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    Letters by Mr . Marsom in Reply to Mr * Wardlavcs Arguments for the Deity of the Holy Spirit . Letter I . Sir , Jan * % 1817-HAVING Mto Wardlaw ' s Discourses * on the Socinian

    Doctrines , put into my hands , I was forcibly struck , in reading them , with the weakness and inadequacy of the arguments , in general , which he adduces in proof of those doctrines for which he is so strenuous an advocate ;

    but in particular of those arguments , ( in his ninth discourse , ) which he makes use of in support of the doctrine of the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit . This induced me to sit down and make some

    observations on his mode of reasoning , and to endeavour to establish the fact , that the Holy Spirit is never spoken of as a person , and that in the nature of things , it neither is or can be such a being . Mr . Wardlaw introduces this

    subject , * taking for his text Matt . xxviii . 19 ? " Go , teacli all nations , baptizing them in tlie name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit j " and immediately adds , " I should have

    no objection , with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity , to take my stand in this text . It would , perhaps , ( he says ) be going too far to say , that I should certainly be a firm believer in this doctrine , if there were not another € Fag-e 27 & , second edition .

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    passage in the Bible affirming -it . " The doctrine of the Trinity is thef doctriike . of three persons in the Godhead . The personality of ; the Holy Spirit , which it is the object of this discourse to establish , is * therefore an essential branch of that doctrine . . -.

    Itwill , be necessary then to inquire * ( especially as Mr . Wardlaw has no objection for the proof of it to take his stand in this text , ) what evidence the passage affords of the truth of that doctrine * We have in it three

    names mentioned , the Father , the San and the Holy Spirit ; two of these names , the Father and the Son , unquestionably denote persons , they are personal names . This needs wo other proof than the mention of the names themselves , for they convey at once

    the idea of personality . The proper names of persons of the male kind are universally of the masculine gender ^ whereas the proper names of things * which are not persons * are as

    universally of the neuter gender * that \ sp they are impersonal names * The proper name , therefore , of any thing will infallibly determine whether that which it is designed to represent be or not a person . Now the Greek word

    Ttvsvpa here used and translated spirit is not a personal name , but is a noun , of the neuter gender ; it is derived from the verb to breathe , and means breath , air , wind , which is also the

    meaning of the Hebrew word nil Spirit * The English word spirit is derived from the Latin word spiros to breathef and signifies breath . Had the nature and meaning of the word

    7 Tveuf / , a been as distinctly marked anil preserved in the translation as it is in the original , there could have been no question whether or no it was intended to denote a person y for every one , on seeing or hearing it pronounced , would at once see that it could not be the name of a person *

    The nature of the English word spirit ? as ? a neuter aioun , and its meaning as derived from spiro * to breathe , is not understood by the generality of English readers , though it must be well known to Mr , Wardlaw . And the

    translators of the Scriptures , who were Trinitarians , have been careful , as much as possible , to keep it oat of view by rendering itvevp , < x almost uniformly spirit and never breatk or windp except where the circumstances

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    JJfn Marsom , m the Deity of the Holy £ jpm £ *~ -Letter I * S 3

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    laded to . lander . the title of Sociman I beg to be understood as far from wishing ( however differing individually from those views ) , to apply the term in any offensive designation , or in any sense of " vulgar bigotry , ""

    ( XII . 538 , ) towards the persons -or party entertaining them j believing them generally , and knowing them in many particular instances , to be influenced by sentiments and actuated by motives of conduct , that do honour to them , as Christians and as valuable

    members of society . But the appellation more usually adopted by themselves would , in this case , include numerous individuals , to whose views these remarks on the converting inefficacy of doctrines excluding an atoning Saviour , could by no possibility of construction be applied .

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    VOL XIII . F

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 33, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/33/