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and natural timidity held him back from an open declaration . " It is re * marked by our Editor , that as to prudence and natural timidity , those who knew Knapp more intimately , will easily find the names which would be more justly applied to him . The following is one of the latitudinarian passages which he more lately omitted : •* Since the doctrine of the Trinity is very obscure , so that many doubts most arise in the minds of thinking men ; since also in no one place in the Bible is it stated in all its extent *
but must be collected from comparison of many passages , it is highly wrong to accuse of heresy , or exclude from salvation , such persons as , after a careful and honest examination , cannot find the Athanasian doctrine in the Bible . According to the principles of sound moral judgment , they incur no danger by involuntary error and ignorance . * ' This passage was excluded by the author from the last copy of his lectures ; yet it betrays no alarming excess of liberality ; and the facts which it affirms , that the doctrine is obscure , and that a formal and full enunciation of it cannot be found in any
one place in the Bible , were not and could not be disputed by himself , or by any other man . In the section on the Trinity in the present work , the spirit of the first passage is preserved , excepting the last part of it . I sub * join the concluding paragraph : *« There are in the Divine Nature three who stand in inseparable connexion with one another , and are equal in glory » which three ^ however , taken together , are but one God . What is dark and mysterious in the doctrine proceeds from this , that no clear and satisfactory answer can be given to the question , in what sense and in what manner the three have the Divine nature in common , so as to be but one God . When
the learned , with the help of their philosophy , tried to determine this in various ways , different ideas and illustrations of the doctrine necessarily arose , and from them strife and contention . On account of their different definitions , they accused one another of heresy , each excluded the other from a state of salvation , and in this conflict they commonly forgot to estimate and to inculcate what , according to the Scriptures , is the principal thing , namely , the doctrine of the unmerited blessings which we owe to the Father , Son , and Holy Ghost ; and to apply the doctrine to the heart as a source of hope
and joy . This is the great truth , which every disciple of Christ must believe from the heart , and this is the use which Christ requires them to make of it . But he never propounded the doctrine to mere speculation and investigation , and therefore established no such formulary as might produce them * It is quite certain , from the history of the three first centuries , that during that time there existed no form of words in general authority which defined the sense or prescribed the terms in which the doctrine must be received by all members of the orthodox church . Thus we find even in the fathers of
the church universal , in Justin Martyr , Clemens of Alexandria , Origen , and others , ideas and expressions very different from one another , and from those which were decreed afterwards in the fourth century . It was not till that century that scholastic and metaphysical formularies were determined and authorized by law , which from that time have been bound up in ecclesiastical creeds . This was effected in that age by Athanasius , and at the
Nicene Council , in opposition to the Arians . What is now called the Athanasian Creed does not belong to Athanasios . It is a production of the fifth century , and was first attributed to Athanasius in the seventh century . Its declaration , * that whosoever does not think thus on the Trinity cannot be saved , ' must be rejected ; for the great body of ordinary Christians , who follow the Nicene language , think commonly of three Gods under fhe three persons , whatever pains the religious teacher may take to guard them against
Untitled Article
Letters from Gerfitottty . 99
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1831, page 99, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2594/page/27/
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