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The Doctrine of the Trinity:
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The argument under this heading may well be left to the extracts culled from various works upon the subject. The following quotations from Trinitarian authors are in as strong, if not stronger language, than it would be put by their opponents: PROFESSOR STUART:
DR. SOUTH, Disputant in "Trinity" Debate with Dr. Sherlock:
ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON:
BISHOP PEARSON:
PRAYER An argument upon such an exalted subject would be incomplete which did not mention that equally exalted and equally sanctified subject of "Prayer." Few facts can be so prominent in the Scriptures as the mode of offering prayer. No prayer, it will be discovered, is ever addressed to Christ; on the contrary, in giving a model prayer to His disciples Jesus is diligent not only in exalting and in reverencing His Father, but in entirely excluding Himself therefrom. His place as the High Priest and the altar was to be introduced when He had laid down His life and had been received again from the dead, and had gone on high to the Father's right hand as the Mediator and the High Priest on man's behalf. Then, and then only, could prayers be offered through His sanctifying name; but never even then could they be addressed to Him. There is no instance of prayer being so addressed recorded in the whole of Scripture. John Locke, the eminent author, a Unitarian, has made some very wise remarks upon this complex question, when considered in relation to the three Gods in one:
Ponder this question, for in the early apostolic age it was a divine command to ask the Father for the bestowal of the power of the Spirit through the Mediatorship, of the Son. Another argument to be urged against the Trinity is contained in some statements by writers upon the Third Person of this Trinity. The arrangement of this work will not allow of entering fully into this point; for an analysis of this phase of the question is reserved for a later chapter. Let it suffice to state here that it will then be shown that the Holy Ghost or Spirit -- which are synonymous expressions -- is that power by which the Almighty works His will. A few quotations will be given to illustrate the conception of Trinitarians and historians upon both the standing of the Holy Spirit in the first ages, and also admissions of the language used in relation to the Spirit in the Scriptures. The first will show from history that the Holy Ghost was not considered a person in the early ages of the Church: "In the first youthful age of the church, when the power of the Holy Spirit made itself to be so mightily felt as a new creative transforming principle of life, it was still very far from being the case that the consciousness of this Spirit, as one identical with the essence of God, had been thoroughly and distinctly impressed on the understanding." -Neander, History of Christian Religion and Church, vol. ii., p. 337. While JEREMY TAYLOR states in relation to Revelation:
And WETSIUS on the Creed says:
BISHOP BURNET:
For further examinations of this phase, attention is invited to the chapter where some leading authorities on the Hebrew and Greek language are cited. Thus far, then, the argument is completed in its statement; the subject of the chapters following will be the analysis of the several matters upon which the ground of evidence is not common. As the introduction has been designed to show that the early Christians quickly departed from their pristine purity in faith and practice, so this section has been planned to demonstrate that modern Christianity has en deavoured to uphold a doctrine introduced during a period of chaos, resulting from the transition from the pure and simple mode of belief in the early ages to the philosophically tainted doctrines of the times succeeding the Apostles; and that this modern system has striven to uphold this doctrine in opposition to the plain and dogmatic affirmations of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, the express revelation of God Himself; and to the admissions of their own writers. Whatever the conclusion may be from the evidence here adduced, all who read ecclesiastical history must rest assured with:
ANALYSIS TO SECTION 2, CHAPTER 1: The Use of the Word "Lord" In The New Testament
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