§ 5 Defence of the Trinity, by Frederick D. Huntington, D. D.
The last section of this Appendix shall be devoted to an examination and criticism of Dr. Huntington’s sermon, printed some time since, in defence of the Trinity. The course of our argument will be as follows. We shall give the reasons which have induced Unitarians to reject the Church doctrine of the Trinity; also examining Dr. Huntington’s positions and arguments in its support.
The principal reasons, then, for rejecting the Church doctrine of the Trinity, as assigned by Unitarians, are these:—
1. That it is nowhere taught in the New Testament.
2. That every statement of the Trinity, which has ever been made, has been either, (1.) Self-contradictory; (2.) Unintelligible; (3.) Tritheistic; or, (4.) Unitarian, in the form of Sabellianism, or of Arianism.
3. That the arguments for it are inadequate.
4. That the arguments against it are overwhelming.
5. That the good ascribed to it does not belong to it, but to the truths which underlie it.
6. That great evils to the Church come from it.
7. That it is a doctrine of philosophy, and not of faith.
8. That we can trace its gradual historic formation in the Christian Church.
9. That it is opposed to a belief in the real divinity of Christ, and to a belief in his real humanity; thus undermining continually the faith of the Church in the divine humanity of Christ Jesus the Lord.
Proceeding, then, to an examination of these reasons, we say,—
I. The Church doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in the New Testament.
To prove this, as it is a negative proposition, would require us to go through the whole New Testament. But we are saved this necessity by the fact that we have a statement on this point from one of Dr. Huntington’s own witnesses, and one on whom he mainly relies. He brings forward Neander, the great Church historian, as a believer in the Trinity (p. 361), and again (p. 378), by an error which he has since candidly admitted, quotes him as saying, “It is the fundamental article of the Christian faith,”—which is just what he denies in the following passage. We call Neander to the stand, however, now, to have his unimpeachable testimony as a Trinitarian (and a Trinitarian claimed by Dr. Huntington with pride) to the fact, that the doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere stated in the New Testament. This is what Neander says of the Trinity, in the first volume of his great work on Church History (p. 572, Torrey’s translation):—
“We now proceed to the doctrine in which Theism, taken in its connection with the proper and fundamental essence of Christianity, or with the doctrine of redemption, finds its ultimate completion—the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine does not strictly belong to the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, as appears sufficiently evident from the fact, that it is expressly held forth in no one particular passage of the New Testament; for the only one in which it is done, the passage relating to the three that, bear record (1 John 5:7), is undoubtedly spurious, and in its ungenuine shape, testifies to the fact, how foreign such a collocation is from the style of the New Testament Scriptures. We find in the New Testament no other fundamental article than that of which the apostle Paul says, that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid—the annunciation of Jesus as the Messiah.”
With this authority we might be content. But Dr. Huntington differs from Neander in thinking that Jesus has himself stated the doctrine of the Trinity, and stated it clearly and fully, in the baptismal formula. (Matt. 28:19.) He says that this is “a clear and full declaration of the fundamental article of Christian belief.” He says, “Now, if ever, Christ will distinctly proclaim the doctrine of Christendom;” and he then declares that Christ, in this passage, told his Church to baptize “in the Triune name.”90
Not in the Triune name, certainly. This is an assumption of our friend. He may think that this is implied; that this is to be inferred; that this is what Christ meant; but certainly it is not what Christ said. Christ gives us here three objects of baptism, no doubt; but he does not say that they are one. How far this baptismal formula is “a clear and full declaration” of the doctrine of the Trinity will appear thus. The doctrine of the Trinity declares,—
1. That the Father is God.
2. That the Son is God.
3. That the Holy Ghost is God.
4. That the Holy Ghost is a person, like the Father and the Son.
5. That these three persons constitute one God.
Of these five propositions, all of which are essential to the doctrine of the Trinity, not one is stated in the baptismal formula. Christ here says nothing about the deity of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost; nothing about the personality of either of them; and nothing about their unity: It is difficult to conceive, therefore, how Dr. Huntington can bring himself to call this a command to baptize in the Triune name.
Dr. Huntington adds, “Our faith is summoned to the three persons, of the one God.” But nothing is said of three persons; nothing is said of their being one God.
He says, “No hint is given that there is any difference of nature, dignity, duration, power, or glory, between them.”
We admit it, but also say, that no hint is given of any equality of nature, dignity, duration, power, or glory, between them. Which way, then, is the argument? Christ does not state, on the one hand, that the three are unequal or different: he does not state, on the other hand, that they are equal and the same. The inference of proof from this fact seems to us to be this: If the apostles, when Christ spoke to them, were already full believers in the church doctrine of the Trinity, the fact that Christ did not deny it would be an argument in its favor; but if the apostles were, at that time, wholly ignorant of the Trinity, then the fact, that he did not assert it distinctly, at least shows that he did not mean to teach it at that time. That inference appears to us a very modest one. But Dr. Huntington will admit that they did not know the doctrine; for he tells us that it was the purpose of Christ to teach it to them at that time. To which we can only reply, If he meant to teach the doctrine, why did he not teach it?
That the word Trinity is not to be found in the New Testament, and that it was invented by Tertullian, is a matter of little consequence; but that the doctrine itself should be nowhere stated in the New Testament we conceive to be a matter of very great consequence. We have seen that Dr. Huntington’s attempt to show that it is stated in the baptismal formula is a failure. If not stated there, we presume that he will not maintain that it is stated anywhere. We therefore agree with Neander in saying, that, whether the doctrine be true or not, it is not taught distinctly in the New Testament. If taught at all, it is only taught inferentially; that is, it is a matter of reasoning, not a matter of faith. It is metaphysics: it is not religion.
II. The second reason why Unitarians reject the Church doctrine of the Trinity is this:—
That every statement of the Trinity has proved, on examination, to be either, (1.) A contradiction in terms; or, (2.) Unintelligible; or, (3.) Tritheistic; or, (4.) Unitarianism under a Trinitarian form.
Let us examine this objection. What is the general statement of the Trinity, as made by the Orthodox Church, Catholic and Protestant? Fortunately, this question is easily answered.
Orthodoxy has been consistent since the middle ages in its general statement, however much it may have varied in its explanations of what it meant by that statement.
The doctrine of the Trinity, as it stands in the creeds of the churches, is this:—
There is in the nature of God three persons,—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,—and these three are one being. They are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. Each of these three persons is very God, infinite in all attributes; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.
According to the general doctrine of Orthodoxy, the unity of God is in being, essence, and substance; that is, God is one being, God is one essence, God is one substance. The threefold division stops short of the being of God: it does not penetrate to his essential nature: it does not divide his substance.
What, then, is the Trinity? It is a Trinity of persons.
But what is meant by “person,” as used in this doctrine? According to the common and familiar use of the word at the present time, three persons are three beings. Personality expresses the most individual existence imaginable. If, therefore, the word “person” is to be taken according to the common use of the phrase, the doctrine of the Trinity would be evidently a contradiction in terms. It would be equivalent to saying, God is one being, but God is three beings; which again would be equivalent to saying that one is three.
Now, Trinitarians generally are too acute and clear-sighted to fall into such a palpable contradiction as this. It is a common accusation against them, that they believe one to be three, and three one; but this charge is, in most cases, unjust. This would be only true in case they affirmed that God is three in the same way in which he is one; but they do not usually say this. They declare that he is one being,—not three beings. They declare that the threefold distinction relates to personality, not to being, and that they use the word “person,” not in the common sense, but in a peculiar sense, to express, as well as they can, a distinction, which, from the poverty of language, no word can be found to express exactly. Thus St. Augustine confessed, long ago, “We say that there are three persons, not in order to say anything, but in order not to be wholly silent.” Non ut aliquid diceretur, sed ut ne taceretur. And so Archbishop Whately, in the notes to his Logic, regrets that the word “person” should ever have been used by our divines; and says, “If hypostasis, or any other completely foreign word, had been used instead, no idea at all would have been conveyed, except that of the explanation given; and thus the danger, at least, of being misled by a word, would have been avoided.”
(1.) The Unintelligible Statement.
The Trinitarian thus avoids asking us to believe a contradiction; but, in avoiding this, he runs upon another rock—that, namely, of not asking us to believe anything at all; for if “person” here does not mean what it commonly means, and if it be impossible, from the poverty of language, to define precisely the idea which is intended by it, we are then asked to believe a proposition which Trinitarians themselves are unable to express. But a proposition which is not expressed is no proposition. A proposition, any important term of which is unintelligible, is wholly unintelligible.
To make this matter clear, let us put it into a conversational form. We will suppose that two persons meet together,—one a Unitarian, the other a Trinitarian.
Trinitarian. You do not believe the Trinity? Then you cannot be saved. No one can be saved who denies the Trinity. It is a vital and fundamental doctrine.
Unitarian. Tell me what it is, and I will see if I can believe it. What is the Trinity?
Trin. God exists as one being, but three persons.
Unit. What do you mean by “person”? Do you mean a person like Peter, James, or John?
Trin. No; we use “person” from the poverty of language. We do not mean that.
Unit. What, then, do you mean by it?
Trin. It is a mystery. We cannot understand it precisely.
Unit. I have no objection to the doctrine being mysterious; I believe a great many things which are mysterious; but I don’t want the language to be mysterious. You might as well use a Greek, or a Hebrew, or a Chinese word, and ask me to believe that there are three hypostases or three prosopa in Deity, if you do not tell me what you mean by the word “person.”
Trin. It is a great mystery. It is a matter of faith, not of reasoning. You must believe it, and not speculate about it.
Unit. Believe it? Believe what? I am waiting for you to tell me what I am to believe. I am ready to exercise my faith; but you are tasking, not my faith, but my knowledge of language. I suppose that you do not wish me to believe words, but thoughts. I wish to look through the word, and see what thought lies behind it.
Now, it seems to us that this is a very fair demand of the Unitarian. To ask us to believe a proposition, any important term of which is unintelligible, is precisely equivalent to asking us to believe no proposition at all. Let us listen to Paul: “Even things without life, giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For, if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.... For, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian; and he that speaketh, a barbarian unto me.”
It is of no use to talk about mystery in order to excuse ourselves for not using intelligible language. That which is mysterious is one thing; that which is unintelligible is quite another thing. We may understand what a mystery is, though we cannot comprehend how it is; but that which is unintelligible we neither comprehend nor understand at all. We neither know how it is, nor what it is. Thus, for example, the fact of God’s foreknowledge and man’s freedom is a mystery. I cannot comprehend how God can foreknow what I am to do to-morrow, and yet I be free to do it or not to do it. I cannot comprehend how Jesus should be delivered to death by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, and yet the Jews have been free agents in crucifying him and accountable for it. These things are mysteries; but they are not unintelligible as doctrines. I see what is meant by them. There is no obscurity in the assertion that God foreknows everything, nor in the other assertion that man is a free agent. I can see clearly what is implied in both statements, although my mind cannot grasp both, and bring them together, and show the way in which they may be reconciled. So, too, infinity is a mystery. We cannot comprehend it. Our mind cannot go round it, grasp it, sustain it. Our thought sinks baffled before the attempt to penetrate to the depth of such a wonderful idea. But we understand well enough what is meant by infinity. There is nothing obscure in the statement of the fact, that the universe is unbounded. So the way in which a flower grows from its seed is mysterious. We cannot comprehend how the wonderful principle of life can be wrapped up in those little folds, and how it can cause the root to strike downward, and the airy stalk to spring lightly upward, and the leaves to unfold, and, last of all, the bright, consummate flower to open its many-colored eye. But certainly we can understand very well the statement that a flower grows, though we do not comprehend how it grows.
Do not, then, tell us, when you have announced a doctrine, the language of which is unintelligible, that you have told us a mystery. You have done no such thing. Your proposition is not mysterious: it is unintelligible. It is not a mystery: it is only a mystification.
(2.) The Tritheistic Statement.
Leaving, then, this ground of mystery, and attempting to define move clearly what he means by three persons and one substance, the Trinitarian often sinks the Unity in the Triplicity, and so runs ashore upon Tritheism. This happens when he explains the term “person” as implying independent existence; in which case the Unity is changed into Union. Then we have really three Gods: the Father, who devises the plan of redemption; the Son, who goes forth to execute it; and the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies believers. If there are these three distinct beings, they can be called one God only as they are one in will, in aim, in purpose,—only as they agree perfectly on all points. The Unity of God, then, becomes only a unity of agreement, not a unity of being. This is evidently not the Unity which is taught in the Bible, where Jesus declares that the first of all the commandments is, “Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord.”
Moreover, against such a Trinity as this there are insuperable objections, from grounds of reason as well as of Scripture. For God is the Supreme Being, the Most High; and how can there be three Supreme Beings, three Most High Gods? Again: God is the First Cause; but if the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are each God, and all equal in power and majesty, and have each an independent existence, then there are three first causes; which is evidently impossible. Again: one of the attributes of God is his independent or absolute existence. A being who depends on another cannot be the Supreme God. The Father, Son, and Spirit, therefore, cannot depend on each other; for each, by depending on another, would cease to be the independent God. But, if they do not depend on each other, then each ceases to be God, who is the First Cause; for that being is not the First Cause who has two other beings independent of him. Other arguments of the same kind might be adduced to show that there cannot be three necessary beings. In fact, all the arguments from reason, which go to prove the Unity of God, prove a unity of nature, not of agreement.
“But why argue against Tritheism?” you may say. “Are any Tritheists?” Yes: many Trinitarians are in reality Tritheists, by their own account of themselves. There are many who make the Unity of God a mere unity of agreement, and talk about the society in the Godhead, and the intercourse between the Father, Son, and Spirit.91
Opposed to this kind of Trinity is another view, in which the Unity is preserved, but the Trinity lost. According to this view, God is one Being, who reveals himself in three ways,—as Father, as Son, as Spirit,—or sustains three relations, or manifests himself in three modes of operation. The Trinity here becomes a nominal thing, and is, in reality, only Unitarianism with an Orthodox name. This kind of Trinity also is very prevalent, and is the one really maintained by men of high standing in the Orthodox Church, both in Europe and America. According to this view, the word “person” in the doctrine of the Trinity means the same as the corresponding word in Greek and Latin formerly meant; namely, the outward character, not the inward individuality. Thus Cicero says, “I, being one, sustain three persons or characters; my own, that of my client, and that of the judge”—Ego unus, sustineo tres personas.
This view of the Trinity is commonly called Modalism, or Sabellianism, and is also widely held by those who call themselves Trinitarians. It is, in fact, only Unitarianism under a Trinitarian name.92
(3.) The Subordination View.
Avoiding these two extremes, and yet wishing to retain a distinct idea of Unity and Tri-personality, the Trinitarian is necessarily driven upon a third view, in which the Father is the only really Supreme and Independent Being, the Son and the Holy Spirit subordinate and dependent.
This view, which is called the subordination scheme, or Arianism, is Unitarianism again in another form; and this view also is entertained by many who still retain the name of “Trinitarians.” According to this view, the Son and the Holy Ghost are really God, but are so by a derived divinity. God the Father communicates his divinity to the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is the view really taken in the Nicene Creed, though adopted in opposition to the Arians, and was the doctrine of the earliest Church Fathers before the Arian controversy began. In the Nicene Creed, we read that the Son is “God of (ἐκ) God, Light of (ἐκ) Light, true God of true God;” the “of” here being the same as “from,” and denoting origin and derivation.
This doctrine seems, in reality, to have less in its favor than either of the others. By calling the Son and Holy Spirit God, it contrives to make three distinct Gods, and so is Tritheism; and yet, by making them dependent on the Father, it becomes Unitarianism again. Thus, singularly enough, this attempt at making a compromise between Unity and Trinity loses both Unity and Trinity; for it makes three Gods, and so loses the Unity; and yet it makes Christ not “God over all,” not the Supreme Being, and so loses the Trinity.
Between these different views, between Tritheism, Sabellianism, and Arianism, the Orthodox Trinity has always swung to and fro,—inclining more to one or to the other according to the state of controversy in any particular age. When the Arian or Tritheistic views were proclaimed and defended, the Orthodoxy of the Church swung over towards Sabellianism, making the Unity strong and solid; and the Trinity became a thin mode or an airy abstraction. When Sabellianism, thus encouraged, came openly forward, and defended its system and won adherents, then Church Orthodoxy would hasten to set up barriers on that side, and would fall back upon Tritheistic ground, making the Threefold Personality a profound and real distinction, penetrating the very nature of Deity, and changing the Unity of Being into a mere Unity of Will or agreement. We will venture to say, that there has never yet been a definition of the Trinity which has not been either Tritheistic or Modalistic; and Church Orthodoxy has always stood either on Tritheistic or on Sabellian ground. In other words, the Orthodox Trinity of any age, when searched to the bottom, has proved to be Unitarianism, after all—Unitarianism in the Tritheistic or in the Sabellian disguise; for the Tritheism of three coequal, independent, and absolute Gods, is too much opposed both to reason and Scripture to be able ever to maintain itself openly as a theology for any length of time.
The analogies which are used to explain the Trinity are all either Sabellian or Tritheistic. Nature has been searched in all ages for these analogies, by which to make the Trinity plain; but none have ever been found which did not make the Trinity either Sabellianism or Tritheism. They are either three parts of the substance, or else three qualities or modes of the substance.
Thus we have instances in which the three are made the three parts of one being, or substance; as in man,—spirit, soul, body; thought, affection, will; head, heart, hand.
One Being with three distinct faculties is Tritheism: one Being acting in three directions is Sabellianism.
Time is past, present, and future. Syllogism has its major, minor, and conclusion. There are other like analogies.
St. Patrick took for his illustration the three leaves of trefoil, or clover. Others have imagined the Trinity like a triangle; or they have referred to the three qualities of space,—height, breadth, width; or of fire,—form, light, and heat; or of a noun, which has its masculine, feminine, and neuter; or of a government, consisting of king, lords, and commons; or of executive, legislative, and judiciary.
This survey of Church Trinity shows that it is either one in which,—
1. The persons are not defined; or an unintelligible Trinity.
2. Or which defines person and Unity in the usual sense; or a contradictory Trinity.
3. Or which defines person as usual, and the Unity as only Union; or Tritheism.
4. Or which defines person as only manifestation; or Sabellianism.
These four are all the views ever hitherto given, and are all untenable. We might stop here, and say that the Trinity is utterly unsupported. There is no need of going to the Scripture to see if it is taught there; for we have, as yet, nothing to look for in Scripture.
The Trinitarian’s difficulty appears to be in defining person. But possibly he may say, “I cannot, indeed, give a positive idea of person; but I can give a negative one. I cannot say what it is; but I can say what it is not. It is not a mere mode on the one hand; and not being, on the other. We must neither confound the persons nor divide the substance.”
We will, then, go further, and say, as Trinitarians have never yet defined person, without making it either a mode or a being, so they never can define it otherwise. There is no third between being and mode. They must either confound the persons or divide the substance.
Again: that which differences one person in the Deity from another must be either a perfection or an imperfection. There is nothing between these. But it cannot be an imperfection; for no imperfection exists in God: and it cannot be a perfection; for then the other two persons would want a divine perfection, and would be imperfect.
III. The arguments in support of the Trinity are wholly inadequate. Since, according to Neander, the Trinity is not stated in the New Testament, it follows that it is a doctrine of inference only; that is, a piece of human reasoning. Now, we have, no doubt, a perfect right to infer doctrines from Scripture which are not stated there; but, as Protestants, we have no right to make these inferences fundamental, or essential to the religious life. They may, indeed, be metaphysically essential; that is, essential to a well-arranged system; but they are not morally essential; that is, not essential to the moral and spiritual life of the soul.
But this is just what Dr. Huntington attempts to do. He tries to show that there is a doctrine essential to the life, peace, and progress of man, which the New Testament has omitted to state; which is neither distinctly stated by our Saviour nor by any of his apostles; which has been left to be inferred, and inferred by the mere processes of unaided human reason.
What arguments does he allege for this?
His first and principal argument is the universal belief of the Christian Church in the doctrine of the Trinity.
On this Dr. Huntington lays great stress. He says,—
“Truth is not determined by majorities; and yet it would be contrary to the laws of our constitution not to be affected by a testimony so vast, uniform, and sacred as that which is rendered by the common belief of Christian history and the Christian countries to the truth of the Trinity. There is something extremely painful, not to say irreverent, towards the Providence which has watched and led the true Christian Israel, in presuming that a tenet so emphatically and gladly received in all the ages and regions of Christendom, as almost literally to meet the terms of the test of Vincentius,—believed always, everywhere, and by all,—is unfounded in revelation and truth. Such a conclusion puts an aspect of uncertainty over the mind of the Church, scarcely consistent with any tolerable confidence in that great promise of the Master, that he would be with his own all days.” (p. 359.)
To which we answer,—
(1.) That, according to Dr. Bushnell (Dr. Huntington’s own witness), there never has been, nor is now, any such belief in the doctrine of the Trinity as he asserts. The largest part of the Church have always “divided the substance” of the deity, and another large portion have “confounded the persons;” and so the majority of the Church, while holding the word “Trinity,” have never believed in the Triunity at all.
Dr. Huntington summons Dr. Bushnell as a witness to the practical value of the Trinity; and we may suppose something such an examination as this to take place:—
Dr. Huntington. Tell us, Dr. Bushnell, what instances you know of persons who have been converted or deeply blessed by the holy doctrine of the Trinity.
Dr. Bushnell. I have known of “a great cloud of witnesses,” “living myriads,” “who have been raised to a participation of God in the faith of this adorable mystery,” (Huntington, p. 413.)
Dr. H. Mention some of them.
Dr. B. “Francis Junius,” “two centuries and a half ago,”—a professor “at Heidelberg (Leyden?), testified that he was, in fact, converted from atheism by the Christian Trinity;” also “the mild and sober Howe;” “Jeremy Taylor;” also “the Marquis de Rentz;” “Edwards,” and “Lady Maxwell.” (Huntington, p. 414.)
Unitarian. Say, Dr. Bushnell, whether, in your opinion, the majority of Christians really believe in the Church doctrine of the Trinity.
Dr. B. “A very large portion of the Christian teachers, together with the general mass of disciples, undoubtedly hold three living persons in the interior nature of God.” (Bushnell: “God in Christ,” p. 130.)
Unit. Is that scriptural or Orthodox?
Dr. B. No. It is only “a social Unity.” It is “a celestial Tritheocracy.” It “boldly renounces Orthodoxy at the point opposite to Unitarianism.” (Bushnell: “God in Christ,” p. 131.)
Unit. Do I understand you to be now speaking of the properly Orthodox ministers and churches generally?
Dr. B. “Our properly Orthodox teachers and churches, while professing three persons, also retain the verbal profession of one person. They suppose themselves really to hold that God is one person; and yet they most certainly do not: they only confuse their understanding, and call their confusion faith. This I affirm on the ground of sufficient evidence; partly because it cannot be otherwise, and partly because it visibly is not.” (Ibid. p. 131.)
Unit. Do you believe, Dr. Bushnell, that spiritual good can come from such a belief in the Trinity as you describe to be “undoubtedly” that of “the general mass of disciples”?
Dr. B. “Mournful evidence will be found that a confused and painfully bewildered state is often produced by it. They are practically at work in their thoughts to choose between the three, sometimes actually and decidedly preferring one to another; doubting how to adjust their mind in worship; uncertain, after, which of the three to obey; turning away, possibly, from one with a feeling of dread that might well be called aversion; devoting themselves to another, as the Romanist to his patron saint. This, in fact, is Polytheism, and not the clear, simple love of God. There is true love in it, doubtless; but the comfort of love is not here. The mind is involved in a dismal confusion, which we cannot think of without the sincerest pity. No soul can truly rest in God, when God is in two or three, and these in such a sense that a choice between them must be continually suggested.” (Ibid. p. 134.)
Unit. This state of mind is undoubtedly that of the general mass of the disciples?
Dr. B. It is. (Ibid. p. 130.)
Unit. Are there others, calling themselves Trinitarians, who hold essentially the Unitarian doctrine?
Dr. B. Yes. “It is a somewhat curious fact in theology that the class of teachers who protest over the word ‘person,’ declaring that they mean only a threefold distinction, cannot show that there is really a hair’s breadth of difference between their doctrine and the doctrine asserted by many of the later Unitarians. They may teach or preach in a very different manner; they probably do: but the theoretic contents of their opinion cannot be distinguished. Thus they say that there is a certain divine person in the man Jesus Christ; but that, when they use the term ‘person,’ they mean, not a person, but a certain indefinite and indefinable distinction. The later Unitarians, meantime, are found asserting that God is present in Christ in a mysterious and peculiar communication of his being; so that he is the living embodiment and express image of God. If, now, the question be raised, ‘Wherein does the indefinable distinction of one differ from the mysterious and peculiar communication of the other?’ or ‘How does it appear that there is any difference?’ there is no living man, I am quite sure, who can invent an answer.” (Ibid. p. 135.)
Unit. Is it not true that both of these views are sometimes held alternately by Trinitarians?
Dr. B. “Probably there is a degree of alternation, or inclining from one side to the other, in this view of Trinity, as the mind struggles, now to embrace one, and now the other, of two incompatible notions. Some persons are more habitually inclined to hold the three; a very much smaller number, to hold the one.” (Ibid. p. 134.)
Unit. But can they not hold the Unity with this Trinity?
Dr. B. “No man can assert three persons, meaning three consciousnesses, wills, and understandings, and still have any intelligent meaning in his mind, when he asserts that they are yet one person. For, as he now uses the term, the very idea of a person is that of an essential, incommunicable monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized by self-active will; which being true, he might as well profess to hold that three units are yet one unit. When he does it, his words will, of necessity, be only substitutes for sense.” (Ibid. p. 131.)
(2.) But suppose that the belief of the Church in the Trinity was as universal as Dr. Huntington asserts and Dr. Bushnell denies, what would be its value? His argument proves too much. If it proves the Trinity to be true, it proves, a fortiori, the Roman Catholic Church to be the true Church, and Protestantism to be an error; for Martin Luther, at one time, was the only Protestant in the world. Suppose that a Roman priest had come to him then. He might have addressed him thus:—
“It is certainly an impressive testimony to the truth of the Church of Rome, that the Christian world have been so generally agreed in it. Truth is not determined by majorities; and yet it would be contrary to the laws of our constitution not to be affected by a testimony so vast, uniform, and sacred as that which is rendered by the common belief of Christian history and the Christian centuries to the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. We travel abroad, through these converted lands, over the round world. We enter, at the call of the Sabbath morning light, the place of assembled worshippers; let it be the newly planted conventicle on the edge of the Western forest, or the missionary station at the extremity of the Eastern continent; let it be the collection of Northern mountaineers, or of the dwellers in Southern valleys; let it be in the plain village meeting-house, or in the magnificent cathedrals of the old cities; let it be the crowded congregation of the metropolis, or the ‘two or three’ that meet in faith in upper chambers, in log-huts or under palm-trees; let it be regenerate bands gathered to pray in the islands of the ocean, or thankful circles of believers confessing their dependence and beseeching pardon on ships’ decks, in the midst of the ocean. So we pass over the outstretched countries of both hemispheres; and it is well nigh certain—so certain that the rare and scattered exceptions drop out of the broad and general conclusion—that the lowly petitions, the fervent supplications, the hearty confessions, the eager thanksgivings, or the grand peals of choral adoration, which our ears will hear, will be uttered according to the grand ritual of the Church of Rome. This is the voice of the unhesitating praise that embraces and hallows the globe.”
What would Luther have replied to that? He would have said, “Truth must have a beginning. It is always, at first, in a minority. The gate of it is strait, the path to it narrow, and few find it. All reforms are, at the beginning, in the hands of a small number. If God and truth are on our side, what do we care for your multitudes?” We can make the same answer now.
Dr. Huntington proceeds to give his own creed in regard to the Trinity,—to state his own belief.
God, in himself, he declares, we cannot know at all. We know him only, in his revelation. “Out of that ineffable and veiled Godhead—the groundwork, if we may say so, of all divine manifestation; a theocracy—there emerge to us, in revelation, the three whom we rightly call persons—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
We can only conceive of God, he says, in action; and in action we behold him as three. But action and revelation take place in time. The Trinity, therefore, according to Dr. Huntington, is only known to us in temporal manifestation: whether it exists in eternity or not, we cannot tell. And yet, in the next sentence, he goes on to say that “the Son is eternally begotten of the Father,” and “the Holy Ghost proceeds out of the Father, not in time;” which is the very thing he had a moment before professed to know nothing about. It is very difficult, therefore, to tell precisely what his view is. With regard to the incarnation of the Son, he is still more obscure. He says that “Christ comes forth out of the Godhead as the Son;” that he “leaves the glory he had with the Father;” that, while he is on earth, the Father alone represents the unseen personality of the Godhead, and that therefore the Son appears to be dependent on him, and submissive; that temporarily, while the Son is in the world, he remains ignorant of what the Father knows, and says that his Father is greater than he. “He lessens himself to dependency for the sake of mediation.” “All this we might expect.” This he calls an “instrumental inequality between Son and Father:” it “is wrought into the biblical language, remains in all our devotional habit, and ought to remain there.”
In other words, Dr. Huntington believes that the Infinite God became less than infinite in the incarnation. The common explanation of those passages, where Christ says, for example, “My Father is greater than I,” does not satisfy him. He is not satisfied that Jesus said it “in his human nature.” No. It was the divine nature which said it; and it was really God the Son, who did not know the day nor the hour of his own coming. He lost a part of his omniscience. He ceased to be perfect in all his attributes. We should say, then, that he ceased to be God; but Dr. Huntington maintains that he was God, nevertheless; but God less than omnipotent,—God less than omniscient; God the Son, so distinct from the Father as to be ignorant of what the Father knew, and unable to perform what the Father could do.
Dr. Huntington (p. 366) ascribes it to “condescension” in Christ, to say that “of that day and hour knoweth not the Son.” “It is condescension indeed!” says he. But this word “condescension” does not well apply here. One does not condescend to be ignorant of what he knows: still less does a truthful person condescend to say he is ignorant of what he knows. We may wisely condescend to help the feeble, and sympathize with the lowly, but hardly to be ignorant with them, or to pretend to be ignorant. It is a badly chosen word, and seems to show the vacillation of the writer’s thought.
IV. The arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity are unanswerable.
We infer that they are unanswerable from the fact that they are not answered. It is to be presumed that Dr. Huntington, having been for so many years a preacher of Unitarian doctrine, is acquainted with our arguments. It is a remarkable fact that, in this sermon, he has nowhere attempted to reply to them. He has passed them wholly by. You would not know, from reading the discourse, that he had ever been a Unitarian, or had ever heard of the Unitarian objections to the Trinity; still less that he had himself preached against it. Unitarians, for instance, have said, that if the Trinity be true, and if it be so important to the welfare of the soul as is contended, it would be somewhere plainly taught in the New Testament. Does Dr. Huntington answer this argument? No; he answers the argument from the word “Trinity” not being in the Bible, and his answer is sufficient; but he does not answer the argument from the fact, that the doctrine itself is not anywhere distinctly taught, and that none of the terms which have been found essential to any Orthodox statement of the doctrine are to be met with in the New Testament.93
Nor does Dr. Huntington anywhere fairly meet the Unitarian argument from the impossibility of stating the doctrine in intelligible language. He tells us, with his usual eloquence, what we have often enough been taught before, that there are many things which we do not understand, and that we must believe many facts the mode of which is unintelligible. But when we say, “Can we believe a doctrine or proposition which cannot be distinctly stated?” He has no answer. The Trinity is a doctrine, and must therefore be distinctly stated in order to be believed. It has not been distinctly stated,94 and therefore cannot be believed. To this objection Dr. Huntington has no reply; and we may conclude that it is an unanswerable objection.
Dr. Huntington uses an unnecessary phrase about those who object to mystery. He calls the objection “shallow self-illusion,” and proceeds with the usual declaration, that all of life is mysterious. Can he have been a Unitarian preacher for twenty years, and not have known that Unitarians object to mystery only when it is used by Trinitarians as a cover for obscurity and vagueness of statement?
You ask us to believe a precise statement, viz., that “there are three persons in the Godhead.” We say, “What do you mean by ‘person’?” The Trinitarian answers, “It is a mystery.” We say, “We cannot believe it, then.” The Trinitarian replies, “Why, all is a mystery. How the grass grows is a mystery; yet you believe it.” “No,” we say, “we do not believe it. When the mystery begins, our belief ends; we believe up to that point, and no farther.” The statement, “the grass grows,” is not a mystery; the fact, “the grass grows,” is not a mystery. We believe the fact and the statement. The way in which it grows is mysterious; and we do not believe anything about it. “You cannot understand how the grass grows.” No; and, accordingly, we do not believe anything about how the grass grows. But the whole purpose of the Trinity is to show how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist. You are not satisfied that we receive what the Scripture teaches; you try to show us the how, and then leave it in obscurity at last.
Nor does Dr. Huntington reply to the Unitarian explanation of the Trinitarian proof-texts. Trinitarians have often quoted the texts—“I and my Father are one;” “He who has seen me has seen the Father”—in proof of the Deity of Christ. Unitarians have often replied to both of them: to the first passage, that since Jesus has also said that his disciples were to be one with him, as he is one with God, it either proves that the disciples are also to be God, or does not prove that Christ is God. To the second passage, Unitarians have replied by reading the next clause, in which Christ says, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father?” showing how it is that he reveals the Father. He is in the Father, and his disciples are in him. Those who see him, see the Father; those who see his true disciples, see the face and image of Christ. These answers are so obvious, and Dr. Huntington must have heard them so often, that he should, as a controversialist, have taken some notice of them. He has not done so.
He quotes the passage from Eph. 1:20, 21, and says, “Can this be a creature?” We reply, “Can he be anything but a creature?—he who was set by God in this place of honor.” Does God set God, as a reward, above principalities and powers? Does God make God “head over all things in the Church”? Again: Dr. Huntington quotes, “that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord;” but he omits the conclusion, “to the glory of God the Father.”
He even quotes the passage, “Him hath God exalted to give repentance and forgiveness of sin.”
And he quotes the passage, which has staggered the strongest believers in the Trinity, where Paul declares (1 Cor. ch. 15), that, at the end, Christ will give up his kingdom to the Father, that “God may be all in all,” and explains it as meaning that “he will resume his place in the coequal Three, the indivisible One.” Has he left his place, then? Is that Orthodox? Dr. Huntington evidently thinks so; for he says, “The Son, in his character of Sonship, is retaken, so to speak, into the everlasting undivided One.” So to speak. We may speak so: “But what do we mean by it?” is the question. Did God the Son leave his place in the Godhead? Did he become less than God? Did he become ignorant? Did he suffer and die? Did he arise, and at last reascend, and take his place, “so to speak,” in the Godhead? If this is meant as real statement, what better is it than the Avatars of Vishnu? What sort of Unity is left to us? We have a Trinity of council; but where is the Unity, except of agreement? One divine Being descending, and leaving the other divine Being alone, temporarily, on the throne of the universe, until the divine Being who had descended should reascend to take his seat again “in the coequal Three and indivisible One”!
One Unitarian argument, which appears to us unanswerable, is in the fact, that the very passages in which the highest attributes are ascribed to Christ are always those in which his dependence and subordination are most strongly asserted. We could throw aside all the passages in which Jesus asserts directly his inferiority,—as, “My Father is greater than I;” “Of mine own self I can do nothing,”—and take the strongest proof-texts of the Trinitarians, and ask for no better proof for the Unitarian doctrine: “All power is given to me in heaven and earth;” “The image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature;” “In him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Are these passages written of Christ in his divine or human nature? Not his divine nature; for to God the Son all power cannot be “given.” God the Son cannot be “the image of God,” or the “first-born of every creature.” The “fulness of the Godhead” cannot dwell in God the Son. They must, then, be said of him in his human nature; and, if so, they show that the loftiest titles and attributes do not prove him to be God.
V. The good ascribed to the doctrine of the Trinity does not belong to it, but to the truths which underlie it.
Dr. Huntington asserts, for example, that “the Triunity of God appears to be the necessary means of manifesting and supporting in the mind of our race, a faith in the true personality of God.”
If so, it is remarkable that the two forms of religion in which the personality of God, as absolute will, is most distinctly recognized (i.e., the Jewish religion and the Mohammedan religion), should both be ignorant of the Trinity. It is equally remarkable that the most Pantheistic religion in the world, in which the personality of God most entirely disappears (i.e., Braminism), should have a Trinity of its own. It is also remarkable, on this hypothesis, that idolatry in the Christian Church (as worship of Mary, worship of saints and relics, &c.) should come up with the Trinity, and flourish simultaneously with it.
No; it is not the Trinity which brings out most distinctly the personality of God, but the faith in a divine revelation through inspired men. If God can dwell in the souls of men, teaching and guiding them, he must be a person like the soul with which he communes. Especially does the religious consciousness of Jesus, his simple and child-like communion with the heavenly Father, bring God near to the soul as a personal being. It is not the Trinity, but the Christian faith which underlies it, which teaches the divine personality.
Nor is it the doctrine of the Trinity which is necessary for a living faith in God through Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. All that Dr. Huntington says of the evil of sin is well said, but has no bearing on the point before us. According to Dr. Huntington’s own witnesses, as we have seen above, the Trinity was unknown in the earlier ages of the Church. Was reconciliation unknown? Was the forgiving love of Christ unknown? If he cannot assert this, the doctrine of the Trinity is not necessary to a living faith in a reconciling God.
Dr. Huntington argues, that only the sufferings, and actual sufferings, of God himself, can touch the sinful heart; and, therefore, the Trinity is true. The conclusion is a long way from the premise, even supposing that to be sound. But as regards the premise, he has read and quoted Mansel. Has he not verged towards the dogmatism which that writer condemns? Would it not be more modest, and better accord with Christian humility, to be satisfied with believing the scriptural assertions, that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son;” that “He who spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all,—shall he not, with him, freely give us all things?” Is not this enough, without an argument to prove that the only way by which man can be saved is the method of a suffering God?
We will not dwell further on this head, nor examine our friend’s argument to show that we cannot consistently, as Unitarians, have any piety. We will try, then, to have it inconsistently.
VI. Great evils to the Church have come from the doctrine of the Trinity.
It has tended to the belief in three Gods. It has tended to a confusion of belief between three Gods of equal power and majesty, united only in counsel; one supreme and two inferior Deities; one Deity with a threefold manner of manifestation; and a vague, undetermined use of words, with no meaning attached to them—unhappy confusion, which none have been more ready to recognize and to point out than Trinitarians themselves.
And what shall we say of the continual struggles, conflicts, and bitter controversies, which this doctrine has caused from the time of its entrance into the Church? What is there more disgraceful in the history of the Church, than the mutual persecutions of Arians and Athanasians, and of all the minor sects and parties, engendered by this disputed doctrine?
This is what Dr. Bushnell says of one of these matters; and his testimony is, perhaps, sufficient on this point,—
“No man can assert three persons,—meaning three consciousnesses, wills, and understandings,—and still have any intelligent meaning in his mind, when he asserts that they are yet one person; for, as he now uses the term, the very idea of a person is that of an essential, incommunicable monad, bounded by consciousness, and vitalized by self-active will; which being true, he might as well profess to hold that three units are yet one unit. When he does it, his words will, of necessity, be only substitutes for sense.
“At the same time, there are too many signs of the mental confusion I speak of not to believe that it exists. Thus, if the class I speak of were to hear a discourse insisting on the proper personal Unity of God, it would awaken suspicion in their minds, while a discourse insisting on the existence of three persons would be only a certain proof of Orthodoxy; showing that they profess three persons, meaning what they profess, and one person, really not meaning it.
“Such is the confusion produced by attempting to assert a real and metaphysical Trinity of persons in the divine nature. Whether the word is taken at its full import, or diminished away to a mere something called a distinction, there is produced only contrariety, confusion, practical negation, not light.”
So far Dr. Bushnell. On another point thus testifies Twesten:—
“There are many to whom the biblical and religious basis of the doctrine is exceeding sure and precious, who are dissatisfied with the Church form of the doctrine, and even feel themselves repelled or fettered by it. It is to them more negative than positive, more opposed to errors than giving any insight into truth. It solves no difficulty, it unseals no new revelation.”
Twesten goes on to admit that the Trinity has really hemmed in the free movement of the mind, substituting a dead uniformity for a manifold and various life; and yet Twesten is a very strong and able Trinitarian.
VII. The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine of philosophy, and not of faith.
As philosophy, it might be ever so true and important; but, when brought forward as religion (as Dr. Huntington has done), it would become at once pernicious. To offer theology for religion, belief for faith, philosophy born of speculative reflection in place of spiritual insight and pious experience, have always been most deleterious both to religion and to philosophy.
The objects of faith are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through Christ we have access to the Father in the Spirit. We see the Father revealed to us in the Son; we feel the power of the Spirit in our hearts. This is religion; but this has nothing to do with the doctrine of the Trinity.
VIII. We can trace the gradual formation of the doctrine in the Christian Church.
The following facts we suppose to be incontrovertible:—
1. Down to the time of the synod of Nice (A.D. 325), the Son was considered to be subordinate, or inferior to the Father, by the great majority of writers and teachers in the Christian Church, and by the multitude of believers; and no doctrine of Trinity existed in the Church.
2. The Nicene symbol, which declared Christ to be “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of the same substance with the Father,”95 was directed against the two Arian positions,—that Christ was created, and that there was a time when he did not exist; but it did not declare his equality with God the Father, nor teach the personality of the Holy Spirit, nor say anything of the Trinity.
3. The councils vacillated to and fro during three hundred years, gradually tending towards the present Church doctrine of the Trinity; thus,—
1. Synod of Nice (A.D. 325) opposed the Arian doctrine of the creation of Christ out of nothing, and maintained that his substance was derived from that of God.
2. Synod of Tyre (A.D. 335) favored the Arians, and deposed Athanasius.
3. Council of Antioch (A.D. 343) opposed the views of the Arians, and also the views of their opponents.
4. Council of Sardica (A.D. 344) resulted in a division between the Eastern and Western Churches—the East being semi-Arian, and the West, Athanasian—in their view of the nature of Christ.
5. The Western Church tending to Sabellianism (taught by Marcellus and his pupil Photinus), this view was condemned by two councils in the East and West, viz.:—
Second council of Antioch (A.D. 343).
Council of Milan (A.D. 346).
6. Constantius, an Arian emperor, endeavored to make the Western Churches accept the Arian doctrine, and, at two synods (A.D. 353 and 355, at Arelate and Mediolanum), compelled the bishops to sign the condemnation of Athanasius, deposing those who refused so to do.
7. The Arians, being thus dominant, immediately divided into Arians and Semi-Arians,—the distinction being the famous distinction between o and oi. Both parties denied the Homoousios; but the Semi-Arians admitted the Homoiousios.
8. At the synod of Ancyra (A.D. 358), the Semi-Arian doctrine was adopted, and the Arian rejected. The third synod of Sirmium (A.D. 358) did the same thing.
9. Down to this time (A.D. 360), nothing was said about the Holy Spirit in its relation to the Trinity. The Emperor Valens, an Arian, persecuted the Athanasians from A.D. 364 to 378. Then Theodosius, an Athanasian emperor, persecuted the Arians. Semi-Arianism, however, continued Orthodox in the East.
10. The Nestorian controversy broke out A.D. 430. Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) condemned Nestor. The Nestorians (who were Unitarians) separated entirely from the Church, and became the Church of the Persian empire.
11. The Monophysite controversy broke out. The council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) decided that there were two natures in Christ; and the Monophysites separated, and formed the Coptic Church. Their formula was, that “God was crucified in Christ.” The Nestorians were too Unitarian, and the Monophysites too Athanasian. The Church decided (against the Nestorians) that Mary was God’s mother, but decided (against the Monophysites) that God was not crucified.
12. First Lateran Council was called (in A.D. 640) to settle a new point. It having been decided that there were two natures in Christ, it was now thought best by many to yield to the Monophysites—that there was only one will in Christ. Hence the Monotheletic controversy, finally settled at the,—
13. Sixth General Council (A.D. 680), when two wills in Christ were accepted as the doctrine of the Church.
Thus it appears that it took the Church from A.D. 325 to A.D. 680 to settle the questions concerning the relation of Christ to God. During all this time, opinion vacillated between Arianism on the one hand and Sabellianism on the other. At the end of this period, the Church had become consolidated, and strong enough to compel submission to its opinions: but the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Trinity remained unsettled for several centuries more; and finally the Eastern Church separated altogether from the Western Church on this point. The whole Greek Church remains, to this day, separated from the Latin Church on a question belonging to this very doctrine of the Trinity. So much, then, for Dr. Huntington’s assertion, that the Trinity is a doctrine which can almost literally be said to have been believed “always, everywhere, and by all.”
IX. The doctrine of the Trinity is opposed to the real divinity of Christ and to his real humanity; thus undermining continually the faith of the Church in the divine humanity of Jesus Christ the Lord.
Our final and chief objection to the Trinity is, not that it makes Christ divine, but that it does not make him so. It substitutes for the divinity of the Father, the Supreme God, which Unitarians believe to dwell in Christ, a subordinate divinity of God the Son. This is subordinate, because derived; and, because derived, dependent. The Son may be said to be “eternally generated;” but this is only an eternal derivation, and does not alter the dependence, but makes it also to be eternal. The tendency of the Church doctrine of the Trinity is always to a belief, not in the supreme divinity dwelling in Christ, but in a derived and secondary divinity.
How is it, for example, with the Nicene doctrine concerning Christ? Dr. Huntington claims Nice as Trinitarian. (p. 361.)
But what says Prof. Stuart concerning the Nicene doctrine? Listen.
“The Nicene symbol presents the Father as the Monas, or proper Godhead, in and of himself exclusively; it represents him as the Fons et Principium of the Son, and therefore gives him superior power and glory. It does not even assert the claims of the blessed Spirit to Godhead, and therefore leaves room to doubt whether it means to recognize a Trinity, or only a Duality.” (Moses Stuart, Bib. Repos., 1835, quoted by Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 264.)
And how is it with the ante-Nicene fathers, whom Dr. Huntington also considers to be Trinitarian? else certainly his rule of “always, everywhere, and by all,” does not hold. If, for the first three hundred years after Christ, there were no Trinitarians, it cannot be said that the Trinity has “always” been held in the Church. Listen, again, to Prof. Stuart, whose learning no one can question.
“We find that all the Fathers before, at, and after the Council of Nice, who harmonize with the sentiments there avowed, declare the Father only to be the self-existent God.” (See the whole paragraph in Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 267.)
“To be the author of the proper substance of the Son and Spirit, according to the Patristical creed; or to be the author of the modus existendi of the Son and Spirit, according to the modern creed,—both seem to involve the idea of power and glory in the Father, immeasurably above that of the Son and Spirit.” (Moses Stuart, Bib. Repos., 1835.)
So Coleridge asserts that “both Scripture and the Nicene Creed teach a subordination of the Son to the Father, independent of the incarnation of the Son.... Christ, speaking of himself as the coeternal Son, says, ‘My Father is greater than I.’” (Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 270.)
According to the Trinitarian doctrine, then, we do not find God—the Supreme God, our heavenly Father—in Christ; but a derived, subordinate, and inferior Deity. Not the one universal Parent do we approach, but some mysterious, derived, inscrutable Deity, less than the Father, and distinct from him. Do we not, then, lose the benefit and blessing of the divinity of Jesus? Can we believe him when be says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father?” No; we do not believe that, if we are Trinitarians; but rather, that, having seen him, we have seen “the Son;” whom Coleridge declares to be an inferior Deity; over whom Bishop Pearson, in his “Exposition of the Creed,” says, the Father holds “preeminence,”—the Father being “the Origin, the Cause, the Author, the Root, the Fountain, the Head, of the Son.” The doctrine of the Trinity is therefore opposed, as Swedenborg ably contends, to the real divinity of Christ.96
But it is equally opposed to his real humanity. It constantly drives out of the Church the human element in Christ. Dr. Huntington is astonished at Unitarians not perceiving that the humanity of Christ is as dear to Trinitarians as his Deity; yet it cannot be denied, that the mysterious dogma of deity has quite overshadowed the simple human life of our dear Lord, so that the Church has failed to see the Son of man. All his highest human traits become unreal in the light of this doctrine of his deity. He is tempted; but that is unreal, for God cannot be tempted. He prays, “Our Father;” but this also is no real prayer, for he is omnipotent, and can need nothing. He encounters opposition, hatred, contumely, and bears it with sweetest composure; but what of that? since, as God, he looked down from an infinite height upon the puny opposition. He agonizes in the garden; but it is imaginary suffering: how can God feel any real agony, like man? Jesus ceases to be example, ceases to be our best beloved companion and brother, and becomes a mysterious personage, inscrutable to our thought, and far removed from our sympathy.
Footnotes
1 The following passage, from an article in the “Independent,” by Henry Ward Beecher, is valuable, perhaps, as the testimony of one who has “summered it and wintered it” with Orthodoxy:—
“Does anybody inquire why, if so thinking, we occasionally give such sharp articles upon the great religious newspapers, ‘The Observer,’ ‘The Intelligencer,’ and the like? O, pray do not think it from any ill will. It is all kindness! We only do it to keep our voice in practice. We have made Orthodoxy a study. And by an attentive examination of ‘The Presbyterian,’ ‘The Observer,’ ‘The Puritan Recorder,’ and such like unblemished confessors, we have perceived that no man is truly sound who does not pitch into somebody that is not sound; and that a real modern orthodox man, like a nervous watch dog, must sit on the door-stone of his system, and bark incessantly at everything that comes in sight along the highway. And when there is nothing to bark at, either he must growl and gnaw his reserved bones, or bark at the moon to keep up the sonorousness of his voice. And so, for fear that the sweetness of our temper may lead men to think that we have no theologic zeal, we lift up in objurgation now and then—as much as to say, ‘Here we are, fierce and orthodox; ready to growl when we cannot bite.’”
2 Thus Theodore Parker (“Experience as a Minister”) speaks of a review of his “Discourse on Religion” in a Trinitarian work, which did it no injustice.
3 According to the “Chart of Religious Belief” in Johnston’s Physical Atlas, there are in the world 140,000,000 of Catholics, 70,000,000 of Protestants, 68,000,000 of the Greek Church, and 14,000,000 of minor creeds. About, in his “Question Romaine,” gives the Roman Church 139,000,000. He says, “The Roman Catholic Church, which I sincerely respect, is composed of 139,000,000 of individuals, not including the little Mortara.”
4 Mr. Taylor shows that the Church, A.D. 300, was essentially corrupt in doctrine and practice; that the Romish Church was rather an improvement on it; that Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory, and Athanasius are full of false doctrine; and that a Gnostic theology, a Pagan asceticism, and a corrupt morality prevailed in the Church in those early centuries.
5 Of course we do not mean to charge our Orthodox friends with believing in persecution. We only show that if Orthodoxy is in the letter, they ought, consequentially, to believe in persecution. No doubt Protestantism has put an end to persecution. When Luther came, all believed in persecution; now, no one does. This is because the Reformation contained a double principle: first, that we are saved by faith, not by sacraments, and that faith is the belief of doctrines; second, that to see them aright, we must use our own minds, and consequently seek for truth as the paramount duty of life. But in order to seek effectually, we must seek freely—hence the right of private judgment as against authority in Church and State. The last principle is that of toleration; the first is the principle of intolerance. The last has proved the stronger, because it rests on the logic of things, the other only on the logic of words.
6 Heb. 11:1.
7 Jacobi—whose words have been said to let the thoughts shine through, as wet clothes around the limbs allow the form to be seen—says that all knowledge begins with faith. Faith is, according to Jacobi, (1) a knowledge proceeding from immediate revelation; (2) knowledge which does not need, and cannot have, proofs; (3) much more certain knowledge than any derived from demonstration; (4) a perception of the super-sensual world; (5) A well-grounded and reliable prepossession in favor of certain truths; (6) a faith which sees, and a sight which believes; (7) a vision, an impenetrable mystery, a perception of the thing in itself.
8 See “Broken Lights,” p. 207, note.
9 A story is told of a clock, on one of the high cathedral towers of the older world, so constructed that at the close of a century it strikes the years as it ordinarily strikes the hours. As a hundred years come to a close, suddenly, in the immense mass of complicated mechanism, a little wheel turns, a pin slides into the appointed place, and in the shadows of the night the bell tolls a requiem over the generations which during a century have lived, and labored, and been buried around it. One of these generations might live and die, and witness nothing peculiar. The clock would have what we call an established order of its own; but what should we say when, at the midnight which brought the century to a close, it sounded over the sleeping city, rousing all to listen to the world’s age? Would it be a violation of law? No; only a variation of the accustomed order, produced by the intervention of a force always existing, but never appearing in this way till the appointed moment had arrived. The tolling of the century would be a variation from the observed order of the clock; but to an artist, in constructing it, it would have formed a part of that order. So a miracle is a variation of the order of nature as it has appeared to us; but to the Author of nature it was a part of that predestined order—a part of that order of which he is at all times the immediate Author and Sustainer; miraculous to us, seen from our human point of view, but no miracle to God; to our circumscribed vision a violation of law, but to God only a part in the great plan and progress of the law of the universe.—Ephraim Peabody.
10 Trench, “Notes on the Miracles of our Lord.”
11 We use the term “plenary inspiration” rather than “literal inspiration,” or “verbal inspiration,” for “literal inspiration” is a contradiction in terms, like “bodily spirit.”
12 Tholuck, in his Essay on the Doctrine of Inspiration, ascribes the origin of the belief in the infallibility of Scripture to this supposed need of an authoritative outward rule of faith among Protestants. He says, “In proportion as controversy, sharpened by Jesuitism, made the Protestant party sensible of the necessity of an externally fortified ground of combat, in that same proportion did Protestantism seek, by the exaltation of the outward authoritative character of the Sacred Writings, to recover that infallible authority which it had lost through its rejection of inspired councils and the infallible authority of the pope. In this manner arose, not earlier than the seventeenth century, those sentiments which regarded the Holy Scripture as the infallible production of the Divine Spirit,—in its entire contents and its very form,—so that not only the sense, but also the words, the letters, the Hebrew vowel points, and the very punctuation were regarded as proceeding from the Spirit of God.”—Tholuck’s Essay—Noyes’s “Collection.”
13 The doctrine of the Roman Catholics, as stated by Moehler, a distinguished Roman Catholic, is as follows:—
“The doctrine of the Catholic Church on original sin is extremely simple, and may be reduced to the following propositions: Adam, by sin, lost his original justice and holiness, drew down on himself, by his disobedience, the displeasure and judgments of the Almighty, incurred the penalty of death, and thus, in all his parts,—in his body as well as soul,—became strangely deteriorated. Thus his sinful condition is transmitted to all his posterity as descended from him, entailing the consequence that man is, of himself, incapable—even with the aid of the most perfect ethical law offered to him from without (not excepting even the one in the Old Covenant)—to act in a manner agreeable to God, or in any other way to be justified before him, save only by the merits of Jesus Christ.”
The doctrine of the Church of England concerning original sin and free will is in its ninth and tenth articles, and declares that,—
“Original sin is... the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is, of his own nature, inclined to evil,... and therefore in every person born into the world it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation....
“The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will.”
The early Fathers took different views of the origin of sin. Tertullian ascribed it to human impatience. “Nunc ut compendio dictum sit, omne peccatum impatientiæ adscribendum.” (Tertul. De Patien. 5.) Origen thinks laziness the cause of sin; sin is a negation—not doing right. Justin Martyr ascribes the origin of sin to sensuality. Origen (after Philo) considered the story of the fall as an allegory, and a type of what takes place in all men.
14 See, in the Appendix, an examination of Professor Shedd’s article.
15 Ovid. Metam. 7:18.
“Si possem, sanior essem.
Sed trahit invitam nova vis; aliudque cupido,
Mens aliud suadet, video meliora, proboque,
Deteriora sequor.”
See, also, the story, in the Cyropædia, of Araspes and his two souls.
16 See Dr. Cox’s Sermon on Regeneration, reviewed by Dr. Hodge, in “Essays and Reviews.”
17 Luther, in his “Table-talk,” says of his preaching against the pope, and the enormous labors it entailed, “If I had known then what I now know of the difficulty of the task, ten horses should not have drawn me to it.” “At that time Dr. Jerome withstood me, and said, ‘What will you do? They will not endure it.’ But said I, ‘What if they must endure it?’”
18 See Raumer, “Geschichte Europas,” zweiter Band.
19 God in Christ, by Horace Bushnell, p. 193, &c.
20 Heb. 2:9, 17, 18. 4:15. 5:8, 9.
21 No sooner was Socrates dead than he rose to be the chief figure in Greek history. What are Miltiades, Pericles, or Alcibiades to him? Twenty years after Joan of Arc was burned by a decree of the Roman Catholic Church, the same Church called a council to reconsider and reverse her sentence. Twenty years after the death of Savonarola, Rafaelle painted his portrait among the great doctors, fathers, and saints in the halls of the Vatican. Within a few years after John Brown was hanged, half a million of soldiers marched through the South chanting his name in their songs. Abraham Lincoln was killed, and he is now the most influential figure in our history.
22 “Doctrinal Attitude of Old School Presbyterians.” By Lyman B. Atwater, Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Princeton College. Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1864.
23 “The Old School in New England Theology.” By Professor Lawrence, of East Windsor. Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1863.
24 “Doctrines of the New School Presbyterians.” By Rev. George Duffield, D. D., of Detroit. Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863.
25 “Hopkinsianism.” By Rev. Enoch Pond, D. D., Professor in Bangor Theological Seminary. Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1862.
26 “Doctrines of Methodism.” By Rev. Dr. Whedon. Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1862.
27 “Theologische Zeitscrift.” Herausgegeben von Dr. Friedr. Schleiermacher, Dr. W. M. L. DeWette, und Dr. Friedr. Lücke. Erstes Heft, Berlin, 1819. Ueber die Lehre von der Erwählung.
28 Rom. 11:29. “The gifts and callings of God are without repentance.” By this we understand the apostle to mean the same thing as is implied in Ecclesiastes (3:14): “I know that what God doeth, it is forever.” God, having chosen the Jews for a work, will continue to them the gifts, and will see that somehow or other, some time or other, the work is done.
29 A person who never had an intellectual doubt concerning a future life may be so poorly provided with an inward sense of immortality that he may never feel quite willing to die, or confident in view of death. Such a man was Dr. Johnson, who had not the least scepticism; who was a dogmatic believer, and hated a heretic; who, yet, never attained to any sort of comfort in view of death, and was always afraid to die. So there may be another person who may have no intellectual belief in a future life, but who will have the instinct of immortality so strong as to be quite easy and happy in looking forward to death. Such a person is Miss Martineau, who, in consequence of a poor philosophy of materialism which she was taught in her childhood, and has always held, has been brought very logically at last to disbelieve immortality, and even the existence of God, and yet is very contented about it, and quite happy.
30 “Nescio, quomodo, dum lego, assentior; cum posui librum, et mecum ipse de immortalitate animorum cœpi cogitare, assensio omnis illa illabitur.”
31 Thus it is said, “In Christ shall all be made alive.” The meaning is, that when we live in reference to God, to immortal truth, to the infinite law of right,—when we really love anything out of ourselves,—we lose all fear of death. “Perfect love casts out fear;” that is, pure love. The love of a mother for a child casts out fear. She is not afraid of death; she will run the risk of death twenty times over to save her child. The immortal element is aroused in her. The soldier is roused by the general’s fiery speech to a thrill of patriotism, and thinks it sweet and beautiful to die for his country. Love of his country has cast out his fear. This is something more than any mere insensibility. Men can harden themselves against danger and death; they can think of something else. But that insensibility is merely a thick shell put round it—a sevenfold shield perhaps; but the mortal fear lies hidden all the same within. True life is very different.
32 The word here rendered abolished is elsewhere translated “destroyed,” “made void,” “made of none effect,” “brought to nothing,” “vanished away,” “done away,” “put down.” The meaning is, that all its force, importance, value, is taken out of it.
33 “The State of the Impenitent Dead. By Alvah Hovey, D. D.” Boston, 1859.
34 For ἵνα before a defining clause, see John 6:29; 4:34; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:21; 2 John 6.
35 Die Bestimmung des Menschen. Berlin, 1800.
36 In addition to the extracts from Professor Hovey, Meyer, Lücke, and De Wette, the following passages from F. D. Maurice (“Theological Essays”) are interesting, as showing a concurrence of testimony from yet another quarter to the thesis of this section:—
“When any one ventures to say to an English audience, that eternity is not a mere negation of time, that it denotes something real, substantial, before all time, he is told at once that he is departing from the simple, intelligible meaning of words; that he is introducing novelties; that he is talking abstractions. This language is perfectly honest in the mouths of those who use it. But they do not know where they learned it. They did not get it from peasants, or women, or children. They did not get it from the Bible. They got it from Locke. And if I find that I cannot interpret the language and thoughts of peasants, and women, and children, and that I cannot interpret the plainest passages of the Bible, or the whole context of it, while I look through the Locke spectacles, I must cast them aside....
“Suppose, instead of taking this method of asserting the truth of all God’s words, the most blessed and the most tremendous, we reject the wisdom of our forefathers, and enact an article declaring that all are heretics, and deniers of the truth, who do not hold that eternal means endless, and that there cannot be a deliverance from eternal punishment. What is the consequence? Simply this, I believe: the whole gospel of God is set aside. The state of eternal life and eternal death is not one we can refer only to the future, or that we can in any wise identify with the future. Every man who knows what it is to have been in a state of sin, knows what it is to have been in a state of death. He cannot connect that death with time; he must say that Christ has brought him out of the bonds of eternal death. Throw that idea into the future and you deprive it of all its reality, of all its power. I know what it means all too well while you let me connect it with my present and personal being, with the pangs of conscience which I suffer now. It becomes a mere vague dream and shadow to me when you project it into a distant world. And if you take from me the belief that God is always righteous, always maintaining a fight with evil, always seeking to bring his creatures out of it, you take everything from me—all hope now, all hope in the world to come. Atonement, redemption, satisfaction, regeneration, become mere words, to which there is no counterpart in reality.”
37 In the German Bible we have the true word—“Auferstehung.”
38 So De Wette, Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum N. T., ad locum.
39 So Schleusner, Lexicon in LXX.
40 So Usteri (Paulinischen Lehrbegriff) says that σάλπινξ appears to denote partly the startling power of the truth, and partly its power of calling men together from all the regions of the earth.
41 Christ only comes when he comes to reign. His first coming was as Jesus, not as Christ. The human life is “the life of Jesus.” Christian history is “the life of Christ.” In his earthly life he was Prophet; in his death he was Priest; in his resurrection, or risen state, he was King.
42 The book of the Revelation of John is the account of Christ’s coming; and the true interpretation of that book depends on the proper understanding of his coming. If Christ’s coming began at the destruction of Jerusalem, and has continued in all the developments of human history, then the key to “the Revelation” is to be found in the progress of Christian principles and ideas in the world. Bertholdt (Christologia Judæorum Jesu Apostolorumque ætate), note to § 11, quotes from the Sepher Ikkarim this passage—“The future age will come gradually to men after the day of the great judgment, which will take place after the resurrection.” Resurrection and judgment both come with Jesus, and his were “the last days.”
43 1 Thess. 4:17. “We, who are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” Usteri (Paul. Lehrbeg.) says that “this εἰς ἀέρα has no analogy in any other passage of the Epistles, or indeed of the New Testament.” But Paul outgrew this literalism, and in his later Epistles speaks of sitting already with Christ in “heavenly places.”
44 Olshausen, an Orthodox commentator, speaks thus in regard to Christ’s predictions concerning his coming, in Matt. ch. 24, 25:—
“One of the most striking examples of the binding of the present and future in one narrative, and one which presents many difficulties, is to be found in these passages. Plain descriptions of the impending destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish state blend with no less apparent descriptions of the coming of Christ in his kingdom. It cannot be denied that the Orthodox interpreters are far less natural and unforced than the others, in their treatment of this passage. Their dogmatic views lead them to put apart from each other elements which are blended together by Matthew and by the other evangelists. For example, Schott says, that the description of Christ’s coming begins (Matt. 24:29) immediately after ‘the tribulation,’ &c., and that all before that belongs to the destruction of Jerusalem. But apart from the impossibility of regarding the 29th verse as the beginning of something entirely new, there are also in the passages which follow distinct references to the present generation (verse 34), and in the first part as distinct references to ‘the last time.’ We do not, therefore scruple (says Olshausen) to accept the simple explanation which alone suits the text, that Christ speaks of his coming as coincident with the destruction of Jerusalem, and with the downfall of the Jewish state.”
The most interesting question, perhaps, is as to the opinions of Jesus himself about his coming. That he forsaw the overthrow of Jerusalem and the Temple is certain. Everything indicates that he possessed a marvellous power of reading the future in the present, and saw in the condition of the Jewish mind the inevitable overthrow of their state. He also saw that through his death all men should be brought to him, and that he should become King in the way in which he described to Pilate his royalty, i.e., King of the truth. All who love the truth shall, sooner or later, obey his voice. In what way, then, did he expect to come? In the way he himself indicates the coming of his kingdom—like leaven, working secretly in the dough; like seed, sprouting mysteriously in the ground; like lightning, seen everywhere at once. By these images alone could he convey to his disciples his ideas. He longed to tell them many things more, but they were not able; to bear them.
45 The difficulties (of which Olshausen and other candid Orthodox interpreters speak) in harmonizing the different parts of Matthew’s two chapters (24 and 25) about Christ’s coming and judgment, may perhaps be relieved in some such way as this. (1.) The end of the Mosaic age and the beginning of the Messianic age are fixed at the destruction of Jerusalem. (2.) Christ’s coming begins there, and continues through Christian history, till all mankind are Christians. His coming, therefore, verifies what Schiller says of truth, that it “nimmer ist, immer wird.” (3.) Whenever he comes, he judges men according to the state of mind in which they are. (4.) The three parables (virgins, talents, king on his throne) represent the judgment of three different classes. The first class (of wise and foolish virgins) are those who are not yet converted, and have not become disciples of Christ. When he comes, those of them who have oil in their lamps—or who receive truth into an honest heart (Luke 8:15)—are ready to receive him, and to become Christians; those who have no oil reject him. The second class (in the talents) are Christians, who receive more or less of power and of good, according to past fidelity. The third class (the “nations”) are the heathen, and others, who have never known of Christ at all, but are Christians outside of Christianity.
46 The latest illustration of Orthodox ideas on this subject we have met with is contained in a little tract which has fallen in our way, containing “extracts from a sermon addressed to the students in the United Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Xenia, Ohio, by Rev. William Davidson.” It begins in this somewhat enigmatical way:—
“It is an unspeakably terrible thing for any one—for even a youth or a heathen—to be lost.”
Why this limiting particle “even” is introduced is not explained. It seems to be implied either that a youth and a heathen have not as much to lose as others, or else that we are not bound to feel so much for their loss as for that of others. After a little poetry (which we omit, as it is altogether too stern a matter for any sentimental ornament), Mr. Davidson proceeds:—
“Nor is this all to those who suffer least. It is not only the loss of all, and a horrible lake of ever-burning fire, but there are horrible objects, filling every sense and every faculty; and there are horrible engines and instruments of torture. There are the ‘chains of darkness,’ thick, heavy, hard, and smothering as the gloom of blank and black despair—chains strong as the cords of omnipotence, hot as the crisping flames of vengeance, indestructible and eternal as justice. With chains like these, every iron link burning into the throbbing heart, is bound each doomed, damned soul, on a bed of burning marl, under an iron roof, riven with tempests, and dripping with torrents of unquenchable fire.”
The object of the preacher being to make as terrific a picture as possible, he accumulates these material images of bodily torment in order to excite the imagination to the utmost. We can conceive of his writing these sentences carefully in his comfortable study, in an easy chair, by the side of a cheerful fire, with a smile of self-complacency, as he selects each striking expression. Then he proceeds:—
“Nor is this all. Unmortified appetites, hungry as death, insatiable as the grave, torture it. Every passion burning, an unsealed volcano in the heart. Every base lust a tiger unchained—a worm undying, let loose to prey on soul and body. Pride, vanity, envy, shame, treachery, deceit, falsehood, fell revenge, and black despair, malice, and every unholy emotion, are so many springs of excruciating and ever-increasing agonies, are so many hot and stifling winds, tossing the swooning, sweltering soul on waves of fire. And there will be deadly hunger, but no food; parching thirst, but no water; eternal fatigue, but no rest; eternal lust of sensuous and intellectual pleasures, but no gratification. And there will be terrible companions, or rather foes, there. Eternal longings after society, but no companion, no love, and no sympathy there. Every one utterly selfish, hateful, and hating. Every one cunning, false, malignant, fierce, fell, and devilish. All commingle in the confusion and the carnage of one wide-spread, pitiless, truceless, desperate strife. And there will be terrible sights and sounds there. Fathers and sons, pastors and people, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, with swollen veins and bloodshot eyes, straining towards each other’s throats and hearts, reprobate men, and devils in form and features, hideous to as great a degree as are the beauties of the blest in heaven beautiful. And there are groans and curses, and everlasting wailings, as harsh and horrible as heaven’s songs, shouts, and anthems are sweet, joyous, and enrapturing. And there will be terrible displays of the divine power and skill, and infinitely awful displays of merciless and omnipotent justice, in the punishment of that rebel crew, that generation of moral vipers full grown, that congregation of moral monsters.”
All this, however, is not enough. It is necessary to go further, and represent God in the character of the devil, in order to complete the picture.
“Upon such an assembly, God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, cannot look but with utter detestation. His wrath shall come up in his face. His face shall be red in his anger. He will whet his glittering sword, and his hand shall take hold on vengeance; and he shall recompense. He shall launch forth his lightnings, and shoot abroad his arrows. He shall unseal all his fountains, and pour out his tumbling cataracts of vengeance. He shall build his batteries aloft, and thunder upon them from the heavens. His eye shall not pity them, nor shall his soul spare for their crying. The day of vengeance is in his heart, and it is what he has his heart set on. He will delight in it. He will show his wrath, and make his power known. That infinite power has never been fully made known yet; but it will be then. It is but a little that we see of it in creation and providence; but we shall see it, fully revealed, in the destruction of that rebel crew. He will tread them in his anger, and trample them in his fury, and will stain his raiment with their blood. The cup of the wine of his fierce wrath shall contain no mixture of mercy at all. And they will not be able to resist that wrath, nor will they be able to endure it; but they shall, in soul and body, sink wholly down into the second death. The iron heel of omnipotent and triumphing justice, pitiless and rejoicing, shall tread them down, and crush them lower still, and lower ever, in that burning pit which knows no bottom. All this, and more and worse, do the Scriptures declare; and that preacher who hesitates to proclaim it has forsworn his soul, and is a traitor to his trust.”
Now, it is simple truth to say that the blasphemer and profane swearer who spends fifty years in cursing God and Christ is not so blasphemous as the man who writes such sentences as these about the Almighty, and utters them to young men as a preparation for their work in the ministry. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah shall rise up in the day of judgment against those who speak thus of God, and shall condemn them. The Pagans, who represent their gods as horrid idols, pleased with blood and slaughter, have an excuse, which Mr. Davidson has not, for they do not have the gospel of the Lord Jesus in their hands. Thus he continues:—
“And all this shall be forever. It shall never, never end. (Matt. ch. 25.) The wicked go away into everlasting torments. This is a bitter ingredient in their cup of wormwood, a more terrible thing in their terrible doom. If after enduring it all for twice ten thousand times ten thousand years, they might have a deliverance, or at least some abatement, it were less terrible. But this may never, never be. Their estate is remediless. There is a great gulf fixed, and they cannot pass from thence. Or, if after suffering all this as many years as there are aqueous particles in air and ocean, they might then be delivered, or if, after repeating that amazing period as many times as there are sand-grains in the globe, they might then be delivered, there would be some hope. Or, if you multiply this latter sum—too infinite to be expressed by figures, and too limitless to be comprehended by angels—by the number of atoms that compose the universe, and there might be deliverance when they had passed those amazing, abysmal gulfs of duration, then there would be some hope. But no! when all is suffered and all is past, still all beyond is eternity.”
47 To show how some Roman Catholics write in the middle of the nineteenth century, we quote the following from a Roman Catholic book, published in England, by Rev. J. Furniss, being especially “a book for children.” Wishing to spare our readers such horrors, we put it here, advising no one of weak nerves to read its atrocious descriptions.
“The fourth dungeon is ‘the boiling kettle.’ Listen: there is a sound like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle which is boiling? No. Then what is it? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy; the brain is boiling and bubbling in his head; the marrow is boiling in his bones. The fifth dungeon is the ‘red-hot oven,’ in which is a little child. Hear how it screams to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire; it beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. To this child God was very good. Very likely God saw that this child would get worse and worse, and would never repent, and so it would have to be punished much more in hell. So God in his mercy called it out of the world in its early childhood.”
48 We take the following from the “Monthly Religious Magazine:”—
“The ‘Country Parson,’ in his late work, the ‘Autumn Holidays,’ contends that the fear of future punishment in another world has little influence in deterring from crime. He ought to have added, that the reason may be, that there is so little belief in any spiritual world whatever, among men of grosser sensuality; and that future punishment, as it is preached in the old theology, is so arbitrary as to seem unreal, and is losing its power over all thinking minds. The following case is cited from the experience of a Scotch minister. No ministers, let it be remembered, preach the literal flames of a local hell in tones more awful than they.
“His parishioners were sadly addicted to drinking to excess. Men and women were given alike to this degrading vice. He did all he could to repress it, but in vain. For many years he warned the drunkards, in the most solemn manner, of the doom they might expect in another world; but, so far as he knew, not a pot of ale or glass of spirits the less was drunk in the parish in consequence of his denunciations. Future woe melted into mist in the presence of a replenished jug or a market-day. A happy thought struck the clergyman. In the neighboring town, there was a clever medical man, a vehement teetotaler; him he summoned to his aid. The doctor came, and delivered a lecture on the physical consequences of drunkenness, illustrating his lecture with large diagrams, which gave shocking representations of the stomach, lungs, heart, and other vital organs as affected by alcohol. These things came home to the drunkards, who had not cared a rush for final perdition. The effect produced was tremendous. Almost all the men and women of the parish took the total abstinence pledge; and since that day drunkenness has nearly ceased in that parish. Nor was the improvement evanescent; it has lasted two or three years.”
49 So Erigena (quoted by Strauss), De Divis Nat. “Vera ratio docet, nullum contrarium divinæ bonitati vitæque ac beatitudini posse esse coeternum; divina siquidem bonitas consumet malitiam, æterna vita absorbet mortem, beatitudo miseriam.”
50 The name given to them by Augustine (“Civ. Dei,” lib. 21, c. 17): “Denique hujus sententiæ Patronos S. Augustinus appellat titulo non incongruo, ‘Doctores Misericordes’ tractatque non inhumaniter.” Thomas Burnet, “De Statu Mortuum et Resurgentium.” Chap. XI.
51 See Bretschneider, “Dogmatik,” and Strauss, “Christliche Glaubenslehre.”
52 “Nos et angelos futuros dæmones si egerimus negligenter; et rursum dæmones, si voluerint capere virtutes, pervenire ad angelicam dignitatem.” Origen, quoted by Jerome.
53 “Nihil enim omnipotenti impossibile est, nec insanabile aliquid est factori suo.”
54 “Quod tamen non ad subitum fieri, sed paulatim et per partes intelligen dum est, infinitis et immensis labentibus sæculis, cum sensim per singulos emendatio fuerit et correctio prosecuta, præcurrentibus aliis, aliis insequentibus.” See these quotations in Strauss, Hase, &c.
55 Matt. 25:46. The Greek word translated in the English as “everlasting” punishment in the beginning of the verse, and as life “eternal” at the end, is the same word (ἀιώνιος) in both places, and should be translated “eternal” in both.
56 Remorse—from mordeo, to gnaw. So St. Thomas (Summa, Pars III. 2, 97): “Vermis non debet esse intelligi corporalis sed spiritualis, qui est con scientiæ remorsus.”
57 “Pauci res ipsas, sed rerum imagines, tanquam in speculo, intuentur: at res ipsas, facie ad faciem, ut dicitur, et ablato velo, visuri sumus tandem si Deo placuerit, partim sub occasu hujusee mundi, plenius autem in futuro.”—Thomas Burnet, De Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium Tractatus. Londini. Typis et impensis J. Hooke, in vico vulgò dicto Fleet Street, 1737.—No one has spoken more powerfully and eloquently than he against everlasting punishment, particularly in the passage beginning “Nobis difficile est omnem exuere humanitatem.” p. 309.
58 Is it not remarkable (as showing how little the New Testament has as yet been really studied) that there should be so many discussions as to the future doom of the heathen, when Jesus himself here distinctly tells us what it will be. The word ἔθνη is the only word in the New Testament which is ever translated heathen: wherever the word heathen occurs in our Bible, it is always this. Jesus teaches that the heathen (inside and outside of Christendom) will be judged according to their humanity, their obedience to the law written in their hearts; and he shows that this is coincident with the law of Christianity. So, when the Church of England says (in its 18th article) that “they also are to be had accursed that presume to say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law and the light of nature;” it denounces this curse on Christ himself, and thus proves conclusively that it is not speaking by the Spirit of God, since “no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed.” (1 Cor. 12:3) This comes of the habit (happily less common now than formerly) of throwing about curses at random, against those who differ from our opinions. Some of them may thus, accidentally, hit the Master himself. It is, perhaps, of less consequence that this anathema also touches the apostle Paul, who declares that the heathen who have not the law are a law to themselves when they do right, and are absolved by their conscience. (Rom. 2:14.)
59 Origen, Homil. in Levit. 7:2. “Salvator meus luget etiam nunc peccata mea; Salvator meus lætari non potest, donec ego in iniquitate permaneo. Non vult solus in regno Dei bibere vinum lætitiæ—nos expectat.”
60 Guericke, Christ. Symbolik, § 70.
61 “Ecclesia enim est cœtus hominum ita visibilis et palpabilis ut est cœtus populi Romani, vel regnum Galliæ, aut respublica Venetorum.” Bellarmin. Eccles. Milit. c. 2.
62 Moehler, Symbolism, § 36.
63 “Bonos et malos ad ecclesiam pertinere Catholica fides vere et constante affirmat.” Cat. Rom.
64 The chief passage in proof of this, as is well known, is Matt. 16:18, 19 “Thou art Peter,” &c. But even Augustine, the great light of the Latin Church, says that “Peter was not the Rock, but Christ was the Rock.” (Neander, vol. ii. p. 168.) The same power was given to the other apostles. Matt. 18:18. John 20:23. Rev. 21:14.
65 Le Protestantisme Libéral par le Pasteur Bost. Paris, Baillière, 1865.
66 “Il est de fait que le Catholicisme, qui est essentiellement un principe d’authorité, ne sait pas dire où reside cette authorité.”
67 “Thirty-nine Articles, art. xix.” So Augs. Conf. art. 7: “Congregatio sanctorum, in qua evangelium recte docetur, et recte administrantur sacramenta.” But it may be asked, Who is to decide on the “recte”?
68 In the remarkable work “Ecce Homo”.
69 Tholuck, in his charming work on the Sermon on the Mount, speaks thus (“Bergpredigt Christ. von A. Tholuck.”) “Two principal defects are found in the usual treatment of this doctrine: first, the different aspects and relations of the kingdom of God are by many considered as different meanings of the word, and are left standing side by side, without any attempt to ground their unity in some fundamental idea. Or, secondly, and still worse, a single aspect of the term is taken up, and the rest are wholly neglected. Examples of the first defect are to be found in Zwingle, in his note to John 3:3. (Here the kingdom of God is considered as divine doctrine and preaching of the gospel, as in Luke 18; sometimes it is taken for eternal life, Matt. 25; Luke 14; sometimes for the church and congregation of the faithful, as Matt. 13:24.) The later lexicographers, as Schleusner and Bretschneider, have not avoided these vague statements; and the last of them is particularly defective in his article on this phrase. Trahl more correctly sums up all these significations of the word thus: ‘Happiness, present and future, obtained through Christ.’ But in this definition the notion of ‘a kingdom’ is omitted. The opposite defect of taking only one of the meanings of the matter, to the neglect of the rest, is to be found, for example, in Koppe and Keil, according to whom the expression relates merely to the future reign of the Messiah one day to be established.
“Our own explanation of this expression starts from the phrase ‘kingdom of God,’ which explains the others, ‘kingdom of heaven’ and ‘kingdom of Christ.’ We think that the fundamental idea has been grasped by none more correctly than by Origen among the ancients, and by Calvin among the reformers. The phase of the idea principally dwelt upon by the Church Fathers may be seen in their explanation of the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which Augustine especially examines profoundly. Most of them understand by it the realm of glory, the future revelation of Christ. Origen alone, in his book on Prayer, taken a more exact view of the subject. In like manner Calvin, in his Commentary on the Harmony. So Luther, in his fine Sermon on the Kingdom of God. Our own fundamental view we express thus: ‘A community in which God reigns, not by force, but by being obeyed freely from love, and which is therefore necessarily united in itself by mutual love.’ The Saviour came upon the earth to found such a community, and since it can only be completely established after he has conquered all his enemies, this kingdom of Christ belongs in its perfection to the other world.”
70 An eminent and learned gentleman told me of this conversation which he had with a Roman priest: “When the wine of the Eucharist is consecrated, it becomes the real blood of Christ—does it not?” Priest, “It does.” “What, then, do you do with that which remains in the cup, after communion?” Priest, “We drink it.” “Does not some adhere to the glass?” Priest, “Yes; but we wash the glass.” “What do you do with the water?” Priest, “We drink it.” “But must there not yet remain, on the napkin, with which you wipe the glass, some portion of the blood of Christ, even though it be an infinitesimal portion?” Priest, “Yes.” “Then, might it not happen that when the napkin is washed, this portion of Christ’s blood may go into the water, and be poured on the ground, and be taken up by the root of a plant—say a cabbage. Would, then, the flesh of that cabbage contain, or would it not a portion of the blood of Christ?”
71 See, in the New York “Independent,” June 9, 1866, the account of the “Recognition of Congregational Churches in Philadelphia,” where the existence of this principle is admitted and defended by some eminent Congregational ministers; admitted and deplored by others.
72 Twesten, “Vorlesungen,” &c., vol ii., p. 216. He adds to this definition its Latin form, in which the words “certain characteristics” stand “certis characteribus hypostaticis.”
73 Quoted by Schleiermacher, “Glaubenslehre,” § 170.
74 See the full discussions of these terms in Twesten (as above), Hase, “Christl. Glaubenslehre,” § 56. Strauss, “Christl. Glaubenslehre,” vol. i. Hase, “Dogmatik,” &c.
75 Dogmatik, § 239.
76 Augustine (de Trinit.), says, “One life in man, but three faculties—memory, intelligence, will.” But how if this is bad psychology?
77 Erigena, “The Father in the soul, the Son in the reason, the Spirit in the sense—this makes the most luminous illustration.”
78 Abelard (quoted by Strauss).
79 Richard St. Victor (quoted by Hase), “There can be no possible communion of affection between a less number than three persons.” So Augustine, “Cum aliquid amo, tria sunt—ego, et quod amo, et ipse amor.” Such illustrations are hardly satisfactory at the present day. Poiret says the Father is “Deus a se,” the Son is “Deus ex se,” the Holy Spirit “Deus ad se refluens.” Angelus Silecius makes the Trinity a divine kiss. “God kisses himself—the Father kisses, the Son is kissed, the Spirit is the kiss.”
80 Translated from the Latin in Hagenbach (Compend of the History of Doctrines, vol. i. p. 289). We agree with Strauss, who says, “Fürwahr, wer das Symbolum Quidcunque beschworen hatte, der hatte die Gesetze des menschlichen Denkens abgeschworen.” So the Pastor Bost (Le Protestantisme Liberal), after giving the Creed, in a somewhat different form, adds, “ubi insana faciunt, mysterium appellant.”
81 “Incomprehensible,” Church of England Liturgy.
82 Or “each person by himself.” The word in the Latin is “sigillatim,” a word not in most of the dictionaries, but in some of them made equivalent to “singulatim.”
83 Tertullian said, we can call Christ “God” when we speak of him alone; but if we mention him with the Father, then we must call the Father “God,” and call Christ only “Lord.” “For a ray of light shining into a room, we may call the sun shining there; but if we speak of the sun at the same time, then we must distinguish the ray, and call it not sun, but sunbeam.”
84 The decrees of the Council of Nice inclined to Sabellianism. The term ὁμοούσιος (of the same essence) was a Sabellian term. Sabellianism could, in fact, stand most of the tests of modern Orthodoxy, since it maintains three persons and one essence, μίαν ὑπόστασιν and τρία πρόσωπα; and Schleiermacher, in one of his most elaborate treatises (Ueber den Gegensatz zwischen der Sabellianischen und der Athanasianischen Vorstellung von der Trinitat. Theolog. Zeitschrift. Berlin, 1822), has sought to rehabilitate Sabellianism. Moses Stuart translated this treatise, and plainly advocated a similar view. Hase (Kirchengeschichte, § 91) defines the view of Sabellius as making “Father, Son, and Spirit the different forms of revelation of the Supreme Unity unfolding itself in the world history as the Triad.” Perhaps (see Baur) the chief peculiarity of Sabellius is in making the Triad begin and end with the process of revelation. The Monad is God in himself: the Triad is God in the process of self-revelation (Baur, “Christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit,” and “Lehrbuch der Christlichen Dogmengeschichte”).
85 “Dictum est tamen tres personæ, non ut illud diceretur, sed ut ne taceretur.” Aug. de. Trin., quoted by Hase, Dog. § 238.
86 John of Damascus (quoted by Twesten) made his boast of Christianity, that it united what was true in Polytheism with what was true in Judaism. “From the Jews,” he says, “we have the oneness of nature, from the Greeks the distinction in hypostases.”
87 The substance of what follows in this section, appeared in the “Christian Examiner.”
88 The nature by which the heathen “do the things contained in the law,” i.e., obey God, which is here (Rom. 2:15) called “the law written in the heart,” is in Rom. 7:23 called the “law of the mind.” Olshausen (a sufficiently Orthodox commentator), says, “It is wholly false to understand ὅταν ποιῆ of a mere ideal possibility; the apostle speaks evidently of a real and actual obedience. Paul infers that, because there are actually pious heathen, they must have a law which they obey.” Ad locum.
89 We have no room to enter into an examination of this question at this time, and can only give a general statement on this subject from one of the authorities which happens to be at hand:—
“All the Fathers” (before Augustine, fourth and fifth century) “differed from Augustine in attributing freedom of will to man in his present state. Thus Justin: ‘Every created being is so constituted as to be capable of vice or virtue.’ Cyril of Jerusalem: ‘Know that thou hast a soul possessed of free will; for thou dost not sin by birth (κατὰ γένεσιν), nor by fortune, but we sin by free choice.’ All the Latin Fathers also maintained that free will was not lost after the fall. The Fathers also denied in part, that man is born infected with Adam’s sin. Thus Athenagoras says in his Apology, ‘Man is in a good state, not only in respect to his Creator, but also in respect to his natural generation.’”—Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism. Translated by Rev. Ralph Emerson, Professor in the Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass.
90 “Abi ad Jordonum, et Trinitatem disce,” was on early notion.
91 Dr. Horace Bushnell, a favorite authority with Dr. Huntington, whom Dr. Huntington quotes largely, and whose views he earnestly recommends, gives us his testimony to this point, thus (“God in Christ,” pp. 130, 131):—
“A very large portion of Christian teachers, together with the general mass of disciples, undoubtedly hold three real living persons in the interior nature of God; that is, three consciousnesses, wills, hearts, understandings.”
“A very large portion of Christian teachers” hold, then, to a belief in three Gods; and with them is joined “the general mass of the disciples.” The only Unity held by these teachers is, he goes on to say, “a social Unity.” Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are, in their view, socially united only, and preside in that way, as a kind of celestial Tritheocracy, over the world. This heresy, he says, “because of its clear opposition to Unitarianism, is counted safe, and never treated as a heresy.” That is, the Christian Church allows the belief in three Gods, and will not discipline those who hold that opinion; but, if you believe strictly and only in one God, you cannot be saved!
92 Dr. Bushnell goes on to say (p. 133), “While the Unity is thus confused and lost in the threeness, perhaps I should admit that the threeness sometimes appears to be clouded or obscured by the Unity. Thus it is sometimes protested, that in the word, ‘person’ nothing is meant beyond a threefold distinction; though it will always be observed, that nothing is really meant by the protestation; that the protester goes on to speak and to reason of the three, not as being only somewhats or distinctions, but as metaphysical and real persons.... Indeed, it is a somewhat curious fact in theology, that the class of teachers who protest over the word ‘person,’ declaring that they mean only a threefold distinction, cannot show that there is really a hair’s breadth of difference between their doctrine and the doctrine asserted by many of the later Unitarians.”
93 “It has often been asserted and admitted,” says Tweaten, one of the strongest of modern Trinitarians, “that even the principal notions about which the Church doctrine turns are foreign to the New Testament; as οὐσία and ὑπόστασις, τρόπος ὑπάρξεως and ἀποκαλύψεως, τριάς and ὁμοούσια.”(Twesten: Dogmatik, vol. ii. p. 281.)
94 “Who will venture to say that any of the definitions heretofore given of personality in the Godhead, in Itself considered,—such definitions as have their basis in the Nicene or Athanasian Creed,—are intelligible and satisfactory to the mind? At least, I can truly say, that I have not been able to find them, if they do in fact exist; nor, so far as I know, has any one been able, by any commentary on them, to make them clear and satisfactory.” (Prof. Stuart, Biblical Repository, April, 1835. See Wilson, Trin. Test., p. 272.)
95 See the creed in Hagenbach (History of Doct., vol. i. p. 208): “Θεος ἐκ Θεοῦ, φῶς ἐκ φωτὸς, Θεον ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ.”
96 Thus speaks Dr. Bushnell on this head (“God in Christ,” p. 139):—
“Besides, it is another source of mental confusion, connected with this view of three metaphysical persons, that, though they are all declared to be infinite and equal, they really are not so. The proper deity of Christ is not held in this view. He is begotten, sent, supported, directed, by the Father, in such a sense as really annihilates his deity. This has been shown in a truly searching and convincing manner by Schleiermacher, in his historical essay on the Trinity; and, indeed, you will see at it at a glance, that this view of a metaphysical Trinity of persons breaks down in the very point which is commonly regarded as its excellence—its assertion of the proper deity of Christ.”