arose much less from any definite and positive basis, than from the effort to avoid the force of other assertions made by an opposing party, and to wind one's way through them. To the Sabellian views we cannot refuse at least to yield our testimony, that they are the result of originality of thought and independence of mind.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS BY THE TRANSLATOR.

It appears from the implied and express approbation which Dr. Schleiermacher gives to the sentiments of Sabellius as above ascertained, that he accords substantially with his views. But when I say this, the reader must call to mind, in order that I may not be misunderstood, nor Dr. S. misinterpreted, that the common opinion respecting Sabellianism has been shewn by the investigation of Dr. S., at least he is himself fully persuaded that it has been shewn, to be quite erroneous. The common opinion makes Sabellianism very little if any thing better than the doctrine of the Patripassians, which abolishes all distinction of person (лоóошnov) in the Godhead, and represents the Father and the Movás as in all respects one and the same; and also maintains, that the names Father, Son, and Spirit, are merely names of various modes of action, or of various developments of powers, belonging to that Being who is ever and only one and the same.

If Dr. S. is right in his conclusions respecting Sabellius, (and it would be difficult to shew that he is not), then does the system of Sabellius differ in a very important respect from the scheme of doctrine just mentioned. Sabellius did not hold that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are the names of mere powers or attributes, or mere developments of them. God, acting as hypostasis, i. e. (so to speak) in a personal manner, as Father and as Son and as Spirit, was what he strenuously maintained. God acting in reference to the scheme of redemption, first as Father in preparing for it, secondly as Son in making atonement, and thirdly as Spirit by sanctifying the heart and thus carrying the whole plan into execution, was what he appears most strictly to have maintained. At any rate, such is the view of Dr. S. himself.

The question is not, then, whether Sabellius, according to

this corrected view of his sentiment believed, nor whether Dr. S. with him, believed, in the real and proper divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Higher Trinitarians, in this sense, can be found in no place nor in any age of the church, than these distinguished individuals. That there is really and truly Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the Godhead, which are not mere names of powers or attributes, nor of simple developments of them, but names that correspond to real developments of the Godhead in a hypostatical sense, is fully maintained by them. That God has developed himself in these three different ways, is what they believe to be taught in the Scriptures, and to be commended to our spiritual consciousness by the nature of our wants, woes, and sins. Hence a Trinity, and not a Duality, or a Pentade, or a Heptade, etc. All accusations of confounding the persons in the Trinity, are mere deductions of opponents from the principles thus laid down; they are altogether rejected by the authors themselves of this opinion.

Sabellius and Dr. S. maintain indeed, that the Movás or divine Being simply and in himself considered, is not the subject of hypostatic distinctions. These they consider as having commenced in time; i. e. when God, or the Movás manifested himself as Creator, when the Logos became incarnate in Christ; and at all times when the Spirit of Grace has operated on the hearts of men. In their view, it is the Movás simply in each of those cases, who has developed himself in these diverse ways; and this diversity of personal or hypostatic developments, constitutes in their view the personality, i. e. the different persons, of the Godhead. But nothing is farther from their design, than to confound these different manifestations of the Godhead, or to reduce the Trinity merely to one person. The Father is Father, and not Son nor Spirit; the Son is Son, and not Father nor Spirit; and so of the third person.

Nor do they at all admit that this development of the Godhead is something that manifests itself in a merely temporary way, and then returns to its former state; they do not hold to a mere яlarνviouós of the Divinity, which is followed after a lapse of time by contraction again. This the opponents of Sabellius incorrectly charged him with maintaining. The relations of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, once constituted, are (as he viewed them) enduring, and never will cease to exist. They have such a relation to the church, that as long as the redeemed shall live and be happy, so long the most distinguished glory VOL. VI. No. 19. 11

of the economy of redemption, that of Father, Son and Spirit, will not cease to shine. The Trinity once actually constituted, the persons of the Godhead once really and fully subsisting, this new relation of the divinity, will and can never be changed.

Here then is Trinity; here are three eternal persons in one Godhead, eternal a parte post; here is Father and Son and Spirit, each really and truly divine; here are all the offices that the works of creation and providence, the redemption and sanctification and glorification of the church require; and Dr. S. asks with deep emotion, What more is demanded? What more is necessary? What more can further the interests of practical piety?

An extensive examination of this theory of Trinity will easily lead us to see, that the great difference between it and the ancient patristical one, is, that it does not allow the substantial (ovocoons) derivation of the second and third persons as divine; nor does it, as the ancient theory did, acknowledge distinctions of a so-named personal nature, antecedent to the time of the creation. It differs from the predominant modern view of the Trinity, inasmuch as it rejects the idea of personality being bestowed on the second and third persons by the first, and makes personality itself to consist in the different manifestations of the Movάs and its different ways of union with, and action in, created things.

The first thought that naturally suggests itself to the mind, in reflecting upon this view, leads to the question: How can personality arise in time, and not belong essentially and originally to the Godhead itself? How can the Divinity, who is immutable, assume an attitude so new as would be the taking to himself a threefold personality, which did not originally and essentially belong to him?

It is easy to see, that these questions must be solved by determining what personality means. By one method of defining it, we may represent the theory of Dr. S. as nearly absurd; at least it will appear at once to be contradictory to the nature of the Godhead, which is essentially immutable. By another, no formidable difficulties will, on this score, be found to militate against the views of this acute and distinguished writer.

What then is PERSONALITY as applied to the Godhead? The great problem among most Trinitarians has been, so to define and limit personality, that it will not interfere with the essential unity of the Divine Nature; a problem which does not

seem to have been solved to the satisfaction of all, by any one of the current definitions which have prevailed in modern systems of Theology.

I will not, for the sake of illustration, dwell here on the ancient modes of representing this subject, which have been so fully presented to view, in the introductory part of this essay. Specific and not numeric unity, was what the ancient fathers mostly maintained; as is evident from the whole tenor of their illustrations which are drawn from material objects, and especially disclosed by those which are drawn from different and individual men, such as Paul, Peter, and John. The theoretical inconsistency of this with the real unity of God, has so forced itself on the minds of most of the distinguished theologians of modern times, that they have tacitly, although not professedly, abandoned the real doctrine of the Nicene Creed; as has already been shown in the former part of the present disquisition.

Let us come down to the modern writers, then, who hold to a numerical unity of essence or substance in the Godhead, and represent personality as the only thing communicated by the first to the second and third persons of the Trinity. Our first inquiry of course is: How have they defined personality?

The shortest method in which I can illustrate this, is to produce the definitions themselves.

Melancthon: Persona est substantia individua, intelligens, incommunicabilis, non sustenta in alia natura.

Buddaeus: Personae voce suppositum intelligens denotatur. Per suppositum, autem, substantia singularis completa, incommunicabilis, non aliunde sustentata, intelligitur... Tres personae in essentia divina... tres subsistentiae incommunicabiles, individuae naturae, hac ipsa manente indivisibili, indigitantur.

Baumgarten: Person means a suppositum which is the ground of certain actions peculiar to itself.

Morus: Persona significat ens per se, quod intelligit, et cum intellectu agit.

Reinhard: Persona est individuum subsistentiae incompletae, per se libere agens, et divinarum perfectionum particeps.

Gerhard Persona est substantia individua, intelligens, incommunicabilis, quae non sustentatur in alio, vel ab alio...Non est modus subsistendi, sed est substantia certo charactere sive subsistendi modo insignita.

Sohnius and Keckermann: Hypostasis est τρόπος υπάρξεως. Zanchius: Persona est ipsa essentia divina, proprio subsistendi modo distincta.

Turretin: Vox personae proprie concreta est non abstracta ; quae, praeter formam quae est personalitas, subjectum etiam notat cum forma a qua denominatur.

:

Calvin Subsistentia in essentia Dei, qua ad alios relata, proprietate incommunicabili distinguitur, [following Justin and Damascenus of ancient times.]

Leibnitz, at the request of Loeffler, who .wished to write in opposition to some English Antitrinitarians, sent him the following definition: "Several persons in one absolute substance numerically the same, signify several particular intelligent substances essentially related. Afterwards he changed the latter part of this by substituting: "relative incommunicable modes of subsistence." A third time he added, in the way of explanation: "We must say that there are relations in the divine substance which distinguish the PERSONS; since these persons cannot be absolute substances. But we must aver, too, that these relations are substantial. . . . We must say moreover, that these three persons are not as absolute substances as the whole."

These are merely specimens of what might be gathered, on all sides, from the leading books in theology.

Of some of these definitions, i. e. those of Melancthon and Morus and some others, it might be said, that the word person as applied to three different men, could scarcely receive a more full and complete sense, than is given it in respect to the Godhead. Tritheism in theory seems to be the unavoidable deduction from such definitions. Of others it may be said, that they are no definitions, for they contain nothing positive or discretive. The definitions of Reinhard and Leibnitz represent the substance of the person in the Godhead as incomplete. But what idea can the human mind attach to such a definition of personality as this? What is that which is a divine attribute or property, and yet is incomplete?

Other definitions, and indeed most of all the definitions, represent personality as incommunicable. How then could the Son and Spirit have an incommunicable attribute communicated to them?

The majority of those who undertake to define personality, represent person as a being or subsistence who is not sustained or does not subsist in or by another. Now if the Father, as most of these theologians hold, communicates personality to the Son and Spirit, how can the Son and Spirit be persons that do