DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9552#0230
200
SECOND APPEAL
pect to the mission of the Spirit of truth as a proof of
its being a separate existence, and not merely an expres-
sion for the influence of God, the passage in question, if
so taken, would thus run : " But when God is come,
whom I ( God ) will send unto you from God, even God
who proceedeth from God &c." Can there be an idea
more polytheistical than what flows from these words?
Yet those that maintain this interpretation express their
detestation of Polytheism. If, with a view to soften the
unreasonableness of this interpretation, they think
themselves justified in having recourse to the term " my-
stery," they cannot, without injustice, accuse Hindoos,
the believers of numerous gods under one Godhead, of
absurdity, when they plead mystery in defence of their
Polytheism ; for, under the plea of mystery, every ap-
pearance of unreasonableness may be easily removed.
I find to my great surprise, that the plural form
of expression in the 26th verse of the first chapter of
Genesis, "And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness," has been quoted by some divines as
tending to prove the doctrine of the deity of the Holy
Ghost, and that of the Son, with the deity of the Father of
the Universe, commonly called the doctrine of the Tri-
nity. It could scarcely be believed, if the fact were not
too notorious, that such eminent scholars as some of
those divmes undoubtedly were, could be liable to such a
mistake as to rely on this verse as a ground of argument
in support of the Trinity. It shews how easily prejudice
in favour of an already acquired opinion gets the better
of learning, and how successfully it darkens the sphere
«f truth. Were we even to disregard totally the idiom
of the Hebrew, Arabic, and of almost all Asiatic langua-
SECOND APPEAL
pect to the mission of the Spirit of truth as a proof of
its being a separate existence, and not merely an expres-
sion for the influence of God, the passage in question, if
so taken, would thus run : " But when God is come,
whom I ( God ) will send unto you from God, even God
who proceedeth from God &c." Can there be an idea
more polytheistical than what flows from these words?
Yet those that maintain this interpretation express their
detestation of Polytheism. If, with a view to soften the
unreasonableness of this interpretation, they think
themselves justified in having recourse to the term " my-
stery," they cannot, without injustice, accuse Hindoos,
the believers of numerous gods under one Godhead, of
absurdity, when they plead mystery in defence of their
Polytheism ; for, under the plea of mystery, every ap-
pearance of unreasonableness may be easily removed.
I find to my great surprise, that the plural form
of expression in the 26th verse of the first chapter of
Genesis, "And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness," has been quoted by some divines as
tending to prove the doctrine of the deity of the Holy
Ghost, and that of the Son, with the deity of the Father of
the Universe, commonly called the doctrine of the Tri-
nity. It could scarcely be believed, if the fact were not
too notorious, that such eminent scholars as some of
those divmes undoubtedly were, could be liable to such a
mistake as to rely on this verse as a ground of argument
in support of the Trinity. It shews how easily prejudice
in favour of an already acquired opinion gets the better
of learning, and how successfully it darkens the sphere
«f truth. Were we even to disregard totally the idiom
of the Hebrew, Arabic, and of almost all Asiatic langua-