_Dr. B._ Yes. “It is a somewhat curious fact in theology that the class of

teachers who protest over the word ‘person,’ declaring that they mean only

a _threefold distinction_, cannot show that there is really a hair’s

breadth of difference between their doctrine and the doctrine asserted by

many of the later Unitarians. They may teach or preach in a very different

manner; they probably do: but the theoretic contents of their opinion

cannot be distinguished. Thus they say that there is a certain divine

person in the man Jesus Christ; but that, when they use the term ‘person,’

they mean, not a person, but a certain indefinite and indefinable

distinction. The later Unitarians, meantime, are found asserting that God

is present in Christ in a mysterious and peculiar communication of his

being; so that he is the living embodiment and express image of God. If,

now, the question be raised, ‘Wherein does the indefinable _distinction_

of one differ from the mysterious and peculiar _communication_ of the

other?’ or ‘How does it appear that there is any difference?’ there is no

living man, I am quite sure, who can invent an answer.” (_Ibid._ p. 135.)

_Unit._ Is it not true that both of these views are sometimes held

alternately by Trinitarians?

_Dr. B._ “Probably there is a degree of alternation, or inclining from one

side to the other, in this view of Trinity, as the mind struggles, now to

embrace one, and now the other, of two incompatible notions. Some persons

are more habitually inclined to hold the three; a very much smaller

number, to hold the one.” (_Ibid._ p. 134.)

_Unit._ But can they not hold the Unity with this Trinity?

_Dr. B._ “No man can assert three persons, meaning three consciousnesses,

wills, and understandings, and still have any intelligent meaning in his

mind, when he asserts that they are yet one person. For, as he now uses

the term, the very idea of a person is that of an essential,

incommunicable monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized by

self-active will; which being true, he might as well profess to hold that

three units are yet one unit. When he does it, his words will, of

necessity, be only substitutes for sense.” (_Ibid._ p. 131.)

(2.) But suppose that the belief of the Church in the Trinity was as

universal as Dr. Huntington asserts and Dr. Bushnell denies, what would be

its value? His argument proves too much. If it proves the Trinity to be

true, it proves, _a fortiori_, the Roman Catholic Church to be the true

Church, and Protestantism to be an error; for Martin Luther, at one time,

was the only Protestant in the world. Suppose that a Roman priest had come

to him then. He might have addressed him thus:—

“It is certainly an impressive testimony to the truth of the Church of

Rome, that the Christian world have been so generally agreed in it. Truth

is not determined by majorities; and yet it would be contrary to the laws

of our constitution not to be affected by a testimony so vast, uniform,

and sacred as that which is rendered by the common belief of Christian

history and the Christian centuries to the doctrines and practices of the

Roman Catholic Church. We travel abroad, through these converted lands,

over the round world. We enter, at the call of the Sabbath morning light,

the place of assembled worshippers; let it be the newly planted

conventicle on the edge of the Western forest, or the missionary station

at the extremity of the Eastern continent; let it be the collection of

Northern mountaineers, or of the dwellers in Southern valleys; let it be

in the plain village meeting-house, or in the magnificent cathedrals of

the old cities; let it be the crowded congregation of the metropolis, or

the ‘two or three’ that meet in faith in upper chambers, in log-huts or

under palm-trees; let it be regenerate bands gathered to pray in the

islands of the ocean, or thankful circles of believers confessing their

dependence and beseeching pardon on ships’ decks, in the midst of the

ocean. So we pass over the outstretched countries of both hemispheres; and

it is well nigh certain—so certain that the rare and scattered exceptions

drop out of the broad and general conclusion—that the lowly petitions, the

fervent supplications, the hearty confessions, the eager thanksgivings, or

the grand peals of choral adoration, which our ears will hear, will be

uttered according to the grand ritual of the Church of Rome. This is the

voice of the unhesitating praise that embraces and hallows the globe.”

What would Luther have replied to that? He would have said, “Truth must

have a beginning. It is always, at first, in a minority. The gate of it is

strait, the path to it narrow, and few find it. All reforms are, at the

beginning, in the hands of a small number. If God and truth are on our

side, what do we care for your multitudes?” We can make the same answer

now.

Dr. Huntington proceeds to give his own creed in regard to the Trinity,—to

state his own belief.

God, in himself, he declares, we cannot know at all. We know him only, in

his revelation. “Out of that ineffable and veiled Godhead—the groundwork,

if we may say so, of all divine manifestation; a theocracy—there emerge to

us, in revelation, the three whom we rightly call persons—Father, Son, and

Holy Ghost.”

We can only conceive of God, he says, in action; and in action we behold

him as three. But action and revelation take place in time. The Trinity,

therefore, according to Dr. Huntington, is only known to us in temporal

manifestation: whether it exists in eternity or not, we cannot tell. And

yet, in the next sentence, he goes on to say that “the Son is eternally

begotten of the Father,” and “the Holy Ghost proceeds out of the Father,

_not in time_;” which is the very thing he had a moment before professed

to know nothing about. It is very difficult, therefore, to tell precisely

what his view is. With regard to the incarnation of the Son, he is still

more obscure. He says that “Christ comes forth out of the Godhead as the

Son;” that he “leaves the glory he had with the Father;” that, while he is

on earth, the Father alone represents the unseen personality of the

Godhead, and that therefore the Son appears to be dependent on him, and

submissive; that temporarily, while the Son is in the world, he remains

ignorant of what the Father knows, and says that his Father is greater

than he. “He lessens himself to dependency for the sake of mediation.”

“All this we might expect.” This he calls an “instrumental inequality

between Son and Father:” it “is wrought into the biblical language,

remains in all our devotional habit, and ought to remain there.”

In other words, Dr. Huntington believes that the Infinite God became less

than infinite in the incarnation. The common explanation of those

passages, where Christ says, for example, “My Father is greater than I,”

does not satisfy him. He is not satisfied that Jesus said it “in his human

nature.” No. It was the divine nature which said it; and it was really GOD

THE SON, who did not know the day nor the hour of his own coming. He lost

a part of his omniscience. He ceased to be perfect in all his attributes.

We should say, then, that he ceased to be God; but Dr. Huntington

maintains that he was God, nevertheless; but God less than omnipotent,—God

less than omniscient; God the Son, so distinct from the Father as to be

ignorant of what the Father knew, and unable to perform what the Father

could do.

Dr. Huntington (p. 366) ascribes it to “condescension” in Christ, to say

that “of that day and hour knoweth not the Son.” “_It is condescension

indeed!_” says he. But this word “condescension” does not well apply here.

One does not condescend to be ignorant of what he knows: still less does a

truthful person condescend _to say_ he is ignorant of what he knows. We

may wisely condescend to help the feeble, and sympathize with the lowly,

but hardly to be ignorant with them, or to pretend to be ignorant. It is a

badly chosen word, and seems to show the vacillation of the writer’s

thought.

IV. The arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity are unanswerable.

We infer that they are unanswerable from the fact that they are not

answered. It is to be presumed that Dr. Huntington, having been for so

many years a preacher of Unitarian doctrine, is acquainted with our

arguments. It is a remarkable fact that, in this sermon, he has nowhere

attempted to reply to them. He has passed them wholly by. You would not

know, from reading the discourse, that he had ever been a Unitarian, or

had ever heard of the Unitarian objections to the Trinity; still less that

he had himself preached against it. Unitarians, for instance, have said,

that _if the Trinity be true, and if it be so important to the welfare of

the soul as is contended, it would be somewhere plainly taught in the New

Testament_. Does Dr. Huntington answer this argument? No; he answers the

argument from the _word_ “Trinity” not being in the Bible, and his answer

is sufficient; but he does not answer the argument from the fact, that the

doctrine itself is not anywhere distinctly taught, and that none of the

terms which have been found essential to any Orthodox statement of the

doctrine are to be met with in the New Testament.(93)

Nor does Dr. Huntington anywhere fairly meet the Unitarian argument from

the impossibility of stating the doctrine in intelligible language. He

tells us, with his usual eloquence, what we have often enough been taught

before, that there are many things which we do not understand, and that we

must believe many facts the _mode_ of which is unintelligible. But when we

say, “Can we believe _a doctrine_ or proposition which cannot be

distinctly stated?” He has no answer. The Trinity is _a doctrine_, and

must therefore be distinctly stated in order to be believed. It has not

been distinctly stated,(94) and therefore cannot be believed. To this

objection Dr. Huntington has no reply; and we may conclude that it is an

unanswerable objection.

Dr. Huntington uses an unnecessary phrase about those who object to

mystery. He calls the objection “shallow self-illusion,” and proceeds with

the usual declaration, that all of life is mysterious. Can he have been a

Unitarian preacher for twenty years, and not have known that Unitarians

object to mystery only when it is used by Trinitarians as a cover for

obscurity and vagueness of statement?

You ask us to believe a precise statement, viz., that “there are three

_persons_ in the Godhead.” We say, “What do you mean by ‘person’?” The

Trinitarian answers, “It is a mystery.” We say, “We cannot believe it,

then.” The Trinitarian replies, “Why, all is a mystery. How the grass

grows is a mystery; yet you believe it.” “No,” we say, “we do not believe

it. When the mystery begins, our belief ends; we believe up to that point,

and no farther.” The statement, “the grass grows,” is _not_ a mystery; the

fact, “the grass grows,” is _not_ a mystery. We believe the fact and the

statement. The _way_ in which it grows _is_ mysterious; and we do not

believe anything about it. “You cannot understand _how_ the grass grows.”

No; and, accordingly, we do not believe anything about _how_ the grass

grows. But the whole purpose of the Trinity is to show _how_ the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist. You are not satisfied that we receive

_what_ the Scripture teaches; you try to show us the _how_, and then leave

it in obscurity at last.

Nor does Dr. Huntington reply to the Unitarian explanation of the

Trinitarian proof-texts. Trinitarians have often quoted the texts—“_I and

my Father are one_;” “_He who has seen me has seen the Father_”—in proof

of the Deity of Christ. Unitarians have often replied to both of them: to

the first passage, that since Jesus has also said that his _disciples were

to be one with him, as he is one with God_, it either proves that the

disciples are also to be God, or does _not_ prove that Christ is God. To

the second passage, Unitarians have replied by reading the next clause, in

which Christ says, “Believest thou not that I am _in_ the Father?” showing

how it is that he reveals the Father. He is _in_ the Father, and his

disciples are _in_ him. Those who see him, see the Father; those who see

his true disciples, see the face and image of Christ. These answers are so

obvious, and Dr. Huntington must have heard them so often, that he should,

as a controversialist, have taken some notice of them. He has not done so.

He quotes the passage from Eph. 1:20, 21, and says, “_Can this be a

creature?_” We reply, “Can he be anything _but_ a creature?—he who was

_set_ by God in this place of honor.” Does God set God, as a reward, above

principalities and powers? Does God make God “head over all things in the

Church”? Again: Dr. Huntington quotes, “that, at the name of Jesus, every

knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord;” but he omits

the conclusion, “to the glory of God the Father.”

He even quotes the passage, “Him _hath God exalted_ to give repentance and

forgiveness of sin.”

And he quotes the passage, which has staggered the strongest believers in

the Trinity, where Paul declares (1 Cor. ch. 15), that, _at the end_,

Christ will give up his kingdom to the Father, that “God may be all in

all,” and explains it as meaning that “he will resume his place in the

coequal Three, the indivisible One.” Has he _left_ his place, then? Is

that Orthodox? Dr. Huntington evidently thinks so; for he says, “The Son,

in his character of Sonship, is retaken, so to speak, into the everlasting

undivided One.” _So to speak._ We may _speak_ so: “But what do we mean by

it?” is the question. Did God the Son leave his place in the Godhead? Did

he become less than God? Did he become ignorant? Did he suffer and die?

Did he arise, and at last reascend, and take his place, “so to speak,” in

the Godhead? If this is meant as real statement, what better is it than

the Avatars of Vishnu? What sort of Unity is left to us? We have a Trinity

of council; but where is the Unity, except of agreement? One divine Being

descending, and leaving the other divine Being alone, temporarily, on the

throne of the universe, until the divine Being who had descended should

reascend to take his seat again “in the coequal Three and indivisible

One”!

One Unitarian argument, which appears to us unanswerable, is in the fact,

that the very passages in which the highest attributes are ascribed to

Christ are always those in which his dependence and subordination are most

strongly asserted. We could throw aside all the passages in which Jesus

asserts directly his inferiority,—as, “My Father is greater than I;” “Of

mine own self I can do nothing,”—and take the strongest proof-texts of the

Trinitarians, and ask for no better proof for the Unitarian doctrine: “All

power is given to me in heaven and earth;” “The image of the invisible

God, the first-born of every creature;” “In him dwelt all the fulness of

the Godhead bodily.” Are these passages written of Christ in his divine or

human nature? Not his divine nature; for to God the Son all power cannot

be “given.” God the Son cannot be “the image of God,” or the “first-born

of every _creature_.” The “fulness of the Godhead” cannot dwell in God the

Son. They must, then, be said of him in his human nature; and, if so, they

show that the loftiest titles and attributes do not prove him to be God.

V. The good ascribed to the doctrine of the Trinity does not belong to it,

but to the truths which underlie it.

Dr. Huntington asserts, for example, that “the Triunity of God appears to

be the necessary means of manifesting and supporting in the mind of our

race, a faith in the true personality of God.”

If so, it is remarkable that the two forms of religion in which the

personality of God, as absolute will, is most distinctly recognized (i.e.,

the _Jewish_ religion and the _Mohammedan_ religion), should both be

ignorant of the Trinity. It is equally remarkable that the most

Pantheistic religion in the world, in which the personality of God most

entirely disappears (i.e., Braminism), should have a Trinity of its own.

It is also remarkable, on this hypothesis, that idolatry in the Christian

Church (as worship of Mary, worship of saints and relics, &c.) should come

up with the Trinity, and flourish simultaneously with it.

No; it is not the Trinity which brings out most distinctly the personality

of God, but the faith in a divine revelation through inspired men. If God

can dwell in the souls of men, teaching and guiding them, he must be a

person like the soul with which he communes. Especially does the religious

consciousness of Jesus, his simple and child-like communion with the

heavenly Father, bring God near to the soul as a personal being. It is not

the Trinity, but the Christian faith which underlies it, which teaches the

divine personality.

Nor is it the doctrine of the Trinity which is necessary for a living

faith in God through Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. All that

Dr. Huntington says of the evil of sin is well said, but has no bearing on

the point before us. According to Dr. Huntington’s own witnesses, as we

have seen above, the Trinity was unknown in the earlier ages of the

Church. Was reconciliation unknown? Was the forgiving love of Christ

unknown? If he cannot assert this, the doctrine of the Trinity is not

necessary to a living faith in a reconciling God.

Dr. Huntington argues, that only the sufferings, and actual sufferings, of

God himself, can touch the sinful heart; and, therefore, the Trinity is

true. The conclusion is a long way from the premise, even supposing that

to be sound. But as regards the premise, he has read and quoted Mansel.

Has he not verged towards the dogmatism which that writer condemns? Would

it not be more modest, and better accord with Christian humility, to be

satisfied with believing the scriptural assertions, that “God so loved the

world, that he gave his only-begotten Son;” that “He who spared not his

own Son, but gave him up for us all,—shall he not, with him, freely give

us all things?” Is not this enough, without an argument to prove that the

_only_ way by which man can be saved is the method of a suffering God?

We will not dwell further on this head, nor examine our friend’s argument

to show that we cannot consistently, as Unitarians, have any piety. We

will try, then, to have it inconsistently.

VI. Great evils to the Church have come from the doctrine of the Trinity.

It has tended to the belief in three Gods. It has tended to a confusion of

belief between three Gods of equal power and majesty, united only in

counsel; one supreme and two inferior Deities; one Deity with a threefold

manner of manifestation; and a vague, undetermined use of words, with no

meaning attached to them—unhappy confusion, which none have been more

ready to recognize and to point out than Trinitarians themselves.

And what shall we say of the continual struggles, conflicts, and bitter

controversies, which this doctrine has caused from the time of its

entrance into the Church? What is there more disgraceful in the history of

the Church, than the mutual persecutions of Arians and Athanasians, and of

all the minor sects and parties, engendered by this disputed doctrine?

This is what Dr. Bushnell says of one of these matters; and his testimony

is, perhaps, sufficient on this point,—

“No man can assert three persons,—meaning three consciousnesses, wills,

and understandings,—and still have any intelligent meaning in his mind,

when he asserts that they are yet one person; for, as he now uses the

term, the very idea of a person is that of an essential, incommunicable

monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized by self-active will; which

being true, he might as well profess to hold that three units are yet one

unit. When he does it, his words will, of necessity, be only substitutes

for sense.

“At the same time, there are too many signs of the mental confusion I

speak of not to believe that it exists. Thus, if the class I speak of were

to hear a discourse insisting on the proper personal Unity of God, it

would awaken suspicion in their minds, while a discourse insisting on the

existence of three persons would be only a certain proof of Orthodoxy;

showing that they profess three persons, meaning what they profess, and

one person, really not meaning it.

“Such is the confusion produced by attempting to assert a real and

metaphysical Trinity of persons in the divine nature. Whether the word is

taken at its full import, or diminished away to a mere something called a

_distinction_, there is produced only contrariety, confusion, practical

negation, not light.”

So far Dr. Bushnell. On another point thus testifies Twesten:—

“There are many to whom the biblical and religious basis of the doctrine

is exceeding sure and precious, who are dissatisfied with the Church form

of the doctrine, and even feel themselves repelled or fettered by it. It

is to them more negative than positive, more opposed to errors than giving

any insight into truth. It solves no difficulty, it unseals no new

revelation.”

Twesten goes on to admit that the Trinity has really hemmed in the free

movement of the mind, substituting a dead uniformity for a manifold and

various life; and yet Twesten is a very strong and able Trinitarian.

VII. The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine of philosophy, and not of

faith.

As philosophy, it might be ever so true and important; but, when brought

forward as religion (as Dr. Huntington has done), it would become at once

pernicious. To offer theology for religion, belief for faith, philosophy

born of speculative reflection in place of spiritual insight and pious

experience, have always been most deleterious both to religion and to

philosophy.

The objects of faith are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through

Christ we have access to the Father in the Spirit. We see the Father

revealed to us in the Son; we feel the power of the Spirit in our hearts.

This is religion; but this has nothing to do with the doctrine of the

Trinity.

VIII. We can trace the gradual formation of the doctrine in the Christian

Church.

The following facts we suppose to be incontrovertible:—

1. Down to the time of the synod of Nice (A.D. 325), the Son was

considered to be subordinate, or inferior to the Father, by the great

majority of writers and teachers in the Christian Church, and by the

multitude of believers; and no doctrine of Trinity existed in the Church.

2. The _Nicene symbol_, which declared Christ to be “God from God, Light

from Light, true God from true God, of the same substance with the

Father,”(95) was directed against the two Arian positions,—that Christ was

created, and that there was a time when he did not exist; but it did not

declare his equality with God the Father, nor teach the personality of the

Holy Spirit, nor say anything of the Trinity.

3. The councils vacillated to and fro during three hundred years,

gradually tending towards the present Church doctrine of the Trinity;

thus,—

1. _Synod of Nice_ (A.D. 325) opposed the Arian doctrine of the creation

of Christ out of nothing, and maintained that his substance was derived

from that of God.

2. _Synod of Tyre_ (A.D. 335) favored the Arians, and deposed Athanasius.

3. _Council of Antioch_ (A.D. 343) opposed the views of the Arians, and

also the views of their opponents.

4. _Council of Sardica_ (A.D. 344) resulted in a division between the

Eastern and Western Churches—the East being semi-Arian, and the West,

Athanasian—in their view of the nature of Christ.

5. The Western Church tending to Sabellianism (taught by Marcellus and his

pupil Photinus), this view was condemned by two councils in the East and

West, viz.:—

Second council of Antioch (A.D. 343).

Council of Milan (A.D. 346).

6. Constantius, an Arian emperor, endeavored to make the Western Churches

accept the Arian doctrine, and, at two synods (A.D. 353 and 355, at

Arelate and Mediolanum), compelled the bishops to sign the condemnation of

Athanasius, deposing those who refused so to do.

7. The Arians, being thus dominant, immediately divided into Arians and

Semi-Arians,—the distinction being the famous distinction between _o_ and

_oi_. Both parties denied the _Homoousios_; but the Semi-Arians admitted

the _Homoiousios_.

8. At the synod of Ancyra (A.D. 358), the Semi-Arian doctrine was adopted,

and the Arian rejected. The third synod of Sirmium (A.D. 358) did the same

thing.

9. Down to this time (A.D. 360), nothing was said about the Holy Spirit in

its relation to the Trinity. The Emperor Valens, an Arian, persecuted the

Athanasians from A.D. 364 to 378. Then Theodosius, an Athanasian emperor,

persecuted the Arians. Semi-Arianism, however, continued Orthodox in the

East.

10. The Nestorian controversy broke out A.D. 430. Council of Ephesus (A.D.

431) condemned Nestor. The Nestorians (who were Unitarians) separated

entirely from the Church, and became the Church of the Persian empire.

11. The Monophysite controversy broke out. The council of Chalcedon (A.D.

451) decided that there were two natures in Christ; and the Monophysites

separated, and formed the Coptic Church. Their formula was, that “God was

crucified in Christ.” The Nestorians were too Unitarian, and the

Monophysites too Athanasian. The Church decided (against the Nestorians)

that Mary was God’s mother, but decided (against the Monophysites) that

God was not crucified.

12. _First Lateran Council_ was called (in A.D. 640) to settle a new

point. It having been decided that there were _two_ natures in Christ, it

was now thought best by many to yield to the Monophysites—that there was

only one will in Christ. Hence the Monotheletic controversy, finally

settled at the,—

13. Sixth General Council (A.D. 680), when _two_ wills in Christ were

accepted as the doctrine of the Church.

Thus it appears that it took the Church from A.D. 325 to A.D. 680 to

settle the questions concerning the relation of Christ to God. During all

this time, opinion vacillated between Arianism on the one hand and

Sabellianism on the other. At the end of this period, the Church had

become consolidated, and strong enough to compel submission to its

opinions: but the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Trinity remained

unsettled for several centuries more; and finally the Eastern Church

separated altogether from the Western Church on this point. The whole

Greek Church remains, to this day, separated from the Latin Church on a

question belonging to this very doctrine of the Trinity. So much, then,

for Dr. Huntington’s assertion, that the Trinity is a doctrine which can

almost literally be said to have been believed “always, everywhere, and by

all.”

IX. The doctrine of the Trinity is opposed to the real divinity of Christ

and to his real humanity; thus undermining continually the faith of the

Church in the divine humanity of Jesus Christ the Lord.

Our final and chief objection to the Trinity is, not that it makes Christ

divine, but that it does _not_ make him so. It substitutes for the

divinity of the Father, the Supreme God, which Unitarians believe to dwell

in Christ, a subordinate divinity of God the Son. This is subordinate,

because derived; and, because derived, dependent. The Son may be said to

be “eternally generated;” but this is only an eternal derivation, and does

not alter the dependence, but makes it also to be eternal. The tendency of

the Church doctrine of the Trinity is always to a belief, not in the

supreme divinity dwelling in Christ, but in a derived and secondary

divinity.

How is it, for example, with the Nicene doctrine concerning Christ? Dr.

Huntington claims Nice as Trinitarian. (p. 361.)

But what says Prof. Stuart concerning the Nicene doctrine? Listen.

“The Nicene symbol presents the Father as the Monas, or proper Godhead, in

and of himself exclusively; it represents him as the _Fons et Principium_

of the Son, and therefore gives him superior power and glory. It does not

even assert the claims of the blessed Spirit to Godhead, and therefore

leaves room to doubt whether it means to recognize a Trinity, or only a

Duality.” (Moses Stuart, Bib. Repos., 1835, quoted by Wilson, Trin. Test.,

p. 264.)

And how is it with the ante-Nicene fathers, whom Dr. Huntington also

considers to be Trinitarian? else certainly his rule of “always,

everywhere, and by all,” does not hold. If, for the first three hundred

years after Christ, there were no Trinitarians, it cannot be said that the

Trinity has “always” been held in the Church. Listen, again, to Prof.

Stuart, whose learning no one can question.

“We find that all the Fathers before, at, and after the Council of Nice,

who harmonize with the sentiments there avowed, declare the Father only to

be the self-existent God.” (See the whole paragraph in Wilson, Trin.

Test., p. 267.)

“To be the author of the proper substance of the Son and Spirit, according

to the Patristical creed; or to be the author of the _modus existendi_ of

the Son and Spirit, according to the modern creed,—both seem to involve

_the idea of power and glory in the Father, immeasurably above that of the

Son and Spirit_.” (Moses Stuart, Bib. Repos., 1835.)

So Coleridge asserts that “both Scripture and the Nicene Creed teach a

subordination of the Son to the Father, independent of the incarnation of

the Son.... Christ, speaking of himself as the coeternal Son, says, ‘My

Father is greater than I.’ ” (Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 270.)

According to the Trinitarian doctrine, then, we do not find God—the

Supreme God, our heavenly Father—in Christ; but a derived, subordinate,

and inferior Deity. Not the one universal Parent do we approach, but some

mysterious, derived, inscrutable Deity, less than the Father, and distinct

from him. Do we not, then, lose the benefit and blessing of the divinity

of Jesus? Can we believe him when be says, “He who has seen me has seen

the Father?” No; we do not believe that, if we are Trinitarians; but

rather, that, having seen him, we have seen “THE SON;” whom Coleridge

declares to be an inferior Deity; over whom Bishop Pearson, in his

“Exposition of the Creed,” says, the Father holds “preeminence,”—the

Father being “the Origin, the Cause, the Author, the Root, the Fountain,

the Head, of the Son.” The doctrine of the Trinity is therefore opposed,

as Swedenborg ably contends, to the real divinity of Christ.(96)

But it is equally opposed to his real humanity. It constantly drives out

of the Church the human element in Christ. Dr. Huntington is astonished at

Unitarians not perceiving that the humanity of Christ is as dear to

Trinitarians as his Deity; yet it cannot be denied, that the mysterious

dogma of deity has quite overshadowed the simple human life of our dear

Lord, so that the Church has failed to see the Son of man. All his highest

human traits become unreal in the light of this doctrine of his deity. He

is tempted; but that is unreal, for God cannot be tempted. He prays, “Our

Father;” but this also is no real prayer, for he is omnipotent, and can

need nothing. He encounters opposition, hatred, contumely, and bears it

with sweetest composure; but what of that? since, as God, he looked down

from an infinite height upon the puny opposition. He agonizes in the

garden; but it is imaginary suffering: how can God feel any real agony,

like man? Jesus ceases to be example, ceases to be our best beloved

companion and brother, and becomes a mysterious personage, inscrutable to

our thought, and far removed from our sympathy.

FOOTNOTES

1 The following passage, from an article in the “Independent,” by

Henry Ward Beecher, is valuable, perhaps, as the testimony of one

who has “summered it and wintered it” with Orthodoxy:—

“Does anybody inquire why, if so thinking, we occasionally give such

sharp articles upon the great religious newspapers, ‘The Observer,’

‘The Intelligencer,’ and the like? O, pray do not think it from any

ill will. It is all kindness! We only do it to keep our voice in

practice. We have made Orthodoxy a study. And by an attentive

examination of ‘The Presbyterian,’ ‘The Observer,’ ‘The Puritan

Recorder,’ and such like unblemished confessors, we have perceived

that no man is truly sound who does not pitch into somebody that is

not sound; and that a real modern orthodox man, like a nervous watch

dog, must sit on the door-stone of his system, and bark incessantly

at everything that comes in sight along the highway. And when there

is nothing to bark at, either he must growl and gnaw his reserved

bones, or bark at the moon to keep up the sonorousness of his voice.

And so, for fear that the sweetness of our temper may lead men to

think that we have no theologic zeal, we lift up in objurgation now

and then—as much as to say, ‘Here we are, fierce and orthodox; ready

to growl when we cannot bite.’ ”

2 Thus Theodore Parker (“Experience as a Minister”) speaks of a review

of his “Discourse on Religion” in a Trinitarian work, which did it

no injustice.

3 According to the “Chart of Religious Belief” in Johnston’s Physical

Atlas, there are in the world 140,000,000 of Catholics, 70,000,000

of Protestants, 68,000,000 of the Greek Church, and 14,000,000 of

minor creeds. _About_, in his “Question Romaine,” gives the Roman

Church 139,000,000. He says, “The Roman Catholic Church, which I

sincerely respect, is composed of 139,000,000 of individuals, not

including the little Mortara.”

4 Mr. Taylor shows that the Church, A.D. 300, was essentially corrupt

in doctrine and practice; that the Romish Church was rather an

improvement on it; that Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory, and Athanasius are

full of false doctrine; and that a Gnostic theology, a Pagan

asceticism, and a corrupt morality prevailed in the Church in those

early centuries.

5 Of course we do not mean to charge our Orthodox friends with

believing in persecution. We only show that _if Orthodoxy is in the

letter_, they _ought_, consequentially, to believe in persecution.

No doubt Protestantism has put an end to persecution. When Luther

came, all believed in persecution; now, no one does. This is because

the Reformation contained a double principle: first, that we are

saved by faith, not by sacraments, and that faith is the belief of

doctrines; second, that to see them aright, we must use our own

minds, and consequently seek for truth as the paramount duty of

life. But in order to seek effectually, we must seek freely—hence

the right of private judgment as against authority in Church and

State. The last principle is that of toleration; the first is the

principle of intolerance. The last has proved the stronger, because

it rests on the logic of things, the other only on the logic of

words.

6 Heb. 11:1.

7 Jacobi—whose words have been said to let the thoughts shine through,

as wet clothes around the limbs allow the form to be seen—says that

all knowledge begins with faith. Faith is, according to Jacobi, (1)

a knowledge proceeding from immediate revelation; (2) knowledge

which does not need, and cannot have, proofs; (3) much more certain

knowledge than any derived from demonstration; (4) a perception of

the super-sensual world; (5) A well-grounded and reliable

prepossession in favor of certain truths; (6) a faith which sees,

and a sight which believes; (7) a vision, an impenetrable mystery, a

perception of the thing in itself.

8 See “Broken Lights,” p. 207, note.

9 A story is told of a clock, on one of the high cathedral towers of

the older world, so constructed that at the close of a century it

strikes the years as it ordinarily strikes the hours. As a hundred

years come to a close, suddenly, in the immense mass of complicated

mechanism, a little wheel turns, a pin slides into the appointed

place, and in the shadows of the night the bell tolls a _requiem_

over the generations which during a century have lived, and labored,

and been buried around it. One of these generations might live and

die, and witness nothing peculiar. The clock would have what we call

an established order of its own; but what should we say when, at the

midnight which brought the century to a close, it sounded over the

sleeping city, rousing all to listen to the world’s age? Would it be

a violation of law? No; only a variation of the accustomed order,

produced by the intervention of a force always existing, but never

appearing in this way till the appointed moment had arrived. The

tolling of the century would be a variation from the observed order

of the clock; but to an artist, in constructing it, it would have

formed a part of that order. So a miracle is a variation of the

order of nature as it has appeared to us; but to the Author of

nature it was a part of that predestined order—a part of that order

of which he is at all times the immediate Author and Sustainer;

miraculous to us, seen from our human point of view, but no miracle

to God; to our circumscribed vision a violation of law, but to God

only a part in the great plan and progress of the law of the

universe.—_Ephraim Peabody._

10 Trench, “Notes on the Miracles of our Lord.”

11 We use the term “plenary inspiration” rather than “literal

inspiration,” or “verbal inspiration,” for “_literal inspiration_”

is a contradiction in terms, like “_bodily spirit_.”

12 Tholuck, in his Essay on the Doctrine of Inspiration, ascribes the

origin of the belief in the infallibility of Scripture to this

supposed need of an authoritative outward rule of faith among

Protestants. He says, “In proportion as controversy, sharpened by

Jesuitism, made the Protestant party sensible of the necessity of an

externally fortified ground of combat, in that same proportion did

Protestantism seek, by the exaltation of the outward authoritative

character of the Sacred Writings, to recover that infallible

authority which it had lost through its rejection of inspired

councils and the infallible authority of the pope. In this manner

arose, not earlier than the seventeenth century, those sentiments

which regarded the Holy Scripture as the infallible production of

the Divine Spirit,—in its entire contents and its very form,—so that

not only the sense, but also the words, the letters, the Hebrew

vowel points, and the very punctuation were regarded as proceeding

from the Spirit of God.”—_Tholuck’s Essay—Noyes’s

__“__Collection.__”_

13 The doctrine of the Roman Catholics, as stated by Moehler, a

distinguished Roman Catholic, is as follows:—

“The doctrine of the Catholic Church on original sin is extremely

simple, and may be reduced to the following propositions: Adam, by

sin, lost his original justice and holiness, drew down on himself,

by his disobedience, the displeasure and judgments of the Almighty,

incurred the penalty of death, and thus, in all his parts,—in his

body as well as soul,—became strangely deteriorated. Thus his sinful

condition is transmitted to all his posterity as descended from him,

entailing the consequence that man is, of himself, incapable—even

with the aid of the most perfect ethical law offered to him from

without (not excepting even the one in the Old Covenant)—to act in a

manner agreeable to God, or in any other way to be justified before

him, save only by the merits of Jesus Christ.”

The doctrine of the Church of England concerning original sin and

free will is in its ninth and tenth articles, and declares that,—

“Original sin is ... the fault and corruption of the nature of every

man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby

man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is, of his own

nature, inclined to evil, ... and therefore in every person born

into the world it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation....

“The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot

turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works

to faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good

works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by

Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with

us when we have that good will.”

The early Fathers took different views of the origin of sin.

Tertullian ascribed it to human _impatience_. “Nunc ut compendio

dictum sit, omne peccatum impatientiæ adscribendum.” (Tertul. _De

Patien._ 5.) Origen thinks _laziness_ the cause of sin; sin is a

negation—_not_ doing right. Justin Martyr ascribes the origin of sin

to _sensuality_. Origen (after Philo) considered the story of the

fall as an allegory, and a type of what takes place in all men.

14 See, in the Appendix, an examination of Professor Shedd’s article.

15 Ovid. Metam. 7:18.

“Si possem, sanior essem.

Sed trahit invitam nova vis; aliudque cupido,

Mens aliud suadet, video meliora, proboque,

Deteriora sequor.”

See, also, the story, in the Cyropædia, of Araspes and his two

souls.

16 See Dr. Cox’s Sermon on Regeneration, reviewed by Dr. Hodge, in

“Essays and Reviews.”

17 Luther, in his “Table-talk,” says of his preaching against the pope,

and the enormous labors it entailed, “If I had known then what I now

know of the difficulty of the task, ten horses should not have drawn

me to it.” “At that time Dr. Jerome withstood me, and said, ‘What

will you do? They will not endure it.’ But said I, ‘What if they

_must_ endure it?’ ”

18 See Raumer, “Geschichte Europas,” zweiter Band.

19 God in Christ, by Horace Bushnell, p. 193, &c.

20 Heb. 2:9, 17, 18. 4:15. 5:8, 9.

21 No sooner was Socrates dead than he rose to be the chief figure in

Greek history. What are Miltiades, Pericles, or Alcibiades to him?

Twenty years after Joan of Arc was burned by a decree of the Roman

Catholic Church, the same Church called a council to reconsider and

reverse her sentence. Twenty years after the death of Savonarola,

Rafaelle painted his portrait among the great doctors, fathers, and

saints in the halls of the Vatican. Within a few years after John

Brown was hanged, half a million of soldiers marched through the

South chanting his name in their songs. Abraham Lincoln was killed,

and he is now the most influential figure in our history.

22 “Doctrinal Attitude of Old School Presbyterians.” By Lyman B.

Atwater, Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Princeton

College. Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1864.

23 “The Old School in New England Theology.” By Professor Lawrence, of

East Windsor. Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1863.

24 “Doctrines of the New School Presbyterians.” By Rev. George

Duffield, D. D., of Detroit. Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863.

25 “Hopkinsianism.” By Rev. Enoch Pond, D. D., Professor in Bangor

Theological Seminary. Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1862.

26 “Doctrines of Methodism.” By Rev. Dr. Whedon. Bibliotheca Sacra,

April, 1862.

27 “Theologische Zeitscrift.” Herausgegeben von Dr. Friedr.

Schleiermacher, Dr. W. M. L. DeWette, und Dr. Friedr. Lücke. Erstes

Heft, Berlin, 1819. _Ueber die Lehre von der Erwählung._

28 Rom. 11:29. “The gifts and callings of God are without repentance.”

By this we understand the apostle to mean the same thing as is

implied in Ecclesiastes (3:14): “I know that what God doeth, it is

forever.” God, having chosen the Jews for a work, will continue to

them the gifts, and will see that somehow or other, some time or

other, the work is done.

29 A person who never had an intellectual doubt concerning a future

life may be so poorly provided with an inward sense of immortality

that he may never feel quite willing to die, or confident in view of

death. Such a man was Dr. Johnson, who had not the least scepticism;

who was a dogmatic believer, and hated a heretic; who, yet, never

attained to any sort of comfort in view of death, and was always

afraid to die. So there may be another person who may have no

intellectual belief in a future life, but who will have the instinct

of immortality so strong as to be quite easy and happy in looking

forward to death. Such a person is Miss Martineau, who, in

consequence of a poor philosophy of _materialism_ which she was

taught in her childhood, and has always held, has been brought very

logically at last to disbelieve immortality, and even the existence

of God, and yet is very contented about it, and quite happy.

30 “Nescio, quomodo, dum lego, assentior; cum posui librum, et mecum

ipse de immortalitate animorum cœpi cogitare, assensio omnis illa

illabitur.”

31 Thus it is said, “In Christ shall all be made alive.” The meaning

is, that when we live in reference to God, to immortal truth, to the

infinite law of right,—when we really love anything out of

ourselves,—we lose all fear of death. “Perfect love casts out fear;”

that is, pure love. The love of a mother for a child casts out fear.

She is not afraid of death; she will run the risk of death twenty

times over to save her child. The immortal element is aroused in

her. The soldier is roused by the general’s fiery speech to a thrill

of patriotism, and thinks it sweet and beautiful to die for his

country. Love of his country has cast out his fear. This is

something more than any mere insensibility. Men can harden

themselves against danger and death; they can think of something

else. But that insensibility is merely a thick shell put round it—a

sevenfold shield perhaps; but the mortal fear lies hidden all the

same within. True life is very different.

32 The word here rendered ABOLISHED is elsewhere translated

“destroyed,” “made void,” “made of none effect,” “brought to

nothing,” “vanished away,” “done away,” “put down.” The meaning is,

that all its force, importance, value, is taken out of it.

33 “The State of the Impenitent Dead. By Alvah Hovey, D. D.” Boston,

1859.

34 For ἵνα before a defining clause, see John 6:29; 4:34; 1 John 3:11,

23; 4:21; 2 John 6.

35 Die Bestimmung des Menschen. Berlin, 1800.

36 In addition to the extracts from Professor Hovey, Meyer, Lücke, and

De Wette, the following passages from F. D. Maurice (“Theological

Essays”) are interesting, as showing a concurrence of testimony from

yet another quarter to the thesis of this section:—

“When any one ventures to say to an English audience, that eternity

is not a mere negation of time, that it denotes something real,

substantial, before all time, he is told at once that he is

departing from the simple, intelligible meaning of words; that he is

introducing novelties; that he is talking abstractions. This

language is perfectly honest in the mouths of those who use it. But

they do not know where they learned it. They did not get it from

peasants, or women, or children. They did not get it from the Bible.

They got it from Locke. And if I find that I cannot interpret the

language and thoughts of peasants, and women, and children, and that

I cannot interpret the plainest passages of the Bible, or the whole

context of it, while I look through the Locke spectacles, I must

cast them aside....

“Suppose, instead of taking this method of asserting the truth of

all God’s words, the most blessed and the most tremendous, we reject

the wisdom of our forefathers, and enact an article declaring that

all are heretics, and deniers of the truth, who do not hold that

eternal means endless, and that there cannot be a deliverance from

eternal punishment. What is the consequence? Simply this, I believe:

the whole gospel of God is set aside. The state of eternal life and

eternal death is not one we can refer only to the future, or that we

can in any wise identify with the future. Every man who knows what

it is to have been in a state of sin, knows what it is to have been

in a state of death. He cannot connect that death with time; he must

say that Christ has brought him out of the bonds of _eternal_ death.

Throw that idea into the future and you deprive it of all its

reality, of all its power. I know what it means all too well while

you let me connect it with my present and personal being, with the

pangs of conscience which I suffer now. It becomes a mere vague

dream and shadow to me when you project it into a distant world. And

if you take from me the belief that God is always righteous, always

maintaining a fight with evil, always seeking to bring his creatures

out of it, you take everything from me—all hope now, all hope in the

world to come. Atonement, redemption, satisfaction, regeneration,

become mere words, to which there is no counterpart in reality.”

37 In the German Bible we have the true word—“Auferstehung.”

38 So De Wette, Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum N. T., ad

locum.

39 So Schleusner, Lexicon in LXX.

40 So Usteri (Paulinischen Lehrbegriff) says that σάλπινξ appears to

denote partly the startling power of the truth, and partly its power

of calling men together from all the regions of the earth.

41 Christ only comes when he comes to reign. His first coming was as

Jesus, not as Christ. The human life is “the life of Jesus.”

Christian history is “the life of Christ.” In his earthly life he

was Prophet; in his death he was Priest; in his resurrection, or

risen state, he was King.

42 The book of the Revelation of John is the account of Christ’s

coming; and the true interpretation of that book depends on the

proper understanding of his coming. If Christ’s coming began at the

destruction of Jerusalem, and has continued in all the developments

of human history, then the key to “the Revelation” is to be found in

the progress of Christian principles and ideas in the world.

Bertholdt (Christologia Judæorum Jesu Apostolorumque ætate), note to

§ 11, quotes from the Sepher Ikkarim this passage—“The future age

will come _gradually_ to men after the day of the great judgment,

which will take place after the resurrection.” Resurrection and

judgment both come with Jesus, and his were “the last days.”

43 1 Thess. 4:17. “We, who are alive, and remain, shall be caught up

together with them, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”

Usteri (Paul. Lehrbeg.) says that “this εἰς ἀέρα has no analogy in

any other passage of the Epistles, or indeed of the New Testament.”

But Paul outgrew this literalism, and in his later Epistles speaks

of sitting already with Christ in “heavenly places.”

44 Olshausen, an Orthodox commentator, speaks thus in regard to

Christ’s predictions concerning his coming, in Matt. ch. 24, 25:—

“One of the most striking examples of the binding of the present and

future in one narrative, and one which presents many difficulties,

is to be found in these passages. Plain descriptions of the

impending destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish state blend

with no less apparent descriptions of the coming of Christ in his

kingdom. It cannot be denied that the Orthodox interpreters are far

less natural and unforced than the others, in their treatment of

this passage. Their dogmatic views lead them to put apart from each

other elements which are blended together by Matthew and by the

other evangelists. For example, Schott says, that the description of

Christ’s coming begins (Matt. 24:29) immediately after ‘the

tribulation,’ &c., and that all before that belongs to the

destruction of Jerusalem. But apart from the impossibility of

regarding the 29th verse as the beginning of something entirely new,

there are also in the passages which follow distinct references to

the present generation (verse 34), and in the first part as distinct

references to ‘the last time.’ We do not, therefore scruple (says

Olshausen) to accept the simple explanation which alone suits the

text, that Christ speaks of his coming as coincident with the

destruction of Jerusalem, and with the downfall of the Jewish

state.”

The most interesting question, perhaps, is as to the opinions of

Jesus _himself_ about his coming. That he forsaw the overthrow of

Jerusalem and the Temple is certain. Everything indicates that he

possessed a marvellous power of reading the future in the present,

and saw in the condition of the Jewish mind the inevitable overthrow

of their state. He also saw that through his death all men should be

brought to him, and that he should become King in the way in which

he described to Pilate his royalty, i.e., King of the truth. All who

love the truth shall, sooner or later, obey his voice. In what way,

then, did he expect to come? In the way he himself indicates the

coming of his kingdom—like leaven, working secretly in the dough;

like seed, sprouting mysteriously in the ground; like lightning,

seen everywhere at once. By these images alone could he convey to

his disciples his ideas. He longed to tell them many things more,

but they were not able; to bear them.

45 The difficulties (of which Olshausen and other candid Orthodox

interpreters speak) in harmonizing the different parts of Matthew’s

two chapters (24 and 25) about Christ’s coming and judgment, may

perhaps be relieved in some such way as this. (1.) The end of the

Mosaic age and the beginning of the Messianic age are fixed at the

destruction of Jerusalem. (2.) Christ’s coming begins there, and

continues through Christian history, till all mankind are

Christians. His coming, therefore, verifies what Schiller says of

truth, that it “_nimmer ist, immer wird_.” (3.) Whenever he comes,

he judges men according to the state of mind in which they are. (4.)

The three parables (virgins, talents, king on his throne) represent

the judgment of three different classes. The first class (of wise

and foolish virgins) are those who _are not yet converted_, and have

not become disciples of Christ. When he comes, those of them who

have oil in their lamps—or who receive truth into an honest heart

(Luke 8:15)—are ready to receive him, and to become Christians;

those who have no oil reject him. The second class (in the talents)

are Christians, who receive more or less of power and of good,

according to past fidelity. The third class (the “nations ”) are the

heathen, and others, who have never known of Christ at all, but are

Christians outside of Christianity.

46 The latest illustration of Orthodox ideas on this subject we have

met with is contained in a little tract which has fallen in our way,

containing “extracts from a sermon addressed to the students in the

United Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Xenia, Ohio, by Rev.

William Davidson.” It begins in this somewhat enigmatical way:—

“It is an unspeakably terrible thing for any one—for even a youth or

a heathen—to be _lost_.”

Why this limiting particle “even” is introduced is not explained. It

seems to be implied either that a youth and a heathen have not as

much to lose as others, or else that we are not bound to feel so

much for their loss as for that of others. After a little poetry

(which we omit, as it is altogether too stern a matter for any

sentimental ornament), Mr. Davidson proceeds:—

“Nor is this all to those who suffer _least_. It is not only the

loss of all, and a horrible lake of ever-burning fire, but there are

_horrible objects_, filling every sense and every faculty; and there

are _horrible engines and instruments of torture_. There are the

‘chains of darkness,’ thick, heavy, hard, and smothering as the

gloom of blank and black despair—chains strong as the cords of

omnipotence, hot as the crisping flames of vengeance, indestructible

and eternal as justice. With chains like these, every iron link

burning into the throbbing heart, is bound each doomed, damned soul,

on a bed of burning marl, under an iron roof, riven with tempests,

and dripping with torrents of unquenchable fire.”

The object of the preacher being to make as terrific a picture as

possible, he accumulates these material images of bodily torment in

order to excite the imagination to the utmost. We can conceive of

his writing these sentences carefully in his comfortable study, in

an easy chair, by the side of a cheerful fire, with a smile of

self-complacency, as he selects each striking expression. Then he

proceeds:—

“Nor is this all. Unmortified appetites, hungry as death, insatiable

as the grave, torture it. Every passion burning, an unsealed volcano

in the heart. Every base lust a tiger unchained—a worm undying, let

loose to prey on soul and body. Pride, vanity, envy, shame,

treachery, deceit, falsehood, fell revenge, and black despair,

malice, and every unholy emotion, are so many springs of

excruciating and ever-increasing agonies, are so many hot and

stifling winds, tossing the swooning, sweltering soul on waves of

fire. And there will be deadly hunger, but no food; parching thirst,

but no water; eternal fatigue, but no rest; eternal lust of sensuous

and intellectual pleasures, but no gratification. And there will be

_terrible companions_, or rather _foes_, there. Eternal longings

after society, but no companion, no love, and no sympathy there.

Every one utterly selfish, hateful, and hating. Every one cunning,

false, malignant, fierce, fell, and devilish. All commingle in the

confusion and the carnage of one wide-spread, pitiless, truceless,

desperate strife. And there will be terrible sights and sounds

there. Fathers and sons, pastors and people, husbands and wives,

brothers and sisters, with swollen veins and bloodshot eyes,

straining towards each other’s throats and hearts, reprobate men,

and devils in form and features, hideous to as great a degree as are

the beauties of the blest in heaven beautiful. And there are groans

and curses, and everlasting wailings, as harsh and horrible as

heaven’s songs, shouts, and anthems are sweet, joyous, and

enrapturing. And there will be terrible displays of the divine power

and skill, and infinitely awful displays of merciless and omnipotent

justice, in the punishment of that rebel crew, that generation of

moral vipers full grown, that congregation of moral monsters.”

All this, however, is not enough. It is necessary to go further, and

represent God in the character of the devil, in order to complete

the picture.

“Upon such an assembly, God, who is of purer eyes than to behold

iniquity, cannot look but with utter detestation. His wrath shall

come up in his face. His face shall be red in his anger. He will

whet his glittering sword, and his hand shall take hold on

vengeance; and he shall recompense. He shall launch forth his

lightnings, and shoot abroad his arrows. He shall unseal all his

fountains, and pour out his tumbling cataracts of vengeance. He

shall build his batteries aloft, and thunder upon them from the

heavens. His eye shall not pity them, nor shall his soul spare for

their crying. The day of vengeance is in his heart, and it is what

he has his heart set on. He will delight in it. He will show his

wrath, and _make his power known_. That infinite power has never

been fully made known yet; but it will be then. It is but a little

that we see of it in creation and providence; but we shall see it,

fully revealed, in the destruction of that rebel crew. He will tread

them in his anger, and trample them in his fury, and will stain his

raiment with their blood. The cup of the wine of his fierce wrath

shall contain no mixture of mercy at all. And they will not be able

to resist that wrath, nor will they be able to endure it; but they

shall, in soul and body, sink wholly down into the _second death_.

The iron heel of omnipotent and triumphing justice, pitiless and

rejoicing, shall tread them down, and crush them lower still, and

lower ever, in that burning pit which knows no bottom. All this, and

more and worse, do the Scriptures declare; and that preacher who

hesitates to proclaim it has forsworn his soul, and is a traitor to

his trust.”

Now, it is simple truth to say that the blasphemer and profane

swearer who spends fifty years in cursing God and Christ is not so

blasphemous as the man who writes such sentences as these about the

Almighty, and utters them to young men as a preparation for their

work in the ministry. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah shall rise up

in the day of judgment against those who speak thus of God, and

shall condemn them. The Pagans, who represent their gods as horrid

idols, pleased with blood and slaughter, have an excuse, which Mr.

Davidson has not, for they do not have the gospel of the Lord Jesus

in their hands. Thus he continues:—

“And _all this shall be forever_. It shall never, never end. (Matt.

ch. 25.) The wicked go away into everlasting torments. This is a

bitter ingredient in their cup of wormwood, a more terrible thing in

their terrible doom. If after enduring it all for twice ten thousand

times ten thousand years, they might have a deliverance, or at least

some abatement, it were less terrible. But this may never, never be.

Their estate is remediless. There is a great gulf fixed, and they

cannot pass from thence. Or, if after suffering all this as many

years as there are aqueous particles in air and ocean, they might

then be delivered, or if, after repeating that amazing period as

many times as there are sand-grains in the globe, they might then be

delivered, there would be _some_ hope. Or, if you multiply this

latter sum—too infinite to be expressed by figures, and too

limitless to be comprehended by angels—by the number of atoms that

compose the universe, and there might be deliverance when they had

passed those amazing, abysmal gulfs of duration, then there would be

_some_ hope. But no! when all is suffered and all is past, still all

beyond is eternity.”

47 To show how some _Roman Catholics_ write in the middle of the

nineteenth century, we quote the following from a Roman Catholic

book, published in England, by Rev. J. Furniss, being especially “a

book for children.” Wishing to spare our readers such horrors, we

put it here, advising no one of weak nerves to read its atrocious

descriptions.

“The fourth dungeon is ‘the boiling kettle.’ Listen: there is a

sound like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle which is

boiling? No. Then what is it? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling

in the scalded veins of that boy; the brain is boiling and bubbling

in his head; the marrow is boiling in his bones. The fifth dungeon

is the ‘red-hot oven,’ in which is a _little child_. Hear how it

screams to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the

fire; it beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its

little feet on the floor of the oven. To this child God was very

good. Very likely God saw that this child would get worse and worse,

and would never repent, and so it would have to be punished _much

more_ in hell. _So God in his mercy called it out of the world in

its early childhood._”

48 We take the following from the “Monthly Religious Magazine:”—

“The ‘Country Parson,’ in his late work, the ‘Autumn Holidays,’

contends that the fear of future punishment in another world has

little influence in deterring from crime. He ought to have added,

that the reason may be, that there is so little belief in any

spiritual world whatever, among men of grosser sensuality; and that

future punishment, as it is preached in the old theology, is so

arbitrary as to seem unreal, and is losing its power over all

thinking minds. The following case is cited from the experience of a

Scotch minister. No ministers, let it be remembered, preach the

literal flames of a local hell in tones more awful than they.

“His parishioners were sadly addicted to drinking to excess. Men and

women were given alike to this degrading vice. He did all he could

to repress it, but in vain. For many years he warned the drunkards,

in the most solemn manner, of the doom they might expect in another

world; but, so far as he knew, not a pot of ale or glass of spirits

the less was drunk in the parish in consequence of his

denunciations. Future woe melted into mist in the presence of a

replenished jug or a market-day. A happy thought struck the

clergyman. In the neighboring town, there was a clever medical man,

a vehement teetotaler; him he summoned to his aid. The doctor came,

and delivered a lecture on the _physical_ consequences of

drunkenness, illustrating his lecture with large diagrams, which

gave shocking representations of the stomach, lungs, heart, and

other vital organs as affected by alcohol. These things came home to

the drunkards, who had not cared a rush for final perdition. The

effect produced was tremendous. Almost all the men and women of the

parish took the total abstinence pledge; and since that day

drunkenness has nearly ceased in that parish. Nor was the

improvement evanescent; it has lasted two or three years.”

49 So Erigena (quoted by Strauss), _De Divis Nat._ “Vera ratio docet,

nullum contrarium divinæ bonitati vitæque ac beatitudini posse esse

coeternum; divina siquidem bonitas consumet malitiam, æterna vita

absorbet mortem, beatitudo miseriam.”

50 The name given to them by Augustine (“Civ. Dei,” lib. 21, c. 17):

“Denique hujus sententiæ Patronos S. Augustinus appellat titulo non

incongruo, ‘Doctores Misericordes’ tractatque non inhumaniter.”

Thomas Burnet, “De Statu Mortuum et Resurgentium.” Chap. XI.

51 See Bretschneider, “Dogmatik,” and Strauss, “Christliche

Glaubenslehre.”

52 “Nos et angelos futuros dæmones si egerimus negligenter; et rursum

dæmones, si voluerint capere virtutes, pervenire ad angelicam

dignitatem.” Origen, quoted by Jerome.

53 “Nihil enim omnipotenti impossibile est, nec insanabile aliquid est

factori suo.”

54 “Quod tamen non ad subitum fieri, sed paulatim et per partes

intelligen dum est, infinitis et immensis labentibus sæculis, cum

sensim per singulos emendatio fuerit et correctio prosecuta,

præcurrentibus aliis, aliis insequentibus.” See these quotations in

Strauss, Hase, &c.

55 Matt. 25:46. The Greek word translated in the English as

“everlasting” punishment in the beginning of the verse, and as life

“eternal” at the end, is the same word (ἀιώνιος) in both places, and

should be translated “eternal” in both.

_ 56 Remorse_—from _mordeo_, to gnaw. So St. Thomas (Summa, Pars III. 2,

97): “Vermis non debet esse intelligi corporalis sed spiritualis,

qui est con scientiæ remorsus.”

57 “Pauci res ipsas, sed rerum imagines, tanquam in speculo, intuentur:

at res ipsas, facie ad faciem, ut dicitur, et ablato velo, visuri

sumus tandem si Deo placuerit, partim sub occasu hujusee mundi,

plenius autem in futuro.”—_Thomas Burnet_, De Statu Mortuorum et

Resurgentium Tractatus. Londini. Typis et impensis J. Hooke, in vico

vulgò dicto _Fleet Street_, 1737.—No one has spoken more powerfully

and eloquently than he against everlasting punishment, particularly

in the passage beginning “Nobis difficile est omnem exuere

humanitatem.” p. 309.

58 Is it not remarkable (as showing how little the New Testament has as

yet been really studied) that there should be so many discussions as

to the future doom of _the heathen_, when Jesus himself here

distinctly tells us what it will be. The word ἔθνη is the only word

in the New Testament which is ever translated _heathen_: wherever

the word _heathen_ occurs in our Bible, it is always this. Jesus

teaches that the heathen (inside and outside of Christendom) will be

judged _according to their humanity_, their obedience to the law

written in their hearts; and he shows that this is coincident with

the law of Christianity. So, when the Church of England says (in its

18th article) that “they also are to be had accursed that presume to

say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect he professeth,

so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law and

the light of nature;” it denounces this curse on Christ himself, and

thus proves conclusively that it is not speaking by the Spirit of

God, since “no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus

accursed.” (1 Cor. 12:3) This comes of the habit (happily less

common now than formerly) of throwing about curses at random,

against those who differ from our opinions. Some of them may thus,

accidentally, hit the Master himself. It is, perhaps, of less

consequence that this anathema also touches the apostle Paul, who

declares that the heathen who have not the law are a law to

themselves when they do right, and are absolved by their conscience.

(Rom. 2:14.)

59 Origen, Homil. in Levit. 7:2. “Salvator meus luget etiam nunc

peccata mea; Salvator meus lætari non potest, donec ego in

iniquitate permaneo. Non vult solus in regno Dei bibere vinum

lætitiæ—nos expectat.”

60 Guericke, Christ. Symbolik, § 70.

61 “Ecclesia enim est cœtus hominum ita visibilis et palpabilis ut est

cœtus populi Romani, vel regnum Galliæ, aut respublica Venetorum.”

Bellarmin. Eccles. Milit. c. 2.

62 Moehler, Symbolism, § 36.

63 “Bonos et malos ad ecclesiam pertinere Catholica fides vere et

constante affirmat.” Cat. Rom.

64 The chief passage in proof of this, as is well known, is Matt.

16:18, 19 “Thou art Peter,” &c. But even Augustine, the great light

of the Latin Church, says that “Peter was not the Rock, but Christ

was the Rock.” (Neander, vol. ii. p. 168.) The same power was given

to the other apostles. Matt. 18:18. John 20:23. Rev. 21:14.

65 Le Protestantisme Libéral par le Pasteur Bost. Paris, Baillière,

1865.

66 “Il est de fait que le Catholicisme, qui est essentiellement un

principe d’authorité, ne sait pas dire où reside cette authorité.”

67 “Thirty-nine Articles, art. xix.” So Augs. Conf. art. 7:

“Congregatio sanctorum, in qua evangelium recte docetur, et recte

administrantur sacramenta.” But it may be asked, Who is to decide on

the “_recte_”?

68 In the remarkable work “Ecce Homo”.

69 Tholuck, in his charming work on the Sermon on the Mount, speaks

thus (“_Bergpredigt Christ. von A. Tholuck._”) “Two principal

defects are found in the usual treatment of this doctrine: first,

the different aspects and relations of the kingdom of God are by

many considered as different _meanings_ of the word, and are left

standing side by side, without any attempt to ground their unity in

some fundamental idea. Or, secondly, and still worse, a single

aspect of the term is taken up, and the rest are wholly neglected.

Examples of the first defect are to be found in Zwingle, in his note

to John 3:3. (Here the kingdom of God is considered as divine

doctrine and preaching of the gospel, as in Luke 18; sometimes it is

taken for eternal life, Matt. 25; Luke 14; sometimes for the church

and congregation of the faithful, as Matt. 13:24.) The later

lexicographers, as Schleusner and Bretschneider, have not avoided

these vague statements; and the last of them is particularly

defective in his article on this phrase. Trahl more correctly sums

up all these significations of the word thus: ‘Happiness, present

and future, obtained through Christ.’ But in this definition the

notion of ‘a kingdom’ is omitted. The opposite defect of taking only

one of the meanings of the matter, to the neglect of the rest, is to

be found, for example, in Koppe and Keil, according to whom the

expression relates merely to the future reign of the Messiah one day

to be established.

“Our own explanation of this expression starts from the phrase

‘kingdom of God,’ which explains the others, ‘kingdom of heaven’ and

‘kingdom of Christ.’ We think that the fundamental idea has been

grasped by none more correctly than by Origen among the ancients,

and by Calvin among the reformers. The phase of the idea principally

dwelt upon by the Church Fathers may be seen in their explanation of

the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which Augustine especially

examines profoundly. Most of them understand by it the realm of

glory, the future revelation of Christ. Origen alone, in his book on

Prayer, taken a more exact view of the subject. In like manner

Calvin, in his Commentary on the Harmony. So Luther, in his fine

Sermon on the Kingdom of God. Our own fundamental view we express

thus: ‘A community in which God reigns, not by force, but by being

obeyed freely from love, and which is therefore necessarily united

in itself by mutual love.’ The Saviour came upon the earth to found

such a community, and since it can only be completely established

after he has conquered all his enemies, this kingdom of Christ

belongs in its perfection to the other world.”

70 An eminent and learned gentleman told me of this conversation which

he had with a Roman priest: “When the wine of the Eucharist is

consecrated, it becomes the real blood of Christ—does it not?”

Priest, “It does.” “What, then, do you do with that which remains in

the cup, after communion?” Priest, “We drink it.” “Does not some

adhere to the glass?” Priest, “Yes; but we wash the glass.” “What do

you do with the water?” Priest, “We drink it.” “But must there not

yet remain, on the napkin, with which you wipe the glass, some

portion of the blood of Christ, even though it be an infinitesimal

portion?” Priest, “Yes.” “Then, might it not happen that when the

napkin is washed, this portion of Christ’s blood may go into the

water, and be poured on the ground, and be taken up by the root of a

plant—say a cabbage. Would, then, the flesh of that cabbage contain,

or would it not a portion of the blood of Christ?”

71 See, in the New York “Independent,” June 9, 1866, the account of the

“Recognition of Congregational Churches in Philadelphia,” where the

existence of this principle is admitted and defended by some eminent

Congregational ministers; admitted and deplored by others.

72 Twesten, “Vorlesungen,” &c., vol ii., p. 216. He adds to this

definition its Latin form, in which the words “certain

characteristics” stand “certis characteribus hypostaticis.”

73 Quoted by Schleiermacher, “Glaubenslehre,” § 170.

74 See the full discussions of these terms in Twesten (as above), Hase,

“Christl. Glaubenslehre,” § 56. Strauss, “Christl. Glaubenslehre,”

vol. i. Hase, “Dogmatik,” &c.

75 Dogmatik, § 239.

76 Augustine (de Trinit.), says, “One life in man, but three

faculties—memory, intelligence, will.” But how if this is bad

psychology?

77 Erigena, “The Father in the soul, the Son in the reason, the Spirit

in the sense—this makes the most luminous illustration.”

78 Abelard (quoted by Strauss).

79 Richard St. Victor (quoted by Hase), “There can be no possible

communion of affection between a less number than three persons.” So

Augustine, “Cum aliquid amo, tria sunt—_ego_, et _quod_ amo, et ipse

_amor_.” Such illustrations are hardly satisfactory at the present

day. Poiret says the Father is “_Deus a se_,” the Son is “_Deus ex

se_,” the Holy Spirit “_Deus ad se refluens_.” Angelus Silecius

makes the Trinity a divine kiss. “God kisses himself—the Father

kisses, the Son is kissed, the Spirit is the kiss.”

80 Translated from the Latin in Hagenbach (Compend of the History of

Doctrines, vol. i. p. 289). We agree with Strauss, who says,

“Fürwahr, wer das _Symbolum Quidcunque_ beschworen hatte, der hatte

die Gesetze des menschlichen Denkens abgeschworen.” So the Pastor

Bost (Le Protestantisme Liberal), after giving the Creed, in a

somewhat different form, adds, “ubi insana faciunt, mysterium

appellant.”

81 “Incomprehensible,” Church of England Liturgy.

82 Or “each person by himself.” The word in the Latin is “sigillatim,”

a word not in most of the dictionaries, but in some of them made

equivalent to “singulatim.”

83 Tertullian said, we can call Christ “God” when we speak of him

alone; but if we mention him with the Father, then we must call the

Father “God,” and call Christ only “Lord.” “For a ray of light

shining into a room, we may call the sun shining there; but if we

speak of the sun at the same time, then we must distinguish the ray,

and call it not sun, but sunbeam.”

84 The decrees of the Council of Nice inclined to Sabellianism. The

term ὁμοούσιος (_of the same essence_) was a Sabellian term.

Sabellianism could, in fact, stand most of the tests of modern

Orthodoxy, since it maintains _three persons and one essence_, μίαν

ὑπόστασιν and τρία πρόσωπα; and Schleiermacher, in one of his most

elaborate treatises (Ueber den Gegensatz zwischen der

Sabellianischen und der Athanasianischen Vorstellung von der

Trinitat. Theolog. Zeitschrift. Berlin, 1822), has sought to

rehabilitate Sabellianism. Moses Stuart translated this treatise,

and plainly advocated a similar view. Hase (Kirchengeschichte, § 91)

defines the view of Sabellius as making “Father, Son, and Spirit the

different forms of revelation of the Supreme Unity unfolding itself

in the world history as the Triad.” Perhaps (see Baur) the chief

peculiarity of Sabellius is in making the Triad begin and end with

the process of revelation. The Monad is God in himself: the Triad is

God in the process of self-revelation (Baur, “Christliche Lehre von

der Dreieinigkeit,” and “Lehrbuch der Christlichen

Dogmengeschichte”).

85 “Dictum est tamen tres personæ, non ut illud diceretur, sed ut ne

taceretur.” Aug. de. Trin., quoted by Hase, Dog. § 238.

86 John of Damascus (quoted by Twesten) made his boast of Christianity,

that it united what was true in Polytheism with what was true in

Judaism. “From the Jews,” he says, “we have the oneness of nature,

from the Greeks the distinction in hypostases.”

87 The substance of what follows in this section, appeared in the

“Christian Examiner.”

88 The _nature_ by which the heathen “do the things contained in the

law,” i.e., obey God, which is here (Rom. 2:15) called “the law

written in the heart,” is in Rom. 7:23 called the “law of the mind.”

Olshausen (a sufficiently Orthodox commentator), says, “It is wholly

false to understand ὅταν ποιῆ of a mere ideal _possibility_; the

apostle speaks evidently of a real and actual obedience. Paul infers

that, because there are actually pious heathen, they must have a law

which they obey.” _Ad locum._

89 We have no room to enter into an examination of this question at

this time, and can only give a general statement on this subject

from one of the authorities which happens to be at hand:—

“_All_ the Fathers” (before Augustine, fourth and fifth century)

“differed from Augustine in attributing freedom of will to man in

his present state. Thus Justin: ‘Every created being is so

constituted as to be capable of vice or virtue.’ Cyril of Jerusalem:

‘Know that thou hast a soul possessed of free will; for thou dost

not sin by birth (κατὰ γένεσιν), nor by fortune, but we sin by free

choice.’ _All_ the Latin Fathers also maintained that free will was

not lost after the fall. The Fathers also denied in part, that man

is born infected with Adam’s sin. Thus Athenagoras says in his

Apology, ‘Man is in a good state, not only in respect to his

Creator, but also in respect to his natural generation.’ ”—Wiggers,

_Augustinism and Pelagianism_. Translated by Rev. Ralph Emerson,

Professor in the Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass.

90 “Abi ad Jordonum, et Trinitatem disce,” was on early notion.

91 Dr. Horace Bushnell, a favorite authority with Dr. Huntington, whom

Dr. Huntington quotes largely, and whose views he earnestly

recommends, gives us his testimony to this point, thus (“God in

Christ,” pp. 130, 131):—

“A very large portion of Christian teachers, together with the

general mass of disciples, undoubtedly hold three real living

persons in the interior nature of God; that is, three

consciousnesses, wills, hearts, understandings.”

“_A very large portion of Christian teachers_” hold, then, to a

belief in three Gods; and with them is joined “_the general mass of

the disciples_.” The only Unity held by these teachers is, he goes

on to say, “a social Unity.” Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are, in

their view, socially united only, and preside in that way, as a kind

of celestial Tritheocracy, over the world. This heresy, he says,

“because of its clear opposition to Unitarianism, is counted safe,

and never treated as a heresy.” That is, the Christian Church allows

the belief in _three Gods_, and will not discipline those who hold

that opinion; but, if you believe strictly and only in _one God_,

you cannot be saved!

92 Dr. Bushnell goes on to say (p. 133), “While the Unity is thus

confused and lost in the threeness, perhaps I should admit that the

threeness sometimes appears to be clouded or obscured by the Unity.

Thus it is sometimes protested, that in the word, ‘person’ nothing

is meant beyond a threefold distinction; though it will always be

observed, that nothing is really meant by the protestation; that the

protester goes on to speak and to reason of the three, not as being

only somewhats or distinctions, but as metaphysical and real

persons.... Indeed, it is a somewhat curious fact in theology, that

the class of teachers who protest over the word ‘person,’ declaring

that they mean only a _threefold distinction_, cannot show that

there is really a hair’s breadth of difference between their

doctrine and the doctrine asserted by many of the later Unitarians.”

93 “It has often been asserted _and admitted_,” says Tweaten, one of

the strongest of modern Trinitarians, “that even the principal

notions about which the Church doctrine turns are foreign to the New

Testament; as οὐσία and ὑπόστασις, τρόπος ὑπάρξεως and ἀποκαλύψεως,

τριάς and ὁμοούσια.”(Twesten: Dogmatik, vol. ii. p. 281.)

94 “Who will venture to say that any of the definitions heretofore

given of personality in the Godhead, in Itself considered,—such

definitions as have their basis in the Nicene or Athanasian

Creed,—are intelligible and satisfactory to the mind? At least, I

can truly say, that I have not been able to find them, if they do in

fact exist; nor, so far as I know, has any one been able, by any

commentary on them, to make them clear and satisfactory.” (Prof.

Stuart, Biblical Repository, April, 1835. See Wilson, Trin. Test.,

p. 272.)

95 See the creed in Hagenbach (History of Doct., vol. i. p. 208): “Θεος

ἐκ Θεοῦ, φῶς ἐκ φωτὸς, Θεον ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ.”

96 Thus speaks Dr. Bushnell on this head (“God in Christ,” p. 139):—

“Besides, it is another source of mental confusion, connected with

this view of three metaphysical persons, that, though they are all

declared to be infinite and equal, they really are not so. The

proper deity of Christ is not held in this view. He is begotten,

sent, supported, directed, by the Father, in such a sense as really

annihilates his deity. This has been shown in a truly searching and

convincing manner by Schleiermacher, in his historical essay on the

Trinity; and, indeed, you will see at it at a glance, that this view

of a metaphysical Trinity of persons breaks down in the very point

which is commonly regarded as its excellence—its assertion of the

proper deity of Christ.”