The Royal injunctions relative to ecclesiastical reforms, published in February, 1695, were followed by other Royal injunctions relative to theological disputes in February, 1696. Just then, a money panic struck not only the commercial classes, but the whole community. The currency sank into such a state, that owing to the wear and tear of coin, and the ingenious arts of clippers, neither the gentleman who paid his guinea nor the peasant who received his shilling, knew exactly what the piece of gold or silver happened to be worth. The subject came up in sermons, and preachers deplored the low state of public morality. Fleetwood, preaching before the Lord Mayor of London in the month of December, deplored that “a soft pernicious tenderness slackened the care of magistrates, kept back the under officers, corrupted the juries, and withheld the evidence;” and one of the clergy connected with the Cathedral of York, when addressing some clippers who were to be hanged next day, dwelt on the insensibility of culprits of that class to the heinousness of their crime.[248] Exactly at the time when this monetary question had thrown everybody into a state of embarrassment, a theological controversy added to the excitement of religious people.
1693–8.
To judge of the new Royal injunctions we must first understand the controversy, and to understand the controversy is no easy matter. To trace the dispute through all its windings would only perplex the reader—to enumerate the publications which appeared would be wearisome and profitless; therefore I shall content myself with indicating the different lines pursued by the principal controversialists, and the treatment which consequently some of them received.
It may be premised that the controversy indicates a new position of Christian thought, a new atmosphere of theological feeling, as compared with that which had obtained in Commonwealth times and after the Restoration. The question raised did not relate to predestination, to the nature of Christ’s death, the extent of its efficacy and application, but to the mode of the Divine existence. It showed a retreat back to inquiries akin to such as agitated the Nicene Age. Oxford and London witnessed a revival of conflicts similar to those of Constantinople and Alexandria. Battles about grace, election, and free-will had been fought out, and the warriors were exhausted: some had passed away, some were growing old. The human mind now ranged over other fields long neglected, seeking fresh victories over old errors. Theological discussion is determined in a great degree by circumstances, idiosyncracies, friendships, and associations; but the spirit of an age is also a mighty force, acting with, and acting through all other influences. And it is not a little remarkable, that as the revival of the study of philosophy in the Christian schools of Alexandria was followed by controversies respecting the Divine nature, so the revival of the study of a similar philosophy at Cambridge was followed by a similar result. Whereas the logic, ethics, and politics of Aristotle have affinity with questions relating to the Divine government, the speculations of Plato connect themselves more with questions as to the Divine Being Himself. Accordingly, the Aristotelian logicians of the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and the Commonwealth, dwelt much upon predestination, justification, and the atonement; and the philosophical Divines of the Revolution, trained more in Platonic culture, devoted themselves to questions respecting the Trinity and the Person of Christ.
CONTROVERSIES ABOUT THE TRINITY.
At the time of the Revolution, Unitarian principles in England were on the advance, both as to explicitness of statement and extent of currency. The preparations for this change have been indicated. It obtained in a decided form to no great degree, but its influence was felt beyond its definite boundaries. According to the Toleration Act, Antitrinitarians were as much precluded from publicly celebrating worship after the Revolution, as Presbyterians and others had been before; yet, by the close of the 17th century, it is said, Unitarian meeting-houses were erected.[249] Some Presbyterians, perhaps, rather of an Arian than of a Socinian type, at that period diverged from orthodox paths; but it is stated that on the whole these opinions “were more prevalent in the Church than among the Dissenters.”[250] The republication of Biddle’s Tracts, and the issue of new works, published anonymously, going far beyond the theological point Biddle had reached, promoted the denial of our Lord’s Divinity. The series was zealously supported, if not prepared by the well-known Thomas Firman, who, though an Unitarian, remained a member of the Church of England.[251] The modern assailants of orthodoxy, catching the rationalistic spirit of the times, dwelt upon what they conceived to be the unreasonableness of the doctrine of the Trinity, and urged the absence in Scripture of the scholastic terms in which the doctrine is commonly defined. They charged the Fathers and the Schoolmen with corrupting Christianity; then directing their attention to the doctrine of the Redeemer’s Deity, they insisted much upon His proper humanity, upon His trustfulness, devotion, and obedience.
1693–8.
If, said the Unitarians, Christ be God, none can be greater than He, yet He says, “The Father is greater than I.” If Jesus Christ were truly God, they alleged, it would be blasphemy to call Him the sent of God; heedless of the allegation, on the other side, that if He were simply man, it would be blasphemy to ascribe to Him Divine names, attributes, and honours. Arguments were also adduced against the doctrine of the Personality and Divinity of the Holy Ghost. A violent attack also was made, in a distinct publication, on the character of Athanasius, with the object of damaging the theological belief which that great Father of the Church so zealously upheld.[252] Books of this description, vindicating opinions under a legal ban, excited the indignation both of Church and Parliament. A work, bearing on the heterodox side, written by a Divine of the Latitudinarian school, led to his being deprived of the Rectorship of Lincoln College, Oxford,[253] and a vote was passed by the Commons dooming to the flames an attack on the doctrine of the Trinity.[254]
THE TRINITY.
Dr. Wallis, the Savillian professor of Geometry, wrote a pamphlet[255] in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, and employed some of the strangest expressions and illustrations with regard to the mystery that were ever conceived by any human being. “What is it,” he asks, “that is pretended to be impossible? ’Tis but this, that there be three somewhats, which are but one God, and these somewhats are called Persons.” To explain the Trinity in unity, he compares the Almighty to a cube, with its length, breadth, and height infinitely extended. The length, breadth, and height of the cube, he says, are equal, and they are the equal sides of one substance—a fair resemblance of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This longum, latum, profundum, such are his words, is one cube of three dimensions, yet but one body; and this Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three Persons, and yet one God. Vain attempts were made by the early Fathers to give definite conceptions of the mode of the Divine existence—the sun and its rays, a fountain and its streams, reason and speech, ointment and fragrance, being employed for the purpose; but Dr. Wallis attained to an originality as unenviable as it was startling; and were it not for his known candour and piety, it might be supposed he intended to turn the orthodox doctrine into ridicule.