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momentous? Can he return again to this present life to correct previous errors? This could only be through a miracle such as God alone can perform; and then the disbeliever in religion has no faith in miracles or in the resurrection from the dead. If he had, there would be no occasion for this present argument. If he replies by denying the immortality of the soul and future retribution, I ask him, first: Are these things necessarily inpossible? and it devolves on him to prove that they are so, or else admit this is nothing more than an opinion of his own. Doubtless he will de. spair of proving them impossible, and will base his opinion that they are so on the ground that he never saw a dead man rise, or a soul pass either into heaven or into hell. Then it would be proper for me to ask him, secondly: What will become of the man entertaining such an opinion, should the contrary prove to be correct? for mere opinions often turn out to be erroneous, and if the event should prove this so, how could he save himself from the endless misery then actually begun? or how could he be recompensed for the loss of the only soul that he possessed? How can the man who trusts in this opinion, and neglects religion, shut out from his thoughts the possibility that he is mistaken? and that then the believers of the truth of God would be in no danger, neither in this world nor the world to come, while he would be supremely wretched both before death and after?

Besides, what is the advantage of denying the law of God? What evil does it do, that any should labor so to destroy it? If those who speak against the law are true philosophers, let them tell us whether it be the part of a philosopher to labor to destroy it? For even if he thinks it is of no benefit after death, is it not productive of real good at present? It is beyond question that he who seeks to destroy the law, seeks to destroy the good order of the world; for he takes away from it morality and prosperity, and fills it with wickedness and confusion; and he whose conduct has such an issue has lost his wits and deserves the name of fool rather than philosopher; for man is civilized and virtu

ous, or barbarous and vicious in proportion as he observes the law or sets aside its claims. We never see religion lead a man to injure or murder his fellow men, or do anything opposed to the prosperity of nations, but just the reverse.

If, then, man can distinguish the true religion from the false, he can have no excuse for neglecting the investigation of, or failing to embrace, the truth. It is not enough that he is aware of its utility, while he remains without it. As a sick physician who knows the means of cure and does not use it, dies in consequence of such neglect, or if he does not give it to others that are sick, sets a bad example and bears the guilt of all that follow it.

We have seen that reason decides that religion is beneficial; if so, then it is a necessity of our world, and then it follows beyond all question that it is from God; for the most exalted Creator, who is perfectly good and wise, cannot neglect to give a good law when needed for perfecting the good order of his creatures; and this is reason enough to a wise man why he should not slacken in his efforts to know and embrace the true religion. He should offer up his mind to the giver of intellect in lowly obedience, and ask the grace of guidance from his mercy. Then if he devotes himself diligently to the search, renounces prejudice, and seeks the teaching of God in earnest faith, the exalted Creator will condescend to aid his weakness, and so enlighten his conscience as to lead him along the way of truth to everlasting life.

But if he neglects his duty in this matter, then his earthly life is very short, all its pleasures fleeting, and death will come, when he can no longer rectify his errors, and he will suffer immense loss in the destruction of his precious soul, for which there is no compensation. Then he will go down to that infernal pit from which there is no escape forever, where is despair and no mercy, where he will neither find any one to intercede for him or afford him a refuge. Every means of salvation will then be cut off. He will be sorry when sorrow will avail nothing. In place of the glory of heaven, the blessed vision of God, and his justification, he

shall be assigned his eternal abode in the fire of hell and the society of devils and their reprobate companions. Then let us beseech the Most High to have compassion on the work of his hands, and in mercy bestow on all the sons of men a docile spirit, and lead them to the knowledge of the truth, that they may have an opportunity for salvation and attain to the everlasting glory that is prepared for them in heaven from before the foundation of the world, that they may praise and glorify him for ever and ever. Amen.

ARTICLE II.

THE CONFLICT OF TRINITARIANISM AND UNITARIANISM IN THE ANTE-NICENE AGE.

BY PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D.

THE doctrine of the holy Trinity, that is, of the living and only true God, Father, Son, and Spirit, the source of creation, redemption, and sanctification, has in all ages been regarded as the sacred symbol and the fundamental article of the Christian system, in distinction alike from the abstract monotheism of Judaism and Mohammedanism, and from the dualism and polytheism of the heathen religions. denial of this doctrine implies necessarily also, directly or indirectly, a denial of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, together with the divine character of the work of redemption and sanctification.

The

The Bible teaches the Trinity expressly in the baptismal formula, Matt. 28: 19, and in the apostolic benediction, 2 Cor. 13: 14, i. e. in those two passages where all the truths and blessings of Christianity are comprehended in a short summary. These passages, especially the first, form the basis of all the ancient creeds. The Scriptures, however, inculcate the doctrine, not so much in express state

ments and single passages, as in great living facts; in the history of a threefold revelation of the living God from the creation of the world to its final consummation, when God shall be all in all. Every passage, moreover, which proves the divinity of Christ or the Holy Spirit, proves also the holy Trinity, if we view it in connection with the fundamental doctrine of the divine Unity as revealed in the Old Testament and confirmed in the New.

On this scriptural basis arose the orthodox dogma of the Trinity as brought out in the cecumenical creeds of the Nicene age, and incorporated into the Evangelical Protestant confessions of faith. The same belief directly or indirectly ruled the church from the beginning, even during the anteNicene period, although it did not attain its full logical form till the fourth century. The doctrine is primarily of a practically religious nature, and speculative only in a secondary sense. It arose, not from the field of metaphysics, but from that of experience and worship; and not as an abstract, isolated dogma, but in inseparable connection with the study of Christ and of the Holy Ghost; especially in connection with Christology, since all theology proceeds from "God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." Under the condition of monotheism, this doctrine followed of necessity, as already stated, from the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Ghost. The unity of God was already immovably fixed, by the Old Testament, as a fundamental article of revealed religion in opposition to all forms of idolatry. But the New Testament and the Christian consciousness as firmly demanded faith in the divinity of the Son, who effected redemption, and of the Holy Ghost, who founded the church and dwells in believers; and these apparently contradictory interests could be reconciled only in the form of the Trinity; that is, by distinguishing in the one and indivisible essence of God (ovoía, puois, substantia, sometimes also, inaccurately, úπóσтаσis), three hypostases or persons (τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις, τρία πρόσωπα, personæ); at the

1 Tpiás, first in Theophilus; trinitas, first in Tertullian; from the fourth century more distinctly μονοτριάς, μονὰς ἐν τριάδι, triunitas.

same time allowing for the insufficiency of all human conceptions and words to describe such an unfathomable mystery.

The Socinian and rationalistic opinion, that the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity sprang from Platonism1 and NewPlatonism,2 is therefore radically false. The Indian Trimurti, altogether pantheistic in spirit, is still further from the Christian Trinity. Only thus much is true: that the Hellenic philosophy operated from without, as a stimulating force upon the form of the whole patristic theology, the doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity among the rest; and that the deeper minds of heathen antiquity discovered a presentiment of a threefold distinction in the divine essence; but only a remote and vague presentiment, which, like all the deeper instincts of the heathen mind, serves to strengthen rather than to weaken the Christian truth. Far clearer and more fruitful suggestions presented themselves in the Old Testament, particularly in the doctrines of the Messiah, of the Spirit, of the Word, and of the Wisdom of God, and even in the system of symbolical numbers, which rests on the sacredness of the numbers three (God), four (the world), seven and twelve (the union of God and the world, hence the covenant number). But the mystery of the Trinity could be fully revealed only in the New Testament after the completion of the work of redemption and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.

Again: it was primarily the economic or transitive trinity, which the church had in mind; that is, the trinity of the reve lation of God in the threefold work of creation, redemption, and sanctification; the trinity presented in the apostolic writings as a living fact. But from this, in agreement with both reason and Scripture, the immanent or ontologic trinity was inferred; that is, an eternal distinction in the essence

1Comp. Plato, Ep. 2 and 6, which, however, are spurious or doubtful. Legg. IV. p. 185. Ὁ Θεὸς ἀρχήν τε καὶ τελευτὴν καὶ μεσὰ τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων ἔχων.

2 Plotin. Enu. V. 1 and Porphyry in Cyril. Alex. c. Jul., who, however, were already unconsciously affected by Christian ideas, speak of rpeis vooráσeis, but in a sense altogether different from that of the church.

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