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THE
DOCTRINE
of the
TRINITY.
A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED IN
UNITY CHURCH, ISLINGTON,
ON
TRINITY SUNDAY, JUNE 11th, 1876,
BY
T. W. FRECKELTON.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
��THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE
OF THE TRINITY.
“In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men.”—Matt. 15 chap. 9thverse.
The purpose of this discourse, which was originally
delivered upon what, in the ecclesiastical calendar is
called Trinity Sunday, is to give a brief and simple
digest of the history of the doctrine of the Trinity;
not so much for directly controversial ends, as to put
before younger persons, and those who may not have
hitherto given any close attention to the subject, such
material as will be useful in the foundation of an
opinion upon one of the questions which divide us
from the large majority of the religious people in
Christian churches.
If the dogma of the Trinity were merely one
amongst the many other ideas different men have of
�4
' God,—a mode of thought by which some minds
sought to shape to their reason and understanding the
Great Mystery which surrounds us all, and, as a product
of the human intelligence feeling after God, consented
to stand or fall according to its consonance with right
reason and the order of nature,—it need not especially
concern us, and certainly ought not to divide religious
men from fellowship with each other. But they who
believe it rest it upon other claims, and press it to
other issues. They affirm it to be the foundation fact
of a compact and co-ordinated scheme of supernatural
revelation, which is of divine origin, and has an abso
luteness of truth supported by miraculous attestation,
illustration, and preservation in history. They declare,
also, that, as a doctrine to be believed, it is the key
stone of the one only system of human salvation, and
is to be accepted upon supernatural authority, even
against reason; as the imperative condition of the
grace of God, the forgiveness of sins, and the inheri
tance of eternal life. It is these pretentious and highsounding claims for the dogma which arouse, and we
think justify, our opposition to it. If it can be clearly
shown that this doctrine in all its forms has had not a
history only, but a development in time, and especially
that it did not originate with the Jewish, nor even the
Christian religion, but was bom and reached a certain
culmination in purely heathen philosophy, then it will
be evident that it cannot, as we know it to-day, have
�5
been given by supernatural revelation; that it was no
distinctive and original part of Christianity; and that
it must take its chance in the intellectual conflicts of
the time, and stand or fall with all the other elabora
tions of the restless, speculative ingenuity of mankind,
according as it may be justified or condemned by the
matured reason, and harmonised with the practical
experience of the world.
They who differ from us, very sincerely suppose that
a strong point exists in their favour, in the fact that the
great mass of Christians believe this doctrine of the
Trinity to be distinctly taught in many passages of
Scripture, especially in the New Testament; and to be
plainly involved and inwrought into the whole tissue
of the Bible and of Christianity. We are not unwilling
to bring the question to this test, if the object be to
discover what the Scriptures really do teach; but as
to the truth of the doctrine itself, such a course could
never be final, for it rests upon the assumption that
whatever the Scriptures teach must be true, and is to
be accepted as religious truth without further inquiry ;
—a prepossession of such a tremendous nature, and
drawing after it such startling consequences, as must
give us pause. It is a very interesting question to
settle, as far as is now possible, what the various
writers in the Scriptures intended to teach; but that
done, there yet remains the far more interesting, and
indeed the only practical question, whether the things
�6
so taught are true and fitted to help us in the attain
ment of righteousness. We think that it is fairly
questionable whether the Scriptures do teach the
doctrine of the Trinity. That point in it around which,
in our day, controversy and dogmatic assertion tend to
intensify themselves, is the idea of the Deity of Jesus
Christ; that is, that in some quite real sense he is
God. There surely must be serious difficulties in the
way of justifying this doctrine from a book in which
occur such passages as these;—“ The Lord our God
is one Lord.” “ There is no God else beside me; a
Just God and a Saviour: there is none beside me.”
“ Before me there was no God formed, neither shall
there be any after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and
beside me there is no Saviour.” “ I, even I, am he,
and there is no God with me.” “ I am the first, and
I am the last, and beside me there is no God.” “ I
am God and there is none else.”—These are from the
Old Testament. In the New Testament the same
doctrine is constantly affirmed; Jesus himself is re
presented as saying, “ This is Life Eternal, that they
may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent.” “ Of that day and that hour
knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are
in heaven; neither the Son, but the Father.”
I came not to do mine own will.” “I can
of myself do nothing.” “ If I honour myself my
honour is nothing; it is the Father that honoureth
�1
me.” “For as the Father hath life in himself, so
hath he given it to the Son to have life in himself.”
“ As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the
Father.” “ I have not spoken of myself, but the
Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment
what I should say, and what I should speak.” “ The
word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s who
sent me.” “ I ascend to my Father and your Father,
and to my God and your God.” “ I do nothing of
myself, but as my Father hath taught me I speak
these things.” These are but very few of a large class
of such passages. The words of Paul are often quoted
in defence of the idea of the Deity of Jesus, and some
of them, especially when viewed apart from their con
text, seem to bear in that direction; but it must not
be forgotten that in the Epistles attributed to Paul
we find such passages as these: “ But to us there is
but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and
we in him.” “There is one Lord, one faith, one
baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in you all.” “Jesus Christ,
who was bom of the seed of David according to the
flesh.” This is, however, quite enough quotation to
show that the Scripture proof is not so simple and
unanimous as is often assumed. Many passages can
be cited on both sides, but if the simpler and plainer
ones are taken to explain those that are figurative and
mystical, the Scriptural basis for the Trinity disappears
�8
altogether. We do not, however, seek to disguise the
fact that such a question can never be settled by book
authority at all. Mere quotation will not settle any
thing. The last appeal is to the highest critical
judgment and reverent conscience of men.
It may be said that, even though the doctrine of
the Trinity cannot be found, as we know it now, in
the Scriptures, it is nevertheless true, and its formula
tion has been the result of the Holy Spirit enlighten
ing and guiding the Church, in the persons of its
Councils, Popes, Bishops, and the successors of the
Apostles generally. This is but shifting the ground
of an authority which is still external, and simply
incapable of proof. There are those of the less
rigidly orthodox school who think that the dogma of
the Trinity is fairly deducible from natural facts and
the order of things; being indicated by many relations,
prefigured by many analogies, and therefore a highly
probable and reasonable doctrine. Upon this ground
we are perfectly willing to join issue on fit occasions,
and to abide by the result; but now it is sufficient
to show, by mentioning it, that we do not ignore this
view of the case; but, except as it may receive
illustration from the history of the doctrine itself, it
does not enter into our present purpose, which is to
show that the conception is of heathen origin, and
that it has a history, which is also a development, in
the continuity of which there is no break.
�9
It is unfortunate that Ecclesiastical history has had
to indicate the march of its progress much more by
the angry controversies which have agitated the
Church, than by the development and deepening of
its spiritual life, and the enlargement of its cleansing
and healing power upon the souls of men and the life
of the world. What is best in the Church has been
least obtrusive, and has been lost siglt of in the noise
and heat of perpetual and manifold controversy.
The great Councils of the Church have not once been
convened to devise methods for saving men, purifying
society, or resisting tyranny, oppression, or ignorance;
but, without exception, to attempt to settle vexed
questions of controverted dogmatic theology, or of
Church discipline in relation to heretics. Hence,
while the river of the Church’s spiritual life, and the
currents of purer, freer thought, seem often to flow
underground, and altogether out of sight and follow
ing, the developmental history of some hard, un'spiritual, and outward dogma, like tlqs of the Trinity,
is clearly traceable.
He has read the New Testament to little purpose,
who so misunderstands Christianity as to imagine that
what is now called by that name was given to the
world by Jesus, formulated into a creed, and system
atised into a set of dogmas from which there is no
appeal. It is freely admitted by the most orthodox,
that, in some sense and degree, Christianity was
�IO
developed out of Judaism, and owed to it some of its
most marked ideas; but it is not always seen, and
seldomer admitted, that the Christianity of to-day
owes quite as much, probably more, to the heathen
authors of pre-Christian times. We must go much
further back than the times of the Apostles and Jesus
himself, if we would see the birth of the doctrine of
the Trinity, that is, if we could see it at all for the
dim haze of antiquity in which it is lost; but from
very early times indeed, we are able to trace its course
and growth in the history of religious thought.
It was known, long since, to the fathers of our
modern school of free faith,—Priestley, Belsham, and
the rest,—that in the far time before Plato (B. C. 429347) there was a kind of conception of the Trinity in
Greek philosophy; but we know what they did not
know, that it is traceable backward for many ages
beyond that time, to the very roots of the Aryan stock
from which the Greeks had descended, on the one
hand; and, on the other, it can be traced to the re
motest times, as a part of the Egyptian theosophy, long
before the Greeks came into contact with Egypt. In
deed, there is now more than a suspicion that its origin
is to be sought in those Sun-myths, and myths of a
kindred character, which seem to have been the very
earliest forms taken by the religious sentiment of man
kind. It was, doubtless, from these ancient sources
that Plato derived it, modifying it into harmony with
his general system of thought, in which it sustained
�II
clear and logical relations to all the rest. In his philo
sophy the idea of God did not at all take the form of
a Trinity of persons, but simply a triad of qualities, or
manifestations, like the later Christian Sabellianism of
which it was the parent and type. He was well in
formed concerning the religions of India, of Egypt,
and of his own country Greece; and, in an eclectic
spirit, borrowed from them all in the construction of
his own philosophy. He affirmed the existence of
One Supreme God; eternal, immaterial, immutable,
omnipotent, omniscient, the first and the last, the
beginning, middle, and end of all things; as ab
solute essential Being, unknown,—perhaps unknowable,
—but unfolded in the universe as the supreme mind,
the active thought, the quickening spirit of all things,—
a distinction which may have certain conveniences in
a philosophic terminology, but which becomes absurd
and mischievous when hardened into the dogmatism
of a creed. After the time of Plato his philosophy
became the favourite form of religious thought in
Greece, and followed everywhere the lines of Greek
conquest and influence; modifying, and itself being
modified by, the various theosophies with which it
came into contact. It thus came to be prevalent in
Egypt; and when, shortly after the death of Plato,
Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria
there (B. C. 332), Platonism took vigorous root in
the new city, and flourished greatly.
Of the condition of the Jews before the captivity in
�12
Babylon we do not know much that is certain. The
so-called history up to that time, is too legendary and
traditional to be trusted implicitly; but this much may
be safely said, that they were very rude and lawless;
and mingled with the worship of Jehovah, who was to
the mass of them but a local god, many gross idola
tries, such as those of Baal and Astarte. They were
carried to Babylon in two instalments divided by a
period of ten years (B. C. 598 and 588); and remained
there until the reign of Cyrus the Persian, who, after
the fall of Babylon, granted them a decree by virtue of
which a large portion of them returned to their own
land (B. C. 536), purposing to set up the altar of
Jehovah, and to erect a new temple. This was for the
time frustrated by their own exclusiveness; it was, how
ever, accomplished some twenty years after. Later
still (B.C. 458) there was a second return, in the
reign of Artaxerxes; and under the auspices of the same
King a third (B.C. 445). The Jews, as they returned
from Babylon, were considerably changed both in cha
racter and religion. They were less agricultural and
more mercantile; less secluded and more enterprising;
and, under the fervent prophets of the exile, they had
lost their proclivities to idolatry, and returned to their
land not only confirmed monotheists, but purists, with
no small degree of narrowness and religious exclusive
ness. They had, however, absorbed into their religion
many ideas and legends from the Chaldees; and later,
while they remained under Persian, and afterwards
�13
Macedonian or Greek protection, they imbibed much
of the more intense and ethical spirit of the Zoroastrian
faith. These, engrafted upon the Mosaic stock, pro
duced the school of Talmudist or Jerusalem Jewish
thought; which, having Jerusalem, the Temple, the
Priesthood, and the resuscitated ritual as a centre, did
not prove itself to be a growing philosophy.
It must be remembered that all this applies almost
exclusively to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
When Cyrus granted them permission to return, the
ten tribes, who originally revolted under Jeroboam to
form the Kingdom of Israel, had been in exile for two
centuries. They must have become naturalized in
their eastern settlement; perhaps very much absorbed
by intermarriage. In any case, Jerusalem had never
been the centre of proud aspirations to them, and
probably very few, if any, of them would return.
Nor is it likely that all even of the two tribes would
return; there was no compulsion to do so.
As far back as the time of the exile a number of
Jews had formed a settlement in Egypt (Jeremiah,
xliii. 7). When Alexandria was built, there is reason
to suppose that many trading Jews settled there; and
shortly after the erection of that city, Ptolemy, son
of Lagus, when he captured Jerusalem (B. C. 320).
carried to Alexandria a large number of Jewish
and Samaritan captives, where he gave them all the
privileges of citizenship.
There was thus, away
from Palestine, a large number of Jews, a great pro-
�14
portion of whom would be the most active minded,
and the most free thoughted. This was especially the
case with those of Alexandria. That city was a great
trading mart, and a still greater centre of intellectual
and literary activity. Creeds from the East and West,
commingled there. The philosophy of Plato was
fashionable. The Jews became eclectic, and wedded
Platonism to the religion of their fathers. So many
of them had forgotten their own tongue that, in the
reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (B. C. 260), and some
say by his direction, the Hebrew scriptures were
translated into the Greek language, and subsequently
used by the Jews in their synagogues. This fact serves
well to mark the great divergence of thought which had
already taken place between the Hellenist or Alex
andrine School of Jews and that of Jerusalem; for
while the former accepted, indeed, in fact, actually
made this translation, the latter exclaimed in hysterical
agony, “ The law in Greek ! Darkness ! Three days’
fast! ”
This then was the situation during the two cen
turies before the Christian era. Plato had gathered
into his philosophy the trias of the old Aryan Sun
myths and faiths, and that of the, perhaps, equally
old Egyptian theosophy. Platonism had migrated
from Athens to Alexandria; and, there, Judaism
coming into contact with it, had evolved a school
of thinkers who spiritualised and rationalised the
Scriptures, and sought thus to show that the ideas of
�15
Plato were involved and prefigured in the Jewish
faith. They were eclectic, and sought religion in
universal principles ; and, hence, were ready to admit
new light upon it from any direction. With these
Jews of Alexandria, other colonies of Jews scattered
about Greece were in sympathy, and there was, there
fore, a large section of the Jewish people who held
the Law very loosely, and who more than coquetted
with the Greek philosophy. How thoroughly Platonic
they were is evident from their literature, which re
mains to us in some of the books of the apocryphal
Old Testament and the writings of Philo, which
emanated from this Alexandrine School, and in which
the various divine manifestations, as the Word of God,
and the Wisdom of God, are personified; and it is
worthy of note that the personification is harder and
more defined than in the Platonic trias. On the
other hand, there was what we may call the more
orthodox Jerusalem School of Jews, who held by the
old interpretations of the law of Moses; held hea
thenism in contempt and abomination ; and were
especially rigid in their ideas of the unity of God. It
is true they were not without tincture of Chaldean,
and especially Persian thought; but they held all in
an exclusive, unfruitful kind of way which forbade
progress. The Hellenised Jews were generally well
content with their political situation, and had no very
strong enthusiasm for the Holy Land or the Holy
City; but these of Jerusalem were restless, and did
�but wait in a smothered impatience until Messiah
should come to crush their heathen enemies under
his feet, and more than restore the ancient glories of
their city and nation.
After the time of Jesus, his doctrine first took root in
Jerusalem and its neighbourhood; and was little more
than a sect composed of such Jews as actually believed
Jesus to be the Messiah, and who expected his speedy
return to establish his kingdom; but by the agency
of Paul, chiefly, it was extended to the Gentiles. In
due course it came to Alexandria, most probably
about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. Many
of the Platonising Jews there and elsewhere at once
accepted it,—not absolutely, but in a purely eclectic
spirit, after their manner; adding it, as it were, to
their Judaic-Platonism, making each interpret and
dovetail into the other. In this way the new faith first
came into contact with worldly philosophy, and a
strong and vigorous church arose, in the speech and
terminology of which Christian and Platonic words
and phrases were about equally mixed. There was
also a church in existence which had arisen amongst
the Jerusalem school of Jews, and had been largely
extended by the dispersion consequent upon the
destruction of Jerusalem, and the deportation of the
population out of Palestine. This church was not at
all philosophic, but continued very Jewish in thought
and practice, and still clung to Jewish rites and cere
monies ; and so long as it existed it never accepted
�i7
any form of the Platonic trias as a part of Christianity ;
or, in any way, the doctrine of the Deity of Jesus, or
its logical corollary of the Incarnation. We see then that, before the end of the Apostolic
age, there were the elements of two opposing tenden
cies in the Church, and each charged with a fundamental
antagonism far older than Christianity itself, which
began to manifest itself very early indeed, as we find
from the ‘ Acts of the Apostles’; and especially from
the Epistles of Paul, which are decidedly Hellenic
in their spirit. As the second century opened and
advanced this antagonism did but deepen. The sy
noptic Gospels arose out of the Jewish-Christian
Church, and were unfavourable to the high-wrought
mysticism of the Alexandrine and Hellenist school;
out of which came,—probably late in the second
century,—the fourth gospel. The date cannot be con
sidered as certainly settled, but its character and origin
are unmistakable. It has all the Platonic mysticism,
with all the Greek ethnic breadth, and profound
spiritual insight characteristic of the Christian Platonist
of Alexandria. It uses the word “Logos” as applied
to Jesus, and thus identifies him with the second prin
ciple of manifestation of the Platonic trias; and the
phrases “ Son of God,” “ First begotten Son,” and
others, appear in it, which at this time were commonly
used by the Hellenist Christians of Alexandria and all
the cities of Asia Minor, to describe the relation of
Jesus to God his Father; but, as yet, there was no
�i8
thought of a second person of the Trinity, or of any
theory of the proper Deity of Jesus. It was in the
cities just referred to that Christianity grew the fastest,
and, almost everywhere, the two opposing tendencies
we are considering took strong controversial aspects.
At length the dispute became serious, assuming this
particular form, “ Was Jesus a man simply—a prophet
and sent of God—or was he a Being, uncreated, and
of the same class as God ? ” in fact the “ Logos; ”
the former being maintained by the Ebionites, as the
lineal descendants of the Jerusalem School of Jews
were now called; the latter, by the Gnostics, who
were the representatives of the Alexandrine school.
This brings us to the beginning of the fourth
century when Constantine called a Council at Nice,
(A. D. 325) which, after much unseemly display, and,
as it appears, almost by accident, decided in favour of
the Gnostic doctrine; and Christ was declared to be
of the same essence as God, but as yet there was no
third person of the Trinity. Up to this point, what
we now call the Apostles’ creed had been for some
time the recognised symbol of the church. It is
practically a Unitarian Creed. Now a new creed was
imposed, which we call the Nicene Creed, but it was
not at first in the form we know it now. The remainder
of the fourth century was taken up in the persecution
of the Ebionites, or Arians, as they were now called;
but the forces were not as yet very unequal. There
were, during the century, thirty minor councils held,
�19
at which the decisions were thirteen times against
Arius, and seventeen times for him; and, yet, ulti
mately, the Nicene doctrine was declared orthodox.
During these controversies there arose into prominence
the question of what the Holy Ghost is; and the
dispute grew as hot and rancorous as before; but at
the General Council of Constantinople (A. D. 381.)
the Holy Ghost was also declared to be of the same
essence with God, and an addition accordingly was
made to the Nicene Creed. It was not, however,
fixed as we now have it until the ninth century. A
controversy next arose concerning what was the
relation in Jesus Christ, of his deity to his humanity.
One party, of which Appolinarius was the leader,
completely submerged the humanity in the deity x
the other, under Nestorius, brought the humanity into
greater prominence. Nestorius was the Bishop of
Constantinople. Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, his
rival for supremacy in the Church, was the alarmist,
not to say the persecutor, on this occasion. The
precise form the question took was, whether Mary was
the mother, only of the Son of Man, or whether she
was the Mother of God. Theodosius the younger
convoked a Council (A. D. 431) which Cyril
manoeuvred to get fixed at Ephesus, a city which,
prided itself upon being the burial place of Mary,
who had superseded the goddess Diana as the
tutelary divinity of the place. Cyril was also
president, and forced on the debate to a decision.
�20
■against Nestorius, before many of the friends of the
latter had arrived; one of whom, and probably the
most powerful, was Paul, Bishop of Antioch. Cyril
had with him almost an army of half-wild Nitrian and
Thebaid monks who were devoted to him, and
had done him many a piece of rough, shameful
service. These overawed the Council, and the
decision was against Nestorius; it was, “that the
union in Jesus of the divine and human was so in
timate, that Mary might justly be called the Mother of
God.” Many of the Bishops present were so illiterate
that they could not write their names, or even read;
and they acted simply at the direction, and under the
intimidation of Cyril. He bribed the royal house
hold. He cursed Nestorius ; and every way behaved
himself so badly, that the Emperor, when he dismissed
the Council, said, “ God is my witness that I am not
the author of this confusion. His providence will
discern and punish the guilty. Return to your pro
vinces, and may your virtues repair the mischief and
scandal of your meeting.” This was the third General
Council. The orthodox were emboldened by success,
and rushing off to the logical result of their dogma,
taught that there was but one nature in Christ,—that
he was all divine,—that there was no God but the
incarnate word. Again the Church was aroused;
and the Emperor called another Council (A. D. 449.)
which reversed the former decision. This Council,
however, is not generally reckoned, owing to the fact
�21
that it was opposed by the Bishop of Rome. Two>
years later the Church was again so unsettled that
another Council was called at Chalcedon; when it
was decided, that Jesus, as to his divine nature, was of
the same essence as God, in the same way in which, as
to his human nature, he was of the same essence as
other men;—that is, that he was one person in two
distinct natures,—very much the same doctrine that is
considered orthodox now.
Even yet, the conception of the Trinity was not
complete; for during the dark ages, at a time subse
quent to the fifth century, and before the njnth, what
we now know as the Athanasian Creed came into
existence. There is no reason but long usage for
connecting it with Athanasius, who certainly did not
write it. It came into gradual use in the Church, and
was formerly endorsed by the fourth general Lateran
Council (A.D. 1215.) And it is probably to the
entering of this creed, with its contradictory state
ments, and its damnatory clauses amongst the author
itative symbols of the church, that we are to
trace the persecutions of the succeeding five
hundred years, and all the horrors of the in
quisition. The doctrine of the Trinity has been
by no means an unfruitful doctrine; but its fruits
have been faggots and martyrs’ fires; scaffolds, tortures,
and death ; “ red ruin and the breaking up of laws;”
and an inheritance, not yet expended, of weakness,
bigotry, and uncharity. The last martyr who was
�22
burned in Smithfield was one who suffered for denying
it. (Bartholomew Legate, A.D. 1612).
Such is a brief resume of the history of this doc
trine ; much of it has not been a pleasant story to tell.
It has been necessarily very imperfectly, but not un
faithfully, told. It is one of which we should remind
ourselves sometimes, and which young people ought
to know and thoughtfully ponder. But there is
enough of it now;—enough surely “ of crucifying the
Lord afresh, and putting him to open shame.” As
we gather in our church, built upon one of the open
thoroughfares of this great city,—and so built as to
challenge every passer-by,—here, with loud organ
music and song, and with the summer sun mellowed
into “ dim religious light,” streaming upon us “ through
storied windows richly dight,” worshipping our God
according to our own consciences, not only no man
making us afraid, but under the protection of our
-country’s laws, it seems hard to realise how in by
gone times, even in this very London, our forefathers,
•of but a few generations ago, were fain to worship
God in obscurity,—to hide their unobtrusive meeting
houses up narrow courts and in unfrequented places;
and to come sometimes to worship, and find them
-only a heap of ruins;—nay, even how, few and scat
tered, they were hunted from place to place, in
poverty, and fear, and outlawry, and not seldom the
end of it all was the scaffold, or the pile, from whence
they went out to God—“ pale martyrs, ascending in
�23
robes of fire ” to tell Jesus in heaven how men traves
tied on earth his doctrine of peace and good-will
Yet so indeed it was. This was our heroic time; our
age of saints and confessors. Many of our churches
have their very foundations laid in the ashes of these
heroes; because, when dead, there was no place to
find them a grave except where they had worshipped
their God. It is well!
“ The feet of those they wrought for,
And the noise of those they fought for,
Echo round their bones for evermore.”
How little we think of all this now! And how
loosely, and at how little cost, we hold the principles
which they passed down to us,—nay, secured for us
with such a glorious abandonment of self-sacrifice.
Surely, we should not forget this ! or that men and
women far down the future, will be the better or the
worse for the way we use these privileges of to-day.
Let us hold the truth firmly; exercise it in charity;
follow it faithfully; and, most of all, illustrate by our
daily lives the doctrines we hold, that we also are the
sons of God • that He is our Father whom all holy
souls can see face to face; that religion is not the re
ception of abstruse mysteries or logical contradictions,
but the cherishing of a reverent spirit and the living
of a righteous life.
Our young people who are born and trained
amongst us, are apt sometimes to be a little ashamed
of belonging to an unpopular faith; would fain not
�24
have it known; and shrink away, attracted by the more
fashionable churches. This is wrong, no less than
undignified and cowardly. Who should be ashamed
of such a grand heroic parentage and history ?—of
such a splendid wealth of truth handed down for an
inheritance, and to which we are free-born ?—and of
such a promise as we have that the world will one
day be at our feet ? Of what is there to be ashamed ?
We have amongst us men and women, the children of
other faiths, who were taught from their cradles almost,
to curse our heroes, and to count our freest and
highest thought, but as poison for men’s souls,—who,
when they came to mature estate, and saw the grandeur
of our history, and felt the compelling power of our
free faith, were content to purchase the privilege of
citizenship with us at a great price. They are
alien in our ranks, but are proud to be 'with us;
and ask of God no higher thing than to be worthy
of such a company. Let us learn on our knees to"
be ashamed of our shame, and rise from kneeling to
gather our heresy about our brows like a crown of
glory, as it is; and learn to use it, as it is, a
wealth of power for what is noblest in ourselves, and
most fruitful for the service of mankind.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The doctrine of the Trinity. A discourse delivered in Unity Church, Islington, on Trinity Sunday, June 11th, 1876
Creator
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Freckelton, T.W.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 24 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1876]
Identifier
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CT11
G3368
Subject
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Christianity
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The doctrine of the Trinity. A discourse delivered in Unity Church, Islington, on Trinity Sunday, June 11th, 1876), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
Doctrines
Trinity
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/cbcac0f8fe008468f92312a1f2819397.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=QxxMCl0nZTfQiHNPu6sPPtugY5YeGQ-uKJ0V6dY1hzBAacT2C6zPdcrMqaCxA02cUGOTDkwnblQwhItp4fMwseezFrH0HxyOLqKvoVX-2NhzaqKRSli%7EpKFkMHOp1qERCu7xs%7E4wkDhU14WHZ2WYpL8PUpQe%7E96PqneCAi2rhR5rWF%7EJFXN7ocofpaJiKwFNyWrU9sDYj6NznvthUqM2xVMA28dJJDQEsVBpDyhouuJAK1fvnxgsUB3qlAG1MLN62itlJa5pxI-rYRKdC5OS6NMr8i93ukm%7EAgzbIl3LqjywG085E9PTdgsGlNjAUp9JftDfbZ1BAYDTWBTlifyVrQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
6a4c90d71fc4916f4d63ce6a2f2c1c6b
PDF Text
Text
TRINITY SUNDAY.
A SERMON,
PREACHED AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
MAY 3.1st, 1374, by tiie
REV.
CHARLES VOYSEY
[From the Eastern Post, June 'oth, 1874/1
On Sunday (May 31st) at St. George’s Rail, Langham-place, 'he
Rev. C. Voysey took his text from Psalm cxlv., 10., “All 1 hy
works praise Thee O Lord, and Thy saints give thanks unto
Thee.”
He said—As the world grows older and wiser, men begin to be
weary of Theology, and to care more for Religion. <>n this Trinity
Sunday I might, perhaps, be expected to go over the old and
tedious ground of a barren controversy, and to shew, for the
thousandth time, that Three can never be One, nor One ever be
Three, in the same arithmetical sense of the terms. But I am in
no mood for so wearisome and thankless a task. In an orthodox
pulpit such a renewal of a worn-out discussion might be very
useful and appropriate; but surely, in a place like this, it would
be a waste of time, if not an affront to your understandings, to go
over ground every inch of which must be already painfully
familiar.
Moreover, the doctrine of the Trinity, as laid down in the
Athanasian Creed, however distinctly set forth in language, how
ever frequently and solemnly repeated, has never yet been believed
bv a human being. It is as impossible for one to believe two
contradictory and intelligible propositions, as it is for one to walk
on the water, or to fly without wings. Every professed Trinitarian
is mentally conscious of believing in Three Gods, or in only one
of them at a time. No one ever achieved the miracle of believing
that the Three are not Three but One. Christendom is divided
between those who worship Jesus as Supreme God, those who
worship his mother as Supreme, and a very small minority who
worship the Father. They are all practically Monotheists,
�2
because human nature is incapable of bestowing the adoration
affection, and trust of the soul upon more than one God at a time
Polytheism, which includes Tritheism, is itself a standing proof
of my assertion. For, have as many Gods as you will, one of them
must be nearest and dearest as an object of worship. The rest fall
back into lower ranks.
As involving moral mischief, the doctrine of the Trinity is,
perhaps, the most innocuous of all the dogmas of Christianity. It
is so purely metaphysical (or would be so if it had in it a grain of
sense) that the heart is neither blessed nor injured by pretending
to hold it. It is not, therefore, worthy of our attack; it is
practically as dead and dry as an Egyptian mummy and as fruit
less for good or evil, only interesting as an antiquity, and a
curiosity of mental history.
But the passing thought we have given it suggests another of
great interest; and that is, the necessary decline ot dogmatic
Theology before the march of Human Progress; and by Human
Progress, I mean our advance in scientific knowledge, and our
advance in philanthropy.
All Theology is the result of man’s thought and observation of
the world without, and of the soul within. Whatever was true in
his reflections upon the world, whatever was correct in his obser
vation of phenomena, and whatever was exact in his self-scrutiny
entered into and became an integral part of his Theology. And
on the other hand, all his mistakes about the world and himself
were developed into Theological errors. His Theology has always
been more or less the counterpart of his own mingled knowledge
and ignorance of the things within reach of his examination.
The very subject of which Theology treats viz :—God and God’s
relation to man, has varied from age to age with the varying
growth of knowledge in other matters. At one time the conception
of a Divine Being must have been very different to what it is now.
From the beginning “God” has been made in man’s image, and I
do not see bow it could be otherwise, or how else to account for
the varieties in -Religious beliefs, or for the growths and changes of
any one of them. It cannot however be gainsaid that every
addition to man’s knowledge of any importance has been followed
by a marked corresponding change in his Theological ideas. There
�3
can be little doubt that when astrology passed into astronomy, and
alchemy into chemistry, religious ideas were vastly enlaiged, con
ceptions of God must have expanded with the - pening magnificence
of the scale of His operations in Nature. But it is in our own
times that we observe this ( subtle connexion more clearly.
Within the last twenty or thirty years the knowledge of civilized
man has grown out of all proportion to its previous rate of piogiessand with this more rapid advance have come a most remarkable
shaking of old beliefs, and a somewhat ruthless cross-examination
of the grounds on which they had been accepted. The moie we
know of the enormous extent of the universe, of the majestic forces
which are at work within it, and of the unbroken and eternal order
by which those forces are guided and controlled; the less
anthropomorphic are our conceptions of God, the less egotistical
are our notions of His relation to man. One by one the dogmas
are doubted, re-examined, thrown away. We no longer tolerate
definitions of God, still less the absurdity of descriptions of His
mode of existence. As we abandon the fables of Biblical cosmogony,
we dethrone the triple oligarchy which heretofore had ruled, and
so misruled, the world and mankind. A manipulating Creator, a
Divine artizan who is fatigued and needs rest, a disappointed
artificer whose noblest work is marred by a rival, an impatient and
petulant tyrant who drowns a whole world which he is incompetent
to govern—all these and such like notions disappear the instant
they are confronted by even our slender discoveries in true
cosmogony. The certainty and constancy of natural laws banish
in a moment the probability, if not the possibility, of miracles,
dethroning God the second, and discovering the utter baselessness
of his pretensions to power.
Scientific knowledge and scientific methods bring freedom of
mind and a sense of manly independence. We no longer accede
to any one the right to dictate our thoughts and be iefs. We
claim the right to think for ourselves and be our own guides in
matters of religion. So the time-spirit expels God the third, the
God-spirit whose authority had been claimed for Churches and
Books and PH sts; and the old three thrones are taken down
while the kingdom of darkness is retreating and retreating befire
the dawn of truth.
�4
In spite of all protests ta the contrary, the old Theology rested
entirely upon miraculous assumptions, and these it is to which
modern science has given a death-bl >w. The theology even of
professedly orthodox teachers can never again be what it once was.
But while science is thus pulling down and clearing away the
rubbish of centuries, another hand no less Divine and loyal to
truth is building up—we will not arrogantly. say a true, but a
truer theology—a more reasonable Faith. Despite all the mourn
ful and even shameless instances of se fish m ss and cruelty, this age
is undoubtedly blessed with an out-pouring of brotherly love and
sympathy, such as the world has never before seen. This love
colours everything it touches with a golden light. It manifests
itself through every virtue ennobling, justice, truthfulness,honesty,
industry, breaking down the barriers of caste and class, not by level
ing the higher to the lower, but by endeavouring to lift every lower
to the standard of the higher. Love is at work among the rich
and amcng the poor as it never was be'ore No interest is without
ir>s passionate adherents; no oppressed soul without a champion
and would-be deliverer. Men of high degree think it now their
first poiut of honour to defend the weak against the strong, and
offer as a justification for their championship, Noblesse oblige. The
rich consider themselves most blessed when they give of their
abundance to the helpless and poor. The bounty of the world is
beautiful to behold; and it comes not so much from ostentation or the
love of fame, as from tender love and sympathy with distress; for
what we see and read is not a thousandth part of what is being
done in secret through the length and br adth of our land and
nearly all over the world.
No soorner is any grand discovery made than a hundred kindly
hands are stretched out to render it practically beneficial to the
rest of mankind. The wise and learned no longer write their
books in dead languages, but in the common tongue of the people
among whom they scatter the words of wisdom and truth—very
often without money and without price. Illustrations are endless.
Never surely was benevolence so active, so enthusiastic as now.
And this, I say, is beginning to build up a new faith—new, not so
much in words as in deeds - a faith whiih is no metaphysic, but
a soul’s trust in the Soul of Goodness. Little by little it is teaching
�5
us the alphabet of scientific Theology. The old astrological or
alchemical stage of Theology is passing away—driven out by
scientific knowledge. The new stage of Theology as a science is
now coming, led by the gentle instincts of that spirit of love which
is the genius of our times. Men’s eyes are beginning to see that
if they care so much for each other, God Himself can care no less,
that if they find their supreme happiness in doing good and
rendering helpful service to each other, the bliss of the most
Blessed God must be the same — only so much the more as it is the
bliss of one who knows that His kind purpose cannot fail. All our
conceptions of the Divine are confined to spiritual and moral
qualities. We have abandoned every theory as to His nature and
mode of existence as hopelessly inscrutable to us as we are. But
we attribute to Him only such moral beauty as we ourselves in
our highest moments adore; and strange to say that the very act
of so doing seems to add to our grounds for believing in a God
at all. Our highest religious emotions are their own justification.
What may lie beyond forourselves in the future, or for our posterity,
we do not know, nor pretend to foretell; only that the past of man
kind leads us to expect with confidence that, as the present is
better tlnn the past, so the future will be better than the present.
If ever the day comes when God will not be deemed loving and
trustworthy, and an “ ever present help in time of trouble,” it
will be when human experience and human growth shall have
dwarfed these present virtues which we deem so grand; it will not
be because our notions of good and evil can ever be reversed.
There can be no possible retrogression in morals any more than in
science.
Our own integrity, sympathy, and trustworthiness towards each
other are, and I believe were intended to be, the only revelation to
us of the Divine qualities. As we grow in these, we grow in our
conception of Him, and, of course, the more these are practised,
the surer is the ground of our hope. Bor if God will not do what
we now deem to be the greatest possible kindness in those who
love one another, it must be not because He is wanting in kindness,
but b' cause He has an excess of it, and will only deny us that,
in erder to confer some better gift, some larger blessing
still.
�6
These are not only different views of God and His relation to
man, but they differ in kind from the unscientific theology of the
past, as the ground on which they stand differs from the old
foundations.
The old Theology said “ It is written,” or <f It is decreed by the
Church,” always having an assumption which either could not be
verified or could be easily disproved.
The new Theology asks “ What has God done ?” “ What is He
doing ?” and answers by pointing both to the phenomenal world
outside of us, and to the mental, moral, and emotional nature
within us. These, if there be a God, are the works of God; and
though they can only tell us a very very little of Him, inasmuch
as this whole globe is only a drop in the stream of existence, and
all the history of it we know, but one drop in the ocean of past
eternity, still that little must be true so far as it goes, and enough,
if we use it aright, to lighten our darkness, and to cheer us in
the gloom.
Science, at all events testifies there is method in the arrangement
and action of the forces. The soul of man denies it not, but says
there must be mind and will, or some infinitely higher some.hings
to correspond. Science says there is a great deal of rough play
and even cruel sport in these forces of nature. The som of man
denies it not, but says there must be love behind these sorrows and
tortures, for even to our eyes they are not all unmixed evils, but
some are disguised mercies as we have proved , and we know that
as we would not inflict wanton injury upon any sensitive cieatuie,
so neither would we bring any creature into existence purely to
torment it. Science says—I can see no good in it. The soul of
man replies—You have not seen it all yet. Wait till the end
comes, or for more light. Those who have suffered most have least
repined.
The really tortured souls whose pains never leave them till they
end in death are for the most part silent and patient, often praise
and bless God’s Holy Name for all His mercies
11 And publish with their latest breath,
His love and guardian care.”
Certain it is that the soul of man must be the interpreter of
nature’s awful mysteries. Just as his head can weigh its forces
�and tell to a nicety the machinery by which her massacres are
perpetrated, so his heart must learn the moral significance of the
deeper problem, and interpret the end and purpose for which her
catastrophes were permitted.
My friends, we claim it as our special function to pursue
religious enquiry on these principles forswearing alike all violence
to scientific conclusions, and all neglect of the testimony borne by
the human soul to the existence of the Divine. Hitherto, all
sects in Christendom have professed to base their belief on a book
or person, or some authority external to themselves. The New
School of Theology which is represented by Theodore Parker,
Professor Newman, Frances Power Cobbe and the Brahmo Somaj
of India, and lastly by ourselves, openly disclaim all ^external
authority, and as we do not rest upon it, so neither do we attempt
to claim for ourselves any right to impose our faith upon others.
We desire only to be nourished out of the wealth of the human
soul, and guarded against error by science. We are but a small
number by comparison with the Christian world. But our views
have already conquered a third, if not more, of the Unitarian
Church, are held at this moment by hundreds of the clergy and
thousands of the laity of the Church of England and spreading
rapidly through every church and sect in Christendom. We make
no new sect. It is our honour to be only leaven.
When we give God thanks for “all the truth which may have
been spoken ” let us gratefully remember that it is from the faith,
fill and earnest students of nature that we first heard those words
of truth to which this day we owe not only our freedom and
safety, but our emancipation of soul from the grovelling super
stitions which darkened the lives of our remote ancestry.
Religion will one day repay science for her somewhat stern but
faithful correction, by returning to her bosom, pure and unblem.
ished, lovely in form, and having a sound mind.
Eastern Post Steam Printing Works. 89, Worship-street, Finsbury, E.C.
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Trinity Sunday: a sermon, preached at St George's Hall, Langham Place, May 31st, 1874
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Voysey, Charles [1828-1912]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 7 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Printed by Eastern Post June 6th, 1874. Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 6.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[Eastern Post]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1874]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G3416
Subject
The topic of the resource
Trinity
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Trinity Sunday: a sermon, preached at St George's Hall, Langham Place, May 31st, 1874), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Athanasian Creed
Morris Tracts
Trinity