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    Kenrick , Bu | fen thi % a § Jn several other farts of his work , our author has most effectually tewilder ^^^ sel ^« i the v ^ n ^ erapttacombme opposing systems . Sometimes ha appears to-symbolize with the % // ro ~ Athanasians ; at others , be adopts interpretations of disputed passages which he might

    almost have copied from Carpenter or Belsham ;* and , in conformity with them , gives us views of his own doctriae which differ from pure I 7 ni tar janistn in little more than the employment of a phraseology unusual , forced , and liable to be misunderstood . In one place he commends , at the same time that he considers it as excessive , what he calls the impartiality of the authorized version in not uniformly rendering the phrase syv eifM , simply " I am . "

    " If , ** says he " the places are duly considered , I think it will be found to be more than probable that it was intended at least tacitly to intimate by it a claim on the part of our Lord to eternal existence , and to establish his divinity and oneness with the Father . This , I think , is particularly the case of John xviii . 5 , 6 . * ' —P . 120 .

    We should have thought that no one claiming the character of a theologian would require to be reminded that this noted proof of the eternal existence of Christ derives all its plausibility from a mistranslation of the passage supposed to be referred to in Exodus iv . 14 , the true sense of which is , I will be what I will be ; ' the tacit intimation , therefore , ascribed to our Lord

    is altogether imaginary . On the other hand , this very eternal existence here ascribed to Christ , is afterwards apparently given up , and with it the attribute of omniscience , in any sense in which a Unitarian might hot equally maintain it , if he chose to express himself in ambiguous and misleading language . € < In Mark xiii . 32 , our Lord , speaking of his second Advent , says , * But of that day and that hour knoweth no man ; no , not the angels which are in

    heaven ; neither the Son , but the Father . ' This limited knowledge of the Son , is hardly consistent with the ordinary view of the doctrine of the Trinity , in which he is supposed to have been always a person in the Godhead ana equal to the Father . Various solutions have been attempted of the difficulty in this text ; but which it is unnecessary to state , since the present exposition of the doctrine is placed on such different ground . But , it may be observed , that , according to this view of the doctrine , which supposes the Divinity of our Lord to have been founded on the circumstance of the

    Divine influence on his mind , and this influence , though at all times entire , to have been only to the extent of the occasion , there is nothing unsuitable in supposing the Divine communication to him to be proportionate to the exigency . And , therefore , there would not seem to oe any thing unreasonable in supposing- our Lord not to have been , at the time in question and previously to his resurrection , ^ fully informed of a matter which was not essential to the exercise of his ministry ; that ministry being , as we know it was , of a limited kind . "J—Pp . 166 , 166 .

    The term Holy Ghost or Spirit Is used , we are told , in speaking of the Divine Being , inasmuch as it conveys a sufficient notion of him as an intellectual being . Now the natural property of mind is , that one mind is able to influence other minds . Hence , When God is presented to us under thd designation of the Holy Spirit , he is to be regarded as a pure intelligence influencing our minds in reference to himself and the things pertaining to him . ( P . 148 . ) We are at a loss to distinguish this , which is all that our author says of the character of the Holy Spirit as one of the distinctions or

    ? jSee particularly the criticism on Phil . ii . 6—8 , pp . 124—131 . t Compare Heb . i . 6 , t Matt . xv . 24 .

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    554 Doctrine of the Trinity ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 554, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/34/