Unitarianism Defended / A Series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of Liverpool

by John Hamilton Thom; Henry Giles; James Martineau

It would not be possible, within my present limits, to trace, with a minute accuracy, how the Logos of the schools became connected with the Logos of the Gospel; and afterwards, under the necessity of adjusting these conceptions with the nominal Unity of God, changed its form into the present theory of the Trinity. It will readily be imagined that the Gentile Christians, accustomed to associate ideas of external power with their Deities, and at the same time to contemplate them in connection with humanity, would shrink from the bare and unclothed conception of the crucified Jesus; would endeavour to throw around their new faith a mystic splendour that might protect it from the ridicule of Heathen scoffers, and naturally seize upon means so obvious, the language offered by St. John, and the ideas offered by their own philosophy, to connect the pre-existent soul of Jesus not with Humanity, but with God. In this way they could remove the shame and odium of the cross, that stumbling block to the Jews, and to the Greeks foolishness. We little realize with what distaste and abhorrence a Hebrew looking for the Messiah, and a Philosopher speculating on the nature of the divine Emanations that were the Mediators between God and men, would contemplate the despised Galilean executed as a malefactor. Neither do we realize, as we ought to do in this connection, the magnanimity of Paul: “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified;” so much has the technical jargon of theology overcast the moral sublimity of the Apostle’s spiritual meaning.

I shall now, with as much distinctness as a subject purely literary will admit, attempt to exhibit to you the gradual transformations, by which these Conceptions slowly assumed the present orthodox form of the doctrine of the Trinity. If this had been a doctrine of Revelation, it would, of course, have been perfect at once; but arising out of accidental circumstances and accidental ideas, it naturally required many fresh adjustments to make it consistent with itself, and to protect it, by skilfully chosen words, against all the troublesome attacks of theological ingenuity. This was not the work of a moment nor of a century,—hundreds of years passed over before the doctrine assumed any fixed form; nor was it until the thirteenth century that the present form of the doctrine of three Gods, numerically one, was authoritatively decreed.[^[465]] Those who tell us of an “unimproved and unimprovable Revelation,” must surely be strangely ignorant of the history of Trinitarian Theology.

There are three Creeds of the Church of England, each of them to be referred to distinct Periods of Ecclesiastical History, and becoming more Unitarian in proportion as we approach the Apostolical times, more Trinitarian in proportion as we recede from those times. These three Creeds I shall make serve as heads under which to introduce my proofs of the rise and progress of the Trinitarian Doctrine.

The first Creed is Unitarian. It was the only Creed known to the Church for three hundred and twenty-five years.

The second Creed is partly Trinitarian, fixing the Deity of Christ, but saying nothing of the Deity of the Holy Spirit.

The third Creed contains Trinitarianism, though not in its final and perfected, yet in its boldest and most extravagant, forms.

The first Creed is known by the name of the Apostles’ Creed. It is not known by whom it was written, nor when it was written;[^[466]] but though we have no verbatim copy of it until after the Nicene Council, but only more or less of the substance, and some of its clauses are evidently of a later date, it may substantially be regarded as descriptive of the faith of the Church at an early age.[^[467]] “The Christian system,” says Mosheim, “as it was hitherto taught, preserved its native and beautiful simplicity, and was comprehended in a small number of articles. The public teachers inculcated no other doctrines than those that are contained in what is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed; and in the method of illustrating them, all vain subtleties, all mysterious researches, everything that was beyond the reach of common capacities, was carefully avoided. This will by no means appear surprising to those who consider that, at this time, there was not the least controversy about those capital doctrines of Christianity which were afterwards so keenly debated in the Church; and who reflect that the bishops of those primitive times were, for the most part, plain and illiterate men, remarkable rather for their piety and zeal than for their learning and eloquence.”—(Eccles. Hist. cent. ii. p. 11. ch. 3.)

Here, then, is the first Creed of the Church, long reverenced as a formula drawn up by the Apostles themselves, and perhaps still by some unwittingly honoured as such. It contains some departures from the simplicity of Gospel language, as in creed-making must necessarily happen; for creeds are required only by those for whom the Scriptures are not sufficiently definite or sufficiently safe. So far as it is a Confession of faith, it demonstrates that the belief of the primitive Church was strictly Unitarian.

The Apostles’ Creed.

I believe in God (or, as the earlier notices of this Creed have it, “in one God,” also, “one only God the Father Almighty”) the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried: he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty: from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead: I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.