HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. BY HUGH H. STANNUS. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND APPENDIX. FORTY-FIRST THOUSAND. LONDON: CHRISTIAN LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY, AND MESSRS. WILLIAMS & NORGATE, LONDON. 1899. [Entered at Stationers' Hall.] PREFATORY STATEMENTS. BIBLE TRUTHS. Hear, O Israel! Jehovah our God is ONE Jehovah ".MOSES. "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord".-CHRIST. "We know there is none other God but one". "One God ""and Father of all who is above all". "One God and one "Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus".PAUL. THE TESTIMONY OF EMINENT MEN. "For my own part I adhere to the Holy Scripture alone; "I follow no other heresy or sect. If, therefore, the Father "be the God of Christ, and the same be our God, and if there be none other God but one, there can be no God besides the Father".-JOHN MILTON. "Because it [the Trinity] is inconsistent with the rule of prayer directed in the sacred Scriptures. For if God be "three persons how can we pray to Him through His son for "His spirit. For though there be many imaginary "nominal gods, both in heaven and earth, as are indeed all their many gods and many lords, which are merely 66 "titular; yet to us Christians there is but only ONE GOD THE FATHER, and Author of all things, to whom alone we "address all our worship and service".-JOHN LOCKE. "There is ONE GOD, the Father, ever loving, omnipresent, "omniscient, almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth; and one Mediator between God and men- -the man Christ Jesus. "The Father is the invisible God. 66 Christ came not "to diminish the worship of the Father. It is not necessary "to direct our prayers to any other thin the Father in the name of the Son".-SII: ISAAC NEWTON. Surely I ought to know the God whom I worship"whether he be a pure and simple being, or whether Thou art "a threefold Deity, consisting of the Father, the Son, and the "Holy Spirit". "The Deity is not made up of “three such distinct and separate spirits”.—DR. Isaac Watts. HISTORICAL QUOTATIONS. "This doctrine (the Trinity) does not, it appears to me, belong strictly to the fundamental articles of the Christian "faith; as it appears from the fact that it is explicitly set forth "in no one particular passage of the New Testament. We find in the New Testament no other fundamental article "besides that of which the Apostle Paul says that other foun“dation can no man lay than that is laid, the preaching of Jesus as the Messiah; and the foundation of His religion is designated by Christ Himself, the faith in the only true God "and in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent ".-NEANDER. "While for so many centuries, of all the Christian doc"trines, that of a Trinity in Unity has been considered the "most obscure and mysterious, in the writings of the apostles It seems "there is no trace of any scruple which it created. "to have called for no explanation, and it is not even spoken of 166 as a mystery ".-BISHOP HIND. 166 "The whole Christian system was still [2nd century] comprised in a few precepts and propositions; nor did the "teachers publicly advance any doctrines besides those contained "in what is called the Apostles' Creed." "The .66 "Council of Constantinople, assembled by Theodosius the Great [in the fourth century, 381] gave the finishing touch to "what the Council of Nice had left imperfect, and fixed in a 'full and determinate manner the doctrine of three persons in .66 one God".-MOSHLIM. 66 66 “In the fifth century Christianity had conquered Paganism "and Paganism had infected Christianity. The Church was now victorious and corrupt. The rites of the Pantheon had 'passed into her worship, the subtleties of the Academy into "her creed. In an evil day, though with great pomp and "solemnity-we quote the language of Bacon-was the ill“starred alliance stricken between the old philosophy and the new faith. Questions widely different from those which had employed the ingenuity of Pyrrho and Carneades, but just "as subtle, just as interminable, and just as unprofitable, "exercised the minds of the lively and voluble Greeks. When "learning began to revive in the West, similar trifles occupied "the sharp and vigorous intellects of the schoolmen. There "was another sowing of the wind and another reaping of the "whirlwind".-MACAULAY. Before I shall conclude this head, it is requisite I should inform thee, reader, concerning the origin of the Trinitarian "doctrine:-Thou mayest assure thyself, it is not from the "Scriptures nor reason, since so expressly repugnant; although "all broachers of their own inventions strongly endeavour to |