Part 50

I quote, in the second place, some passages out of a multitude, in which ideas are connected with Christ which are utterly inconsistent with the supposition of his deity. “I came not to do mine own will.” “I can of myself do nothing.” “If I honour myself, my honour is nothing; it is my Father that honoureth me.”—John viii. 54. “For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he _given_ to the Son to have life in himself.”—John v. 26. “As the living Father hath sent me, and I _live by the Father_.”—John vi. 57. “I have not spoken of myself, but the Father who sent me, He gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak.”—John xii. 49, 50.

“The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.”—John xiv. 24.

“I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.”—John xx. 17.

“When ye have lifted up the Son of man on high, then shall ye know that I am _he_, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me I speak these things”—John viii. 28.

Ecclesiastical History has already acquainted us with the device that sets aside the plain meaning of these passages. It is said that Jesus Christ had _two natures_, was composed of two minds, that he was both man and God; and thus does Trinitarianism openly assert mysteries of an opposite character. Three Persons in one Essence is unintelligible enough; but no sooner is this propounded to us, than we are called off to a directly opposite mystery of two Essences in one Person. And here we cannot be put off with the metaphysical sophistry that we do not know the nature of God, for we do know something of the nature of _man_; and we do say that never was there a greater abuse of the moral meanings of the word Faith, than to set forth, that God’s nature and man’s nature so united together as to form one inseparable person, may be embraced as an object of Faith. The true nature and office of Faith is to carry us from the seen to the unseen,—to give us moral confidence in that world which we do not see, from our moral experience in this world which we do see,—and in that portion of God’s ways which the future conceals, from what we know of that portion of them which the present unfolds. Faith is moral, not metaphysical; and, above all, finds no merit and no efficacy in assenting to unmeaning words.

As before, of the doctrine of the Trinity, so now of this doctrine of the Hypostatic Union, as it is called, I ask for a single hint throughout the New Testament of the inconceivable fact that, in the body of Jesus, resided the mind of God and the mind of man,—two natures, the one finite, the other infinite, yet making but one person,—a difficulty you will perceive the very opposite of that of the Trinity; for whereas it teaches three persons in one nature, this teaches two natures in one person. But we have already traced, in Ecclesiastical History, the origin of this view, and the necessity of its appearance, in subservience to the doctrine of the Trinity.

I will only apply one scriptural test to this theory of the two natures in Christ. And it is one from which Trinitarians cannot escape by their ordinary refuge of avoiding one set of statements by referring them to the humanity of Jesus, and another set of statements by referring them to his deity. It is God the Son, whom Trinitarians represent as becoming incarnate in the body of Jesus; it was God the Son who took humanity into union with deity; therefore whenever Jesus, in his human nature, speaks of the divinity that dwelt within him, inspired him, and wrought through him, it must be God the Son to whom he refers. But this is never the case: Scripture does not know this doctrine, nor support its requisitions. It is always, “_the Father_ who dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.”

It was asserted in Christ Church, that if there is not a plurality of persons in the godhead, the oriental style, “let us make man in our own image,” and the use of the plural where we use the singular, made the word of God an agent of deception, and affected the morality of the divine mind. This is bold language; and, considering the evidence, as unscholarlike as bold. We refrain from a retort in the same spirit. We look with unaffected wonder upon the mind that is reckless enough, and ignorant enough of the sources of error within itself, to dare to say, “if I am not right in my interpretation of Scripture, God is a deceiver.” Yet such men can charge others with making themselves judges of revelation, and saying what God _must_ mean.

I have not taken up that other thread of supposed scriptural intimations, which is thought to connect the Holy Spirit as a third Person in the unity of the godhead. This portion of the argument, strangely neglected by Trinitarians, who generally take for granted the deity and personality of the Holy Ghost as following without debate from the deity of Christ, since three not two is the favourite mythological and theological number, is however to form the subject of a separate Lecture in Christ Church, not yet delivered. Why there should be any necessity, on Trinitarian principles of theology, for a third person in the Godhead to perform “_the work_,” as it is called, of the spirit of God in communication with man, after the sacrifice of Christ had left the Father’s love free to operate, we cannot perceive, except upon the Platonic principle, that the Supreme One in the Trinity is an Essence perfectly abstracted, immoveable, and without action. Not wishing, however, to anticipate the argument, I shall only adduce one remarkable passage, in proof that the Holy Spirit could not, in the first age of the Gospel, have a deity and personality ascribed to it distinct from the deity and personality of God the Father. When Paul came to Ephesus, he found there some disciples, of whom he inquired,—“Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?” The answer is remarkable: “We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” Now is it possible that the Holy Ghost should be the third person of the Trinity, a constituent person in the Christian God, and that these “believers,” though only disciples of John, should have been uninstructed in the doctrine? The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, God himself in communication with man, naturally or supernaturally, the enlightening influence of the Spiritual Father revealing Himself to the spiritual nature of His children.

I do not know what may appear convincing to other minds, but to me the Ecclesiastical History of the doctrine of the Trinity, with its rise in _human_ sources of Philosophy and Motive, and not in Revelation, seems a fact capable of being most clearly traced. Rarely indeed does the origin of an error so conspicuously disclose itself: rarely is its course so open to observation. On the other hand, if there is not decisive proof in Scripture of the strict and personal Unity of God, I must think that it is vain to prove any doctrine from the words of the Bible—for sure I am that there is no doctrine more distinctly, more guardedly, more simply, more repeatedly stated, than the great doctrine, that there is One God, and that the FATHER is that God.

We are told that the “invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead.” Yet the Universe reveals no Trinity. Reason knows and requires no Trinity. Natural Religion is not Trinitarian. Scripture speaks of One God the Father, and of One Lord Jesus Christ. Gentile Philosophy and Ecclesiastical History _are_ Trinitarian. In _their_ pages we find this subject. Ecclesiastical History has narrated the rise and progress of these doctrines—and to Ecclesiastical History shall they finally be referred,—when another chapter is added, a chapter that unhappily yet remains to be written, the history of their decline and fall.

Footnotes for Lecture VII.

Footnote 453:

Locke.

Footnote 454:

Mr. James’s Lecture, p. 410.

Footnote 455:

Spoken, not printed.

Footnote 456:

Milman’s Edition, vol. iii. p. 311.

Footnote 457:

“That this Trinity (Monad or Good, Wisdom, Spirit or Energy) was not first of all a mere invention of Plato’s, but much ancienter than him, is plainly affirmed by Plotinus in these words,—‘That these doctrines are not new nor of yesterday, but have been very anciently delivered, though obscurely (the discourses now extant being but Explications of them) appears from PLATO’S own writings; PARMENIDES before having insisted on them.’” _Cudworth. Intel. Syst._ p. 546.—See also Bishop Berkeley’s Siris, sections 341-365.

Footnote 458:

“The principle of every thing is more simple than the thing itself. Wherefore the sensible world was made from Intellect, or the intelligible; and before this must there needs be something more simple still. For many did not proceed from many, but this multiform thing Intellect proceeded from that which is not multiform but simple; as Number from Unity. If that which understands be many, or contain multitude in it, then that which contains no multitude, does not properly understand; and this is the first thing;—to understand is not the First; neither in Essence nor in Dignity; but the Second; a thing in order of nature, after the First Good, and springing up from thence, as that which is moved with desire towards it.”—_Plotinus. Cudworth_, p. 584.

Footnote 459:

“The FIRST is above all manner of action: neither is it fit to attribute the architecture of the world to the First God, but rather to account him the Father of that God, _who is the Artificer_. The SECOND, to whom the energy of Intellection is attributed, is therefore properly called the Demiurgus, as the contriving Architect, in whom the Archetypal World is contained, and the First Pattern, or Paradigm of the Whole Universe. The THIRD is that which moveth about Mind or Intellect, the Light or Effulgency thereof, and its Print or Signature, which always dependeth upon it, and acteth according to it. This is that which reduces both the Fecundity of the First Simple Good, and the Architectonick Contrivance of the Second into Act and Energy. This is the Immediate and as it were _Manuary Opificer_ of the whole world, that which actually Governs, Rules, and Presideth over all.”—_Plotinus. ap. Cudw._ p. 583.

Footnote 460:

“Since the introduction of the Greek or Chaldean Philosophy, the Jews were persuaded of the pre-existence, transmigration, and immortality of souls; and Providence was justified by a supposition, that they were confined in their earthly prisons to expiate the stains which they had contracted in a former state. But the degrees of purity and corruption are almost immeasurable. It might be fairly presumed that the most sublime and virtuous of human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and the Holy Ghost; that his abasement was the result of his voluntary choice; and that the object of his mission was to purify, not his own, but the sins of the world. On his return to his native skies he received the immense reward of his obedience; the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, which had been darkly foretold by the prophets, under the carnal images of peace, of conquest, and of dominion. Omnipotence could enlarge the human faculties of Christ to the extent of his celestial office. In the language of antiquity, the title of God has not been severely confined to the first parent; and his incomparable minister, his only begotten son, might claim, without presumption, the religious, though secondary worship of a subject world.

“The seeds of the faith, which had slowly arisen in the rocky and ungrateful soil of Judea, were transplanted, in full maturity, to the happier climes of the Gentiles; and the strangers of Rome or Asia, who never beheld the manhood, were the more readily disposed to embrace the divinity of Christ. The polytheist and the philosopher, the Greek and the Barbarian, were alike accustomed to conceive a long succession, an infinite chain of angels or dæmons, or deities, or æons, or emanations, issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem strange or incredible, that the first of these æons, the _Logos_, or word of God, of the same substance with the Father, should descend upon earth, to deliver the human race from vice and error, and to conduct them in the path of life and immortality.”—_Gibbon_, vol. viii. p. 271.

Footnote 461:

Philo de Abrahamo. Le Clerc’s Supplement to Hammond, p. 168.

Footnote 462:

Cudworth, p. 590.

Footnote 463:

“It was in this mode of apprehending the Divine Being that the doctrine of the Trinity had its origin. The Logos of the first four centuries was in the view of the Fathers both an attribute or attributes of God, and a proper person. Their philosophy was, in general, that of the later Platonists, and they transferred from it into Christianity this mode of Conception. In treating of this fact, so strange, and one which will be so new to many of my readers, I will first quote a passage from Origen, the coincidence of which with the conceptions of Philo and the later Platonists is apparent. ‘Nor must we omit, that Christ is properly the Wisdom of God; and is therefore so denominated. For the wisdom of the God and Father of All has not its being in bare conceptions, analogous to the conceptions in human minds. But if any one be capable of forming an idea of _an incorporeal being of diverse forms of thought, which comprehend the_ LOGOI [the archetypal forms] _of all things, a being indued with life, and having as it were a soul_, he will know that the Wisdom of God, who is above every creature, pronounced rightly concerning herself; The Lord created me, the beginning, his way to his works.’”—_Origen, Opp._ iv. 39, 40,—quoted by Norton on the Trinity, p. 271-2.

Footnote 464:

Milman’s Gibbon, vol. iii. p. 313.

Footnote 465:

See Cudworth, p. 603, 4.

Footnote 466:

“The creed which was first adopted, and that perhaps in the very earliest age, by the Church of Rome, was that which is now called the Apostles’ Creed, and it was the general opinion, from the fourth century downwards, that it was actually the production of those blessed persons assembled for that purpose. Our evidence is not sufficient to establish that fact, and some writers very confidently reject it. But there is reasonable ground for our assurance that the form of faith which we still repeat and inculcate was in use and honour in the very early propagation of our religion.”—_Waddington’s History of the Church_, p. 27.

Footnote 467:

“Ignatius, Justin, and Irenæus make no mention of it, but they occasionally repeat _some words_ contained in it, which is _held_ as _proof_ that they knew it by heart.”—_Waddington._

Footnote 468:

Jortin, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 180.

Footnote 469:

Comment. in Johan. vol. ii. p. 5.

Footnote 470:

Hist. lib. iii. c. 24.

Footnote 471:

Chrys. Op. vol. vi. p. 171; viii. p. 2.

Footnote 472:

Comm. in Matt. sec. 161.

Footnote 473:

In Celsum. lib. ii. p. 56.

Footnote 474:

Professor Burton gives some instances of the use of the word God by Ignatius, A. D. 107, in connection with Christ. Nothing can be more slender and insufficient than his other evidences of the recognition of these doctrines by the Apostolical Fathers.

Footnote 475:

Dial. cum Tryph. p. 252.

Footnote 476:

Lib. i. cap. 19; ii. cap. 3.

Footnote 477:

Strom. lib. vi. p. 644. Priestley’s Hist. Early Opinions.

Footnote 478:

Advers. Prax. c. 13.

Footnote 479:

Comment. vol. ii. p. 47.

Footnote 480:

Cap. ii. p. 84.

Footnote 481:

Lib. iv. sec. 14.

Footnote 482:

Orat. iii. con. Arian.

Footnote 483:

Cudworth. Intel. Sys. p. 599.

Footnote 484:

Inattention to this distinction vitiates the whole reasonings of Dr. Burton’s learned work on the Anti-Nicene Fathers. There is no doubt that the deity of the Son and even of the Holy Ghost is spoken of before the Council of Nice, but always in the Platonic or derived sense, never in the present orthodox sense of _co-equal_ and _independent_. The word con-substantial proves nothing to the contrary, for a Platonist would not have objected to the application of the word to the second and third persons in his Trinity, as partaking of, or derived from the Essence of the one Supreme. See Cudworth’s argument to this effect (Intel. Sys. p. 597), who contends that by _co-essential and consubstantial_, the Nicene Council meant nothing more than that the Son was _generically_ God, of the same nature, but _numerically_ different, having his own distinct Essence. See also Dr. Burton on a passage similar to one from Tertullian already quoted, where he is misled by not attending to this distinction.—_Theol. Works_, vol. ii. p. 89.

Footnote 485:

Cudworth. Intell. Sys. p. 595.

Footnote 486:

“It had been the vice of the Christians of the third century, to involve themselves, ‘in certain metaphysical questions which if considered in one light, are too sublime to become the subject of human wit; if in another too trifling to gain the attention of reasonable men.’ (Warburton.) The rage for such disputations had been communicated to religion by the contagion of philosophy; but the manner in which it operated on the one and on the other was essentially different. With the philosopher such questions were objects of the understanding only, subjects of comparatively dispassionate speculation, whereon the versatile ingenuity of a minute mind might employ or waste itself. But with the Christian they were matters of truth or falsehood, of belief or disbelief. Hence arose an intense anxiety respecting the result, and thus the passions were awakened, and presently broke loose and proceeded to every excess. From the moment that the solution of these questions was attempted by any other method than the fair interpretation of the words of Scripture; as soon as the copious language of Greece was eagerly applied to the definition of spiritual things, and the explanation of heavenly mysteries, the field of contention seemed to be removed from earth to air—where the foot found nothing stable to rest upon; where arguments were easily eluded, and where the space to fly and to rally was infinite; so that the contest grew more noisy as it was less decisive, and more angry as it became more prolonged and complicated. Add to this the nature and genius of the disputants: for the origin of these disputes may be traced without any exception to the restless imaginations of the East.” * * *

“We must also mention the loose and unsettled principles of that age, which had prevailed before the appearance of Christianity, and had been to a certain extent adopted by its professors—_those, for instance, which justified the means by the end, and admitted fraud and forgery into the service of religion_.”—_Waddington, Church Hist._ p. 89.

Footnote 487:

ὑπὲρ μικρῶν καὶ λίαν ἐλαχίστων.

Footnote 488:

“Let us imagine, then, a council called by a Christian Emperor, by a Constantine, a Constantius, a Theodosius, a Justinian, and three, or four, or five hundred prelates, assembled from all quarters, to decide a theological debate.”

“Let us consider a little by what various motives these various men may be influenced, as by reverence to the emperor, or to his councillors and favourites, his slaves and eunuchs; by fear of offending some great prelate, as a Bishop of Rome or of Alexandria, who had it in his power to insult, vex, and plague all the bishops within and without his jurisdiction; by the dread of passing for heretics, and of being calumniated, reviled, hated, anathematized, excommunicated, imprisoned, banished, fined, beggared, starved, if they refused to submit; by compliance with some active, leading, and imperious spirits, by a deference to a majority, by a love dictating and domineering, of applause and respect, by vanity and ambition, by a total ignorance of the question in debate, or a total indifference about it, by private friendships, by enmity and resentment, by old prejudices, by hopes of gain, by an indolent disposition, by good nature, by the fatigue of attending, and a desire to be at home, by the love of peace and quiet, and a hatred of contention, &c.

“Whosoever takes these things into due consideration, will not be disposed to pay a blind deference to the authority of general Councils, and will rather be inclined to judge that ‘the Council held by the Apostles was the first and the last in which the Holy Spirit may be affirmed to have presided.’

“Thus far we may safely go, and submit to an Apostolical Synod; but if once we proceed one step beyond this, we go we know not whither. If we admit the infallibility of one General Council, why not of another? And where shall we stop? At the first Nicene Council, A. D. 325, or at the second Nicene Council, A. D. 787? They who disclaim private judgment, and believe the infallibility of the Church, act consistently in holding the infallibility of Councils; but they who take their faith from the Scriptures, and not from the Church, should be careful not to require nor to yield too much regard to such assemblies, how numerous soever. Numbers, in this case, go for little, and to them the old Proverb may be applied;—

‘Est turba _semper_ argumentum pessimi.’

“If such Councils make righteous decrees, it must have been by strange good luck.”—_Jortin, Eccles. Hist._ vol. ii. p. 183-4.

Footnote 489:

Milman’s Ed. vol. iii. p. 331.

Footnote 490:

Waddington, Church Hist. p. 93.

Footnote 491:

Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 210.

Footnote 492:

“The Christian Religion, which in itself is plain and simple, _he_ (Constantius) confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops, galloping from every side to the Assemblies, which they call synods; and while they laboured to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys.”—_Ammianus, as quoted by Gibbon_, vol. iii. p. 347.

Footnote 493:

“Constantine’s conduct was variable afterwards, _for he certainly understood not_ this perplexed and obscure controversy, and he acted as he was influenced at different times by the ecclesiastics of each party, who accused one another, not only of heterodoxy, but of being enemies to the Emperor, and of other faults and misdemeanors.”—_Jortin._

Footnote 494:

“Notwithstanding all which it must be granted, that though this co-essentiality of the three persons in the Trinity does imply them to be all God, yet does it not follow from thence of necessity that they are therefore _One God_.”—_Cudworth_, p. 596.

Footnote 495: