tions have been invented, with a view to free the doctrine from absurdity, it may be necessary to examine the Scriptures to see if they recognize the doctrine of the Trinity in any form, or with any modification whatever. Here I hope to show that it nowhere makes its appearance in the Bible, in any forın whatever, either with or without modification.

SECTION V.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY NOT ASSERTED

IN THE BIBLE.

No passage of Scripture asserts that God is three. If it be asked what I intend to qualify by the numeral three, I answer, any thing which the reader pleases. There is no scripture which asserts that God is three persons, three agents, three beings, three Gods, three spirits, three subsistences, three modes, three offices, three attributes, three divinities, three infinite minds, three somewhats, three opposites, or three in any sense whatever. The truth of this has been admitted by every Trinitarian that ever wrote or preached on the subject. No sermon has ever yet been heard or seen, founded on a passage of scripture which asserts that God is three. Dr. Barrow, whose works are published in seven vols. 8 vo., has left us one discourse on the Trinity. But, unable to find any passage of scripture that asserts the doctrine, he took for his text, Set your affection on things above.-Col. iii. 2. He considered the three persons in the Godhead incomparably the most important of all the things above, on which we are to set our affections.*

Dr. Gano, late pastor of the First Baptist Church in Providence, R. I. has left us a Sermon on the Trinity, which is published in the Baptist Preacher, Vol. i. No. 2, But not finding any scripture which asserts that God is three, he took for his text, Hear, O Israel! The Lord our * Barrow's Works, Vol. iv. p. 306.

God is ONE Lord.-Mark xii. 29. Toward the conclusion the Dr. says, "If to believe there is but one only living and true God, constitutes a Unitarian, then am I a Unitarian; or if to believe there are three who bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and that these three are one, constitutes a Trinitarian, then I am a Trinitarian." As the words last quoted, from I John v. 7, on the belief of which the Dr. predicates his Trinitarianism, is now thought to be spurious, how very slender is the evidence on which his faith is founded. According to his own statement he was a Unitarian; but the evidence of his being a Trinitarian certainly does not appear in his believing an interpolation to be genuine scripture.

Bishop Tillotson has left us one sermon, out of more than two hundred and fifty, with this title, viz: "The Unity of the Divine Nature, and the blessed Trinity." But finding no scripture which teaches that God is three, he took for his text, For there is ONE GOD.-1 Tim. ii. 5.

Dr. Dwight, late President of Yale College, has left us but one sermon, out of two hundred and thirty-four which I have before me, entitled "The Trinity." But finding no scripture which asserts the doctrine, he took for his text, "Come ye near unto me; hear ye this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was there am I and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me."-Isa. xlviii. 16. The title of the sermon is, "Testimonies to the doctrine of the Trinity, from ancient Christians, Jews and Heathens." When I find such a man as President Dwight distrustful of the scriptures alone, and relying, in part, on Jewish and Pagan Fables, for proofs of the Trinity, I confess it seems to me a much stronger argument against the doctrine, than any which he has advanced in favor of it. But what is most remarkable is, he has filled ten or twelve pages with quotations

C*

from ancient Christians, Jews and Heathens, and has failed to produce a single passage which asserts that God is three equal persons.

This may suffice to show that there is no passage of Scripture which asserts the doctrine of the Trinity. If there were, some Trinitarian would have discovered it. It could not have been overlooked by such men as Barrow, Ganó, Tillotson, and Dwight.

The words and phrases are not in the Bible, which are indispensably necessary to the doctrine of the Trinity, and without which no one ever attempts either to state or lo defend the doctrine.

The phraseology which is peculiar to the doctrine of the Trinity is chiefly the following:-Trinity, Triune, Triad, God the Son, God the Spirit, God the Holy Ghost, Jehovah-Jesus, God-man, God-mediator, incarnate God, first person, second person, third person, three in one, one in three, three equal persons in the Godhead, three-one God, The Sacred Three, Eternal Three, two natures, double nature, human and divine nature, very God and very man, coequal, coeternal, coessential, eternally begotten, eternally proceeding, eternal Son of God.

But

Not one of these terms or phrases is in the Bible. without the words necessary to teach the doctrine of the Trinity, how can it be taught? How can any doctrine be taught without the use of appropriate words? If neither the word faith, nor trust, nor belief, nor any of their derivatives, nor any other word of similar import, could be found in the Bible, who would assert that the doctrine of faith is a doctrine of the Bible? If neither the word one, nor the word unity, nor any other word of similar import, could be found in connexion with God, or any name or title of God, who would pretend that the Unity of God is taught in the Bible? And yet the word one is found in such con

nexion in a multitude of passages, both in the Old Testament and the New; while the word three is nowhere to be found in such connexion in the Bible. There is no pretence, I believe, that the numeral three is found in the Bible, (I John v. 7, excepted) in such connexion with God, or any name or title of God, as to be thought to relate to the doctrine of the Trinity.

I can imagine but two possible reasons why any intelligent writer, in teaching any doctrine, should not use the proper words and terms. He may omit them in order to render his meaning unintelligible; as when Jesus spake to the incorrigible Jews in parables, lest they should understand and be converted. Or else the appropriate words and terms may not be familiarly known to the writer at the time. But neither of these reasons could have existed in relation to the subject under consideration. It must have been a prime object with every writer and translator of the scriptures to be clearly understood. The appropriate words, too, were in familiar use. The word three is connected with a hundred other subjects; and it might as easily have been connected with God, as the word one, had there been the same need of it. Nay, if it were as true that God is three, as it is that he is one, we might reasonably expect to find the word three much more frequently, in such connexion, than the word one; because it is far more difficult to believe God to be three than one. All analogy, throughout the whole universe, so far as human knowledge extends, is in favor of the Unity of God, but opposed to the Trinity. God is the only Being, of whom we have any knowledge, that was ever suspected of being three persons. Now the care and pains, which a writer or translator will take to be clearly understood, will bear some proportion to the importance and difficulty of his subject. If the doctrine of the Trinity be true, and if all who do not believe it "shall