by them.

If I have no knowledge at all of the meaning of the terms used in a proposition, I cannot exercise any act of my understanding about it, - I cannot say, I believe or disbelieve any thing; ...... and if I have but a general, confused notion of the terms, I can only give a general, confused assent to the proposition. From whence it follows, that terms and simple ideas must be clearly and distinctly understood first, before we can believe any thing particular of the respects and relations they bear to one another, which is the only proper object of faith. Whatever words we use, whether person, hypostasis, or any other we can invent, they all signify the same thing; that is, some kind of distinction we do not understand. And we may rack our thoughts, tire our imaginations, and break all the fibres of our brain, and yet never be able to deliver ourselves clearer. — DR. SOUTH: Considerations on the Trinity, pp. 14-16; 33, 34.

Indeed let any proposition be delivered to us, as coming from God or from man, we can believe it no farther than we understand it; and therefore if we do not understand it at all, we cannot believe it at all

I mean, explicitly; but only be persuaded, that it contains some truth or other, though we know not what. Again, were any doctrine laid down which we clearly saw to be self-contradictory, or otherwise absurd, that could never be an object of our faith. For there is no possibility of admitting, upon any authority, a thing for true which we evidently perceive to be false. Nor would calling such doctrines mysterious mend the matter in the least. For, indeed, there is no mystery in them: they are as plain as any in nature; as plainly contrary to truth, as any thing else is agreeable to it.— ARCHBISHOP SECKER; Sermons, vol. iv. p. 384; Serm. xviii.

Religion, the Christian religion in particular, has always been understood to require faith in its principles; and faith in principles requires some degree of knowledge or apprehension of those principles. If total ignorance should prevail, how could men believe that of which they knew nothing? The schoolmen have devised an excellent succedaneum to supply the place of real belief, which necessarly implies, that the thing believed is, in some sort, apprehended by the understanding. This succedaneum they have denominated implicit faith; an ingenious method of reconciling things incompatible, to believe every thing, and to know nothing, not so much as the terms of the propositions which we believe. - DR. CAMPBELL: Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, Lect. xxiii.

The language of Scripture is the language of common sense; the plain, artless language of nature. Why should writers adopt such language as renders their meaning obscure; and not only obscure, but unintelligible; and not only unintelligible, but utterly lost in the strangeness of their phraseology? - DR. DWIGHT; apud Morgridge's True Believer's Defence, p. 18.

Nothing affords such an endless subject of debate as a doctrine above the reach of human understanding, and expressed in the ambiguous and improper terms of human language, such as persons, generation, substance, &c. which, in this controversy, either convey no ideas at all, or false ones. .... It is difficult to conceive what our faith gains by being entertained with a certain number of sounds. If a Chinese should explain a term of his language which I did not understand, by another term which he knew beforehand that I understood as little, his conduct would be justly considered as an insult against the rules of conversation and good breeding; and I think it is an equal violation of the equitable principles of candid controversy, to offer, as illustrations, propositions or terms that are as unintelligible and obscure as the thing to be illustrated. DR. MACLAINE: Note to Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, cent. xviii. § 27.

The superabundance of phrases appropriated by some pious authors to the subject of religion, and never applied to any other purpose, has not only the effect of disgusting persons of taste, but of obscuring religion itself. As they are seldom defined, and never exchanged for equivalent words, they pass current without being understood. They are not the vehicle—they are the substitute of thought. Among a certain description of Christians, they become, by degrees, to be regarded with a mystic awe, insomuch that, if a writer expressed the very same ideas in different phrases, he would be condemned as a heretic. To quit the magical circle of words, in which many Christians suffer themselves to be confined, excites as great a clamour as the boldest innovation in sentiment. Controversies, which have been agitated with much warmth, might often have been amicably adjusted, or even finally decided, could the respective partisans have been prevailed on to lay aside their predilection for phrases, and honestly resolve to examine their real import. In defiance of the dictates of candour and good sense, these have been obstinately retained, and have usually been the refuge of ignorance, the apple of discord, and the watch-words of religious hostility. ROBERT HALL: Review of Foster's Essays; Works, vol. iv. p. 26.

Not only have professed theologians, but private Christians, been imposed on, by the specious religion of terms of theology; and have betrayed often a fond zeal in the service of their idol-abstractions, not unlike that of the people of old, who are said to have beaten the air with spears, to expel the foreign gods by whom their country was supposed to be occupied. For my part, I believe it to be one of the chief causes of the infidelity which prevails among speculative men. The schoolmen are express in pointing out, after Augustine, that the term [persona] was adopted, not to express any definite notion, but to make some answer, where silence would have been better; to denote, by some term, what has no suitable word to express it. quid" is the expression of Anselm, in his Monologium. Bampton Lectures, pp. 55-6, 133.

"Tres nescio

HAMPDEN:

The danger of being not merely not understood, but misunderstood, should be guarded against most sedulously by all who wish, not only to keep clear of error, but to inculcate important truth; by seldom or never employing this ambiguous word [person] without some explanation or caution. For if we employ, without any such care, terms which we must be sensible are likely to mislead at least the unlearned and the unthinking, we cannot stand acquitted on the plea of not having directly inculcated error.-ARCHBP. WHATELY: Elem. of Logic, p. 370.

[From the admissions of eminent Trinitarians, we have proved, in this section, that scholastic phraseology is either unintelligible and pernicious, or ought to be used as expressive of ideas. In regard, then, to the unscriptural words used in relation to what is termed the doctrine of the Trinity, there is only one alternative—either to acknowledge that they convey no signification whatever, and ought never to be employed; or that they have a meaning, and should be clearly defined or explained. If the former concession be made, the dogma of a Triune God is barren, unmeaning, unintelligible-involved in words without ideas — in sounds sans signification. If the latter, and the words person and hypostasis be explained so as to be understood, the same dogma can be resolved only into one of two principles -Tritheism or Sabellianism, three Gods or three relations, the grossest Trinitarianism or a sort of misty Unitarianism.

Having, by the aid of its friends, shown that the Trinity in Unity, or Unity in Trinity, is a doctrine opposed to human reason, we proceed, in the next chapter, to use weapons drawn from the same armory, with the view of demolishing the position, that Trinitarianism is contained in the pages of divine revelation.]

CHAPTER V.

THE TRINITY IN UNITY, AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST, NOT
DOCTRINES OF REVELATION.

SECT. I.

THE TERMS "TRINITY, PERSON, HYPOSTASIS, HOMOUSION,"
ETC. UNSCRIPTURAL AND IMPROPER.

The word homousion is not found in the Sacred Writings; and therefore from these alone, what the Arians deny cannot be taught or proved, except by inference. ERASMUS: Op. tom. ix. p. 1034.

We ought to believe, that there are three persons and one essence in the Deity; God the Father unbegotten, God the Son consubstantial with the Father; and God the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. But, though you attentively peruse the whole of Scripture, you will never find these sublime and remarkable words "three persons - unbegotten consubstantial — proceeding from both.” COCHLEUS; apud Sandium, pp. 4, 5.

one essence

The word Trinity is never found in the Divine Records, but is only of human invention, and therefore sounds altogether frigidly (frigide). Far better would it be to say God than Trinity. There is no reason for objecting to me, that the word homousion was made use of in opposition to the Arians. It was not received by many of the most eminent men; Jerome himself having wished to abolish the term; and on this account, they did not escape peril. .... But, though from my soul I abhor the word homousion, and am unwilling to employ it, I shall not therefore be a heretic. LUTHER: Postil. Major. fol. 282; Confut. Rat. Latom. tom. ii. fol. 240.

I dislike this vulgar prayer, "Holy Trinity, one God! have mercy on us!" as altogether savouring of barbarism. We repudiate such expressions as being not only insipid, but profane. - Abridged from CALVIN: Tractat. Theol. p. 796.

The phrase," Holy Trinity, one God," is dangerous and improper. LAMBERT DANEAU: Resp. ad Genebrard. cap. iii.; Opusc. p. 1327. The words Trinity, person, homousion, and others of a similar kind, besides being ambiguous, .... never occur in the Scriptures. LIMBORCH: Theol. Christ. lib. vii. cap. 21. § 13.

The words Trinity, homousion, hypostasis, procession, &c. ... were not expressly to be found in the Holy Scriptures. BISHOP SANDERSON: Ad Clerum, p. 85; apud Tracts for the Times, vol. iv. No. 78, p. 45.

It must be allowed, that there is no such proposition as this, That one and the same God is three different persons, formally and in terms, to be found in the Sacred Writings, either of the Old or New Testament; neither is it pretended, that there is any word of the same signification or importance with the word Trinity, used in Scripture, with relation to God.- DR. SOUTH: Consid. on the Trinity, p. 38.

It were to be wished that on topics so sublime [as that of the Trinity], men had thought proper to confine themselves to the simple but majestic diction of the Sacred Scriptures [instead of using the terms ὁμοούσιος, ὁμοιουσιος, ὑπόστασις, ὑποστατικος, &c.]. — DR. CAMPBELL : Lectures on Ecclesiastical History: Lect. xiv.

....

The title of Mother of God, applied to the Virgin Mary, is not perhaps so innocent as Dr. Mosheim takes it to be. The invention and use of such mysterious terms as have no place in Scripture are undoubtedly pernicious to true religion. The use of this [the word Trinity] and other unscriptural terms, to which men attach either no ideas or false ones, has wounded charity and peace, without promoting truth and knowledge. It has produced heresies of the very worst kind. DR. MACLAINE: Note to Mosheim's Ecclesiastical Hist. cent. v. part ii. chap. v. § 9; and Chron. Table, cent. ii.

The general practice of Scripture seems to indicate, that, in ordinary worship, we should address the Deity in his unity, manifested to us as, in Christ Jesus, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to men their trespasses. I confess that I have ever disliked the use of the word Trinity in prayer to God, as not being a name whereby God reveals himself to us, and as savouring of scholastic theology. — CARLILE: Jesus Christ the Great God, p. 232.

Substance, and person, and essence, as applied to the Godhead, are not to be found in Holy Scripture.-H. M'NEILE: Sermons preached in St. Jude's Church, Liverpool, on Trin. Sund. 1835; p. 10.

I need hardly make any observation on the word purgatory: the very name itself is generally made one of the topics of abuse, because it is not be found in Scripture. But, I would ask, where is the term Trinity to be discovered in Scripture? Where is the term incarnation to be found? Where are many other terms which are held most sacred and most important in the Christian religion, to be found in Scripture? DR. WISEMAN: Lect. on the Doct. of the Rom. Cath. Church, p. 270.

[It is admitted also by TILLOTSON, SWIFT, HEY, TOMLINE, the Oxford Doctors, and others, that the scholastic terms here spoken of do not occur in the Bible. But who would venture to say that they do?]

G