Proceeding, then, to an examination of these reasons, we say,—
I. The Church doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in the New Testament.
To prove this, as it is a negative proposition, would require us to go through the whole New Testament. But we are saved this necessity by the fact that we have a statement on this point from one of Dr. Huntington's own witnesses, and one on whom he [pg 487] mainly relies. He brings forward Neander, the great Church historian, as a believer in the Trinity (p. 361), and again (p. 378), by an error which he has since candidly admitted, quotes him as saying, “It is the fundamental article of the Christian faith,”—which is just what he denies in the following passage. We call Neander to the stand, however, now, to have his unimpeachable testimony as a Trinitarian (and a Trinitarian claimed by Dr. Huntington with pride) to the fact, that the doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in the New Testament. This is what Neander says of the Trinity, in the first volume of his great work on Church History (p. 572, Torrey's translation):—
“We now proceed to the doctrine in which Theism, taken in its connection with the proper and fundamental essence of Christianity, or with the doctrine of redemption, finds its ultimate completion—the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine does not strictly belong to the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, as appears sufficiently evident from the fact, that it is expressly held forth in no one particular passage of the New Testament; for the only one in which it is done, the passage relating to the three that, bear record (1 John 5:7), is undoubtedly spurious, and in its ungenuine shape, testifies to the fact, how foreign such a collocation is from the style of the New Testament Scriptures. We find in the New Testament no other fundamental article than that of which the apostle Paul says, that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid—the annunciation of Jesus as the Messiah.”
With this authority we might be content. But Dr. Huntington differs from Neander in thinking that Jesus has himself stated the doctrine of the Trinity, and stated it clearly and fully, in the baptismal formula. (Matt. 28:19.) He says that this is “a clear and full declaration of the fundamental article of Christian belief.” He says, “Now, if ever, Christ will distinctly proclaim the doctrine of Christendom;” and he then declares that Christ, in this passage, told his Church to baptize “in the Triune name.”[90]
Not in the Triune name, certainly. This is an assumption of our friend. He may think that this is implied; that this is to be inferred; that this is what Christ meant; but certainly it is not what Christ said. Christ gives us here three objects of baptism, no doubt; but he does not say that they are one. How far this baptismal formula is “a clear and full declaration” of the doctrine [pg 488] of the Trinity will appear thus. The doctrine of the Trinity declares,—
1. That the Father is God.
2. That the Son is God.
3. That the Holy Ghost is God.
4. That the Holy Ghost is a person, like the Father and the Son.