LETTER II.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

It would be very gratifying to find in your sermon, as much respecting the doctrine of the Trinity with which I might accord, as in your principles of interpretation. My apprehensions respecting this doctrine, however, differ from yours. It is not without examination and reflection that I have embraced my present views of it; and the perusal of your statement of the doctrine in question, and your arguments against it, have not persuaded me that my views are erroneous.

You will not expect me, however, in these Letters, which are intended to be brief, to go into a discussion of this great subject, which shall embrace all the important topics which it presents. I intend to touch on those points only on which the hinge of the controversy seems to me to turn; and on these in a manner as summary as the nature and difficulty of the case will permit.

The statement which you make of your own faith in regard to the unity of God, and your account of the doctrine of the Trinity, are as follow.

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"First. We believe in the doctrine of God's UNITY, or that there is one God, and one only. To this truth we give infinite importance, and we feel ourselves bound to take heed, lest any man spoil us of it by vain philosophy. The proposition, that there is one God, seems to us exceedingly plain. We understand by it, that there is one being, one mind, one person, one intelligent agent, and one only, to whom underived and infinite perfection and dominion belong. We conceive that these words could have conveyed no other meaning to the simple and uncultivated people who were set apart to be the depositaries of this great truth, and who were utterly incapable of understanding those hair-breadth distinctions between being and person, which the sagacity of latter ages has discovered. We find no intimation that this language was to be taken in an unusual sense, or that God's unity was a quite different thing from the oneness of other intelligent beings. "We object to the doctrine of the Trinity, that it subverts the unity of God. According to this doctrine, there are three infinite and equal persons, possessing supreme divinity, called the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Each of these persons, as described by theologians, has his own particular consciousness, will, and perceptions. They love each other, converse with each other, and delight in each other's society. They perform different parts in man's redemption, each having his appropriate office, and neither doing the work of the other. The Son is Mediator, and not the Father. The Father sends the Son, and is not himself sent; nor is he conscious, like the Son, of taking flesh. Here then we have three intelligent agents, possessed of different consciousnesses, different wills, and different perceptions, performing different acts, and sustaining different relations; and if these things do not imply and constitute three minds or beings, we are utterly at a loss to know how three minds or beings are to be formed. It is difference of properties, and acts, and consciousness, which leads us to the belief of different intelligent beings; and if this mark fail us, our whole knowledge fails,—we have no proof that all the agents and persons in the universe are not one and the same mind.

When we attempt to conceive of three Gods,

we can do nothing more than represent to ourselves three agents, distinguished from each other by similar marks and peculiarities to those which separate the persons of the Trinity; and when common Christians hear these persons spoken of as conversing with each other, loving each other, and performing different acts, how can they help regarding them as different beings, different minds?" pp. 8, 9.

My object in this letter is not to controvert your creed, but to consider your representation of the doctrine of the Trinity, as stated, believed, and defended by those with whom I am accustomed to think and act.

Admitting that you have given a fair account of our belief, I cannot see, indeed, why we are not virtually guilty of Tritheism, or at least of something which approximates so near to it, that I acknowledge myself unable to distinguish it from Tritheism. But I cannot help feeling that you have made neither an impartial nor a correct statement of what we believe, and what we are accustomed to teach and defend.

It needs but a moderate acquaintance with the history of the doctrine in question to satisfy any one that a great variety of explanations have been attempted by inquisitive or by adventurous minds. All acknowledge the difficulty of the subject; I regret to say, that some have not refrained from treating it as though it were more within their comprehension than it is.

But, among all the different explanations which I have found, I have not met with any one which denied, or at least was designed to deny, the UNITY

The worship of three Gods.

OF GOD. All admit this to be a fundamental principle: all acknowledge that it is designated in characters of light, both in the Jewish and Christian revelations; and that to deny it would be the grossest absurdity, as well as impiety.

It may indeed be questioned whether the explanations given of the doctrine of the Trinity by some who have speculated on this subject are consistent with the divine unity, when the language which they use is interpreted agreeably to the common laws of exegesis. But, that their representations were not designed to call in question the divine unity, is what I think every candid reader of their works will be disposed to admit.

Now, when I consider this fact, so plain and so easily established, and then look at the method in which you state the doctrine of the Trinity, as exhibited above, I confess it gives me pain to think that you have not conceded or even intimated that Trinitarians do or can admit the unity of God. You have a right to say, if you so think, that the doctrine of the Trinity, as they explain and defend it, is at variance with the divine unity, and that these two things are inconsistent with each other. But, to appropriate to those solely who call themselves Unitarians, the belief that there is but one God-or to construct an account of the Trinitarian creed (as it seems to me you have done in the paragraph on which I am remarking,) so as not even to intimate to your hearers or readers that your opponents admit or advocate the divine unity, is doing that which you would censure in an

antagonist, and which cannot well serve the interests of truth.

But let us examine your statement of our creed.

"We object to the doctrine of the Trinity, that it subverts the unity of God. According to this doctrine, there are three infinite and equal persons, possessing supreme divinity, called the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Each of these persons, as described by theologians, has his own particular consciousness, will, and perceptions. They love each other, converse with each other, and delight in each other's society. They perform different parts in man's redemption, -each having his appropriate office, and neither doing the work of the other. The Son is Mediator, and not the Father; the Father sends the Son, and is not himself sent; nor is he conscious, like the Son, of taking flesh. Here then we have three intelligent agents, possessed of different consiousnesses, different wills, and different perceptions, performing different acts and sustaining different relations; and if these things do not imply and constitute three minds or beings, we are utterly at a loss to know how three minds or beings are to be formed." p. 9.

Is not this account a very different one from that which many of your brethren are accustomed to give of us? By them it is said, that there is a great discordance and contradictory statements and explanations of the doctrine of the Trinity among those who embrace it. Do not you amalgamate us altogether, make us harmonious Tritheists, and then give us over to the reproach of Tritheism, or at least of glaring inconsistency?

After all, the statement which you exhibit of our views is very far from that which we (or at least all Trinitarians with whom I am acquainted) make of our belief. I do not deny that some writers have given grounds for a statement not very diverse from yours, as it regards the doctrine of the Trinity. Even