1. As to the DOCTRINES of Christ, that is, the peculiar articles of Christian faith, one would think that to reject, or question, or explain away these, was inconsistent with the very profession of Christianity. Yet this conduct in some shape or other, presents itself to us every day, in those who are, or who desire to be thought, Christians; and one cannot but wonder at the pains they take to draw upon themselves this charge of inconsistency.
Some, bolder than the rest, would expunge whole chapters, nay books, from the sacred canon, when the narrative rises above their faith, or the doctrine will not sink to a level with their wisdom; others content themselves with nibbling at single sentences, or, perhaps, words; and, if no obscure manuscript be at hand to favour the system they adopt, take refuge in a forced, unnatural punctuation. How many ancient and modern heresies have we seen supported by that presumptuous, or this minute strain of criticism!
Some, again, when the text is not called in question, turn their ingenuity another way, and strike out new modes of interpretation. They mangle and disfigure plain facts, or resolve them into allegories: of this class were those primitive heresiarchs, who maintained that Christ was not come in the flesh[284], and that the Resurrection was past already[285]; and of the same family, too, are those presumptuous moderns, of whatever name, who stumble at the cross of Christ, and sink the doctrine of Redemption in a metaphor.
A third sort excell in puzzling a clear text, in putting a violent construction on artless words, in explaining mysteries by metaphysics, or, to get rid of them at once, in making the plain fishermen of Galilee speak the language of Platonism, or of the Jewish cabbala.
In a word, it would be endless to specify all those, who by studied devices, of various kinds, mutilate, prevert, misinterpret, confound the word of God, obtruding their own sense upon it, and finding any thing there rather than the plain obvious mind of the Revealer.
And why is all this industry employed, these daring liberties taken? Why to make Christianity not mysterious, to shew how reasonable its doctrines are, and to remove all objections against them. The pretence is fair. But shall we then admit nothing in scripture, in that scripture which we call divine, but what we perfectly understand, and can make appear, in all its parts, to harmonize with our systems? Alas, what is this, but to prescribe to the Spirit of God; to substitute our wisdom in the place of his; in a word, to be ashamed of Christ’s words, and to idolize our own reason.
To give one remarkable instance, out of many, of this false shame. If there be any thing clearly revealed in holy scripture, it is, that there is a world of spirits, good and bad: and of the last, that there is ONE, placed at the head of them, who sets himself in opposition (as indeed all bad men do) to the will of God; who had a share in seducing our first parents, and still works in the children of disobedience; who was even permitted to tempt Christ, and to possess Judas; in a word, who is styled the Prince of this world, and, for the overthrow of whose empire, principally, the Son of God came down from heaven: If I say, there be any clear undisputed point of doctrine in the Gospel, it is this: the whole scheme of Christianity depends upon it: and yet what pains have not been taken to exterminate evil spirits, and disenchant the world of them; although by such methods, as would render language itself of no use, and confound all the rules of just criticism and sober interpretation?
These interpreters, I know, pretend (and many of them, I dare say, with good faith) a zeal for the honour of God, in their attempts of this nature. But let them look deep into themselves. They will, perhaps, find, that they are paying, at the same time, a secret homage to their own understandings, as if the whole of God’s moral government lay open to their view, and they were able to pervade every part of it; that they hold a revelation in no esteem, which puzzles their philosophy; and that, therefore, they force a meaning of their own on the words of Christ, because they are inwardly ashamed of that, in which his words are most naturally to be taken.
Leaving, then, these rationalists to the scrutiny of their own inmost thoughts, let us inquire,
2. What regard is due to the words of Christ, considered not as articles of belief, but rules of practice.