divinity of a professed Revelation." Probably this was his original meaning, and it would have been well had he kept to it. But it is the way with men, particularly in this day, to generalize freely, to be impatient of such concrete truth as existing appointments contain, to attempt to disengage it, to hazard sweeping assertions, to lay down principles, to mount up above God's visible doings, and to subject them to tests derived from our own speculations. Doubtless He, in some cases, vouchsafes to us the knowledge of truths more general than those works of His which He has set before us; and when He does so, let us thankfully use the gift. This is not the case in the present instance. Mr. E. has been led on, from the plain fact, that in Christianity there is a certain general bearing of faith in doctrine upon character, and so far a proof of its consistency, which is a token of divine working,—led on, to the general proposition, that "in a genuine Revelation all doctrines revealed must have a direct bearing upon the moral character enjoined by it;" and next to the use of it as a test for rejecting such alleged doctrines of the gospel, e.g. the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, as do not perceptibly come up to it.
That I am not unfair upon Mr. Erskine will appear from the following passages.
"The abstract fact that there is a plurality in the unity of the Godhead, really makes no address either to our understandings, or our feelings, or our consciences. But the obscurity of the doctrine, as far as moral purposes are concerned, is dispelled, when it comes in such a form as this,—'God so loved the world, &c.' or this 'But the Comforter, which is, &c.'—Our metaphysical ignorance of the Divine Essence is not indeed in the slightest degree removed by this mode of stating the subject; but our moral ignorance of the Divine character is enlightened, and that is the thing with which we have to do." p. 96.
Now I do not say that such a passage as this is a denial of the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed; but I ask, should a man be disposed to deny it, how would the writer refute him? Has he not, if a Trinitarian, cut away the ground from under him? Might not a Socinian or Sabellian convince him of the truth of their doctrine, by his own arguments? Unquestionably. He has laid down the principle, that a Revelation is only so far reasonable as it exhibits a direct and natural connexion between belief in its doctrines and
