Α STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR NOT BELIEVING THE DOCTRINES OF TRINITARIANS, CONCERNING THE NATURE of God, AND THE PERSON OF CHRIST. BY ANDREWS NORTON. LONDON: J. CHAPMAN, 121, NEWGATE STREET. PRINTED AND SOLD BY J. BARKER, WORTLEY, NEAR LEEDS: MDCCCXLVI. CONTENTS. THE PROPER MODERN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY CONTRADICTORY IN TERMS TO THAT OF THE UNITY OF GOD.--FORMS IN WHICH THE DOCTRINE HAS BEEN STATED, WITH REMARKS.-THE DOCTRINE THAT CHRIST IS BOTH GOD AND MAN, A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS. NO PRETENCE THAT EITHER DOCTRINE IS EXPRESSLY Page CLASS II. Passages relating to Christ, which have been CLASS IV. Passages that might be considered as referring to the Doctrine of the Trinity, supposing it capable of CLASS V. Passages relating to the divine authority of Christ as the minister of God, to the manifestation of divine power in his miracles and in the establishment of Christianity, and to Christianity itself, spoken of under the name of Christ, and considered as a promulgation of the laws of God's moral government,-which have CLASS VI. Passages misinterpreted through inattention to the peculiar characteristics of the modes of expression in CLASS VII. Passages, in the senses assigned to which, not merely the fundamental Rule of Interpretation, ex- plained in Section VIII., is violated, but the most PREFACE. In the year 1819, I published an article in a periodical work, of which a number of copies were struck off separately under the title that I have given to this volume. I have since been requested to reprint it, and some years ago undertook to revise and make some additions to it for that purpose. Being, however, interrupted, I laid by my papers, and had given up the intention, at least for an indefinite time. But having lately received an application from a highly esteemed friend, strongly urging its republication, I resumed the task; and the result has been, that I have written a new work, preserving indeed the title of the former, and embodying a great part of its contents, but extending to three times its size. I have said, 'I resumed the task;' and the expression is appropriate, for the discussion is one in which no scholar or intellectual man can, at the present day, engage with alacrity. To the great body of enlightened individuals in all countries, to the generality of those who, on every subject but theology, are the guides of public opinion, it would be as incongruous to address an argument against the Trinity, as an argument against transubstantiation, or the imputation of Adam's sin, or the supremacy of the Pope, or the divine right of kings, These doctrines, once subjects of fierce contention, are all, in their view, equally obsolete. To disprove the Trinity will appear to many of whom I speak, a labor, as idle and unprofitable, as the confutation of any other of those antiquated errors; and to engage in the task may seem to imply a theologian's ignorance of the opinions of the world, and the preposterous and untimely zeal of a recluse student, believing that the dogmas of his books still rule the minds of men. It would be difficult to find a recognition of the existence of this doctrine in any work of the present day of established reputation, not professedly theological. All mention of it is by common consent excluded from the departments of polite literature, B |