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Unitarian Christianity
Sermon by William Ellery Channing
Delivered at the Ordination of Rev. Jared Sparks in the The
First
Independent Church of Baltimore on May 5, 1819
"Prove all things; hold
fast that which is good." - 1 Thessalonians 5:21
The peculiar circumstances of this occasion not only
justify, but seem to demand a departure from the course generally followed by
preachers at the introduction of a brother into the sacred office. It is usual
to speak of the nature, design, duties, and advantages of the Christian
ministry; and on these topics I should now be happy to insist, did I not
remember that a minister is to be given this day to a religious society, whose
peculiarities of opinion have drawn upon them much remark, and may I not add,
much reproach. Many good minds, many sincere Christians, I am aware, are
apprehensive that the solemnities of this day are to give a degree of influence
to principles which they deem false and injurious. The fears and anxieties of
such men I respect; and, believing that they are grounded in part on mistake, I
have thought it my duty to lay before you, as clearly as I can, some of the
distinguishing opinions of that class of Christians in our country, who are
known to sympathize with this religious society. I must ask your patience, for
such a subject is not to be dispatched in a narrow compass. I must also ask you
to remember, that it is impossible to exhibit, in a single discourse, our views
of every doctrine of Revelation, much less the differences of opinion which are
known to subsist among ourselves. I shall confine myself to topics, on which our
sentiments have been misrepresented, or which distinguish us most widely from
others. May I not hope to be heard with candor? God deliver us all from
prejudice and unkindness, and fill us with the love of truth and virtue.
There are two natural divisions under which my thoughts
will be arranged. I shall endeavour to unfold, first, The principles which we
adopt in interpreting the Scriptures. And secondly, some of the doctrines, which the
Scriptures, so interpreted, seem to us clearly to express.
I. We regard the Scriptures as the records of God's
successive revelations to mankind, and particularly of the last and most perfect
revelation of his will by Jesus Christ. Whatever doctrines seem to us to be
clearly taught in the Scriptures; we receive without reserve or exception. We do
not, however, attach equal importance to all the books in this collection. Our
religion, we believe, lies chiefly in the New Testament. The dispensation of
Moses, compared with that of Jesus, we consider as adapted to the childhood of
the human race, a preparation for a nobler system, and chiefly useful now as
serving to confirm and illustrate the Christian Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the
only master of Christians, and whatever he taught, either during his personal
ministry, or by his inspired Apostles, we regard as of divine authority, and
profess to make the rule of our lives.
This authority, which we give to the Scriptures, is a
reason, we conceive, for studying them with peculiar care, and for inquiring
anxiously into the principles of interpretation, by which their true meaning may
be ascertained. The principles adopted by the class of Christians in whose name
I speak, need to be explained, because they are often misunderstood. We are
particularly accused of making an unwarrantable use of reason in the
interpretation of Scripture. We are said to exalt reason above revelation, to
prefer our own wisdom to God's. Loose and undefined charges of this kind are
circulated so freely, that we think it due to ourselves, and to the cause of
truth, to express our views with some particularity.
Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this,
that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its
meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books. We believe
that God, when he speaks to the human race, conforms, if we may so say, to the
established rules of speaking and writing. How else would the Scriptures avail
us more, than if communicated in an unknown tongue?
Now all books, and all conversation, require in the
reader or hearer the constant exercise of reason; or their true import is only
to be obtained by continual comparison and inference. Human language, you well
know, admits various interpretations; and every word and every sentence must be
modified and explained according to the subject which is discussed, according to
the purposes, feelings, circumstances, and principles of the writer, and
according to the genius and idioms of the language which he uses. These are
acknowledged principles in the interpretation of human writings; and a man,
whose words we should explain without reference to these principles, would
reproach us justly with a criminal want of candor, and an intention of obscuring
or distorting his meaning.
Were the Bible written in a language and style of its
own, did it consist of words, which admit but a single sense, and of sentences
wholly detached from each other, there would be no place for the principles now
laid down. We could not reason about it, as about other writings. But such a
book would be of little worth; and perhaps, of all books, the Scriptures
correspond least to this description. The Word of God hears the stamp of the
same hand, which we see in his works. It has infinite connexions and
dependences. Every proposition is linked with others, and is to be compared with
others; that its full and precise import may he understood. Nothing stands
alone. The New Testament is built on the Old. The Christian dispensation is a
continuation of the Jewish, the completion of a vast scheme of providence,
requiring great extent of view in the reader. Still more, the Bible treats of
subjects on which we receive ideas from other sources besides itself; such
subjects as the nature, passions, relations, and duties of man; and it expects
us to restrain and modify its language by the known truths, which observation
and experience furnish on these topics.
We profess not to know a book, which demands a more
frequent exercise of reason than the Bible. In addition to the remarks now made
on its infinite connexions, we may observe, that its style nowhere affects the
precision of science, or the accuracy of definition. Its language is singularly
glowing, bold, and figurative, demanding more frequent departures from the
literal sense, than that of our own age and country, and consequently demanding
more continual exercise of judgment. -- We find, too, that the different
portions of this book, instead of being confined to general truths, refer
perpetually to the times when they were written, to states of society, to modes
of thinking, to controversies in the church, to feelings and usages which have
passed away, and without the knowledge of which we are constantly in danger of
extending to all times, and places, what was of temporary and local application.
-- We find, too, that some of these books are strongly marked by the genius and
character of their respective writers, that the Holy Spirit did not so guide the
Apostles as to suspend the peculiarities of their minds, and that a knowledge of
their feelings, and of the influences under which they were placed, is one of
the preparations for understanding their writings. With these views of the
Bible, we feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon it perpetually,
to compare, to infer, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek in the
nature of the subject, and the aim of the writer, his true meaning; and, in
general, to make use of what is known, for explaining what is difficult, and for
discovering new truths.
Need I descend to particulars, to prove that the
Scriptures demand the exercise of reason? Take, for example, the style in which
they generally speak of God, and observe how habitually they apply to him human
passions and organs. Recollect the declarations of Christ, that he came not to
send peace, but a sword; that unless we eat his flesh, and drink his blood, we
have no life in us; that we must hate father and mother, and pluck out the right
eye; and a vast number of passages equally bold and unlimited. Recollect the
unqualified manner in which it is said of Christians, that they possess all
things, know all things, and can do all things. Recollect the verbal
contradiction between Paul and James, and the apparent clashing of some parts of
Paul's writings with the general doctrines and end of Christianity. I might
extend the enumeration indefinitely; and who does not see, that we must limit
all these passages by the known attributes of God, of Jesus Christ, and of human
nature, and by the circumstances under which they were written, so as to give
the language a quite different import from what it would require, had it been
applied to different beings, or used in different connexions.
Enough has been said to show, in what sense we make use
of reason in interpreting Scripture. From a variety of possible interpretations,
we select that which accords with the nature of the subject and the state of the
writer, with the connexion of the passage, with the general strain of Scripture,
with the known character and will of God, and with the obvious and acknowledged
laws of nature. In other words, we believe that God never contradicts, in one
part of scripture, what he teaches in another; and never contradicts, in
revelation, what he teaches in his works and providence. And we therefore
distrust every interpretation, which, after deliberate attention, seems
repugnant to any established truth. We reason about the Bible precisely as
civilians do about the constitution under which we live; who, you know, are
accustomed to limit one provision of that venerable instrument by others, and to
fix the precise import of its parts, by inquiring into its general spirit, into
the intentions of its authors, and into the prevalent feelings, impressions, and
circumstances of the time when it was framed. Without these principles of
interpretation, we frankly acknowledge, that we cannot defend the divine
authority of the Scriptures. Deny us this latitude, and we must abandon this
book to its enemies.
We do not announce these principles as original, or
peculiar to ourselves. All Christians occasionally adopt them, not excepting
those who most vehemently decry them, when they happen to menace some favorite
article of their creed. All Christians are compelled to use them in their
controversies with infidels. All sects employ them in their warfare with one
another. All willingly avail themselves of reason, when it can be pressed into
the service of their own party, and only complain of it, when its weapons wound
themselves. None reason more frequently than those from whom we differ. It is
astonishing what a fabric they rear from a few slight hints about the fall of
our first parents; and how ingeniously they extract, from detached passages,
mysterious doctrines about the divine nature. We do not blame them for reasoning
so abundantly, but for violating the fundamental rules of reasoning, for
sacrificing the plain to the obscure, and the general strain of Scripture to a
scanty number of insulated texts.
We object strongly to the contemptuous manner in which
human reason is often spoken of by our adversaries, because it leads, we
believe, to universal skepticism. If reason be so dreadfully darkened by the
fall, that its most decisive judgments on religion are unworthy of trust, then
Christianity, and even natural theology, must be abandoned; for the existence
and veracity of God, and the divine original of Christianity, are conclusions of
reason, and must stand or fall with it. If revelation be at war with this
faculty, it subverts itself, for the great question of its truth is left by God
to be decided at the bar of reason. It is worthy of remark, how nearly the bigot
and the skeptic approach. Both would annihilate our confidence in our faculties,
and both throw doubt and confusion over every truth. We honor revelation too
highly to make it the antagonist of reason, or to believe that it calls us to
renounce our highest powers.
We indeed grant, that the use of reason in religion is
accompanied with danger. But we ask any honest man to look back on the history
of the church, and say, whether the renunciation of it be not still more
dangerous. Besides, it is a plain fact, that men reason as erroneously on all
subjects, as on religion. Who does not know the wild and groundless theories,
which have been framed in physical and political science? But who ever supposed,
that we must cease to exercise reason on nature and society, because men have
erred for ages in explaining them? We grant, that the passions continually, and
sometimes fatally, disturb the rational faculty in its inquiries into
revelation. The ambitious contrive to find doctrines in the Bible, which favor
their love of dominion. The timid and dejected discover there a gloomy system,
and the mystical and fanatical, a visionary theology. The vicious can find
examples or assertions on which to build the hope of a late repentance, or of
acceptance on easy terms. The falsely refined contrive to light on doctrines
which have not been soiled by vulgar handling. But the passions do not distract
the reason in religious, any more than in other inquiries, which excite strong
and general interest; and this faculty, of consequence, is not to be renounced
in religion, unless we are prepared to discard it universally. The true
inference from the almost endless errors, which have darkened theology, is, not
that we are to neglect and disparage our powers, but to exert them more
patiently, circumspectly, uprightly. The worst errors, after all, having sprung
up in that church, which proscribes reason, and demands from its members
implicit faith. The most pernicious doctrines have been the growth of the
darkest times, when the general credulity encouraged bad men and enthusiasts to
broach their dreams and inventions, and to stifle the faint remonstrances of
reasons, by the menaces of everlasting perdition. Say what we may, God has given
us a rational nature, and will call us to account for it. We may let it sleep,
but we do so at our peril. Revelation is addressed to us as rational beings. We
may wish, in our to sloth, that God had given us a system, demand of comparing,
limiting, and inferring. But such a system would be at variance with the whole
character of our present existence; and it is the part of wisdom to take
revelation as it is given to us, and to interpret it by the help of the
faculties, which it everywhere supposes, and on which founded.
To the views now given, an objection is commonly urged
from the character of God. We are told, that God being infinitely wiser than
men, his discoveries will surpass human reason. In a revelation from such a
teacher, we ought to expect propositions, which we cannot reconcile with one
another, and which may seem to contradict established truths ; and it becomes us
not to question or explain them away, but to believe, and adore, and to submit
our weak and carnal reason to the Divine Word. To this objection, we have two
short answers. We say, first, that it is impossible that a teacher of infinite
wisdom should expose those, whom he would teach, to infinite error. But if once
we admit, that propositions, which in their literal sense appear plainly
repugnant to one another, or to any known truth, are still to be literally
understood and received, what possible limit can we set to the belief of
contradictions? What shelter have we from the wildest fanaticism, which can
always quote passages, that, in their literal and obvious sense, give support to
its extravagances? How can the Protestant escape from transubstantiation, a
doctrine most clearly taught us, if the submission of reason, now contended for,
be a duty? How can we even hold fast the truth of revelation, for if one
apparent contradiction may be true, so may another, and the proposition, that
Christianity is false, though involving inconsistency, may still be a verity?
We answer again, that, if God be infinitely wise, he
cannot sport with the understandings of his creatures. A wise teacher discovers
his wisdom in adapting himself to the capacities of his pupils, not in
perplexing them with what is unintelligible, not in distressing them with
apparent contradictions, not in filling them with a skeptical distrust of their
own powers. An infinitely wise teacher, who knows the precise extent of our
minds, and the best method of enlightening them, will surpass all other
instructors in bringing down truth to our apprehension, and in showing its
loveliness and harmony. We ought, indeed, to expect occasional obscurity in such
a book as the Bible, which was written for past and future ages, as well as for
the present. But God's wisdom is a pledge, that whatever is necessary for US,
and necessary for salvation, is revealed too plainly to be mistaken, and too
consistently to be questioned, by a sound and upright mind. It is not the mark
of wisdom, to use an unintelligible phraseology, to communicate what is above
our capacities, to confuse and unsettle the intellect by appearances of
contradiction. We honor our Heavenly Teacher too much to ascribe to him such a
revelation. A revelation is a gift of light. It cannot thicken our darkness, and
multiply our perplexities.
II. Having thus stated the principles according to which
we interpret Scripture, I now proceed to the second great head of this
discourse, which is, to state some of the views which we derive from that sacred
book, particularly those which distinguish us from other Christians.
1. In the first place, we believe in the doctrine of
God's UNITY, or that there is one God, and one only. To this truth we give
infinite importance, and we feel ourselves bound to take heed, lest any man
spoil us of it by vain philosophy. The proposition, that there is one God, seems
to us exceedingly plain. We understand by it, that there is one being, one mind,
one person, one intelligent agent, and one only, to whom underived and infinite
perfection and dominion belong. We conceive, that these words could have
conveyed no other meaning to the simple and uncultivated people who were set
apart to be the depositaries of this great truth, and who were utterly incapable
of understanding those hair- breadth distinctions between being and person,
which the sagacity of later ages has discovered. We find no intimation, that
this language was to be taken in an unusual sense, or that God's unity was a
quite different thing from the oneness of other intelligent beings.
We object to the doctrine of the Trinity, that, whilst
acknowledging in words, it subverts in effect, the unity of God. According to
this doctrine, there are three infinite and equal persons, possessing supreme
divinity, called the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Each of these persons, as
described by theologians, has his own particular consciousness, will, and
perceptions. They love each other, converse with each other, and delight in each
other's society. They perform different parts in man's redemption, each having
his appropriate office, and neither doing the work of the other. The Son is
mediator and not the Father. The Father sends the Son, and is not himself sent;
nor is he conscious, like the Son, of taking flesh. Here, then, we have three
intelligent agents, possessed of different consciousness, different wills, and
different perceptions, performing different acts, and sustaining different
relations; and if these things do not imply and constitute three minds or
beings, we are utterly at a loss to know how three minds or beings are to be
formed. It is difference of properties, and acts, and consciousness, which leads
us to the belief of different intelligent beings, and, if this mark fails us,
our whole knowledge fall; we have no proof, that all the agents and persons in
the universe are not one and the same mind. When we attempt to conceive of three
Gods, we can do nothing more than represent to ourselves three agents,
distinguished from each other by similar marks and peculiarities to those which
separate the persons of the Trinity; and when common Christians hear these
persons spoken of as conversing with each other, loving each other, and
performing different acts, how can they help regarding them as different beings,
different minds?
We do, then, with all earnestness, though without
reproaching our brethren, protest against the irrational and unscriptural
doctrine of the Trinity. "To us," as to the Apostle and the primitive
Christians, "there is one God, even the Father." With Jesus, we worship the
Father, as the only living and true God. We are astonished, that any man can
read the New Testament, and avoid the conviction, that the Father alone is God.
We hear our Saviour continually appropriating this character to the Father. We
find the Father continually distinguished from Jesus by this title. "God sent
his Son." "God anointed Jesus." Now, how singular and inexplicable is this
phraseology, which fills the New Testament, if this title belong equally to
Jesus, and if a principal object of this book is to reveal him as God, as
partaking equally with the Father in supreme divinity! We challenge our
opponents to adduce one passage in the New Testament, where the word God means
three persons, where it is not limited to one person, and where, unless turned
from its usual sense by the connexion, it does not mean the Father. Can stronger
proof be given, that the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead is not a
fundamental doctrine of Christianity?
This doctrine, were it true, must, from its difficulty,
singularity, and importance, have been laid down with great clearness, guarded
with great care, and stated with all possible precision. But where does this
statement appear? From the many passages which treat of God, we ask for one, one
only, in which we are told, that he is a threefold being, or that he is three
persons, or that he is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. On the contrary, in the New
Testament, where, at least, we might expect many express assertions of this
nature, God is declared to be one, without the least attempt to prevent the
acceptation of the words in their common sense; and he is always spoken of and
addressed in the singular number, that is, in language which was universally
understood to intend a single person, and to which no other idea could have been
attached, without an express admonition. So entirely do the Scriptures abstain
from stating the Trinity, that when our opponents would insert it into their
creeds and doxologies, they are compelled to leave the Bible, and to invent
forms of words altogether unsanctioned by Scriptural phraseology. That a
doctrine so strange, so liable to misapprehension, so fundamental as this is
said to be, and requiring such careful exposition, should be left so undefined
and unprotected, to be made out by inference, and to be hunted through distant
and detached parts of Scripture, this is a difficulty, which, we think, no
ingenuity can explain.
We have another difficulty. Christianity, it must be
remembered, was planted and grew up amidst sharp-sighted enemies, who overlooked
no objectionable part of the system, and who must have fastened with great
earnestness on a doctrine involving such apparent contradictions as the Trinity.
We cannot conceive an opinion, against which the Jews, who prided themselves on
an adherence to God's unity, would have raised an equal clamor. Now, how happens
it, that in the apostolic writings, which relate so much to objections against
Christianity, and to the controversies which grew out of this religion, not one
word is said, implying that objections were brought against the Gospel from the
doctrine of the Trinity, not one word is uttered in its defence and explanation,
not a word to rescue it from reproach and mistake? This argument has almost the
force of demonstration. We are persuaded, that had three divine persons been
announced by the first preachers of Christianity, all equal, and all infinite,
one of whom was the very Jesus who had lately died on a cross, this peculiarity
of Christianity would have almost absorbed every other, and the great labor of
the Apostles would have been to repel the continual assaults, which it would
have awakened. But the fact is, that not a whisper of objection to Christianity,
on that account, reaches our ears from the apostolic age. In the Epistles we see
not a trace of controversy called forth by the Trinity.
We have further objections to this doctrine, drawn from
its practical influence. We regard it as unfavorable to devotion, by dividing
and distracting the mind in its communion with God. It is a great excellence of
the doctrine of God's unity, that it offers to us ONE OBJECT of supreme homage,
adoration, and love, One Infinite Father, one Being of beings, one original and
fountain, to whom we may refer all good, in whom all our powers and affections
may be concentrated, and whose lovely and venerable nature may pervade all our
thoughts. True piety, when directed to an undivided Deity, has a chasteness, a
singleness, most favorable to religious awe and love. Now, the Trinity sets
before us three distinct objects of supreme adoration; three infinite persons,
having equal claims on our hearts; three divine agents, performing different
offices, and to be acknowledged and worshipped in different relations. And is it
possible, we ask, that the weak and limited mind of man can attach itself to
these with the same power and joy, as to One Infinite Father, the only First
Cause, in whom all the blessings of nature and redemption meet as their centre
and source? Must not devotion be distracted by the equal and rival claims of
three equal persons, and must not the worship of the conscientious, consistent
Christian, be disturbed by an apprehension, lest he withhold from one or another
of these, his due proportion of homage?
We also think, that the doctrine of the Trinity injures
devotion, not only by joining to the Father other objects of worship, but by
taking from the Father the supreme affection, which is his due, and transferring
it to the Son. This is a most important view. That Jesus Christ, if exalted into
the infinite Divinity, should be more interesting than the Father, is precisely
what might be expected from history, and from the principles of human nature.
Men want an object of worship like themselves, and the great secret of idolatry
lies in this propensity. A God, clothed in our form, and feeling our wants and
sorrows, speaks to our weak nature more strongly, than a Father in heaven, a
pure spirit, invisible and unapproachable, save by the reflecting and purified
mind. -- We think, too, that the peculiar offices ascribed to Jesus by the
popular theology, make him the most attractive person in the Godhead. The Father
is the depositary of the justice, the vindicator of the rights, the avenger of
the laws of the Divinity. On the other hand, the Son, the brightness of the
divine mercy, stands between the incensed Deity and guilty humanity, exposes his
meek head to the storms, and his compassionate breast to the sword of the divine
justice, bears our whole load of punishment, and purchases with his blood every
blessing which descends from heaven. Need we state the effect of these
representations, especially on common minds, for whom Christianity was chiefly
designed, and whom it seeks to bring to the Father as the loveliest being? We do
believe, that the worship of a bleeding, suffering God, tends strongly to absorb
the mind and to draw it from other objects, just as the human tenderness of the
Virgin Mary has given her so conspicuous a place in the devotions of the Church
of Rome. We believe, too, that this worship, though attractive, is not most
fitted to spiritualize the mind, that it awakens human transport, rather than
that deep veneration of the moral perfections of God, which is the essence of
piety.
2. Having thus given our views of the unity of God, I
proceed in the second place to observe, that we believe in the unity of Jesus
Christ. We believe that Jesus is one mind, one soul, one being, as truly one as
we are, and equally distinct from the one God. We complain of the doctrine of
the Trinity, that, not satisfied with making God three beings, it makes; Jesus
Christ two beings, and thus introduces infinite confusion into our conceptions
of his character. This corruption of Christianity, alike repugnant to common
sense and to the general strain of Scripture, is a remarkable proof of the power
of a false philosophy in disfiguring the simple truth of Jesus.
According to this doctrine, Jesus Christ, instead of
being one mind, one conscious intelligent principle, whom we can understand,
consists of two souls, two minds; the one divine, the other human; the one weak,
the other almighty; the one ignorant, the other omniscient. Now we maintain,
that this is to make Christ two beings. To denominate him one person, one being,
and yet to suppose him made up of two minds, infinitely different from each
other, is to abuse and confound language, and to throw darkness over all our
conceptions of intelligent natures. According to the common doctrine, each of
these two minds in Christ has its own consciousness, its own will, its own
perceptions. They have, in fact, no common properties. The divine mind feels
none of the wants and sorrows of the human, and the human is infinitely removed
from the perfection and happiness of the divine. Can you conceive of two beings
in the universe more distinct? We have always thought that one person was
constituted and distinguished by one consciousness. The doctrine, that one and
the same person should have two consciousness, two wills, two souls, infinitely
different from each other, this we think an enormous tax on human credulity.
We say, that if a doctrine, so strange, so difficult, so
remote from all the previous conceptions of men, be indeed a part and an
essential part of revelation, it must be taught with great distinctness, and we
ask our brethren to point to some plain, direct passage, where Christ is said to
be composed of two minds infinitely different, yet constituting one person. We
find none. Other Christians, indeed, tell us, that this doctrine is necessary to
the harmony of the Scriptures, that some texts ascribe to Jesus Christ human,
and others divine properties, and that to reconcile these, we must suppose two
minds, to which these properties may be referred. In other words, for the
purpose of reconciling certain difficult passages, which a just criticism can in
a great degree, if not wholly, explain, we must invent an hypothesis vastly more
difficult, and involving gross absurdity. We are to find our way out of a
labyrinth, by a clue which conducts us into mazes infinitely more inextricable.
Surely, if Jesus Christ felt that he consisted of two
minds, and that this was a leading feature of his religion, his phraseology
respecting himself would have been colored by this peculiarity. The universal
language of men is framed upon the idea, that one person is one person, is one
mind, and one soul; and when the multitude heard this language from the lips of
Jesus, they must have taken it in its usual sense, and must have referred to a
single soul all which he spoke, unless expressly instructed to interpret it
differently. But where do we find this instruction? Where do you meet, in the
New Testament, the phraseology which abounds in Trinitarian books, and which
necessarily grows from the doctrine of two natures in Jesus? Where does this
divine teacher say, "This I speak as God, and this as man; this is true only of
my human mind, this only of my divine"? Where do we find in the Epistles a trace
of this strange phraseology? Nowhere. It was not needed in that day. It was
demanded by the errors of a later age.
We believe, then, that Christ is one mind, one being,
and, I add, a being distinct from the one God. That Christ is not the one God,
not the same being with the Father, is a necessary inference from our former
head, in which we saw that the doctrine of three persons in God is a fiction.
But on so important a subject, I would add a few remarks. We wish, that those
from whom we differ, would weigh one striking fact. Jesus, in his preaching,
continually spoke of God. The word was always in his mouth. We ask, does he, by
this word, ever mean himself? We say, never. On the contrary, he most plainly
distinguishes between God and himself, and so do his disciples. How this is to
be reconciled with the idea, that the manifestation of Christ, as God, was a
primary object of Christianity, our adversaries must determine.
If we examine the passages in which Jesus is
distinguished from God, we shall see, that they not only speak of him as another
being, but seem to labor to express his inferiority. He is continually spoken of
as the Son of God, sent of God, receiving all his powers from God, working
miracles because God was with him, judging justly because God taught him, having
claims on our belief, because he was anointed and sealed by God, and as able of
himself to do nothing. The New Testament is filled with this language. Now we
ask, what impression this language was fitted and intended to make? Could any,
who heard it, have imagined that Jesus was the very God to whom he was so
industriously declared to be inferior; the very Being by whom he was sent, and
from whom he professed to have received his message and power? Let it here be
remembered, that the human birth, and bodily form, and humble circumstances, and
mortal sufferings of Jesus, must all have prepared men to interpret, in the most
unqualified manner, the language in which his inferiority to God was declared.
Why, then, was this language used so continually, and without limitation, if
Jesus were the Supreme Deity, and if this truth were an essential part of his
religion? I repeat it, the human condition and sufferings of Christ tended
strongly to exclude from men's minds the idea of his proper Godhead; and, of
course, we should expect to find in the New Testament perpetual care and effort
to counteract this tendency, to hold him forth as the same being with his
Father, if this doctrine were, as is pretended, the soul and centre of his
religion. We should expect to find the phraseology of Scripture cast into the
mould of this doctrine, to hear familiarly of God the Son, of our Lord God
Jesus, and to be told, that to us there is one God, even Jesus. But, instead of
this, the inferiority of Christ pervades the New Testament. It is not only
implied in the general phraseology, but repeatedly and decidedly expressed, and
unaccompanied with any admonition to prevent its application to his whole
nature. Could it, then, have been the great design of the sacred writers to
exhibit Jesus as the Supreme God?
I am aware that these remarks will be met by two or
three texts, in which Christ is called God, and by a class of passages, not very
numerous, in which divine properties are said to be ascribed to him. To these we
offer one plain answer. We say, that it is one of the most established and
obvious principles of criticism, that language is to be explained according to
the known properties of the subject to which it is applied. Every man knows,
that the same words convey very different ideas, when used in relation to
different beings. Thus, Solomon BUILT the temple in a different manner from the
architect whom he employed; and God REPENTS differently from man. Now we
maintain, that the known properties and circumstances of Christ, his birth,
sufferings, and death, his constant habit of speaking of God as a distinct being
from himself, his praying to God, his ascribing to God all his power and
offices, these acknowledged properties of Christ, we say, oblige us to interpret
the comparatively few passages which are thought to make him the Supreme God, in
a manner consistent with his distinct and inferior nature. It is our duty to
explain such texts by the rule which we apply to other texts, in which human
beings are called gods, and are said to be partakers of the divine nature, to
know and possess all things, and to be filled with all God's fulness. These
latter passages we do not hesitate to modify, and restrain, and turn from the
most obvious sense, because this sense is opposed to the known properties of the
beings to whom they relate; and we maintain, that we adhere to the same
principle, and use no greater latitude, in explaining, as we do, the passages
which are thought to support the Godhead of Christ.
Trinitarians profess to derive some important advantages
from their mode of viewing Christ. It furnishes them,they tell us, with an
infinite atonement, for it shows them an infinite being suffering for their
sins. The confidence with which this fallacy is repeated astonishes us. When
pressed with the question, whether they really believe, that the infinite and
unchangeable God suffered and died on the cross, they acknowledge that this is
not true, but that Christ's human mind alone sustained the pains of death. How
have we, then, an infinite sufferer? This language seems to us an imposition on
common minds, and very derogatory to God's justice, as if this attribute could
be satisfied by a sophism and a fiction.
We are also told, that Christ is a more interesting
object, that his love and mercy are more felt, when he is viewed as the Supreme
God, who left his glory to take humanity and to suffer for men. That
Trinitarians are strongly moved by this representation, we do not mean to deny;
but we think their emotions altogether founded on a misapprehension of their own
doctrines. They talk of the second person of the Trinity's leaving his glory and
his Father's bosom, to visit and save the world. But this second person, being
the unchangeable and infinite God, was evidently incapable of parting with the
least degree of his perfection and felicity. At the moment of his taking flesh,
he was as intimately present with his Father as before, and equally with his
Father filled heaven, and earth, and immensity. This Trinitarians acknowledge;
and still they profess to be touched and overwhelmed by the amazing humiliation
of this immutable being! But not only does their doctrine, when fully explained,
reduce Christ's humiliation to a fiction, it almost wholly destroys the
impressions with which his cross ought to be viewed. According to their
doctrine, Christ was comparatively no sufferer at all. It is true, his human
mind suffered; but this, they tell us, was an infinitely small part of Jesus,
bearing no more proportion to his whole nature, than a single hair of our heads
to the whole body, or than a drop to the ocean. The divine mind of Christ, that
which was most properly himself, was infinitely happy, at the very moment of the
suffering of his humanity. Whilst hanging on the cross, he was the happiest
being in the universe, as happy as the infinite Father; so that his pains,
compared with his felicity, were nothing. This Trinitarians do, and must,
acknowledge. It follows necessarily from the immutableness of the divine nature,
which they ascribe to Christ; so that their system, justly viewed, robs his
death of interest, weakens our sympathy with his sufferings, and is, of all
others, most unfavorable to a love of Christ, founded on a sense of his
sacrifices for mankind. We esteem our own views to be vastly more affecting. It
is our belief, that Christ's humiliation was real and entire, that the whole
Saviour, and not a part of him, suffered, that his crucifixion was a scene of
deep and unmixed agony. As we stand round his cross, our minds are not
distracted, nor our sensibility weakened, by contemplating him as composed of
incongruous and infinitely differing minds, and as having a balance of infinite
felicity. We recognize in the dying Jesus but one mind. This, we think, renders
his sufferings, and his patience and love in bearing them, incomparably more
impressive and affecting than the system we oppose.
3. Having thus given our belief on two great points,
namely, that there is one God, and that Jesus Christ is a being distinct from,
and inferior to, God, I now proceed to another point, on which we lay still
greater stress. We believe in the MORAL PERFECTION OF GOD. We consider no part
of theology so important as that which treats of God's moral character; and we
value our views of Christianity chiefly as they assert his amiable and venerable
attributes.
It may be said, that, in regard to this subject, all
Christians agree, that all ascribe to the Supreme Being infinite justice,
goodness, and holiness. We reply, that it is very possible to speak of God
magnificently, and to think of him meanly; to apply to his person high-sounding
epithets, and to his government, principles which make him odious. The Heathens
called Jupiter the greatest and the best; but his history was black with cruelty
and lust. We cannot judge of men's real ideas of God by their general language,
for in all ages they have hoped to soothe the Deity by adulation. We must
inquire into their particular views of his purposes, of the principles of his
administration, and of his disposition towards his creatures.
We conceive that Christians have generally leaned
towards a very injurious view of the Supreme Being. They have too often felt, as
if he were raised, by his greatness and sovereignty, above the principles of
morality, above those eternal laws of equity and rectitude, to which all other
beings are subjected. We believe, that in no being is the sense of right so
strong, so omnipotent, as in God. We believe that his almighty power is entirely
submitted to his perceptions of rectitude; and this is the ground of our piety.
It is not because he is our Creator merely, but because he created us for good
and holy purposes; it is not because his will is irresistible, but because his
will is the perfection of virtue, that we pay him allegiance. We cannot bow
before a being, however great and powerful, who governs tyrannically. We respect
nothing but excellence, whether on earth or in heaven. We venerate not the
loftiness of God's throne, but the equity and goodness in which it is
established.
We believe that God is infinitely good, kind,
benevolent, in the proper sense of these words; good in disposition, as well as
in act; good, not to a few, but to all; good to every individual, as well as to
the general system.
We believe, too, that God is just; but we never forget,
that his justice is the justice of a good being, dwelling in the same mind, and
acting in harmony, with perfect benevolence. By this attribute, we understand
God's infinite regard to virtue or moral worth, expressed in a moral government;
that is, in giving excellent and equitable laws, and in conferring such rewards,
and inflicting such punishments, as are best fitted to secure their observance.
God's justice has for its end the highest virtue of the creation, and it
punishes for this end alone, and thus it coincides with benevolence; for virtue
and happiness, though not the same, are inseparably conjoined.
God's justice thus viewed, appears to us to be in
perfect harmony with his mercy. According to the prevalent systems of theology,
these attributes are so discordant and jarring, that to reconcile them is the
hardest task, and the most wonderful achievement, of infinite wisdom. To us they
seem to be intimate friends, always at peace, breathing the same spirit, and
seeking the same end. By God's mercy, we understand not a blind instinctive
compassion, which forgives without reflection, and without regard to the
interests of virtue. This, we acknowledge, would be incompatible with justice,
and also with enlightened benevolence. God's mercy, as we understand it, desires
strongly the happiness of the guilty, but only through their penitence. It has a
regard to character as truly as his justice. It defers punishment, and suffers
long, that the sinner may return to his duty, but leaves the impenitent and
unyielding, to the fearful retribution threatened in God's Word.
To give our views of God in one word, we believe in his
Parental character. We ascribe to him, not only the name, but the dispositions
and principles of a father. We believe that he has a father's concern for his
creatures, a father's desire for their improvement, a father's equity in
proportioning his commands to their powers, a father's joy in their progress, a
father's readiness to receive the penitent, and a father's justice for the
incorrigible. We look upon this world as a place of education, in which he is
training men by prosperity and adversity, by aids and obstructions, by conflicts
of reason and passion, by motives to duty and temptations to sin, by a various
discipline suited to free and moral beings, for union with himself, and for a
sublime and ever-growing virtue in heaven.
Now, we object to the systems of religion, which prevail
among us, that they are adverse, in a greater or less degree, to these
purifying, comforting, and honorable views of God; that they take from us our
Father in heaven, and substitute for him a being, whom we cannot love if we
would, and whom we ought not to love if we could. We object, particularly on
this ground, to that system, which arrogates to itself the name of Orthodoxy,
and which is now industriously propagated through our country. This system
indeed takes various shapes, but in all it casts dishonor on the Creator.
According to its old and genuine form, it teaches, that God brings us into life
wholly depraved, so that under the innocent features of our childhood is hidden
a nature averse to all good and propense to all evil, a nature which exposes us
to God's displeasure and wrath, even before we have acquired power to understand
our duties, or to reflect upon our actions. According to a more modern
exposition, it teaches, that we came from the hands of our Maker with such a
constitution, and are placed under such influences and circumstances, as to
render certain and infallible the total depravity of every human being, from the
first moment of his moral agency; and it also teaches, that the offence of the
child, who brings into life this ceaseless tendency to unmingled crime, exposes
him to the sentence of everlasting damnation. Now, according to the plainest
principles of morality, we maintain, that a natural constitution of the mind,
unfailingly disposing it to evil and to evil alone, would absolve it from guilt;
that to give existence under this condition would argue unspeakable cruelty; and
that to punish the sin of this unhappily constituted child with endless ruin,
would be a wrong unparalleled by the most merciless despotism.
This system also teaches, that God selects from this
corrupt mass a number to be saved, and plucks them, by a special influence, from
the common ruin; that the rest of mankind, though left without that special
grace which their conversion requires, are commanded to repent, under penalty of
aggravated woe; and that forgiveness is promised them, on terms which their very
constitution infallibly disposes them to reject, and in rejecting which they
awfully enhance the punishments of hell. These proffers of forgiveness and
exhortations of amendment, to beings born under a blighting curse, fill our
minds with a horror which we want words to express.
That this religious system does not produce all the
effects on character, which might be anticipated, we most joyfully admit. It is
often, very often, counteracted by nature, conscience, common sense, by the
general strain of Scripture, by the mild example and precepts of Christ, and by
the many positive declarations of God's universal kindness and perfect equity.
But still we think that we see its unhappy influence. It tends to discourage the
timid, to give excuses to the bad, to feed the vanity of the fanatical, and to
offer shelter to the bad feelings of the malignant. By shocking, as it does, the
fundamental principles of morality, and by exhibiting a severe and partial
Deity, it tends strongly to pervert the moral faculty, to form a gloomy,
forbidding, and servile religion, and to lead men to substitute censoriousness,
bitterness, and persecution, for a tender and impartial charity. We think, too,
that this system, which begins with degrading human nature, may be expected to
end in pride; for pride grows out of a consciousness of high distinctions,
however obtained, and no distinction is so great as that which is made between
the elected and abandoned of God.
The false and dishonorable views of God, which have now
been stated, we feel ourselves bound to resist unceasingly. Other errors we can
pass over with comparative indifference. But we ask our opponents to leave to us
a GOD, worthy of our love and trust, in whom our moral sentiments may delight,
in whom our weaknesses and sorrows may find refuge. We cling to the Divine
perfections. We meet them everywhere in creation, we read them in the
Scriptures, we see a lovely image of them in Jesus Christ; and gratitude, love,
and veneration call on us to assert them. Reproached, as we often are, by men,
it is our consolation and happiness, that one of our chief offences is the zeal
with which we vindicate the dishonored goodness and rectitude of God.
4. Having thus spoken of the unity of God; of the unity
of Jesus, and his inferiority to God; and of the perfections of the Divine
character; I now proceed to give our views of the mediation of Christ, and of
the purposes of his mission. With regard to the great object which Jesus came to
accomplish, there seems to be no possibility of mistake. We believe, that he was
sent by the Father to effect a moral, or spiritual deliverance of mankind; that
is, to rescue men from sin and its consequences, and to bring them to a state of
everlasting purity and happiness. We believe, too, that he accomplishes this
sublime purpose by a variety of methods; by his instructions respecting God's
unity, parental character, and moral government, which are admirably fitted to
reclaim the world from idolatry and impiety, to the knowledge, love, and
obedience of the Creator; by his promises of pardon to the penitent, and of
divine assistance to those who labor for progress in moral excellence; by the
light which he has thrown on the path of duty; by his own spotless example, in
which the loveliness and sublimity of virtue shine forth to warm and quicken, as
well as guide us to perfection; by his threatenings against incorrigible guilt;
by his glorious discoveries of immortality; by his sufferings and death; by that
signal event, the resurrection, which powerfully bore witness to his divine
mission, and brought down to men's senses a future life; by his continual
intercession, which obtains for us spiritual aid and blessings; and by the power
with which he is invested of raising the dead, judging the world, and conferring
the everlasting rewards promised to the faithful.
We have no desire to conceal the fact, that a difference
of opinion exists among us, in regard to an interesting part of Christ's
mediation; I mean, in regard to the precise influence of his death on our
forgiveness. Many suppose, that this event contributes to our pardon, as it was
a principal means of confirming his religion, and of giving it a power over the
mind; in other words, that it procures forgiveness by leading to that repentance
and virtue, which is the great and only condition on which forgiveness is
bestowed. Many of us are dissatisfied with this explanation, and think that the
Scriptures ascribe the remission of sins to Christ's death, with an emphasis so
peculiar, that we ought to consider this event as having a special influence in
removing punishment, though the Scriptures may not reveal the way in which it
contributes to this end.
Whilst, however, we differ in explaining the connexion
between Christ's death and human forgiveness, a connexion which we all
gratefully acknowledge, we agree in rejecting many sentiments which prevail in
regard to his mediation. The idea, which is conveyed to common minds by the
popular system, that Christ's death has an influence in making God placable, or
merciful, in awakening his kindness towards men, we reject with strong
disapprobation. We are happy to find, that this very dishonorable notion is
disowned by intelligent Christians of that class from which we differ. We
recollect, however, that, not long ago, it was common to hear of Christ, as
having died to appease God's wrath, and to pay the debt of sinners to his
inflexible justice; and we have a strong persuasion, that the language of
popular religious books, and the common mode of stating the doctrine of Christ's
mediation, still communicate very degrading views of God's character. They give
to multitudes the impression, that the death of Jesus produces a change in the
mind of God towards man, and that in this its efficacy chiefly consists. No
error seems to us more pernicious. We can endure no shade over the pure goodness
of God. We earnestly maintain, that Jesus, instead of calling forth, in any way
or degree, the mercy of the Father, was sent by that mercy, to be our Saviour;
that he is nothing to the human race, but what he is by God's appointment; that
he communicates nothing but what God empowers him to bestow; that our Father in
heaven is originally, essentially, and eternally placable, and disposed to
forgive; and that his unborrowed, underived, and unchangeable love is the only
fountain of what flows to us through his Son. We conceive, that Jesus is
dishonored, not glorified, by ascribing to him an influence, which clouds the
splendor of Divine benevolence.
We farther agree in rejecting, as unscriptural and
absurd, the explanation given by the popular system, of the manner in which
Christ's death procures forgiveness for men. This system used to teach as its
fundamental principle, that man, having sinned against an infinite Being, has
contracted infinite guilt, and is consequently exposed to an infinite penalty.
We believe, however, that this reasoning, if reasoning it may be called, which
overlooks the obvious maxim, that the guilt of a being must be proportioned to
his nature and powers, has fallen into disuse. Still the system teaches, that
sin, of whatever degree, exposes to endless punishment, and that the whole human
race, being infallibly involved by their nature in sin, owe this awful penalty
to the justice of their Creator. It teaches, that this penalty cannot be
remitted, in consistency with the honor of the divine law, unless a substitute
be found to endure it or to suffer an equivalent. It also teaches, that, from
the nature of the case, no substitute is adequate to this work, save the
infinite God himself; and accordingly, God, in his second person, took on him
human nature, that he might pay to his own justice the debt of punishment
incurred by men, and might thus reconcile forgiveness with the claims and
threatenings of his law. Such is the prevalent system. Now, to us, this doctrine
seems to carry on its front strong marks of absurdity; and we maintain that
Christianity ought not to be encumbered with it, unless it be laid down in the
New Testament fully and expressly. We ask our adversaries, then, to point to
some plain passages where it is taught. We ask for one text, in which we are
told, that God took human nature that he might make an infinite satisfaction to
his own justice; for one text, which tells us, that human guilt requires an
infinite substitute; that Christ's sufferings owe their efficacy to their being
borne by an infinite being; or that his divine nature gives infinite value to
the sufferings of the human. Not ONE WORD of this description can we find in the
Scriptures; not a text, which even hints at these strange doctrines. They are
altogether, we believe, the fictions of theologians. Christianity is in no
degree responsible for them. We are astonished at their prevalence. What can be
plainer, than that God cannot, in any sense, be a sufferer, or bear a penalty in
the room of his creatures? How dishonorable to him is the supposition, that his
justice is now so severe, as to exact infinite punishment for the sins of frail
and feeble men, and now so easy and yielding, as to accept the limited pains of
Christ's human soul, as a full equivalent for the endless woes due from the
world? How plain is it also, according to this doctrine, that God, instead of
being plenteous in forgiveness, never forgives; for it seems absurd to speak of
men as forgiven, when their whole punishment, or an equivalent to it, is borne
by a substitute? A scheme more fitted to obscure the brightness of Christianity
and the mercy of God, or less suited to give comfort to a guilty and troubled
mind, could not, we think, be easily framed.
We believe, too, that this system is unfavorable to the
character. It naturally leads men to think, that Christ came to change God's
mind rather than their own; that the highest object of his mission was to avert
punishment, rather than to communicate holiness; and that a large part of
religion consists in disparaging good works and human virtue, for the purpose of
magnifying the value of Christ's vicarious sufferings. In this way, a sense of
the infinite importance and indispensable necessity of personal improvement is
weakened, and high-sounding praises of Christ's cross seem often to be
substituted for obedience to his precepts. For ourselves, we have not so learned
Jesus. Whilst we gratefully acknowledge, that he came to rescue us from
punishment, we believe, that he was sent on a still nobler errand, namely, to
deliver us from sin itself, and to form us to a sublime and heavenly virtue. We
regard him as a Saviour, chiefly as he is the light, physician, and guide of the
dark, diseased, and wandering mind. No influence in the universe seems to us so
glorious, as that over the character; and no redemption so worthy of
thankfulness, as the restoration of the soul to purity. Without this, pardon,
were it possible, would be of little value. Why pluck the sinner from hell, if a
hell be left to burn in his own breast? Why raise him to heaven, if he remain a
stranger to its sanctity and love? With these impressions, we are accustomed to
value the Gospel chiefly as it abounds in effectual aids, motives, excitements
to a generous and divine virtue. In this virtue, as in a common centre, we see
all its doctrines, precepts, promises meet; and we believe, that faith in this
religion is of no worth, and contributes nothing to salvation, any farther than
as it uses these doctrines, precepts, promises, and the whole life, character,
sufferings, and triumphs of Jesus, as the means of purifying the mind, of
changing it into the likeness of his celestial excellence.
5. Having thus stated our views of the highest object of
Christ's mission, that it is the recovery of men to virtue, or holiness, I shall
now, in the last place, give our views of the nature of Christian virtue, or
true holiness. We believe that all virtue has its foundation in the moral nature
of man, that is, in conscience, or his sense of duty, and in the power of
forming his temper and life according to conscience. We believe that these moral
faculties are the grounds of responsibility, and the highest distinctions of
human nature, and that no act is praiseworthy, any farther than it springs from
their exertion. We believe, that no dispositions infused into us without our own
moral activity, are of the nature of virtue, and therefore, we reject the
doctrine of irresistible divine influence on the human mind, moulding it into
goodness, as marble is hewn into a statue. Such goodness, if this word may be
used, would not be the object of moral approbation, any more than the
instinctive affections of inferior animals, or the constitutional amiableness of
human beings.
By these remarks, we do not mean to deny the importance
of God's aid or Spirit; but by his Spirit, we mean a moral, illuminating, and
persuasive influence, not physical, not compulsory, not involving a necessity of
virtue. We object, strongly, to the idea of many Christians respecting man's
impotence and God's irresistible agency on the heart, believing that they
subvert our responsibility and the laws of our moral nature, that they make men
machines, that they cast on God the blame of all evil deeds, that they
discourage good minds, and inflate the fanatical with wild conceits of immediate
and sensible inspiration.
Among the virtues, we give the first place to the love
of God. We believe, that this principle is the true end and happiness of our
being, that we were made for union with our Creator, that his infinite
perfection is the only sufficient object and true resting-place for the
insatiable desires and unlimited capacities of the human mind, and that, without
him, our noblest sentiments, admiration, veneration, hope, and love, would
wither and decay. We believe, too, that the love of God is not only essential to
happiness, but to the strength and perfection of all the virtues; that
conscience, without the sanction of God's authority and retributive justice,
would be a weak director; that benevolence, unless nourished by communion with
his goodness, and encouraged by his smile, could not thrive amidst the
selfishness and thanklessness of the world; and that self-government, without a
sense of the divine inspection, would hardly extend beyond an outward and
partial purity. God, as he is essentially goodness, holiness, justice, and
virtue, so he is the life, motive, and sustainer of virtue in the human soul.
But, whilst we earnestly inculcate the love of God, we
believe that great care is necessary to distinguish it from counterfeits. We
think that much which is called piety is worthless. Many have fallen into the
error, that there can be no excess in feelings which have God for their object;
and, distrusting as coldness that self-possession, without which virtue and
devotion lose all their dignity, they have abandoned themselves to
extravagances, which have brought contempt on piety. Most certainly, if the love
of God be that which often bears its name, the less we have of it the better. If
religion be the shipwreck of understanding, we cannot keep too far from it. On
this subject, we always speak plainly. We cannot sacrifice our reason to the
reputation of zeal. We owe it to truth and religion to maintain, that
fanaticism, partial insanity, sudden impressions, and ungovernable transports,
are anything rather than piety.
We conceive, that the true love of God is a moral
sentiment, founded on a clear perception, and consisting in a high esteem and
veneration, of his moral perfections. Thus, it perfectly coincides, and is in
fact the same thing, with the love of virtue, rectitude, and goodness. You will
easily judge, then, what we esteem the surest and only decisive signs of piety.
We lay no stress on strong excitements. We esteem him, and him only a pious man,
who practically conforms to God's moral perfections and government; who shows
his delight in God's benevolence, by loving and serving his neighbour; his
delight in God's justice, by being resolutely upright; his sense of God's
purity, by regulating his thoughts, imagination, and desires; and whose
conversation, business, and domestic life are swayed by a regard to God's
presence and authority. In all things else men may deceive themselves.
Disordered nerves may give them strange sights, and sounds, and impressions.
Texts of Scripture may come to them as from Heaven. Their whole souls may be
moved, and their confidence in God's favor be undoubting. But in all this there
is no religion. The question is, Do they love God's commands, in which his
character is fully expressed, and give up to these their habits and passions?
Without this, ecstasy is a mockery. One surrender of desire to God's will, is
worth a thousand transports. We do not judge of the bent of men's minds by their
raptures, any more than we judge of the natural direction of a tree during a
storm. We rather suspect loud profession, for we have observed, that deep
feeling is generally noiseless, and least seeks display.
We would not, by these remarks, be understood as wishing
to exclude from religion warmth, and even transport. We honor, and highly value,
true religious sensibility. We believe, that Christianity is intended to act
powerfully on our whole nature, on the heart as well as the understanding and
the conscience. We conceive of heaven as a state where the love of God will be
exalted into an unbounded fervor and joy; and we desire, in our pilgrimage here,
to drink into the spirit of that better world. But we think, that religious
warmth is only to be valued, when it springs naturally from an improved
character, when it comes unforced, when it is the recompense of obedience, when
it is the warmth of a mind which understands God by being like him, and when,
instead of disordering, it exalts the understanding, invigorates conscience,
gives a pleasure to common duties, and is seen to exist in connexion with
cheerfulness, judiciousness, and a reasonable frame of mind. When we observe a
fervor, called religious, in men whose general character expresses little
refinement and elevation, and whose piety seems at war with reason, we pay it
little respect. We honor religion too much to give its sacred name to a
feverish, forced, fluctuating zeal, which has little power over the life.
Another important branch of virtue, we believe to be
love to Christ. The greatness of the work of Jesus, the spirit with which he
executed it, and the sufferings which he bore for our salvation, we feel to be
strong claims on our gratitude and veneration. We see in nature no beauty to be
compared with the loveliness of his character, nor do we find on earth a
benefactor to whom we owe an equal debt. We read his history with delight, and
learn from it the perfection of our nature. We are particularly touched by his
death, which was endured for our redemption, and by that strength of charity
which triumphed over his pains. His resurrection is the foundation of our hope
of immortality. His intercession gives us boldness to draw nigh to the throne of
grace, and we look up to heaven with new desire, when we think, that, if we
follow him here, we shall there see his benignant countenance, and enjoy his
friendship for ever.
I need not express to you our views on the subject of
the benevolent virtues. We attach such importance to these that we are sometimes
reproached with exalting them above piety. We regard the spirit of love,
charity, meekness, forgiveness, liberality, and beneficence, as the badge and
distinction of Christians, as the brightest image we can bear of God, as the
best proof of piety. On this subject, I need not, and cannot enlarge; but there
is one branch of benevolence which I ought not to pass over in silence, because
we think that we conceive of it more highly and justly than many of our
brethren. I refer to the duty of candor, charitable judgment, especially towards
those who differ in religious opinion. We think, that in nothing have Christians
so widely departed from their religion, as in this particular. We read with
astonishment and horror, the history of the church; and sometimes when we look
back on the fires of persecution, and on the zeal of Christians, in building up
walls of separation, and in giving up one another to perdition, we feel as if we
were reading the records of an infernal, rather than a heavenly kingdom. An
enemy to every religion, if asked to describe a Christian, would, with some show
of reason, depict him as an idolater of his own distinguishing opinions, covered
with badges of party, shutting his eyes on the virtues, and his ears on the
arguments, of his opponents, arrogating all excellence to his own sect and all
saving power to his own creed, sheltering under the name of pious zeal the love
of domination, the conceit of infallibility, and the spirit of intolerance, and
trampling on men's rights under the pretence of saving their souls.
We can hardly conceive of a plainer obligation on beings
of our frail and fallible nature, who are instructed in the duty of candid
judgment, than to abstain from condemning men of apparent conscientiousness and
sincerity, who are chargeable with no crime but that of differing from us in the
interpretation of the Scriptures, and differing, too, on topics of great and
acknowledged obscurity. We are astonished at the hardihood of those, who, with
Christ's warnings sounding in their ears, take on them the responsibility of
making creeds for his church, and cast out professors of virtuous lives for
imagined errors, for the guilt of thinking for themselves. We know that zeal for
truth is the cover for this usurpation of Christ's prerogative; but we think
that zeal for truth, as it is called, is very suspicious, except in men, whose
capacities and advantages, whose patient deliberation, and whose improvements in
humility, mildness, and candor, give them a right to hope that their views are
more just than those of their neighbours. Much of what passes for a zeal for
truth, we look upon with little respect, for it often appears to thrive most
luxuriantly where other virtues shoot up thinly and feebly; and we have no
gratitude for those reformers, who would force upon us a doctrine which has not
sweetened their own tempers, or made them better men than their neighbours.
We are accustomed to think much of the difficulties
attending religious inquiries; difficulties springing from the slow development
of our minds, from the power of early impressions, from the state of society,
from human authority, from the general neglect of the reasoning powers, from the
want of just principles of criticism and of important helps in interpreting
Scripture, and from various other causes. We find, that on no subject have men,
and even good men, ingrafted so many strange conceits, wild theories, and
fictions of fancy, as on religion ; and remembering, as we do, that we ourselves
are sharers of the common frailty, we dare not assume infallibility in the
treatment of our fellow-Christians, or encourage in common Christians, who have
little time for investigation, the habit of denouncing and condemning other
denominations, perhaps more enlightened and virtuous than their own. Charity,
forbearance, a delight in the virtues of different sects, a backwardness to
censure and condemn, these are virtues, which, however poorly practised by us,
we admire and recommend; and we would rather join ourselves to the church in
which they abound, than to any other communion, however elated with the belief
of its own orthodoxy, however strict in guarding its creed, however burning with
zeal against imagined error.
I have thus given the distinguishing views of those
Christians in whose names I have spoken. We have embraced this system, not
hastily or lightly, but after much deliberation; and we hold it fast, not merely
because we believe it to be true, but because we regard it as purifying truth,
as a doctrine according to godliness, as able to "work mightily" and to "bring
forth fruit" in them who believe. That we wish to spread it, we have no desire
to conceal; but we think, that we wish its diffusion, because we regard it as
more friendly to practical piety and pure morals than the opposite doctrines,
because it gives clearer and nobler views of duty, and stronger motives to its
performance, because it recommends religion at once to the understanding and the
heart, because it asserts the lovely and venerable attributes of God, because it
tends to restore the benevolent spirit of Jesus to his divided and afflicted
church, and because it cuts off every hope of God's favor, except that which
springs from practical conformity to the life and precepts of Christ. We see
nothing in our views to give offence, save their purity, and it is their purity,
which makes us seek and hope their extension through the world.
My friend and brother; -- You are this day to take upon
you important duties; to be clothed with an office, which the Son of God did not
disdain; to devote yourself to that religion, which the most hallowed lips have
preached, and the most precious blood sealed. We trust that you will bring to
this work a willing mind, a firm purpose, a martyr's spirit, a readiness to toil
and suffer for the truth, a devotion of your best powers to the interests of
piety and virtue. I have spoken of the doctrines which you will probably preach;
but I do not mean, that you are to give yourself to controversy. You will
remember, that good practice is the end of preaching, and will labor to make
your people holy livers, rather than skilful disputants. Be careful, lest the
desire of defending what you deem truth, and of repelling reproach and
misrepresentation, turn you aside from your great business, which is to fix in
men's minds a living conviction of the obligation, sublimity, and happiness of
Christian virtue. The best way to vindicate your sentiments, is to show, in your
preaching and life, their intimate connexion with Christian morals, with a high
and delicate sense of duty, with candor towards your opposers, with inflexible
integrity, and with an habitual reverence for God. If any light can pierce and
scatter the clouds of prejudice, it is that of a pure example. My brother, may
your life preach more loudly than your lips. Be to this people a pattern of all
good works, and may your instructions derive authority from a well-grounded
belief in your hearers, that you speak from the heart, that you preach from
experience, that the truth which you dispense has wrought powerfully in your own
heart, that God, and Jesus, and heaven, are not merely words on your lips, but
most affecting realities to your mind, and springs of hope and consolation, and
strength, in all your trials. Thus laboring, may you reap abundantly, and have a
testimony of your faithfulness, not only in your own conscience, but in the
esteem, love, virtues, and improvements of your people.
To all who hear me, I would say, with the Apostle, Prove
all things, hold fast that which is good. Do not, brethren, shrink from the duty
of searching God's Word for yourselves, through fear of human censure and
denunciation. Do not think, that you may innocently follow the opinions which
prevail around you, without investigation, on the ground, that Christianity is
now so purified from errors, as to need no laborious research. There is much
reason to believe, that Christianity is at this moment dishonored by gross and
cherished corruptions. If you remember the darkness which hung over the Gospel
for ages; if you consider the impure union, which still subsists in almost every
Christian country, between the church and state, and which enlists men's
selfishness and ambition on the side of established error; if you recollect in
what degree the spirit of intolerance has checked free inquiry, not only before,
but since the Reformation; you will see that Christianity cannot have freed
itself from all the human inventions, which disfigured it under the Papal
tyranny. No. Much stubble is yet to be burned; much rubbish to be removed; many
gaudy decorations, which a false taste has hung around Christianity, must be
swept away; and the earth-born fogs, which have long shrouded it, must be
scattered, before this divine fabric will rise before us in its native and awful
majesty, in its harmonious proportions, in its mild and celestial splendors This
glorious reformation in the church, we hope, under God's blessing, from the
progress of the human intellect, from the moral progress of society, from the
consequent decline of prejudice and bigotry, and, though last not least, from
the subversion of human authority in matters of religion, from the fall of those
hierarchies, and other human institutions, by which the minds of individuals are
oppressed under the weight of numbers, and a Papal dominion is perpetuated in
the Protestant church. Our earnest prayer to God is, that he will overturn, and
overturn, and overturn the strong-holds of spiritual usurpation, until HE shall
come, whose right it is to rule the minds of men; that the conspiracy of ages
against the liberty of Christians may be brought to an end; that the servile
assent, so long yielded to human creeds, may give place to honest and devout
inquiry into the Scriptures; and that Christianity, thus purified from error,
may put forth its almighty energy, and prove itself, by its ennobling influence
on the mind, to be indeed "the power of God unto salvation."
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