Page:Letters on the Divine Trinity, addressed to Henry Ward Beecher.djvu/48

42 understand him better; and the more we grow like Him, the better we shall understand Him."

We have, then, the indisputable warrant of Holy Scripture for saying that man was originally created in the image of God. And the same high authority assures us, that, although this image has been defaced, and almost blotted out, through the malign power of evil, yet by the new spiritual birth the Divine likeness is restored to the soul. By following the Lord in the regeneration, man is re-created in the image of his Maker. This is so clearly taught in the Bible, that it is believed by nearly all Christendom. It is your own belief. And I submit that the logical and necessary inference from this, is, that whatever be the nature of the Divine Trinity, the image of that Trinity must be found in every regenerate or regenerating man. And if we are not justified in calling a regenerate man tri-personal, no more are we justified in speaking or thinking of a tri-personal God. We have not the least warrant, either from Scripture or reason, for believing in or talking of any other kind of trinity in God, than that which exists in every man who has been created anew in God's own image. And when men do think of any different kind—when they talk of a tri-personal God, to cite the language of our candid brother Bushnell, "they only confuse their understanding, and call their confusion faith." What can we understand—what ought we, therefore, to believe or teach—concerning any trinity in God, other than that whose image, seed-form, or analogue we find in ourselves? For, as you yourself have truly said, "the