Farewell to the First Congregational Church in Norwalk, Conn. (bound with other addresses)

[P. 17 6.] "I do, then, peremptorily refuse to justify myself as regards this matter of IVipity, before any New England standard. We have no standard bet- ter than a residuary tritheistic cmnpost, such as may be left us after we have cast away that which alone made the old historic doctrme of Trinity possible. I tnow not whether you design to make a standard for me of this decadent and dilapi- dated orthodoxy of ours ; but if you do, then I appeal to Csesar ; I even under- take to arraign your standard itself before the tribimal of history. "I do not undertake to say, or care to show, that the doctrine of trinity I have asserted coincides exactly with that which has been maintained in the church. I will only say that it classes with the church doctrine, while that of New England does not. The result of our comparison wiU be this. New Eng- land, as we have seen, asserts «• tries to fmd a Tirmity of persons in the Divine essence, or substance, or nature. Tliis the church doctrine formally and peremp- torily rejects as a fatal heresy ; asserting, instead, a Trinity grounded in the ne- cessary activity of God, a Trinity eternally being developed in God's necessary activity ; just as we, in virtue of our vital, conscious nature, necessarily generate thought" [Pp. 186-7.] "By this careful examination of the Nicene Couneil, which is the fountain of church doctrine as regards this particular subject of Trinity, you have discovered, I think, that our New England doctrine has little to say of Or- thodoxy ; having itself denied and oast away precisely that on which the church doctrine hangs, viz., the eternal generation and procession, and affirmed precisely that which the church doctrine denies, viz., a thre^old substance, or three substances in the Divine nature." JPp. 169-70.] "That you will be wholly satisfied with my representations, ■ trjnng them by the tests of our New England Orthodoxy, I do not expect or wish. My design was to make issue with this, and even to arraign it as a virtual heresy. "Pardon me if I speak plainly on this subject — duty compels. I take no pleasure in disturbing the feelings of my brethren ; but the struggles of experi- ence have opened to my view other disturbances, or even silent woes of feeling, 25 self before any New England standard, and , arraigns New England ministers as heretics, [pp. 169-70 ; see also 175.] EEMABKS. OuE best guiding light out of this bewildering maze will be a brief statement of the christian doctrine of the Trinity, as it is given in the Scriptures, and has ever been received by all branches of the christian church, to the exclusion of every contrary system. The Scriptures constantly and manifoldly teach : 1. That there is one and but one living and true God. 2. That the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. 3. That the Father, Son, and HolyvGhost, are severally the objects and sources of personal acts,, reciprocally as between themselves, and also as between themselves and created per- sons. 4. That the personal proiiouns I, thou, he, are properly applied to them. 6. That they are eternal. The sum of these representations is, that God exists in one undivided essence, and in three co-equal, co-eternal, uncon- founded persons ; or that " there are three persons in the God- head, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance, equal in power and glory." Under whatever diversities of mere phraseology, this is ^n substance the view given in the accredited symbols of the various branches of the Christian Church. No opposing doc- trine has gained a permanent footing within its precincts. It is true, also, that the doctrines of eternal generation and pro- cession have been by many branches of the christian church ■which, as they have 1117 sympathy and have themselves furnished to me my duty, I must not betray or, fear to redress. Yes, I frankly own to you that I accept no prevailing view of Trinity now held in New England. If I understand the sense of this doctrine, now prevailing among us (under and contrary to some of our professed formulas), I must dissent from it. I did so in my dis- course at New Haven : I continue to do it. I go hefore the Christian world and arraign its aditerents there, one and all, to make answer for its truth." 26 regarded as scriptnral. By some, they have been deemed more, and by some, less important, as collateral explanations and supports of the doctrine of the Trinity. But by few, have they been considered essential to the doctrine itself. Of this, the fact that they are contained in the larger but not in the shorter catechism of the Westminister assembly, is a familiar illustration. Indeed, while we know of no church which would allow the rejection of the doctrine of the three persons in the Godhead, as already stated, we know of none which we suppose would treat eternal generation and procession as fundamental. Certainly it has not been so treated in our own platform, which expressly provides that it shall be deemed satisfactory if we accept the shorter catechism. As Dr. B. shows, p. 187, the church doctrine of the Trinity has been and is, that the one nature or essence of the Godhead is in each of the persons. It is but another and more common form of stating the same truth, to say that the three persons are in, i. e., are inseparable from the one substance. Both forms of speech have ever been used interchangably for the express purpose of denying Tritheism, not less than Sabellian- ism. Thus, opening the first volume of divinity at hand, not of New England origin, we find that it describes the " Trinity as the substance of one nature in Three Persons, or of Three Persons in one and the same individual nature?'' {StacJc- house''s Body of Di/viniti/, p. 144.) Dr. Bushnell, pp. 187-9, argues that because Calvin taught that the whole Divine es- sence is in each of the persons, therefore he would reprobate the present New England doctrine, that there are " three per- sons in the Divine essence." Yet nothing is more certain than that he used the latter mode of statement freely, as being equivalent to the former, and as expressing the true doctrine. Thus he says, {Ins., Book I., Chap, adii., Sec. 16,) " It is quite evident that there are three persons in the divine essence." ( Unde plane constat in Dei essentia residere ires personas^ Again he says, {8ec. 22,) " The sum of Servetus' speculations is, that we make God tri partite (three substances, ir.) if we say 27 that there are three ^persons wi his essence^ and that such a triad is imaginary because it conflicts with the unity of God. * * * He would have it that the persons are certain external forms, which do not really subsist in the essence of God, but figure God to us under this or that aspect." "While this shows that the vaunted new discovery now in question is only an old heresy exhumed, it also shows beyond a perad- venture, Calvin's position on the subject. The test formula with him, is precisiely that of N"ew England Congregationalists, and of the church universal. The favorite jjhrase which we meet continually in the old Christian writers is, that " in the Godhead there is a Trinity of persons in Unity of essence." It has undoubtedly come down from the famous formula of Athanasius, which was his triple shield against Tritheism, Arianism and Sabellianism ; " We worship one God in Trin- ity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." This very formula suggested the phraseology of this association, " Three distinct perso^is in the (me essence of the Godhead," which, as we have seen, Dr. B. condemns as having been meant for " simple heresy." And because New England teachers use similar language, he charges that they are guilty of heresy, " PLAnsr teitHeism," p. 172. There may have been, possibly, occasional individuals in New England as elsewhere, who have had a tritheistic or a Sabellian leaning in their speculations. But beyond the shadow of a doubt, the faith of the great body of New Eng- land'ministers,-and the standard of doctrine among them, are truly expressed in the language of the "Westminster Catechism, already cited, and are essentially identical with those of the whole Christian world. Justice to this large body of Christian people and ministers constrains us to pronounce the charge of holding " tritheism," *'. e., that there are three Divine sub- stances or Gods, preferred against them by Dr. B., a gratui- tous calamny, unsupported by any proof which would not convict all Christendom of tritheism. This manoeuvre of Dr. B. must fail either to satisfy or si- 28 lence the friends of truth. He avowedly makes war upon the doctrine of the Trinity as held among ourselves ; and, as we think we have shown, to an equal extent, he assails the doc- trine as set forth in the Bible, and held through all Christen- dom. Does he show the contrary ? He claims, indeed, on p. 175, that the Nicene creed gives us a " Trinity generated by the essential activity of God's na- ture." But in what sense, if in any, is this so ? Does not Dr. B. himself show that, call it activity or what you will, it is such that the Three distinct persons are eternally subsistent or immanent in the Godhead, and. inseparable from it, as Radiance with respect to Light and Form to Substance ? p. 180. And does he not avow, p. 184, that he himself " begins with a Trinity generated in time," and assure us, p. 133, that his position "requires him to controvert all arguments which prove or disprove an immanent Trinity ?" Does he not de- clare himself too " modest" to believe in such a Trinity ? p. 120, If the New England standard on the Trinity condemns his views, much more does the Nicene, which simply adds to the eternal personality of the Son and Spirit, their eternal gen- eration and procession, in a sense which he does not claim that he adopts. Sabellianism allows but one real person in the Godhead. So far as three Divine persons appear in Scripture, it holds that they are merely modal, i. e., media or instruments of re- vealing God, but having no correspondent reality in the being or nature of God. So Dr. B. states the issue, p. 119. He adopts the Sabellian view as far as it goes, i. e., that the. three persons are instruments of revelation. But whether they are more, he can not affirm or deny. His position requires him to controvert all arguments that go to peove that they are im- manent in the Godhead, p. 133. This is but the most decisive way of saying that there is no peoof of a Trinity that is more than modal. But if there be no evidence of it, how can it be an object of faith ? The only Trinity, then, which Dr. Bush- nell leaves to our faith, is the merely modal or dramatic one of Sabellius. 29