of Jews and Oriental nations
to speak of powers and qualities under personal characters.' He can find
'no plain and express instance in Holy Scripture of a doxology directly
and distinctly addressed to the Holy Spirit,' and he thinks the reason
of this may be 'perhaps because he is only personalised by idioms of
speech.'[450]

Now anyone who has studied the course of the Trinitarian controversy
will see at once that an anti-Trinitarian would require no further
concessions than these to prove his point quite unanswerably. The
amiable design of Dr. Watts's second treatise was 'to lead an Arian by
soft and easy steps into a belief of the divinity of Christ,'[451] but
if he granted what he did, the Arian would have led him, if the
controversy had been pushed to its logical results.

To return to the Church of England. About the middle of the eighteenth
century there was a revival of one phase of the Trinitarian controversy.
A movement arose to procure the abolition of subscription to the
Articles and Liturgy. The spread of Unitarian opinions among the clergy
is said to have originated this movement, though probably this was not
the sole cause. One of the most active promoters of this attempt was
Archdeacon Blackburne; he was supported by Clayton, Bishop of Clogher,
who boldly avowed that his object was to open the door for different
views upon the Trinity in the Church. His own views on this subject
expressed in a treatise entitled 'An Essay on Spirit' were certainly
original and startling. He held that the Logos was the Archangel
Michael, and the Holy Spirit the angel Gabriel!

This treatise and that of Blackburne, entitled 'The Confessional,'
called forth the talents of an eminent Churchman in defence of the
received doctrine of the Trinity--Jones of Nayland. His chief work on
the subject was entitled 'The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity,' and was
drawn up after the model of Dr. Clarke's famous book, to which, indeed,
it was partly intended to be an antidote. It was written on the
principle that Scripture is its own best interpreter, and consisted of a
series of well-chosen texts marshalled in order with a brief explanation
of each, showing its application to the doctrine of the Trinity. On one
point Jones insists with great force, viz., that every article of the
Christian faith depends upon the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity; and
he illustrates this by applying it to 'our creation, redemption,
sanctification, resu