Chapter VI (continued, part 2)
As to the passage in John v. 26, where it is said the Father hath given to the Son to have life in Himself, everything depends on the sense in which the word Son is to be taken. That word is sometimes used as a designation of the lo,goj, the Second Person of the Trinity, to indicate his eternal relation to the First Person as the Father. It is, however, very often used as a designation of the incarnate lo,goj, the Word made flesh. Many things are in Scripture predicated of the Godman, which cannot be predicated of the Second Person of the Trinity as such. If in this passage the Son means the Logos, then it does teach that the First Person of the Trinity communicated life, and therefore the essence in which that life inheres, to the Second Person. But if Son here designates the Theanthropos, then the passage teaches no such doctrine. That it is the historical person,
Jesus of Nazareth here spoken of,may be argued not only from the fact that He is elsewhere so frequently called the Son of God, as in the comprehensive confession required of every Christian in the apostolic age, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God;" but also from the context. Our Lord had healed an impotent man on the Sabbath. For this the Jews accused Him of breaking the Sabbath. He vindicated Himself by saying that He had the same right to work on the Sabbath that God had, because He was the Son of God, and therefore equal with God. That He had power not only to heal but to give life, just as the Father had life in Himself, so had He given to the Son tohave life in Himself. He had also given Him authority to execute judgment. He was to be the judge of the quick and dead, because He is the Son of man, i. e., because He had become man for us and for our salvation. His accusers need not be surprised at what He said, because the hour was coming when all who are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they who have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they who had done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. The subject of discourse, therefore, in the context, is the historical person who had healed the impotent man, and who with equal propriety could be called God or man, because He was both God and man. What the passage teaches, therefore, concerns the constitution of Christ's person as He appeared on earth, and not the nature of the relation of the Father and Son in the Godhead.
C. Eternal Sonship.
There is, therefore, a distinction between the speculations of the Nicene fathers, and the decisions of the Nicene Council. The latter have been accepted by the Church universal, but not the former. The Council declared that our Lord is the Eternal Son of God, i. e., that He is from eternity the Son of God. This of course involves the denial that He became the Son of God in time; and, consequently, that the primary and essential reason for his being called Son is not his miraculous birth, nor his incarnation, nor his resurrection, nor his exaltation to the right hand of God. The Council decided that the
word Son as applied to Christ, is not a term of office but of nature; that it expresses the relation which the Second Person in the Trinity from eternity bears to the First Person, and that the relation thus indicated is sameness of nature, so that sonship, in the case of Christ, includes equality with God. In other words, God was in such a sense his Father that He was equal with God. And consequently every time the Scriptures call Jesus the Son of God, they assert his true and proper divinity. This does not imply that every time Christ is called the Son of God, what is said of Him is to be understood of his divine nature. The fact is patent, and is admitted that the person of our Lord may be designated fromu either nature. He may be called the Son of David and the Son of God. And his person may be designated from one nature when what is predicated of Him is true only of the other nature. Thus, on the one hand, the Lord of Glory was crucified; God purchased the Church with his blood; and the Son is said to be ignorant; and, on the other hand, the Son of Man is said to be in heaven when He was on earth. This being admitted it remains true that Christ is called the Son of God as to his divine nature. The Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity as such and because of his relation to the First Person, is the Son of God. Such is the doctrine of the Nicene Council, and that it is no less the doctrine of the Scriptures, is plain from the following considerations : --
1. The terms Father, Son, and Spirit, as applied to the persons of the Trinity, are relative terms. The relations which they express are mutual relations, i. e., relations in which the different persons stand one to another. The First Person is called Father, not because of his relation to his creatures, but because of his relation to the Second Person. The Second Person is called Son, not because of any relation assumed in time, but because of his eternal relation to the First Person. And the Third Person is called Spirit because of his relation to the First and Second.
2. If, as the whole Christian Church believes, the doctrine of the Trinity is a Scriptural doctrine, and if, as is also admitted by all the parties to this discussion, it was the purpose of God to reveal that
doctrine to the knowledge and faith of his people, there is a necessity for the use of terms by which the persons of the Trinity should be designated and revealed. But if the terms Father, Son, and Spirit do not apply to the persons of the Trinity as such, and express their mutual relations, there are no such distinctive terms in the Bible by which they can be known and designated.
3. There are numerous passages in the Scriptures which clearly prove that our Lord is called Son, not merely because He is the image of God, or because He is the object of peculiar affection, nor because of his miraculous conception only; nor because of his exaltation, but because of the eternal relation which He sustains to the First Person of the Trinity. These passages are of two kinds. First, those in which the Logos is called Son, or in which Christ as to his divine nature and before his incarnation is declared to be the Son of God; and secondly, those in which the application of the term Son to Christ involves the ascription of divinity to Him. He is declared to be the Son of God in such a sense as implies equality with God. To the former of these classes belong such passages as the following: Rom. i. 3, 4, where Christ is declared to be kata. sa,rka, the Son of David, and kata. pneu/ma,the Son of God. That pneu/ma a`giosu,nhj does not here mean the Holy Spirit, much less a pneumatic state, but the higher or divine nature of Christ, is evident from the antithesis. As to his human nature, He is the Son of David; as to his divine nature, He is the Son of God. As to his humanity, He is consubstantial with man; as to his divinity, He is consubstantial with God. If his being the Son of David proves He was a man, his being the Son of God proves that He is God. Hence Christ was called Son before his incarnation, as in Gal. iv. 4, "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman." It was the Logos that was sent, and the Logos was Son. Thus in John i. 1-14, we are taught that the Logos was in the beginning with God, that He was God, that He made all things, that He was the light and life of men, and that He beame flesh, and revealed his glory as the Son of God. Here it is plain that the Logos or Word is declared to be the Son. And in the eighteenth verse of that chapter it is said, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father (ov w;n evij to.n ko,lpon tou/ patro,j)He hath declared Him." Here the present tense, ov w;n, expresses permanent being; He who is, was, and ever shall be, in the bosom of the Father, i. e., most intimately united with Him, so as to know Him, as He knows Himself, is the Son. According to Chrysostom, this language implies the sugge,neia kai, e`no,thj th/j ouvsi,aj of the Father and the Son, which were not interrupted by his manifestation in the flesh. To the latter class belong such passages as the following: John v. 18-25, where Christ calls God his Father in a sense which implied equality with God. If sonship implies equality with God, it implies participation of the divine essence. It was for claiming to be the Son of God in this sense, that the Jews took up stones to stone Him. Our Lord defended Himself by saying that He had the same power God had, the same authority, the same life-giving energy, and therefore was entitled to the same honour. In John x. 30-38 there is a similar passage, in which Christ says that God is his Father in such a sense that He and the Father are one. In the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is argued that Christ does not belong to the category of creatures; that all angels (i. e., all intelligent creatures higher than man) are subject to Him, and are required to worship Him because He is the Son of God. As Son He is the brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power. Because He is the Son of God, He is the God who in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of his hands. They are mutable, but He is unchangeable and eternal.
There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt that according to the Scriptures, the term Son as applied to Christ expresses the relation of the Second to the First Person in the adorable Trinity. In other words, it is not merely an official title, but designates the Logos and not exclusively the Theanthropos.
4. Another argument in proof of this doctrine is derived from the fact that Christ is declared to be "the only-begotten Son of God," "his own Son," i. e., his Son in a peculiar and proper sense. Angels and
men are called the sons of God, because He is the Father of all spirits. Holy men are his sons because partakers of his moral nature, as wicked men are called children of the devil. God's people are his sons and daughters by regeneration and adoption. It is in opposition to all these kinds of sonship that Christ is declared to be God's only Son, the only person in the universe to whom the word can be applied in its full sense as expressing sameness of essence.
Objections to the Doctrine.
The speculative objections to this doctrine of eternal sonship have already been considered. If Christ is Son, if He is God of God, it is said He is not self-existent and independent. But self-existence, independence, etc., are attributes of the divine essence, and not of one person in distinction from the others. It is the Triune God who is self-existent and independent. Subordination as to the mode of subsistence and operation, is a Scriptural fact; and so also is the perfect and equal Godhead of the Father and the Son, and therefore these facts must be consistent. In the consubstantial identity of the human soul there is a subordination of one faculty to another, and so, however incomprehensible to us, there may be a subordination in the Trinity consistent with the identity of essence in the Godhead.
Psalm ii. 7.
More plausible objections are founded on certain passages of the Scriptures. In Ps. ii. 7, it is said, "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." From this it is argued that Christ or the Messiah was constituted or made the Son of God in time, and therefore was not the Son of God from eternity. To this it may be answered, --
1. That the term Son, as used in the Scriptures, expresses different relations, and therefore may be applied to the same person for different reasons; or, have one meaning, i. e., express one relation in one place, and a different one in another. It may refer or be applied
to the Logos, or to the Theanthropos. One ground for the use of the designation does not exclude all the others. God commanded Moses to say unto Pharaoh, "Israel is my son, even my first-born." (Ex. iv. 22.) And He said of Solomon, "I will be his father and he shall be my son." (2 Sam. vii 14.) The word son here expresses the idea of adoption, the selection of one people or of one man out of many to stand to God in a peculiar relation of intimacy, affection, honour, and dignity. If for these reasons the theocratic people, or a theocratic king, may be called the Son of God, for the same reasons, and preeminently, the Messiah may be so designated. But this is no argument to prove that the Logos may not in a far higher sense be called the Son of God.
2. The passage in question, however, need not be understood of an event which occurred in time. Its essential meaning is, "Thou art my Son, now art thou my Son." The occasion referred to by the words "this day" was the time when the Sonship of the king of Zion should be fully manifested. That time, as we learn from Rom. i. 4, was the day of his resurrection. By his rising again from the dead, He was clearly manifested to be all that He claimed to be, -- the Son of God and the Saviour of the world.
3. There is another interpretation of the passage which is essentially the same as that given by many of the fathers, and is thus presented by Dr. Addison Alexander in his commentary on Acts xiii. 33, "The expression in the Psalm, 'I have begotten thee,' means, I am He who has begotten thee, i. e., I am thy father. 'To-day' refers to the date of the decree itself (Jehovah said, Today, etc.); but this, as a divine act, was eternal, and so must be the Sonship which it affirms."
Acts xiii. 32, 38.
It may be urged, however, that in Acts xiii. 32, 33, this passage is quoted in the proof of the resurrection of Christ, which shows that the Apostle understood the passage to teach that Christ was begotten or made the Son of God when He rose from the dead. The passage in
Acts reads thus in our version: "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus again (avnasth,saj); as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Here there is no reference to the resurrection. The glad tidings which the Apostle announced was not the resurrection, but the advent of the Messiah. That was the promise made to the fathers, which God had fulfilled by raising up, i. e., bringing into the world the promised deliverer. Compare Acts ii. 30; iii. 22, 26; vii. 31, in all which passages where the same word is used, the "raising up" refers to the advent of Christ; as when it is said, "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me." The word is never used absolutely in reference to the resurrection unless, as in Acts ii. 32, where the resurrection is spoken of in the context. Our translators have obscured the meaning by rendering avnasth,saj"having raised up again,"instead of simply "having raised up," as they render it elsewhere.
That this is the true meaning of the passage is clear from the succeeding verses. Paul having said that God had fulfilled his promise to the fathers by raising up Christ, agreeably to Psalm ii. 7, immediately adds as an additional fact, "And as concerning that He raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, He said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." (Acts xiii. 34, 35.) The Apostle, therefore, does not teach that Christ was made the Son of God by his resurrection. But even, as just remarked, if He did teach that the Theanthropos was in one sense made the Son of God, that would not prove that the Logos was not Son in another and higher sense.
Luke i. 35.
The same remark is applicable to Luke i. 35: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God." Bishop Pearson, one of the most strenuous defenders of "eternal generation," and of all the peculiarities of the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, gives four reasons why the Theanthropos or Godman is called the Son of God. (1.) His miraculous conception. (2.) The high office to which he was designated. (John x. 34, 35, 36.) (3.) His resurrection, according to one interpretation of Acts xiii. 33. "The grave," he says, "is as the womb of the earth; Christ, who is raised from thence, is as it were begotten to another life, and God, who raised him, is his Father."20 (4.) Because after his resurrection He was made the heir of all things. (Heb. i. 2-5.) Having assigned these reasons why the Godman is called Son, he goes on to show why the Logos is called Son. There is nothing, therefore, in the passages cited inconsistent with the Church doctrine of the eternal Sonship of our Lord. The language of the angel addressed to the Virgin Mary, may, however, mean no more than this, namely, that the assumption of humanity by the eternal Son of God was the reason why He should be recognized as a divine person. It was no ordinary child who was to be born of Mary, but one who was, in the language of the prophets, to be the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Son of the Highest. It was because the Eternal Son was made of a woman, that that Holy Thing born of the virgn was to be called the Son of God.
It need hardly be remarked that no valid objection to the doctrine of the eternal Sonship of Christ, or, that He is Son as to his divine nature, can be drawn from such passages as speak of the Son as being less than the Father, or subject to Him, or even ignorant. If Christ can be called the Lord of glory, or God, when his death is spoken of, He may be called Son, when other limitations are ascribed to Him. As He is both God and man, everything that is true either of his humanity or of his divinity, may be predicated of Him as a person; and his person may be denominated from one nature, when the predicate belongs to the other nature. He is called the Son of Man
when He is said to be omnipresent; and He is called God when He is said to have purchased the Church with his blood.
D. The Relation of the Spirit to the other Persons of the
Trinity.
As the councils of Nice and Constantinople were fully justified by Scripture in teaching the eternal Sonship of Christ, so what they taught of the relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son, has an adequate Scriptural foundation.
That relation is expressed by the word procession, with regard to which the common Church doctrine is, (1.) That it is incomprehensible, and therefore inexplicable. (2.) That it is eternal (3.) That it is equally from the Father and the Son. At least such is the doctrine of the Latin and all other Western churches. (4.) That this procession concerns tha personality and operations of the Spirit, and not his essence.
The Scriptural grounds for expressing this relation by the term procession, are (1.) The signification of the word spirit. It means breath, that which proceeds from, and which gives expression and effect to our thoughts. Since Father and Son, as applied to the First and Second persons of the Trinity, are relative terms, it is to be assumed that the word Spirit as the designation of the Third Person, is also relative. (2.) This is further indicated by the use of the genitive case in the expressions pneu/ma tou/ patro,j, tou/ ui`ou/, which is explained by the use of the preposition evk, as pneu/ma evk toi/ patro,j. The revealed fact is that the Spirit is of the Father, and the Church in calling the relation, thus indicated, a procession. does not attempt to explain it. (3.) In John xv. 26, where the Spirit is promised by Christ, He is said to proceed from the Father.
That the Latin and Protestant churches, in opposition to the Greek Church, are authorized in teaching that the Spirit proceeds not from the Father only, but from the Father and the Son, is evident, because
whatever is said in Scripture of the relation of the Spirit to the Father, is also said of his relation to the Son. He is said to be the "Spirit of the Father," and "Spirit of the Son;" He is given or sent by the Son as well as by the Father; the Son is said to operate through the Spirit. The Spirit is no more said to send or to operate through the Son, than to send or operate through the Father. The relation, so far as revealed, is the same in the one case as in the other.
When we consider the incomprehensible nature of the Godhead, the mysterious character of the doctrine of the Trinity, the exceeding complexity and difficulty of the problem which the Church had to solve in presenting the doctrine that there are three persons and one God, in such a manner as to meet the requirements of Scripture and the convictions of believers, and yet avoid all contradiction, we can hardly fail to refer the Church creeds on this subject, which have for ages secured assent and consent, not to inspiration, strictly speaking, but to the special guidance of the Holy Spirit.
§ 7. Philosophical Form of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
The philosophical statements of the doctrine of the Trinity have been intended by their authors either to prove it, or to illustrate it, or to explain it away and substitute some speculative theory as to the constitution of the universe for the Scriptural doctrine of the Triune God. The two former of these classes, those designed for proof, and those designed for illustration, need not be discriminated. It may be remarked in reference to them all that they are of little value. They do not serve to make the inconceivable intelligible. The most they can do, is to show that in other spheres and in relation to other subjects, we find a somewhat analogous triplicity in unity. In most cases, however, these illustrations proceed on the assumption that there are mysteries in the Godhead which have no counterpart in the constitution of our nature, or in anything around us in the present state of our existence.
We have already seen that the fathers were accustomed to refer to the union of light, heat, and radiance in the one substance of the sun; to a fountain and its streams; to the root, stem, and flower of a plant; to the intellect, will, and affections in the soul; as examples of at least a certain kind of triplicity in unity, elsewhere than in the Godhead. The last-mentioned analogy, especially, was frequently presented, and that in different forms. Augustine said, that as man was made in the image of the Triune God, we have reason to expect something in the constitution of our nature answering to the Trinity in the Godhead. He refers to the memory, intelligence, and will, as coexisting in one mind, so that the operations of the one are involved in the operations of the others. Gregory of Nyssa refers for his illustration to the soul, the reason, and the living power, united in one spiritual substance in man. It was admitted, however, that these analogies did not hold as to the main point, for these different powers in man are not different subsistences, but different modes of activity of one and the same personal essence, so that these illustrations lead rather to the Sabellian, than to the Scriptural view of the doctrine of the Trinity.
By far the most common illustration was borrowed from the operations of our consciousness. We conceive of ourselves as objective to ourselves, and are conscious of the identity of the subject and object. We have thus the subjective Ego, the objective Ego, and the identity of the two; the desired Thesis, Analysis, and Synthesis. In one form or another, this illustration has come down from the fathers, through the schoolmen and reformers, to theologians of our own day. Augustine21 says, "Est quaedam imago Trinitatis, ipsa mens, et notitia ejus, quod est proles ejus ac de seipsa verbum ejus, et amor tertius, et haec tria unum atque una substantia." Again,22 "Haec -- tria, memoria, intelligentia, voluntas, quoniam non sunt tres vitae, sed una vita; nec tres mentes, sed una mens: consequenter utique nec tres substantiae sunt, sed una substantia." And,23 "Mens igitur quando cogitatione se conspicit, intelligit se et recognoscit: gignit ergo hunc intellectum et cognitionem suam. . . . Haec autem duo, gignens et genitum, dilectione tertia copulantur, quae nihil est
aliud quam voluntas fruendum aliquid appetens vel tenens." Anselm24 has the same idea: "Habet mens rationalis, quum se cogitando intelligit, secum imaginem suam ex se natam, id est cogitationem sui ad suam similitudinem, quasi sua impressione formatam, quamvis ipsa se a sua imagine, non nisi ratione sola, separare possit, quae imago ejus verbum ejus est. Hoc itaque modo, quis neget, summam sapientem, quum se dicendo intelligit, gignere consubstantialem sibi similitudinem suam, id est Verbum suum." Melancthon25 adopts and carries out the same idea: "Filius dicitur imago et lo,goj: est igitur imago cogitatione Patris genita; quod ut aliquo modo consideran possit, a nostra mente exempla capiamus. Voluit enim Deus in homine conspici vestigia sua. . . . Mens humana cogitando mox pingit imaginem rei cogitatae, sed nos non transfundimus nostram essentiam in illas imagines, suntque cogitationes illae subitae et evanescentes actiones. At Pater aeternus sese intuens gignit cogitatonem sui, quae est imago ipsius, non evanescens, sed subsistens, communicata ipsi essentia. Haec igitur imago est secunda persona. . . . Ut autem Filius nascitur cogitatione, ita Spiritus Sanctus procedit a voluntate Patris et Filii; voluntatis enim est agitare, diligere, sicut et cor humanam non imagines, sed spiritus seu halitus gignit." Leibnitz,26 says "Je ne trouve rien dans les creatures de plus propre a illustrer ce sujet, que la reflexion des espirits, lorsqu'un meme esprit est son propre objet immediat, et agit sur soi-meme en pensant a soi-meme et a ce qu'il fait. Car he redoublement donne une image ou ombre de deux substances respectives dans une meme substance absolue, savoir de celle qui entend, et de celle qui est entendue; l'un et l'autre de ces etres eat substantiel, l'un et l'autre est un concret individu, et ils different par des relations mutuelles, mais ils ne sont qu'une seule et meme substance individuelle absolue."
Of the theologians of the seventeenth century belonging to the Reformed Church, Keckermann was the most disposed to present the doctrines of the Bible in a philosophical form. We find, therefore, with him a similar attempt to make the mystery of the Trinity intelligible. He regards the existence of God as consisting in self-
conscious thought. As thought is eternal, it must have an eternal, absolute, and perfect object. That object must, therefore, itself be God. The unity of the divine essence demands that this object should be in God himself, and therefore, it eternally returns to Him.27
The modern theologians of Germany, who profess allegiance to the Scriptures, have, in many cases, taken the ground that absolute unity in the divine essence would be inconsistent with self-consiousness. We become self-conscious by distinguishing ourselves from what is not ourselves, and especially from other persons of like nature with ourselves. If, therefore, there were no person objective to God, to whom He could say Thou, He could not say I. Thus Martensen28 says: Although the creature can have no adequate comprehension of the divine nature, we have a semblance of the Trinity in ourselves; as we are formed in the image of God, we have the right to conceive of God according to the analogy of our own nature. As distinction of persons is necessary to self-consciousness in us, so also in God. Therefore, if God be not a Trinity, He cannot be a person. How, he asks, can God from eternity be conscious of Himself as Father, without distinguishing Himself from Himself as Son? In other words, how can God be eternally self-conscious, without being eternally objective to Himself? That with us the objective Ego is merely ideal and not a different person from the subjective Ego, arises from our nature as creatures. With God, thinking and being are the same. In thinking Himself his thought of Himself is Himself in a distinct hypostasis. Dr. Shedd29 has given a similar exposition, "in proof that the necessary conditions of self-consciousness in the finite spirit, furnish an analogue to the doctrine of the Trinity, and go to prove that trinity in unity is necessary to self-consciousness in the Godhead."
Pantheistic Trinitarianism.
In all that precedes, reference has been made to those who have had for their object to vindicate the doctrine of the Trinity, by showing that it is not out of analogy with other objects of human
thought. There are, however, many modern systems which profess to be Trinitarian, which are in fact mere substitutions of the formulas of speculation for the doctrine of the Bible. Men speak of the Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Spirit, when they mean by those terms something which has not the least analogy with the doctrine of the Christian Church. Many by the Trinity do not mean a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, but either three radical forces, as it were, in the divine nature, which manifest themselves in different ways; or three different relations of the same subject; or three different states or stages of existence. Thus with some, the absolute power or efficiency of the Supreme Being considered as creating, upholding, and governing the world, is the Father; as illuminating rational creatures, is the Son; and, as morally educating them, is the Spirit. According to Kant, God as creator is the Father; as the preserver and governor of men, He is the Son; and as the administrator of law, as judge and rewarder, He is the Spirit. With DeWette, God in Himself is the Father; as manifested in the world, the Son; and as operating in nature, the Spirit. Schleiermacher says, God in Himself is the Father; God in Christ is the Son; God in the Church, is the Holy Spirit. The avowed Pantheists also use the language of Trinitarianism. God as the infinite and absolute Being is the Father; as coming to consciousness and existence in the world, He is the Son; as returning to Himself, the Spirit. Weisse attempts to unite Theism and Pantheism. He pronounces the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity the highest form of philosophical thought. He professes to adopt that doctrine ex animo in its commonly admitted sense. There is a threefold personahity (Ichheit) in God necessary to the constitution of his nature. When the world was created the second of these persons became its life, merging his personality in the world and became impersonal, in order to raise the world into union and identity with God. When the curriculum of the world is accomplished, the Son resumes his personality.30
Endnotes
1. Lehre von der Trinitat, vol. i. p. 42. 2. De Trinitate, I. vi. 9, edit. Benedictines, vol. viii. p. 1161, c. 3. Schaff's History of the Christian Church, vol. iii. p. 672. 4. Kirchengeschichte, vol. vi. § 60, p. 323. Bonn, 1855. 5. De Trinitate, VII. vi. edit. Benedictines, vol. viii. p. 1314, d. 6. Epistola, CCXXXVIII. iii. 18, vol. ii. p. 1304, a. 7. Epistola, VIII. edit. Migne, vol. iii. p. 115, e. 8. Pearson, On Creed, seventh edition, 1701, p. 135. 9. Pearson, p. 132. 10. Works, vol. i. p. 315. 11. De Trinitate, III., Works, Paris, 1631, p. 23, a. See on this point Schaff's History of the Christian Church, vol. iii. § 60. Pearson, On the Creed, and especially, Bull's Defence of the Nicene Creed, fourth edition. 12. Page 35. 13. In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus, xix. 13, edit. Benedictines, vol. iii. p. 1903, a. 14. De Trinitate, v. xv. 16, vol. viii. p. 1286, c, d. 15. Die Dritte Predigt a. Tage d. heil. Dreifaltigk, 5; Works, ed. Walch, vol. xiii. p. 1510. 16. Institutio, I. xiii. 19, 20, edit. Berlin, 1834, part i. pp. 100, 101. 17. Calvin's Letters, vol. i. pp. 55, 56, edit. Presbyterian Board, Philadelphia. 18. Locus III. xxviii. 40, edit. Edinburgh, 1847, vol. i. p. 260. 19. Ibid. xxix. 6, p. 262. 20. Pearson on Creed, p. 106. 21. De Trinitate, IX. xii. 18, edit. Benedictines, Paris, 1837, vol. viii. p. 1352, b. 22. Ibid. X. xi. 18, p. 1366, a. 23. Ibid. XIV. vi. 8, pp. 1443. d. 1444, a. 24. Monologium, xxxiii., edit. Migne, p. 188, b. See also Thomas Aquinas, I. xxvii. 3, edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 56. 25. Loci Communes, De Filio, edit. Erlangen, 1828, vol. i, pp.19, 21. 26. Remarque sur le Lavre d'un Antitrinitaire Anglois, edit. Geneva, 1768, vol. i.p. 27. 27. Opera, edit. Cologne, 1614, vol. ii. Systema Theologiae (tract at
end of vol.), p. 72, the last of three pages marked 72. 28. Dogmatik, pp. 129, 130. 29. History of Christian Doctrine, vol. i. p. 366. 30. C. H. Weisse, Idee der Gottheit; Dresden, 1833, pp. 257 ff., 273. The Literature of the doctrine of the Trinity would fill a volume. Bull's Defence of the Nicene Creed, Pearson On the Creed, Waterland On the Trinity, Meier's Geschichte der Lebre von der Trinitat, Baur's Geschichte der Lehre Von der Trinitat, Dorner's History of the Person of Christ, in five volumes, one of the series of Clark's Foreign Theological Library, a very valuable collection of important modern works, Shedd's History of Chirstian Doctrine, and the other historical works on the doctrines of the Church, open the whole field to the theological student.