Footnotes for Lecture VI.
[294]. Lecture, p. 450. Note.
[296]. See Rev. H. M‘Neile’s Lecture; The Proper Deity of our Lord the only Ground of Consistency in the Work of Redemption, pp. 339, 340.
[297]. Gen. ii. 17.
[298]. “Either he” (“the Deity of the Unitarians”) “must show no mercy, in order to continue true; or he must show no truth, in order to exercise mercy. If he overlook man’s guilt, admit him to the enjoyment of his favour, and proceed by corrective discipline to restore his character, he unsettles the foundations of all equitable government, obliterates the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong, spreads consternation in Heaven, and proclaims impunity in Hell. Such a God would not be worth serving. Such tenderness, instead of inspiring filial affection, would lead only to reckless contempt.”—Mr. M‘Neile’s Lecture, p. 313.
Surely this is a description, not of the Unitarian, but of the Lecturer’s own creed. It certainly is no part of his opponents’ belief, that God first admits the guilty to his favour, and then “proceeds” “to restore his character.” This arrangement, by which pardon precedes moral restoration, is that feature in the orthodox theory of the Divine dealings against which Unitarians protest, and which Mr. M‘Neile himself insists upon as essential throughout his Lecture. “We think,” he says, “that before man can be introduced to the only true process of improvement, he must first have forgiveness of his guilt.” What is this “first” step of pardon, but an “overlooking of man’s guilt;” and what is the second, of “sanctification,” but a “restoring of character;” whether we say by “corrective discipline,” or the “influence of the Holy Spirit,” matters not. Is it said that the guilt is not overlooked, if Christ endured its penalty? I ask again, whether justice regards only the infliction of suffering, or its quantity, without caring about its direction? Was it impossible for the stern righteousness of God freely to forgive the penitent? And how was the injustice of liberating the guilty mended by the torments of the innocent? Here is the verdict against sin,—“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” And how is this verdict executed? The soul that had sinned does not die; and one “that knew no sin” dies instead. And this is called a divine union of truth and mercy; being the most precise negation of both, of which any conception can be formed. First, to hang the destinies of all mankind upon a solitary volition of their first parents, and then let loose a diabolic power on that volition to break it down; to vitiate the human constitution in punishment for the fall, and yet continue to demand obedience to the original and perfect moral law; to assert the absolute inflexibility of that holy law, yet all the while have in view for the offenders a method of escape, which violates every one of its provisions, and makes it all a solemn pretence; to forgive that which is in itself unpardonable, on condition of the suicide of a God, is to shock and confound all notions of rectitude, without affording even the sublimity of a savage grandeur. This will be called “blasphemy;” and it is so; but the blasphemy is not in the words, but in the thing.
Unitarians are falsely accused of representing God as “overlooking man’s guilt.” They hold, that no guilt is overlooked till it is eradicated from the soul; and that pardon proceeds, pari passu, with sanctification.
[300]. Numb. xiv. 19, 20.
[301]. Jon. iii. 5-10.
[302]. Jon. iv. 10, 11.
[303]. Ps. li. 16, 17.
[304]. Is. i. 16-18.
[305]. Ezek. xxxiii. 14-16.
[306]. Matt. xix. 16-21.
[307]. Acts x. 34-44.
[308]. Acts ii. 24.
[309]. iii. 15.
[310]. iv. 10; v. 30.
[311]. iv. 2.
[312]. xxiv. 21.
[313]. Acts xiii. 30.
[314]. xvii. 18, 31.
[315]. Rom. viii. 34.
[316]. iv. 25.
[317]. iv. 24.
[318]. x. 9.
[319]. iii. 25.
[320]. Mr. Buddicom has the following note, intimating his approbation of this rendering: “Some of the best commentators have connected ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι, not with διὰ τῆς πίστεως, but with ἱλαστήριον and, accordingly, Bishop Bull renders the passage, ‘Quem proposuit Deus placamentum in sanguine suo per fidem.’”—Lecture on Atonement, p. 496.
[321]. Luke vii. 47.
[322]. John xii. 23, 24, 32.
[323]. John x. 16, 17.
[324]. Matt. xv. 24.
[325]. 2 Cor. v. 15-18.
[326]. See Rom. vii. 1-4.
[327]. Gal. ii. 15.
[328]. Rom. v. 6.
[329]. Col. ii. 13; iii. 3.
[330]. Gal. iv. 4-7.
[331]. Eph. i. 7.
[332]. Rom. ix. 4.
[333]. Eph. i. 3-5.
[334]. Rom. v. 10.
[335]. Eph. i. 10.
[336]. Rom. v. 11.
[337]. Col. i. 19.
[338]. Eph. ii. 11-18.
[339]. 1 Tim. ii. 1-8.
[340]. Matt. xx. 28; Mark x. 45.
[341]. Matt. xxvi. 28.
[342]. Rev. v. 9, 10.
[343]. John i. 29. For an example of the use of the word “world” to denote the Gentiles, see Rom. xi. 12-15; where St. Paul, speaking of the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, declares that it is only temporary; and as it has given occasion for the adoption of the Gentiles, so will this lead, by ultimate reaction, to the re-admission of Israel; a consummation in which the Gentiles should rejoice without boasting or highmindedness. “If,” he says, “the fall of them (the Israelites) be the riches of the world (the Gentiles), and the diminishing of them, the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness! For I speak to you, Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office; if, by any means, I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh (the Jews,) and save some of them; for if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?”
[344]. Acts xx. 28. It is hardly necessary to say, that the reading of our common version “church of God” wants the support of the best authorities; and that with the general consent of the most competent critics, Griesbach reads “church of the Lord.” See [Note C].
[345]. 1 Pet. i. 18, 19.
[346]. 1 Pet. ii. 23-25.
[347]. 1 Pet. iii. 17; iv. 3.
[348]. 2 Cor. v. 21.
[349]. 1 Cor. v. 7.
[350]. Rom. iii. 22-26.
[351]. 1 John iv. 2.
[352]. 1 John i. 7.
[353]. 1 John i. 8.
[354]. 1 John ii. 1, 2.
[355]. 1 John iv. 9, 10.
[356]. 1 John v. 21.
[357]. 1 John iii. 16.
[358]. Rom. ii. 25.
[359]. 2 Thess. i. 7-10.
[360]. Gal. iii. 13: even here the apostle cannot refrain from adverting to his Gentile interpretation of the cross; for he adds,—“that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ.”
[361]. Rom. ix. 22, 23.
[362]. 2 Pet. ii. 5.
[363]. 2 Pet. iii. 9.
[364]. 1 Pet. iii. 20-22.
[365]. 1 Cor. vii. 29.
[366]. Eph. v. 16; Col. iv. 5.
[367]. 1 John ii. 18.
[368]. Phil. iv. 5; James v. 8; 1 Pet. iv. 7.
[369]. Heb. ii. 17.
[370]. Num. xix. 11-20; Lev. xx. 25, 26; Num. vi. 9-12.
[371]. Lev. v. 14-19.
[372]. Lev. xii. 1-8.
[373]. Lev. xiv.
[374]. Lev. xvi.; xxiii. 26-32; Ex. xxx. 10; Num. xxix. 7-11.
[375]. In three or four instances, it is true, a sin-offering is demanded from the perpetrator of some act of moral wrong. But in all these cases a suitable punishment was ordained also; a circumstance inconsistent with the idea, that the expiation procurred remission of guilt. The sacrifice appended to the penal infliction, indicates the two-fold character of the act;—at once a ceremonial defilement and a crime; and requiring, to remedy the one, an atoning rite,—to chastise the other, a judicial penalty. See an excellent tract by Rev. Edward Higginson, of Hull, entitled, “The Sacrifice of Christ scripturally and rationally interpreted:” particularly pp. 30-34.
[376]. Heb. viii. 2. 5.
[377]. ix. 1, 23, 24.
[378]. vii. 16; viii. 1.
[379]. viii. 3.
[380]. Heb. ix. 15.
[381]. viii. 5.
[382]. x. 3.
[383]. ix. 7, 25.
[384]. Heb. x. 4.
[385]. vii. 25.
[386]. ix. 25-27, 12; x. 12, 14.
[387]. ix. 8.
[388]. vii. 17, 24-28.
[389]. vii. 27. Let the reader look carefully again into the verbal and logical structure of this verse; and then ask himself, whether it is not as plain as words can make it, that Christ “once for all” offered up “a sacrifice first for HIS OWN SINS, and then for the peoples.” The argument surely is this; “he need not do the daily thing, for he has done it once for all; the never-finished work of other pontiffs, a single act of his achieved.” The sentiment loses its meaning, unless that which he did once is the self-same thing which they did always; and what was that?—the offering by the High-priest of a sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people’s. With what propriety, then, can Mr. Buddicom ask us this question: “Why is he said to have excelled the Jewish High-priest in not offering a sacrifice for himself?” I submit, that no such thing is said: but that, on the contrary, it is positively affirmed that Christ did offer sacrifice for his own sins. So plain indeed is this, that Trinitarian commentators are forced to slip in a restraining word and an additional sentiment, into the last clause of the verse. Thus Peirce; “Who has no need, like the priests under the law, from time to time to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and after that for the people’s. For this latter he did once for all when he offered up himself; and as to the former, he had no occasion to do it at all.” And no doubt the writer of the epistle ought to have said just this, if he intended to draw the kind of contrast, which orthodox theology requires, between Jesus and the Hebrew priests. He limits the opposition between them to one particular;—the Son of Aaron made offering daily,—the Son of God once for all. Divines must add another particular; that the Jewish priest atoned for two classes of sins, his own and the people’s,—Christ for the people’s only. Suppose for a moment that this was the author’s design; that the word “this,” instead of having its proper grammatical antecedent, may be restrained, as in the commentary cited above, to the sacrifice for the people’s sins; then the word “daily” may be left out, without disturbance to the other substantive particular of the contrast: the verse will then stand thus; “who needeth not, as those High-priests, to offer up sacrifice for his own sins; for he offered up sacrifice for the people’s sins, when he offered up himself.” Here, all the reasoning is obviously gone, and the sentence becomes a mere inanity: to make sense, we want, instead of the latter clause, the sentiment of Peirce,—for “he had no occasion to do this at all.” This, however, is an invention of the expositor, more jealous for his author’s orthodoxy, than for his composition. I think it necessary to add that, by leaving out the most emphatic word in this verse (the word once) Mr. Buddicom has suppressed the author’s antithesis, and favoured the suggestion of his own. I have no doubt that this was unconsciously done; but it shows how system rubs off the angles of Scriptural difficulties.—I subjoin a part of the note of John Crell on the passage: “de pontifice Christo loquitur. Quid vero fecit semel Christus? quid aliud, quam quod Pontifex antiquus stata die quotannis[[a]] faciebat? Principaliter autem hic non de oblatione pro peccatis populi; sed de oblatione pro ipsius Pontificis peccatis agi, ex superioribus, ipsoque rationum contextu manifestum est.”
The sins which his sacrifice cancelled must have been of the same order in the people, and in himself; certainly therefore not moral in their character, but ceremonial. His death was, for himself no less than for his Hebrew disciples, commutation for the Mosaic ordinances. Had he not died, he must have continued under their power; “were he on earth, he would not be a priest,” or have “obtained that more excellent ministry,” by which he clears away, in the courts above, all possibilities of ritual sin below, and himself emerges from legal to spiritual relations.
[a]. This is obviously the meaning of καθ’ ἡμέραν in this passage; from time to time, and in the case alluded to, yearly; not, as in the common version, daily.
[390]. Heb. ix. 13, 14.
[391]. x. 16, 19, 20, 24.
[392]. Mr. Buddicom’s Lecture on the Atonement, p. 471.
[393]. See Mr. M‘Neile’s Lecture, pp. 302, 311, 328, 340, 341.
[394]. Mr. M‘Neile’s Lecture, p. 338.
[395]. Phil. iii. 15.
[396]. Eph. iv. 13.
[397]. John i. 12.
[398]. Rev. D. James, in his Lecture entitled “The doctrine of the Trinity, proved as a consequence from the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ,” pp. 366-375.
[399]. Tillotson’s Works, London, 1717, vol. i. p. 405.
[400]. Tillotson’s Works, London, 1717, vol. i. p. 579.
[401]. Socinus thus states the opinion which he attempts to confute: “Receptior hodie sententia est, homini naturaliter ejusque animo insitam esse divinitatis alicujus opinionem, cujus vi cuncta regantur ac gubernentur, quæque humanarum rerum imprimis curam gerat, hominibus consulat atque prospiciat. Hæc sententia, quam nos falsam esse arbitramur,” &c.—Prælectiones Theol. Fausti Socini Senensis, c. ii.
[402]. Mr. James’s illustration of the nature of a spirit.
[403]. Introduction to the Analogy.
[404]. Lecture, p. 371.
[405]. Modern Infidelity considered, p. 18.
[406]. Lecture, p. 451.
[407]. Remarks on the commonly-received Doctrine of Atonement and Sacrifice, by Rev. W. Turner, jun., A.M. Note A. second edition.
[408]. Lecture, p. 414.
[409]. Ibid. p. 410.
[410]. Ibid. pp. 412, 413.
[411]. Ibid. p. 411.
[412]. Lecture, p. 492.
[413]. Ibid. p. 507.
[414]. Ibid. pp. 511, 512.
[415]. Ars Critica, P. I. sect. i. cap. ix. § 11.
[416]. Magee on the Atonement, vol. iii. p. 335. Note. 5th Edition. This note is a broad caricature of the discussion in the Monthly Repository: and shows that the Author might have been the Cruikshanks of theology, had his humour always been good-humour.
[417]. Magee on the Atonement, vol. iii. pp. 343, 344. Note.
[418]. Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature, vol. x. p. 481. 1815. I quote from this work, rather than from Mr. Aspland’s “Plea for Unitarian Dissenters,” in obedience to the Archbishop’s own reference.
[419]. Preface to Mr. Byrth’s Lecture, part i. p. vii.
[420]. Newcome and Whitby in loc.
[421]. Magee on the Atonement, vol. iii. p. 222.
[422]. In the 2nd Edition it is p. 78. All my citations are made from this edition of Mr. B’s work, published in 1816; and from the 5th Edition of Archbishop Magee’s, published in 1832.
[423]. Magee on the Atonement, vol. iii. pp. 223, 224.
[424]. There is a possibility, which I think it right to suggest, of a difference between the two Editions of Mr. B’s work; as, however, the accusation is still found in the newest Edition of the Archbishop’s book, I conclude that this is not the case. Indeed, even if the Prelate’s quotation had been verbally true, it would in spirit have been no less false: for, at all events, Mr. B. cites the Vulgate, to give evidence as to the text, not the translation; and had he used the word renders, it would only have been because the term naturally occurs when a Version is adduced to determine a Reading.
[425]. Page 38.
[426]. Magee on the Atonement, vol. i. p. 170.
[427]. Vol. iii. p. 57.
[428]. Vol. ii. p. 387.
[429]. Vol. iii. p. 248.
[430]. p. 203.
[431]. p. 210.
[432]. p. 296.
[433]. p. 249.
[434]. p. 274.
[435]. p. 239.
[436]. p. 82.
[437]. p. 91.
[438]. p. 132.
[439]. p. 64.
[440]. p. 242.
[441]. p. 275.
[442]. p. 66.
[443]. p. 145.
[444]. pp. 275, 276.
[445]. Magee on the Atonement, Preface, p. vi.
[446]. Vol. iii. p. 108.
[447]. Vol. i. xii.
[448]. iii. 204.
[449]. p. 47.
[450]. p. 100.
[451]. p. 67.
[452]. pp. 57, 58.