APPENDIX.
I think it right to state here that one or two passages are printed in the lecture, which, as time was failing, I passed over in the delivery. They affect in nowise the general import or argument. I thought it possible that one sentence in reference to Mr. Jones’s lecture would require to be expunged; but having now read the lecture in print, I see the sentence may stand. Mr. Jones defined with clearness and accuracy his belief in Christ’s humanity—that Christ was really a man, “that he had a corporeal and mental existence like our own,” “that he possessed a body of flesh and blood, such as is common to our race,” “that in that body dwelt a rational soul, to whose volitions it was subject,” “that he was conceived in the womb, and born a helpless infant, and dependent on the care of his parents through the whole of his childhood and youth.”[[158]] Here, then, we have a set of qualities in the man Christ Jesus, which from their very nature must have commenced with his earthly life. Thus defined, the lecturer afterwards goes on to say that “though there was nothing in his corporeal or mental powers essentially different from other men, yet were there certain peculiarities connected with his perfect manhood, which it is of momentous consequence that we should know and believe.”[[159]] “First, he possessed moral perfection.” On this all Unitarians are agreed. Secondly, the lecturer noticed the miraculous conception. On this we have differences amongst us. Now a third peculiarity was also marked, which by the order of the lecturer’s argument we are entitled to rank with the others as belonging to the manhood of Christ. Mr. Jones is still speaking of the man Christ Jesus, and yet the third peculiarity is alleged to be his pre-existence. But if to have been born of a woman, if to have had a corporeal and mental existence like our own, were essentials of his humanity, then this is a flat contradiction; if this attribute were meant to apply to him as God, we should have been told so; and even then, the distinction would be wholly powerless, for no one thinks of comparing other men with Jesus as God. Mr. Jones does not introduce that portion of his subject until we have passed over several pages.[[160]] The analogy of body and soul in man is incessantly used to illustrate a two-fold nature in Christ. Nothing can be more fallacious. It breaks down at every step; for if it be used to signify the possible union of two different elements in one being, then Christ is not two-fold but three-fold, there are in his person the divine soul and the human soul, and in addition to all, the human body. If it be used to signify the union of two natures in one person, the soul and body are not two distinct natures, in the sense required, and therefore can neither illustrate nor prove the dogmatical complexity ascribed to Christ. Every nature that we know is composite, but it is one thing to be compounded of various qualities, and another to be a union of irreconcileable ones. If man had two souls in one body, so perfectly united as to make a single person, and yet that one should be ignorant of what the other knew, then we should have an illustration that would be correct and intelligible. Mr. Jones uses the following illustration, to shew that we distinguish between the body and the soul when we do not express the distinction in words. “If we say,” he observes, “that a neighbour is sick, or in pain, or hungry, or thirsty, or in want, we mean that his body is sick, or in pain, or hungry, or thirsty, or in want, and no one for a moment supposes that we refer to his soul. And if, on the other hand, we say that a man is learned, or ignorant, wise or unwise, happy or miserable, humble or proud, it is equally obvious that we refer to the soul, and not to the body.”[[161]] No such distinction is known either in grammar or philosophy, and the laws of thought as well as those of language equally repudiate it. A man may be healthy or sick by means of the excellence or defect of his body, but the assertion is made of the man as a person. He may in like manner be wise or ignorant by means of the excellence or defects of the faculties of his soul; but again, the assertion is of the person. And, indeed, if we were to speak with severe and metaphysical precision, every instance which the preacher has adduced should be predicated of the Soul, for so far as they are sensations, they belong properly to the soul; and the body is but their medium or instrument. By the laws, then, both of thought and language, whatever Christ affirms of himself, he affirms of his person, be the elements what they may that enter into its constitution. But how are we to think of the dogma for which such hair-splitting distinctions are adduced; distinctions which, had not the solemnity of the subject forbidden the use of ridicule, might be shown by all forms of speech to be as incongruous as they are puerile, and as ridiculous as they are false.
Note on John xii. See page [8].
On the supposition of our Lord’s simple humanity, this chapter exhibits a most sublime revelation of his nature. On any other hypothesis it loses all its moral beauty, and leaves us nothing but inconsistency. The belief of his simple human nature gives a more sacred awe to the circumstances in which he was placed, explains to us those struggles and workings of his inmost soul, which were deepening the bitterness of his hour of travail. We can then appreciate the grandeur with which, in the spirit of duty, he arose to meet the approaching storm; and we can also appreciate the tenderness and sensibility with which he shrunk for a moment from the anguish that awaited him. To say that the godhead withdrew its support from him is a solution unintelligible in any sense. For through every moment of his existence he must have been conscious of his proper Deity, or he was not; if he was, why tremble? if not, then during that period his godhead was virtually extinguished, and he remained simply man. But every utterance of his in this profound chapter is truly human,—breathings of that nature from its inmost recesses, strong in duty, but struggling with fear and grief.
There is no period of our Lord’s mission in which we see so profound a solemnity around him. He had come from the quiet and hospitable home of his friends in Bethany, had made his public and triumphant entry into Jerusalem, but the awful close and consummation was at hand; he knew that these hosannahs would scarcely have died on the ear, before their change into hootings and revilings; and the hands which spread the palm were ready to drag him to the cross. The next day was big with sorrows and tortures. The mysteries of death and the grave were to be resolved; and it is no dishonour to our Lord to suppose such a prospect should fill his heart with trouble; for the most finely constituted nature is ever the most sensitive, and those who perceive clearly and vividly, apprehend circumstances which it never enters into coarser minds to discern. In proportion as our personal sensations are acute, is the victory of duty noble that overcomes them, in the same proportion also is the strength of submission, or the beauty of patience. With these views, we can well interpret for our consolation and example the anguished exclamation of Christ,—“Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I to this hour.”
If Christ were God as well as man, words like these are absolutely unaccountable; and as we cannot be so profane as to think that Christ spoke for mere effect, we have only to conclude that it was the fervent and simple exclamation of a being who felt he needed help from Heaven. This were impiety of the darkest die, if Jesus in one portion of his own person was infinite and omnipotent.
Note 1, see page [18].
“Priestley, loaded with glory, was modest enough to be astonished at his good fortune, and at the multitude of beautiful facts which nature seemed to reveal to him alone. He forgot that her favours were not gratuitous, and that if she had so well explained herself, it was because he had known how to constrain her by his indefatigable perseverance in questioning her, and by a thousand ingenious means of wresting from her her answers. Others carefully conceal what they owe to accident. Priestley seemed to wish to ascribe to it all his merit. He records, with unexampled candour, how many times he had profited by it without knowing it, how many times he was in possession of new substances without having perceived them; and he never concealed the erroneous views which sometimes directed his efforts, and which he renounced only from experience. These confessions did honour to his modesty, without disarming jealousy. Those whose views and methods had never led them to discovery, called him a mere maker of experiments, without method, and without an object:—“It is not astonishing,” they added, “that among so many trials and combinations he should find some that were successful. But real natural Philosophers were not duped by these selfish criticisms.”—After some remarks on Priestley’s changes in religious opinions, and tracing rapidly his progress from fiercest Calvinism to simple humanitarianism, he thus beautifully describes the close of his laborious life:—“His last moments were full of those feelings of piety which animated his whole life, and the improper controul of which had been the foundation of all his errors. He caused the gospel to be read to him, and thanked God for having allowed him to lead an useful life, and granted him a peaceful death. Among the list of the principal blessings, he ranked that of having personally known almost all his contemporaries. ‘I am going to sleep as you do,’ said he to his grand-children, who were brought to him, ‘but we shall wake again together, and, I hope, to eternal happiness;’ thus evincing in what belief he died. These were his last words. Such was the end of that man, whom his enemies accused of wishing to overthrow all morality and religion, and yet whose greatest error was to mistake his vocation, and to attach too much importance to his individual sentiments in matters when the most important of all feelings ought to be the love of peace.”[[162]]
The Edinburgh Review,[[163]] from which this extract is taken, introduces it with the following liberal and generous remarks:—