One other instance will, I trust, prevent all misconception of my meaning. I am clearly convinced, that the scriptural and only true[76] Idea of God will, in its development, be found to involve the Idea of the Tri-unity. But I am likewise convinced, that previously to the promulgation of the Gospel the doctrine had no claim on the faith of mankind; though it might have been a legitimate contemplation for a speculative philosopher, a theorem in metaphysics valid in the Schools.
I form a certain notion in my mind, and say:--This is what _I_ understand by the term, God. From books and conversation I find, that the learned generally connect the same notion with the same word. I then apply the rules, laid down by the masters of logic, for the involution and evolution of terms, and prove (to as many as agree with me in my premises) that the notion, God, involves the notion, Trinity. I now pass out of the Schools, and enter into discourse with some friend or neighbour, unversed in the _formal_ sciences, unused to the process of abstraction, neither Logician nor Metaphysician; but sensible and single-minded, _an Israelite indeed_, trusting in _the Lord God of his Fathers, even the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob_. If I speak of God to _him_, what will _he_ understand me to be speaking of? What does he mean, and suppose me to mean, by the word? An accident or product of the reasoning faculty, or an abstraction which the human mind forms by reflecting on its own thoughts and forms of thinking? No. By God he understands me to mean an existing and self-subsisting reality,[77] a real and personal Being--even the _Person_, the I AM, who sent Moses to his forefathers in Egypt. Of the actual existence of the divine Being he has the same historical assurance as of theirs; confirmed indeed by the Book of Nature, as soon and as far as that stronger and better light has taught him to read and construe it--confirmed by it, I say, but not derived from it. Now by what right can I require this man (and of such men the great majority of serious believers consisted, previously to the light of the Gospel) to receive a _notion_ of mine, wholly alien from his habits of thinking, because it may be logically deduced from another notion, with which he was almost as little acquainted, and not at all concerned? Grant for a moment, that the latter (that is, the notion, with which I first set out) as soon as it is combined with the assurance of a corresponding Reality becomes identical with the true and effective Idea of God! Grant, that in thus _realizing_ the notion I am warranted by Revelation, the Law of Conscience, and the interests and necessities of my Moral Being! Yet by what authority, by what inducement, am I entitled to attach the same reality to a second notion, a notion drawn from a notion? It is evident, that if I have the same right, it must be on the same grounds. Revelation must have assured it, my Conscience required it--or in some way or other I must have an _interest_ in this belief. It must _concern_ me, as a moral and responsible Being. Now these grounds were first given in the Redemption of Mankind by Christ, the Saviour and Mediator: and by the utter incompatibility of these offices with a mere creature. On the doctrine of Redemption depends the _Faith_, the _Duty_, of believing in the Divinity of our Lord. And this again is the strongest Ground for the reality of that Idea, in which alone this Divinity can be received without breach of the faith in the unity of the Godhead. But such is the Idea of the Trinity. Strong as the motives are that induce me to defer the full discussion of this great Article of the Christian creed, I cannot withstand the request of several divines, whose situation and extensive services entitle them to the utmost deference, that I should so far deviate from my first intention as at least to indicate the point on which I stand, and to prevent the misconception of my purpose: as if I held the doctrine of the Trinity for a truth which Men could be called on to believe by mere force of reasoning, independently of any positive _Revelation_. In short, it had been reported in certain circles, that I considered this doctrine as a demonstrable part of the Religion of Nature. Now though it might be sufficient to say, that I regard the very phrase "_Revealed_ Religion" as a pleonasm, inasmuch as a religion not revealed is, in my judgment, no religion at all; I have no objection to announce more particularly and distinctly what I do and what I do not maintain on this point: provided that in the following paragraph, with this view inserted, the reader will look for nothing more than a plain _statement_ of my opinions.