successive, the vicarious scheme, we submit, is inconsistent with the
Christian idea of salvation. Not that we take the second, and reject the
first, as our Trinitarian friends imagine; nor that we invert their
order. We accept them both; putting them however, not in succession, but
in super-position, so that they coalesce. The power and the punishment
of sin perish together; and together begin the holiness and the bliss of
heaven. Whatever extracts the poison, cools the sting: nor can the
divine vigour of spiritual health enter, without its freedom and its
joy. That there can be any separate dealings with our past guilt and
with our present character, is not a truth of God, but a fiction of the
schools. The sanctification of the one is the redemption of the other.
The mind given up to passion, or chained to self, or any how alienated
from the love and life divine, dwells, whatever be its faith, in the
dark and terrible abyss: while he, and he only, that in the freedom and
tranquillity of great affections, communes with God and toils for men,
understands the meaning, and wins the promises, of heaven. Am I asked,
‘What then is to persuade the sinful heart, thus to draw near to
God;—what, but a proclamation of absolute pardon, can break down the
secret distrust, which keeps our nature back, wrapped in the reserve of
conscious guilt?’ I reply; however much these fears and hesitations
might cling round us, and restrain us from the mystic Deity of Nature,
they can have no place in our intercourse with the Father whom Jesus
represents. It needs only that Christ be truly his image, to know “that
the hindrance is not with him, but entirely in ourselves:”[394] to see
that there is no anger in his look; to feel that he invites us to
unreserved confession, and accepts our self-abandonment to him; that he
lifts the repentant, prostrate at his feet, and speaks the words of
severe, but truest hope. Am I told, ‘that only the gratitude excited by
personal rescue from tremendous danger, by an unconditional and entire
deliverance, is capable of winning our reluctant nature, of opening the
soul to the access of the Divine Spirit, and bringing it to the service
of the Everlasting Will?’ I rejoice to acknowledge, that _some_ such
disinterested power must be awakened, some mighty forces of the heart be
called out, ere the regeneration can take place that renders us children
of the Highest; ere we can break, with true new-birth, from the shell of
self, and try and train our wings in the atmosphere of God. The
permanent work of duty must be wrought by the affections; not by the
constraint, however solemn, of hope and fear; no self-perfectionating
process, elaborated by an anxious will, has warmth enough to ripen the
soul’s diviner fruits; the walks of outward morality, and the slopes of
deliberate meditation, it may keep smooth and trim; but cannot make the
true life-blossoms set, as in a garden of the Lord, and the foliage wave
as with the voice of God among the trees. I gladly admit that to a
believer in the vicarious sacrifice, the sense of pardon, the love of
the great deliverer, may well fulfil this blessed office, of carrying
him out of himself in genuine allegiance to a being most benign and
holy. And perceiving that, if this doctrine were removed, there is not,
_in the system of which it forms a part_, and which else would be all
terror, anything that could perform the same generous part, I can
understand why it seems to its advocates, an _essential_ power in the
renovation of the character. But great as it may be, within the limits
of its own narrow scheme, ideas possessed of higher moral efficacy are
not wanting, when we pass into a region of nobler and more Christian
thought. Shall we say that the view of the infinite Ruler, given in the
spoken wisdom or the living spirit of Christ, has no sanctifying power?
Yet where is there any trace in it of the satisfactionist’s redemption?
When we sit at Messiah’s feet, that transforming gratitude for an
extinguished penalty on which the prevailing theology insists, as its
central emotion, becomes replaced by a similar and profounder sentiment
towards the eternal Father. If to rescue men from a dreadful fate in the
future be a just title to our reverence, _never to have designed_ that
fate claims an affection yet more devoted; if there be a divine mercy in
annihilating an awful curse, in shedding only blessing there is surely a
diviner still. Shall the love restored to us after long delay, and in
consideration of an equivalent, work mightily on the heart; and shall
that which asked no purchase, which has been veiled by no cloud, which
has enfolded us always in its tranquillity, nor can ever quit the soul
opened to receive it, fail to penetrate the conscience, and dissolve the
frosts of our self-love by some holier flame? Never shall it be found
true, that God must threaten us with vengeance, ere we can feel the
shelter of his grace!
In truth, the Christian idea of salvation cannot be better illustrated,
than by the doubt which has been entertained respecting the proper
translation of my text. Some, referring it to spiritual redemption,
adhere to the common version; others, seeing that the apostle Peter is
explaining “by what power, or by what name” he had cured the lame man at
the temple gate, refer the words to this miracle of deliverance, and
render them thus; “neither is there _healing_ in any other; for there is
none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we can be
_healed_.” It matters little which it is; for whether we speak of body
or of mind, Jesus “_saves_” us by “_making us whole_;” by putting forth
upon us a divine and healing power, through which past suffering and
present decrepitude disappear together; which supplies the defective
elements of our nature; cools the burning of inward fever; or calls into
being new senses and perceptions, opening a diviner universe to our
experience. The deformed and crooked will, bowed by Satan, lo! these
many years, and nowise able to lift up itself, he loosens and makes
straight in uprightness. The moral paralytic, collapsed and prostrate
amid the stir of life, and incapably gazing on the moving waters in
which others find their health, has often started up at the summons of
that voice, though perchance “he wist not who it was;” and going his
way, has found it to be “the sabbath,” and owned the “work” of one who
is in the spirit of “the Father.” From the eye long dark and blind to
duty and to God, he has caused the film to pass away, and shown the
solemn look of life beneath a heaven so tranquil and sublime. Even the
dead of soul, close wrapped in bandages of selfishness,—that greediest
of graves,—have been quickened by his piercing call, and have come
forth; to learn, “when risen,” that only in the meekness that can obey
is there the power to command, only in the love that serves is there the
life of heart-felt liberty. To call, then, on the name and trust in the
spirit of Christ, is to invoke the restoring power of God; to give
symmetry and speed to our lame affections, and the vigour of an athlete
to our limping wills. There is not any Christian _salvation_ that is not
thus identical with Christian _perfection_: “nor any other name under
heaven given among men, whereby we may be (thus) _made whole_.” Let all
that would “be perfect be thus minded;”[395] seek “the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ;”[396] and they shall find in him a
“power to become the Sons of God.”[397]
NOTES.
---------------------
A.
_Relation between Natural Religion and Revelation._
It is not easy to determine, with any precision, what is Mr. M‘Neile’s
estimate of the capabilities and defects of natural religion. It is
subjected to a vague and indistinct disparagement throughout his
lecture; the _impression_ is left, that the character of God cannot be
vindicated by appeal to his works; but I do not perceive that the
lecturer commits himself to any logical proposition on the subject. One
of his coadjutors,[398] however, has supplied this deficiency; and
taking, as an antagonist, a sentence from the second Lecture of the
present series, has argued at length, that “The moral Character and
Unity of God are not discoverable from the works of Creation.” He
affirms that “to talk of ‘discerning the moral attributes of God on the
material structures of the universe,’ is not only idle, but
unreasonable:” and the justification which he offers of this bold
statement seems to comprise the two following arguments:—
That the universe is analogous to a cathedral or other human edifice;
which discloses something of the Architect’s genius and power, but
nothing of his moral qualities: and
That the mixture of good and evil in the world perplexes the mind with
opposite reports of the Creator’s character.
If scepticism were a just object of moral rebuke, in what terms might we
not speak of this “infidel” rejection of God’s ancient and everlasting
oracles of nature? For the serious doubts and perplexities of the devout
student of creation, an unqualified respect may be entertained. But it
is to be regretted that the necessities of a system should tempt the
expounder of revelation to assail, with reckless indifference, the
primitive sentiments of all religion. The aversion of orthodoxy to the
theology of the unsophisticated reason and heart is, however, to be
classed among the natural antipathies. Among all the extravagances of
modern English divinity, unknown to the sound and healthy era of our
national church, it is perhaps the most significant; indicating that
final obscuration of Christianity, in which it cannot be made to shine
without putting out every other light. This destructive mode of
argumentation, which discredits everything foreign to the favourite
system, is the evident result of fear, not of faith: it is a theological
adoption of the Chinese policy; and keeps the Celestial Empire safe, by
regarding every stranger as a possible spy; and excluding all alien
ideas as forerunners of revolution. The citadel of faith is defended, by
making the most dreadful havoc of every power which ought to be its
strength and ornament. Put out reason, but save the Trinity; suborn
experience, but prove depravity; disparage conscience, but secure the
Atonement; bewilder the sentiments of justice and benevolence, only
guard the everlasting Hell;—have long been the instructions of orthodoxy
to its defenders: and now we are asked to silence the anthem of nature
to the God of _love_, that priests without disturbance may prove him the
God of _vengeance_; and to withdraw our eye from the telescope of
science, which reveals the ONENESS of the Creator’s work, that we may
examine, through a church microscope, the _plurality_ of a Hebrew noun.
Can those who taunt the Unitarians with the _negative_ character of
their system, give a satisfactory account of the _positive_ merits of a
religion which _dis_believes reason, _dis_trusts the moral sense,
_dis_likes science, _dis_credits nature, and for all who are without the
Bible and a fit interpreter, _dis_owns the moral character of God?
In commenting upon Mr. James’s position on this last point, I will
confine myself to three observations:—the first, relating to the
consequences of his doctrine, if true; the others explaining, by
separate reference to his two arguments, why I conceive it to be false.
(1.) If there is no trace in nature of the moral attributes of God,
there can be no disclosure of them in Scripture. The character of the
Revealer is our only guarantee for the truth and excellence of the
Revelation: and if his character is antecedently unknown, if there is
nothing to preclude the idea of his being deceitful and malignant, how
can we be assured that his communication is not a seduction and a lie?
It is not the præternatural rank, but the just and holy mind, of a
celestial Being, that entitles his messages to reception: and surely it
is this alone which, in our opponents’ own system, makes the whole
difference between the suggestions of Satan and the inspiration of God.
But let us hear, in this matter, the judgment of one who adorned the
English church in times when solidity of thought and truth of sentiment
were still in esteem among her clergy. Archbishop Tillotson observes;
“Unless the knowledge of God and his essential perfections be natural, I
do not see what sufficient and certain foundation there can be of
revealed religion. For unless we naturally know God to be a Being of all
perfection, and consequently that whatever he says is true, I cannot see
what divine revelation can signify. For God’s revealing or declaring
such a thing to us, is no necessary argument that it is so, unless
antecedently to this revelation, we be possessed firmly with this
principle, that whatever God says is true. And whatever is known
antecedently to revelation, must be known by natural light, and by
reasonings and deductions from natural principles. I might further add
to this argument, that the _only standard and measure to judge of divine
revelations_, and to distinguish between what are true, and what are
counterfeit, are the _natural notions which men have of God, and of his
essential perfections_.”[399] And elsewhere, still more explicitly; “The
strongest and surest reasonings in religion are grounded upon the
essential perfections of God; so that even divine revelation itself doth
suppose these for its foundation, and can signify nothing to us, unless
these be first known and believed. Unless we be first persuaded of the
providence of God, and his particular care of mankind, why should we
believe that he would make any revelation of himself to men? Unless it
be naturally known to us, that God is true, what foundation is there for
the belief of his word? And what signifies the laws and promises of God,
unless natural light do first assure us of his sovereign authority and
faithfulness? So that _the principles of natural religion, are the
foundation of that which is revealed_; and therefore in reason nothing
can be admitted to be a revelation from God, which plainly contradicts
his essential perfection; and consequently if any pretends divine
revelation for this doctrine, that God hath from all eternity absolutely
decreed the eternal ruin of the greatest part of mankind, without any
respect to the sins and demerits of men, I am as certain that this
doctrine cannot be of God, as I am sure that God is good and just;
because this grates upon the notion that mankind have of goodness and
justice. This is that which _no good man would do_, and _therefore_
cannot be believed of infinite goodness; and therefore if an _Apostle_
or _Angel from heaven_ teach any doctrine which plainly overthrows the
goodness and justice of God, let him be accursed. For every man hath
greater assurance that God is good and just, than he can have of any
subtle speculations about predestination and the decrees of God.”[400]
It is somewhat curious, that in the position which they have assumed
with respect to natural religion, our reverend opponents are allying
themselves with Socinus: and that, in answering them, I should find
myself citing the words of an Archbishop of their own church in direct
reply to this great heresiarch. On the adjoining page to the first from
which I have quoted, Tillotson says, “God is naturally known to men: the
contrary whereof Socinus positively maintains, though therein he be
forsaken by most of his followers,—an opinion, in my judgment, very
unworthy of one who, not without reason, was esteemed so great a master
of reason; and (though I believe he did not see it) undermining the
strongest and surest foundation of all religion, which, when the natural
notions of God are once taken away, will certainly want its best
support. Besides that, by denying any natural knowledge of God and his
essential perfections, he freely gives away one of the most plausible
grounds of opposing the doctrine of the Trinity.” That which Socinus
could afford “freely to _give_ away,” our reverend opponents, it seems,
find it necessary violently to _take_ away.[401]
(2.) The _arguments_ by which Mr. James endeavours to justify his
repudiation of the primary sentiments of unrevealed religion, might be
sufficiently answered by a reference to any work treating of natural
theology, from the Memorabilia of Socrates to the last Bridgewater
Treatise. But as a phrase occurring in my first lecture appears to have
been concerned in their production, it is incumbent on me to show where
their fallacy lies.
The lecturer’s reasoning stands thus: The universe is a material
structure; and so is a cathedral; but a cathedral gives no report of the
moral character of its architect: neither, therefore, does the
universe:—an excellent example, when reduced to form, of the violation
of the first general rule of the syllogism, forbidding an undistributed
middle term.
Did it never occur to our reverend opponent that “the material
structures of the universe” are of various kinds, not all of them
resembling a cathedral; nay, that he himself (not being able “to sit in
a thimble,” or even “in the smallest compass imaginable,” “without
inconvenience from want of room,”)[402] is a “material structure,” in
one part of his human constitution?—a circumstance which might have
suggested the distinction between organized and unorganized nature.
Admitting even (what is by no means true) that the arrangements of the
latter terminate, like the design of a minster, in the mere production
of beauty, and indicate only genius and skill, the contrivances of the
former fulfil their end in the creation of happiness in the animal
world, and the maintenance of a retributive discipline in human life:
results which are the appropriate fruit and expression of benevolence
and equity. Even the beauty of creation, however, cannot be attributed
to sentiments as little moral in their character, as those which may
actuate the human artist; for He who has called into being whatever is
lovely and glorious, has created also percipient minds to behold it, and
transmute it from a material adjustment into a mental possession.
It is not even true that a work of art, like a cathedral, expresses no
moral quality. The individual builder’s character, indeed, it may not
reveal. But no architect ever produced a cathedral; he is but the tool
wielded by the spirit of his age; and Phidias could no more have
designed York Minster, than the associated masons could have adorned the
Parthenon. Ages must contribute to the origination of such works: and
when they appear, they embody, not indistinctly, some of the great
sentiments which possess the period of their birth.
(3.) The mixture of good and evil in the world is said to confuse our
reasonings respecting the Divine Being, by presenting us with opposite
reports of his character.
This argument is evidently inconsistent with the former. While _that_
declared the _silence_ of creation on the moral attributes of its
Author, this affirms its _double_ (and therefore doubtful) _speech_.
After all, then, there _are_ phenomena which depose to the character of
the Creator, if we can only interpret their attestation aright.
The rules for the treatment of conflicting evidence are plain and
intelligible; nor is there any reason why they should not be applied to
the great problems of natural religion. The _preponderant_ testimony
being permitted to determine our convictions, the evils and inequalities
of the world cannot disturb our faith in the benevolence and holiness of
God; but must stand over, as a residue of unreduced phenomena, to be
hereafter brought under the dominion of that law of love, which the
visible systematic arrangements of Providence show to be _general_.
Happily, no sceptical reasonings, like those on which I am
animadverting, can permanently prevent the natural sentiments of men
from asserting their supremacy. To use the words of Bishop Butler, “_Our
whole nature_ leads us to ascribe _all moral perfection_ to God, and to
deny all imperfection of him. And this will for ever be a practical
proof of his moral character, to such as will consider what a practical
proof is; _because it is the voice of God speaking in us_.”[403]
From the opposite appearances of good and evil in the world, Mr. James
derives an argument against the Unity of God, and affirms that “reason
thinks it _more reasonable_ to admit the existence of two almighty and
independent Beings, the one eternally good, the other eternally
evil.”[404] If the lecturer’s “_reason_” really recommends to him such
extraordinary conclusions, and insists on patronizing the Manichean
heresy, the intellectual faculty may well be in bad theological repute
with him. The constant origin of pain and enjoyment, good and evil, from
the _very same arrangements and structures_, renders the partition of
the creative work between two antagonistic principles not very easy of
conception; and it yet remains to be explained, how the laws which
produce the breeze can proceed from one Being, and those which speed the
hurricane from another; how hunger can have one author, and the
refreshment of food another; how the power of _right_ moral choice can
be the gift of God, and that of _wrong_ moral choice of a Demon.
The reverend lecturer attempts to weaken the argument from the unity of
the creation to that of the Creator. His eccentric remarks on comets I
must leave to the consideration of astronomers. The rest of the argument
is entitled to such reply as the following words of Robert Hall may give
to it. “To prove the unity of this great Being, in opposition to a
plurality of Gods, it is not necessary to have recourse to metaphysical
abstractions. It is sufficient to observe, that the notion of more than
one author of nature is inconsistent with that harmony of design which
pervades her works; that it solves no appearances, is supported by no
evidence, and serves no purpose but to embarrass and perplex our
conceptions.”[405]
B.
_Trinitarian and Unitarian Ideas of Justice._
It is only natural that the parable of the Prodigal Son should be no
favourite with those, who deny the unconditional mercy of God. The place
which this divine tale occupies in the Unitarian theology appears to be
filled, in the orthodox scheme, by the story of Zaleucus, king of the
Locrians; which has been appealed to in the present controversy by both
the Lecturers on the Atonement, and seems to be the only endurable
illustration presented, even by Pagan history, of the execution of
vicarious punishment. This monarch had passed a law, condemning
adulterers to the loss of both eyes. His own son was convicted of the
crime: and to satisfy at once the claims of law and of clemency, the
royal parent “commanded one of his own eyes to be pulled out, and one of
his son’s.” Is it too bold a heresy to confess, that there seems to me
something heathenish in this example, and that, as an exponent of the
Divine character, I more willingly revere the Father of the prodigal,
than the father of the adulterer?
Without entering, however, into any comparison between the Locrian and
the Galilean parable, I would observe, that the vicarious theory
receives no illustration from this fragment of ancient history. There is
no analogy between the cases, except in the violation of truth and
wisdom which both exhibit; and whatever we are instructed to admire in
Zaleucus, will be found, on close inspection, to be absent from the
orthodox representation of God. We pity the Grecian king, who had made a
law without foresight of its application, and so sympathize with his
desire to evade it, that any quibble which legal ingenuity can devise
for this purpose, passes with slight condemnation: casuistry refuses to
be severe with a man implicated in such a difficulty. But the Creator
and Legislator of the human race, having perfect knowledge of the
future, can never be surprised into a similar perplexity; or ever pass a
law at one time, which at another he desires to evade. Even were it so,
there would seem to be less that is unworthy of his moral perfection, in
saying plainly, with the ancient Hebrews, that he “repented of the evil
he thought to do,” and said, “it shall not be;” than in ascribing to him
a device for preserving consistency, in which no one capable of
appreciating veracity can pretend to discern any sincere fulfilment of
the law. However barbarous the idea of Divine “repentance,” it is at
least ingenuous. Nor does this incident of Zaleucus and his son present
any parallel to the alleged relation between the Divine Father who
receives, and the Divine Son who gives, the satisfaction for human
guilt. The Locrian king took a part of the penalty himself, and left the
remainder where it was due; but the Sovereign Law-giver of Calvinism
puts the whole upon another. To sustain the analogy, Zaleucus should
have permitted an innocent son to have both his eyes put out, and the
convicted adulterer to escape.