explication of mysteries, but I am tempted for once to do so, and I believe we cannot get nearer to an illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity than the following:-Three Potentates equal in authority, may compose the government of any particular state. Now suppose government to mean some spiritual essence, analogous to the human mind, in which case it might be said, that the state was governed by three Potentates and one mind.* Each Potentate, having, by the conditions of the supposition, an equal property in this one Mind, is potentate equally with each of the other twobut not independently. So with respect to the Scriptural Trinity. Each Person is inherently God, with reference to the Essential Unity-but each Person is not God by himself; for if this is not to raise the notion of three Gods, I know no words that can do so. In himself, would be better than by himself-but neither is required for the distinction of Persons in the Trinity.

Dean Vincent further says, "if Christ is God, and the Holy Ghost God, they must be uncreate, incomprehensible, and eternal; these are all attributes of the Deity; and each Person severally must partake of these attributes, if he partakes of the Godhead."

* I am not, I believe, indebted to Sir Thomas Brown for this illustration; but in casting my eye over his "Religio Medici," lately, I found that he had so far anticipated me, as to have said, "If one soul were so perfect as to inform three distinct bodies, that were a petty Trinity."-Religio Medici, p. 1. sect. 12.

Unquestionably. But how does this admission sustain the following clause? "And yet there are not three Eternals; but one Eternal."

Not

It does not sustain it. It is, at best, uncalled for; and it requires the aid of a context to rescue it from the charge of being heretical- the very offence which it is the main purport of this creed to combat? What! Are there not three Eternals, as well as one Eternal? in the same sense, but with equal strictness. As there is One Eternal God-so there are Three Eternal Persons. Is it not preposterous to attempt to defend a clause such as the above-by saying that the meaning of it is, that there are not Three Eternal Gods? What heretic

ever said there were?

Sabellius confounded the Persons by maintaining that they were only three names, or three operations; and Arius divided the unity, by teaching that the Son was not of the same substance with the Father. These are the two principal and fundamental heresies—and these are best met by a distinct avowal of the orthodox doctrine, without attempt at exposition; so shall we no longer be perplexed with clauses, as offensive to reason; as they are at variance with that simplicity which is in Christ Jesus. It is a sufficient objection to the Athanasian Creed, that one of its clauses seems to say that Three are One in the same sense and not that οι τρεις εν εισι. Three Persons, and One Eternal Essence.

Well might Dean Vincent exclaim, having the Athanasian Creed before him, "Would to God, that questions of this sort had never been agitated, or professions of this kind have been required of us! Reason and language fail us, while we mention these subjects; and while we are compelled to renounce the doctrines of our adversaries, we tremble at the ground on which we stand ourselves." Dean Vincent would never have written the above, in the disturbed spirit which it indicates, if he had not felt that he had been defending something not merely mysterious, but objectionable in the eye of reason. May it be the gracious will of the "Father of lights," that the attempt of one of his humblest instruments may suffice to shew that the cause of the good Dean's trembling, was not seated in the mystery itself of the Trinity, but in the erroneous exposition of it! It will then be seen what good and sufficient, nay, what imperative cause, we have for disallowing some clauses of the Athanasian Creed, as at present worded, and yet for saying, with St. John, that "The word was God;" or, with St. Paul, that "being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God."

When that learned friend, whose irreparable loss I so deeply deplore, had well considered the ground of my objections to the Athanasian Creed, he never wavered in his opinion of its justness; nor would he ever become a party to the apprehensions which he sometimes heard

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expressed, to the effect that, be the matter how it may, no good was likely to result from raising difficult questions relating to a creed that had, through so many centuries, been considered the chief bulwark of the doctrine of the Trinity in the Christian Church. eagle-eye saw in an instant that the creed, however sustained by the mightiness of the cause which it sincerely advocated, was nevertheless defective, and ought to be amended. "I had long known," he said, "that there was that in it, which made it unpalatable to many conscientious members of the Church; but I never knew before, that there were such valid grounds as I now perceive for objecting to some of its clauses." In many subsequent conversations he never swerved from these sentiments-and the last remark, relative to them, which I well recollect his making, was to the effect, that a right notion, once attained, is sure to acquire strength and clearness, by revolving again and again in the mind.

By bearing constantly in mind the clear distinction between the Personal Trinity and the Essential Unity, we avoid that perplexity which the Athanasian Creed, to say the least, is calculated to perpetuate. And the Church of England cannot, I beg most respectfully to suggest, come to the determination too soon, of confining itself to the bare statement of a mystery so infinitely beyond all that eye hath seen, or ear heard, or that it hath entered into the heart of man to con

ceive. All that we can collect from Scripture, and all, therefore, that it behoves us to know, is, that there are Three Divine Persons equally entitled to worship, and that these three are that One God, whom we are bound at all times to adore - saying, “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."

Rev. iv. 8.

With respect to the latter portion of the creed which treats of that mysterious communion of the Second Person of the Godhead with the human nature, on which the doctrine of atonement, the very corner-stone of Christianity, rests, is it not enough to say to all Heretics - If Christ were not God as well as man, could he have made atonement for the sins of the world?

How much then is it to be regretted that because certain heretics may have denied the God that bought them, attempts should have been set up, not sincerely to refute their errors, but to explain the very nature of the mystery itself in clauses such as follow :

"One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by taking of the manhood into God.

"One altogether; not by confusion of substance; but by unity of Person.