a necessary change into the conceptions of the Apostles; these drove out
of their Messianic idea the spirit of the World, and introduced into it
the spirit of God. They could not retain their Jewish ideas of the reign
of the Messiah, in connexion with the crucified Jesus. If they held by
their Jewish faith on this matter, they must abandon Jesus. If they held
by Jesus, they must abandon their Jewish ideas, and remodel their faith.
But God takes care that they shall hold by Jesus: and this is His mode
of spiritualizing their conceptions of Christ and of Christianity. God
lifts him from the dead and places him in Heaven. The Christ returns to
earth to show that God was with him; and he ascends into Heaven, to
repel the imagination which otherwise might possibly arise, nay, which
actually had arisen, that even yet he might raise his standard on the
earth, and realize the gigantic illusion of the Jew. By this means, the
Apostles were placed in this position:—they must retain their faith in
Jesus, for how could they battle against God, or hold out against such
evidence as the Christ rising from the tomb, and the Christ passing into
the skies;—and yet if they are to regard Jesus as their Messiah, they
must modify all their Jewish views, and conceive of the Christ anew. And
accordingly this was the plan and process of their conversion, of their
introduction to the true Christianity, of their baptism into the Spirit
of God. Since Jesus was thus evidently the Christ, and yet could not be
adapted to their Jewish views, of course all their Jewish views must
yield, and adapt themselves to _him_. His life and destinies were the
_fixed_ facts, with which their conceptions of the Christ must now be
harmonized. You now see how when the Spirit of Truth came upon them, it
testified of Jesus, it took of his and showed it unto them, it threw
illumination upon words and deeds of his, which, when contemplated from
the Jewish point of view, caught not the sympathies of their souls, and
like invisible writing, waited for the heat and light of Truth to fall
upon them, and bring out the meaning. His Death struck down a principal
part of their errors: and his Exaltation forced upon them a new idea of
his kingdom. Never again could they confound the Messiah with a temporal
prince. Whatever Christianity might be, henceforth it must be connected
with the immortality of Heaven. Christianity could not be separated from
the Christ, and the Christ was with God; and they remembered his prayer
and promise, that they were to be with him where he was.
All this would necessarily be suggested to them from their identifying
the Christ with the risen Jesus. Nothing more would be necessary to
unfold this train of spiritual thought. It was the first fulfilment of
that profound prophecy, “When the Comforter is come, even the Spirit of
Truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me, and
shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you.” And this Spirit of Truth did lead them
into all truth—it gave them no new revelation, but it called to their
remembrance, and taught them to understand a revelation which Jesus had
before offered to them in vain—and so, in the words of his own promise,
it glorified him, for it “took of his, and showed it unto them.” The
Apostles were now in a position to look upon the Christ from a right
point of view, and to receive the Spirit of Truth and God. The scales of
illusion dropped from their eyes, and they began to see Jesus as he was.
From the hour that circumstances constrained them to draw their
Christianity from the life and destinies of the Christ, their minds
began to open, and the Spirit of Truth to teach them all things, and to
call to their remembrance whatsoever Jesus had said unto them, no longer
dimly understood, but irradiated with moral light, because seen in right
connexions, and explained by the interpretation of events. Who can
retain his fancies in opposition to direct experience? and experience
was now enlightening the Apostles. How could they go on dreaming of an
Earthly Prince, when their Christ was in the skies? From that hour their
souls began to be transfigured, and they walked in the light of the
other world, and the Christ to whom they looked became their leader to
Immortality. How could they go on in their unspiritual imaginations,
when the Captain of their Salvation stood constantly before their eyes,
a crucified man, and a risen immortal? From that hour they became
soldiers of the Cross, and their only victories were over themselves,
and the powers of evil; and the only battle-cry of the Son of Man, when
idol after idol fell prostrate before the Truth, and their Master in the
skies, in the successes of his faith, led on the movements of humanity,
and, wherever his spirit struck root, banded a new force against the
enemies of man, and mustered fresh hosts for conquest. How could they go
on in their national arrogance, and in their sectarian intolerance, when
they were obliged to draw their moral notions of Christianity from the
life of Christ, and that spoke such different lessons? From that hour
their anti-social temper began to soften, their exclusiveness to bend
and give way, their deep-cut lines of national distinctness to disappear
in the fully developed features of our common humanity. In the light of
_his_ Spirit, what _could_ they be but children of God, and brethren of
mankind? They had to harmonize his Kingdom with his Character, and that
led them into all truth. They had to read the glory of God in the face
of Christ; and the light that beamed there was grace and truth. They had
to take their Christianity from the Master’s life, and that kept them
right. Its lesson was of the one fold, and the one shepherd—of the one
God and Father of all, and of one type of the connexions between
humanity and Heaven—one Mediator between man and God, the man Christ
Jesus. And so at last, when fitted for it by the teaching of events, the
Spirit of Truth, at once their Comforter and their Teacher, descended
upon them, and then they became “witnesses unto him.” They read his life
anew, and reported it to the world, and the world read it too, and has
ever since been studying that exhaustless revelation. They saw in it
more and more of the Saviour’s spirit and purposes, and after the
illumination had come upon them, the providence of God so disposed the
external events that affected the infant Church, that they went forth
bearing the light that lighted them unto all the world. Persecution
scattered them from land to land, and they went carrying with them their
priceless treasure. They were hunted from city to city, but all the
faster flew the Gospel. The stake received them, and it became as a new
cross of Christ, and the blood of his martyrs witnessed unto him. Are we
speaking of the same men who in Gethsemane’s garden forsook their Lord
and fled—who in the Temple Court denied him to his face—who, when he was
led to the Cross, abandoned him in terror, and when he died there, laid
their heads in the dust, because their poor ambition was fallen to the
earth? Are they the same men, who in the Gospels are narrow-minded,
ambitious, and false—that in the Acts of the Apostles come forth bold,
resolute, spiritual witnesses for Jesus, and dauntless martyrs to his
truth? We can scarcely believe that we are reading of the same men, when
we turn from the page of the Evangelists to the record of their deeds,
_after_ the Death and the Ascension of the Christ annihilated their
errors, and the Spirit of Truth and of God had fallen upon them.
Contrast the prayer,—“Lord grant us to sit on thy right hand and on thy
left in thy kingdom,” or, “Lord wilt thou at this time restore the
kingdom to Israel?”—with this, “Lord, thou art God, which hast made
Heaven and Earth, and the Sea, and all that in them is; who by the mouth
of thy servant David hast said, why did the heathen rage, and the people
imagine vain things? The kings of the Earth stood up, and the rulers
were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of
a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both
Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel,
were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
determined before to be done: And now, Lord, behold their threatenings,
and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy
word; by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders
may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus!” How came this
difference? What passed over them and turned them into new men? The
Spirit of Truth had come unto them, that great Comforter, the Spirit of
understanding and of God: they saw it all, and they were worldly and
weak no more, but strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might? And
this Comforter never again left them; the truth broke upon them and
became their stay for ever,—it was the Spirit of God dwelling in them,
and abiding for ever, his imperishable light in the soul, once given
never to be withdrawn. It was just the difference between Spiritual
light and Spiritual darkness, in their effects upon character. It was
just the difference between the spirit that is of the world, and the
spirit that is of God. It was just the difference between our nature
when it is right and when it is wrong with God; when it is stumbling in
darkness, the dupe of illusions, and when it is furnished with
everlasting principles, and walking in the light of life. In the Gospels
they are men palsied by the feebleness of error—in the Acts of the
Apostles they are men omnipotent in the power of Truth. Is this change
in their characters capable of being accounted for? Yes, if you grant
the facts of Christ’s history,—but not otherwise. How otherwise you are
to get across the chasm between the Gospels and the Acts of the
Apostles, I know not. Take those facts as causes, and the bridge is
easy. What a step is it from the fishermen of Galilee to the Apostles of
Christ—from the ignorance of Jewish peasants, to the Communicators of
the mightiest impulse that Society has ever felt, the agents of the
mightiest influence that ever Providence has put forth upon the soul of
man,—the creators of new institutions, new forms of character, new civil
relationships;—before whose preaching religions and empires fell,—at
whose word Liberty first started into life, not as a spirit of
opposition, but as the gentle child of brotherhood and love,—and who are
still in the monuments they have left behind them, the heralds of human
progress and the revolutionizers of the world! Who will deny that the
spirit of God was here? Not we: we are ready to maintain it against the
world. Who denies that the spirit of God still accompanies his Gospel?
Not we: we believe it in the depths of our hearts. How wonderful the
impulse, these men gave, and still give to the heart of the world! What
difficulties had they to conquer! their own characters, and violent
prepossessions—and they conquered these. The curse of the Priest, the
arm of the Ruler, the scoff of the People—and they conquered these. The
attractions of Heathenism; the licentiousness of its morality; the
gracefulness of its idolatry; its religion for the senses; its
philosophy for the sceptic; its indifference to speculative truth; its
equal regard for all gods, and all forms of worship that would only be
content to dwell together in peace,—and they conquered these. Think of
this wonderful History, and say whether you can explain it except as the
New Testament explains it. What would account for the fortunes of the
Apostles, if Christianity was not from God? The world of Causes and
Effects is but a game of Chance, if such things can be, and their origin
an accidental imagination, their foundation a falsehood or a dream. Who
will account for such men being enlightened against their own wills, and
forced into the front ranks of humanity contrary to their own desires—if
the history is not true? But rob not the History of its true power—take
not the spirit of life out of the gospel—by telling us of a third person
in the Trinity whom Jesus sent to supplant the free minds of the
Apostles. No, it was the free spirit of God acting upon the free spirit
of men that opened their eyes to see the things that were hidden from
them before; and they walked forth in the light of these wondrous
events, and looked now upon their Christ as those from whose spiritual
sight the bandage of the world had been taken away. The Comforter, which
is the Spirit of TRUTH, came unto them, and taught them all things, and
rectifying their former misconceptions took of the things of Christ, and
showed it unto them. He spoke not of himself. He added nothing to the
revelation already made by Jesus:—the divine characters were already
impressed on the life and destinies of the Christ—and the Spirit of
Truth guided them to it, and brought out the full meaning of the already
finished revelation. Still does the world want light to read that
revelation. Still does many an interpreter come to the reading of it
with a Jewish veil upon his heart. But there is new light still to break
forth out of God’s word. Although it would almost seem as if another day
of Pentecost would be needed to drive out the spirit of the world, the
spirit of system and of man, by the mightier Spirit of God—and to guide
our exclusive tempers, our sectarian and narrow hearts into the religion
of reality—of the merciful and perfect Christ, full of grace and truth.
It is impossible to display with any minuteness the confusion that is
introduced into the Scriptures by the supposition that the Holy Spirit
is a third infinite Mind associated with the Father and the Son. In one
passage it is said, “If I cast out devils by _the Spirit of God_, then
the kingdom of God is come unto you;” in another passage it is said, “If
I with _the finger of God_ cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God
is come unto you.” Are we to understand then different things by “the
Spirit of God” and “the finger of God,”—or do they not both plainly
signify the power and presence of the One God who wrought in
Christ:—“the Father who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.”
In one passage it is said, “Wait for the promise of the Father—ye shall
be baptized with _the holy spirit_ not many days hence.” In another
passage of the same writer it is said, “Tarry ye in the city, until ye
be endued with _power from on high_.” Are we to understand by the Holy
Spirit anything different from ‘power from on high:’ or rather are we
not to understand by both the fulfilment of the promise of the Father by
His own power and presence?
In one passage it is said, “We are his witnesses of these things, and so
is also _the Holy Spirit_, which God hath given to them that obey Him.”
In another passage it is said, “The _works_ that I do in my Father’s
name, they bear witness of me.” Is it not evident then that _the works_
which the Apostles did, were the works of God, His spirit working by
them, witnessing to the truth of their testimony?
If the Holy Spirit is a distinct Person from God the Father, then the
third Person, and not the first person in the Trinity, nor the second
person, must on the Trinitarian view be regarded as the Father of Jesus,
for it is written, “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” And yet the Trinitarian
hypothesis is, that it was neither the third person, nor the first, but
the second person in the godhead, that took humanity into union with his
deity. But there is no end of these painful inconsistencies. So again
Jesus is said to be raised from the dead by God, and again to be
“quickened by the Spirit:” but surely the Trinitarian hypothesis would
require that the divine nature of the Christ, the second person in the
Trinity, should raise up the human Jesus, with which it had been united.
Who will harmonize these things for us? Who can without pain, nay,
without asking pardon of God for the irreverence, contemplate His
spiritual nature in such representations?
It is said of the Holy Spirit, that He would not speak of himself. Can
He then be a distinct God in the unity of the godhead, and not speak of
Himself? Is this the reason that Scripture contains no proof of his
separate existence? Is it not evident that the Spirit of Truth, _added
nothing_ to the revelation that was in Christ, but brought it out,
_illuminated_, by an after influence on the minds of the Apostles, what
he said and did?
It is said in Scripture that no one knows the Son but the Father—and
that no one knows the Father but the Son:—but if the Holy Spirit is a
third person in the godhead, equal in every respect, this must be an
erroneous statement.
The last scriptural proof I shall give that the Holy Spirit is not a
third infinite Person in the godhead is the very decisive one that
Scripture offers not a single ascription of praise or glory to Him, and
contains not a single doxology in which He is included. Could this be so
if he was really and distinctively God? Scripture contains ascriptions
of praise to Christ, and even to the Angels; it connects together the
names of God and Christ, in innumerable cases where it makes no mention
of the Holy Spirit.—John v. 17. xiv. 21. “Father!—this is life eternal
to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”
Now if Trinitarianism is true, the Father, and even with the addition of
Jesus Christ whom He has sent, does not constitute the only true God.
“Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”—1
John i. 3.
“Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”—2 John i.
3.
“He that abideth in the doctrine of the Christ, he hath both the Father
and the Son.”—2 John i. 9.
“For whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the
Son of Man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his
Father’s, and of the holy angels.”—Luke ix. 26. 1 Tim. v. 21.
“He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I
will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess
his name before my Father and before his angels.”—Rev. iii. 5.
“And every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the
earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I
saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that
sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.”—Rev. v, 13.
Now if it be a fact that there is not one scriptural ascription of glory
to the Holy Ghost, how is it that the Church of England can so
confidently say, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the
Holy Ghost: _as it was so in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be_.”
The beginning that is here spoken of must have _begun after_ all the
books of the New Testament were written. We have already traced in
ecclesiastical history the beginning of that doxology, in the latter
part of the fourth century—and a beginning in its attendant
circumstances not very reputable, nor such as should be countenanced by
those who preach submission to _Church Authorities_.
The learned and profound Lardner, modest as learned, remarks upon the
assumption contained in this doxology of the prayer book, “as it was in
the beginning.” “Doubtless this is said by many very frequently, and
with great devotion. But can it be said truly? Does not that deserve
consideration? Is there any such doxology in the New Testament? If not,
how can it be said, to have been _in the beginning_? Are not the books
of the New Testament the most ancient, and the most authentic Christian
writings in all the world? It matters not much to inquire, when this
doxology was first used, or how long it has been in use, if it is not in
the New Testament. And whether it is there or not may be known by those
who are pleased to read it with care: as all may, in Protestant
countries, where the Bible lies open, to be seen and read by all men.”
(Postscript I. to “A Letter on the Logos.”)
Weak and almost incredibly insufficient as is the _scriptural_ evidence
for a third Person in the godhead, the _theological_ evidence is still
weaker and more arbitrary; and betrays most fully those inadequate
conceptions of the divine nature which form the supports of all the
popular creeds and churches. You are aware of the Trinitarian argument
for the necessity of a _second_ person in the godhead; for these
orthodox theologians presume to reason upon abstract principles about
the nature of God to an extent that the Unitarians whom they condemn for
this very practice never have approached to and which indeed we hold to
be arbitrary and presuming to the last degree. We are gravely told by
divines who profess the utmost humility and a horror of all speculation,
that if God was one Being in the sense that we are one, He would have no
resources in his own Nature enabling Him to forgive Sin; and that if
there were not at least two persons in the godhead, the one to make
atonement and the other to receive it, our Father in Heaven would be
placed in these circumstances,—either He must forgive, and since his Law
had been broken without the infliction of an adequate penalty, exhibit
his Character without TRUTH; or He must refuse to forgive, and retaining
his Truth, exhibit his Character without MERCY. Now when _a human
reasoner_ lays down these preliminaries as necessary parts of the
constitution of the divine mind, I am amazed that he has ever after the
conscience to charge other men with rash speculations on the subjects of
Theology, or with reasoning upon abstract principles about the things of
God. Atonement _is_ made for every sin: in that the Trinitarian is
right. The sinner bears upon a burdened soul the weight of the cross,
and faints in sorrow. Through a crucifixion and an agony does every
erring heart return to God. The penalty is paid in bitter shame and
tears, in the consciousness of degradation and of eternal loss, in the
deep humiliation of a spirit that has quenched within it the divine
flame, and treated with no respect the image of God in which it was
made. Can such a being sin and escape without atonement—can a spiritual
creature darken the angel and cherish the animal, and yet pay no
penalty, start at last with no horror, and throb with no remorseful
agony? No—the sinner must die in his sins, if he is to escape the
piercings of his better nature, the open eye of his conscience fixed in
awful steadiness of gaze upon the terrors of his state. Who that has
ever felt a throb of penitence, who that has ever known the prostration
of a soul awakened to a sense of sin, the deep misery of the purer
spirit looking sorrowfully on the debasements of our being, as Christ
looked upon Peter, who that has ever felt these things will deny that
sin, every sin, has its atonement, and instead of questioning the
_vicarious_ sacrifice as too dreadful, will not rather put it away from
him only as too easy, too unreal, too remote from the sense of
individual agony and burden, to meet and satisfy the inward and
untransferable reality? We blame not the Trinitarians for speaking of
the atonement required by sin. We blame them for not treating that
subject with sufficient strictness, with sufficient severity, with
sufficient energy of application to individual consciences. How much
more awakening it is to tell a man of the atonement that he pays within,
of the cross that is laid upon his humiliated heart, than to tell him of
a metaphysical necessity in God’s nature that required the death of an
infinite being, the blood of God, for this awful expression is used and
defended at Christ Church,[531] to make satisfaction for the offence of
a finite creature. This is the arbitrary assumption of Trinitarianism
that requires most to be exposed, that the sin of a finite being is an
infinite quantity, and that his penitence cannot atone for it, for his
penitence is not infinite. Now the men who assert this strange thing,
should at least be cautious how they charge Unitarians with arbitrary
reasonings and speculations. Can Reason exhibit, or does Scripture any
where say, that the sin of finite man is infinite in the sight of God,
and yet unless this most extravagant of all propositions can be
established the whole Trinitarian Theology falls to the ground, for then
the only atonement for sin will be the crucifixion of the erring and
repenting spirit, and none more dreadful can be given or conceived. I am
perfectly aware that cautious and refined controversialists would not
assert the infinite character of man’s sinfulness, and that they would
explain away the doctrine of the Atonement; but the Lecturers at Christ
Church are not cautious controversialists, they have no notion of such
refinements, and they do assert it without abatement. If God’s unity,
says one of them,[532] was like man’s unity, He could not forgive, yet
preserve His holiness. And therefore I suppose, since man has no
tri-personal resources in his unity, that _he_ can forgive only because
his holiness is of an imperfect kind, and as his holiness becomes more
strict he will less readily forgive, so that when he becomes quite
perfect he will be quite implacable. But perhaps the Trinitarian
_resource_ in this difficulty, is that _man_ too forgives, yet keeps his
truth and holiness, in consideration of the atonement offered for all
sin. The immoral plea that man is not the _Lawgiver_, cannot be offered
by those whose difficulty is one respecting holiness. A holy mind is as
much bound by the laws of holiness, as if it was itself the Lawgiver.