of God and St. Peter, Duke of Apulia." Hooker says the true inscription of all churches within the realm should be 'By the goodness of almighty God and his servant Elizabeth we are.'2 In one of his letters he says, 'God and his holy Angels shall at the last great day bear me that witness which my conscience now does.'3 Walton says of him, ‘He that praises Richard Hooker, praises God, who hath given such gifts to men.'4 St. Anselm begins a letter by bestowing God's blessing and his own,'5 and parted from the King of England with the words, I would fain before I go, if you refuse it not, give God's blessing and my own.'6 At a later time he told a sister of Henry I ' that for the injury which for two years Henry had done to God and to himself, he was come to excommunicate him.'7 Pope Sixtus V wrote, 'If anyone shall do otherwise than is comprehended in this our sanction, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.'8 These examples sufficiently prove that men do not, in their writings, use that guarded expression which we might expect in view of the infinitude of God; and therefore I cannot see that the passages in question involve more than the conviction that Jesus Christ was the medium through whom God was revealing his life in humanity, and establishing in the world a new order of his children. On the other hand, the fact that the two persons are so repeatedly mentioned without the third is not favourable to the doctrine of the Trinity.

3. We must now notice some general considerations

8' Si quis autem aliter fecerit quam hac nostra sanctione comprehensum est, noverit se in Dei Omnipotentis beatorumque Apostolorum Petri et Pauli indignationem incursurum.' The Papal authorization of the Sixtine edition of the LXX: quoted by Dr. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, p. 180.

which seem adverse to the dogma of the Trinity, and, I think, fatal to the view that it is the fundamental doctrine of Christianity. It is quite true that we must expect a theology to be more scientific in form than the original outpourings of religious conviction, and that in the transition to the scientific stage technical terms must be introduced which were not required till thought began to scrutinize the contents of the new religious emotions; and hence it is possible that the Bible may contain implicit truths which needed time. in order to make themselves clear to the human intellect. To adopt this position, however, is to admit that Christianity is not a dogmatic religion, that it can bear its finest fruits apart from an exact doctrinal expression, and that the dogma, being wrought out by the natural human intellect, may be a misinterpretation of the primitive belief. Making the fullest allowance for these considerations, but at the same time remembering that all orthodox' theologians regard the doctrine as in its substance fundamentally and essentially Christian, we must look upon the following facts as very surprising, and, on the Protestant supposition that Scripture is the one only source of Divine truth, positively bewildering.

(a) This new and important doctrine had no name by which it could be referred to, and it remained without one, so far as we know, for at least one hundred and fifty years after the death of Christ. In Theophilus of Antioch we meet for the first time the word rpiás; but the triad is God and his Logos and his Wisdom; and immediately Man is added as a fourth, in order that there may be God, Logos, Wisdom, Man.'1 Trinitas is found first in Tertullian, who uses not only this term, but oikovoμía, which he translates dispensatio.3 Surely, one would expect that in

2

1Ἵνα ᾖ θεός, λόγος, σοφία, ἄνθρωπος. Ad Autol. II. 15.

2 De Pud. 21. 'Spiritus, in quo est trinitas unius divinitatis, pater et filius et spiritus sanctus.'

3 Ad Prax. 2, 3.

controversy with the Jews a name would have been found for a doctrine which was the most prominent in Christian preaching, and to which the Jews have always been so strongly opposed, and that, if no others, at least Paul and John would have contrived some designation for it. When we find that the doctrine has no name by which it can be recognized, and that all the technical terms are absent, and have no equivalents, it is hard to believe that the doctrine was present in the minds of the first disciples.

(b) The doctrine is nowhere stated. There is not a single passage where it is affirmed that there are three persons in one God, or in one Divine substance, or where there is any proposition in the least resembling this; for I John v. 7 is confessedly a late interpolation. The only way in which an attempt can be made to prove the presence of the dogma is to resolve it into a series of propositions, and then seek to establish these one by one. Thus the Bible is like the dissected puzzles which amuse children by producing a required picture when the pieces are properly fitted together. It is strange that not even once, at least in some ascription of praise, does the great Christian secret escape from this conspiracy of silence.

(c) Passing to the several propositions, we find that those which are characteristic of the doctrine are nowhere laid down. They have to be inferred from scattered statements in which they are supposed to be implied. But, although we may fairly differ as to their precise meaning, these statements are all susceptible of a non-trinitarian interpretation, and such interpretation has been given by many competent scholars, sometimes by scholars who were themselves trinitarians. Numbers of them are of a kind that can make no impression on those who reject the infallibility of the Bible, who are unable to treat it as a collection of little divine sentences which may be read quite apart from their context, who therefore accord to it the respect which is due to genuine literature, and try to read it in a large and

historic spirit, with due regard to the circumstances, the beliefs, and the habits of the time when the several books were composed. To such passages no instructed and cautious interpreter would now venture to appeal. In proportion as we seek simply and humbly for the meaning of the writers, instead of thrusting upon them our own fancies or allegories, the proof-texts dwindle in number.

(d) The case becomes still worse when we encounter several passages which are at least apparently inconsistent with the doctrine, and which require subtle interpretation to get rid of their obvious testimony. The constant assertion of the unity of God, apart from any corrective or explanatory statement, is not indeed opposed to the dogma, but, if the dogma be true, it is misleading, and it did in fact mislead the Jews. But other passages are more explicit. In the prayer of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel the Father is expressly termed the only true God '1; and Paul says ' to us there is one God, the Father."2 Christ himself declares, of that day or that hour knoweth no one . . . neither the Son, but the Father.'3 The proof of the coequality of the second person with the first is generally connected with the person of Christ; and as this is a subject for further examination, I will now only call attention to the constancy with which God and Christ are distinguished when they are mentioned in juxtaposition ; and to a plain man the phrase 'God and Christ' seems clearly to differentiate one from the other. These passages naturally suggest something very far removed from the doctrine of the Trinity; and it is not surprising that the Catholic Church claims the right of keeping the interpretation of Scripture. in its own hands, for it is exceedingly doubtful whether anyone who was ignorant of the ecclesiastical dogma would ever evolve it for himself from the pages of the Bible. (e) The last remark really understates the case; for a 1 Τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεόν. xvii. 3.

2 Ἡμῖν εἷς θεὸς ὁ πατήρ. I Cor. viii. 6.
8 Οὐδὲ ὁ υἱός, εἰ μὴ ὁ πατήρ. Mark xiii. 32.

considerable number of earnest and thoughtful men, though well acquainted with the ecclesiastical dogma, and though they have been for years habitual and reverent students of the Bible, have not only failed to find the dogma there, but have been quite satisfied that it is not there. This statement is true not only of those who were originally or who became avowedly antitrinitarian, but of some who have remained within the evangelical churches, and have not considered themselves debarred thereby from the application of sound principles of exegesis to the writings of the New Testament. This is highly curious if the doctrine of the Trinity is the chief corner-stone of Christianity.

From all these considerations combined it seems a reasonable conclusion either that the doctrine in question was quite unknown to the first generation of Christians, or, if known at all, was in a very inchoate and unsettled condition. It further follows that those who excommunicate their fellow-Christians for not accepting this doctrine are imposing conditions of fellowship which Christ did not impose, and are to that extent setting up their own religion in place of his, and making void his commandments by their traditions.

II. But if the scriptural argument be thus unstable, it may be that history makes amends, and that at least from the earliest post-apostolic times the Catholic Church is known to have held the doctrine without imperfection and without wavering. The broad facts are not at first sight favourable to this hypothesis. It is an undeniable historical fact that it took centuries of controversy, and required meetings of Council after Council, to bring the dogma into its complete and final form. This general fact, however, admits of different explanations; and that which is most obvious is not that which is commonly accepted, and is not necessarily the true one.

1. The following explanation attempts to justify the position that the dogma was part of the primitive deposit of faith, and was therefore always held by the Catholic Church.