Part 18

It is so universally understood that we are indebted to Mr. Thirlwall for the admirable translation of Schleiermacher’s Essay, that I conceive there can be no impropriety in speaking of the work as his; though his name does not appear in the title-page;—a circumstance of which I was not aware, till making this extract for the press. The whole note from which are taken the words in the Lecture, is as follows:—“The arguments by which Hug attempted to reconcile the two Evangelists on the residence of Joseph, are extremely slight and unsatisfactory. He admits that St. Matthew supposes Bethlehem to have been Joseph’s usual dwelling-place. But, he asks, was St. Matthew wrong? This, however, is not the question, but only whether he is consistent with St. Luke. Now, nothing can be more evident than that, according to the account of the latter, Joseph was a total stranger at Bethlehem. Bethlehem was indeed, as Hug remarks, _in one sense_ his own city, but clearly not in the sense that Matthew’s account supposes. Here too, therefore, Schleiermacher’s position seems to remain unshaken.”—(See note on p. 44, of Translation of Schleiermacher’s Critical Essay on St. Luke’s Gospel.)

Footnotes for Lecture II.

Footnote 48:

Galatians iii. 24.

Footnote 49:

Acts xxvi. 26.

Footnote 50:

John xiv. 23.

Footnote 51:

John vi. 44.

Footnote 52:

John xviii. 37.

Footnote 53:

John x. 37.

Footnote 54:

John x. 27.

Footnote 55:

John vii. 17.

Footnote 56:

Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible. Preliminary Lecture II. p. 35.

Footnote 57:

Preliminary Lecture I., pp. 4, 5.

Footnote 58:

Jer. xxxvi. 23. See Rev. Dr. Tattershall’s Lecture on the Integrity of the Canon. Introduction.

Footnote 59:

Rev. F. Ould’s Letter of February 11, 1839.

Footnote 60:

The Improved Version was published in August, 1808. Rev. T. Lindsey, who had been labouring under the effects of paralysis ever since 1801, died November 3rd, the same year.

Footnote 61:

See Note A.

Footnote 62:

See Note B.

Footnote 63:

Evidence of Christianity, part III, chapter 2.

Footnote 64:

See Note C.

Footnote 65:

See Note D.

Footnote 66:

Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, part II. ch. ii. § 1.

Footnote 67:

Matt. xiii. 58.

Footnote 68:

John iv. 18.

Footnote 69:

John x. 32.

Footnote 70:

John x. 37.

Footnote 71:

Luke x. 17.

Footnote 72:

Acts ii. 1-4.

Footnote 73:

Pp. 236, 237.

Footnote 74:

John xix. 35.

Footnote 75:

xxi. 24.

Footnote 76:

Luke i. 2.

Footnote 77:

Acts ii. 1-4.

Footnote 78:

1 Cor. xiv. 18.

Footnote 79:

1 Cor. xiv. _passim_: especially 4, 5, 13, 19, 23.

Footnote 80:

1 Cor. xii. 8, 10.

Footnote 81:

Acts vi. 1-4.

Footnote 82:

Luke i. 15.

Footnote 83:

Matt. xii. 3.

Footnote 84:

John xiv. 16, 17, 26.

Footnote 85:

Discourses on the principal Points of the Socinian Controversy, p. 341. Disc. xi.

Footnote 86:

1 John ii. 20.

Footnote 87:

2 Pet. i. 21.

Footnote 88:

Unwilling to repeat what I have already said, in a former publication, I have contented myself with a brief and slight notice of this celebrated text. It is discussed in a less cursory manner in the notes to the first Lecture in the “Rationale of Religious Inquiry.” I would only add, that Schleusner considers the word θεὀπνευστος, as belonging, not to the predicate, but to the subject, of the sentence. See his Lexicon in Nov. Test. in verb. “In N. T. semel legitur 2 Tim. iii. 16. πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος, omnis scriptura divinitus inspirata, seu, quæ est originis divinæ.”

Footnote 89:

Sermon on the Nature and Extent of the Right of Private Judgment p. 238.

Footnote 90:

P. 249.

Footnote 91:

Schleiermacher’s Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke. Introduction by the Translator, p. xv.

Footnote 92:

Pp. xv. and xi.

Footnote 93:

Evidences of Christianity, part III. ch. i.

Footnote 94:

Matt. iv. 12-22.

Footnote 95:

John i. 35-51.

Footnote 96:

Mark i. 16-20.

Footnote 97:

Luke v. 10, 11.

Footnote 98:

Matt. xxvi. 69-end.

Footnote 99:

Luke xxii. 56-62.

Footnote 100:

John xviii. 15-25.

Footnote 101:

xxvii. 32.

Footnote 102:

xxiii. 26.

Footnote 103:

xix. 17.

Footnote 104:

xxvii. 37.

Footnote 105:

xv. 26.

Footnote 106:

xxiii. 38.

Footnote 107:

xix. 19.

Footnote 108:

xxvii. 44.

Footnote 109:

xv. 32.

Footnote 110:

xxiii. 39-43.

Footnote 111:

Pp. 243, 244.

Footnote 112:

See Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature, 1809, pp. 97, _seqq._; 152, _seqq._; 274, _seqq._; 384, _seqq._

Footnote 113:

Reply to Magee, p. 302.

Footnote 114:

Καὶ Ἐβιωναῖοι χρηματίζουσιν οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὡς Χριστὸν παραδεξάμενοι.—_Contr. Cels._, lib. ii. c. 1. Op. tom. i. pp. 385 C. 386 A. Ed. Delarue. Paris. 1733.

Footnote 115:

Οὗτοι δε εἰσὶν οἱ διττοὶ Ἐβιωναῖοι, ἤτοι ἐκ παρθένου ὁμολογοῦντες ὁμοίως ἡμῖν τὸν Ἰμσοῦν, ἤ οὐχ οὕτω γεγεννῆσθαι, ἀλλ’ ὡς τοὶς ἀνθρώποις.—_Contr. Cels._, lib. v. c. 61. Op. tom. i. p. 625 A.

Footnote 116:

Οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν πιστεύοντες οὐ καταλελοίπασι τὸν πάτριον νόμον· βιοῦσι γὰρ κατ’ αὐτὸν, ἐπώνυμοί τε κατὰ τὴν ἐκδοχὴν πτωχείας τοῦ νόμου γεγενημένοι. Ἐβίων τε γὰρ ὁ πτωχὸς παρὰ Ἰουδαίοις καλεῖται.—_Contr. Cels._, lib. ii. c. 1. Op. tom. i. p. 385.

Footnote 117:

Καὶ ἐπὰν ἴδῃς τῶν ἀπὸ Ιουδαίων πιστευόντων εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν τὴν περὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος πίστιν, ὅτε μὲν ἐκ Μαρίας καὶ τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ οἰομένων αὐτὸν εἶναι, ὅτε δὲ ἐκ Μαρίας μὲν μόνης καὶ τοῦ θείου πνεύματος, οὐ μὴν καὶ μετὰ τῆς περὶ αὐτοῦ θεολογίας, ὄψει πῶς οὗτος ὁ τυ φλός λέγι &c.—_Comment. in Matt._, tom. xvi. c. 12. Op. tom. iii. p. 733 A.

Footnote 118:

Ἤδη δ’ ἐν τούτοις τινὲς καὶ τὸ καθ’ Ἑβραίους εὐαγγέλιον κατέλεξαν, ᾧ μάλιστα Ἑβραίων οἱ τὸν παραδεξάμενοι χαίρουσι.—_Hist. Eccles._, lib. iii. c. 25. vol. i. pp. 246, 247. Heinichen Lips. 1827.

Footnote 119:

Εὐαγγελίῳ δὲ μόνῳ τῷ καθ’ Ἑβραίους λεγομένῳ χρώμενοι, τῶν λοιπῶν σμικρὸν ἐποιοῦντο λόγον.—Lib. iii. c. 27. vol. i. p. 252. Both passages are in Jones, Pt. II. ch. 25.

Footnote 120:

Διό καὶ ὁ Ιωάννης ἐλθὼν ὁ μακάριος, καὶ εὑρὼν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἠσχολημένους περὶ τὴν κάτω Χριστοῦ παρουσίαν, καὶ τῶν μὲν Ἐβιωναίων πλανηθέντων διὰ τὴν ἔνσαρκον Χριστοῦ γενεαλογίαν, ἀπὸ Ἀβραὰμ καταγομένην, καὶ Λουκᾶ ἀναγομένην ἄχρι τοῦ Ἀδὰμ· εὑρὼν δὲ τοὺς Κηρινθιανοὺς καὶ Μηρινθιανοὺς ἐκ παρατριβῆς αὐτὸν λέγοντας εἶναι ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον, καὶ τοὺς Ναζωραίους, καὶ ἄλλας πολλὰς αἱρέσεις, ὡς κατόπιν ἐλθὼν, τέταρτος γὰρ οὗτος εὐαγγελίζεται, ἄρχεται ἀνακαλεῖσθαι, ὡς εἰπεῖν, τοὺς πλανηθέντας καὶ ἠσχολημένους περὶ τὴν κάτω Χριστοῦ παρουσίαν, καὶ λέγειν αὐτοῖς (ὡς κατόπιν βαίνων, καὶ ὁρῶν τινὰς εἰς τραχείας ὁδοὺς κεκλικότας καὶ ἀφέντας τὴν εὐθεῖαν καὶ ἀληθινὴν, ὡς εἰπεῖν) Ποῖ φέρεσθε, ποῖ βαδίζετε, οἱ τὴν τραχείαν ὁδὸν καὶ σκανδαλώδη καὶ εἰς χάσμα φέρουσαν βαδίζοντες; ἀνακάμψατε. Οὐκ ἔστιν οὕτως, οὐκ ἔστιν ἀπὸ Μαρίας μόνον ὁ Θεὸς λόγος, ὁ ἐκ πατρὸς ἄνωθεν γεγεννημένος.—_Epiphan. adv. Hæreses_, Hær. 49 vel 69. § 23. Op. Petav. Colon. 1682, vol. ii. pp. 746, 747.

Footnote 121:

Jewish Testimonies, I., Works: Kippis’s ed. 4to. vol. iii. p. 484.

Footnote 122:

Acts xxi. 20. Wall’s Preface to Critical Notes on the N. T. p. 12.

Footnote 123:

Hæres. 29, § 9, as cited by Jones, Part II., ch. 25, and by Dr. Tattershall, p. 89.

Footnote 124:

Hæres. 30, § 13, as cited by Jones, Part II. ch. 25, and by Dr. Tattershall, p. 89.

Footnote 125:

Matt. ii. 15.

Footnote 126:

Matt. ii. 23.

Footnote 127:

Catal. vir. illust. in Matth. Giving Jones’s translation, I do not think it necessary to quote the original Latin. See Jones on the Canon, Part II. ch. 25.

Footnote 128:

Hær. 30, § 13, quoted by Jones, Part II. ch. 25.

Footnote 129:

Ibid.

Footnote 130:

See Eichhorn’s Einleitung in das N. T. I., § 8; Leipzig, 1820.

Footnote 131:

Einleitung in das N. T., I., § 8, 31; Leipzig, 1820. See also Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, by Andrews Norton, Note A. sec. V. i. Boston, U. S., 1837.

Footnote 132:

There is a misprint in Dr. T.’s note, p. 104. The sentence at the end of the third paragraph should close thus: “nine months _after_ that event, on one calculation, or three months _before_ it, on the other.”

LECTURE III.

CHRISTIANITY NOT THE PROPERTY OF CRITICS AND SCHOLARS; BUT THE GIFT OF GOD TO ALL MEN.

BY REV. JOHN HAMILTON THOM.

“FOR GOD WHO COMMANDED THE LIGHT TO SHINE OUT OF DARKNESS, HATH SHINED IN OUR HEARTS, TO GIVE THE LIGHT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST.”

2 _Cor._ iv. 6.

No fact can be more extraordinary than that a Revelation from God should give rise to endless disputes among men, that “light” should produce the effects of “darkness,” causing confusion and doubt. A Revelation in which nothing is revealed! A Revelation that occasions the most bitter controversies upon every question and interest it embraces! A Revelation that perplexes mankind with the most uncertain speculations, and splits the body of believers into sects and divisions too numerous to be told! A Revelation in which nothing is fixed, in which every point is debated and disputed from the character of God to the character of sin! A Revelation which is so little of a Revelation, that after nearly two thousand years the world is wrangling about what it means: this surely is a fact that demands an explanation, which should make the Believer pause and ask whether he may not be guilty, by some dogmatism about what he calls essentials, of casting this discredit upon Revelation, making the very word a mockery to the Unbeliever, who inquires in simplicity “what is _revealed_? I find you disputing about everything and agreeing about nothing;” and to whom the Believer is certainly bound to render an account of this strange state of things, before he condemns his infidelity. Can any two ideas be more opposed, more directly inconsistent, than Christianity considered as a Revelation, a gift of LIGHT from God, and Christianity as it exists in the world—the most dark and perplexed, the most vexed and agitated of all subjects, no two parties agreeing where the light is, or what the light is, or who has it? Surely if Christianity is a Revelation, the things it has _revealed_ must constitute the essence of the Revelation, and not the things which it has left _unrevealed_. Surely the illumination from God must be in the clear Truths communicated, and not in the doubtful controversies excited. Surely it is a mockery of words to call that a Revelation upon which there is no agreement even among those who accept the Revelation. A Revelation is a certainty, and not an uncertainty: and therefore we must strike out of the class of revealed truths every doctrine that is disputed among Christians. Many of these doctrines we may possess other and natural means of determining; but it is clear that that which is so far _unrevealed_ as to be constantly debated among believers themselves, cannot yet be _revealed_ by God. Now the UNITY of God is not one of these debated points. All Christians regard it as revealed; and therefore _it_ remains as a part of the Revelation. But the doctrine of the Trinity, an addition to the Unity, and as some think a mode of the divine Unity, _is_ a disputed point; it does not manifest itself to all believers; it does not make a part of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; Christ’s life would teach no man that there are three persons in the Godhead—neither would Christ’s words; the doctrine is not anywhere stated in Scripture; it is deduced by a process of fallible reasonings from a number of unconnected texts, doubtful both in their criticism and in their interpretation; it is not a declaration made by God, but an inference drawn by man, and, as many think, incorrectly drawn; the doctrine of the Trinity therefore, whether true or not, cannot be regarded as a _revealed_ Truth; what is still a subject of controversy cannot be a portion of Revelation. If then, turning away from our disputes, we could ascertain the universal ideas which Christianity implants in _all_ minds which receive it; the images of God, of Duty, and of Hope, which it deposits in _all_ hearts; the impression of Christ taken off by every spirit of man from the Image and Son of God;—these would be the essentials of the Revelation, for since these are the only uniform impressions that Christianity has actually made upon those who believe it, we must suppose that these were the chief impressions which God intended it to make. This alone can be “the light which, coming into the world, lighteth every man.”

But I may be answered here, that Christianity itself is a matter of debate, and that if doubtful things cannot be revealed, then Christianity itself is not a Revelation. To this I reply, that Christianity is a matter of debate chiefly because Christ himself is not offered to the hearts of men, because controversialists thrust forward their own doctrinal conceptions as the essentials of Christianity, presenting _themselves_, and not Jesus to make his own impression on the heart. If not creeds, but Jesus the Christ was offered spiritually to the souls of men, unbelief would be soon no more. No earnest and pure mind would reject from its love and faith the serene and perfect image of the living Jesus. Men can deny metaphysical doctrines: but they could not deny the spiritual Christ. The spirit of God in every man would bear witness to _him_ who was the fulness of that spirit, and would recognize the heavenly leadership of the Son of God. If the essentials of Christianity had not been made by Divines and Theologians to consist in disputed doctrines, if it had been offered to faith on the ground of its inherent excellence, its ample attractions for our spiritual nature, how readily, how universally would it have been received by all who felt that it had echoes within the soul, and that Jesus was indeed the brightest image of God, and the very ideal of humanity! Who would not be a Christian, if to be a Christian required faith only in such truths as these:—that the holy and affectionate Jesus was the human image of the mind of God, and that the Universal Father is more perfect and more tender than his holy and gentle child, by as much as Deity transcends humanity; that the character of the Christ is God’s aim and purpose for us all, the result at which He desires each of us to arrive through the discipline and sufferings of earth;—that traces of Immortality were upon that heavenly mind; that his profound sympathy with the Spirit of God, the surrender of his own immediate interests for the sake of the purposes and drift of providence, the identification of himself with the will of God, the constant manifestation of a style of thought and action drawn on a wider scale than this present life, and that placed him in harmony with better worlds,—that these marked him out as a being whose nature was adjusted to more glorious scenes, whose soul was out of proportion to his merely earthly and external lot, and whose appropriate home must be the pure Heaven of God? Would any one refuse admission to these spiritual views as they are given off to our souls from the pure life of Jesus, if he was permitted to receive them from Christ himself, and not obliged on his way to that Heavenly Image of grace, liberty, and truth, to stoop his free neck to the yoke of Churches and of Creeds? But men preach themselves, not Christ. They embody their own conceptions of Christianity in formulas, and pronounce these to be essentials, instead of suffering Jesus to make his way to the heart, and stamp there his own impression. Hence the origin of unbelief. I quote the words of an eminent Unitarian, himself converted from orthodoxy chiefly by the force of the argument I am about to state: “Settle your disputes (says the unbeliever), and then I will listen to your arguments in defence of Christianity. Both of you, Romanists and Protestants, offer me salvation on condition that I embrace the Christian faith. You offer me a sovereign remedy, which is to preserve me alive in happiness through all eternity; but I hear you accusing each other of recommending to the world, not a remedy but a _poison_; a poison, indeed, which, instead of securing eternal happiness, must add bitterness to eternal punishment. You both agree that it is of the _essence_ of Christianity to accept certain doctrines concerning the manner in which the Divine Nature exists; the moral and intellectual condition in which man was created; our present degradation through the misconduct of our first parents: the nature of sin, and the impossibility of its being pardoned except by pain inflicted on an innocent person; the existence or non-existence of living representatives of Christ and his apostles; a church which enjoys, collectively, some extraordinary privileges in regard to the visible and invisible world; the presence of Christ among us by means of transubstantiation, or the denial of such presence; all this, and much more, some of you declare to be contained in, and others to be opposed to, the Scriptures; and even here, there is a fierce contention as to whether those Scriptures embrace the whole of that Christianity which is necessary for salvation, or whether tradition is to fill up a certain gap. I am, therefore, at a loss how to account for the invitation you give me. To me (the unbeliever might continue) it is quite evident that the ablest opponents of Christianity never discovered a more convincing argument against REVELATION in general, than that which inevitably arises from your own statements, and from the controversies of your churches. God (you both agree), pitying mankind, has disregarded the natural laws fixed by himself, and for a space of four thousand years, and more, has multiplied miracles for the purpose of acquainting men with the means of obtaining salvation, and avoiding eternal death, _eternal death_ signifying almost universally, among you, _unending torments_. But when I turn to examine the result of this (as you deem it) _miraculous and all-wise plan_, I find it absolutely incomplete; for the whole Christian world has been eighteen centuries in a perpetual warfare (not without great shedding of blood), because Christians cannot settle what is that faith which alone can save us. Have you not thus demonstrated that the revelation of which you boast cannot be from God? Do you believe, and do you wish me to believe, that when God had decreed to make a _saving truth_ known to the world, he failed of that object, or wished to make Revelation a snare?”[133]

Now not believing that Revelation has failed of its object, or that it is a snare, and believing that under all the so-called Essentials, which we regard as mere human additions, there is yet a true and universal impression received from the spirit of Jesus, believing, in fact, that our Controversies are about accidentals, and that under all our differences there is, deeper down, the untroubled well of Christ springing up into everlasting life, I would proceed to expose those errors in the Trinitarian conception of Revelation which have laid it open to the charge of _not being a Revelation_, of dividing mankind by Controversies instead of uniting them by moral Certainty,—and to contrast this Trinitarian Conception of Revelation with what, for the following reasons, we hold to be the _true one_; because it represents God as accomplishing what, from the very nature of a Revelation, he must have intended to accomplish, namely, the communication of moral and spiritual knowledge: because it removes the materials for doctrinal strife and controversial rancour which never could have been God’s object in sending a Revelation, but which are inseparable from Trinitarian ideas of Revelation; and because it would realize that union for which Christ prayed and Apostles intreated, a moral oneness with God as revealed in Jesus, a unity _of spirit_ in the bond of peace.

Let us suppose, then, God having the design to send a Revelation to Mankind. There are two methods, either of which He might adopt in the execution of that intention. He might send them a written Revelation in the form of a Book: or He might send them a living Revelation in the form of a Man. He might announce to them His Will through _words_: or He might send to them _one of like nature with themselves_, who would actually work the Will of God before their eyes; one who, passing through their circumstances of life and death, would show them in his own person the character which God intended this present discipline to create; and who, appearing again after death, morally unchanged, and passing into the Heavens, would reveal to them, by these his own destinies, the unbroken spiritual connection of the present with the future, and the immortal home which God has with Himself for the spirits of those holy ones who are no more on Earth. In the first case, then, we suppose God to send a verbal Message to men, a communication by words teaching doctrines, spoken first, and afterwards committed to writing: in the second case we suppose that a pure and heavenly being, manifesting the will and purposes of God through his own nature, which is also our nature, is _himself the divine Message_ from our Father; one who walks this earth amidst our sorrows and our sins,—transfiguring the one and reclaiming the other—and gathering up into his own soul the strength that is to be derived from both; who enters our dwellings, sheds through them the divine light of heavenly love, plants the hope of immortality in the midst of trembling, because loving and dying, beings, and binds together the perishing children of Earth in the godlike Trust of imperishable affections which Death can glorify but cannot kill; who places himself in our circumstances of severest trial, and shows us the energy of a filial heart, and the unquenchable brightness of a spirit in prayerful communion with the God of Providence; who, that he might be a revelation of a heavenly mind amidst every variety of temptation, passed on his way to death through rudest insults, and showed how awful a thing is moral greatness, how calm, how majestic, how inaccessible, how it shines out through aggressive coarseness, a mental and ineffaceable serenity, a spirit that has its glory in itself, and cannot be touched;—who, having showed man how to live and to suffer, next showed him how to die;—who in the spirit and power of Duty subdued this garment of throbbing flesh to the will of God, and in the death agonies was self-forgetful enough to look down from the cross in the tenderest foresight for those he left behind, and to look up to Heaven, presenting for his murderers the only excuse that heavenly pity could suggest,—“Father forgive them! they know not what they do;”—and who having thus glorified God upon the earth, and finished the work given him to do, was himself glorified by God; taken to that Heaven which is the home of goodness;—thus showing the issues to which God conducts the tried and perfected spirit, that His Faithfulness is bound up with the destinies of those that trust Him, and that His providence is the recompense of the just, who live now by Faith.