If we pass forward beyond the mortal life, to the final exaltation of Christ, he is still presented to us undivested of his humanity. Listen to the modern preachers of Orthodoxy, and they will tell you that the judicial capacity of the Saviour could be filled by Deity alone; that to pass judgment on an assembled world, to read the secrets of all hearts, and allot their final doom, are offices demanding nothing less than Omniscience, Omnipotence, Independence.[[258]] But from the Apostle Paul we learn, that “God will judge the world in righteousness by that MAN whom he hath ordained;”[[259]] and our Lord himself says, “I can of mine own self do nothing; as I hear I judge;”[[260]] “The Father hath given him authority to execute judgment also, BECAUSE HE IS THE SON OF MAN.”[[261]] Nor is it the presumption of heresy alone that esteems it possible for God to confer on a human being the requisites for so august an office; for it is Archbishop Tillotson who says, “We may promise to ourselves a fair and equal trial at the judgment of the Great Day, because we shall then be judged by a man like ourselves. Our Saviour and judge himself hath told us, that for this reason God hath committed all judgment to the Son, because he is the Son of man. And this in human judgments is accounted a great privilege, to be judged by those who are of the same rank and condition with ourselves, and who are likely to understand best, and most carefully to examine and consider all our circumstances, and to render our case as if it were their own. So equitably doth God deal with us, that we shall be acquitted or condemned by such a judge as, according to human measures, we ourselves should have chosen, by one in our own nature, who was made in all things like unto us, that only excepted which would have rendered him incapable of being our judge, because it would have made him a criminal like ourselves. And therefore the Apostle offers this as a firm ground of assurance to us that God will judge the world in righteousness, because this judgment shall be administered by a man like ourselves; He hath, saith he, appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained,” &c.[[262]]
It is, then, in his humanity, that this high prerogative belongs to Jesus. Yet are our opponents right in their assertion that, if there be any office attributed to him, requiring divine perfection, it is this; no higher exaltation remains, no superior glory is referred to him from which, with any better reason, we can conclude his equality with the Father. Human in this, he is human in all things.
Not one then of the proper characteristics of a Trinitarian Bible can be found in the Scriptures; and it is vain for the Athanasian system to claim their support. This conclusion can be subverted only in two ways; either by showing, that the criteria which I have laid down, for ascertaining the theology of the sacred writings, are unreasonable and incorrect; or by showing, that the application of them does not yield any of the results which I have stated. I say any of the results; for if all the phenomena which I have assumed as tests, would be necessary to give a Trinitarian complexion to the Scriptures, the absence of even a portion of them would decide the controversy against our opponents’ scheme, whatever difficulties might remain to embarrass our own. If the list of criteria be thought materially wrong, let it be shown where and why; let it be explained how there can be a verbal revelation of “distinctions,” without any distinctive names; how, without such discriminative words, we are to know, unless we assume the whole doctrine to be proved, when the human nature of Christ speaks, or is spoken of, when the divine; how the poor, who first had the gospel preached to them, ascertained this with the requisite degree of nicety; and above all, we would request to be furnished with a better set of criteria; and to be distinctly informed, what scriptural phenomena would be required, in order to disprove the Trinitarian scheme. If, on the other hand, I have erred in the application of my tests, let it be shown how far into the substance of the argument the error extends. I cannot hope that the exposition which I have given will be found free from mistake and inaccuracy; and let these be exposed with such severity as they may deserve. Only let it be remembered, that the real question is not about the skill of the advocate, but respecting the truth of the scheme; and when all the errors of the one have been cleared away, let it be still asked, in what condition stands the evidence of the other. I have purposely taken my principal station on the least favourable ground of the Unitarian argument; I have exhausted the strongest passages adduced against our theology: and I have done this the more readily, because these portions of scripture appear to possess an excellence and beauty, which are obscured by their unresisted controversial repetition, and marred by the lacerations of Orthodoxy.
And may we not, without immodesty, ask any candid Trinitarian, are these passages so very plain and easy, are they so numerous, are our interpretations so irrational and ignorant, as to justify the imputation of deceit, of blasphemy, of wilful mutilation of the word of God, which we are condemned perpetually to hear? As to that excellent man, who on Wednesday last, treated in this way our most cherished convictions, and our most innocent actions, I have said nothing in reply to his accusations; for I well know them to have failed in benevolence, only from excess of mistaken piety. Had he a little more power of imagination, to put himself into the feelings and ideas of others, doubtless he would understand both his Bible and his fellow-disciples better than he does. Meanwhile, I would not stir, with the breath of disrespect, one of his grey hairs; or by any severity of expostulation disturb the peace of an old age, so affectionate and good as his. He and we must ere long pass to a world, where the film will fall from the eye of error, and we shall know, even as we are known.[[263]]
In conclusion, then, I revert with freshened persuasion, to the statement with which I commenced. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, God hath presented to us simply in his inspired humanity. Him we accept, not indeed as very God, but as the true image of God, commissioned to show what no written doctrinal record could declare, the entire moral perfections of Deity. We accept,—not indeed his body, not the struggles of his sensitive nature, not the travail of his soul, but his purity, his tenderness, his absolute devotion to the great idea of right, his patient and compassionate warfare against misery and guilt, as the most distinct and beautiful expression of the Divine mind. The peculiar office of Christ is to supply a new moral image of Providence; and everything therefore except the moral complexion of his mind, we leave behind as human and historical merely, and apply to no religious use. I have already stated in what way nature and the gospel combine to bring before us the great object of our trust and worship. The universe gives us the scale of God, and Christ his Spirit. We climb to the Infinitude of his nature by the awful pathway of the stars, where whole forests of worlds silently quiver here and there, like a small leaf of light. We dive into his Eternity, through the ocean waves of Time, that roll and solemnly break on the imagination, as we trace the wrecks of departed things upon our present globe. The scope of his Intellect, and the majesty of his Rule, are seen in the tranquil order and everlasting silence that reign through the fields of his volition. And the Spirit that animates the whole is like that of the Prophet of Nazareth; the thoughts that fly upon the swift light throughout creation, charged with fates unnumbered, are like the healing mercies of One that passed no sorrow by. The government of this world, its mysterious allotments of good and ill, its successions of birth and death, its hopes of progress and of peace, each life of individual or nation, is under the administration of One, of whose rectitude and benevolence, whose sympathy with all the holiest aspirations of our virtue and our love, Christ is the appointed emblem. A faith that spreads around and within the mind a Deity thus sublime and holy, feeds the light of every pure affection, and presses with Omnipotent power on the conscience; and our only prayer is, that we may walk as children of such light.
NOTES.
A.
On Impossibility, Physical and Logical.
In order to break the force of all reasonings respecting the inherent incredibility of the Trinitarian doctrine, the principle has been frequently advanced, that a statement which would be contradictory, if made respecting an object within reach of our knowledge, cannot be affirmed to be so, if applied to an object beyond our knowledge; since in the one case we have, in the other we have not, some experience to guide our judgment, and serve as a criterion of truth. Thus, it is said, to affirm of man, that his nature comprises more than one personality, might, without presumption, be pronounced a contradiction; because we are familiar with his constitution; but knowing nothing of the mode of God’s existence, except what he is pleased to reveal, we cannot prove the same statement to be contradictory, when made respecting his essence.