1848.] Mr. Cary's Letter on the Trinity. 43 And why at least, what my Bible has not revealed to me. has not God revealed them? For this plain reason, because the human understanding, constituted as it now is, cannot comprehend them. You say in your letter, Sir, that you "believe that there is ground in the Scriptures to justify the doctrine of the Trinity." Perhaps we do not both affix precisely the same ideas to this term. The doctrine of the Trinity I take to be this. Trinity, you know, Sir, is a word of human coining, composed of two Latin words, tres, three, and unus, one, or tres in uno, three in one. The Trinitarian, therefore, believes that there is one Supreme Being or God, but that this Being is composed of three distinct parts or persons, each of which possesses the properties of a distinct person, each of which has attributes that the others have not, each of which is truly and properly God, equal to the others in power and glory, and equally to be adored; but that, for all this, there are not three Gods, but one God. This is the Athanasian theory as explained in the creed. The only real Trinitarians are they who believe the Athanasian creed. I have been disposed to think that you did not believe this creed. Dr. Deane, I know, treats it with the utmost contempt. We must, however, as you justly observe, think for ourselves; and I am perfectly ready to own to you that it seems to me pure, genuine, unmixed nonsense. Before I can admit it, I must give up my reason, my common sense, all the powers of comprehending truth with which God has blessed me; a sacrifice which I have never yet considered myself bound to make. If there are in the Godhead three distinct persons, having three distinct volitions, and equal to each other in power and glory, then it as certainly follows that there are three distinct Gods, as any one proposition in nature can certainly follow from another. And there are no possible means, that I can conceive of, of getting rid of this inference. St. Athanasius, indeed, has pronounced that there are not three Gods, but one God; and because he was a saint (for I know no other right he could have had of dictating), his followers are required to say so, too. But if St. Athanasius had taken it into his head to say, that three men walking in the street together were not three men, but one man, we must have had a more than ordinary share of credulity not to say at once that the saint was beside himself. Now, to my understanding, these two propositions rest on the same footing. I treat this hypothesis with some freedom, because it is one of those speculative subjects alluded to in the introduction to this letter, which I take to be absolutely of human invention, absolutely unimportant in itself, and which must stand or fall as it is supported or otherwise by reason and the Scriptures. Supported by reason it certainly is not; and it has always been a subject of astonishment to me, how the world could for so many ages have believed it taught in the Bible. Without stating the arguments which have induced me to reject it (for I cannot do this in a letter already too long), I can only say, generally, that I believe it contradictory to, and contradicted by, both particular texts and the very nature and spirit of the whole volume of inspiration. Perhaps there may be a little ambiguity in your expression, "justified by the Scriptures." It is among the standing jests of infidels, that the followers of Jesus Christ are split into a thousand opposite sects, each of which declares that its opinions are justified by the Scriptures; as if the Bible could possibly countenance sentiments intrinsically opposed to each other. But the truth is, these clashing opinions are not justified by the Scriptures. They may be justified, perhaps, by a few particular passages, dexterously culled from various parts of the Bible, and construed so as seemingly to favor them; but the sacred writings, considered as a whole, are uniform and consistent, and speak by one language. And I have long since laid it down as a maxim, that the general current of Scripture never can be in favor of any proposition which human reason, uncontrolled and unprejudiced, pronounces impossible. I admit, that if the Deity should reveal to us a mystery, even though it should be perfectly incomprehensible and perfectly contradictory to all our notions, and require us to believe it, we must believe it; but I contend, also, that such a mysterious truth must be revealed to us in such plain, clear, incontrovertible terms, that no man living to whom it is communicated can have the smallest doubt that it is indeed revealed. I suspect that the mysteries, or at least most of them, which are supposed to belong to the Christian religion, are in fact the offspring of abstruse, obscure, metaphysical systems of divinity, rather than of the Bible. The religion of Jesus Christ, as taught in his own sermons and conversations with his followers, seems to me perfectly plain and inexpressibly beautiful; and in these I find nothing of the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, as its advocates term it. 1848.] Mr. Cary's Letter on the Trinity. 45 The term Unitarian comprehends a great number of sects, - indeed, all that variety which denies the equality of the Son with the Father and the personality of the Holy Spirit. The Arian, the Sabellian, the advocate of the Indwelling Scheme, the Socinian, etc., are all, as I conceive, Unitarians. Some admit the preëxistence of our Saviour, but dispute his divinity, properly so called. Some believe the Father and Son one and the same being, but do not believe that the Spirit is a distinct being, having the attributes of a person. Some deny both the divinity and preexistence of the Saviour. But neither of them are Trinitarians. - I have satisfied myself, Sir, that the doctrine of the perfect unity of the Supreme Being lies at the foundation of all true religion. I think it may be demonstrated, as far as any moral proposition can be demonstrated. I believe only in one God. I acknowledge only one God. I pay divine honors only to one. Having settled this principle in my mind, I feel entitled to demand the most unquestionable proof that Jesus Christ, who is represented throughout the Bible as the Son of God, who never in any one instance confesses himself to be the Supreme Being, but only the Messiah, the prophet that was to come, the messenger from heaven, the door and the way and the guide to heaven, that he is in fact the very God to whom he would lead me, or has equal claims to his honor, to his character, and his place. It must be proved, also, beyond all dispute, that the Divine influence, or Spirit, of which I know nothing more than that it exists, is in deed and in truth another distinct person, who has a right to be worshipped also as God. Until this is proved, and I have never yet read any arguments which do it to my satisfaction, I must retain my present opinion, that there is but one self-existent Being in the universe, and that all other beings are the creatures of his hand. The only thing which gives importance to the doctrine of the Divinity of the Saviour is its practical influence on our worship. If he is Divine, then he is the true God, and must be worshipped as God; if he is not God, such worship is blasphemy. I am sensible that this letter is unfinished. But I have made it much too long. I wished to have said more on the subject of our Saviour, and to have given you my ideas of Atonement and other points. You will have the goodness to excuse the very great freedom, and perhaps too great, with which I have written; and remember me to Dr. Deane, whose remark I often think of, and am consoled with, that "the Deity will not punish us in another world for not having understood in this what cannot be understood." I am, dear Sir, Respectfully, your obed't serv't, S. CARY. S. FREEMAN, Esq. ART. IV. TREATMENT OF SLAVERY AT THE NORTH.* HERE was an honest man burning his life out by ardent indignation against the wrongs of the slave. The book leaves rather a sad and disagreeable impression on the mind. We sympathize with its noble enthusiasm for justice, but are too cold-blooded to enjoy the impatience and peevishness wrung from that soul of fire by the disappointments of its enthusiasm. Mr. Rogers, as is often the case with the passionately upright, was also excessively and morbidly downright. Evils which God and man have borne with for centuries he could not tolerate, no, not for an hour; and when he struggled manfully to remove them,—which was well, - but could not succeed at once, he showed himself as good a hater of his opposers as Dr. Johnson could have desired, and this we think was not well, in spite of "the great English moralist." But far be it from us to join with the enemies of the cause he had at heart in drawing any inference against that cause from his imperfections. On the contrary, we charge upon slavery the wreck of this gifted and generous man's native gentleness and cheerful affectionateness to all the human family. His happiness was one more victim. among the holocausts of that omnivorous Moloch. The Rev. John Pierpont, in a biographical preface, has delineated with touching affection the many excellences of his friend, passing with a light hand over his faults, and abundantly illustrating his singularly unselfish heart through all the ravages of lifelong disease and varied misfortune upon his * A Collection from the Newspaper Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers. Concord: J. R. French. 1847. 12mo. pp. 380. 1848.] Nathaniel P. Rogers. 47 temper. We have seldom read biography written in so sweet and mellowed a spirit. Rough and thorny experience in the same unpopular cause, which too often exacerbated the subject of the memoir, seems to have had a softening and maturing effect upon the judgment and temperament of its writer. The rest of the volume consists of selections from Mr. Rogers's editorial and other contributions to the newspaper press. They are written with a sharp and fiery pen, moving at almost the speed of a magnetic telegraph. As a newspaper writer," his biographer thinks him" unequalled by any living man"; and a glance at a page detects the strength, clearness, and quickness of his intellect, his ready humor, original fancy, and rich suggestiveness. He was an extempore man in all he did, with pen, tongue, hands, or feet; disdaining consistency, and therefore changing his opinions often rashly and precipitately, as we think, and making fatal mistakes. On religion he rushed into all extremes. The first article in this collection rates the "Christian Examiner " for being destitute of vital religion; but before we reach the end of the book, he has almost come to the conclusion that love to God is hatred to man. But his religion went as one of his many precious sacrifices before what he deemed the proslavery spirit of the community and the communion in which he lived. The Church had proved recreant to the cause of humanity, he thought, and therefore he hesitated not, but renounced it and all its works, and thenceforth seemed to consider it his chief mission to vituperate church and state, and all who upheld them. His talent for invective was not exceeded in the Antislavery ranks, and that is saying something; but we believe his purity of motive was equally preeminent. Few of those who professed opposition to slavery were acknowledged by him as coming up to the mark. The great mass of us lay weltering, according to his judgment, in the defilements and abominations of proslavery hard-heartedness. It would be well to let the admonitions of his spirited volume stimulate all who read it to the inquiry, how we really stand in that matter. While we differ from Mr. Rogers in regard to many of his conclusions, and the temper with which they are pressed, we would say as earnestly as he, If not antislavery, let us at least not be proslavery. This is the lowest position that should satisfy the conscience of Northern Christians. If the North has nothing to do with the South about the |