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.
Now the first thing that will strike you in comparing these two possible methods of a Revelation is, that the written communication containing doctrines is cold, formal, indistinct and distant, when contrasted with the living presence of a pure and heavenly being, who places himself at our side, enters into our joys and sorrows, shows us in action and in suffering the will of God reflected on every form of life, and works out before our eyes the vast idea of perfection. No message, no written document, no form of words, could leave such distinct impressions or quicken such sympathy and love, as the warm and breathing spirit who entered into communication with us, whose influences we felt upon our trembling souls, whose eye penetrated and whose voice melted us, and who took us by the hand and showed us how children of God should prove their filial claim, and through the vicissitudes of a Father’s providence pass meekly to their Home.
Such a living Revelation could of course be preserved for posterity only through the medium of written records, but then these records would be chiefly descriptive; and their grand purpose would be faithfully to convey to the men of other times the true image of that heavenly being; to re-create him, from age to age, in the heart of life; to introduce the Son of God with the power of reality into the business and the bosoms of men; to impress upon the silent page such graphic characters that they give off to the mind animated scenes, and bring the living Christ before the gazing eye; and the written Revelation would perfectly fulfil its mission, when by vivid and faithful narrative, without comment or reflection of its own, it had placed us in the presence of Jesus, and left us, like the disciples of old, to collect our impressions of the Christ as we waited upon his steps, and watched the spirit working into life, and caught the tones of living emotion; when we walked with him through the villages of Galilee, and saw him arrest the mourners, and touch the bier, and restore the only son of the widowed mother; when we retired with him to the lone mountain, and witnessed how the spirit ascended to God before it entered into the conflicts of temptation; when we stood with him in the Temple Court, and beheld how much more noble than the Temple is the Spirit that sanctifies the Temple, and how the Priest in his strong hold quailed and trembled under the thrilling tones and simple majesty of Truth; when we followed him to his home, not neglecting to observe how his eye, that was never cold to goodness, fell upon the widow and her mite as he left the Temple; when we leaned with the loved disciple on his bosom, and watched his last offices, and listened, with hushed hearts, for his last words; when we saw him kneel at the disciples’ feet, that the spirit of equality and brotherhood might enter into their hearts; and break the bread of remembrance and distribute the parting cup,—that bound up with such symbols of self-sacrifice, he, the living Christ, might come back in moments of severe Duty, and pour his own spirit of self-denial through deathless memories; when we listened to his last prayers and consolations, and observed that, in that awful pause between life and death, he was the comforter; when we watched with him in Gethsemane’s garden, and beheld the tears of nature, the holy one and the just, beneath the awe of his mission, trembling and melted before God; when we stood by him in Pilate’s hall, and saw the moral greatness of the unassailable spirit unobscured by bitterest humiliation; when we drew nigh to his cross, and witnessed the crown placed upon a glory that in mortal form could rise no higher—“It is finished.” To place us by its vivid descriptions in such communication with Jesus himself, is the great purpose of the historical record of Christianity; and in proportion as it makes this intercourse real and intimate, does the New Testament become to us the instrument and vehicle of a Revelation. Without this reproduction in our hearts of Jesus, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the Scriptures are but a dead letter, barren symbols, perverted to mere verbal and logical uses, that awake no life, and serve no spiritual purpose.
The next observation that could not fail to strike you in contrasting the two methods of Revelation which I have supposed, a written communication containing doctrines, and a living character representing the will of God, is the great uncertainty and liability to various interpretations of the written method of Revelation when compared with the acted Revelation, the will of God embodied in Christ Jesus. Nothing is so unfixed as the meaning of words; nothing is so fixed as the meaning of actions. Nothing is so vague as language; nothing is so definite as character. You may fail to collect the exact ideas of a written communication; but you cannot fail to understand a living, feeling, acting, suffering, and dying man, who, on his own person, works out the will of God before your eyes; and, instead of communicating with you through writing, communicates with you through a character that can have no two meanings, and that requires no doubtful application of scientific rules of interpretation to make it plain. Place me in the presence of Christ, and the Revelation is impressing itself on my answering heart, and exhibiting itself before my living eyes. Place me before some lengthened statement in words, and I may draw from them a variety of senses, and perhaps fix upon, as their true sense, one that their Author did not intend. Who will protect me from error in all my applications of the difficult science of interpreting words? How, for instance, shall I be certain that I do not impress my own limited conceptions upon the most solemn and inspired language? How shall I rise through words, which are mere symbols, to conceptions, which, not being in my own soul, mere words do not suggest? If I saw a living being embodying these sublime conceptions before me, or read a description of him that brought him vividly before the soul, then the words would be no longer clothed with my poor meanings, but would bring before me the living forms of goodness and of greatness into which they expanded when represented by that heavenly mind. To illustrate my meaning by a single instance: Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” Now how poor would be my conception of that duty, if I had only these words, if I had not his own acted interpretations of their fulness, if I could not stand by his cross, and witness his own exhibition of this heavenly spirit. The precept would be narrowed to my own littleness if I had not the illustration of the living Christ. It is possible to put a limitation upon the revelation of mercy as it is written in the dead words: it is not possible to put any limitation on “the word made flesh,” the Revelation of Mercy breathing from the dying Jesus. Such then is the greater clearness, and freedom from uncertainty, of the meaning of God, when that meaning is revealed on the person of a living being, than when it is a statement of Doctrines expressed through a medium so indefinite, so susceptible of a variety of interpretations, as written language.
That there is a distinct branch of study called the Art of Interpretation; that its principles are derived from the profoundest acquaintance with the Mind; that it is in fact a practical Metaphysics, which even, when most fully understood, requires, for its correct application to ancient writings, the most varied and extensive knowledge, and the utmost natural acuteness, disciplined by long practice,—these things, which every one knows, scholar or no scholar, are standing and undeniable proofs of the inherent ambiguity of language, of the variety of meanings, which no skill in the use of words can possibly prevent, and out of which we have to make a selection of some one, when we apply ourselves to interpret a document. Now were I to enter into a full enumeration of the considerations that should determine an interpreter of the New Testament, and out of all the possible meanings direct his selection of that one which he adopts, I should have to present you with a disquisition on perhaps the most profound and difficult department of literary inquiry. I should have to speak of ArchÆology and original languages, themselves even in their most general character, the study of a life; I should have to speak of one form of those original languages, peculiar and a study in itself, the Hellenistic Greek, in which the New Testament is written, and in the interpretation of which we are left without the aid that is derived from the usages of language by other authors: I should have to speak of the particular writer whose words we were examining, of the character of his mind, of the peculiarities of his style, whether he wrote oratorically or scientifically, whether we were to tame down his metaphors, or whether we were to regard them as literally descriptive; I should have to speak of the age and country in which he lived, of the state of opinion and philosophy in his times, of the colourings which his words or thoughts were likely to adopt from the then prevailing theories, of the particular purpose for which he was writing, and of the particular minds, their circumstances and states of knowledge to which the writing was addressed; and after all this I could not allow any man, however erudite, to be a competent Interpreter who was not richly endowed with that noble but most rare Faculty which can re-create the past and place us in the heart of a by-gone world, that Historic Imagination which throws itself into the sympathies of Antiquity and re-produces the living forms of Society that kindled the very thoughts and modified the very language now submitted to our minds; and in addition to all this I should demand, also, as an essential requisite for an Interpreter, a mind emptied of all prejudice, a calm and sound judgment.
Now it is most evident that a result depending on so many qualifications will be necessarily uncertain; that in every separate man who comes to the study of the New Testament, according as these instruments of interpretation exist in different degrees of perfection will they derive various meanings from the written document; and that consequently, since nowhere do these requisites for a perfect interpretation exist in perfection, there is no one of the contested meanings that can be relied upon with an absolute confidence. It is also to be noticed, that this uncertainty attending the meaning of words does not attach to the narrative or historical portion of a document, but is very much confined to that portion of it which contains doctrinal ideas, philosophical theories, or metaphysical statements. The descriptive portion of an ancient writing (and especially when, as in the case of Christ, the description is of a moral nature, and is addressed to the affections and the soul, which are the same in all ages,) will convey a uniform and universal impression, whilst the didactic portion of the very same writing will suggest as many meanings as there are varieties of intellectual texture and complexion in the minds that read it. The character of Jesus shines out from the Gospels to be seen of all men, full of grace and truth. No one mistakes that. It does not depend upon the skilful application of the science of Interpretation. The symbols of language that reveal the living Jesus are of universal significance, and finding their way at once to every heart, stamp upon it a faithful image of the Christ. But doctrinal conceptions cannot be conveyed in this way: there is no universal and unchanging language for metaphysical ideas—and consequently it is impossible that any written communication on such subjects should be free from a variety of interpretations. And especially must this be so, when, as is the case with the Trinity, the doctrine is nowhere expressly stated in the document, but is only inferred by connecting together into a system a number of ideas which it seems to contain. Let me give you an illustration that was lately brought before me of the impossibility of a Revelation of doctrines being made to man, by means of written language, upon such subjects as the Trinity, the modes in which the essence of the Deity enables him personally to subsist. I heard it stated on a late occasion by Dr. Tattershall, that the Trinity existed as one nature in three personalities; and that to ask how three could be one and one three, was to ask an unmeaning and irrelevant question, because that the Trinity was three and one in different senses, three in Person but one in Essence. I turn now to Dr. Sherlock, and I find these words: “To say,” says Dr. William Sherlock, “that there are three divine persons, and not three distinct infinite minds, is both heresy and nonsense.” “The distinction of persons cannot be more truly and aptly represented than by the distinction between three men; for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are as really distinct persons as Peter, James, and John.” Here then we have Dr. Tattershall charging Sherlock with polytheism; and we have Sherlock charging Dr. Tattershall with Heresy and nonsense. That is, neither of these Trinitarians regards the other as having the true faith. Is it not evident then, that the doctrine of the Trinity, seeing how Trinitarians themselves charge one another with heresy, cannot be a doctrine of Revelation, cannot be a part of that universal Gospel which was preached to the poor, and revealed unto babes?
It was stated in Christ Church, by the Rev. Mr. Byrth, that the controversy between us was solely a question of Interpretation. It is so, because in the case cited, our dispute is about doctrines. The question of Unitarianism or Trinitarianism must be decided by Interpretation after Criticism has fixed the Text to be interpreted; but I deny, altogether, that the question of Christianity or No-Christianity is to be decided by any such imperfect and doubtful instrument. Though no one honours Scholarship more, or has a profounder veneration for its noble functions, and altogether renouncing the vulgarity of depreciating its high offices, and maintaining, wherever I have influence, especially for our own Church and in our own day, the necessity for a learned Ministry, able to refresh their souls at the original wells and unfrighted by confident dogmatism to give a reason for the faith that is in them, I yet declare, that Christianity is a religion for the people; that the Gospel was originally preached to the poor; that Christ is manifested to the heart and soul of every man whom he attracts by heavenly sympathy; that when not many wise, not many learned were called, the lowly but honest in heart, recognized the divine brightness, and sat at the feet of Jesus docile and rejoicing; and I protest altogether against any learned Aristocracy, any literary Hierarchy, any priestly Mediators, having more of the true light that lighteth every man than the humblest of their brethren, who has taken to his heart the free gift of God, and loves the Lord Jesus with sincerity.
Now, strange to say this principle was broadly admitted. It was broadly admitted that Christianity is not the property of scholars or critics, but the gift of God to all men; and yet, with a remarkable inconsistency, it was added, that “the all men” to whom Christianity is the gift of God, must find in it the doctrine of the Trinity, else they are no Christians at all. That is, Christianity is the gift of God to those who, by the aids of interpretation and criticism, become Trinitarians, and to all those who, following their leaders, accept this doctrine; but is not the gift of God to Unitarians, who, though loving Jesus as their Light on Earth and their Forerunner amid the skies, cannot so read either the written Gospel or the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as to collect from them the doctrine of a Trinity. If Trinitarianism is Christianity exclusively, then Christianity is not the gift of God to all men; for many, in all ages of the Church and in the first century, perhaps, without exception, have accepted Christ, but knew no Trinity. If Trinitarianism is Christianity exclusively, then Christianity is the property of critics and scholars, for that doctrine is not a self-evidencing Truth, it does not shine out from the Gospels so that no honest mind and pure heart can fail to receive it, and, if capable of being proved at all, it can only be proved by a most technical and subtle logic, by far-fetched inferences from disconnected texts, every one of which is open to a hostile criticism, and by a most scholastic and indirect system of interpretation, which is a task, and that a most painful one, for plain men to comprehend. My audience will be enabled to judge of this matter for themselves when I tell them that one of the strongest reliances of modern Trinitarians, until proved to be completely fallacious, was the power of the Greek article; and that one of the texts long used in this controversy, and still used,[134] owes its whole importance to an accident so minute as this, whether the letter O was written with a central dot, or without the dot; so that the chance touch of a transcriber might put in or put out one of the principal proofs of the doctrine of the Trinity. Now I further declare, that all the strongest evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity is exactly of the same critical nature—that the only text of the slightest difficulty, cited in Christ Church on Wednesday evening, owes its whole force to a question of punctuation; and that the best critics and scholars, and they Trinitarians, for true scholars never degrade their high calling, nor enter the solemn sanctuary open to them alone, to falsify the oracle, give many authorities against the Trinitarian, and in favour of the Unitarian, Interpretation.[135] Now will any man tell me that the doctrine of the Trinity, which, if true, is the most awful Truth that ever bowed down the heart, that the God of Heaven walked this earth, a partaker of our sufferings and our sorrows, and lived our life, and died our death, would be left to be proved by evidence of this nature, by a controversy nearly two thousand years after the Revelation, about the force of the Greek article and the punctuation of a Greek manuscript? Is this the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world? There could have been no difficulty in revealing this doctrine, in words at least, if it was intended to be revealed. The Athanasian Creed is at least explicit enough, and leaves us in no doubt of the purpose of its Author. Now I conclude that if Trinitarianism alone is Christianity, and if such are the processes of criticism and interpretation by which alone that doctrine can be proved, then Trinitarianism is the property of Critics and Scholars, and those who implicitly trust them; and Christianity requiring us either to be Critics or to prostrate ourselves before Critics, not agreed among themselves, is not the free “gift of God to all men.” The rightful privileges of critics and scholars are large enough, and let no man disown them; but I do disown this literary Hierarchy arrogating to themselves sole access to the oracles of God, and limiting Christ’s free approach to the souls of the people to long processes of inferential reasoning and the winding ways of a syllogism. I entreat them to stand aside, and let the living Jesus come into communication with the living heart, and not place themselves, like the multitude who threatened the blind beside the way, between the ready mercy of the Heavenly Teacher and the humblest follower who seeks his face, that a ray of the light that shineth there may fall upon eager and wistful, though dimmed and earth-stained, eyes. “And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way-side begging. And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, saying, Jesus thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.”
I trust that you will perceive now the essential distinction between a Revelation by words, of doctrines, and a Revelation by a living being; between the uncertain meaning that is arrived at by the interpretation of language, and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shining on the face of Jesus Christ. In the one case we have a statement of doubtful doctrines in written words; in the other we have a living Character. In the one case we have the dead letter; in the other we have the “word made flesh.” In the one case we have the Mind of God stated in propositions; in the other we have the Image of God set up in our hearts, and the purposes of God for man, both while on earth and beyond the grave, realized before us, to be seen of all men. If Christianity is a scheme of doctrines in a written communication from God, then of course it is subject to all the necessary ambiguities of language; and expositors will be busy upon it, to draw out of it all the meanings it can possibly contain; and every fresh interpretation will be regarded by some as part of the Revelation from Heaven, and never will men rest lest there should be some lurking sense in it that they have not reached, and every interpreter will thrust in the face of the world, as the essential and saving meaning, his own reading of the document. And as language is a thing that is never fixed, but is always gathering fresh imports from the developments of Time, this is a process that must go on for ever, and the document will speak a new Message to the men of every age, and the Doctrines that constitute Salvation will be always the subject matter of a controversy. But if Christianity, instead of a form of written words, is a character sent to us by God, to manifest his will in the flesh, and to reveal living Truth in a living being; if Jesus himself is the record we are to study; if it is not an inspired Book but an inspired Life that is the gift of God; if his works of Power and Love, his actions and his sufferings, his holy living and dying, are the full and spiritual Scriptures imprinted on humanity by God’s own hand, then the whole work of a Christian is to understand and love that Character,—then is the Revelation like a light shining in a dark place, “a salvation prepared before the face of all people,” “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of his people Israel,” a ray of God’s light shining into the heart of man, touching the mountain tops of humanity and piercing the deep valleys, that all flesh may see it together.
It is in remarkable consistency with these views that very little is said in the popular systems of Christ’s character. The doctrinal ideas respecting Jesus are all in all: the moral and spiritual ideas are looked upon as not peculiarly Christian. A vast deal is said about his Rank, his Merits, his Mediatorial Distinction: very little is said about his Life, his Example, his Revelations of Duty and of Destiny. The Trinitarians taunt us with having no use for Christ in our system. Certainly we believe in a God who does not require their Christ. We do not speak of Atonement therefore. But we might retort, that if we neglect their metaphysical Christ, they neglect our moral and spiritual Christ. They speak little of his character, his life, his example, as a model for humanity: nor could they in consistency with their system. Jesus, as God and man, is powerless as an exhibition of what man may be. He is no revelation of Humanity to Humanity. Humanity with Deity attached to it, or indwelling, is Humanity no more.
If Christianity is a system of doctrines to be deduced from words, and if our salvation depends upon the certainty of our deductions, then is it not clear that God would be requiring an absolute Truth of Interpretation which he has not given us the means of attaining, and that the Revelation, even to “Critics and Scholars,” would be an uncertain property? But if Christianity is an inspired Life, the Duties and the Destinies of Man shown forth on the Son of God, the word made flesh, the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ, a character perfectly reflecting the purposes of Providence, and preserved for us, in faithful narratives that still enable us to have the image of Jesus formed within us, then is it not clear that the Revelation is perpetuated in our hearts, and that the Christ with us still, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, is the gift of God to all men? “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the world.” Now this is Christ’s own account of himself as a Revelation. “I am the Light of the world.” “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him.”[136] “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”[137] “Whoso hath seen me hath seen the Father also.” And to crown all this scriptural evidence, this is God’s own account of his Christ as a Revelation, authenticating him at the opening of his Mission, and repeated again as His seal upon its close, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
I have shown that there is no doctrinal certainty in Christianity considered as a written Revelation: but neither is there any moral certainty as to the Will of God and his practical requirements conveyed by mere words. When God tells me in words to love Him and to love my neighbour, I do not know what practical forms these feelings are to assume, neither do I know how all the influences of my present life are to control me in the exercise of these affections. But I understand what God means when I see Jesus interpreting for me this will of God by his own character, and combining in his own life, through all circumstances, the perfect love of God and Man. Now I maintain, that no system of Doctrine could be a Revelation to me of the purposes and ends of life. It is a practical question, and practically must it be solved. He who will work out for me on this scene of things the great designs of my being, and show to me, in action and in suffering, in sympathy and in struggle, in the throbbings of life and in the hushed sublimities of death, the right attitudes of my nature, the fitting dignities of enlightened and heaven-bound man,—he who is not the Prophet merely of divine Truth but the Impersonator of his own views, who stands successively in each practical position and robes himself in the living glories of duty,—he alone can pretend to be a Revelation of character, as God wills it, having stamped upon his views illustrations of Reality. And he alone can pretend to have unravelled the mystery of our Discipline, who himself passes through our trials, and transmutes them into the nurseries of Power, the pregnant schools of Character—who shows us the outward circumstance, as a torch to the Spirit, lighting up the energies of Duty’s inviolable will,—who moves amid the evil that is in the world, and is not overcome by it, but overcomes it with good,—who encounters sin and sinners, and treats them with the pity of a brother, yet with the holiness of one whose Father is the spiritual God,—who stands amid baffled purposes of good, the broken projects of benevolence in the unquelled trusts of Faith, seeing, though afar off, the Harvest of this unpromising Spring,—in whom the worst aspects of Humanity only draw out the unselfishness of Charity; and the clouded countenance of God, veiled to sight though not to Faith, the perfect peace of a filial Spirit. He who passes for us through all this variety of mortal circumstance, and exhibits each, even the most dark and unpromising, as full of the materials of our Education, contributing to the formation of that perfect mind which is the end and heaven of our being, is indeed a perfect Revelation, “unimproved and unimprovable,” though improving us to the end of Time, an embodied Scripture, the word made flesh and dwelling amongst us.
Christianity will be a matter of controversy so long as men look to it for what they are to think, and not for what they are to trust in and be. Creeds will divide the world, so long as Christianity is regarded as a Revelation of Doctrines, and not as a Revelation of Character, of Practical Interests, of Destinies and of Duties. In the one case it will be the “property of Critics and Scholars,” held by an uncertain tenure; in the other case, it will be “the gift of God to all men.” Strange that all Protestants do not feel the force of this argument! And as for Roman Catholics, if we had any controversy with them, the argument has only to take another step to hold them too in its grasp.
And now I shall be obliged to speak of Critics and Scholars in a way that Critics and Scholars should never expose themselves to be spoken of. I have a most painful duty before me, very different from the one I had been led to expect,—which I had hoped would have been to answer calm, learned, judicious reasonings, instead of simply to resist pretension, a task, which if much easier, is yet one that neither elevates nor instructs. Nothing could justify me in using in this place the language of grave remonstrance, but the consciousness that thereby instead of indulging I am wounding my own feelings, and the conviction that, in this case, Duty to Truth and to the Public requires it from me. Every one must have felt that the declaration before the world, of “the Unitarian Interpretation of the New Testament, based upon defective Scholarship, or on dishonest or uncandid criticism,” ought to have been amply supported, or never made. To fail in the proof was to pass not only intellectual but the severest moral condemnation on such a statement. I know of no abuse of Power and Place more immoral, than when a Scholar uses his Scholarship to libel others before the unlearned, than when a Preacher uses his sacred and elevated standing to make assertions that are taken upon his word, but which are not correct, and of which nothing but the certainty that they were correct could justify the utterance. If I cannot take example from what I witnessed in Christ Church on Wednesday evening, let me at least take warning. I will not pray to be preserved meek and truthful, and then regard my prayer as an indemnity for unlicensed speech. I will not commit here the disrespectful impropriety of quoting Greek. Neither will I pay this audience the false compliment of pretending to make such subjects intelligible and interesting to them, but I will make some statements that shall go forth to the world, and there find fitting judgment. There are some points, however, to which I shall have to advert, of which every one may judge.
1. It was stated by the Preacher that he could not himself believe the mysterious statements of the New Testament unless he first believed in their inspiration, and that this alone could command his faith. Now there was great candour in this, but no Scholarship. You cannot prove the Inspiration of the Bible except by first proving the truth of the Bible, for there are no proofs of Inspiration except what the Bible itself contains. To believe in the truth of the Bible, because it is inspired, and then to prove it inspired because it is true, is an error in reasoning inexcusable in the divines of the Church of England, for an eminent Bishop of their own Church, Bishop Marsh, has abundantly exposed it.
2. It was stated that every Unitarian Minister in England was as much bound by the Improved Version, as every Clergyman of the Establishment was by the Articles of the Church. The Preacher has written his name beneath those Articles; as long as he remains in the Church he has, to use Milton’s expression, to those Articles subscribed “Slave;” he has entered into a vow to preach nothing contrary to them; he belongs to a body of men organized to prevent all dissent from those Articles, and pledged to oppose and avenge every attempt to break up the dogmatical principle of their Church Union, and yet he stated solemnly before an assembled multitude that no Clergyman of the Church was more bound by the Articles of the Church than was every Unitarian Minister by a Book which one man edited on his sole literary responsibility, and which other men contributed to publish, simply because they expected from it some valuable scriptural aid. Now when a man is capable of making such a statement, when his judgment will allow him to do so, his credibility as a witness to facts I do not dispute, but his opinion on any question, merely as coming from him, I cannot feel deserving of my confidence. I might quote passages of contemporary Unitarian criticism reflecting on the Improved Version; I might quote Dr. Carpenter in his answer to Archbishop Magee, ascribing the whole responsibility to Mr. Belsham; I might quote Mr. Yates in his able answer to Mr. Wardlaw, exposing the false impression made by Dr. Magee, that the Improved Version was the Unitarian Version: but I cannot so misuse your time. The Unitarians, most of whom never saw the work, and whose pride it is that their Ministers study the Scriptures freely, and lay before them the results, will smile at the idea of these Ministers being as much bound by the Improved Version as the Clergy by the Articles of the Church, though in a graver spirit they must morally condemn an assertion so recklessly made. It was stated that all Protestant Christians were satisfied with the received Version up to the time of the Improved Version, and, to advance no other proof of the ignorance displayed by such a statement, in the next breath it was declared that the Improved Version was on the basis of Archbishop Newcome’s Translation, the title of which is this, “An Attempt towards revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures.” But what means this attempt to fasten us down to the Improved Version? Is it not clear that these clergymen wish us to fight the battle upon a disadvantageous ground? Is it not clear that they wish us to take up some weak position, and defend that, rather than meet us in the strongest positions that criticism and scholarship enable us to assume and to maintain? Is not our controversy between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism, and what can be more unworthy of critics and scholars than to conduct that controversy on any ground but that of the original Scriptures? We do not think of fixing them down to any particular critic of their own church, many of whom we could advance who abandon almost every position they maintain; we freely give them advantage of the best criticism and the best scholarship they can anywhere obtain; and we do confess that we hold it very uncandid towards us, and very unconfiding in their own strength, and very disloyal towards Truth, to tell opponents, I wish I could say fellow inquirers, that they are not to defend their cause by the best arguments known to them, but by a certain set of arguments published in a certain book more than thirty years ago, and before some of us now engaged in this controversy were born. Our controversy is not about the Improved Version, but about the Greek Testament; and I must certainly regard any attempt to intercept us in our appeal to the original Scripture, by thrusting any other Version in our faces, as a sign either of great weakness or of great unfairness. Where would the Lecturers at Christ Church have got matter of indictment against us, if it had not been for this Improved Version?
3. It was stated that minute examination of the Scripture Evidence for Trinitarianism hardly influenced the result, for so thoroughly were the Scriptures imbued with its doctrines, that if but a fragment of them remained, the mysterious truths that pervade the whole would be found in that fragment. Now I doubt not that men can say these things sincerely, and yet methinks they ought to ask themselves before they mislead a multitude, is there Reality in these statements? Now I can not only mention fragments, but whole books, in which Trinitarians themselves will confess that there is not a trace of these doctrines; the whole Gospel of St. Mark; the whole Gospel of St. Luke, for the portions respecting the miraculous generation cannot be proof of the Deity of the person so generated; the whole of the book of Acts; and very many of the Epistles. We have the Gospel which the Apostle Peter delivered to the Gentiles, when he gave them his exposition of Christianity, and we find from it that Cornelius and the Gentiles might have believed all that the Apostle taught them, and yet, according to the Trinitarians, be lost everlastingly from the scantiness of their faith. Here then is the Gospel which Peter delivered to the Gentiles, containing the whole account he gave them of the doctrine of Christ: “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all JudÆa, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil; for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem: whom they slew and hanged on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly: not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”[138] Now you will know what weight, what measure of calm and considerate truth attach to the assertions made at Christ Church, when you compare this account of Christianity by the Apostle Peter, with the bold statement that if only a fragment of the New Testament remained, it would contain and show forth the mysterious doctrines of Trinitarianism.
4. It was stated that a slight degree of evidence might affect the introductory chapters of Matthew and Luke, if the statements they contain were not supported by the rest of the Gospels, but that so full were the Gospels of the peculiarities of these chapters, to remove them would be like removing the Portico from a Temple. The only evidence brought to support this large declaration was the last verse of the Gospel of St. Matthew, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Now I am not concerned in the correctness or the incorrectness of the Improved Version’s translation of this passage, Lo, I am with you alway, to the end of the age, or dispensation, that is, till the new dispensation was fully established: for in the first place I have no difficulty in believing that the spirit and power of Jesus was with his followers when in the strength of love and trust they lived and died for him and for his truth, and that thus spiritually he still is with all who give him a place in their hearts, even unto the end of the world; and, in the second place, translate this passage in any way you will, and it contains no assertion of the Deity of Jesus, and no confirmation of the miraculous conception. But when I hear it confidently asserted in the presence of a crowd ready to take the Preacher’s word for anything he chooses to assert about Greek, that any scholarship is utterly contemptible that interprets the “end of the world” to mean “the end of the era or age,” or that puts any other interpretation on these words than that of the received version, I confess I am amazed at the boldness with which men not habitually under correction will make rash statements, even at times when they must know that watchful eyes are upon them. I turn to Schleusner’s Lexicon of the New Testament, I look for the word in question, and I find from that authority that the word signifies primarily, an undefined period of considerable extent, and, secondarily, the state of things existing within that period; I find him quoting the very passage in question which we are told every scholar would translate “to the end of the world,” and explaining it to mean “to the end of the lives” of the Apostles; I find that in other cases where this word is used, a limit is put upon its meaning, restricting it to the signification of “age or dispensation,” and rendering it impossible it should mean the “end of the world,” in our sense, by such a clause as this, “Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass until all these things be fulfilled;”[139] I find in our common version the plural[140] of this word translated exactly as the singular, where if “dispensations” was substituted for “world,”[141] all difficulty would disappear; I find the interpretation of the Improved Version given by such scholars as Hammond and Le Clerc, and adopted consistently and throughout by Bishop Pearce, who argues for it against the common rendering, and whether it is true or not, which is really a matter of no importance, I do calmly but solemnly protest against any man so abusing his actual place and his reputation for learning, as to proclaim to a multitude that no scholar would countenance such a translation, and that no interpreter would adopt it, except for the sake of an À priori meaning. No man who understood the dignity and the privileges of scholars would in this way forfeit them.[142]
5. It was stated that no scholar would translate the first verse of the Gospel of St. John thus: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was a God.”[143] Now for myself I do not agree with this translation. I think that the Logos, or Word, is a very usual personification of the Power and Wisdom of God. (See Prov. viii.) I think that this verse has no reference to Jesus whatsoever; that in the first place God alone is spoken of; his Power and Wisdom are described as belonging to and dwelling with him; that He is described as purposing to communicate or reveal these to men, for of course it is not God himself, but only a portion of his Knowledge and Will that can be revealed to us; and then for the first time in the fourteenth verse is Jesus introduced, as the person through whose character these attributes are to be communicated, “the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.” I dissent therefore from the translation which Mr. Byrth condemned; but when I am told that NO SCHOLAR would tolerate such a translation, I turn to my books, and I find Origen and Eusebius not only tolerating but actually adopting and insisting upon this very translation. I recollect that Greek was the vernacular tongue of these eminent men; and when I am told by an Englishman, in this nineteenth century, that no Greek Scholar would do what Origen and Eusebius have done, I think it is not disrespectful to decline his authority in all matters that require calmness and accuracy.
6. It was stated that no scholar could translate the fifth verse of the ninth chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans thus: “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came: God who is over all be blessed for ever.” Perhaps the more correct rendering would be, “whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came (i.e. from among whom the Messiah was to be born); he who was over all, was God blessed for ever:” or with more fidelity, because with more rapidity, our language not admitting, like the Greek, the ellipsis of the substantive verb—“He who was over all, being God blessed for ever.” With regard to the ellipsis of the substantive verb, nothing can be more common. It occurs again and again in the verses that lie on each side of the text in question. And in ascriptions of praise it is almost uniform. And nothing can be more natural than that the Apostle should state as the closing distinction of the Jews, that over all their dispensations it was God who presided, the God of their signal Theocracy. Now when I am told that no scholar would so translate, let me simply name to you some of the Scholars who do adopt this translation: Erasmus, Bucer, Le Clerc, Grotius, and Wetstein; the first three most learned Trinitarians, and the last two, if not of unquestioned orthodoxy, only of suspected Heresy. Let me now give you some quotations from other Scholars of an earlier date, from the Christian Fathers, even when adopting the received translation of this passage. Tertullian, whose temper rather than his learning has been preserved in controversy, says, “We never speak of two Gods or two Lords; but following the Apostle, if the Father and the Son are to be named together, we call the Father, God, and Jesus Christ, Lord.” “But when speaking of Christ alone, I may call him God, as does the same Apostle; of whom is Christ, who is God over all blessed for ever. For speaking of a ray of the sun by itself,” continues Tertullian, “I may call it the sun; but when I mention at the same time the sun, from which this ray proceeds, I do not then give that name to the latter.” “Some of the earlier Greek Fathers,” who I suppose it will be admitted knew Greek, “expressly denied that Christ is ‘the God over all.’” “Supposing,” says Origen, “that some among the multitude of believers, likely as they are to have differences of opinion, rashly suppose that the Saviour is God over all; yet we do not, for we believe him when he said, ‘The Father who sent me is greater than I.’” Even after the Nicene Council, Eusebius, in writing against Marcellus, says: “As Marcellus thinks, He who was born of the holy virgin, and clothed in flesh, who dwelt among men, and suffered what had been foretold, and died for our sins, was the very God over all; for daring to say which, the Church of God numbered Sabellius among Atheists and Blasphemers.”[144]
I have one other observation to make upon this verse. The translation of the passage depends very much on a question of punctuation, and, so far, is a question for Critics and Scholars. Now we have seen already the high authorities that give the punctuation in favour of the Unitarian rendering.[145] I say nothing of the conjectural readings of these two passages, because, though brought by the Preacher as instances of unlicensed Conjecture, he treated them chiefly as mistranslations, with the view, I suppose, of introducing the same passages over and over again, to multiply the instances of Unitarian alterations. The conjecture is not adopted by the improved version; and yet, for allowing some little weight to the authority of Dr. Whitby in the latter case, for it allows none whatever to the conjecture of Crellius in the former, it is charged with two sins: first, the sin of adopting the conjecture; and secondly, the sin of mistranslation after rejecting the conjecture. This is a method of multiplying sins, or rather charges. Indeed, if I understood the Preacher, he admitted that Crellius and Slichtingius, in the then state of Biblical knowledge, might very justifiably have made the conjectures, for they were Scholars: but that now, with all our new lights, such a conjecture is inadmissible; that is to say, Biblical Literature was not far enough advanced in their day to enable them to discover in these texts, what yet if they did not discover there, or somewhere else, they must perish everlastingly. And yet we were told that Christianity was not the property of critics and scholars, but the gift of God to all men.[146]
Now when I examine into these things, my duty to scholarship, my reverence for its high functions, my duty to Truth, my duty to the public, who ought not, in matters not of opinion but of knowledge, to be misled by their Teachers, and my duty to the Pulpit, which suffers in power and credit by every unwarrantable statement that proceeds from it, all oblige me to declare that the impression which I carried away from Christ Church, that the supposed ignorance of a vast assembly was sported with, and their confidence abused, has been more than confirmed.
So much for scholarship and candour together. I have now to speak of “candour” alone.
1. A sentiment was quoted from Coleridge, expressing his belief, that if Jesus was not God, he was a deceiver: and then the Preacher asked his audience, “Can the advocates of a system that makes Jesus a deceiver be Christians?” thus identifying Unitarians with the sentiment of Coleridge. How long will controversalists condescend to such practices? From any controversy so conducted no good can come: but great scandal to Religionists, and deep pain to all who love Religion and Truth better than their own party.
2. Advantage was taken of some words of my Colleague, the Minister of this Chapel, to produce the impression that Unitarianism, as a religious faith, was merely negative. Now the words themselves not only bear no such meaning, but guard against it; and the whole speech from which they were extracted is rich in the overflowings of the true, working, onward spirit of our faith, as you who have the privilege of worshipping here, well know everything from the same mind must necessarily be. The words quoted were these: “I conceive that, controversially, our system is correctly described as purely negative;” and the whole object of the speech was to enforce the peaceful and fruitful view that the power of our religion proceeds not from what we disbelieve, but from what we believe. No man who read the speech could be ignorant of this; and it is remarkable, that the very next words, containing a passage quoted by Mr. Byrth, are these: “Let us place the utmost reliance upon positive religious principles; and especially let us act on our own internal convictions.” My valued friend is abundantly equal to the task of defending himself, and not often should I do him the disservice of appearing for him, but as this statement was made in a lecture which it was my duty to answer, and as I am always confirmed in any view of my own that I can identify with him, I shall, to show that the present is no forced advocacy,[147] extract a few sentences from an Article, which nearly at the time he was speaking, it happened to be my duty to be writing. “We are not devotional, we are not practical, in our combative aspects. We are on preliminary, not on Christian ground. We are not improving, we have not a Religion, until we have ceased contending and commenced cultivating. Moral progress proceeds from cultivation of the faith we rest in, producing its fruits in the warmth of love. We must pursue what is our own, and forget our controversial attitudes. They never will nourish the inner life of a Congregation, nor keep its interest alive. They give us no character of our own. They feed no intense yearnings. They make no devoted disciples. We must proceed upon our own views, not defending them, but loving them and studying them. We must pursue a more independent course of Developement. We must understand our own mission, which is not to battle but to advance; not to be dogmatists of any kind, but cherishers of Spirit and of Truth. Our Union must be a moral one, a sympathy of Spirit. We can have no intellectual or doctrinal union. We must give up therefore the idea of aggregate life, as a Body devoted to a uniform Belief, and held together by the forms of an uniform Ecclesiastical Government. The whole body can flourish only by the members having each life in himself. Our union must be one of sentiment and first principles; our life one of individualities.” And again, speaking of Unitarian Ministers: “They should present a Christianity qualified by its energy to meet both the strength and the weakness of the spiritual being, to inspire a devoted love, and to lead souls captive. They should take their stand upon no combative ground. They should eschew a religion of negations. Faith should be their great power; a faith that appeals to the faith of their hearers, nourishing it where it is, creating it where it is not. With no other bond of union than this power to satisfy the deep spiritual wants of those to whom they minister, they above all others should cultivate a Christianity that has positive attractions for the spirit of man, a Christianity that is fitted to draw upon itself the warmest and purest affections; a Christianity that engages to do for us what it did for Christ, to elevate the diviner tendencies, whilst it supports the weakness of our frail yet noble nature. From the absence of creeds, and its want of a mystical or fanatical interest, no sect, so much as Unitarianism, requires a sympathetic, generous, deep-hearted faith, an affirmative and nutritive Christianity, to lay hold upon the religious affections, and feed the religious life of its Churches. There is no other sect to which coldness in Religion could be so fatal.”[148]
I have now gone through all the evidence adduced on Wednesday evening, in support of the allegation, “The Unitarian interpretation of the New Testament based upon defective Scholarship, or on dishonest or uncandid Criticism.” Such a declaration, again I say, should never have been made, or should have been adequately sustained. To fail in the proof is to pass upon the statement not intellectual only, but moral condemnation. We were told by the preacher that when the time came to support the allegation, he would not use irritating language, but sound argument. I grieve to say that pledge was not redeemed. And the moral condemnation of advancing such a charge, and leaving it unproved, falls upon him. I understand that the lecture was continued yesterday evening; when the press puts it into my hands I shall have an opportunity of seeing what additional comments it may require. But when I was told by the preacher himself, on Wednesday evening, that on the evidence then adduced, and which I have now presented to you, he regarded his charge made out not only in one but in both its clauses, that in short he had been too forbearing, for that instead of the disjunctive he might have used the copulative conjunction, and made his accusation to be this, “The Unitarian Interpretation of the New Testament based upon defective scholarship, and on dishonest and uncandid Criticism,”—I held myself discharged from all further duty of attention.
And now, after the “expostulations” to which you have been subjected elsewhere, your convictions treated as sins, and the exercise of your conscientious judgment represented as exposing you to the wrath of a holy God, (strange combination of ideas, wrath and holiness!) I may, perhaps, not unbecomingly address a few words to you my fellow-believers. Trinitarians have the power to deny you the name of Christians; but they have not the power to deny you the Reality. They cannot prevent you being Christians; and it is a light thing for you to be judged by man’s judgment, provided only you can disprove the judgment by preserving your Christianity unprovoked, by retaining your Christian love towards those who deny you the Christian name. The worst operation of persecution and fanaticism is its tendency to produce a reaction. The worst working of an Evil Spirit is that it calls up other evil spirits to oppose it. The temper we complain of has a tendency to provoke the same temper in ourselves. And yet an evil spirit cannot be conquered by an evil spirit. This is one of the divine prerogatives of the spirit of goodness. You must overcome evil with good. You must be prepared to expect that men who deem themselves your religious superiors, will comport themselves accordingly. You must regard it as only natural that men who hold themselves to be the favourites of God, and never expect to meet you in heaven, should treat you with little respect on earth. Nay, you must even have some tenderness for the feelings of irritation which this very faith cannot fail to generate in the kindlier nature of those who hold it. Holding you to be lost, and having human hearts, how can they avoid assailing you with eager, anxious, and even persecuting aggression? I blame them not for this: I only wonder there is so little of it: that they leave us to our fate, with so little effort, to use their own favourite figure, to pluck the brands from the burning. Nay, my friends, more than this, their confidence in their own salvation depending on the dogmatical assurance with which they hold certain doctrinal ideas, they are naturally alarmed lest this essential faith should in any way be disturbed in their bosoms, and they come to look upon every freer mind as a tempter and an enemy. And as their Faith is by their own boast not a rational Faith, as it has no roots in their intellectual nature, they feel that their danger is all the greater, and that their caution must be all the more. They are not happy in their exclusive faith. How can they if they have Christian hearts? It rests upon an evidence out of themselves, so that they cannot, at all times, be confident in it. It presents to them many unhappy images, a vindictive God,[149] an exclusive Heaven, a condemned world, fellow-beings against whom their religious feelings are embittered, but towards whom their hearts still yearn. All these are reasons why you should exercise forbearance. You have an easier part. You have a faith that supports you in meek Hope and Trust for all. Your hearts are at peace both with Man and God. You can wait in patience until Heaven does justice unto all. Having this more blessed and peaceful faith, you must also make it more fruitful, and thus be enabled to meet the question, “What do ye more than others?”
For ourselves, let us pursue our own way, and love our own Christ in meek faith and trust. Doctrines are uncertain: but the spirit of Jesus is not uncertain. You know what that is; and that its fruits are, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” Love, venerate, obey in all things, the Heaven-sent and Heaven-marked Christ; cherish the growth of his spirit in your souls; place him before you in moments of trying duty; and in all times of nature’s languishing see him at the open gate of Heaven, inviting you to be faithful to the end, that you may join him at the resurrection of the just. Do this and your souls shall live. To be this is to be Christians. Others may hold a different language; but you owe no allegiance save to God in Christ. One is your master, and all ye are brethren.
APPENDIX.
See pp. 30, 31.
s??te?e?a? t?? a?????—the end of the age.
“Hanc ob causam JudÆi universum tempus in duas magnas periodos dispescere consueverunt, alteram MessiÆ adventum antecedentem (a??? ??t?? vel ? ??? a???), alteram consequentem (a??? e???? vel e???e??? vel e?e????). Postremam illius (a????? t??t??) partem, Ævo Messiano annexam, nominarunt ?ste???? ?a?????, ?a???? es?at??, es?ata t?? ??????, es?ata? ?e?a?, exitumque ejus ta te?? t?? a????? vel s??te?e?a? t?? a?????.”—Bertholdt. Christologia JudÆorum Jesu Apostolorumque Ætate. pp. 38, 39.
“On this account the Jews were accustomed to divide Time into two great Periods, one preceding the advent of the Messiah, and called ‘this world,’ ‘this age,’ or, ‘the world that now is,’ ‘the age that now is;’ the other subsequent to the advent, and called ‘the world to come,’ ‘the age to come,’ ‘that world,’ ‘that age.’ The latter portion of the former Period, that immediately adjoining the Messianic Age, they called ‘the latter times,’ ‘the last time,’ ‘these last days,’—and its close (that is, the close of the Ante-Messianic Period), ‘the ends of the world,’ or, ‘the end of the world,’ ‘the end of the age.’”
The Introduction of St. John’s Gospel.
“In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.”
“There is no word in English answering to the Greek word Logos, as here used. It was employed to denote a mode of conception concerning the Deity, familiar at the time when St. John wrote, and intimately blended with the philosophy of his age, but long since obsolete, and so foreign from our habits of thinking, that it is not easy for us to conform our minds to its apprehension. The Greek word Logos, in one of its primary senses, answered nearly to our word Reason. It denoted that faculty by which the mind disposes its ideas in their proper relations to each other: the Disposing Power, if I may so speak, of the mind. In reference to this primary sense, it was applied to the Deity, but in a wider significance. The Logos of God was regarded, not in its strictest sense, as merely the Reason of God, but under certain aspects, as the Wisdom, the Mind, the Intellect of God. To this the Creation of all things was especially ascribed. The conception may seem obvious in itself; but the Cause why the creation was primarily referred to the Logos, or Intellect of God, rather than to his goodness or omnipotence, is to be found in the Platonic Philosophy, as it existed about the time of Christ, and particularly as taught by the eminent Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria.
“According to this philosophy, there existed an archetypal world of Ideas, formed by God, the perfect model of the Sensible Universe; corresponding, so far as what is divine may be compared with what is human, to the plan of a building or city, which an architect forms in his own mind before commencing its erection. The faculty by which God disposed and arranged the world of Ideas was his Logos, Reason, or Intellect. This world, according to one representation, was supposed to have its seat in the Logos or Mind of God; according to another, it was identified with the Logos. The Platonic philosophy further taught, that the Ideas of God were not merely the archetypes, but, in scholastic language, the essential forms of all created things. In this philosophy, matter in its primary state, primitive matter, if I may so speak, was regarded merely as the substratum of attributes, being in itself devoid of all. Attributes, it is conceived, were impressed upon it by the Ideas of God, which Philo often speaks of under the figure of seals. These Ideas, indeed, constituted those attributes, becoming connected with primitive matter in an incomprehensible manner, and thus giving form and being to all things sensible. But the seat of these ideas, these formative principles, being the Logos, or intellect of God; or, according to the other representations mentioned, these Ideas constituting the Logos, the Logos was, in consequence, represented as the great agent in creation. This doctrine being settled, the meaning of the Term gradually extended itself by a natural process, and came at last to comprehend all the attributes of God manifested in the creation and government of the Universe. These attributes, abstractly from God himself, were made an object of thought under the name of the Logos. The Logos thus conceived, was necessarily personified or spoken of figuratively as a person. In our own language, in describing its agency,—agency, in its nature personal, and to be ultimately referred to God,—we might indeed avoid attaching a personal character to the Logos considered abstractly from God, by the use of the neuter pronoun it. Thus we might say, All things were made by it. But the Greek language afforded no such resource, the relative pronoun, in concord with Logos, being necessarily masculine. Thus the Logos or Intellect of God came to be, figuratively or literally, conceived of as an intermediate being between God and his creatures, the great agent in the creation and government of the universe.” ***
“The conception and the name of the Logos were familiar at the time when St. John wrote. They occur in the Apocryphal book of the Wisdom of Solomon. The writer, speaking of the destruction of the first-born of the Egyptians, says (xviii. 15):
“‘Thine almighty Logos leapt down from heaven, from his royal throne, a fierce warrior, into the midst of a land of destruction.’”
In another passage, likewise, in the prayer ascribed to Solomon, he is represented as thus addressing God (ix. 1, 2):
“God of our fathers, and Lord of mercy,
Who hast made all things by thy Logos,
And fashioned man by thy Wisdom. ***
“St. John, writing in Asia Minor, where many, for whom he intended his Gospel, were familiar with the conception of the Logos, has probably, for this reason, adopted the term Logos, in the proem of his Gospel, to express that manifestation of God by Christ, which is elsewhere referred to the spirit of God.”
“But to return: the conception that has been described having been formed of the Logos, and the Logos being, as I have said, necessarily personified, or spoken of figuratively as a person, it soon followed, as a natural consequence, that the Logos was by many hypostatized, or conceived of as a proper person. When the corrective of experience and actual knowledge cannot be applied, what is strongly imagined is very likely to be regarded as having a real existence; and the philosophy of the ancients was composed in great part of such imaginations. The Logos, it is to be recollected, was that power by which God disposed in order the Ideas of the archetypal world. But in particular reference to the creation of the material universe, the Logos came in time to be conceived of by many as hypostatized, as a proper person going forth, as it were, from God in order to execute the plan prepared, to dispose and arrange all things conformably to it, and to give sensible forms to primitive matter, by impressing it with the ideas of the archetypal world. In many cases in which the term ‘Logos’ occurs, if we understand by it the Disposing Power of God in a sense conformable to the notions explained, we may have a clearer idea of its meaning than if we render it by the term ‘Reason,’ or ‘Wisdom,’ or any other which our language offers.” ***
“From the explanations which have been given of the conceptions concerning the Logos of God, it will appear that this term properly denoted an attribute or attributes of God; and that upon the notion of an attribute or attributes, the idea of personality was superinduced.” ***
“It was his (St. John’s) purpose in the introduction of his Gospel, to declare that Christianity had the same divine origin as the Universe itself; that it was to be considered as proceeding from the same power of God. Writing in Asia Minor, for readers, by many of whom the term ‘Logos’ was more familiarly used than any other, to express the attributes of God viewed in relation to his creatures, he adopted this term to convey his meaning, because from their associations with it, it was fitted particularly to impress and affect their minds; thus connecting the great truths which he taught with their former modes of thinking and speaking. But upon the idea primarily expressed by this term, a new Conception, the Conception of the proper personality of those attributes, had been superinduced. This doctrine, then, the doctrine of an hypostatized Logos, it appears to have been his purpose to set aside. He would guard himself, I think, against being understood to countenance it. The Logos, he teaches, was not the agent of God, but God himself. Using the term merely to denote the attributes of God as manifested in his works, he teaches that the operations of the Logos are the operations of God; that all conceived of under that name is to be referred immediately to God; that in speaking of the Logos we speak of God, ‘That the Logos is God.’
“The Platonic Conception of a personal Logos, distinct from God, was the Embryo form of the Christian Trinity. If, therefore, the view just given of the purpose of St. John be correct, it is a remarkable fact, that his language has been alleged as a main support of that very doctrine the rudiments of which it was intended to oppose.”—Norton on the Trinity.
I shall now give a paraphrase of the Introduction of St. John’s Gospel in harmony with the Conception that the Logos is described first as dwelling in God—and afterwards as manifested through Christ—the Logos made flesh—“God manifest in the flesh,” an expression which is so far from implying Trinitarianism, that it exactly expresses the Unitarian idea of Christianity as a revelation of God—of Deity imaged perfectly on the human scale—of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.
Proem of St. John’s Gospel.
“In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. It was in the beginning with God. By it all things were made, and without it was not any thing made, that was made. It was life (the source of life)—and the source of life or blessedness was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God. This man came as a witness to bear testimony concerning the light; that all men through him might believe. He was not the Light, but he was sent to bear testimony concerning the Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. It was in the world, and the world was made by it, and the world knew it not. It came unto its own, and its own received it not. But to as many as received it, it gave power to become the Sons of God (Logoi)—being born, not of favoured races, nor through the will of the flesh, nor through the will of man, but being children of God. And the Logos became flesh (was manifested through a man, the Mind or Spirit[150] of God shown on the human Image), and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Romans. ix. 5, page 32.
“Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came; God who is over all be blessed for ever.” Amen.
?? ?? pat??e?, ?a? ?? ?? ? ???st?? t? ?at? s???a· ? ?? ?p? p??t?? ?e?? e?????t?? e?? t??? a???a?. ???.
The objections made to our rendering of this passage are these:—
1. That ? ?? coming first in the sentence must refer to the nominative (???st??). But there is no grammatical rule to prevent ? ?? commencing a sentence and referring to a subsequent nominative; so that to say it must refer to the preceding ???st?? is only to take the desired interpretation for granted.
2. That another article is required before ?e??, and the position of the words to be ? de ?e?? ? ?? ?p? p??t??, ?. t. ?. If ?e?? had been placed first in the sentence the article would have been used, but the qualifying expression ? ?p? p??t?? more than supplies its place. A passage from Philo exactly parallel is cited by the Rev. W. Hincks in his very able Review of Dr. J. P. Smith’s Scripture Testimony to the Messiah t?? p??? ????e?a? ??t?? ?e??. Ed. 1610, (apud Middleton,) p. 860. Also Clem. Rom. ad Cor. cap. xxxii. ? pa?t???at?? ?e??, where pa?t???at?? is equivalent to ? ?? ?p? p??t??. Eusebius has this passage, t? t?? f???? ?a p??? t?? ?p? p??t?? ?e?? ?a?a??? te??a?te?. See Jortin. Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. 235.
3. That e?????t?? ought to come first in the sentence. But the words “for ever,” e?? t??? a???a?, whenever used, are placed at the end of the sentence, and this naturally draws e?????t?? to the same position, to avoid awkwardness or ambiguity. In the cases where ?e?? has dependent words, then e?????t?? comes first, that the words connected by construction may not be awkwardly separated: in the case of e?????t?? having dependent words, as here, then ?e?? would naturally come first.
In the only three cases in which e?????t?? e?? t??? a???a? occur in the New Testament they follow one another in this fixed order.
In the Septuagint, contrary to the statement of Whitby, there is one clear instance of a similar construction: ?????? ? ?e?? e?????t??, Ps. lxviii. 19.
Finally, e?????t?? is nowhere in the New Testament applied to Jesus.
4. That our rendering requires another substantive verb. Of such ellipsis examples might be given without number. See Rom. x. 12. 2 Cor. v. 5. Ephes. iv. 6, a case exactly in point. Rev. xiv. 13.
5. That there is an antithesis intended by St. Paul between “as concerning the flesh,” and “God over all”. But the sentence is not an antithesis but a climax closed by Christ, as the consummation: and at the close of a climax of blessings and privileges, acknowledgment almost spontaneously bursts out to God.
Comments on the Rev. Mr. Byrth’s Lecture entitled “The Unitarian Interpretation of the New Testament based upon defective Scholarship, or on dishonest or uncandid Criticism.”
Page 108.—“It does appear to me extraordinary, that my opponents should appear to complain of the introduction of critical and scholastic considerations into this discussion.” We make no such complaint. We complain that the essence of Christianity should be derived from the Criticism and Interpretation of controverted passages. Will my reverend opponent state a single argument for Trinitarianism, or adduce a single scriptural evidence, not fairly open to hostile Criticism or Interpretation? To us the Revelation is not derived from any thing doubtful; it is derived from those impressions of Jesus the Christ which Trinitarianism itself receives. To us the Revelation is the Person, (in which we include his Life, Character, Destinies,) of the man Christ Jesus. We know our God when we know that he who was as full of grace as of truth was the Image of our Father’s Mind: we know God’s will for man when we look upon him who was perfected human nature: we know the connections of Heaven with Duty when we see the crucified made the glorified, and taken to the bosom of his Father.
Page 115.—“It does not, however, follow that, because the Unitarian interpretation of the New Testament bears this character, all Unitarians are defective Scholars, or uncandid or dishonest Critics. Many of them may have received their opinions through the channel of traditional education; and may never have deemed it obligatory upon them to examine the matter for themselves.” So, we have the choice of any one of three characters, viz., Bad Scholars, Dishonest Critics, or So-called Christians, who know nothing and care nothing about the matter. Does Mr. Byrth really think that this last refuge removes the insult of his Title, or softens its indictment? Some of us, confined to a choice among these three descriptions, preach Christianity, and are therefore certainly bound to “examine the matter” for ourselves; nor is it to us that the suspicion usually attaches of receiving our “opinions through the channels of a traditional education.”
“The dogmata are too few, too general, too unimportant, to elicit inquiry, or to excite anxiety as to their truth.” There is some truth in this, though not exactly of the kind the author contemplated. The interest of Trinitarianism depends greatly on the number of its dogmata, their intricacy, their supposed necessity to salvation, the exactness of their right mutual positions. There is much in a saving Theology, having an intricate scheme, and whose main principles and evidences are external to the mind of the believer, and therefore constantly agitating him with apprehension as to whether he has disposed them according to the precise conditions of orthodoxy, to occupy and sometimes oppress minds that have little affinities with a saving Religion, a simple spirit of Worship, Duty, and Trust immortal. But is it true that these Unitarian doctrines are “unimportant”—The Fatherhood of God—the Brotherhood of Man—the relations of Jesus to God as His Image, and to Man as his Model—the retributions of Eternity—the Heaven of Duty?
Page 119.—See the Note.—Surely Mr. Byrth will perceive the unfairness of concluding a Book to be our Standard, merely because some other parties, very unfavourably disposed towards us, choose to represent it as such.
Page 124.—See the Note.—“I have been charged with almost or altogether suppressing, in the delivery of this Discourse, the word ‘controversially.’” I eagerly assure Mr. Byrth that no such charge was ever made, nor could be made with truth, and I am much grieved that any rumour has conveyed to him the pain of such an impression. Though using hard words to his opponents, and giving them the choice of any one of three bad characters, I believe him perfectly incapable of “dishonesty.” Believing me to have made such a charge, whilst I do not excuse him for so believing upon hearsay, I feel obliged by his forbearance, and for a courtesy in denying the charge, which if made I should not have deserved. I complained that the “controversial” attitudes of Unitarianism were confounded with its own peaceful and positive ones, two things that were most carefully separated in the speeches from which Mr. Byrth took extracts; and that he represented as a description of Unitarianism, what was distinctly stated to be Unitarianism, “controversially” described. Mr. Byrth, though giving the word “controversially,” overlooked its meaning.
Page 132.—“Epiphanius asserts that the Ebionites,” &c.: also the note marked †.
As it is exceedingly inconvenient to repeat subjects and answers, and so never to get rid of a topic, I refer Mr. Byrth and my readers to note B, on the Ebionites and their Gospel, in the Appendix to the Second Lecture of our Course.
Page 140.—See the Note.—“I cannot but express my satisfaction that in the very place where this book was thus regarded as an authority, and thus earnestly recommended, it is now renounced and disclaimed.”
I do not know what Mr. Byrth includes in “renouncing” and “disclaiming.” If these words mean “rejecting as a standard authority,” then in the place alluded to was the Improved Version always renounced and disclaimed.
The praise quoted in the note certainly requires much qualification. Nevertheless the Improved Version is neither renounced nor disclaimed. We have no predilection for the rude principle of taking things in the mass, or leaving them in the mass, without discrimination. And I fancy that if our opponents were in these matters as much at liberty as ourselves, there are some of their standards which would soon be thoroughly sifted.
Page 143.—“For even they would scarcely think highly of the scholarship of Bishop Pearce.”
I have quoted Bishop Pearce, not for his learning, though unquestionably that was respectable, but for the sake of stating that the acceptance by a Bishop of the English Church of a certain interpretation ought to have screened “a reputed heretic” from the charge of accepting the same interpretation solely for the sake of an a priori meaning.
Page 146.—“Epiphanius has little authority with any one else.” Mr. Byrth is quite right in his estimate of Epiphanius. But it is hardly wise for those who, like Mr. Byrth, rest their faith upon external testimonies, to look too closely into the characters of the witnesses, or raise doubts respecting them in the public mind. We know how much of the weight of these testimonies rests upon Eusebius—and I doubt not Mr. Byrth knows very well that he is clearly convicted of having interpolated one passage in Josephus, and corrupted another. How can we tell how far this process of reconciliation was carried? Why is it that we have not the works of the Heretics, of whose names ecclesiastical History is so full?
Page 147.—See the Note.—Mr. Byrth seems to think it impossible to have worded the Title of his Lecture so as not to have insulted some one. Will he allow me to suggest what the Title might have been without offence, though not with exact truth of description—“Some of the interpretations of the Improved Version of the New Testament based upon defective Scholarship.” To attribute “dishonesty” and want of “candour,” Mr. Byrth will I am sure feel to be too vulgar to be altogether worthy of his character as a Critic and a Scholar. In the text of his Lecture (p. 122), he indeed states his belief that Unitarian Interpretation, of every kind, wants scholarship, or wants honesty—and it was to the proof of this statement that he ought to have applied himself, or else to have altered the Title of his Lecture.
Page 148.—Luke iii. 23.—“And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph.”
This passage was not introduced into the first part of Mr. Byrth’s Lecture as originally delivered. I state this only to excuse myself for having taken no notice of it in the body of my Lecture. This is the case also with some other passages. There were also expressions and sentiments of Mr. Byrth spoken, but not printed. I would not state this were it not necessary to justify some passages in my own Lecture. I refer especially to an oratorical use that was made of a most objectionable and irreverent sentiment of Coleridge’s, full of the very spirit of dogmatism and presumption. P. 161.
With regard to Luke iii. 23. The rendering of the Improved Version is that of Bishop Pearce, who I suppose had no heretical reason for preferring it. I confess it does not seem natural. Dr. Carpenter thinks the words “as he was supposed,” put in to guard against some Gnostic or Platonic error, and for the purpose of stating distinctly that he was the son of Joseph, as he was supposed to be. The same writer acutely remarks that it is most improbable, indeed next to impossible, that any writer should trace our Lord’s descent from David through Joseph, and then declare that Joseph was only supposed to be his father, thus nullifying his own genealogy. Kuinoel gives a suggestion of Boltenius, to which he evidently inclines that ?? ?????et? applies not to the supposed descent of Jesus from Joseph but to the whole genealogy. I annex his note.
“Boltenius ad h. l. suspicatus est, verba ?? ?????et?, non tantum eo referenda esse, quod JudÆi falso putaverint, Josephum esse Christi parentem, sed spectari quoque his verbis genealogiam ipsam h. l. exhibitam, eaque reddenda esse: hanc putabant esse Jesu genealogiam, erat pater ejus Josephus, hujus pater Eli, etc., ut adeo Lucas professus sit, se inseruisse genealogiam, prouti ea in manus ipsius venisset, seque authentiam illius acrius defendere nolle. Hac ratione admissa, explicari forte etiam posset, quÎ factum sit, ut Lucas genealogiam ipsi suspectam, in Evangelio infantiÆ Jesu propositam, ad calcem illius fortasse adjectam, h. l. inseruerit, quod nempe aliquamdiu dubius hÆsisset, an eam reciperet. Alii opinati sunt, hanc genealogiam, cum diversa sit ab ea quÆ in MatthÆi commentariis reperitur, cum laxiori vinculo superioribus annexa sit, non a Luca ipso, sed serius additam esse.”
Page 149.—See the Note.—“Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary: of whom (Mary) was born (or was begotten) Jesus who is called the Christ.” “Now is it possible to declare, in plainer terms, that, though Jesus was born of Mary, who was married to Joseph, yet that Joseph did not beget him.”—Magee. Great is the ingenuity here, wonderfully misapplied. Is it not clear that St. Matthew was tracing the descent of Jesus from David, and that he brings down the chain to the very last link, namely Joseph, that is, the very Joseph necessary to be included, the husband of the mother of Jesus? That Joseph, the very husband of Mary, from whom Christ was born, being thus shown to be a lineal descendant of David, the Evangelist stops. What could he do more? His object being to trace the descent of Jesus from David, what could be more natural than, when he arrived at Joseph, to say—here is the unbroken succession, for this is the very man who was the husband of that Mary from whom Jesus was born. Of course the writer could not alter the form of expression until he arrived at the very man whom he wished to identify as the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus—and the reason for altering it then is very obvious.
If Joseph was not the father of Jesus, the genealogy is vitiated, for it is through Joseph that the descent is traced.
Pages 157, 158.—“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” “He was in the world, and the world was enlightened by him, and yet the world knew him not.”—I. V. This interpretation cannot, I think, be defended. I am sorry it was ever given. Yet Mr. Byrth’s sarcasm is quite powerless against it, “what kind of light is that which blinds the eyes which it was intended to illuminate?” in the face of the text—“the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not;” unless he adopts the interpretation of some of the Fathers,—“And the darkness did not insinuate itself into the light, interpenetrate and quench it.”
Page 161.—The liberality of Robert Hall. We desire to speak with respect of this great and good man. But perhaps it would be impossible to name a man more illiberal as a controversialist, and who allowed himself such an unmeasured use of uncharitable language. It was only the other day I learned an anecdote of him from the person to whom the words were spoken, descriptive at once of his vigour and his rancour: speaking of the Unitarians he said—“they are inspired from beneath,”—with a look, said my informant, never to be forgotten. Many passages might be brought from his writings, especially his Reviews, demonstrative of this temper,—but the passage given by Mr. Byrth himself, in which he is satisfied to rest conclusions so momentous and fearful upon reasonings so arbitrary and vague, is quite enough. When any man acquainted with the state of Theological opinion in the world, and with the impossibility of uniformity, can fix upon his own opinions as essential, and run a doctrinal line between Heaven and Hell, we require no further tests of his “liberality,” unless indeed he is, what Mr. Hall was not, only a traditional believer.
I have already remarked that some of my observations apply more to the spoken than to the printed lecture. Were it possible to efface the impressions made by the speaker, and which required to be counteracted, gladly would I efface every word of personal reference from my pages. Even now, with the recollection fresh upon my mind, of the unsparing contempt, both literary and moral, expressed by words and tones, not conveyed by the printed page, when the speaker, feeling that the sympathies of his audience were with him to the full, and that their knowledge of the subject required from him the broadest statements, to render it intelligible, gave himself to the excitement of the moment,—I have more than doubted whether it would not have been better to have avoided every personal allusion. I believe that I have in no case overstated or misrepresented what was said. I deeply grieve to fix upon my pages the suggestions, perhaps, of momentary excitement, which Mr. Byrth’s better feeling has, in some instances, refused to record—and that the obligation I was under to remove an impression actually made, does not permit me to give full effect to this working of a kinder spirit, the manifestations of which, in other ways, I have respectfully to acknowledge.
Footnotes for Lecture III.
