PREFACE.
In preparing this Lecture for the press, after an examination in its printed form of that to which it is a Reply, I do not find that the Trinitarian argument has been strengthened by additional evidence, or by a more logical statement, so as to require any modification of my impressions of its weight and character.
Mr. Bates has in his Appendix drawn out some of his scriptural evidence, and I can only require any one to examine it, in order not only to estimate its cogency in reference to this particular question, but also to obtain a very accurate idea of the peculiar genius of Trinitarian interpretation. I shall select two passages as perfectly descriptive of the manner in which the believer in a verbal and logical revelation draws doctrinal conclusions from the mere words of scripture.
Here is one of the Trinitarian Scriptural proofs of Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead.
“2 Thess. iii. 5. ‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of GOD, and into the patient waiting for Christ.’
“In these passages the Three Persons are distinguished. The Lord to whom the prayer is in both instances directed; God, even our Father; and our Lord Jesus Christ. That the Lord thus distinguished from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and addressed in prayer, is the Holy Ghost, is evident from the analogy of Scripture, which teaches that sanctification, for which the Apostle prays, is the peculiar work of the Holy Ghost.”—Mr. Bates’ Appendix, p. 590.
Now, using the same description of logic, we have only to quote a passage in which sanctification is ascribed not to the Holy Ghost, but to God our Father, in order to overthrow the whole of this verbal and mournful trifling with the sublime and vast purport of revelation.
“Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.... Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”—John xvii. 11, 17.
The second descriptive specimen I select, of the genius of Trinitarian interpretation, is the following alleged scriptural proof of the separate Deity and Personality of the Holy Spirit.
“Rev. i. 4. ‘John to the seven Churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne.’”