Part 56

The tone in which we have often been spoken of in this controversy appears to assume that we in some degree doubt the sincerity or charity of our opponents. We deny them neither. We know the history of religion well enough to be aware that as severe things have been done in sincerity as to pronounce that men dishonour Christ and God, that they are under sentence of spiritual outlawry, and if they repent not (_i.e._ do not turn to the opinion of their antagonists) shall surely endure the second death; we can easily believe that men say these things sincerely; for except from the necessity of conviction, we do not imagine they would reiterate perdition and denunciation as often as they do. We deny not the sincerity in which an opponent may hold an opinion or resist one: but though the motive may not be impeachable, the quality of the opinion itself may be in the last degree anti-social and pernicious. The men who built the Inquisition did it in perfect sincerity: the men who sat on its judgment-seats were for the most part sincere, so were those who dragged the heretic from his home to the dungeon, and from the dungeon to the stake. And so are those who tell us that our faith is damnable. Men may on account of belief consign antagonists to hell-fire for eternity; but unless the evidence be most clear, to pronounce the judgment requires a goodly quantity of courage. As little willing are we to refuse our opponents the charity they claim, if by that be meant a desire to promote good in their idea of it: but we may very fairly doubt the justness of that idea. Believing that heretics, such as we, are in the way to eternal destruction, it is neither inconsistent with candour or charity to tell us so, in the hope of reclaiming us; and if theologians imagined that inflicting bodily suffering might have a similar effect, we are compelled to admit them to the same merit. The worst effect of harsh and austere doctrines is that they produce harsh and austere feelings; and the professors of them, under their indurating process, can do deeds from principle which even bad men would rarely do from passion. One perverted motive is worse than a thousand evil actions. Charity in her own native sweetness is meek and gentle as the dove, and yet theology has often made her ravenous as the vulture; charity as she came from heaven marked her way in tears of mercy, but theology could so pervert her as to cause her wade to the lips in blood. The charity of the heart is very different from the charity of creeds; and when we hear English clergymen condemn the Romish Church as uncharitable, we naturally ask on what ground? Is it because she condemned heretics? So do you. Is it because she has a wrong test of heresy? Her test is substantially the same as your own. You assume that we do not believe in Christ, because we do not believe in your creed: she assumes that you do not believe in Christ because you do not believe in her councils: you denounce eternal torments on us for want of your faith; and she delivers you to the same destiny for want of her faith: the tabooed ground of heresy and orthodoxy may be circumscribed or extensive—the points may be few or many, the principle is the same, or if there be any difference, it is but breaking the big end or the little end of the egg. We are accused as traitors against God and Christ, and to make the indictment clear against us, it is illustrated by the instance of rebellion against a sovereign. This is a heavy charge, but one both unjust and false. It is evil intention that constitutes crime: a traitor opposes his sovereign and _intends_ his dethronement; but though we should even _mistake_ the nature of Christ, can any one who thinks for a moment venture to say our intention is for his dethronement? Let us suppose the case, no uncommon one, of an Eastern monarch who should disguise himself, and that some of his subjects failed, in their ignorance of his rank, to pay him the customary honours; what should we think of his justice, if he should call this treason, and impale the wretches who were unconscious of having offended him. It is too monstrous even for Eastern despotism. Or take the case in our own history; what should we think of Alfred’s rectitude and clemency, if when he ascended the throne from his poverty, he should have thrown the shepherd’s wife into a dungeon and chains, because, in his disguise, she uttered against him a surly rebuke. The instance is not entirely parallel, but the analogy goes far enough for my purpose. Now, though Christ were in reality the Deity which orthodoxy proclaims him, the circumstances of his earthly life, and the concealment of his infinite nature, were certainly sufficient to excuse some in ignorance for taking him to be that which he appeared; and to punish them for so natural an error, would not be a vindication of majesty, but a capricious exhibition of cruelty.

The legal and political mode of illustration is a favourite with the reverend lecturer. P. 450, we have a quotation from Blackstone, and the distinction very admirably elucidated of private wrongs and public wrongs, civil injuries, crimes and misdemeanours, &c. Sir William Blackstone never, I imagine, anticipated the honour that his Commentaries would be used to illustrate the principles of the divine government; and one of the last ideas, I apprehend, that entered his brain in delivering his lectures, was, that he was giving expositions on the ways of Providence. The Preacher in the order of illustration, gave a passing blow “at those wretched and guilty disturbers of the public peace in one of our own colonies who lately crossed the borders of a friendly state to slay and ruin and destroy, under the name of _sympathizers_.” An allusion, doubtless, extremely loyal; but in the present case not very logical. (Lect. p. 452.) In this part of the discourse we have other distinctions, showing that man is a public offender, that God is not a person but a sovereign, in relation to guilty man, and that a sovereign is different from a person; that God is not a creditor but a judge, and that a judge is different from a creditor. All this may be very acute, very legal, but, theologically, it has one imperfection, that of mistaking entirely the relation between God and man, of turning false analogies into false premises, and, of course, deducing from them false conclusions: of properly having nothing to do with the true matter in hand, and leaving the question precisely where it was before. “Our opponents,” says the Preacher, “assert that sins are to be regarded as _debts_, and as _debts_ only.” We assert no such thing, have never asserted it, but all the contrary, and to such an idea the whole tone of our argument and of our system is in most perfect contradiction. We have no such low view of God as to think that man could owe him anything, nor any such presumptuous view of man as to imagine he could make payment to his God. Yet upon this poor assumption whole pages of declamation are wasted, for if it serves any purpose it is but to beat down the man of straw which the lecturer himself had fashioned. We hold no such view, and therefore we have never defended any such. We do our best to maintain what we assert; if others assert doctrines for us, we leave them the pleasure of the refutation; although it is only when men invent opinions for opponents that they have the double enjoyment of first building up and then pulling down. We do not regard sins as debts for which payment can be made to God; but we may fairly assert that on this principle rests the whole scheme of orthodoxy. What are the atonement and righteousness of Christ but a payment or equivalent to God for the salvation of the elect?—the very nature of the system implies this idea, and in truth it is the only idea that gives it even the appearance of consistency; for crime as such cannot be punished in the person of another, but a debt can be fairly paid by the money of another. If I commit high treason against the sovereign—to borrow an analogy from the Preacher—it would be sad work to lay the head of some one else on the block for it—but if I owe a severe creditor a thousand pounds, a rich and generous friend may pay it in my stead, and no social principle is violated by the substitute.

Mr. Buddicom makes the following modest apology for the presumed infallibility of himself and brethren, and their right to attack all heretical deniers of it. “While, however,” he observes, “we are prepared to contend for the lawfulness and duty of an affectionate inroad upon the regions of spiritual error, we remember that our movement is not purely and primarily aggressive. A volume of Lectures, preached expressly on the controverted doctrines of Christianity (as the lecturer denominated his subjects), in a chapel now occupied by one of our respected opponents, has been before the world. In these and other similar measures, the fortress of true Christianity, the only safe munition of rocks for the souls of men, hath been attacked by mine, and sap, and open assault. And shall there be no attempt to countermine, no sally made, no arm raised, in a forward movement for the truth as it is in Jesus? Our regret is rather due to the culpable silence of the past, than to the proceeding of the present time.” (Lect. p. 440.) The reverend and respected Preacher refers to a volume of Lectures, by the Rev. George Harris, delivered in this town some years ago: those Lectures, unfortunately, I do not possess; but I have read them with much pleasure, and many passages of them I should wish to quote in support of my own general arguments. But the Lecturer greatly mistakes if he imagines that we complain of orthodox aggression. Controversy, political and religious, is the fair expression of civilised and progressive opinion. We do not blame those who oppose us,—we have never done it,—we have not complained that war was made on us, but we did most righteously complain that the fair laws of warfare were denied us. Our people were invited to go to Christ Church to listen to wise and learned men, to be converted, by hearing their religion spoken of as blasphemy and outlawry—to hear _themselves_ designated as enemies to their God, and dethroners of their Saviour, and the spiritual slayers of their kind. They were denied any religious equality. They were abused, and vituperated, and denounced; but they were not listened to—their condemnation was sternly uttered—but their defence had not even the poor tribute of a hearing. Nay, grave clergymen pleaded that they could not have their religious sensibilities disturbed or hurt by Unitarian roughness, as if manly controversialists were to shrink from opposition with the fastidious delicacy of timid devotees. We neither complained of controversy, nor avoided it; on the contrary, we met it promptly, sincerely, and willingly—with ability, it is possible, inferior to our opponents—but not with less zeal, less alacrity, or less honesty. When our respected opponents challenged our attendance, it was not as antagonists on the opposite sides of a subject open to discussion, but as accused to give in their confession of repentance, or as criminals to hear their last sentence of punishment. We, however, blame not the Lecturer, nor his party—we rather agree with him and them. We have received a lesson which we needed; Unitarians have stood too long on the defensive, when they should have been on the aggressive: had they been faithful to their trust, it may be that the degrading dogma of original sin, and the atrocious doctrines of election and reprobation could not now, in this country, be matters of dispute. “Our regret (to use the words of the Lecturer) is rather due to the culpable silence of the past than to the proceedings of the present time.” It is a remarkable fact in the history of religion, that all the doctrines which have been most generally condemned as heresy, have been pure or benignant ones; and all persecutions and religious hatreds, bodily or social, have been directed against their professors. Not to mention the Christians, who burned Jerome and Huss; we might refer even to the heathens who poisoned Socrates—to uphold the personality of Satan—the reality of his existence, and the malignity of his nature,—to declaim upon hell’s torments and to announce eternal perdition on the great mass of God’s family—to create excitement by the grossest pictures of vice and misery is the certain way to popularity. The popular taste, as it has yet been developed or nurtured, has been coarse and ferocious, and if any thing could prove to me the doctrine of universal depravity, it would be the toleration of the horrors of Calvinistic orthodoxy.

Footnotes for Lecture VIII.

Footnote 518:

Gen. ix. 6.

Footnote 519:

See Appendix, Note 1.

Footnote 520:

Pref. to Sermons.

Footnote 521:

See Note 2.

Footnote 522:

Gen. vii. 1.

Footnote 523:

Gen. vi. 6.

PREFACE.

In preparing this Lecture for the press, after an examination in its printed form of that to which it is a Reply, I do not find that the Trinitarian argument has been strengthened by additional evidence, or by a more logical statement, so as to require any modification of my impressions of its weight and character.

Mr. Bates has in his Appendix _drawn out_ some of his scriptural evidence, and I can only require any one to examine it, in order not only to estimate its cogency in reference to this particular question, but also to obtain a very accurate idea of the peculiar genius of Trinitarian interpretation. I shall select two passages as perfectly descriptive of the manner in which the believer in a verbal and logical revelation draws doctrinal conclusions from the mere words of scripture.

Here is one of the Trinitarian _Scriptural proofs_ of Three Persons in the Unity of the Godhead.

“2 Thess. iii. 5. ‘The LORD direct your hearts into the love of GOD, and into the patient waiting for CHRIST.’

“In these passages the Three Persons are distinguished. The LORD to whom the prayer is in both instances directed; GOD, _even our Father_; and our _Lord Jesus_ CHRIST. That the LORD thus distinguished from _God the Father_, and our _Lord Jesus Christ_, and addressed in prayer, is the HOLY GHOST, is evident from the analogy of Scripture, which teaches that _sanctification_, for which the Apostle prays, is the peculiar work of the Holy Ghost.”—_Mr. Bates’ Appendix, p. 590._

Now, using the same description of logic, we have only to quote a passage in which _sanctification_ is ascribed _not_ to the Holy Ghost, but to GOD our FATHER, in order to overthrow the whole of this verbal and mournful trifling with the sublime and vast purport of revelation.

“Holy FATHER, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that _they_ may be one, _as_ we are.... _Sanctify_ them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”—John xvii. 11, 17.

The second descriptive specimen I select, of the genius of Trinitarian interpretation, is the following alleged _scriptural proof_ of the separate Deity and Personality of the Holy Spirit.

“Rev. i. 4. ‘JOHN to the seven Churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne.’”

The _seven_ Spirits, we are told, is a symbolical designation of the One Spirit. Nothing however can be more clear, even on the _verbal_ principle, than that the seven Spirits are the seven Messengers, Angels, or Ministers, which, partaking themselves of God’s Spirit, were His instruments of communication with the seven Churches of Asia enumerated by the Author of the Apocalypse, and which are represented as being before his throne, deriving their own inspiration from Him.—“The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven Churches.”—Rev. i. 20.

On this, the last opportunity, perhaps, which I may have, of saying any thing in connexion with these Lectures, I cannot but express my own regret, and point it out to public notice, that we have been necessitated by circumstances, not to prepare merely and deliver as pulpit addresses, but to print and fix in a permanent form, dissertations upon most important and agitated questions, within a period of time altogether insufficient to do any justice, I will not say to the subjects, but even to our own ideas of the subjects. The accidental advantage, in this respect, obtained by the Lecturers on the Trinitarian Theology, with ample time and undivided strength to bring out a single Lecture on a single topic, ought to be included as an element of judgment, if the real value of the contrasted views is to be estimated by any, by the results of the present controversy. For myself, it is with great pain that I think of so much written, in the most sacred cause, almost extempore. That this necessity has occasioned any defects except such as have been _an injury to our own views of Truth_, by failing to bring out its full strength, I am not aware. I am not aware that, in any respect, we have, through haste, _overstated_ our case. I am aware, for my own part, that it might have been much strengthened by additional force of evidence, and clearness of statement. I may be allowed to state, that in the course of three months I have been obliged to write and print to the extent of an octavo volume of nearly four hundred pages. It is impossible that such an exposition of our views should not be crowded with imperfections, and indefinitely feebler than it might be. May we ask that this consideration will be taken into the account by all those who are now forming an opinion of the merits of the Trinitarian and Unitarian Theology, from this discussion of it. May we ask those who, in the love of the Truth, and in confidence in the God of Truth that no Truth can injure them, wish the real evidence to be presented to their minds, to read the original sources, the New and the Old Scriptures, afresh, without fear, without an unfair and biassing horror of what they have been cradled to dread as heresy, without the intellectual infidelity of studying a revelation from God with the previous interpretations of men, colouring all their associations with the very words of the document, and preventing their ever receiving a pure impression from the original evidence unmixed with the whispers and suggestions of some self-authorized _Interpreter_ who is in terror lest they should miss _the essentials_ of the _revealed_ religion, and derive from it some ideas that would destroy.

_Liverpool, April 1839._

LECTURE IX.

THE COMFORTER, EVEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, WHO DWELLETH IN US, AND TEACHETH ALL THINGS.

By REV. JOHN HAMILTON THOM.

“IF YE LOVE ME, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS: AND I WILL PRAY THE FATHER, AND HE SHALL GIVE YOU ANOTHER COMFORTER, THAT HE MAY ABIDE WITH YOU FOR EVER; EVEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH; WHOM THE WORLD CANNOT RECEIVE, BECAUSE IT SEETH HIM NOT, NEITHER KNOWETH HIM: BUT YE KNOW HIM, FOR HE DWELLETH WITH YOU, AND SHALL BE IN YOU. I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS; I WILL COME TO YOU.”—_John_ xiv. 15-18

It is very remarkable that whenever the doctrine of the Trinity is discussed, the debate is almost always exclusively occupied by the single question of the deity of the Christ, and if that can be established, the controversy is considered at an end. Controversialists glide from the doctrine of the deity of the Son to the separate deity of the Holy Spirit, in a way which plainly shows that one inroad being effected on the personal unity of God, and the principle once loosened, another division of it is conceded upon much easier terms, without fear, without caution, without reverence. Why indeed should men scruple to admit three persons into the unity of the Godhead after having got over the first great difficulty of admitting two? A third person adds nothing to the difficulty of a second person, and if we cannot maintain unbroken the principle of one God, in our own sense of oneness, then the extent to which the principle is violated, whether by three persons, or any other number, is really a matter of a very minor importance. Having admitted that there may be two persons in the godhead, it would be very absurd to take an objection against there being three; for the analogy of unity, in the only sense we are acquainted with it, the unity of a human being, having once failed us, we must never plead it again. The principle that admits two minds in the being of one God will equally admit any number whatever, provided Scripture accords to them the dignity, and our struggle and reluctance will be felt most strongly on the first of these invasions of our own idea of unity, and will yield more and more readily at each successive one.