Unitarianism Defended: A Series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of LiverpoolMartineau, James
Religion
Unitarianism Defended: A Series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of Liverpool
Martineau, James
Unitarianism
Yet do the Scriptures repeatedly restrict this title to the Father so
positively, that no more emphatic language remains, by which it would be
possible to exclude all other persons from the Godhead. If the texts we
shall adduce of this class _do not_ teach the personal unity of God, let
it be stated what terms _would_ teach it; or whether we are to consider
it as a doctrine incapable of being revealed at all, however true in
itself. Meanwhile, I would ask, whether the most skilful logician could
propose a form of speech, closing the Godhead against all but the
Father, more absolutely than these passages; “There is but One God, the
FATHER.”[240] “FATHER! ... this is life eternal, to know THEE THE ONLY
TRUE GOD, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”[241] “The _true
worshippers_ shall worship THE FATHER in spirit and in truth; the Father
seeketh such to worship him; GOD is a spirit, and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth.”[242] “There is ONE GOD AND
FATHER OF ALL.”[243]
If such passages as these do not deny the Deity of all persons but One,
it must be because the word “Father” is used in them to denote the whole
Trinity; and if this be so, then this name ceases to be distinctive of
the first person in the Godhead; no discriminative title of that person
remains; it becomes impossible for language to characterize him; and the
whole mechanism of speech, by which alone a verbal revelation could
disclose the distinctions in the divine nature, vanishes away. You must
either confess absence of the distinctions themselves, or show the
presence of distinctive names.
(4.) Our next demand from a Trinitarian Bible would be this; that when
the _persons_ are named, by their distinctive Divine titles, their
equality will be recognized, nor any one of them be represented as
subordinate to another.
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