John Biddle’s unitarian confession of the Holy Trinity

John Biddle (1615-62) (also spelled “Bidle”) has been called “the father of English Unitarianism.” (But he didn’t use the word “unitarian” – that had yet to be coined, as a more descriptive, less polemical alternative to “Socinian.”) When he taught his theology publicly, he ran afoul of the the law, and eventually died in jail, imprisoned for his beliefs.

Here are three of the six articles of his A Confession of Faith Touching the Holy Trinity, According to Scripture. (1648, reprinted in a 1691 book, itself reprinted in 2008.) I have modernized his spelling and use of capitals and punctuation, and have added emphases in bold.

Article I: I believe that there is one most High God, creator of heaven and earth, and first cause of all things pertaining to our salvation, and confessedly the ultimate object of our faith and worship; and that this God is none but the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the first person of the Holy Trinity. (p. 1)

Article II: I believe that there is one chief Son of the Most High God, or spiritual, heavenly, and perpetual Lord and King, set over the church by God, and second cause of all things pertaining to our salvation, and cosequently, the intermediate object of our faith and worship; and this Son of the most High God is none but Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity. (p. 4)

This Jesus, he tells us, has only a human nature, but is our Lord and God (Article III, pp. 8-12) and deserves worship, even though he’s not the most High God, but is rather subordinate to him. (Article IV, pp. 12-7) Finally,

Article VI: I believe there is one principal Minister of God and Christ, peculiarly sent from heaven to sanctify the church, who, by reason of his eminency and intimacy with God, is singled out of the number of other heavenly ministers or angels, and comprised in the Holy Trinity, being the third person thereof; and that this minister of God and Christ is the Holy Spirit. (p. 18)

What’s going on here? How can Biddle, a unitarian, talk repeatedly of “the Holy Trinity”? After all, he doesn’t believe in any triune, that is, tripersonal god – much less one containing three equally divine persons. Is he lying? Is he being tricky, to hide his heretical views? Is he stupidly inconsistent?

None of the above. Rather, he’s using the term “Trinity” in a way that many trinitarians (in the proper sense) do, by long usage, to refer not to a certain entity (a triune God), but rather to a plurality of three entities.

Confusing? Yes! But not any more than present day theologians who assure us that, e.g. the Gospel of John, or the Apostles’ Creed is thoroughly “trinitarian.”

In another work, also reprinted in the volume above, Biddle shows by quotations (in the original languages, and translated by him) that Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Novatian, Theophilus, Origen, and others, were unitarians and not trinitarians. Part of his conclusion:

…the fathers of the first two centuries, or thereabouts, when the judgments of Christians were yet free, and not enslaved with the determinations of councils, asserted the Father only to be that one God, and so were in the main right as to the faith in the Holy Trinity, however they went awry in imagining two natures in Christ; which came to pass… partly because they were great admirers of Plato, and accordingly… did in out outward profession so put on Christ, as that in heart they did not put off Plato, wittily applying his high notions touching the creation of the world, to what was simply and plainly spoken of the man Christ Jesus in relation to the gospel, by the apostle John – partly, that they might thereby avoid the scandal of worshiping a crucified man, a thing then very odious amongst Jews and Pagans, and now amongst deluded Christians, who unless there were another nature in Christ, which was not crucified, accound it idolatry, unsufferable idolatry to worship him, thereby thwarting the most signal words of the apostle Paul, who says, “that Jesus Christ became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” (Phil 2:8-10) (p. 30, text moderized and bold added)