NOTES.
Note 1. See [page 13].
Having in the Appendix of my former lecture stated from sources of authority the doctrines of Calvinism on the nature of man, I here enumerate some of the principal texts on which those doctrines are said to be founded. The question, it is to be kept in mind, is not whether man is or is not capable of great depravity, whether sin of various degrees and extent has not existed in all ages, and does not exist at present in all places. That sin has entered into the world is a fact undisputed, no matter when or how; that sin is universal is a point also, upon which we are on both sides agreed. The true subject of dispute between us is, simply, this. Is human nature a nature of radical and inherent depravity? or is not goodness more properly its characteristic than evil? Now we maintain that all its essential tendencies establish the latter question in the affirmative, and no Scriptures prove the former. I shall take those quoted in the most approved Calvinistic formularies.
Gen. iii. is alleged as giving an account of the origin of sin: “And the Lord said to the woman, what is this thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat.” There we have the account of Adam’s temptation and transgression, with the penalties pronounced upon the beguiler and his dupes. Now in whatever light we regard this passage, whether as a mythos, an allegory, or a literal narrative, it implies nothing of the doctrine asserted, or the consequences attributed to it; namely, the loss of all original righteousness, and entire defilement in all the faculties and parts of the soul and body: the imputation of their sin to mankind, burdened with the penalty of eternal death. When we find these ideas extracted out of one obscure passage, we may well ask is it Unitarianism or orthodoxy which adds to the Scriptures? These ideas are not in the passage itself, nor in any other supposed to be co-relative, nor in any number of passages fairly conjoined and fairly interpreted.
Gen. vi. 5. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” This states merely a general fact, that of an evil condition of society, for which judgment of God is represented as poured out from heaven. But it is alleged, that in the same connection we read “that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.” This clause only expresses the original idea with more impressive force. No one in the worst state of an individual or a nation will attempt to maintain that such words can have a rigid and literal application. Besides, in that very time, Noah is made an express exception; for we read that “the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”[[522]] But though the literal meaning were insisted on, it could but literally extend to men of that time; and the rule of interpretation by which our opponents define the character of man, we are entitled in the next verse to apply to the character of God. “It repented him,” we are told, “that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”[[523]] If on the literal principle we are to conclude man wicked in every thought and imagination, on the same principle we are to conclude that God can repent, and that he can be grieved at the heart.
Jer. xvii. 9. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” is an exaggeration of the same kind with that we are considering. It was uttered when the Jewish nation was in a state of sad corruption, and the prophet’s feelings were passionate against his countrymen in grief and indignation. If we are to take all the prophet’s words as coolly and deliberately uttered, then what shall we say to the tremendous language in which he curses his existence and his birth.
Eccl. vii. 29. “God hath made man upright, but they have sought many inventions.” This expression contains no matter of controversy; the first part states our view, and the latter clause of the verse, by no torture of criticism can be made to imply inherent and entire depravity.
Psalm li. 5. “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” The import of this expression is to be judged of from the general tone of the Psalm, which is most passionate and penetential, inspired by the deepest spirit of remorse. David uttered these complainings in profoundest self-accusation; but there would be little for repentance to deplore, if he could remove the blame from himself to his nature, and bury individual guilt in a corruption to which he was subjected in common with all men. The force and meaning—the piercing and eloquent deprecation of the whole composition, combine to show it is one of individual experience, the idea of original sin leaves it vapid and pointless, makes it, not the anguish of a convicted sinner, but the sophistry of a deluded hypocrite; not a lamentation for vice, but an excuse for it. These passages are the few which can be found in the Old Testament that have any direct reference to a tenet said to be inculcated throughout the whole of Scripture. If we turn to the New Testament we find the evidence quite as scanty, and quite as inconclusive. The texts advanced are commonly taken from the epistles, principally from those of Paul, and of Paul’s, mostly from the Romans. Few or none can be advanced from the gospel histories, and the discourses of Christ have no reference to such a doctrine.
Rom. iii. 10. “There is none righteous, no not one: there is none that understandeth,” &c., &c. Correspondent to this passage is the 14th Psalm. Both David and Paul refer to the peculiar depravity of their times. But, in the sense of absolute and guiltless perfection, unquestionably, the general assertion may be made of all men.
Rom. v. 12-19, and 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22, 45, 49. The apostle, I apprehend, institutes a comparison between the imperfect man, symbolized in Adam, and the perfect man revealed in Christ; between the earthly and the heavenly, the mortal and the immortal; death shown forth in the one—life manifested in the other.
Rom. vii. 18. “For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not.” Ver. 25. “So then with my mind, I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin.” And the apostle had said in the preceding verses, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” This is an eloquent and fervent out-pouring of individual experience, no more intended as a universal description than any passage in the journal of John Wesley or Thomas Scott. Involving as human nature does, a twofold constitution, a struggle between desire and conscience is a necessary condition of its moral existence. This is inevitable, unless a being is above or beneath temptation; but the very struggle implies the power of the moral sense; the possession of the moral sense is an element of human dignity even in defeat, how much more in triumph. Without the power of transgression or the danger of falling, there is of course no trial, and in the human sense no virtue. But there are some expressions of Paul’s more general and comprehensive, and to these I shall devote one or two remarks.
Rom. viii. 7. “The carnal mind (τὸ φρονημα τῆς σαρκος—the mind of the flesh) is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
Gal. v. 17. “For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, (Ἡ γὰρ σὰρξ ἐπιθυμεῖ κατα του πνευματος) and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other.” The scriptural use of the word “flesh” (σαρξ) implies two meanings; first, the excess of the inferior desires, which is in reality contrary to God, and therefore sin; for God, though he has implanted these subordinate desires, has subjected them to certain laws, beyond which they are at variance with his will and with his providence. In this view the carnal mind is properly at enmity with God, and is not subject to the law of God. Secondly, the inferior desires, parenthetically not actually sin, but in general the causes of sin. When St. Paul says money is the root of all evil, we do not surely understand him to mean that the pursuit of gain is in all cases a root of wickedness; for we may conceive innumerable instances in which the struggle for money is connected with the sublimest of virtues. We merely conclude that it is a very dangerous desire, and liable to very dangerous abuses. Under the designation, therefore, of earthly or fleshly, may be classed three orders of desire—that of gain, that of pleasure, and that of power. These are essentially evil in themselves or they are not. If we conclude they are, we must then charge the fault on God who has given them, or we must become Manachees, and suppose the existence of two principles, one good, and the other evil; if they are not, the sin is in their abuse, and not in their existence, and though the criminal be condemned the nature is absolved. I shall mention but a very few more texts advanced in favour of this doctrine.
Eph. ii. 1-3. “And you hath he quickened,” &c. A mere description this, of the age, answerable both to Jews and Gentiles: and to the same purpose is the passage from the same epistle, (c. ix. v. 18.) “having the understanding darkened—being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts.” Such is the scriptural evidence for one of the most appalling and destructive doctrines that ever clouded humanity; a doctrine which impugns the best and truest affections, and destroys at one fell stroke the idea of spontaneous virtue,—which is compelled to classify the most beautiful and most base, if devoid of certain doctrinal distinctions, under one appellative,—which debases human nature—gives man the vileness of a slave, but does not honour God with the glory of a sovereign. To exhort man to have the perfection of an angel, and to tell him he has the nature of a fiend, to tell him that he is “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil,” amidst absurd pranks of theology, is surely the most absurd. And between believing this, or rejecting it, the only alternative left us, is to be at one side or the other of the gulf which separated Lazarus from Abraham.
See Drummond’s excellent Essay on Original Sin, and a very admirable tract on the same subject, by the late Dr. Cogan, entitled “A Layman’s Letters to Mr. Wilberforce.”
Note 2. See [page 19].
There is no writer in modern times to whom we owe so much for a true and elevated Philosophy on Human nature as to Bishop Butler, the most profound and accurate analyst of the moral faculties of man that has ever illustrated the principles of Christian ethics. He was not a man to take wholesale assertions; he subjected our moral nature to the exact and rigid test of philosophical anatomy, and one deliberate sentence of his, is worth ten thousand disquisitions from traditional theologians, who, parrot-like, repeat and repeat again the jargon, that has grown as stale from mouth to mouth, as the starling’s “let me out, let me out”—many of whom have no other reason than that they have heard it so cried out before them. Bishop Butler has examined human nature, and he has given testimony in its favour—he has vindicated its dignity, and he has by a deep philosophy, which seemed to be little comprehended by those who would debase humanity demonstrated its essential excellence. He has proved by irrefutable arguments, its natural disinterestedness, its goodness, its necessary conformity with truth and virtue. These are to be sure but its general tendencies, with many exceptions—yet, why such a line of argument should be deemed insufficient in moral philosophy, and be admitted as cogent in natural theology, it is difficult to conceive.—Take for instance—in the body the case of the eye or the ear: no one questions, that the eye is admirably adapted for seeing, and the ear for hearing; and though the one may grow dim or the other become deaf, it is never asserted that the constitution or nature of each—on the whole—is contradictory to that for which it was intended. There are, it is true, various evil manifestations in human nature; but there are others good—at least, in seeming. Cynical Philosophers and Calvinistic Theologians concur in making the evil substantial, and the good factitious. The answer which this profound reasoner gives to the philosophical opponents of human nature will be a sufficient reply to both. “Suppose,” he says, “a man of learning to be writing a grave book upon human nature—and to show in several parts of it, that he had an insight into the subject he was considering. Amongst other things the following one would require to be accounted for; the appearance of benevolence or good-will in men towards each other in the instances of natural relation and in others. Cautious of being deceived with outward show, he retires within himself, to see exactly what that is in the mind of man from whence this appearance proceeds; and upon deep reflection asserts the principle in the mind to be only the love of power and delight in the exercise of it. Would not everybody think here was a mistake of one word for another? That the philosopher was contemplating and accounting for some other human actions, some other behaviour of man to man? And could any one be thoroughly satisfied, that what is commonly called benevolence or good-will was really the affection meant, but only by being made to understand that this learned person had a general hypothesis, to which the appearance of good-will could no otherwise be reconciled? That what has this appearance is often nothing but ambition; that delight in superiority—often (suppose always) mixes itself with benevolence, only makes it more specious to call it ambition than hunger of the two; but in reality that passion does no more account for the whole appearances of good-will, than this appetite does. Is there not often the appearance of one man’s wishing that good to another, which he knows himself unable to procure him; and rejoicing in it, though procured by a third person? And, can love of power any way possibly come into account for this desire or delight? Is there not often the appearance of men’s distinguishing between two or more persons, preferring one before another, to do good to, in cases where the love of power cannot in the least account for the distinction or preference? For this principle can no otherwise distinguish between objects, than as it is a greater instance and exertion of power to do good to one rather than to another. Again, suppose good-will in the mind of man be nothing but delight in the exercise of power; men might indeed be restrained by distant and accidental considerations, but these restraints being removed, they would have a disposition to, and a delight in mischief as an exercise and proof of power; and this disposition and delight would arise from the same principle in the mind, as a disposition to, and a delight in charity. Thus cruelty as distinct from resentment, would be exactly the same in the mind of man as good-will; that one tends to the happiness, the other to the misery of our fellow-creatures, is, it seems, merely an accidental circumstance, which the mind has not the least regard to. These are absurdities which even men of capacity run into, when they have occasion to belie their nature; and will perversely disclaim that image of God which was originally stamped upon it: the traces of which, however faint, are plainly discernible upon the mind of man.” Many passages might be quoted from this great writer in vindication of humanity, but I shall adduce but one other: it is from the same discourse, (The first sermon on Human Nature,) as that I have already extracted—and much to the same purpose. “Mankind,” he says, “have ungoverned passions, which they will gratify at any rate, as well to the injury of others as in contradiction to known private interests, but as there is no such thing as self-hatred, so neither is there any such thing as ill-will in one man towards another, emulation or resentment being away: whereas there is plainly benevolence or good-will: there is no such thing as love of injustice, oppression, treachery, ingratitude; but only eager desire after such and such external goods, which, according to a very ancient observation, the most abandoned would choose to obtain by innocent means, if they were as easy and effectual to their end: even emulation and resentment by any who will consider what these passions really are in nature, will be found nothing to the purpose of this objection, and the principles and passions in the mind of man which are distinct both from self-love and benevolence, primarily and most directly lead to right behaviour with regard to others as well as to himself, and only secondarily and accidentally to what is evil. Thus though men to avoid the shame of one villany are often guilty of a greater, yet it is easy to see that the original tendency of shame is to prevent the doing of shameful actions; and its leading men to conceal such actions when done, is only the consequence of their being done, that is, of the passions not having answered its first end.”—(See also the acute and original Essay of Mr. Hazlitt’s, on The Principles of Human Actions, in which the leading idea of Butler’s Philosophy is rigidly examined and illustrated.)
Pascal vindicates the dignity of Human nature in some of his most beautiful thoughts. Those who are acquainted with the theology of Pascal (and who are not?) will scarcely suspect him of leaning too partially to the brighter side of our nature. I quote a few passages from his writings, as much for the pleasure of copying them, as for the support they afford to my general argument.
“L’homme est si grand,” he observes, “que, sa grandeur parait même en ce qu’il se connaît misérable. Un arbre ne se connaît pas misérable: il est vrai que c’est être misérable que de se connaître, qu’on misérable; mais aussi c’est grand que de connaître qu’on est misérable. Ainsi toutes misères prouvent sa grandeur:—ce sont miseres de grand seigneur, miseres d’un roi dépossédé.
“Nous avons si grande idée de l’ame de l’homme que nous ne pouvons souffrir d’en être méprisé, et d’ n’être pas dans l’esteme d’une âme: et toute la félicité des hommes consiste dans cette estime.
“Si d’un côté cette fausse gloire que les hommes cherchent est une grande marque de leur misère et de leur bassesse, c’en une aussi de leur excellence; car quelque possessions qu’il ait sur la terre, de quelque santé et commodité essentielle qu’il jouisse il n’est pas satisfait, s’il n’est pas dans l’estime des hommes. Il estime si grande la raison de l’homme que quelque avantage, qu’il ait dans le monde, il se croit malheureux s’il n’est placé aussi avantegeusement dans la raison de l’homme c’est la plus belle place du monde: rien ne peut le détourner de ce désir, et c’est la qualité la plus ineffacable du cœur de l’homme: jusque-là que ceux que méprisent le plus les hommes, et qui les égalent aux bêtes veulent encore en être admirés, et contradisent á eux-mêmes par leur propre sentiment: la nature, qui est plus puisante que toute leur raison, les convainquant plus fortement de la grandeur de l’homme que la raison ne les convainc de sa baissesse.”—“L’homme n’est qu’un roseau le plus faíble de la nature; mais c’est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour l’écraser. Une vapeur, une goutte d’eau suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand l’univers l’écraserait, l’homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, parce qu’il sait qu’il meurt, et l’avantage que l’univers a sur lui, l’univers n’en sait rien. Ainsi toute notre dignité consiste dans la pensée c’est de la qu’il faut nous relever, non de l’espace et de la durée.” “Il est dangereux de trop voir l’homme combien il est égal aux bêtes sans lui montrer sa grandeur. Il est encore dangereux de lui fair trop voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse. Il est plus dangereux de lui laisser ignorer l’un et l’autre: mais est tres avantegeux de lui representer l’un et l’autre.” (Pensées de Pascal.)
I have adduced the testimony of Bishop Butler as to the soundness of our views on human nature: I shall here transcribe a few passages from a writer, in whose language a kindred philosophy becomes most eloquent and inspiring—I mean Doctor Channing.—“I repeat it,” he says, “showing the moral power of faith in the divine capacities of man, to resemble our Maker we need not quarrel with our nature or our lot. Our present state, made up as it is, of aids and trials, is worthy of God, and may be used throughout to assimilate us to him. For example: our domestic ties, the relations of neighbourhood and country, the daily interchanges of thoughts and feelings, the daily occasions of kindness, the daily claims of want and suffering, these and other circumstances of our social state, form the best sphere and school for that benevolence which is God’s brightest attribute; and we should make a sad exchange by substituting for these natural aids any self-invented artificial means of sanctity. Christianity, our great guide to God, never leads us away from the path of nature, and never wars with the unsophisticated dictates of conscience. We approach our Creator by every right exercise of the powers he gives us. Whenever we invigorate the understanding by honestly and resolutely seeking truth, and by withstanding whatever might warp the judgment; whenever we invigorate the conscience by following it in opposition to the passions; whenever we receive a blessing gratefully, bear a trial patiently, or encounter peril or scorn with moral courage; whenever we perform a disinterested deed; whenever we lift up the heart in true adoration to God; whenever we war against a habit or desire which is strengthening itself against our higher principles; whenever we think, speak or act with moral energy, and devotion to duty, be the occasion ever so humble or familiar; then the divinity is growing within us, and we are ascending towards our Author. The religion thus blends with common life. We thus draw nigh to God without forsaking men. We are thus without parting with our human nature, to clothe ourselves with the divine.” (Discourse at the ordination of the Rev. F. A. Farley.) Honour is due to all men on the ground of the worth and dignity of their nature, and of this the eloquent writer shows Christianity a proof and an illustration. “The whole of this religion is a testimony to the worth of man in the sight of God—to the importance of human nature—to the infinite purposes for which we were framed. God is there set forth as sending, to the succour of his human family, his beloved Son, the bright image and representative of his own perfections; and sending him, not simply to roll away a burden of pain and punishment, (for this, however magnified in systems of theology is not his highest work) but to create man after that divine image which he himself bears, to purify the soul from every stain, to communicate to it new power over evil, and to open before it immortality as its aim and destination—immortality by which we are to understand, not merely a perpetual, but an ever-improving and celestial being. Such are the views of Christianity. And these blessings it proffers, not to a few, not to the educated, not to the eminent, but to all human beings, to the poorest and the most fallen; and we know that through the power of its promises, it has, in not a few instances, raised the fallen to true greatness, and given them in their present virtue and peace, an earnest of the heaven which it unfolds. Such is Christianity. Men viewed in the light of this religion, are beings cared for by God, to whom he has given his Son, on whom he pours forth his spirit; and whom he has created for the highest good in the universe, the participation of his own perfections and happiness. Such is Christianity. Our scepticism in our own nature cannot quench the bright light which religion sheds on the soul and on the prospects of mankind; and just so far as we receive its truth we shall honour all men.” (Discourse on “Honour due to All Men.”)
“Theologians,” remarks a powerful writer, “say, that the very infant comes into the world under the wrath and curse of the Deity. They never learned that by observing the glory of God in the face of Christ. No such withering frown ever sat on his benignant countenance. Think of Christ’s wrath with a child! Think of Christ cursing a child! I must read in the Gospel that he did so, before I believe that God does so, and that the Calvinistic doctrine of original sin is true. In the strong horror of the human heart at the monstrous combination of such a person with such an action, I read the condemnation of that gloomiest article of a gloomy creed; and if it be a foul calumny on Christ, it must, exalted as he was, be a yet fouler calumny on God. I would sooner believe the one than the other. I would sooner imagine some Jesus of Nazareth encountering some fond father and fonder mother, in the first freshness of their parental feelings, as they pass beneath ‘the gate of the temple which was called the Beautiful;’ less beautiful in the sculptured forms of marble on which its gorgeous architecture rested than in the living human group which were there bearing the babe to the altar to dedicate it to the God of its fathers; and encountering them with that solemn malediction which would sink into their souls and corrode their lives; than I would imagine Omniscience, which witnesses each man’s birth, life, and death, to be in all earth’s scenes of parental anxiousness and fondness over helpless infancy, the all-pervading presence of an Almighty curse. Yet this is the doctrine into which thousands upon thousands of children are catechised. Why will not parents and teachers lead them, not to Calvin, but to Christ? So should they receive a blessing, even as did those children, notwithstanding that there were not wanting, even then, erring disciples to intercept their approach and forbid their coming. As his blessing was on them, so is that of his and our God. His doctrine, his conduct. ‘Their angels,’ he says, ‘do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven;’ they are the peculiar objects of the providential care which, by the number, and swiftness, and power of those supposed winged messengers, was pictorial typified; and again, ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!’”—Christ and Christianity, a series of Sermons, by the Rev. W. J. Fox: which for energy of thought, richness and beauty of imagery, truth of moral analysis and description, force and eloquence of language, may be placed in the very highest class of pulpit oratory, and even in that class be ranged with its rarest specimens. The taint of heresy has robbed them of their due fame, for in those days, without the proper admixture of orthodoxy, logic only beats the air, and eloquence speaks to the deaf adder that will not hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so sweetly.
I quote with great pleasure one or two passages from Mr. Dewey, as illustrative of our common doctrine on human nature:
“The theologian says that human nature is bad and corrupt. Now taking this language in the practical and popular sense, I find no difficulty in agreeing with the theologian. And indeed, if he would confine himself—leaving vague and general declamation and technical phraseology—if he would confine himself to facts; if he would confine himself to a description of actual bad qualities and dispositions in men, I think he could not well go too far. Nay more, I am not certain that any theologian’s description, so far as it is of this nature, has gone deep enough into the frightful mass of human depravity. For it requires an acute perception that is rarely possessed, and a higher and holier conscience, perhaps than belongs to any, to discover and declare how bad, and degraded, and unworthy a being a bad man is. I confess that nothing would beget in me a higher respect for man, a real—not a theological and factitious—but a real and deep sense of human sinfulness and unworthiness—of the mighty wrong which man does to himself, to his religion, and his God, when he yields to the evil and accursed inclinations that find place in him. This moral indignation is not half strong enough in those who profess to talk the most about human depravity. And the objection to them is, not that they feel too much or speak too strongly, the actual wickedness, the actual and distinct sins of the wicked; but they speak too vaguely and generally of human wickedness; that they speak with too little discrimination to every man as if he were a murderer or a monster; that they speak, in fine, too argumentatively, and too much (if I may say so) with a sort of argumentative satisfaction, as if they were glad that they could make this point so strong.”
The next extract is in advocacy of human nature, eloquently pleading for it in a low and guilty condition.
“The very pirate that dyes the ocean wave with the blood of his fellow-beings; that meets his defenceless victims in some lonely sea where no cry for help can be heard, and plunges his dagger to the heart that is pleading for life, which is calling upon him by all means of kindred, of children, and of home, to spare—yes, the very pirate is such a man as you or I might have been. Orphanage and childhood; an unfriended youth; an evil companion; a resort to sinful pleasure; familiarity with vice; a scorned and blighted name; seared and crushed affections; desperate fortunes—these are the steps that might have led any one amongst us to unfurl on the high seas the bloody flag of universal defiance; to have waged war with our kind; to have put on the terrific attributes; to have done the dreadful deeds; and to have died the awful death of the ocean robber. How many affecting relationships of humanity plead with us to pity him! That head that is doomed to pay the price of blood once rested upon a mother’s bosom. The hand that did that accursed work, and shall soon be stretched cold and nerveless in the felon’s grave, was once taken and cherished by a father’s hand, and led in the ways of sportive childhood and innocent pleasure. The dreaded monster of crime has once been the object of sisterly love and all domestic endearment. Pity him, then. Pity his blighted hope and his crushed heart. It is a wholesome sensibility, it is meet for frail and sinning creatures like us to cherish. It forgoes no moral discrimination. It feels the crime, but feels it as a weak, tempted, and rescued creature should. It imitates the great Master; and looks with indignation upon the offender, and yet is grieved for him.”—Dewey.
Additional Remarks, &c.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ,” says Mr. Buddicom, “hath solemnly and emphatically said, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but that believeth not shall be damned.’” (Yes, but is this to believe what our opponents tell us, and to be baptized into the faith of Athanasius?) “Unitarians,” he continues, “assert that they fulfil the requirement, and therefore are safe from the penalty. We, on the other hand, are assured, that as it would be treason against the sovereign of these realms, to acknowledge her claim only to a part of her dominions, while her royalty over the remainder was utterly denied; so the Unitarian scheme which would give unto the Saviour the honours of a prophet and a witness, while it would unsphere him from that full-orbed glory wherein He shines through the revelation of his grace, is treason against him and against the Majesty of God, who willeth ‘that all men should honour the son, even as they honour the father.’ Thus convinced, we deem the professors of that system to be under sentence of spiritual outlawry, which if it be not reversed, will end in the terrors of the second death.”—Lect. 8. pp. 438, 439.
The tone in which we have often been spoken of in this controversy appears to assume that we in some degree doubt the sincerity or charity of our opponents. We deny them neither. We know the history of religion well enough to be aware that as severe things have been done in sincerity as to pronounce that men dishonour Christ and God, that they are under sentence of spiritual outlawry, and if they repent not (i.e. do not turn to the opinion of their antagonists) shall surely endure the second death; we can easily believe that men say these things sincerely; for except from the necessity of conviction, we do not imagine they would reiterate perdition and denunciation as often as they do. We deny not the sincerity in which an opponent may hold an opinion or resist one: but though the motive may not be impeachable, the quality of the opinion itself may be in the last degree anti-social and pernicious. The men who built the Inquisition did it in perfect sincerity: the men who sat on its judgment-seats were for the most part sincere, so were those who dragged the heretic from his home to the dungeon, and from the dungeon to the stake. And so are those who tell us that our faith is damnable. Men may on account of belief consign antagonists to hell-fire for eternity; but unless the evidence be most clear, to pronounce the judgment requires a goodly quantity of courage. As little willing are we to refuse our opponents the charity they claim, if by that be meant a desire to promote good in their idea of it: but we may very fairly doubt the justness of that idea. Believing that heretics, such as we, are in the way to eternal destruction, it is neither inconsistent with candour or charity to tell us so, in the hope of reclaiming us; and if theologians imagined that inflicting bodily suffering might have a similar effect, we are compelled to admit them to the same merit. The worst effect of harsh and austere doctrines is that they produce harsh and austere feelings; and the professors of them, under their indurating process, can do deeds from principle which even bad men would rarely do from passion. One perverted motive is worse than a thousand evil actions. Charity in her own native sweetness is meek and gentle as the dove, and yet theology has often made her ravenous as the vulture; charity as she came from heaven marked her way in tears of mercy, but theology could so pervert her as to cause her wade to the lips in blood. The charity of the heart is very different from the charity of creeds; and when we hear English clergymen condemn the Romish Church as uncharitable, we naturally ask on what ground? Is it because she condemned heretics? So do you. Is it because she has a wrong test of heresy? Her test is substantially the same as your own. You assume that we do not believe in Christ, because we do not believe in your creed: she assumes that you do not believe in Christ because you do not believe in her councils: you denounce eternal torments on us for want of your faith; and she delivers you to the same destiny for want of her faith: the tabooed ground of heresy and orthodoxy may be circumscribed or extensive—the points may be few or many, the principle is the same, or if there be any difference, it is but breaking the big end or the little end of the egg. We are accused as traitors against God and Christ, and to make the indictment clear against us, it is illustrated by the instance of rebellion against a sovereign. This is a heavy charge, but one both unjust and false. It is evil intention that constitutes crime: a traitor opposes his sovereign and intends his dethronement; but though we should even mistake the nature of Christ, can any one who thinks for a moment venture to say our intention is for his dethronement? Let us suppose the case, no uncommon one, of an Eastern monarch who should disguise himself, and that some of his subjects failed, in their ignorance of his rank, to pay him the customary honours; what should we think of his justice, if he should call this treason, and impale the wretches who were unconscious of having offended him. It is too monstrous even for Eastern despotism. Or take the case in our own history; what should we think of Alfred’s rectitude and clemency, if when he ascended the throne from his poverty, he should have thrown the shepherd’s wife into a dungeon and chains, because, in his disguise, she uttered against him a surly rebuke. The instance is not entirely parallel, but the analogy goes far enough for my purpose. Now, though Christ were in reality the Deity which orthodoxy proclaims him, the circumstances of his earthly life, and the concealment of his infinite nature, were certainly sufficient to excuse some in ignorance for taking him to be that which he appeared; and to punish them for so natural an error, would not be a vindication of majesty, but a capricious exhibition of cruelty.
The legal and political mode of illustration is a favourite with the reverend lecturer. P. 450, we have a quotation from Blackstone, and the distinction very admirably elucidated of private wrongs and public wrongs, civil injuries, crimes and misdemeanours, &c. Sir William Blackstone never, I imagine, anticipated the honour that his Commentaries would be used to illustrate the principles of the divine government; and one of the last ideas, I apprehend, that entered his brain in delivering his lectures, was, that he was giving expositions on the ways of Providence. The Preacher in the order of illustration, gave a passing blow “at those wretched and guilty disturbers of the public peace in one of our own colonies who lately crossed the borders of a friendly state to slay and ruin and destroy, under the name of sympathizers.” An allusion, doubtless, extremely loyal; but in the present case not very logical. (Lect. p. 452.) In this part of the discourse we have other distinctions, showing that man is a public offender, that God is not a person but a sovereign, in relation to guilty man, and that a sovereign is different from a person; that God is not a creditor but a judge, and that a judge is different from a creditor. All this may be very acute, very legal, but, theologically, it has one imperfection, that of mistaking entirely the relation between God and man, of turning false analogies into false premises, and, of course, deducing from them false conclusions: of properly having nothing to do with the true matter in hand, and leaving the question precisely where it was before. “Our opponents,” says the Preacher, “assert that sins are to be regarded as debts, and as debts only.” We assert no such thing, have never asserted it, but all the contrary, and to such an idea the whole tone of our argument and of our system is in most perfect contradiction. We have no such low view of God as to think that man could owe him anything, nor any such presumptuous view of man as to imagine he could make payment to his God. Yet upon this poor assumption whole pages of declamation are wasted, for if it serves any purpose it is but to beat down the man of straw which the lecturer himself had fashioned. We hold no such view, and therefore we have never defended any such. We do our best to maintain what we assert; if others assert doctrines for us, we leave them the pleasure of the refutation; although it is only when men invent opinions for opponents that they have the double enjoyment of first building up and then pulling down. We do not regard sins as debts for which payment can be made to God; but we may fairly assert that on this principle rests the whole scheme of orthodoxy. What are the atonement and righteousness of Christ but a payment or equivalent to God for the salvation of the elect?—the very nature of the system implies this idea, and in truth it is the only idea that gives it even the appearance of consistency; for crime as such cannot be punished in the person of another, but a debt can be fairly paid by the money of another. If I commit high treason against the sovereign—to borrow an analogy from the Preacher—it would be sad work to lay the head of some one else on the block for it—but if I owe a severe creditor a thousand pounds, a rich and generous friend may pay it in my stead, and no social principle is violated by the substitute.
Mr. Buddicom makes the following modest apology for the presumed infallibility of himself and brethren, and their right to attack all heretical deniers of it. “While, however,” he observes, “we are prepared to contend for the lawfulness and duty of an affectionate inroad upon the regions of spiritual error, we remember that our movement is not purely and primarily aggressive. A volume of Lectures, preached expressly on the controverted doctrines of Christianity (as the lecturer denominated his subjects), in a chapel now occupied by one of our respected opponents, has been before the world. In these and other similar measures, the fortress of true Christianity, the only safe munition of rocks for the souls of men, hath been attacked by mine, and sap, and open assault. And shall there be no attempt to countermine, no sally made, no arm raised, in a forward movement for the truth as it is in Jesus? Our regret is rather due to the culpable silence of the past, than to the proceeding of the present time.” (Lect. p. 440.) The reverend and respected Preacher refers to a volume of Lectures, by the Rev. George Harris, delivered in this town some years ago: those Lectures, unfortunately, I do not possess; but I have read them with much pleasure, and many passages of them I should wish to quote in support of my own general arguments. But the Lecturer greatly mistakes if he imagines that we complain of orthodox aggression. Controversy, political and religious, is the fair expression of civilised and progressive opinion. We do not blame those who oppose us,—we have never done it,—we have not complained that war was made on us, but we did most righteously complain that the fair laws of warfare were denied us. Our people were invited to go to Christ Church to listen to wise and learned men, to be converted, by hearing their religion spoken of as blasphemy and outlawry—to hear themselves designated as enemies to their God, and dethroners of their Saviour, and the spiritual slayers of their kind. They were denied any religious equality. They were abused, and vituperated, and denounced; but they were not listened to—their condemnation was sternly uttered—but their defence had not even the poor tribute of a hearing. Nay, grave clergymen pleaded that they could not have their religious sensibilities disturbed or hurt by Unitarian roughness, as if manly controversialists were to shrink from opposition with the fastidious delicacy of timid devotees. We neither complained of controversy, nor avoided it; on the contrary, we met it promptly, sincerely, and willingly—with ability, it is possible, inferior to our opponents—but not with less zeal, less alacrity, or less honesty. When our respected opponents challenged our attendance, it was not as antagonists on the opposite sides of a subject open to discussion, but as accused to give in their confession of repentance, or as criminals to hear their last sentence of punishment. We, however, blame not the Lecturer, nor his party—we rather agree with him and them. We have received a lesson which we needed; Unitarians have stood too long on the defensive, when they should have been on the aggressive: had they been faithful to their trust, it may be that the degrading dogma of original sin, and the atrocious doctrines of election and reprobation could not now, in this country, be matters of dispute. “Our regret (to use the words of the Lecturer) is rather due to the culpable silence of the past than to the proceedings of the present time.” It is a remarkable fact in the history of religion, that all the doctrines which have been most generally condemned as heresy, have been pure or benignant ones; and all persecutions and religious hatreds, bodily or social, have been directed against their professors. Not to mention the Christians, who burned Jerome and Huss; we might refer even to the heathens who poisoned Socrates—to uphold the personality of Satan—the reality of his existence, and the malignity of his nature,—to declaim upon hell’s torments and to announce eternal perdition on the great mass of God’s family—to create excitement by the grossest pictures of vice and misery is the certain way to popularity. The popular taste, as it has yet been developed or nurtured, has been coarse and ferocious, and if any thing could prove to me the doctrine of universal depravity, it would be the toleration of the horrors of Calvinistic orthodoxy.