without ever looking up to see where they came from." Mark how the Poet expresses the same idea. "for swinish gluttony CHARITY AND PEACE. 0. - One the turf, and it is supposed that the Barb was introduced into England by the crusaders. But to return to the Vermont nags. In the beginning of the Revolution, an Arabian horse, on its way to England as a present to George III., was captured by a Yankee privateer, and found his way to that region which now produces the best trotters, and of our brethren has left our ranks his blood runs in all their veins. and become an Episcopalian. And the reason why the South- Success attend him in his new ern and Western horses are inferior for work, is in my opinion, that a judicious system of crossing is not practised. They breed too much for blood, and too little for bone and bottom, and, the result is a long legged generation which can run well, but are unfit for work. I asked Col. Jaques, of Charlestown, (the greatest breeder we have,) what was the best breed of pigs that he had, duties. A new brother has come over to us from the Orthodox ranks. We bid him welcome and extend the hand of Fellowship. Why make an outcry as if the heavens were falling at either of these events. Judging from the remarks of some persons, we should suppose the progress of truth was determined by a single man's resolves. 0. ORIGIN OF DOCTRINE OF TRINITY. We do not fully understand the truth, until we also understand the errors, into 1. There was no such doctrine in the Apostolic age, but those who succeeded Apostles to bear the stigma of believing that early age, not being willing like the in the crucified man of Nazareth, sought to deify him. 2. They began by personifying the logos, or divine word, which the scriptures allege to have been incarnate in Jesusthereby making a person out of an attribute of the Deity. 3. Later christians abused the primitive mode of speech, by which all hea venly beings were called Gods, and declared Christ to be equal with God the Father, merely because in a Polytheistic age, he had been called a God. 4. Superstition wishing to introduce the utmost mystery into religion, and itself the prey of mystery, attributed personality to the Holy Spirit, and declared that to be a separate God, which the scriptures speak of merely as a divine influence, and no more a person distinct from God, than the spirit of man is a person distinct from the man himself. 5. The doctrine of the Trinity was perfected by the adoption of the dogma of Plato and the oriental Philosophy, that recognised a kind of Trinity in the godhead. 6. The Calvinistic view of the atonement, kept up the dogma of the Trinity. Since man has sinned infinitely, an infinite sacrifice must be made. Therefore God must die for the sins of the world. As if God could die! 7. Men now profess the doctrine of the Trinity, as far as the most enlightened Trinitarian theologians will declare their opinions, not because they believe it literally, but on account of its spiritual signification. They rejoice to believe in God the Father, God in the Son, and God as the Holy Ghost-one God, not three, but merely manifested in three different ways. This we believe to be the view of most intelligent Trinitarians, and this view we profess to hold. We believe not that the Son is a distinct God, but that he was God only because the Father was in him, and the Holy Spirit is not a distinct God, but is merely the Spirit of God or the divine influWhen Trinitarians hear the Uni ence. tarian doctrine thus preached, they generally think it their own creed. In this doctrine, we believe the church will ere long be one. 8. The last cause of the prevalence of the doctrine of the Trinity, is, we believe, to be found in the tyranny of religious associations, which will not allow their members to differ from the fixed standard, under penalty of excommunication, and other modes of persecution. We believe the majority of members of religious societies are merely modal Trinitarians, that is, that they believe merely in three manifestations of God, not three separate Gods. We know many orthodox ministers who are merely modal Trinitarians. Still they are compelled to use the language of the church, and to speak of three persons in one God, and to use the unscriptural expression, God the Son. The coming of spiritual liberty in the yet shackled church, will, we doubt not, bring out the full truth, and the church will own the declaration of scripture-Unto us there is but one God the Father. Among the causes of the belief in the Trinity, we have not alluded to perversions of particular passages of scripture. These have been duly considered in previous numbers of your magazine. Thanks be to God, that the church, amid all its diversities of opinion, holds the essential truth, that God was manifest in Jesus Christ-the glorious truth of the union of God and the soul of man the humanity of God and the deification of man-a mark of God's past goodness to us-a symbol of the perfect union of humanity and divinity in the hearts of the faithful. 0. |
