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To the Editor . Sir , If you think that your readers are not altogether weary of the Trinitarian controversy , the following remarks upon it , written some years ago , are at your service , in which I have confined myself to the simple proposition that there exists in the Godhead a trinity of persons . With those who maintain that the Deity exists in three distinctions , or sustains three characters , I considered myself as having no concern , as their hypotheses are manifestly in substance Unitarian .
In this proposition , then , that God consists of three persons , it is plain that the term Person and the term God are not intended to be synonymous , nor would any sober Trinitarian choose to assert that there are three Gods in one God , Even the author of the Athanasian Creed does not choose to affirm this . He says , indeed , that the Father is God , and the Son is God , and the Holy Ghost is God ; but he immediately subjoins ( would you have thought it , reader ?) that there are not three Gods , but one God . It appears ,
then , that neither of the three persons of which the Godhead consists is strictly and properly God . And , indeed , could it be predicated of each individually tnat he is truly and properly God , then , as God consists of three persons , the Father , being God , must consist of three persons , the Son in like manner must consist of three persons , and the Holy Ghost of three persons ; and each of these persons must consist of three other persons , and
so on ad infinitnm . The Trinitarian may dispute the inference * and may say that his proposition expressly limits the divine essence to three persons ; but unless he uses the term God in a qualified sense , when he speaks of God the Father , God the Son , and God the Holy Ghost , the above reasoning stands against him in all its force . In what sense , then , does he use the term ?
But let the meaning of the term God be for a moment considered . This term is universally used to signify an intelligent Being possessed of what are called the attributes of Deity . Is , then , the Father such a being , and is the same to be affirmed of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost ? We have , then , three Gods as distinctly defined as language can define them ; and to say
that these three are one , is only to say that one and three are identical . If , < on the other hand , the Father is not an intelligent Being , and the Son and the Holy Ghost are in like manner neither of them intelligent beings , then , each of them being God , it follows , that something which is not an intelligent being may possess the attributes of Deity * What that something is , let him explain who can . Will the Trinitarian still say that he does not use the
term person to signify an agent or being ? I will not urge in reply , that this is the only intelligible sense of the term , nor will I ask the vain question , in what sense the term is intended to be used ; but will rather remark , that whatever the term person denotes , if it does not denote an intelligent being , the doctrine of the Trinity is neither more nor less than Unitariani ' sml
wrapt up in a cloud of unmeaning phraseology . If God is acknowledged td be one Being , ( and the Trinitarian does not choose to sat thai he is three , ] the proposition of the Unitarian is virtually admitted . To say that this one 13 eing subsists under three persons , is to advance a proposition which mean * just nothing until the sense of the term person shall be defined ; and to call one of these persons the Father , and another the Son , and t 6 allot to them
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REMARKS ON THE TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSY .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1829, page 303, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2572/page/7/
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