Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 196, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1913 — EMPEROR CONSTANTINE THE TRINITY MAKER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

EMPEROR CONSTANTINE THE TRINITY MAKER

The Heavenly Father, His Son, and His Holy Spirit Made One In Person. Trinity Not tn the Bible—Paetor Russell Says Roman Emperor Put It Into the Nicoan Creed, A. D. 325. Confusion Followed Some Claim Three Gode In Ono Person—Others Claim One in Three Persons—All Say Incomprehensible Mystery—Constantine's Trinity Fiat Enforced by Cruel Persecutions—Back to the Bible and Away From Creeds Urged.

London, August 17. Pastor Russell addressed the London Tabernacle congregation twice today. We report one of his discourses, from the text, “To us there is one God, the Father, • • ♦ and one Lord Jesus Chris t.”—l Corinthians 8:6. The Pastor de-

dared that the confusion which has rent the Christian Church into hundreds of sects has come through neglect of the Bible—a cause not generally recognized. ciashings are the direct result of the serious errors contained In all creeds. No heathen idol is so horrible as that which the most Intelligent Christian people have portrayed with the .pen, purporting to represent the Almighty and His attitude toward men. We have misrepresented our Creator as worse in His purposes than the vilest of humanity. If Jehovah be God, let us worship Him. Why delay? If the horrible Baal of the Dark Ages be no longer our God, let us destroy his creed Images and forget them. Emperor Constantine's Nicean Creed. After the Church had forgotten the Master's declaration that His Twelve Apostles would constitute the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem, they began to recognize their bishops as apostolic. They overlooked the fact that God’s statement that Judas* place would be filled by another intimated particularly that there would be no successors to The Twelve. Judas’ real successor was St. Paul. Bible Students now see that the eleven Apostles, before being confirmed in Apostleship at Pentecost, erred in choosing Matthias, whom God merely ignored. Gradually the bishops rose to power as God’s Inspired oracles. Proportionately, The Twelve lost their influence. It was easier to take the word of the bishops than to search the Scriptures. In; their anxiety to overwhelm the Greek skeptics, these Christian teachers unwittingly Involved themselves in absurdities. Gradually the trinitarian mystery was advanced; and the mystification of saying that God was His own Son, the Lord Jesus His own Father, and the Holy Spirit another person and yet'the same person, appealed to people who delight to reverence most what they do not understand. Thus today, when questions are asked respecting the trinity—how one could be three, and three one, the answer given which satisfies the ignorant is, Mystery!

But the Bible makes no mystery of the matter. . It never mentions the trinity. The one text (1 John 5:7) seeming faintly to support the thought is now admitted by all scholars to be an interpolation, dating from about the seventh century. The Revised Version shows quite distinctly the reading of earlier manuscripts. “To Us Thoro Is One God.” The Pastor then explained fully every text in both Old and New Testaments used as a proof-text supporting the trinitarian mystery, and convinced his hearers that these texts are misapplied. He quoted the explicit statement from the Old Testament, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God,” and that from the New Testament, used as text for this discourse. Pastor Russell then showed that, according to our Lord’s own teaching, the oneness, or harmony, between the Father and Himself resulted from our Lord’s Ignoring His own will, to do the Father’s will. Our Lord exhorted His disciples to have the same will, spirit—the Holy Spirit—the disposition to do the Father’s will. Our Redeemer, formerly kqown as the Logos, was the Beginning and the End of the Divine direct creation. (Revelation 1:8; 3:14.) Through Him Jehovah operated in all the stupendous work of creation. So the Greek reads, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with ths God, and the Logos was a God. Ths same was in the beginning with the God. By Him were ail things made that were made, and without Him was not one thing made.”—John 1:1-8. The Pastor then related the history of the Council of Nice. Constantine called a council of all the bishops—about one thousand —to settle certain doctrinal differences, of which our subject of discussion was one. Only 384 bishops came. i* After discussing the subject for months, they submitted it to the Emperor, who decided that the Nicean Creed was the Christian fait* Thus the trinitarian mystery was » shrined by a heathen emperor, unbaptlsed—not even sprinkled.