II. When a Trinitarian, and a Unitarian, agree to consult Scripture together, and to bring their respective systems to this written standard, it is essential that they should determine beforehand what it is that they must look for: what internal characters of the books are to be admitted in evidence; what kind and degree of proof each is entitled to expect. Each should say to the other before the Bible is opened, “Tell me now, distinctly, what are the marks and indications in these records, which you admit would disprove your scheme: what must I succeed in establishing, in order to convince you that you are mistaken?” The mutual exchange of some such tests is indispensable to all useful discussion. I am not aware that any rules of this kind have ever been laid down, or I would willingly adopt them. Meanwhile I will propose a few; and state the phenomena which I think a Unitarian has a right to expect in the Bible, if the Athanasian doctrine[172] be revealed there, and its reception made a condition of salvation. If the criteria be in any respect unreasonable, let it be shown _where_ they are erroneous or unfair. I am not conscious of making any extravagant or immodest petition for evidence. If, then, the existence of three Persons, each God, in the One Infinite Deity,—and the temporary union of the second of these Persons, with a perfect man, so as to constitute One Christ,—be among the prominent facts communicated in the written Revelation of the Bible, we may expect to find there the following characters: (1.) That somewhere or other, among its thousand pages, these doctrines so easily and compendiously expressed, will be plainly stated. (2.) That as it is important not to confound the three persons in the Godhead, they will be kept distinct, having some _discriminative and not interchangeable titles_; and, moreover, since each has precisely the same claim to be called GOD, that word will be assigned to them with something like an impartial distribution. (3.) That as, in consistency with the UNITY, the term God will always be restricted to _one only being or substance_; so, in consistency with the TRINITY, it will _never_ be limited to ONE PERSON to the exclusion of the OTHER TWO. (4.) That when the PERSONS are named by their _distinctive divine titles_, their equality will be observed, nor any one of them be represented as subordinate to any other. (5.) That since the MANHOOD of Christ commenced, and its peculiar functions ceased, with his _incarnation_, it will never be found ascribed to him in relation to events, before or after this period. All these phenomena, I submit, are essential to make scripture consistent with Athanasianism; and not one of these phenomena does scripture contain. This it is now my business to show.