speaking respecting God, which grates most painfully against the
reverential affections due to him. His nature is dismembered into a
number of attributes, foreign to each other, and preferring rival
claims; the Divine tranquillity appears as the equilibrium of opposing
pressures,—the Divine administration as a resultant from the collision
of hostile forces. Goodness pleads for that which holiness forbids; and
the Paternal God would do many a mercy, did the Sovereign God allow. The
idea of a conflict or embarrassment in the Supreme Mind being thus
introduced, and the believer being haunted by the feeling of some
tremendous difficulty affecting the Infinite government, the vicarious
economy is brought forward as the relief, the solution of the whole
perplexity; the union, by a blessed compromise, of attributes that could
never combine in any scheme before. The main business of theology is
made to consist, in stating the conditions, and expounding the solution,
of this imaginary problem. The cardinal difficulty is thought to be, the
reconciliation of Justice and Mercy; and, as the one is represented
under the image of a Sovereign, the other under that of a Father, the
question assumes this form: how can the same being at every moment
possess both these characters, without abandoning any function or
feeling appropriate to either? how, especially, can the Judge remit,—it
is beyond his power; yet, how can the Parent punish to the uttermost?—it
is contrary to his nature.
All this difficulty is merely fictitious; arising out of the
determination to make out that God is both wholly Judge, and wholly
Father; from an anxiety, that is, to adhere to two metaphors, as
applicable, in every particular, to the Divine Being. It is evident that
both must be, to a great extent, inappropriate; and in nothing surely is
the impropriety more manifest, than in the assertion that, as Sovereign,
God is naturally bound to execute laws which, nevertheless, it would be
desirable to remit, or change in their operation. Whatever painful
necessities the imperfection of human legislation and judicial procedure
may impose, the Omniscient Ruler can make no law which he will not to
all eternity, and with entire consent of his whole nature, deem it well
to execute. This is the Unitarian answer to the constant question, “How
can God forgive in defiance of his own law?” It is not in defiance of
his laws: every one of which will be fulfilled to the uttermost, in
conformity with his first intent; but nowhere has he declared that he
will not forgive. All justice consists in treating moral agents
according to their character; the inexorability of human law arises
solely from the imperfection with which it can attain this end, and is
not the essence, but the alloy, of equity: but God, who searches and
controls the heart, exercises that perfect justice, which permits the
penal suffering to depart only with the moral guilt; and pardons, not by
cancelling any sentence, but by obeying his eternal purpose to meet the
wanderer returning homeward, and give his blessing to the restored. Only
by such restoration can any past guilt be effaced. The thoughts,
emotions, and sufferings of sin, once committed, are woven into the
fabric of the soul; and are as incapable of being absolutely obliterated
thence and put back into non-existence, as moments of being struck from
the past, or the parts of space from infinitude. Herein we behold alike
“the goodness and the severity of God;” and adore in him not the balance
of contrary tendencies, but the harmony of consentaneous perfections.
How plainly does experience show that, if his personal unity be given
up, his moral unity cannot be preserved!
The representation of God as a Creditor, to whom his responsible
creatures are in debt to the amount of their moral obligations, is no
less unfit to serve as the foundation of serious reasonings, than the
idea of him as a Sovereign. As a loose analogy, likely to produce a
vivid impression on minds filled with ideas borrowed from the
institution of property, it unavoidably and innocently occurs to us; but
to force any doctrinal sentiments from it, is to strain it beyond its
capabilities. Mr. Buddicom describes it as a favourite with the
Unitarians: “our opponents assert, that sins are to be regarded as
_debts_ and as _debts only_.”[406] I will venture to affirm that no
Unitarian who heard this believed his own ears, till he saw it in print;
so incredibly great must be the ignorance of Unitarian theology which
could dictate the statement. The sentiment attributed to us is one,
against which our whole body of moral doctrine is one systematic
protest, and which has place in our arguments against the vicarious
scheme, _only because it is the fundamental idea, on which that scheme
is usually declared to rest_. In one of the most recent and deservedly
popular Unitarian publications on this subject, I find a long note
devoted to the destruction of this pecuniary analogy, which, the Author
observes, “seems very incomplete and unsatisfactory. Punishment is
compared to a debt, supposed to be incurred by the commission of the
offence. To a certain degree there is a resemblance between the two
things, which may be the foundation of a _metaphor_; but when we proceed
to _argue_ upon this metaphor, we fall into a variety of errors.”[407]
That orthodoxy does incessantly “argue upon this metaphor,” is
notorious; and the present controversy is not deficient in specimens.
“All that the creature can accomplish is a debt due to the
Creator,”[408] says Mr. James, who reasons out the mercantile view of
redemption with an unshrinking precision, unequalled since the days of
Shylock; who insists on “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life,”
and condemns any alteration (of course, our Lord’s) of this rule, as
“false charity, or mistaken compassion;”[409] who inquires whether, in
the payment of redemption, an angel might not go for a number of men,
and decides in the negative, because “the highest created angel in
existence” (having as much as he can do for himself) “could not produce
the smallest amount of supererogatory obedience or merit to transfer to
a fellow angel, or to man;”[410] and who, in reply to the question,
“What price will God accept for the lives that are justly sentenced to
eternal death?” says, “the answer to this is very simple: he will accept
nothing but what will be a real equivalent—a full compensation—an
adequate price.”[411] In what bible of Moloch or of Mammon all this is
found, I know not; sure I am, it was never learned at the feet of
Christ.
Unitarians object to the cruelty and injustice attributed to the Eternal
Father, in laying upon the innocent Jesus the punishment of guilty men.
Mr. Buddicom’s reply, though not new, is remarkable. “Do we, however,
assert anything as to the _fact_ of our Lord’s sufferings, which they
who deny his atonement do not also assert? If, then, it be a truth
historical, that he did suffer through life, agonize in the garden, and
die on the cross, does it not appear much greater cruelty in God, to
impose those sufferings, which Jesus is admitted to have undergone,
without any benefit to the transgressor, or any vindication of his own
glory?”[412]
I had always thought, and still think, that our Trinitarian friends _do_
assert a great deal “as to the _fact_” (_i.e._, the _amount_ and
_intrinsic character_, apart from the _effects_) “of our Lord’s
sufferings, which we cannot admit. A human being, says the Unitarian,
died on the cross, with such suffering as a perfect human being may
endure.” Will Mr. Buddicom be content with this description of “the
_fact_?” and does he merely wish to subjoin, that on the death of “this
man,” God _took occasion_ to forgive _all men_ who are to be saved at
all? If so, I admit that the imputation of cruelty is groundless; and
have only to observe, that there is no perceptible relation of cause and
effect between the occasion and the boon; and that the cross becomes
simply the date, the chronological sign, of a Divine volition,
arbitrarily attached to that point of human history. But then, how can
Mr. Buddicom defend (as he does) the phrase “_blood of God_”?[413]
Theology can perform strange feats, and to its sleight of words nothing
is impossible. The doctrine of the _communication of properties_ between
the two natures of our Lord, comes in to relieve the difficulty; and
having established that whatever is true of _either_ nature may be
affirmed of _Christ_, and by inference, even of the _other_, it proves
the propriety of saying, both that the Divine nature cannot suffer, and
yet that God bled.[414] Heterodoxy, however, in its perverseness, still
thinks with Le Clerc of this κοινωνία ἰδιωμάτων, that it is “as
intelligible, as if we were to say, there is a circle so united with a
triangle, that the circle has the properties of the triangle, and the
triangle those of the circle.”[415]
C.
_The reading in Acts_ xx. 28.
No competent critic, I apprehend, can read without surprise Mr.
Buddicom’s note (H.) on the reading of this verse. The slight manner in
which Griesbach is set aside, to make way for the authority of critical
editions of the N. T. since his time; the vague commendation of the
edition of Dr. Scholtz, “which, it may well be hoped, leaves us little
more to expect or desire,”—as if there were nothing peculiar or
controverted in the critical principles of that work; the citation of a
passage from this Roman Catholic editor, in which the critic becomes the
theologian, and makes use of his own reading of Θεοῦ to prove “that
Christ is God;” together with the statement that the reading is of _no
doctrinal importance_; combine to render this a remarkable piece of
criticism. If the learned Lecturer had _defended_ his dissent from
Griesbach, or attempted to invalidate the reasoning of that Editor’s
elaborate note on the passage, some materials for consideration and
argument would have been afforded. But no reason is assigned for the
preference of Θεοῦ over κυρίου, except that Dr. Scholtz adopts it, and
says nothing about it; though Griesbach rejects it, and says a great
deal about it; and very conclusively too, in the opinion of most
scholars, not excepting Mr. Byrth. Surely the paradoxical preference
which Scholtz gives to the Byzantine recension is not a reason for
hoping that he has left us nothing more to expect, in the determination
of the text of the N. T.; still less is it a reason why his readings,
simply because they are his, should supersede Griesbach’s;—from whom, I
submit, no sober critic should venture to depart, without at least
intimating the _grounds_ of his judgment. I have not seen the critical
edition of the learned Roman Catholic; but unless its Prolegomena
contain some much better reasons than are adduced in his
“Biblisch-kritische Reise,” for his attachment to the Constantinopolitan
family of manuscripts, it may be safely affirmed, that Griesbach will no
more be superseded by Scholtz, than he was anticipated by Matthæi.
The text in question is not one, on the reading of which Griesbach
expresses his opinion with any hesitation. “Ex his omnibus luculenter
apparet, pro lectione θεοῦ ne unicum quidem militare codicem, qui sive
vetustate, sive internâ bonitate suâ testis idonei et incorrupti laude
ornari queat. Non reperitur, nisi in libris recentioribus, iisdemque vel
penitus contemnendis, vel misere, multis saltem in locis,
interpolatis.”—“Quomodo igitur, salvis criticæ artis legibus, lectio
θεοῦ, utpote omni auctoritate justa destituta, defendi queat, equidem
haud intelligo.” In the face of this decision, Mr. Buddicom reads θεοῦ:
and does any one then believe, that in Unitarians alone theological bias
influences the choice of a reading?
The attempt to elicit from the word κυρίου the same argument for the
Deity of Christ, which might be derived from the reading θεοῦ, I confess
myself unable to comprehend. Does Mr. Buddicom intend to assert, that
when any person is called κύριος (Lord) in the N. T., it means that he
is Jehovah? Or, when this is denoted, is there some peculiarity of
grammatical usage, indicating the fact? If so, it is of moment that this
should be pointed out, and illustrated by examples: the idiom not being
adequately described by saying that “the word” is “_put in the form of
an unqualified and unequalled preference_.”
D.
_Archbishop Magee’s controversial Character._
In the year 1815 a discussion arose out of the general controversy on
the doctrine of the Trinity, respecting the proper use of the word
UNITARIAN. Those who were anxious to be designated by this name were
divided in opinion as to the latitude with which it should be employed.
One class proposed to limit it to believers in the simple humanity of
our Lord, and to exclude from it all who held his pre-existence, from
the lowest Arian to the highest Athanasian. Another class protested
against this restriction; suggested that, both by its construction and
its usage, the word primarily referred, not to the _nature of Christ_,
but to the _personality of the Godhead_; that as Trinitarians denoted,
by the prefix (Tri) to their name, the _three persons_ of their Deity,
so by the prefix (_Un_) should Unitarians express the _one person_ of
_theirs_; that in no other way could the numerical antithesis, promised
to the ear, be afforded to the mind; and accordingly that under the
title _Unitarian_ should be included all Christians who directed their
worship to one personal God, whatever they might think of the nature of
Christ. It is evident that, in this latter sense, the name must
comprehend a much larger class than in the former. The discussion
between the two parties was conducted in the pages of the Monthly
Repository, at that time the organ of the English Unitarian theology.
Meanwhile the defenders of orthodoxy were not indifferent to the subject
of debate; nor at all more agreed about it than their theological
opponents. The majority regarded the word Unitarian as a _creditable_
name, which was by no means to be abandoned to a set of heretics,
hitherto held up to opprobrium by the title of _Socinian_. They
accordingly proposed to consider it as expressing the belief in _One
God_ (without reference to the number of persons), in contradistinction
to the belief in _many Gods_; so that its opposite should be, not as the
analogy of language seemed to require, _Trinitarian_, but _Polytheist_.
Thus defined, the appellation belonged to Trinitarians as well as to
others; and the assumption of it, by those who dissented from the
doctrine of the Trinity, was construed into a charge of Tritheism
against the orthodox. Another party, however, comprising especially
Archbishop Magee in the church, and the High Arians out of it, treated
the name as one, not of honour, but of _disgrace_;—were anxious to fix
it exclusively on Mr. Belsham’s school of humanitarians, and to rescue
the believers in the pre-existence of Christ, of every shade, from its
pollution;—and affected to regard every extension of it to these, as a
disingenuous trick, designed to swell the appearance of numbers, and to
act as “a decoy” for drawing “to Mr. Belsham” all who were “against
Athanasius.”[416] And so the poor Unitarians could please nobody, and
were in imminent danger of being altogether anonymous. If they did not
_extend_ their name so as take in every church, Athanasian and all, they
were guilty of false imputation on Trinitarians, and of monopolizing an
honour which was no property of theirs. If they did not _narrow_ it to
“Mr. Belsham’s class,” they were accused of “equivocation,” and of
cunningly dragging the harmless Arians into participation of their
disgrace. If they _denied_ that the whole Church of England was
Unitarian, they committed an act of impudent exclusion; if they
_affirmed_ that Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton were Unitarian, they were
chargeable with a no less impudent assumption, and rebuked for
“posthumous proselytism.”
Of the three possible meanings of the word, the Humanitarian, the
Uni-personal, and the Monotheistic,—Mr. Aspland ably and successfully
vindicated the second; in opposition to Mr. Norris, a Trinitarian
controversialist, who insisted on the third, and declared he would call
his opponents _Socinians_; and amid the reproaches of Archbishop Magee,
who clung to the first, and denounced the wider application as a
“dishonest” “management of the term.” With these things in mind, let the
reader attend to the following passage from that prelate’s celebrated
work:
“How great are the advantages of a well-chosen name! _Mr. Aspland_, in
his warm recommendation of the continuance of the use of the word
_Unitarian_, in that ambiguous sense in which it had already done so
much good to the cause, very justly observes, from Dr. South, that ‘the
generality of mankind is _wholly_ and _absolutely_ governed by _words_
and _names_;’ and that ‘he who will set up for a skilful manager of the
rabble, _so long as they have but ears to hear_, needs never enquire
whether they have any understanding whereby to judge: but with two or
three popular empty words, well tuned and humoured, may whistle them
backwards and forwards, upwards and downwards, till he is weary; and get
upon their backs when he is so.’ _Month. Rep._ vol. x. p. 481.—And what
does _Mr. Aspland_ deduce from all this? Why, neither more nor less than
this,—that the name _Unitarian_ must never be given up; but all possible
changes rung upon it, let the opinions of those who bear that name be
ever so various and contradictory.”[417]
Now what does the reader think of Mr. Aspland? He despises him, as the
deliberate proposer of an imposture; as one who sets up for “a skilful
manager of the rabble,” and who argues for the name “Unitarian,”
_because_ it may enable his party to “get upon the backs” of the
multitude. The Archbishop, I presume, _means_ to leave this impression.
Let us look then to the facts.
The quotation is from Mr. Aspland’s “Plea for Unitarian Dissenters.” The
author is expostulating with Mr. Norris, who had vowed still to fasten
the term _Socinian_ on dissentients from the doctrine of the Trinity;
and is urging the impropriety of irritating a religious body by giving
them a disowned and confessedly unsuitable designation. Mr. Aspland
introduces his reference to Dr. South by the following passage:
“It is not without design that you cling to a known error. The name of
Socinian is refused by us; this is one reason why an ungenerous
adversary may choose to give it: and again, the term having been used
(with some degree of propriety) at the first appearance of this class of
Unitarians, which was at a period when penal laws were not a dead
letter, and when theological controversies were personal quarrels, it is
associated in books with a set of useful phrases such as _pestilent
heretics_, _wretched blasphemers_, and the like, which suit the
convenience of writers who have an abundance of enmity but a lack of
argument, and who, whilst they are reduced to the necessity of
borrowing, are not secured by their good taste or sense of decorum from
taking, in loan, the excrescences of defunct authors; this is a second
reason why the name ‘Socinian’ is made to linger in books, long after
Socinians have departed from the stage.”
Then follows the note from which Archbishop Magee has quoted: but from
which he has omitted the parts inclosed in brackets.
[“Once more, I must beg leave to refer you to Dr. South, for an
appropriate observation or two, _on the fatal imposture and force of
words_.]
“‘The generality of mankind is wholly and absolutely governed by _words_
and names; _[without_, nay, for the most part, even _against_ the
knowledge men have of things. The multitude or common route, like a
drove of sheep, or an herd of oxen, may be managed by any noise, or cry,
which their drivers shall accustom them to.
“‘And] he who will set up for a skilful manager of the rabble, so long
_as they have but ears to hear_, needs never enquire whether they have
any understanding whereby to judge: but with two or three popular, empty
words,’ ‘well-tuned and humoured, may whistle them backwards and
forwards, upwards and downwards, till he is weary; and get upon their
backs when he is so.’”[418]
And now, may I not ask, what does the reader think of Archbishop Magee?
Mr. Aspland indignantly CONDEMNS the “imposture” practised by false
names; and, by a garbled quotation he is held up as RESORTING to it. He
_really says_ to _his opponents_, “Call us Socinians no more, for you
must know it is unjust;” he is _represented as saying to his friends_,
“We will never cease to call ourselves Unitarians, for it is a capital
trick.” And thus, by scoring out and interlining, his own expostulation
against a base policy is metamorphosed into an indictment, charging him
with the very same. Mr. Byrth and Mr. M‘Neile are men, as I believe, of
honourable minds: and the latter has rebuked, as they deserve, “garbled
quotations.” I ask them to acquit me of “outraging the memory of
departed greatness.”
“My respected opponents know as well as I do,” “that dishonest
criticism, as well as dishonesty of every kind, consists not in the
number of the acts which are perpetrated, but in the unprincipled
disposition which led to the perpetration.”[419] I might therefore be
content with the example of “misrepresentation the most black” which I
have given. But from the list which lies before me, I think it right to
take one or two instances more, admitting of brief exposure.
In the Authorized Version, 1 Cor. xv. 47, stands thus; “The first man
_is_ of the earth, earthy: the second man _is_ the Lord from heaven;”
the substantive verb in both parts of the verse having nothing, as the
Italics indicate, to correspond with it in the original; but being
inserted at the discretion of the translators to complete the sense.
From the second clause Trinitarians usually derive an argument for the
pre-existence of Christ, conceiving that it teaches the _origin of our
Lord from heaven_. Some of their best commentators, however, understand
the clause as referring not to Christ’s _past_ entrance into this world,
but to his _future_ coming to judgment. Thus Archbishop Newcome renders,
“The second man _will be_ [the Lord] from heaven.” And Dr. Whitby
paraphrases, ”The second man is the Lord [_descending_] from heaven [_to
raise our bodies, and advance them to that place_];” and he defends this
interpretation in a note.[420] Mr. Belsham adopts this rendering, both
in the “Improved Version” and in his “Calm Enquiry,” giving, with the
sanction of the authorities I have cited, a _past_ verb to the first
clause, a _future_ verb to the second. The admirable Newcome and Whitby,
then, must share the Archbishop’s rebuke, for “the total inadmissibility
of this _arbitrary_ rendering of the Unitarians, and the _grossness_ of
their _endeavour to pervert the sense of Scripture_.” “Here,” he
observes, “we have a change of tense, which not only has no foundation
in either the Greek or Latin text, but is _in direct opposition to
both_; since in both the perfect sameness of the corresponding clauses
obviously determines the sameness of the tense.”[421] Of the
“unscholarlike exaggeration” of this criticism I say nothing, merely
wishing it to be observed in passing, that Mr. Belsham’s version is not
of Unitarian origin, and proves no doctrinal bias, much less any
“dishonesty.”
But a question arises respecting the text, as well as the translation,
of this verse; the phrase “the Lord,” in the second clause, being marked
by Griesbach as probably to be omitted; and the word “heavenly” to be
appended at the close. The original of the common translation stands
thus: Ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος, ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός· ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος, ὁ κύριος ἐξ
οὐρανοῦ. With the probable emendations the latter clause would read
thus: ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ὁ οὐράνιος: and Archbishop
Newcome’s translation, conformed to this text, becomes that of Mr.
Belsham; “The first man _was_ from the ground, earthy: the second man
_will be_ from heaven, heavenly.”