statement of the essentials of Christianity,—for the use of some
unevangelized nation, he would not, we may presume, habitually represent
the Son, in his very highest offices, as inferior to the Father, as
destitute of independent power, as without underived knowledge, and
possessed only of a secondary and awarded glory. At all events, these
representations would not be made without instant explanation; and the
writer would accuse himself of rashly periling the mysteries of God, if
he committed himself to such statements without guard or qualification,
in broad unlimited propositions. Yet these are precisely the phenomena
of Scripture. It is perpetually maintained by Trinitarians, that the
miracles of Christ were acts of power, inexplicable except by proper
Deity, united with his humanity; and that his superhuman wisdom was an
expression of that Divine Nature which blended itself with his mortal
constitution. If so, his miracles were wrought and his teachings
dictated by that element of his personality which was God,—that is, by
GOD THE SON;[244] but this, our Lord unequivocally denies; “The Son can
do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do;” “I can of mine
own self do nothing.”[245] “The words which I speak unto you, I speak
not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the
works;”[246] “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the
Father;”[247] “The works which the Father hath given me to
perform.”[248] These passages declare, with all the precision of which
language admits, that the wisdom and the might which dwelt in Christ,
were not those of the Son, but those of the Father; the incarnate God
had no concern with them, for they are ascribed exclusively to him who
never became incarnate. Indeed we ask, and we ask in vain, for any one
divine act or inspiration ascribed by our Lord to this humanized Deity
with whom his mortal nature was united: his teachings are one prolonged
declaration that the divinity that dwelleth within him was THE FATHER.
If he felt within him a co-equal Godhead, how could he make the
unqualified affirmation, “My Father is greater than all?”[249] Or can a
more specific disclaimer of Omniscience be framed than this; “Of that
day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels who are in Heaven,
NEITHER THE SON, but the Father?”[250] Dr. Adam Clarke, unable to resist
this overpowering text, expresses his suspicion that it is not
altogether genuine, and that the words, “neither the Son,” should be
expunged. It would appear that the temptations to “mutilation” are felt
by other parties than the Editors of the Improved Version. If it be
said, that in the passages which have been cited, the subordination
alleged of Christ, refers to his human nature, and his mediatorial
office, then it follows that his highest title may become the name of
what is called his lowest capacity; and if this be so, no medium of
verbal proof remains by which to establish any higher nature.[251] But
can any supposition be more monstrous than this; that whenever our Lord
used the familiar language of personality, and discoursed with the
peasants of Galilee, and the populace of Jerusalem, he was perpetually
performing a metaphysical resolution of himself into natures,
characters, and offices, and putting forth, now a phrase from the
divine, now another from the human capacity; here a sentence from the
pre-existent, and there another from the mediatorial compartment of his
individuality? And the absurdity is crowned, when writings, crowded thus
with mental reservations, are handed over to us as a _Revelation_.
(5.) Our last expectation from a Trinitarian Bible is this; that, since
with the incarnation began and ended the peculiar office of Christ’s
humanity, he will not be spoken of as man, in relation to the events
before or after this period.
The glory which our Lord is thought to have possessed before his
entrance into this world, was the essential, underived, inalienable
glory, which belonged to his Divinity; nor was his highest nature yet
blended with the suffering elements, or capable of being described by
the inferior titles, of his mediatorial office, or his mortal existence.
Yet is it under the designation of SON OF MAN that he is described,
according to the prevalent interpretation, as pre-existent; it is the
SON OF MAN who “was before,” in that state, whither he was to “ascend up
again;”[252] it was, “He that came down from Heaven,—even the SON OF
MAN, who is in Heaven.”[253] Whatever doubt there may be respecting the
precise import of this title, it certainly cannot be thought to denote
the separate divine nature of Christ, as it existed before the
incarnation. In perfect consistency with this language, it appears that
for the restoration of this original glory, Jesus declares himself
wholly dependent on the Father; “And now, O Father, glorify me with
thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world
was.”[254] Here, if there be truth in the Trinitarian hypothesis, it was
the man that prayed for a re-bestowal of that which the man never
possessed, and which the God never lost or could receive from another.
It must be admitted that no expression of dependence can be more solemn
and absolute, than that which pours itself forth in prayer; and if our
Lord was able to resume his former state, by the energy of his own
Omnipotence, this act of supplication loses all semblance of sincerity.
Yet, if here his dependence on the Father is acknowledged to be implied,
with what consistency can another passage, relating also to his
departure from earth to Heaven, be seized upon to prove that he _raised
himself_ from the dead, by that _inextinguishable_ and glorious power,
which, nevertheless, he entreats the Father to restore? If his proper
Deity brought back to life the crucified humanity, it was a mockery for
his manhood to concern itself in prayer, for the restoration of the
proper Deity. That his resurrection is not ascribed to inherent power of
his own, is evident, not merely from the habitual language of the
preachers of this great miracle, who declare without reserve that “this
Jesus hath _God raised up_;”[255] nor from the words of Paul, who calls
himself “an Apostle by Jesus Christ and _God the Father, who raised him
from the dead_;”[256] but even from the very text (when read without
curtailment) which is adduced to prove the contrary; “No man taketh it
(my life) from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again; _this commandment have I
received of my Father_.”[257] “The Messiah is privileged to be immortal;
and my seeming fall by hostile hands will neither disprove my claim to
the office, nor deprive it of this peculiar feature; my mission gives me
a right to live, which will not be forfeited, though I exercise the
right to die. Let no one think that my life is forced from me without
consent of my own will; you can no more take it from me, than you can
restore it to me. It is by the arrangement of the Father, whose will is
also mine, that I take my Messianic immortality, not at once, but
through a process of suffering and death.”
If we pass forward beyond the mortal life, to the final exaltation of
Christ, he is still presented to us undivested of his humanity. Listen
to the modern preachers of Orthodoxy, and they will tell you that the
judicial capacity of the Saviour could be filled by Deity alone; that to
pass judgment on an assembled world, to read the secrets of all hearts,
and allot their final doom, are offices demanding nothing less than
Omniscience, Omnipotence, Independence.[258] But from the Apostle Paul
we learn, that “God will judge the world in righteousness by that MAN
whom he hath ordained;”[259] and our Lord himself says, “I can of mine
own self do nothing; as I hear I judge;”[260] “The Father hath given him
authority to execute judgment also, BECAUSE HE IS THE SON OF MAN.”[261]
Nor is it the presumption of heresy alone that esteems it possible for
God to confer on a human being the requisites for so august an office;
for it is Archbishop Tillotson who says, “We may promise to ourselves a
fair and equal trial at the judgment of the Great Day, because we shall
then be judged by a man like ourselves. Our Saviour and judge himself
hath told us, that for this reason _God hath committed all judgment to
the Son, because he is the Son of man_. And this in human judgments is
accounted a great privilege, to be judged by those who are of the same
rank and condition with ourselves, and who are likely to understand
best, and most carefully to examine and consider all our circumstances,
and to render our case as if it were their own. So equitably doth God
deal with us, that we shall be acquitted or condemned by such a judge
as, according to human measures, we ourselves should have chosen, by one
in our own nature, who was made in all things like unto us, that only
excepted which would have rendered him incapable of being our judge,
because it would have made him a criminal like ourselves. And therefore
the Apostle offers this as a firm ground of assurance to us that God
will judge the world in righteousness, because this judgment shall be
administered by a man like ourselves; He hath, saith he, appointed a day
wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he
hath ordained,” &c.[262]
It is, then, in his humanity, that this high prerogative belongs to
Jesus. Yet are our opponents right in their assertion that, if there be
any office attributed to him, requiring divine perfection, it is this;
no higher exaltation remains, no superior glory is referred to him from
which, with any better reason, we can conclude his equality with the
Father. Human in this, he is human in all things.
Not one then of the proper characteristics of a Trinitarian Bible can be
found in the Scriptures; and it is vain for the Athanasian system to
claim their support. This conclusion can be subverted only in two ways;
either by showing, that the criteria which I have laid down, for
ascertaining the theology of the sacred writings, are unreasonable and
incorrect; or by showing, that the application of them does not yield
any of the results which I have stated. I say _any_ of the results; for
if _all the phenomena_ which I have assumed as tests, would be necessary
to give a Trinitarian complexion to the Scriptures, the absence of even
a portion of them would decide the controversy against our opponents’
scheme, whatever difficulties might remain to embarrass our own. If the
_list of criteria_ be thought materially wrong, let it be shown where
and why; let it be explained how there can be a _verbal revelation_ of
“distinctions,” without any distinctive names; how, without such
discriminative words, we are to know, _unless we assume the whole
doctrine to be proved_, when the human nature of Christ speaks, or is
spoken of, when the divine; how the poor, who first had the gospel
preached to them, ascertained this with the requisite degree of nicety;
and above all, we would request to be furnished with a better set of
criteria; and to be distinctly informed, _what scriptural phenomena
would be required, in order to disprove the Trinitarian scheme_. If, on
the other hand, I have erred in the _application_ of my tests, let it be
shown how far into the substance of the argument the error extends. I
cannot hope that the exposition which I have given will be found free
from mistake and inaccuracy; and let these be exposed with such severity
as they may deserve. Only let it be remembered, that the real question
is not about the skill of the advocate, but respecting the truth of the
scheme; and when all the errors of the one have been cleared away, let
it be still asked, in what condition stands the evidence of the other. I
have purposely taken my principal station on the least favourable ground
of the Unitarian argument; I have exhausted the strongest passages
adduced against our theology: and I have done this the more readily,
because these portions of scripture appear to possess an excellence and
beauty, which are obscured by their unresisted controversial repetition,
and marred by the lacerations of Orthodoxy.
And may we not, without immodesty, ask any candid Trinitarian, are these
passages so very plain and easy, are they so numerous, are our
interpretations so irrational and ignorant, as to justify the imputation
of deceit, of blasphemy, of wilful mutilation of the word of God, which
we are condemned perpetually to hear? As to that excellent man, who on
Wednesday last, treated in this way our most cherished convictions, and
our most innocent actions, I have said nothing in reply to his
accusations; for I well know them to have failed in benevolence, only
from excess of mistaken piety. Had he a little more power of
imagination, to put himself into the feelings and ideas of others,
doubtless he would understand both his Bible and his fellow-disciples
better than he does. Meanwhile, I would not stir, with the breath of
disrespect, one of his grey hairs; or by any severity of expostulation
disturb the peace of an old age, so affectionate and good as his. He and
we must ere long pass to a world, where the film will fall from the eye
of error, and we shall know, even as we are known.[263]
In conclusion, then, I revert with freshened persuasion, to the
statement with which I commenced. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, God hath
presented to us simply in his inspired humanity. Him we accept, not
indeed as very God, but as the true image of God, commissioned to show
what no written doctrinal record could declare, the entire moral
perfections of Deity. We accept,—not indeed his body, not the struggles
of his sensitive nature, not the travail of his soul, but his purity,
his tenderness, his absolute devotion to the great idea of right, his
patient and compassionate warfare against misery and guilt, as the most
distinct and beautiful expression of the Divine mind. The peculiar
office of Christ is to supply a new _moral_ image of Providence; and
everything therefore except the _moral_ complexion of his mind, we leave
behind as human and historical merely, and apply to no religious use. I
have already stated in what way nature and the gospel combine to bring
before us the great object of our trust and worship. The universe gives
us the scale of God, and Christ his Spirit. We climb to the Infinitude
of his nature by the awful pathway of the stars, where whole forests of
worlds silently quiver here and there, like a small leaf of light. We
dive into his Eternity, through the ocean waves of Time, that roll and
solemnly break on the imagination, as we trace the wrecks of departed
things upon our present globe. The scope of his Intellect, and the
majesty of his Rule, are seen in the tranquil order and everlasting
silence that reign through the fields of his volition. And the Spirit
that animates the whole is like that of the Prophet of Nazareth; the
thoughts that fly upon the swift light throughout creation, charged with
fates unnumbered, are like the healing mercies of One that passed no
sorrow by. The government of this world, its mysterious allotments of
good and ill, its successions of birth and death, its hopes of progress
and of peace, each life of individual or nation, is under the
administration of One, of whose rectitude and benevolence, whose
sympathy with all the holiest aspirations of our virtue and our love,
Christ is the appointed emblem. A faith that spreads around and within
the mind a Deity thus sublime and holy, feeds the light of every pure
affection, and presses with Omnipotent power on the conscience; and our
only prayer is, that we may walk as children of such light.
---------------------
NOTES.
---------------------
A.
_On Impossibility, Physical and Logical._
In order to break the force of all reasonings respecting the inherent
incredibility of the Trinitarian doctrine, the principle has been
frequently advanced, that a statement which would be contradictory, if
made respecting an object _within reach_ of our knowledge, cannot be
affirmed to be so, if applied to an object _beyond_ our knowledge; since
in the one case _we have_, in the other _we have not_, some experience
to guide our judgment, and serve as a criterion of truth. Thus, it is
said, to affirm of man, that his nature comprises more than one
personality, might, without presumption, be pronounced a contradiction;
because we are familiar with his constitution; but knowing nothing of
the mode of God’s existence, except what he is pleased to reveal, we
cannot prove the same statement to be contradictory, when made
respecting _his_ essence.
This rule, like all the Trinitarian reasonings on this subject, derives
its plausibility from an ambiguous use of terms. It has _one sense_ in
which it is true, but inapplicable to this subject; and _another_, in
which it is applicable, but false. The rule is sound or unsound,
according to the meaning which we assign to the word _contradiction_; a
word which, in other arguments besides this, has made dupes of men’s
understandings. There are obviously two kinds of contradiction:—one
relating to _questions of fact_, as when we say, it is contradictory to
experience that ice should continue solid in the fire; the other,
relating to questions of mere _thought_, as when we say, it is
contradictory to affirm that force is inert, or that the diameters of a
circle are unequal. The former of these suggests something _at variance
with the established order of causes and effects_, and constitutes _a
natural or physical_ impossibility; the latter suggests a _combination
of irreconcileable ideas_, constituting a _logical or metaphysical
impossibility_, or more properly, a _self_-contradiction.
It is almost self-evident that, in order to pronounce upon a physical
impossibility, we must possess _experience,_ and have a knowledge of the
properties of objects and successions of events external to us; and that
to pronounce on a metaphysical impossibility, we require only to have
the ideas to which it refers; of the coincidence or incompatibility of
which with each other, our own _consciousness_ is the sole judge. When I
deny that ice will remain frozen in the fire, I do so after frequent
observation of the effect of heat in reducing bodies, especially water,
from the solid to the liquid form; and in reliance on the intuitive
expectation which all men entertain, of like results from like causes.
Experience is the only justification of this denial; and _à priori_, no
belief could be held on the subject; a person introduced for the first
time to a piece of ice and to fire, could form no conjecture about the
changes which would follow on their juxtaposition. And as our judgment
in such cases has its origin, so does it find its limits, in experience;
and should it be affirmed that, in a distant planet, ice did not melt on
the application of fire, the right of denial would not extend to this
statement, because, our knowledge does not extend to the world to which
the phenomenon is referred. The natural state of mind, on hearing such
an announcement, might be expressed as follows; “If what you affirm be
true, either some _new cause_ must be called into operation,
counteracting the result which else would follow; or, some of the causes
existing here are withheld: the sequence, I am compelled to believe,
would be the same, unless the antecedents were _somehow_ different. Were
the fact even a miracle, this would still be true; for the introduction
of a new or different divine volition would be in itself a change in the
previous causes. But I am not authorized to pronounce the alleged fact
impossible; its variance from all the analogies of experience, justifies
me in demanding extraordinary evidence in its favour; but I do not say
that, in the infinite receptacle of causes unknown to the human
understanding, there cannot exist any from which such an effect might
arise.”
There is then, I conceive, _no physical_ impossibility, which might not
be rendered credible by adequate evidence; there is nothing, in the
constitution of our minds, to forbid its reception under certain
conditions of proof sufficiently cogent. It simply violates an
expectation which, though necessary and intuitive _before_ the fact, is
not incapable of correction _by_ the fact; it presents two successive
phenomena, dissimilar instead of similar; and between two occurrences,
allocated on different points of time, however much analogy may fail,
there can be no proper _contradiction_. The improbability that both
should be true, may attain a force _almost_, but never altogether
infinite; a force, therefore, surmountable by a greater. The thoughts
can at least entertain _the conception_ of them both; nor is it more
difficult to form the mental image of a piece of ice _unmelted_ on the
fire, than of the same substance melting away.
It is quite otherwise with a metaphysical impossibility or proper
contradiction. The variance is, in this case, not between _successive
phenomena_, but between _synchronous ideas_. We deny that the diameters
of a circle are unequal, without experience, without measurement, and
just as confidently respecting a circle in the remotest space, as
respecting one before our eyes. As soon as we have the ideas of
“circle,” “diameter,” “equality,” this judgment necessarily follows. Our
own consciousness makes us aware of the incompatibility between the idea
expressed by the word “circle,” and that expressed by the phrase
“unequal diameters;” the former word being simply _the name of a curve
having equal diameters_. The variance, in this case, is not between two
external occurrences, but between two notions within our own minds; and
simply _to have the notions_ is to _perceive their disagreement_. It
would be vain to urge upon us that, possibly, in regions of knowledge
beyond our reach, circles with unequal diameters might exist: we should
reply, that the words employed were merely the symbols of ideas in our
consciousness, between which we _felt_ agreement to be out of the
question; that so long as the words meant what they now mean, this must
continue to be the case; and that if there were any one, to whom the
same sound of speech suggested a truth instead of a falsehood, this
would only show, that the terms _did not stand for the same things_ with
him as with us. It will be observed that, in this case, we cannot even
attain _any conception_ of the thing affirmed; no mental image can be
formed of a circle with unequal diameters; make the diameters unequal,
and it is a circle no more.
A further analysis might, I believe, reduce more nearly under the same
class a physical and a metaphysical impossibility; and might show that
some of the language in which I have endeavoured to contrast them, is
not strictly correct. But the main difference, which the present
argument requires, (_viz._, that no experience can reconcile the terms
of a logical contradiction,) would only be brought out more clearly than
ever. I am aware, for instance, that the distinction which I have drawn
between my two examples,—that the latter deals with _ideas within us_,
the former with facts without us,—does not penetrate to the roots of the
question; that _external phenomena_ are nothing to us, till they become
_internal_; nothing, except through the perceptions and notions we form
of them; and that the variance therefore, even in the case of a physical
impossibility, must lie between our own ideas. I may accordingly be
reminded, that the notion of “melting with fire” is as essentially a
part of our idea of “ice,” as the notion of “equal diameters” is of our
idea of a “circle;” so that the final appeal might, with as much reason,
be made to our own consciousness in the one case as in the other. Might
it not be said, “so long as the word ice retains its meaning, the
proposition in question is a _self-contradiction_; for that word
signifies a certain substance that _will_ melt on the application of
heat?” This is true; and resolves the distinction which I have
endeavoured to explain into this form; the word “ice” may be kept open
to modifications of meaning, the word “circle” cannot. And the reason is
obvious. The idea of the material substance is a highly complex idea,
comprising the notion of many _independent_ properties, introduced to us
through several of our senses: such as solidity, crystalline form,
transparency, coldness, smoothness, whiteness, &c.; the quality of
fusion by heat is only _one among many_ of the ingredients composing the
conception; and should this even be found to be accidental, and be
withdrawn, the idea would still retain so vast a majority of its
elements, that its identity would not be lost, nor its name undergo
dismissal. But the notion of the circle is perfectly simple; being
_wholly made up_ of the idea of equal diameters, and of other properties
_dependent_ on this; so that if this be removed, the whole conception
disappears, and nothing remains to be denoted by the word. Hence, a
physical contradiction proposes to exclude from our notion of an object
or event one out of many of its constituents,—an alteration perfectly
akin to that which further experience itself often makes; a metaphysical
contradiction denies of a term _all_, or the _essential part_, of the
ideas attached to it. The materials for some sort of conception remain
in the one case, vanish in the other.