ' The Word was GOD . ' Good ! but why , says the unlearned Layman , why must we believe that
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184 The Trinitarian Investigator .
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1832, page 184, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1808/page/40/
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