Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/213

IX. That a trinity of persons, each whereof singly and by himself is God, according to the Athanasian creed, hath given birth to many absurd and heterogeneous notions about God, which are merely fanciful, and abortive.

From the doctrine of three divine persons existing from eternity, which is the chief of all doctrines that are taught in Christian churches, have arisen many unbecoming notions concerning God, unworthy of the Christian world, which ought to be, and which might be, a bright luminary to all people and nations, in the four quarters of the globe, respecting God, and his unity. All who are out of the pale of the Christian church, whether they be Mahometans, or Jews, or Gentiles, or whatsoever religion they profess, have conceived an aversion to Christianity singly on this account, viz. that Christians believe in three Gods: this the missionaries, sent abroad to propagate Christianity, are aware of, and therefore they are particularly cautious how they make mention of a trinity of persons, according to the Nicene and Athanasian doctrine, because they know, in such a case, that their converts would leave them, and laugh them to scorn. The absurd, ludicrous, and frivolous ideas which have arisen from the doctrine of three divine persons existing from eternity, and which do still arise in every one that continueth in a belief of the words of that doctrine, are these, that God the father sitteth above on a high throne, with the son at his right hand, and the holy ghost before them, attending to what they say, who instantly, as he is ordered, runneth through the whole world, and according to their determination dispenseth the gifts of justification, and inscribeth them in the hearts of men, and thus maketh them sons of grace, and the elect, who were before children of