he exists in different forms at different times and places; that he has certain capacities of will and action to day, and opposite ones to morrow? If this be your meaning, it is intelligible enough. But if you add to this, that God is one and indivisible, simple in his nature and unchangeable in his being, we are again involved in obscurity, and compelled to acknowledge, that to your notions we can attach no ideas. We see only contradiction and absurdity. A trinity of this kind of modes either destroys the unity of God, or destroys itself. When it is reduced to such a form as to be understood, it denotes three beings, or distinct intelligences in God; when it cannot be understood, it is either a contradiction, or means nothing at all.

Suppose it be replied, that this is forcing the matter too far, and that a mode of existence, or being, or nature, was not literally intended, but only a mode of action. If we take the subject on this ground, we shall, it is true, be brought back to something intelligible. God has certainly many modes of exercising his perfections. In this respect, each of his attributes may be called a mode. He displays himself in various modes to all the works of his hands; he is the Father and protector of his rational creatures, whom he loves, sustains, and blesses. He has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, in whom were his wisdom and power; he communicated his holy spirit to the Apostles, enlightened them with heavenly truth, and made them successful preachers of a pure and persecuted religion. He is still regardful of the in

terests of his church, and all things are continually

under the guidance of his providence. These are some of the modes by which God is known to the universe. All the perfections of his nature are modes, which never cease nor change. But these in no way affect the essence of his being, nor the manner of his existence.

If such be the modes to which you allude, it does not appear why you call them threefold. There is no limit to their number, nor any thing about them mysterious. How the wisdom, or power, or any other attribute of God, operates, is not to be understood; but the fact, that it does operate, is as plain as any fact resting on moral evidence. And if the trinity be any thing, it must be a subject of fact. I do not ask how your trinity of modes exists, but what this trinity is? What is the image in your mind, which represents a mode, and what are the three modes, which make the trinity? There can be no mystery in this. You are desired to explain no further, than you must necessarily understand. A mode is either something or nothing, as it concerns the nature of God, and it is only required to know which is meant when applied to the trinity. If it is any thing in reality, it must interfere with the divine unity; if it is no more than a relation, it has no bearing on the subject, and the word ought not to be employed any longer to confuse and embarrass the understanding in its honest endeavours after truth.

All the speculations, in short, concerning modes in the trinity, have been no other than forced attempts

to bend an imaginary faith to a name. Persons, who have thus exercised themselves, have found it impos sible to resist the evidence of the simple unity, but have thought it necessary at all hazards to hold fast to the name of trinity. As realities could not be found, they have resorted to modes, and when the substance was wholly gone, they have been contented with shadows. Some have discovered, that a shadow is nothing, and all at once surprized themselves in the fearful ranks of Unitarians. No remedy was left but mystery; and when to the nothingness of a mode is added the darkness of mystery, that must be a barren imagination indeed, which cannot with a tranquil conscience adapt its faith to any measure, and accommodate it to any name.

Having thus spoken of the nature of trinity, and of the infinite variety of opinions, which come under that name, we may now go on to consider the grounds on which it is supposed to be plainly taught in the Scriptures. My remarks in the next letter will be chiefly applicable to the doctrine in its broadest sense, but particularly adapted to that branch of it quoted above from the Calvinistic formulary of faith.

LETTER II.

Doctrine of a Trinity not taught in the Scriptures.

SIR,

Ar the present day, it is common for Trinitarians to discourse of the plainness with which their doctrine is expressed in the Scriptures. They find it in almost every chapter of the Old Testament and the New, and wonder that any one can be so dull, or so perverse, as not to see and confess a truth, which to them shines so brightly.

Many reasons occur, however, which induce those, who have not been so fortunate as to make this discovery in any part of the Bible, to think that the believers in a trinity labour under some deception in this respect, either from their predilections, their zeal for a favourite opinion, or from a combination of causes not difficult to be enumerated. If the doctrine be so plainly taught, it is very natural to ask, how it comes to pass, that thousands and tens of thousands do not find it, who yet inquire with the same advantages, the same motives and vigilance, with a resolution equally determined, and a zeal equally ardent, as those who boast of a better suc cess ?

The details of my last letter throw obstacles not to be surmounted in the way of the notion, that the

Scriptures plainly teach a trinity. The friends of

the doctrine themselves are full of differences and contradictions; they agree in nothing; they have no common principles; and when they attempt to explain, they are obscure, and at variance with each other. Their trinities are infinite in number and variety. What stronger proof can be given, that no doctrine which has received the name of trinity, is an obvious doctrine of the Bible? If it were said to be hidden, and found only by patient and deep research, the problem would be much less difficult to solve. It would, indeed, afford something like a plausible reason, why persons have come to such dissimilar results in looking for it. But to tell us a thing is plain, which many cannot see at all, and of which those, who do see it, have no consistent or definite conceptions, if this be not a contradiction in terms, it is a glaring misuse of language.

The opinion, that the trinity is plainly taught in the Scriptures, has not generally prevailed till of late. So far were Trinitarians from holding such an opinion in former times, that in nothing did they exercise their ingenuity more, than in devising reasons why this doctrine should be only obscurely shadowed forth by the Saviour and the Apostles, and why it should be kept wholly concealed from the Jews. This subject merits discussion, not because it affects the Scriptural evidence in regard to the truth or falsehood of the doctrine; but because it is intimately connected with the presumption of making the trinity a necessary article of faith, which all persons