speculation, employed by the Trinitarians to establish, _a priori_, the
necessity of a second person in the godhead, only to prepare you for a
similar mode of reasoning which is applied to prove the necessity for a
_third_ person in the godhead. There are works, they say, carried on in
the soul of man, that require a Third Person, another infinite Mind in
the godhead. Solemnly we say that this is making too free with the
infinite nature of God. What are those works, or what works can be
conceived, to which God our Father is not adequate? Is it not very like
irreverence for a human being to say,—_my_ salvation cannot be carried
on by one infinite and perfect Spirit, but requires three infinite and
perfect Spirits? Ought not such conclusions of Reason as these to be
very distinctly supported by Revelation before they are advanced with
any boldness, and other men called no Christians, and treated
accordingly, for no other iniquity than that of humbly refusing to speak
so confidently of God’s nature, and to put these limitations upon Him
without proof? But even supposing that the orthodox reasonings about the
nature of sin were correct, and the inability of one perfect mind to
forgive his creatures, and rescue a sinner from his sins, established,
what necessities remain that require the existence of a _third_ infinite
Mind—what operations within the human soul are to be carried on, for
which God the Father and God the Son are not sufficient? I know nothing
more wonderful than that the Christian world should at this day admit
the existence of a third person in the godhead, without ever raising the
question, or having the doubt suggested to them, is not God our Father
_sufficient_ for these things? I intreat you to discard from your minds
the Trinitarian assertion that we deny the operations attributed by them
to the Holy Spirit—we do not deny them—the connexions of the Spirit of
God with the spirit of man we hold as the most solemn, intimate and
blessed truth, the very soul of worship, of hope, and of spiritual
life—take away this, and religion has neither power nor meaning—but we
do deny that the Spirit of our Father is insufficient to maintain every
spiritual connexion with the souls of his children; we bring the secret
griefs, penitence, and aspirations of our being to Him who heard the
prayers and strengthened the soul of Christ;—and when light descends
upon us, so that we almost hear the encouragements of His voice, and see
the beckonings of His hand, we know that it is the Spirit of our Father
who sends the blessing from above, and gives to them that ask.
We entreat Trinitarians to address themselves to this particular point,
and to explain to us the moral or metaphysical necessities that require
a third person in the godhead, and render two perfect and infinite Minds
inadequate to the work of Man’s Salvation. They are very explicit and
full in their statement of _reasons_ exhibiting the incompetency of one
infinite spirit to save a sinner, and necessitating the introduction of
a second—we ask them to be equally explicit in explaining to us the
inadequacy of _two_ BEINGS, each of them possessed of the full
perfections of godhead, to rescue, teach, comfort, and bless, that not
naturally unkindred spirit of man, which Scripture tells us is ‘the
candle of the Lord,’ and ‘the inspiration of the Almighty.’ It will not
serve the Trinitarian theologians to refuse us this explanation on the
grounds that they take the doctrine as it is revealed, and inquire no
further—for they _do_ enter into very copious explanations of the
theological necessity for a _second_ person in the godhead, and they
very confidently state it as a fact in divine metaphysics, that if the
resources of God could not have supplied two infinite minds, no sin
could ever have found a pardon—and if after this readiness of
explanation respecting the second person they refuse us all explanation
respecting the third, the conclusion will certainly be suggested, that
they offer no explanations only because they have none to offer.
Conceding for a moment the fundamental principles of Trinitarian
theology, that the Father of our spirits could not receive the penitence
of His children and shed His blessing upon their returning hearts, until
forgiveness was rendered possible by a co-equal and co-eternal God
meeting the demands of a Righteousness that, if dwelling in only one
perfect Mind, could not pardon;—what is there I ask _after_ the
sacrifice of Christ had removed the difficulty, and opened the
communication between God and his children, and left the divine spirit
free to love, and operate upon, the justified,—what is there remaining
to restrict the workings of the Omnipotent and Omnipresent Spirit of God
our Father—to render him incompetent for our sanctification, in addition
to the previous incompetency for our redemption, which Trinitarians are
so far from scrupling to assign to Him that they make it a first
principle of their theology, and attempt to prove it by Reason.
Our One God they tell us, in the human sense of oneness, would be a
helpless Being: on their very first sin, his children would be plucked
out of His hands, and find him a God unable to save. Or, if He could
forgive the repentance of His creatures, it would imply a Morality so
lax, that He would be a God not worth serving.[533] To such dizzy
heights of Theology do Trinitarians who abjure Reason in religion carry
their reasonings upon the nature of God, and look into the dread
profound, and speak confidently, as if they understood it all. Again I
say, let us grant them all this, and still the question remains that
never has been answered, after the sacrifice of Christ has set at
liberty the Spirit of our Father to come freely into loving,
regenerating, and sanctifying contact with the spirits of his children,
what necessity is there for a _third_ person in the godhead to bless and
save our souls, or what works are to be carried on _within_ us, which
God the Father and God the Son are not competent to perform? Has not the
spirit of our Father access to His children, who are brought nigh to Him
through Christ; and if so, what is the office and what the need of a
third infinite Mind? We acknowledge with all our soul’s devotion that
every thing good in man comes, yes, and comes immediately, from the
Spirit of our God; but is not our Father with us, and is His Spirit
straitened that he cannot save? On this matter we abide with the
Apostles who say:—“Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning.” We are told that the Holy Spirit uses ‘the
word,’ as its instrument, in the work of spiritual regeneration. If so,
the Holy Spirit must be God our Father, for the Apostle goes on to
say:—“Of his own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should
be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” “Now our Lord Jesus Christ
himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us
everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts
and establish you in every good word and work.”[534] Now here, whilst no
mention whatever is made of the Holy Spirit as a separate agent, the
peculiar offices of the Comforter are ascribed to the spirit of our
Father, and, what to Christians is equivalent, the spirit of Christ, for
who hath seen _him_, hath seen all that man can see of the moral
perfections and spirit of our God. And not with Apostles only, but with
Christ himself, do we abide in the blessed faith of our Father being our
Comforter. “Holy Father, keep, through thine one name, those whom thou
hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in
the world I kept them through thy name:—I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the
evil. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” Here Christ
prays to God the FATHER to sanctify the spirits of the disciples, when
_he_ should be no more with them to instruct and keep them. Now
Sanctification is assigned by Trinitarians to the Holy Spirit as his
peculiar office. What then can be more clear than that the Holy Spirit
is the Spirit of our Father in communication with his children, and that
this was the Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, a portion of the true
spirit of God, which the Christ prayed his Father to communicate to his
darkened disciples,—to take away the Jewish veil from their hearts, and
to guide them into the blessed light of the pure gospel!
The Apostles pray to the Father to be a GUIDE[535] and COMFORTER[536]:
Jesus Christ prays to the Father to be a Sanctifier and Enlightener;
these are the works, and _the only works_, ascribed by Trinitarians to
the Holy Spirit. No reason has been offered in the present Controversy
for the necessity of a third person in the Godhead to be the agent of
these operations; nowhere in orthodox theology have I been able to find
a reason: I respectfully invite the attention of our opponents to this
neglected point. Let them not mistake our demand. We do not deny that
the works of the Holy Spirit can be done by God alone: but we ask for a
reason why God our Father is not sufficient for these things. Until this
question is satisfactorily answered, it must be evident that the
Trinitarian Theology is entirely arbitrary.
It is not a little remarkable that Bishop Sherlock, in attempting to
prove that the Holy Spirit performs the work of the Gospel _within_ the
mind, by the very texts that he himself adduces identifies this Holy
Spirit with the Spirit of God our Father; “No man can come unto me,
except the Father which hath sent me, draw him.” “No man can come unto
me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” “He that is of God,
heareth God’s word.”[537]
There was only one of the operations ascribed to the Holy Spirit by the
Lecturer in Christ Church, to which I could not give my assent. We were
told that the Holy Spirit interpreted the Scriptures to all true
believers. I believe that some portion of the Spirit of God is in every
man who loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. I believe that every
one who does His will, knows of the doctrine whether it is of God.
Morally and spiritually, I do believe that the Spirit of God is still a
witness to the truth of Christ. The Spirit of the Father was in Christ,
and to those who love him and keep his commandments the Father still
cometh, and maketh His abode with them. And so far we know that we are
of the truth, because we love and are partakers of the Spirit that dwelt
in Jesus. But if any man presumes to extend this sympathy with the
Spirit of the Christ from moral to _controverted_ truth, and to pretend
that he is not only spiritually but intellectually instructed, so that
he has not only a living faith, but a true creed, we abandon him to his
conviction, satisfied that however sincere, it is unscriptural and a
delusion. How can men persuade themselves that it is humble, that it is
Christian, that it is in the spirit of a modest self-knowledge, to
pretend to this intellectual infallibility, that God not only inspires
the holiness of their wills, but protects their judgment from all error?
When we ask those who tell us that only _their_ creeds can save, what
infallible interpreter preserves _them_ from all doctrinal error, they
do not scruple to proclaim that the Spirit of God is their instructer in
the controverted tenets of theology.[538] Now we only ask how this can
be made clear either to other men, or to themselves? Have they alone
sincere convictions on these subjects? Have they alone sought the truth
with the toils and prayers of earnest and humble minds? Have they alone
emptied themselves of all prejudice, and desired only the pure light
from God? Have they alone put worldly considerations from their hearts,
and left all things that they might follow Christ? What evidence is
there in their position, or in their sacrifices, that only the Spirit of
God can be their guide, for that they are manifestly self-devoted to the
cause of truth? Are _they_ the meek adherents to persecuted principle,
so that against the outward storm nothing short of the inward witness of
the Spirit can be their omnipotent supports? Do they alone give evidence
by the scorn and insult which they cheerfully bear for Christ’s sake and
the gospel’s, that they must be taught of God, for that no men could
endure this social persecution unless God was with them? Ah, my friends,
does it become the followers of popular opinions to turn to the
persecuted, and say, _we_ who float upon the world’s favour, we who have
no sacrifices to bear for conscience’ sake, we to whom godliness is a
present income (πορον) of all that men most love—we give evidence of
being supported through all this peace and popularity by the Holy
Spirit—but _you_, whom we persecute and scorn, you whom we lecture and
libel, you who have to bear upon your inmost hearts the coarse friction
of intolerance and of rude fanaticism, you, though you have to endure
all this, give no evidence that your convictions of Christ and your
faith in God are dear unto you,—you are voluntary sufferers, and the
distresses of your position, which we shall aggravate in every way we
can, are no proof that you stand the rude peltings of the pitiless
storm, only because you dare not abandon conviction, or turn away from
what you believe to be the light of God within you? I ask can any thing
surpass the unmitigated Popery of all this, except its unmitigated
cruelty and injustice? How is it that the Minister of a state religion,
the preacher of popular creeds, whose lightest words raise echoes of
assent—who gets the support and sympathy of crouds on far easier terms
than others get bare toleration and existence, can so remove from him
all self-knowledge and mercy, as to have the heart to tell the man whom
he persecutes, _we_ who have every thing to gain from our religion and
nothing to lose, give evidence of being supported through all this ease
and triumph by the Spirit of God, but you, who in this world have every
thing to lose by your religion, and nothing to gain, give no evidence of
having the Spirit of Truth, and are lovers of your own selves more than
of Conscience and of God?[539] We suspect them not, God forbid we
should, of being immorally tempted and biassed, and with a true
sincerity we declare that we have no sympathy whatever with the
ungenerous vulgarity of such a charge,—but at the same time, they ought
to be aware, and if they were truly generous in their turn they would be
aware, that all the _outward_ marks by which men may judge of the
sincerity of convictions, and the strength of inward reliances, and
allegiance to God, are upon _us_, not upon them.
The other offices assigned to the Holy Spirit besides that of being an
infallible interpreter to the orthodox, were the following:—to bring our
souls into sympathy and union with the Spirit of Jesus—to draw us by
spiritual affinities unto the Christ; to sanctify our nature through
communion with the holy One, cleansing the temple of the spiritual God;
to govern our moral being, and supply the diviner impulses that lift us
to imperishable things, and teach us to love and to pray aright; and to
give us through the spiritual witness within ourselves, a pledge and
earnest of the loving purpose of God, and of the glory that
remaineth.—Must we indeed renounce these connexions of our spirits with
the Spirit of our God, unless mechanically settling the distribution of
offices, we receive these influences through the departmental
arrangements of the Trinitarian Theology? Will God our Father not come
to us and make His abode with us, if we are unfortunate enough to find
no evidence in Scripture for a third infinite Mind associated with him,
and carry up to Him the unbroken sum of our love, our faith, our
worship, and our prayers? Will He reject us only because we pour out our
all before Him, and knowing Him to be all-sufficient, feel our derived
spirits to be at every moment within the shelter of His parental
presence?—And yet, if the Trinitarians were right, if only a believer in
a tri-personal God could hold these spiritual connexions with the source
of all good, the fountain head of all holiness and hope, if these were
the only conditions on which our souls could feel life from above—then
should we become the most grateful, the most devoted, the most
submissive of their disciples—we would entreat them to show us the way
of knowledge, that we might ascend unto the hill of the Lord, and stand
in His holy place,—and to lift up for us, in mercy, the everlasting
doors of our darkened hearts, that the King of Glory might come in;—and
we would flee from our Unitarianism as we should from Atheism, for it
would be Atheism if it closed our access to the Spirit of God.
But, though not fond of speaking personally of religious experiences, we
do declare, and we do know, that the spirit of man may hold communion
with the Spirit of our Father. Every impulse after holiness is the
Spirit of God. Every “sighing that cannot be uttered” after the pure,
the perfect, and the good, is the Spirit of God. Every devotion of our
souls to things unseen and eternal, when solicited by things seen and
temporal, is of the Spirit of God. Every dictate of Duty is the spirit
of God. Every answer to the prayer of a pure heart is the spirit of God.
Every movement of disinterested love is the spirit of God. Every
self-sacrifice for the sake of justice or of mercy is made in the
strength of the Spirit of God. Every inward hope in this world’s
darkness, and undying trust amid this world’s deaths, is an inspiration
from Him who is a very present help in the time of trouble, a spiritual
intimation from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. The spirit that conforms itself to the will
of God, that removes from it whatever is alien to His nature, that puts
away the defiling breath of the passions, that seeks Him by prayer, by
efforts of duty, by struggles of penitence, by resistance to all sin, by
self-purification and constant converse with His image in the Christ,
that spirit mirrors more and more of the glory of God, feels more and
more His power and peace within the soul, and receives of His fulness,
and grows in His likeness, throughout eternity.
If there are any to whom all this appears visionary, and who charge the
religious mind with mysticism,—we are ready to bear our share of that
charge; for thus far we confess ourselves to be Mystics. Yet, so far are
we from holding it to be Mysticism, that we are confident that nothing
which sense perceives, or thought takes in, is so real, so enduring, so
full of life, as this spiritual and imperishable connexion of the soul
of man with the Spirit of God. This connexion, whatever may have been
the inspiration of peculiar times, we now regard as part of the
established providence and operations of our Father’s Spirit. He gives
of His Spirit, to all who observe the conditions on which He has
promised to pour out His Spirit upon them. No pure mind ever sought Him
in vain. No erring heart ever turned to Him in penitence, and found no
peace. Whenever our holier nature awakes to earnest action, God enters
into the soul. Whenever prayer purifies our desires, and rectifies our
estimates, and places great realities in spiritual lights, God is
present with us. Every effort to sink our imperfections, and to feel
purely, places us within the affinities of His Holy Spirit. There is no
miracle in this. God reveals himself to the spirit that assimilates
itself to Him, and seeks Him by growing like to Him. There are no limits
to those spiritual communications. He that asketh receiveth; he that
seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it is opened. This is of God’s
grace; not now of miracle, but of nature. We are His children, and in
proportion as we love Him purely, and follow after Him, He reveals
Himself to us. Revealing himself through our spirit, He abides with us
for ever. Imaged within us in juster proportions, as we reject impurity,
and impose the harmony of His will upon all our desires, He guides us
into all truth, and causes us to feel within, the blessed intimations of
His sympathizing Spirit. Correcting our false estimates, and fixing our
trusts upon His own great realities, He comforts us amid the shadows of
Time and Death, whilst we repose upon a world that cannot be moved, and
rely upon the faithfulness of God.
Jesus Christ is our most perfect image of the Spiritual Father. He
developes within us the ideas that are akin to God. He brings us through
sympathy with himself within the affinities of the Holy Spirit, for God
was with him. By the baptism of ever fresh penitence, and still fresher
purity, he prepares us for the higher baptism of the Holy Spirit, and of
fire. We grow in light as we grow in purity. If we keep holy the Temple
of the Spirit it abides with us, and, doing His will, we know of the
doctrine whether it be of God. The soul that quenches not the Spirit,
that suffers no intimation from God to pass unheeded, that looks upon
the face of Christ, and reads in characters of blended grace and truth
the mind of the Father, is continually born again, and again, into new
and still newer light, for the kingdom of heaven is a reaching forth
unto things that are before; and he that is in Christ Jesus has within
him a spring of life, and is ever a New Creature. And he is ever nearest
to God who through purity and prayer has disposed his own spirit to
receive light from the Holy Spirit of God, and waits and watches for
fresh communications from His unexhausted Christ.
Were another great Teacher to appear amongst us, were another Christ to
come to us, and apart from the narrow technicalities of system, to
unfold sublime and quickening views of the moral and spiritual world,
where might we expect to find the kindred minds, that would most
instantly recognize the voice of the Divinity, and upon whose ready
sympathies the heavenly words would fall like sparks upon the fuel?
Perhaps those who best understood what it is “to be born again” might
not be of the number of the learned, the instructed, the Masters in
Israel. It is certain that they would not be found among the adherents
of unchanging systems—the Pharisees of the faith, who think that they
_already_ possess the absolute Truth imprisoned in creeds—and expect no
new light to break forth upon their souls. The wind bloweth where it
listeth—nevertheless its course is not uncontrolled—it has laws though
we know them not—and where would the Spirit of God list to blow, if it
was now breathing from the lips of some inspired man,—into what hearts
would it find its way, and fan the latent affinities into the flame of
spiritual life? Might it not again pass by the College of the learned,
and the Temple of the Priest, and descend in living fire upon the poor
man’s soul? All that we can do is to look out for light—to expect it—to
keep near through prayer and inward communion to Him who is its
Fountain—to have the inward sentiments pure, the place of the Spirit
unsoiled, that if light should come into the world, it may not reject us
as unworthy, finding no mirror for itself in our stained souls—and above
all, never to be possessed with that infatuation of confidence, that
blindness of sufficiency, that self-idolatry of the creature, which
looks for no regeneration to descend upon it—and ignorant of its
poverty, its error, and its want, asks with the young Ruler, “what lack
I yet,” or with Nicodemus, “How can a man be born again?” We may be born
again, and again, if we will only lay ourselves out for it. The light
will come if it is looked for. It will not open the closed eye that
seeks no more illumination, but it will fall upon every expecting
spirit. The only essential condition of being born again, is that the
sincere heart, listening to God within, and reading the mind of His
Spirit in Christ his image, remove from itself every moral
disqualification, and lie in wait for light and truth. Wherever they are
found, and whatever be their creed, the Spirit of God “_listeth_” to
blow upon such minds.
------------------------------------
Footnotes for Lecture IX.
Footnote 524:
See Forrest on the origin and progress of the Trinitarian Theology, p.
40.
Footnote 525:
See the Rev. F. Ould’s dedication of his Lecture.
Footnote 526:
Burton, Theol. Works, vol. ii. 2nd part, p. 16.
Footnote 527:
Burton, p. 21.
Footnote 528:
“The deity and personality of the Holy Spirit,” pp. 20-23.
Footnote 529:
“And he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is the mind of the
Spirit, because it maketh intercession for the Saints, according to
_the will_ of God.”—Rom. viii. 27.
Footnote 530: