appear to vary their statements in a way which serves the ends of
controversy more than those of truth. Mr. Jones says that in the
passages which I have adduced, the Trinitarian hypothesis “finds no
hindrance whatever,” because the word SON denotes in them our Lord’s
_human and Mediatorial_ character. Mr. Bates denies that the word can
have any such meaning. In defending the supreme Divinity of Christ, as
well as of the Holy Spirit, from what is incorrectly called the
Baptismal _Form_, (“baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost,”) he begs us to observe that it is _not
into the name of Christ the Mediator_ that converts are to be
baptized. “Our Saviour’s words,” he affirms, “not only fail to
sanction, but _expressly exclude_, such a construction; for he does
not say, ‘the name of the Father and of _myself_,’ but ‘of THE SON,’
that is, of THE ETERNAL WORD.” Mr. Bates’s Lecture is not published;
but he is aware that this statement is correct. Since this name “_the
Son_” “expressly excludes” the Mediatorial character, and _must_ mean
the Eternal Word, may we ask Mr. Bates, how it is the Eternal Word did
not know the day and the hour, and could do nothing of himself?—_Mr.
Jones’s Lect._ p. 242.
Footnote 252:
John vi. 62.
Footnote 253:
Ib. iii. 13.
Footnote 254:
John xvii. 5.
Footnote 255:
Acts ii. 32.
Footnote 256:
Gal. i. 1.
Footnote 257:
John x. 18.
Footnote 258:
Wardlaw’s Discourses, iv. p. 117.
Footnote 259:
Acts xvii. 31.
Footnote 260:
John v. 30.
Footnote 261:
John v. 29. It is very difficult to determine whether this class of
passages is rightly interpreted as referring to a final and collective
judgment of mankind. The discussion of this point does not properly
belong to our present subject; and the assumption, for the sake of
brevity of argument, of the usual interpretation, does not imply
assent to it.
Footnote 262:
Tillotson’s Sermons, xlvi. Lond. 1704. pp. 549, 550.
I am aware that the name of this admirable writer is not likely to
have much weight with our opponents; for in speaking of Socinian
writers he has indulged in a spirit of justice, which the modern
Orthodoxy of his Church appears to consider altogether old-fashioned.
The Archbishop gives the following character of the school which took
its name from the Socini; “And yet to do right to the writers on that
side, I must own, that generally they are a pattern of the fair way of
disputing, and of debating matters of religion without heat and
unseemly reflections upon their adversaries, in the number of whom I
did not expect that the Primitive Fathers of the Christian Church
would have been reckoned by them. They generally argue matters with
that temper and gravity, and with that freedom from passion and
transport, which becomes a serious and weighty argument; and for the
most part they reason closely and clearly, with extraordinary guard
and caution, with great dexterity and decency, and yet with smartness
and subtilty enough; with a very gentle heat, and few hard
words;—virtues to be praised wherever they are found, yea even in an
enemy, and very worthy our imitation.” Yet the Archbishop, as if aware
that his candour might, by a very natural process, excite suspicion of
his Orthodoxy, raises himself above imputation by adding, “In a word,
they are the strongest managers of a weak cause, and which is
ill-founded at the bottom, that perhaps ever yet meddled with
controversy; insomuch that some of the Protestants and the generality
of the Popish writers, and even of the Jesuits themselves, who pretend
to all the reason and subtilty in the world, are in comparison of them
but mere scolds and bunglers; upon the whole matter, they have but
this one great defect, that they want a good cause and truth on their
side; which if they had, they have reason and wit and temper enough to
defend it.”—_Sermon_ xliv. p. 521.
Footnote 263:
Mr. Stewart recommends to our imitation the conduct of a Jewish child
who became anxious to pray, like his companions, to Jesus Christ, not,
apparently, from any impulse of the affections, or any convictions of
duty; but from a prudent desire to run no risk of offending any
possible power. “When I go to heaven and see Jesus Christ, if he is
God,” calculates the boy, “I shall be ashamed to look him in the
face.” Is it possible that this principle of making sure of one’s
self-interest without regard to sincerity and truth, can be published
without a blush, from a Christian pulpit? And is Christ so little
known as yet, that such hollow worship is thought to be a passport to
his favour, instead of winning from him a rebuke that, in truth, must
make ashamed? Is the Infinite hearer of prayer,—whatever be his name
or names,—one who will turn away from a contrite and trustful
supplication of the soul, unless his titles are all set right upon the
lips? What then would become of the millions of entreaties and of
cries that daily rise from the grieving earth to the blessed God?
Impossible! ’twould make Heaven a vast Dead-letter Office, for
returning petitions on account of a wrong address.
Footnote 264:
Jer. xxxi. 4.
Footnote 265:
Jer. xxxi. 13.
Footnote 266:
Lam. i. 15.
Footnote 267:
Is. xxiii. 12.
Footnote 268:
2 Kings xix. 21.
Footnote 269:
Is. viii. 8.
Footnote 270:
Is. viii. 18.
Footnote 271:
Matt. ii. 23.
Footnote 272:
Elements of Rhetoric, part iii. ch. ii. § 3.
Footnote 273:
Il. xiii. 298.
Footnote 274:
Ode to Fear.
Footnote 275:
Sonnet xii.
Footnote 276:
Olymp. viii. 73.
Footnote 277:
Juvenile Poems, p. 59.
Footnote 278:
De vict. p. 838. D.
Footnote 279:
Quod Deus sit immut. p. 309. A. De charit. p. 609. A. De Temul. p.
244. D. Leg. Alleg. p. 93. B.
Footnote 280:
Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 5, 12.
Footnote 281:
Prov. viii. 22, 30.
Footnote 282:
Κᾂν μηδέπω μέντοι τυγχάνῃ τὶς ἀξιόχρεως ὢν υἱὸς θεοῦ προσαγορεύεσθαι,
σπούδαζε κοσμεῖσθαι κατὰ τὸν πρωτόγονον αὐτοῦ λόγον, τὸν ἄγγελον
πρεσβύτατον, ὡς ἀρχάγγελον πολυώνυμον ὑπάρχοντα.... Καὶ γὰρ εἰ μήπω
ἱκανοὶ θεοῦ παῖδες νομίζεσθαι γεγόναμεν, ἀλλά τοι τῆς ἀϊδίου εἰκόνος
αὐτοῦ λόγου τοῦ ἱερωτάτου· θεοῦ γὰρ εἰκὼν, λόγος ὁ πρεσβύτατος. De
conf. ling. p. 341. B. C.
Footnote 283:
I have an impression of having seen advertised an English translation
of this work; but I have no means of ascertaining the fact.
Footnote 284:
For the sake of brevity I have given rather an abstract than a
translation. Commentar. üb. das Evang. des Johan. von Dr. Friedrich
Lücke. Band. i. p. 232-p. 238. Bonn. 1833. It is possible that
Professor Lücke’s Orthodoxy, which, in conformity with the prevailing
estimate of his countrymen, I have ventured to assume, may be called
in question. It is always difficult to take the “regula fidei,”
recognized in one Country, and apply it, with any exactitude, to the
sentiments of another, especially when the one is remarkable for the
hard and literal character of its theological conceptions; and the
other, for the excessive refinements by which it has discriminated the
shades of religious belief. If tried by the only German standard which
has any near correspondence with English Evangelicism, I mean the
severe school of Guerike, Tholuck, Hahn, Olshausen, Lücke would, no
doubt, be pronounced deficient in the faith. But he belongs to the
class which approaches most nearly to them, both in the interpretation
of Scripture, and in the estimate of its authority. He does not, with
them, refuse to compare the doctrines of Scripture with the
conclusions of Reason, and insist that the authority of the former
supersedes all recourse to the latter; but having ascertained first
the _fact_ and the _meaning_ of Revelation, he then permits the
comparison with philosophy, and declares their entire consistency. He
thus belongs to the Scriptural section of what is called the
Philosophical School of German Theology. He is decidedly Trinitarian
and Anti-rationalist; and his orthodoxy has never been suspected, as
has that of Schleiermacher, the father of his school. He was Professor
of Theology in Göttingen before the recent political divisions in
Hanover.
Footnote 285:
Pp. 263, 266, 267.
Footnote 286:
P. 265.
Footnote 287:
1 John iii. 4.
Footnote 288:
1 John v. 6.
Footnote 289:
2 Cor. iii. 17.
Footnote 290:
1 Cor. xi. 3.
Footnote 291:
1 Kings xviii. 21. There would be no difficulty in increasing the
number of instances exemplifying this solecism.
Footnote 292:
P. 157.
Footnote 293:
Historia Antitrinitariorum, maximè Socinianismi et Socinianorum; Fred.
Sam. Bock, Tom. I. P. i. pp. 167, 168.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION
INCONSISTENT WITH ITSELF,
AND WITH
_THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF SALVATION_.
---------------------
PREFACE.
It will be apparent, from the unusual length of the following discourse,
that its limits have been much extended since its delivery. The
additional portions furnish, in detail, the interpretation which appears
to me to reach the true meaning of the New Testament language,
respecting the death of Christ. Few passages, I believe, relating to
this subject, will be found unnoticed: and it is probable that, in the
desire to avoid omission, I have been guilty of some prolixity and
repetition.
The friendly diversity of opinion, which prevails among Unitarian
Christians, is perhaps more considerable in reference to the subject of
this Lecture, than to any other of the leading topics of theological
belief. The reader will do justice to all parties, by bearing this in
mind, while attending to the following pages; and by regarding every
statement which he disapproves, as the mere expression of individual
opinion.
It is impossible for me to leave unnoticed the charge of uncharitable
violence and “vulgar personality,” which Mr. M‘Neile has preferred
against me, on the ground of certain strong expressions, contained in my
first Lecture, respecting the late Archbishop Magee. I readily
acknowledge that the instances are rare, which can justify the language
which I employed; and I would never employ such, did I not feel that it
was not simply justified, but demanded. He must be an unworthy
controversialist, who has no generous delight in admiring and respecting
a doctrinal adversary; no concern and shame at the moral obliquities
which prove an opponent wrong, without proving himself to be right. If
Mr. M‘Neile could enable me to look with his eyes of confidence and
regard on “the illustrious Prelate,” I should esteem it a privilege to
recal every word which I have put on record respecting him. But a
careful study of his Treatise on the Atonement, with the habit of
_testing his citations_, has revealed to me a system of controversy
which, before, I should have esteemed incredible; and which no terms of
censure can too severely describe. Polemical discipline, it has been
observed with too much truth, is, of all influences, the most dangerous
to the moral sense.
It seems to have been thought wrong in me, by my respected opponents, to
state my _general impression_ of Archbishop Magee’s controversial
character, without justifying it by specific arguments. And so it would
have been, if this work had really been “unanswered:” but every quality
which I ascribed to it, has been shown to belong to it, by Dr.
Carpenter; _his_ work has received no reply; and surely a bystander may
express a judgment on the merits of a controversy, and the polemical
characters of its conductors, without the slightest obligation to lay
open the contents of the discussion in self-justification. This appears
to be Mr. Buddicom’s opinion, if we may judge from the pungent sentence
in which he has characterized, without proof, one of Mr. Harris’s
Discourses.[294] In the present publication, however, I have supplied
the deficiency which is the subject of complaint; and have shown, not
only that the late Archbishop of Dublin dealt in terms of insult, which,
if spoken instead of written, no cultivated and Christian society would
endure; but that, with a shocking eagerness to blast the character of
his opponents, he corrupted the text of their writings, and drew his
arguments from garbled quotations. If any one can convince me of mistake
in what I have advanced, I shall most unfeignedly rejoice and retract.
But till then I cannot qualify any expressions, however strong, which I
have employed; for they are not the utterance of passion, but the
measured language of conviction. Most unwillingly would I ever incur the
risk of wounding “the feelings of the living,” by animadversions on the
character of the dead. But, surely, personal attachments to the man must
not be allowed to silence all public estimate of the author; and against
the attempt, on this ground, to hold me up as the assailant of private
affections, and the insincere professor of charity, I protest, as cruel
and unjust. It is not true that I attacked “the name and memory” rather
than “the book,” of the late Archbishop: the words which I used
described nothing but his work: and that they were words of moral
reprehension, arose necessarily from the nature of the complaint which
we have to prefer against its contents. I do not understand the
diplomatic arts by which a man may be analyzed into a plurality of
characters, and permitted to do wrong in one capacity, while his
reputation takes a quiet shelter among the rest: nor have I the
ingenuity to rebuke falsehood in a book, yet save the veracity of the
author. If the “outrage” consisted in publishing an impression,
unsustained by evidence, I only fear, that the addition of the proof
will be found to bring no mitigation of the pain.
Let me add, that I entirely acquit our Rev. opponents of any approbation
of the controversial arts employed by the Prelate whom they defend.
Their admiration of his book arises, I am aware, from ignorance of its
real character; to understand which requires a much greater acquaintance
with Unitarian literature than they appear, in any instance, to possess.
Lest it should be thought disrespectful in me to pass without notice the
strictures on my last published Discourse, contained in the Ninth
Lecture of the Trinitarian series, I will ask the indulgence of my
readers for a few moments more.
Mr. Bates accuses me of making a mutilated quotation from Deut. xxix.
1-6. The whole passage stands thus; the part which I did not cite being
included in brackets: [“1. These are the words of the covenant, which
the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land
of Moab, beside the covenant, which he made with them in Horeb. 2. And]
Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, [ye have seen all that
the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and
unto all his servants, and unto all his land; 3. The great temptations
which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: 4. Yet
the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and
ears to hear, unto this day. 5. And] I have led you forty years in the
wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not
waxen old upon thy foot. 6. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye
drunk wine, or strong drink; that ye might know that _I am the Lord your
God_.”
My object was to show, that, if no latitude is to be allowed in the
application of mere grammatical principles of interpretation, we must
admit “that Moses is called God with a distinctness which cannot be
equalled in the case of Christ.” For this purpose, I had no occasion to
quote more than the 5th and 6th verses, containing the phrase, “I am the
Lord your God;” the only question being, _who is the speaker,
grammatically denoted by the first personal pronoun “I.”_ To make this
evident, I went back to the opening of the sentence, which determined
this point: “MOSES called together all Israel, AND SAID to them.” The
omitted clauses of his speech have no relation whatever to the matter in
debate, and have no effect, but to _separate the parts_, without
_altering the nature_, of the grammatical construction. So far from
proving that Moses speaks, as if _personally identified_ with the Lord,
because teaching in his name, they prove just the reverse; for Jehovah
is introduced in them in the _third person_, not the _first_; “ye have
seen all that THE LORD (not ‘I’) did before your eyes,” &c. The first
verse I did not quote, because it seems to belong to the preceding
chapter, and to have no reference to the words cited. The only
delinquency in this matter which I have to confess is, that I wrote by
mistake, “Moses called TOGETHER,” instead of “UNTO, all Israel.” Mr.
Bates draws attention to this by Roman capitals, as if to hint at
something very remarkable in the error. I can only say, that after
repeated examination of the word “UNTO,” I can discover no mysterious
significance in it; if it be an orthodox tetragrammaton, my disregard of
its claims was wholly inadvertent. As to the argument itself which this
passage was adduced to enforce, I cannot perceive that it is in any way
affected by the Lecturer’s remarks: nor can any one reasonably doubt
that if the New Testament had contained such a passage as this, “The
Lord Jesus called unto the multitudes and said, ... I have led you into
a desert place, and fed you with the five loaves; that ye might know
that I am the Lord your God;” Trinitarians would have appealed to it as
a triumphant proof of the Deity of Christ, whatever number of clauses
might have severed the beginning from the end of the sentence, and
however often the name of the Lord, in the third person, might have
occurred in the interval.
Nor have I been successful in discovering in what way I have
misapprehended Mr. Bates’s meaning respecting the word “SON,” in the
following verse; “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” I may
doubtless have misstated his words; and if in his eyes the misstatement
has any “serious inaccuracy,” I sincerely regret its occurrence. Nothing
but the constant habit of short-hand writing, enabling me to take
verbatim reports of public addresses, would have given me confidence
enough in my correctness to found an argument on an unpublished verbal
criticism. Even short-hand, however, being fallible, I relinquish the
words: and the more willingly, because Mr. Bates’s own report appears to
me absolutely identical in meaning with my own. _He says_, that the
baptism enjoined in the verse just cited cannot, so far as our Lord is
concerned, be “baptism in the name of a Mediator;” “our Lord’s words
prevent such misapprehension: he says not ‘In the name of the Father and
in my name’ (my mediatorial name); but ‘In the name of the Father and of
THE SON,’—the only begotten, co-essential, co-eternal, and co-equal,
with the Father and the Holy Ghost.” _I represented him as saying_, that
our Saviour’s words “_expressly exclude such a construction_; for he
does not say, the name of the Father, and _of myself_, but of THE SON,
that is the ETERNAL WORD.” The difference between “preventing such
misapprehension” and “excluding such construction” is not very obvious.
I understand the argument to be, that there is something _in the form of
expression in the second clause_, forbidding us to think of anything
less exalted than our Lord’s Divine Nature; the only expression
contained in the clause is “THE SON;” this term then, I imagined, was
limited by the Lecturer to Christ’s Divine Nature; and must have been
replaced by some other phrase, if his mediatorial character had been the
subject of discourse. In drawing a _general_ conclusion from this
_particular_ statement, I only gave the Lecturer credit for
understanding the bearing of his own argument; for of course, all
reasoning _from the intrinsic force of an expression_ must be
co-extensive with the occurrence of that expression. If I have not
correctly explained Mr. Bates’s argument, it evades my apprehension
altogether.
---------------------
LECTURE VI.
THE SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION INCONSISTENT WITH ITSELF,
AND WITH THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF SALVATION.
BY REV. JAMES MARTINEAU.
“NEITHER IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER; FOR THERE IS NONE OTHER NAME
UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN, WHEREBY WE MUST BE SAVED.”—_Acts_ iv.
12.
The scene which we have this evening to visit and explore, is separated
from us by the space of eighteen centuries; yet of nothing on this earth
has Providence left, within the shadows of the past, so vivid and divine
an image. Gently rising above the mighty “field of the world,” Calvary’s
mournful hill appears, covered with silence now, but distinctly showing
the heavenly light that struggled there through the stormiest elements
of guilt. Nor need we only gaze, as on a motionless picture that closes
the vista of Christian ages. Permitting history to take us by the hand,
we may pace back in pilgrimage to the hour, till its groups stand around
us, and pass by us, and its voices of passion and of grief mock and wail
upon our ear. As we mingle with the crowd which, amid noise and dust,
follows the condemned prisoners to the place of execution, and fix our
eye on the faint and panting figure of one that bears his cross, could
we but whisper to the sleek priests close by, how might we startle them,
by telling them the future fate of this brief tragedy,—brief in act, in
blessing everlasting; that this Galilean convict shall be the world’s
confessed deliverer, while they that have brought him to this, shall be
the scorn and by-word of the nations; that that vile instrument of
torture, now so abject that it makes the dying slave more servile, shall
be made, by this victim and this hour, the symbol of whatever is holy
and sublime; the emblem of hope and love; pressed to the lips of ages;
consecrated by a veneration which makes the sceptre seem trivial as an
infant’s toy. Meanwhile the sacerdotal hypocrites, unconscious of the
part they play, watch to the end the public murder which they have
privately suborned; stealing a phrase from Scripture, that they may mock
with holy lips; and leaving to the plebeian soldiers the mutual jest and
brutal laugh, that serve to beguile the hired but hated work of agony,
and that draw forth from the sufferer that burst of forgiving prayer,
which sunk at least into their centurion’s heart. One there is, who
should have been spared the hearing of these scoffs; and perhaps she
heard them not; for before his nature was exhausted more, his eye
detects and his voice addresses her, and twines round her the filial arm
of that disciple who had been ever the most loving as well as most
beloved. She at least lost the religion of that hour in its humanity,
and beheld not the prophet but the son:—had not her own hands wrought
that seamless robe for which the soldiers’ lot is cast; and her own lips
taught him that strain of sacred poetry, “My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?” but never had she thought to hear it _thus_. As the cries
became fainter and fainter, scarcely do they reach Peter standing afar
off. The last notice of him had been the rebuking look that sent him to
weep bitterly; and now the voice that can alone tell him his
forgiveness, will soon be gone! Broken hardly less, though without
remorse, is the youthful John, to see that head, lately resting on his
bosom, drooping passively in death; and to hear the involuntary shriek
of Mary, as the spear struck upon the lifeless body, moving now only as
it is moved;—whence he alone, on whom she leaned, records the fact. Well
might the Galilean friends stand at a distance gazing; unable to depart,
yet not daring to approach; well might the multitudes that had cried
“crucify him” in the morning, shudder at the thought of that clamour ere
night; “beholding the things that had come to pass, they smote their
breasts and returned.”