divines of the Church of England on the very points of accusation
against Unitarianism. You are aware of the place that the Atonement
holds in Evangelical preaching. Listen then to the new party in the
Church, the leaders of which are, one of them, the Oxford Professor of
Hebrew and a Canon of Christ Church, and the others distinguished both
in the Church and in the University. These are their words:—“We now
proceed to the consideration of a subject most important in this point
of view,—the prevailing notion of bringing forward the Atonement
explicitly and prominently on all occasions. It is evidently quite
opposed to what we consider the teaching of Scripture, nor do we find
any sanction for it in the gospels. _If_ the Epistles of St. Paul
_appear_ to favour it, it is only at first sight.”[33] Again, you are
aware of the importance attached to the doctrine of Justification by
Faith, that test, as it is described, of a rising or a falling church.
Listen then once more to one of the heads of the Oxford party:—“The
instrument of our righteousness, I would maintain, is _holy baptism_.
_Our Church_ considers it to be the _Sacrament of Baptism_; _they_ (the
Reformers) consider it to be _Faith_. ***Christians are justified by the
communication of an inward, most sacred, and most mysterious gift. From
the very time of baptism they are temples of the Holy Ghost.*** Faith,
then, being the appointed representative of baptism, derives its
authority and virtue from that which it represents. It is justifying
_because of baptism_; it is the faith of the baptized, of the
regenerate, of the justified. Faith does not precede justification; but
justification precedes faith, and makes it justifying.”[34] I must quote
one other sentiment of this Oxford section of the English Protestant
Church, respecting the MASS:—“At the time of the Reformation, we, in
common with all the West, possessed the rite of the Roman Church, or St.
Peter’s Liturgy. This _sacred_, and _most precious_ monument, then of
the Apostles, our reformers received whole and entire from their
predecessors, and _they mutilated the tradition_ of 1500 years.”[35] Now
it only bears out my argument that this movement of Trinitarianism is in
the direction of Popery.
Such being the doctrinal uniformity of the Church of England, where then
is the infallible authority that is to put me in possession of those
doctrinal ideas, that absolute truth, without which I cannot be saved?
Having got an inspired Bible, I still want an inspired Interpreter, who,
out of all the possible meanings that the words will bear, will set
aside all the wrong ones, and select that one interpretation which, in
the shape of doctrine, God has made the source of safety. Where is this
Interpreter to be found? Where am I to look for this infallible
authority, which is to explain to me the exact sense of the Bible,
without which I cannot be saved, and to acquaint me with the very ideas
of God? Is it the Church of England that is to do me this important
service; to be my infallible guide through the possible meanings of
words; and to present me with the one creed that will operate as a charm
for my salvation? Oh no! for the Church is Protestant, and recognizes
the sufficiency of Scripture, and the right of free inquiry, and rails
at the Pope because he denies these things. But still I ask, if I cannot
be saved without this doctrinal truth, where am I to find it, and how
can I feel certain that I have it? A Roman Catholic would relieve me of
my difficulties. He would treat me more kindly, and with an ampler
provision for my security, than do the divines of the English Church.
They tell me that my salvation depends upon my having the true creed,
and then they leave me in the dark, without any means of ascertaining
what the true creed is, and whether I have it or not. The Roman
Catholics, on the other hand, seeing that exact truth is necessary, take
care to provide for me an infallible Judge of truth. They are merciful
in the accuracy of their provisions for relieving my fears, when
compared with the worse than Egyptian inconsistency, the contradictory
tyranny of my Protestant taskmasters. The Egyptians asked for bricks,
and provided no straw. The Church of England asks for absolute Truth,
and provides no judge of Truth. And this it does in the face of the fact
that, not even to its own clergymen is the inspired Bible a source of
certainty: that three distinctly marked divisions now constitute the
Unity of the Church, and dwell, not peaceably, together.
To any man, then, who believes that doctrinal convictions are the
essentials of Christianity, there is no escape from Popery. Out of
Popery, there is no Church that professes to have interpreted Scripture
with infallible certainty. If I am to be saved by a true creed, show me
the divinely appointed tribunal, and let me bow down before it. But do
not tell me, unless you are a Roman Catholic, that I must be saved by
Truth, and that your Truth is the one to which I must bow down my soul,
or perish everlastingly. One man’s Truth is as good as another man’s
Truth, unless there is a divinely appointed tribunal to judge between
them.[36] Where is this tribunal? I know it is supposed to be in the
Roman Catholic Church; and I know that the English Church, if it
possessed such a tribunal, could not speak with a whit more confidence
than it does. I enter it then as my second indictment against the
practice of Trinitarianism, that by building the Church of Christ upon
the foundation of a doctrinal uniformity, it is an ally of Popery; that
if it was consistent with itself, it would be Popish altogether; and
that this is not a mere tendency but actually taking effect, is
manifested in that Church which is most open to the temptations of
spiritual ambition, by its gradual and lately accelerating movements in
the direction of Roman Catholicism. I know that the Evangelicals
denounce the Oxford modification of Popery, but they are both of one
spirit, and neither will find their natural issues until they fall into
the arms of the infallible Church, and leave whatever Protestantism
still remains in the land, unencumbered by their presence.
Listen to some of the Clergymen of the Church of England, and tell me,
can you distinguish their tones from the tones of Popery? I have lately
done so. I heard this language, I mean language to this effect:
“Unitarians think our pity insulting, because they are not conscious of
requiring of it: but when Jesus wept over Jerusalem, was his pity an
insult to those who had no sympathy with the sources of his tears?” So
that we are left to infer, first, that he who uses this language knows
our need as fully as Jesus did, when amid the brief acclaim of his
followers, he forgot the momentary triumph, and his sympathy gushed out
in tears wept over the doomed city—and, secondly, that the speculative
errors of Unitarians, supposing them to be such, require tears of the
same description as did the crimes of Jerusalem. Did Jesus ever weep for
errors of opinion; over Samaritan heresies for instance? “Ye know not
what manner of spirit ye are of. The Son of Man is not come to destroy
men’s lives; but to save them.”
Again I heard, in substance, this language, and could not distinguish it
from Popery. “Christianity must have its essentials; these to us are the
Deity of Christ; the corruption of human nature; and the remedy of a
vicarious sacrifice. The Unitarians who deny these points we therefore
do not hold to be Christians, and not believing them to be so, we
plainly tell them so.” And accordingly they treat us as if we were not.
Now I acknowledge that this is entirely consistent upon their part. They
make the essentials of Christianity to consist in doctrinal ideas, and
consequently, whether they choose it or not, and almost without knowing
it, they are forced to assume the tones of Popish Infallibility, and to
decide authoritatively, by their metaphysical standard, who are
Christians and who are not. I am quite aware that this is not
intentional arrogance on their part, but a necessity in which their
first principles involve them. They cannot begin with a Salvation
through creeds, without ending in Popery; and of all the forms of
Popery, that which professes Protestantism, is the most offensive.
It was a fresh proof to me of the authoritative character which
Trinitarianism by necessity assumes, when I heard naturally and
unconsciously the same kind of doctrinal compactness ascribed to
ourselves, as if a church could not exist without a fixed creed; and
quotations from all sorts of minds brought forward, without a suspicion,
but they were all received among us as recognized standards of opinion.
There were Arians and Humanitarians, Necessarians and Libertarians, and
one foreign writer, who, as I am informed, was no Christian at all—and
all these were appealed to as standards of Unitarianism. Now we
certainly glory in it that our religion does not destroy our
individuality; that in consistency with the great principle of Christ
being our Leader, we tolerate freely intellectual differences, and
encourage the virtues of free thought and speech; but it is a little
unfortunate, and a little unfair, if the fundamental principles of
Unitarian Theology and Religion are to be answerable, with their life,
for all the sayings of all the Unitarians from Marcion and the Ebionites
down to the present day. Take one form of Unitarianism as it is
represented by Priestley; or take another and better form of it as it is
represented by Channing; but do not confuse in one two minds so
radically different, and call a combination which never had existence,
the Unitarian Faith. It was owing to this Popish idea that all Religions
must have a doctrinal compactness, that I heard a sentiment of
Priestley’s, which I entirely disown, imputing idolatry to Trinitarians,
ascribed to all Unitarians. If Unitarians worshipped Christ not
believing him to be God _they_ would be idolaters: but Trinitarians
worshipping one God in three persons, and still believing him to be one,
are as certainly not Polytheists. Again I heard the Improved Version
stated to be the Unitarian Bible: and that the Unitarians not finding
their favourite doctrines in the actual Bible made a Bible for
themselves. Now let it be known that this new Bible is simply an English
Version of the New Testament having for its basis or model a translation
made by an Archbishop of the United Church of England and Ireland, a
circumstance which we were not told; that it is founded upon the
translation of Archbishop Newcome; that it is not used in Unitarian
worship and possesses no authority amongst us except such as it may
derive from its just merits, which are not generally rated by us as very
high: and lastly, that no one is answerable for it except its
editors,[37] and not even they any longer than they choose. And yet, one
would suppose, that the Church of England divines might be sufficiently
conversant with varieties of opinion, even in a church more strictly
bound than ours, and ought not to fall into the error of taking any book
whatever, or any man whatever, as the standards of a faith. With all our
differences I am not aware that our bond of union covers wider varieties
of opinion on the great questions of Theology and Criticism, than those
which separate Bishop Marsh, Bishop Butler of Durham, Archdeacon Paley,
to say nothing of the older and nobler school of Sherlock and
Barrow,[38] Tillotson and Taylor, from the modern Evangelical Divines;
and both from the Oxford approach to Popery, a late movement in the
direction which we have now endeavoured to show is the destined path of
Creeds.
But I shall be asked, has Christianity no essentials, and may a man
believe anything he likes, and yet be a Christian? I answer that the
essential belief of a Christian is the belief that Jesus Christ is the
moral image of God; that to be one with him is to be one with his Father
and become fitted for that Heaven in harmony with which his mind was
made; and that any doctrinal ideas which a man can hold in consistency
with this act of spiritual allegiance, he may hold, and yet be a
Christian.
And yet we do not hold that all doctrines are indifferent, for we think
that some are nearer than others to the great realities of God; that
some, more than others, are in harmony with the mind of Christ; that
some more than others give us solemn and inspiring views of the infinite
Spirit; worthy conceptions of the mission and offices of Jesus, and
elevating sympathies with his character; sublime and true ideas of Duty;
peaceful yet awful convictions of the retributions of God; and therefore
are more effectual to build us up in the oneness with his Father and
with himself, which is the sublimest aim of Christ. Other views may
operate powerfully on those who hold them; but as long as they do not
accord with our best ideas of perfection, with our noblest views of the
character of Jesus and of God, they cannot confer upon _us_ that
salvation which we take to be the essence of the Gospel, assimilation to
the infinite Spirit as we know him through his Image, perfect Trust in
our heavenly Father, as he is manifested in Christ.
I warn you against an imposture that is practised upon you, not
knowingly but ignorantly, in the use that is made of such expressions
as, “salvation by faith and not by works,” and St. Paul’s anathema on
those who preached another gospel, which he declared was not another
_gospel_, that is, that it did not contain “_glad tidings_,” and was
therefore no gospel at all. Now salvation by “faith” does not mean
salvation by doctrines, but by TRUST in Jesus Christ as our spiritual
Master, God’s representative to man; and exemption from “works” does not
mean exemption from moral excellence, but exemption from all the works
and conditions of the Jewish Law, from which, with all the bondage of
its sacrifices, services and exactions, the Gospel, as offered by
Christ, was the glad tidings of deliverance. It is on this account that
St. Paul denounces any man who preaches another gospel, that is, who
adds to it unspiritual conditions which would bring men again under the
yoke of the Law, and change the glad tidings of Liberty into the burdens
of a woeful superstition. “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be
circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.” To go back to the bondage
of the law, is to make the spiritual liberty of Christ’s freemen of no
avail. Now the scriptural knowledge that is necessary for these
explanations is of the scantiest measure; that Faith means moral Trust,
spiritual acceptance and confidence; that works frequently mean, when
used by Paul, not Christian holiness but Jewish Ceremonies; and that the
Gospel means not a scheme of doctrines but the glad Message of
deliverance from every yoke of bondage: and yet the false meanings that
lurk under these words, are again and again thrust forward as Scripture
evidence for doctrines entirely alien to their spirit. Elsewhere, would
the anathema of the noble-minded Apostle be ready to descend upon all
other additions as well as Jewish ones, to Christ’s gospel of spiritual
liberty?[39]
I have contrasted the fundamental principles of Trinitarian and
Unitarian Christianity, and, without entering into their peculiar
tenets, I have shown that the practical tendency of Trinitarianism is to
disunite the Church of Christ; to lead to Popery as the only known
provision for doctrinal certainty; and to preach “another gospel,”
which, to us at least, is no gospel at all, and has defaced the grace
and glory of the original message. I have now to proceed to the
particular views in which these principles respectively issue when
applied to the examination of the Scriptures, and to contrast the
practical tendencies of the distinguishing doctrines of Unitarian and
Trinitarian Christianity. The Unitarians think that Trinitarianism, with
all its dependent ideas, is not a system which the Scriptures would of
their own accord naturally suggest to a free mind, examining them
without prejudice or fear, in a spirit of confidingness in God and in
truth; and that its peculiar set of notions are chiefly arrived at by
inferences drawn from the Scriptures in the spirit of preconceived
theories, and under the intimidation of priest-taught fears. We
recognize nothing but the priestly spirit in all those systems whose cry
is, “unless you believe this and unless you believe that, you cannot be
saved;” and acknowledging no salvation but that of a spirit morally one
with God and with his Christ, salvation from superstition, and salvation
from sin, and salvation from unconfiding fears; and believing that all
truth is one and from God, we confidently appeal, in confirmation of our
scriptural soundness, to that great and independent test of Truth which
is furnished by the moral tendencies of doctrines. I shall aim to show
that Unitarianism has more power both with the understanding and the
heart; that the Intellect which Trinitarianism has no resource but to
disparage, and the Reason at which I lately heard, doubtless not without
good reasons, such melancholy scoffs (for what can be more melancholy
than to hear a man scoffing at Reason, and attempting to _reason_ men
into a contempt for Reason?), that this Reason, our ray of the divine
mind, _we_ enlist on the side of our religion and of our souls;—that the
spiritual nature which Trinitarianism insults and scorns we contemplate
with trembling reverence as made for holiness and for God;—and that the
personal holiness and love, the Christ-like spirit and the Christ-like
life to which Trinitarianism assigns a secondary place, and in
disparagement of which it can stumble, as happened on a late occasion,
on a condemnation of the Scripture law, that every man shall be judged
according to his works[40]—this holy living and dying _we_ set forth as
the very salvation of the sons of God, the very way of spiritual safety
trodden by the Forerunner and the Saviour, even Christ the righteous.
I desire to be understood to affirm nothing about the actual characters
of those who hold views which I think unfriendly to the soul. The
tendencies of opinions may be counteracted: but still wherever there is
error, that is, wherever there is anything not conformed to the mind of
God, _there_ there is, to the extent of its agency, a principle of evil,
or at least of misdirection, at the fountain of our life, though there
may also be sweetening influences which are strong enough to neutralize
its power. Trinitarianism does not produce all its natural fruits,
though it produces some that are sufficiently deplorable, because it is
kept in check by the better principles of our nature, with which it is
not in alliance. It is vain to pretend that a man’s belief has no
influence upon his life and upon his soul. The belief of a man is that
which animates his sentiments, and peoples his imagination, and provides
objects for his heart;—and if he bears no impress of it upon his
character, it is only because it forms no real part of his spiritual
existence, it is not written upon the living tablets of the mind.
Believing then that our views of Truth, when they become a part of our
living thoughts, woven into the spiritual frame and the daily food of
the mind, _do_ exercise a controlling influence over the whole being, it
is our ardent desire to discover those views of the Gospel which put
forth most mightily this power over the heart, and we openly confess,
that it is because we believe it possesses an unrivalled efficacy to
save the soul, by bringing it into a holy and trustful union with God
and Christ, that we value unspeakably, and adhere to through all
temptation and scorn, the faith that is in us. To us it is the light, as
it is the gift of God, and we will not abandon it, so long as it points
Conscience to the things that are before; leads us up to God through the
love and imitation of his Christ; speaks with heavenly serenity of grand
and tranquillizing truths in moments of trial: and true to our spiritual
connections with Heaven, suffers our sins to have no peace, and our
virtues no fears.
I shall endeavour, briefly but distinctly, to bring out the prominent
points of difference between Unitarian and Trinitarian Christianity, in
their moral aspects.
And, first, Unitarianism alone puts forth the great view that the moral
and spiritual character of the mind itself is its own recompense, its
own glory, its own heaven; and that this harmony with God and with his
Christ is not the means of salvation only, but salvation itself.
Unitarianism alone receives the spiritual view of Christ that the
kingdom of Heaven is within us; and works not for outward wages, but to
make the inward soul a holy temple for the Spirit of God; that through
its purified affections Jesus, our best type of Heaven, may shed his own
peace, and that he and his Father may be able to love us, and come unto
us, and make their abode with us. Now you are aware that this qualifying
of ourselves for Heaven through heavenly frames of mind, is so prominent
a part of our faith, that it is actually converted into a charge against
us. I heard the Unitarians charged with a want of gospel humility for
regarding holy affections and a Christ-like life as the substance of the
hope of Heaven; and I thought on the words of the Apostle—“The kingdom
of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”[41]
This is not the salvation so loudly vaunted by Trinitarianism. It
assigns another office to Christ than that of leading men to God through
a resemblance to himself. Jesus stands to Trinitarians not principally
as the Inspirer of virtue, the quickener of holiest affections, the
guide of the heaven-bound spirit; but as bearing on his own person the
punishment due to their sins, and as performing in his own person the
righteousness that is imputed to them, and being transferred, by an act
of faith, makes good their claim to Heaven. Now these notions of Heaven
regard it as so much property, which one person may purchase and
transfer to another. Christ, by an act of self-sacrifice, becomes the
purchaser of Heaven, and gives a right of settlement in the blessed land
to every one who consents to regard his death as a substitution for his
own punishment, and his righteousness as a substitution for his own
virtues. There is no flattering unction that could be laid to the soul,
no drug to stupefy its life, that could more thoroughly turn it away
from the spiritual purposes of Jesus.[42] He lived that men might know
their own nature, and work out its glory for themselves. He lived that
he might rescue that nature from low views of its duties and its powers,
by showing humanity in the image of God. He bore his cross that men
might look to Calvary and behold the moral heroism of the meekest heart
when it trusts in God; with what serenity a filial faith can pass
through the vicissitudes of severest trial, and take the cup from the
hand of a Father, though he presents it from out the darkest cloud of
his providence. He died, because Death crossed his path of Duty, and not
to turn aside was part of his loyalty to the Spirit of Truth, “for this
cause was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth;”—he died that earth and heaven might
unite their influences on the human soul treading an uninterrupted path
to God, that its light might come from beyond the grave, and its hope
from the peace of a world that is never troubled; and yet, alas! for the
perversion—men are found to stand beneath the cross, and so far to
mistake the spirit of the celestial sufferer, as to appropriate, to
transfer to themselves, by an act of faith, its moral character, and to
call themselves the redeemed of Christ. Surely there is a “practical
importance” in the Unitarian controversy, if it warns men against these
notions of substitution, these unspiritual views of Heaven and Christ.
The worst of all delusions is that which turns us away from inward
holiness, inward qualifications for Heaven, and holds out to our too
ready grasp some foreign, some adventitious, and extrinsic hope. It is
right that we should rely on God, for his strength is our strength, and
his mercy _our_ supporting hope; it is right that we should love and
look unto Jesus, for his influences are our spiritual wealth, and his
path our bright and beaming way;—but where in Heaven or earth are we to
rest at last, but in what God and Christ do for us, in the formed
character of our own souls?