Part 7
In the third chapter of John we read, that Christ said to Nicodemus,――"If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not; how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he, that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, which is in heaven." The express contrast of the words――"ascended up to heaven, came down from heaven," seems to fix the meaning beyond any possible doubt.――In the 6th chapter of John Christ said, as we read, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him, that sent me."――"Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he, which cometh from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." When the Jews murmured at his discourse, because he said, "I am the bread, which came down from heaven," Jesus repeated his plain teaching――"I am the living bread, which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread, that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." That is, he who came down from God in heaven would give his flesh, his human body to the agonies of crucifixion for the salvation of men. Many of his disciples said, "this is an hard saying: who can hear it?" What was the reply of Christ? It was this: "does this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" In the 16th chapter of John we read Christ's words――"The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed, that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father." Here again the contrast of expressions shows the meaning of the phrase, "I am come into the world." I will adduce only one other passage:――In Ephesians 4th we read――"Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" "He that descended is the same also, that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things." I think it thus most clearly and amply established in scripture, that the Lamb of God came down to the earth from the presence of God and laying aside his high dignity dwelt in a human body, as a man dwells in a body, and died in agony on the cross. There may be various high inquiries, which may here spring up. But surely no theory can be true, which contradicts and overthrows the divine teaching. No scheme of theology can be true, which denies, that he, who came down from heaven, could die and did die as a lamb of sacrifice to God for the sins of the world,――for this is a denial of the great doctrine of the atonement, and thus withers up all the hopes of sinful men. Who can prove, that God could not have a Son derived from Him before time began, by whom he created the universe, and who in his most amazing love to us abased himself to man's condition and died in our stead on this little globe of his own creation? If we find in the Bible any plain, intelligible teaching of God, will it do to set up our reason against the teaching of Him, who is infinite reason and infinite wisdom?
If any truth is plain in the Bible, is it not that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in human flesh or in fashion as a man by his sufferings on the cross _made_ atonement for the sins of the world? Paul says, Rom. 5:11;――"We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement; and that God hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God:" Coloss. 1:13.――Peter says, that his brethren were "redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Other expressions are these, Christ "after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, [that is, for perpetuity,] sat down on the right hand of God:" Heb. 10:12, "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood:" Rom. 3:25, "Unto him, that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood:" Rev. 1:5.――That the Son of God, who came down from heaven, was himself a sufferer and sacrifice on the cross for our sins is every where taught in scripture. Without believing this how can we regard Christ as a Redeemer and Savior?
_Sonnet 81._ In order that revealed truths may beam upon the mind of man and produce their proper effect it is necessary, that God's revelation be understood and not misapprehended. If two men attach a different and contradictory meaning to the same passage of scripture, one of them is in error and fault; and if the error relates to the character of God and to some very important doctrine, it may be perilous.
For instance, two of our theologians have taught a contradictory doctrine, drawn as they thought from scripture, as follows; Jonathan Edwards maintained, that sin was "not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the Most High;"――"it would be a reproach and blasphemy to suppose God to be the author of sin" in the sense of the agent, actor, or doer of a wicked thing. But Dr. Emmons maintained, that God "produced all the free, voluntary, moral exercises" of man; that God "creates evil when and where the good of the universe requires;" that "Satan placed certain motives before man's mind, which by a certain divine energy took hold of his heart and led him into sin." This teaching seems blasphemous, and contradictory to all notions of free, voluntary agency, as well as to the tenor of scripture. He relies for scripture proof on Exodus 4:21, where God says in respect to Pharaoh, "I will harden his heart." But this, rightly understood, is only a prediction of a certain event, that Pharaoh would harden his own heart as it is declared he did in ch. 9:34. So in respect to other quoted passages, it might be shown, that they were misunderstood and perverted from their proper meaning. We all know by common sense, by reason, and conscience, that we are free agents; therefore justly accountable to a holy, sin-hating God. But if God made, created, produced all our wicked volitions and acts; how can we regard him as just in punishing us for the very acts, which he produced? And what can such passages as James 1:13, mean, "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man?"
_Sonnet 82._ The following seem to be clear and prominent points of instruction in the divine Word.
1. There is ONE GOD, eternal, infinite, all-wise, perfect in goodness, the creator of the universe. Hence all the gods and idols of the heathen are vanity and a lie.――"There is one God the Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Ephes. 2:5.――"The Lord our God is one Lord."――"God is one."――"One God and one Mediator." Mark 12:29. Galatians 3:20. I Tim. 2:5. Thus throughout the whole scripture the unity of God is asserted or implied. The name of God occurs 500 or 600 times in the Bible. "God is one;" one conscious, intelligent being and voluntary agent. No man in the exercise of his reason has any doubts as to his own oneness, or as to the oneness of any brother man or of any angel, of whom he may think or speak. If I am conscious, that I am a single intellectual being, and necessarily regard every other man as such; then it cannot enter my thoughts, that the one God is a compound being.
2. God has a SON in heaven, by whom he made the worlds, and whom he sent from heaven to earth, to tabernacle for a while in human flesh, voluntarily abased in his powers to the condition of a man, to be a Mediator and Savior. In John, chapter 1, Jesus Christ is called "the Son of God," "the only-begotten of the Father," "the Lamb of God," who was "in the beginning with God," and "by whom all things were made."
3. That the Son of God is a being distinct from God is most obvious from the whole New Testament. In Phil. I, Paul prays for grace and peace "from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." He adds, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you." So throughout his epistle God and Jesus Christ are most plainly distinct beings. He says, that Christ condescended to come in fashion "as a man," on which account God highly exalted him: here are two beings: and Christ will be extolled at last to "the glory of God the Father."――He "worshipped God in the spirit and rejoiced in Christ Jesus."――Here are again two beings. Near the close of the epistle he says――"my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." How strange to Paul must have been the doctrine, that Christ was one of several beings making up one God?
But the same distinction is clearly and fully set forth by Paul in all his other epistles as well as in that to the Philippians. He begins most of them with a prayer like that in the epistle to the Romans,――"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Then he "thanks God through Jesus Christ for them all;" the God, whom he serves "in the gospel of his Son." Read also,――"the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ;"――"we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;"――"we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son;"――"the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord;"――nothing can "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord;"――Paul prays, that his brethren may "glorify God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ;"――and after more of similar language he ends this epistle,――"To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen."
If it be asked, in what sense is Christ God's "_Son_, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds?" I answer, the word doubtless means, that he was derived from God, that he sprung from God, that he received his being from God before the creation of the universe. He is called God's "first-begotten" and "only-begotten." It is unnecessary and may be useless for us to enter into any inquiries and discussions concerning hypostasis, person, nature, being, essence, substance, and other logical and metaphysical terms employed by theologians, which do not afford a particle of light; but we must believe, that Christ was derived from God and possesses the very attributes and endured the sufferings, ascribed to him in the scriptures. If we ascribe to him a nature not ascribed to him in the Bible, one incapable of suffering, and then deny the sufferings, which are ascribed to him; what do we but contradict the word of God and reject the doctrine of the Atonement by the sufferings of Christ, which is the foundation of the sinner's hope? If a learned doctor should assert, that if Christ was the agent of God in the creation of the universe, and is his agent in its government, then he could not be derived from God; the learned man puts forth only the words of folly. As derived from God, why might not the Son be as much superior to the highest angel, as man is superior in knowledge and powers to the beetle under our foot? Why could he not derive from God and exercise under God the powers of creation?
"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature; for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities or powers: all things were created by him and for him:"――"it pleased the father, that in him should all fullness dwell." Col. 1:15, 16. So in Heb. 1:3, Christ is called "the express image of God's person;" where the Greek word, translated person, means nature, essence, or being, and the assertion is, that Christ is "a clear and strong image of the essence or nature of the divine majesty." It may be, that for this reason the title of god is given to him; and with very obvious propriety may we ascribe to him divinity or call him a divine being, without contending for the impossibility that he is the very being, whose image he is, or that his own is the very nature, person, hypostasis, or substance, of which he stands the express character.
According to our English Bible the Son of God under the name of the Word seems to be called God by the apostle John, ch. 1, v. 1. But it was not the purpose of John to represent the Word as the infinite, supreme, almighty God. ORIGEN, who wrote in Greek, in the third century, and understood the language better than any modern critic, says, that John's assertion is that, "the _logos_, or word, was _a god_," using the word god in its inferior, well-known sense, as is proved by his omission of the article. If he had inserted the article, he would have said, that "the logos was _the_ God, the supreme God, Jehovah." The plain teaching is, there is one God. With him was the _logos_ in the beginning, an exalted, glorious being; a second, inferior God; a being derived from God; and in this sense a divine being.――Besides Origen, Philo and several other fathers of the three first centuries speak of John's omission of the article here as a proof that by the word god he did not mean the Supreme God. Consider also, that if the logos existed "_with_ God," then he was not the very God, with whom he existed.――On the other hand, it is a matter of no weight that when the supreme God is meant, yet the article is often omitted; for it is an established principle that it may be omitted when the name of God is sufficiently definite without it. In John 1:6,――"a man sent from God:" here is an omission of it as unnecessary. So v. 12, 13, 18. Origen again says,――"Angels are called gods because they are divine; but we are not commanded to worship them in the place of God, and hence they are not really gods." He says, the article is withheld, when what is called god is a being different "from the self-existent God, having a communicated divinity, being a divine person." Such also was the opinion of Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius; and they were men more competent to decide a matter concerning the construction of the Greek language than any modern critic.――In several of the first centuries it was the judgment of such Fathers as Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, Clemens, Origen, &c., that the word god as applied to Christ denoted a celestial nature, superior to all creatures, but inferior to the Supreme God. But the authority of Christ himself is more decisive,――"My Father is greater than I:" and the whole of scripture shows, that the one perfect God and his Son are two distinct intelligent Beings. As the word in Greek, Acts 28:6, has no article our translators have very properly said "a god." If any one will look at 2 Thess. 2:4, he will see, that the word God occurs four times and undistinguished in the English Testament, but in the Greek the word for God appears once――"in the temple of God"――_with_ the article, showing that the true Supreme God is meant,――and three times _without_ the article, showing, that the word is used in an inferior sense, that a false god was intended. Dr. Macknight's translation is as follows,――"above every one, who is called _a god_ or an object of worship. So that he, in the temple of GOD, as _a god_ sitteth, openly shewing himself, that he is _a god_." It is thus, that the Word in John 1st is called a god, and not God the Supreme, the Almighty Jehovah.
When _Tatian_, about A. D. 165 speaks of "a god, who was born in the form of man" and of "the suffering God," he certainly did not mean, that Christ was the Supreme God, incapable of suffering. It was the doctrine of Apollinaris, two hundred years later, that Christ assumed a human body with a sentient soul like that of the inferior animals, but not assuming an intelligent or rational human spirit. He could see no reason why Christ should have two intelligent natures and two free wills. In his judgment the Son of God, who came down from heaven, was the only rational tenant of his human body, and the only rational sufferer on the cross, making a real atonement for sin. For scriptural proof he rested on John 1:14, "the Word was made flesh." His doctrine was doubtless this,――that the Son of God in his high spiritual nature, in which he came down from heaven in order to suffer, was the real sufferer on the cross: not that he was God incapable of suffering, and incapable of making any atonement.
On the distinction between Almighty God and his Son, derived from him before the creation, the Creed of the Church of England is very explicit:――"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible: and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, &c."――"Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, &c."
The doctrine of the New England Synod at Boston in 1680 was the same: "The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father." If many of our American theologians at the present day reject the doctrine of the derivation of the Son from God, they are not responsible to the Synod's Confession or Creed, but certainly they are to holy Scripture and to Reason.
_Sonnet 84._ In a sonnet Milton speaks of the popish massacre in Piedmont:
"Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who having learned the way Early may fly the Babylonian woe."
_Sonnet 86._ Occom was a distinguished Indian preacher, the first who visited England. Born at Mohegan near Norwich, Conn., he was educated 4 years in Wheelock's Indian School at Lebanon, and was himself a school teacher of the Montauk Indians 10 or 12 years. In 1759, at the age of 36, he was ordained by a presbytery. He preached in Great Britain in 1766, 1767, and 1768, between 300 and 400 sermons, employed by Mr. Wheelock. For the remaining 24 years of his life he continued to preach; and he died at New Stockbridge, near Utica, in July 1792, aged 69. The author has prepared for the press a Memoir of Occom, drawn from the papers of Dr. Wheelock which are in his hands and from Occom's own manuscript journals.
_Sonnet 93._ As an old medal had on it for a device a bullock standing between a plough and an altar, with the inscription, _Ready for Either_, the device was thought very appropriate to express the disposition of the true Christian missionary, ready for toil and ready also to be a sacrifice, if called to die in his master's service, "not holding his life dear unto himself."
_Sonnet 96._ Sickness prevented me from visiting my nephew and meeting with his guests on an interesting occasion. The old house, the home of my childhood and my dwelling for seven years of my ministry,――the house built by my father, the first minister of Pittsfield, in the wilderness,――was superseded by an elegant mansion, built by his grandson bearing his own name, Thomas Allen. The event was commemorated by a select and happy company of aged men.
_Sonnet 98._ I first visited Niagara Falls 56 years ago. Having just been licensed by the ministers of Berkshire county to preach the gospel, I mounted my horse in Aug. 1804 and rode out more than 400 miles through the western wilderness of New York as far as Lake Erie and Niagara river, preaching in various places to little assemblies in log cabins. Buffalo, now a great city, was then a village of 19 houses. Three miles below there was the ferry at Black Rock; and there I saw the famous Indian chief, Red Jacket, attending his little grand-daughter as from a rock she threw her hook into the great stream. Thence I rode down on the Canada side 15 miles to the wondrous Falls.
Besides the lesson of solemn warning and terror another of a character acceptable and gladdening was offered to my thoughts, as I stood on the river's bank at the Falls; for I beheld a rainbow of a full semi-circle or more, the ends almost under my feet, stretching over the awful chasm, deepest in color low down at each extremity, where the turmoil of mist was the thickest. This lesson I here put in rhyme, and with it, in accordance with the sentiment of the hundredth sonnet which a few days ago passed through the press, I now close this little book.
If the reader will consider, that my threatening illness has now had a continuance of many months and that to-day closes seventy-six years of my life, he will find reason to conclude, that my thoughts here expressed, although in verse, are utterances in the sincerity of faith and the honesty of truth: and so I bid him farewell, wishing him "a happy New Year" and a blessed Eternity!
Jan. 1, 1860.
NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1860.
I praise thee, God of love! for this Day's light, Which leads the train of days in this new year,―― For months not seeming destin'd to me here, But ah instead thereof a darksome night In the low grave, of all earth's joys the blight.―― I live! And in my thoughts old scenes appear. The mighty Falls, where gazing I stood near In happy youth, rise up in splendor bright, When, as I gaz'd, there met my wond'ring eye Amid the wat'ry strife the beauteous Bow, As if brought down from its high place, the sky, And planted deep in the thick mist below;―― God's bow of promise to the earth beneath,―― Symbol of Peace 'mid Sin and War and Death!
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Punctuation has been standardized.
Some alternate spellings have been retained.
This book contained an errata page at the end. The errata have been applied to the e-text by the transcriber without further note.
p. 24: "Aud" changed to "And" (And with the holy who in glory shine!)
p. 71: Missing word inserted: "an" (Remaining more than an hour)
p. 94: "shewing" changed to "showing" (showing that the true Supreme God is meant)
End of Project Gutenberg's A Book of Christian Sonnets, by William Allen