emphatically said, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,
but that believeth not shall be damned.’” (Yes, but is this to believe
what our opponents tell us, and to be baptized into the faith of
Athanasius?) “Unitarians,” he continues, “assert that they fulfil the
requirement, and therefore are safe from the penalty. We, on the other
hand, are assured, that as it would be treason against the sovereign of
these realms, to acknowledge her claim only to a part of her dominions,
while her royalty over the remainder was utterly denied; so the
Unitarian scheme which would give unto the Saviour the honours of a
prophet and a witness, while it would unsphere him from that full-orbed
glory wherein He shines through the revelation of his grace, is treason
against him and against the Majesty of God, who willeth ‘that all men
should honour the son, even as they honour the father.’ Thus convinced,
we deem the professors of that system to be under sentence of spiritual
outlawry, which if it be not reversed, will end in the terrors of the
second death.”—Lect. 8. pp. 438, 439.
The tone in which we have often been spoken of in this controversy
appears to assume that we in some degree doubt the sincerity or charity
of our opponents. We deny them neither. We know the history of religion
well enough to be aware that as severe things have been done in
sincerity as to pronounce that men dishonour Christ and God, that they
are under sentence of spiritual outlawry, and if they repent not (_i.e._
do not turn to the opinion of their antagonists) shall surely endure the
second death; we can easily believe that men say these things sincerely;
for except from the necessity of conviction, we do not imagine they
would reiterate perdition and denunciation as often as they do. We deny
not the sincerity in which an opponent may hold an opinion or resist
one: but though the motive may not be impeachable, the quality of the
opinion itself may be in the last degree anti-social and pernicious. The
men who built the Inquisition did it in perfect sincerity: the men who
sat on its judgment-seats were for the most part sincere, so were those
who dragged the heretic from his home to the dungeon, and from the
dungeon to the stake. And so are those who tell us that our faith is
damnable. Men may on account of belief consign antagonists to hell-fire
for eternity; but unless the evidence be most clear, to pronounce the
judgment requires a goodly quantity of courage. As little willing are we
to refuse our opponents the charity they claim, if by that be meant a
desire to promote good in their idea of it: but we may very fairly doubt
the justness of that idea. Believing that heretics, such as we, are in
the way to eternal destruction, it is neither inconsistent with candour
or charity to tell us so, in the hope of reclaiming us; and if
theologians imagined that inflicting bodily suffering might have a
similar effect, we are compelled to admit them to the same merit. The
worst effect of harsh and austere doctrines is that they produce harsh
and austere feelings; and the professors of them, under their indurating
process, can do deeds from principle which even bad men would rarely do
from passion. One perverted motive is worse than a thousand evil
actions. Charity in her own native sweetness is meek and gentle as the
dove, and yet theology has often made her ravenous as the vulture;
charity as she came from heaven marked her way in tears of mercy, but
theology could so pervert her as to cause her wade to the lips in blood.
The charity of the heart is very different from the charity of creeds;
and when we hear English clergymen condemn the Romish Church as
uncharitable, we naturally ask on what ground? Is it because she
condemned heretics? So do you. Is it because she has a wrong test of
heresy? Her test is substantially the same as your own. You assume that
we do not believe in Christ, because we do not believe in your creed:
she assumes that you do not believe in Christ because you do not believe
in her councils: you denounce eternal torments on us for want of your
faith; and she delivers you to the same destiny for want of her faith:
the tabooed ground of heresy and orthodoxy may be circumscribed or
extensive—the points may be few or many, the principle is the same, or
if there be any difference, it is but breaking the big end or the little
end of the egg. We are accused as traitors against God and Christ, and
to make the indictment clear against us, it is illustrated by the
instance of rebellion against a sovereign. This is a heavy charge, but
one both unjust and false. It is evil intention that constitutes crime:
a traitor opposes his sovereign and _intends_ his dethronement; but
though we should even _mistake_ the nature of Christ, can any one who
thinks for a moment venture to say our intention is for his
dethronement? Let us suppose the case, no uncommon one, of an Eastern
monarch who should disguise himself, and that some of his subjects
failed, in their ignorance of his rank, to pay him the customary
honours; what should we think of his justice, if he should call this
treason, and impale the wretches who were unconscious of having offended
him. It is too monstrous even for Eastern despotism. Or take the case in
our own history; what should we think of Alfred’s rectitude and
clemency, if when he ascended the throne from his poverty, he should
have thrown the shepherd’s wife into a dungeon and chains, because, in
his disguise, she uttered against him a surly rebuke. The instance is
not entirely parallel, but the analogy goes far enough for my purpose.
Now, though Christ were in reality the Deity which orthodoxy proclaims
him, the circumstances of his earthly life, and the concealment of his
infinite nature, were certainly sufficient to excuse some in ignorance
for taking him to be that which he appeared; and to punish them for so
natural an error, would not be a vindication of majesty, but a
capricious exhibition of cruelty.
The legal and political mode of illustration is a favourite with the
reverend lecturer. P. 450, we have a quotation from Blackstone, and the
distinction very admirably elucidated of private wrongs and public
wrongs, civil injuries, crimes and misdemeanours, &c. Sir William
Blackstone never, I imagine, anticipated the honour that his
Commentaries would be used to illustrate the principles of the divine
government; and one of the last ideas, I apprehend, that entered his
brain in delivering his lectures, was, that he was giving expositions on
the ways of Providence. The Preacher in the order of illustration, gave
a passing blow “at those wretched and guilty disturbers of the public
peace in one of our own colonies who lately crossed the borders of a
friendly state to slay and ruin and destroy, under the name of
_sympathizers_.” An allusion, doubtless, extremely loyal; but in the
present case not very logical. (Lect. p. 452.) In this part of the
discourse we have other distinctions, showing that man is a public
offender, that God is not a person but a sovereign, in relation to
guilty man, and that a sovereign is different from a person; that God is
not a creditor but a judge, and that a judge is different from a
creditor. All this may be very acute, very legal, but, theologically, it
has one imperfection, that of mistaking entirely the relation between
God and man, of turning false analogies into false premises, and, of
course, deducing from them false conclusions: of properly having nothing
to do with the true matter in hand, and leaving the question precisely
where it was before. “Our opponents,” says the Preacher, “assert that
sins are to be regarded as _debts_, and as _debts_ only.” We assert no
such thing, have never asserted it, but all the contrary, and to such an
idea the whole tone of our argument and of our system is in most perfect
contradiction. We have no such low view of God as to think that man
could owe him anything, nor any such presumptuous view of man as to
imagine he could make payment to his God. Yet upon this poor assumption
whole pages of declamation are wasted, for if it serves any purpose it
is but to beat down the man of straw which the lecturer himself had
fashioned. We hold no such view, and therefore we have never defended
any such. We do our best to maintain what we assert; if others assert
doctrines for us, we leave them the pleasure of the refutation; although
it is only when men invent opinions for opponents that they have the
double enjoyment of first building up and then pulling down. We do not
regard sins as debts for which payment can be made to God; but we may
fairly assert that on this principle rests the whole scheme of
orthodoxy. What are the atonement and righteousness of Christ but a
payment or equivalent to God for the salvation of the elect?—the very
nature of the system implies this idea, and in truth it is the only idea
that gives it even the appearance of consistency; for crime as such
cannot be punished in the person of another, but a debt can be fairly
paid by the money of another. If I commit high treason against the
sovereign—to borrow an analogy from the Preacher—it would be sad work to
lay the head of some one else on the block for it—but if I owe a severe
creditor a thousand pounds, a rich and generous friend may pay it in my
stead, and no social principle is violated by the substitute.
Mr. Buddicom makes the following modest apology for the presumed
infallibility of himself and brethren, and their right to attack all
heretical deniers of it. “While, however,” he observes, “we are prepared
to contend for the lawfulness and duty of an affectionate inroad upon
the regions of spiritual error, we remember that our movement is not
purely and primarily aggressive. A volume of Lectures, preached
expressly on the controverted doctrines of Christianity (as the lecturer
denominated his subjects), in a chapel now occupied by one of our
respected opponents, has been before the world. In these and other
similar measures, the fortress of true Christianity, the only safe
munition of rocks for the souls of men, hath been attacked by mine, and
sap, and open assault. And shall there be no attempt to countermine, no
sally made, no arm raised, in a forward movement for the truth as it is
in Jesus? Our regret is rather due to the culpable silence of the past,
than to the proceeding of the present time.” (Lect. p. 440.) The
reverend and respected Preacher refers to a volume of Lectures, by the
Rev. George Harris, delivered in this town some years ago: those
Lectures, unfortunately, I do not possess; but I have read them with
much pleasure, and many passages of them I should wish to quote in
support of my own general arguments. But the Lecturer greatly mistakes
if he imagines that we complain of orthodox aggression. Controversy,
political and religious, is the fair expression of civilised and
progressive opinion. We do not blame those who oppose us,—we have never
done it,—we have not complained that war was made on us, but we did most
righteously complain that the fair laws of warfare were denied us. Our
people were invited to go to Christ Church to listen to wise and learned
men, to be converted, by hearing their religion spoken of as blasphemy
and outlawry—to hear _themselves_ designated as enemies to their God,
and dethroners of their Saviour, and the spiritual slayers of their
kind. They were denied any religious equality. They were abused, and
vituperated, and denounced; but they were not listened to—their
condemnation was sternly uttered—but their defence had not even the poor
tribute of a hearing. Nay, grave clergymen pleaded that they could not
have their religious sensibilities disturbed or hurt by Unitarian
roughness, as if manly controversialists were to shrink from opposition
with the fastidious delicacy of timid devotees. We neither complained of
controversy, nor avoided it; on the contrary, we met it promptly,
sincerely, and willingly—with ability, it is possible, inferior to our
opponents—but not with less zeal, less alacrity, or less honesty. When
our respected opponents challenged our attendance, it was not as
antagonists on the opposite sides of a subject open to discussion, but
as accused to give in their confession of repentance, or as criminals to
hear their last sentence of punishment. We, however, blame not the
Lecturer, nor his party—we rather agree with him and them. We have
received a lesson which we needed; Unitarians have stood too long on the
defensive, when they should have been on the aggressive: had they been
faithful to their trust, it may be that the degrading dogma of original
sin, and the atrocious doctrines of election and reprobation could not
now, in this country, be matters of dispute. “Our regret (to use the
words of the Lecturer) is rather due to the culpable silence of the past
than to the proceedings of the present time.” It is a remarkable fact in
the history of religion, that all the doctrines which have been most
generally condemned as heresy, have been pure or benignant ones; and all
persecutions and religious hatreds, bodily or social, have been directed
against their professors. Not to mention the Christians, who burned
Jerome and Huss; we might refer even to the heathens who poisoned
Socrates—to uphold the personality of Satan—the reality of his
existence, and the malignity of his nature,—to declaim upon hell’s
torments and to announce eternal perdition on the great mass of God’s
family—to create excitement by the grossest pictures of vice and misery
is the certain way to popularity. The popular taste, as it has yet been
developed or nurtured, has been coarse and ferocious, and if any thing
could prove to me the doctrine of universal depravity, it would be the
toleration of the horrors of Calvinistic orthodoxy.
------------------------------------
Footnotes for Lecture VIII.
Footnote 518:
Gen. ix. 6.
Footnote 519:
See Appendix, Note 1.
Footnote 520:
Pref. to Sermons.
Footnote 521:
See Note 2.
Footnote 522:
Gen. vii. 1.
Footnote 523:
Gen. vi. 6.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE.
In preparing this Lecture for the press, after an examination in its
printed form of that to which it is a Reply, I do not find that the
Trinitarian argument has been strengthened by additional evidence, or by
a more logical statement, so as to require any modification of my
impressions of its weight and character.
Mr. Bates has in his Appendix _drawn out_ some of his scriptural
evidence, and I can only require any one to examine it, in order not
only to estimate its cogency in reference to this particular question,
but also to obtain a very accurate idea of the peculiar genius of
Trinitarian interpretation. I shall select two passages as perfectly
descriptive of the manner in which the believer in a verbal and logical
revelation draws doctrinal conclusions from the mere words of scripture.
Here is one of the Trinitarian _Scriptural proofs_ of Three Persons in
the Unity of the Godhead.
“2 Thess. iii. 5. ‘The LORD direct your hearts into the love of GOD, and
into the patient waiting for CHRIST.’
“In these passages the Three Persons are distinguished. The LORD to whom
the prayer is in both instances directed; GOD, _even our Father_; and
our _Lord Jesus_ CHRIST. That the LORD thus distinguished from _God the
Father_, and our _Lord Jesus Christ_, and addressed in prayer, is the
HOLY GHOST, is evident from the analogy of Scripture, which teaches that
_sanctification_, for which the Apostle prays, is the peculiar work of
the Holy Ghost.”—_Mr. Bates’ Appendix, p. 590._
Now, using the same description of logic, we have only to quote a
passage in which _sanctification_ is ascribed _not_ to the Holy Ghost,
but to GOD our FATHER, in order to overthrow the whole of this verbal
and mournful trifling with the sublime and vast purport of revelation.
“Holy FATHER, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me,
that _they_ may be one, _as_ we are.... _Sanctify_ them through thy
truth: thy word is truth.”—John xvii. 11, 17.
The second descriptive specimen I select, of the genius of Trinitarian
interpretation, is the following alleged _scriptural proof_ of the
separate Deity and Personality of the Holy Spirit.
“Rev. i. 4. ‘JOHN to the seven Churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto
you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come;
and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne.’”
The _seven_ Spirits, we are told, is a symbolical designation of the One
Spirit. Nothing however can be more clear, even on the _verbal_
principle, than that the seven Spirits are the seven Messengers, Angels,
or Ministers, which, partaking themselves of God’s Spirit, were His
instruments of communication with the seven Churches of Asia enumerated
by the Author of the Apocalypse, and which are represented as being
before his throne, deriving their own inspiration from Him.—“The mystery
of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven
golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven
Churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven
Churches.”—Rev. i. 20.
On this, the last opportunity, perhaps, which I may have, of saying any
thing in connexion with these Lectures, I cannot but express my own
regret, and point it out to public notice, that we have been
necessitated by circumstances, not to prepare merely and deliver as
pulpit addresses, but to print and fix in a permanent form,
dissertations upon most important and agitated questions, within a
period of time altogether insufficient to do any justice, I will not say
to the subjects, but even to our own ideas of the subjects. The
accidental advantage, in this respect, obtained by the Lecturers on the
Trinitarian Theology, with ample time and undivided strength to bring
out a single Lecture on a single topic, ought to be included as an
element of judgment, if the real value of the contrasted views is to be
estimated by any, by the results of the present controversy. For myself,
it is with great pain that I think of so much written, in the most
sacred cause, almost extempore. That this necessity has occasioned any
defects except such as have been _an injury to our own views of Truth_,
by failing to bring out its full strength, I am not aware. I am not
aware that, in any respect, we have, through haste, _overstated_ our
case. I am aware, for my own part, that it might have been much
strengthened by additional force of evidence, and clearness of
statement. I may be allowed to state, that in the course of three months
I have been obliged to write and print to the extent of an octavo volume
of nearly four hundred pages. It is impossible that such an exposition
of our views should not be crowded with imperfections, and indefinitely
feebler than it might be. May we ask that this consideration will be
taken into the account by all those who are now forming an opinion of
the merits of the Trinitarian and Unitarian Theology, from this
discussion of it. May we ask those who, in the love of the Truth, and in
confidence in the God of Truth that no Truth can injure them, wish the
real evidence to be presented to their minds, to read the original
sources, the New and the Old Scriptures, afresh, without fear, without
an unfair and biassing horror of what they have been cradled to dread as
heresy, without the intellectual infidelity of studying a revelation
from God with the previous interpretations of men, colouring all their
associations with the very words of the document, and preventing their
ever receiving a pure impression from the original evidence unmixed with
the whispers and suggestions of some self-authorized _Interpreter_ who
is in terror lest they should miss _the essentials_ of the _revealed_
religion, and derive from it some ideas that would destroy.
_Liverpool, April 1839._
---------------------
LECTURE IX.
THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH,
WHO DWELLETH IN US, AND TEACHETH ALL THINGS.
By REV. JOHN HAMILTON THOM.
“IF YE LOVE ME, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS: AND I WILL PRAY THE FATHER, AND
HE SHALL GIVE YOU ANOTHER COMFORTER, THAT HE MAY ABIDE WITH YOU FOR
EVER; EVEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH; WHOM THE WORLD CANNOT RECEIVE,
BECAUSE IT SEETH HIM NOT, NEITHER KNOWETH HIM: BUT YE KNOW HIM, FOR
HE DWELLETH WITH YOU, AND SHALL BE IN YOU. I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU
COMFORTLESS; I WILL COME TO YOU.”—_John_ xiv. 15-18
It is very remarkable that whenever the doctrine of the Trinity is
discussed, the debate is almost always exclusively occupied by the
single question of the deity of the Christ, and if that can be
established, the controversy is considered at an end. Controversialists
glide from the doctrine of the deity of the Son to the separate deity of
the Holy Spirit, in a way which plainly shows that one inroad being
effected on the personal unity of God, and the principle once loosened,
another division of it is conceded upon much easier terms, without fear,
without caution, without reverence. Why indeed should men scruple to
admit three persons into the unity of the Godhead after having got over
the first great difficulty of admitting two? A third person adds nothing
to the difficulty of a second person, and if we cannot maintain unbroken
the principle of one God, in our own sense of oneness, then the extent
to which the principle is violated, whether by three persons, or any
other number, is really a matter of a very minor importance. Having
admitted that there may be two persons in the godhead, it would be very
absurd to take an objection against there being three; for the analogy
of unity, in the only sense we are acquainted with it, the unity of a
human being, having once failed us, we must never plead it again. The
principle that admits two minds in the being of one God will equally
admit any number whatever, provided Scripture accords to them the
dignity, and our struggle and reluctance will be felt most strongly on
the first of these invasions of our own idea of unity, and will yield
more and more readily at each successive one.