Chapter XXVI: Appendix: Critical Notices (5)

48 We take the following from the “Monthly Religious Magazine:”—

“The ‘Country Parson,’ in his late work, the ‘Autumn Holidays,’
contends that the fear of future punishment in another world has
little influence in deterring from crime. He ought to have added,
that the reason may be, that there is so little belief in any
spiritual world whatever, among men of grosser sensuality; and that
future punishment, as it is preached in the old theology, is so
arbitrary as to seem unreal, and is losing its power over all
thinking minds. The following case is cited from the experience of a
Scotch minister. No ministers, let it be remembered, preach the
literal flames of a local hell in tones more awful than they.

“His parishioners were sadly addicted to drinking to excess. Men and
women were given alike to this degrading vice. He did all he could
to repress it, but in vain. For many years he warned the drunkards,
in the most solemn manner, of the doom they might expect in another
world; but, so far as he knew, not a pot of ale or glass of spirits
the less was drunk in the parish in consequence of his
denunciations. Future woe melted into mist in the presence of a
replenished jug or a market-day. A happy thought struck the
clergyman. In the neighboring town, there was a clever medical man,
a vehement teetotaler; him he summoned to his aid. The doctor came,
and delivered a lecture on the _physical_ consequences of
drunkenness, illustrating his lecture with large diagrams, which
gave shocking representations of the stomach, lungs, heart, and
other vital organs as affected by alcohol. These things came home to
the drunkards, who had not cared a rush for final perdition. The
effect produced was tremendous. Almost all the men and women of the
parish took the total abstinence pledge; and since that day
drunkenness has nearly ceased in that parish. Nor was the
improvement evanescent; it has lasted two or three years.”

49 So Erigena (quoted by Strauss), _De Divis Nat._ “Vera ratio docet,
nullum contrarium divinæ bonitati vitæque ac beatitudini posse esse
coeternum; divina siquidem bonitas consumet malitiam, æterna vita
absorbet mortem, beatitudo miseriam.”

50 The name given to them by Augustine (“Civ. Dei,” lib. 21, c. 17):
“Denique hujus sententiæ Patronos S. Augustinus appellat titulo non
incongruo, ‘Doctores Misericordes’ tractatque non inhumaniter.”
Thomas Burnet, “De Statu Mortuum et Resurgentium.” Chap. XI.

51 See Bretschneider, “Dogmatik,” and Strauss, “Christliche
Glaubenslehre.”

52 “Nos et angelos futuros dæmones si egerimus negligenter; et rursum
dæmones, si voluerint capere virtutes, pervenire ad angelicam
dignitatem.” Origen, quoted by Jerome.

53 “Nihil enim omnipotenti impossibile est, nec insanabile aliquid est
factori suo.”

54 “Quod tamen non ad subitum fieri, sed paulatim et per partes
intelligen dum est, infinitis et immensis labentibus sæculis, cum
sensim per singulos emendatio fuerit et correctio prosecuta,
præcurrentibus aliis, aliis insequentibus.” See these quotations in
Strauss, Hase, &c.

55 Matt. 25:46. The Greek word translated in the English as
“everlasting” punishment in the beginning of the verse, and as life
“eternal” at the end, is the same word (ἀιώνιος) in both places, and
should be translated “eternal” in both.

_ 56 Remorse_—from _mordeo_, to gnaw. So St. Thomas (Summa, Pars III. 2,
97): “Vermis non debet esse intelligi corporalis sed spiritualis,
qui est con scientiæ remorsus.”

57 “Pauci res ipsas, sed rerum imagines, tanquam in speculo, intuentur:
at res ipsas, facie ad faciem, ut dicitur, et ablato velo, visuri
sumus tandem si Deo placuerit, partim sub occasu hujusee mundi,
plenius autem in futuro.”—_Thomas Burnet_, De Statu Mortuorum et
Resurgentium Tractatus. Londini. Typis et impensis J. Hooke, in vico
vulgò dicto _Fleet Street_, 1737.—No one has spoken more powerfully
and eloquently than he against everlasting punishment, particularly
in the passage beginning “Nobis difficile est omnem exuere
humanitatem.” p. 309.

58 Is it not remarkable (as showing how little the New Testament has as
yet been really studied) that there should be so many discussions as
to the future doom of _the heathen_, when Jesus himself here
distinctly tells us what it will be. The word ἔθνη is the only word
in the New Testament which is ever translated _heathen_: wherever
the word _heathen_ occurs in our Bible, it is always this. Jesus
teaches that the heathen (inside and outside of Christendom) will be
judged _according to their humanity_, their obedience to the law
written in their hearts; and he shows that this is coincident with
the law of Christianity. So, when the Church of England says (in its
18th article) that “they also are to be had accursed that presume to
say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect he professeth,
so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law and
the light of nature;” it denounces this curse on Christ himself, and
thus proves conclusively that it is not speaking by the Spirit of
God, since “no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus
accursed.” (1 Cor. 12:3) This comes of the habit (happily less
common now than formerly) of throwing about curses at random,
against those who differ from our opinions. Some of them may thus,
accidentally, hit the Master himself. It is, perhaps, of less
consequence that this anathema also touches the apostle Paul, who
declares that the heathen who have not the law are a law to
themselves when they do right, and are absolved by their conscience.
(Rom. 2:14.)

59 Origen, Homil. in Levit. 7:2. “Salvator meus luget etiam nunc
peccata mea; Salvator meus lætari non potest, donec ego in
iniquitate permaneo. Non vult solus in regno Dei bibere vinum
lætitiæ—nos expectat.”

60 Guericke, Christ. Symbolik, § 70.

61 “Ecclesia enim est cœtus hominum ita visibilis et palpabilis ut est
cœtus populi Romani, vel regnum Galliæ, aut respublica Venetorum.”
Bellarmin. Eccles. Milit. c. 2.

62 Moehler, Symbolism, § 36.

63 “Bonos et malos ad ecclesiam pertinere Catholica fides vere et
constante affirmat.” Cat. Rom.

64 The chief passage in proof of this, as is well known, is Matt.
16:18, 19 “Thou art Peter,” &c. But even Augustine, the great light
of the Latin Church, says that “Peter was not the Rock, but Christ
was the Rock.” (Neander, vol. ii. p. 168.) The same power was given
to the other apostles. Matt. 18:18. John 20:23. Rev. 21:14.

65 Le Protestantisme Libéral par le Pasteur Bost. Paris, Baillière,
1865.

66 “Il est de fait que le Catholicisme, qui est essentiellement un
principe d’authorité, ne sait pas dire où reside cette authorité.”

67 “Thirty-nine Articles, art. xix.” So Augs. Conf. art. 7:
“Congregatio sanctorum, in qua evangelium recte docetur, et recte
administrantur sacramenta.” But it may be asked, Who is to decide on
the “_recte_”?

68 In the remarkable work “Ecce Homo”.

69 Tholuck, in his charming work on the Sermon on the Mount, speaks
thus (“_Bergpredigt Christ. von A. Tholuck._”) “Two principal
defects are found in the usual treatment of this doctrine: first,
the different aspects and relations of the kingdom of God are by
many considered as different _meanings_ of the word, and are left
standing side by side, without any attempt to ground their unity in
some fundamental idea. Or, secondly, and still worse, a single
aspect of the term is taken up, and the rest are wholly neglected.
Examples of the first defect are to be found in Zwingle, in his note
to John 3:3. (Here the kingdom of God is considered as divine
doctrine and preaching of the gospel, as in Luke 18; sometimes it is
taken for eternal life, Matt. 25; Luke 14; sometimes for the church
and congregation of the faithful, as Matt. 13:24.) The later
lexicographers, as Schleusner and Bretschneider, have not avoided
these vague statements; and the last of them is particularly
defective in his article on this phrase. Trahl more correctly sums
up all these significations of the word thus: ‘Happiness, present
and future, obtained through Christ.’ But in this definition the
notion of ‘a kingdom’ is omitted. The opposite defect of taking only
one of the meanings of the matter, to the neglect of the rest, is to
be found, for example, in Koppe and Keil, according to whom the
expression relates merely to the future reign of the Messiah one day
to be established.

“Our own explanation of this expression starts from the phrase
‘kingdom of God,’ which explains the others, ‘kingdom of heaven’ and
‘kingdom of Christ.’ We think that the fundamental idea has been
grasped by none more correctly than by Origen among the ancients,
and by Calvin among the reformers. The phase of the idea principally
dwelt upon by the Church Fathers may be seen in their explanation of
the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which Augustine especially
examines profoundly. Most of them understand by it the realm of
glory, the future revelation of Christ. Origen alone, in his book on
Prayer, taken a more exact view of the subject. In like manner
Calvin, in his Commentary on the Harmony. So Luther, in his fine
Sermon on the Kingdom of God. Our own fundamental view we express
thus: ‘A community in which God reigns, not by force, but by being
obeyed freely from love, and which is therefore necessarily united
in itself by mutual love.’ The Saviour came upon the earth to found
such a community, and since it can only be completely established
after he has conquered all his enemies, this kingdom of Christ
belongs in its perfection to the other world.”

70 An eminent and learned gentleman told me of this conversation which
he had with a Roman priest: “When the wine of the Eucharist is
consecrated, it becomes the real blood of Christ—does it not?”
Priest, “It does.” “What, then, do you do with that which remains in
the cup, after communion?” Priest, “We drink it.” “Does not some
adhere to the glass?” Priest, “Yes; but we wash the glass.” “What do
you do with the water?” Priest, “We drink it.” “But must there not
yet remain, on the napkin, with which you wipe the glass, some
portion of the blood of Christ, even though it be an infinitesimal
portion?” Priest, “Yes.” “Then, might it not happen that when the
napkin is washed, this portion of Christ’s blood may go into the
water, and be poured on the ground, and be taken up by the root of a
plant—say a cabbage. Would, then, the flesh of that cabbage contain,
or would it not a portion of the blood of Christ?”

71 See, in the New York “Independent,” June 9, 1866, the account of the
“Recognition of Congregational Churches in Philadelphia,” where the
existence of this principle is admitted and defended by some eminent
Congregational ministers; admitted and deplored by others.

72 Twesten, “Vorlesungen,” &c., vol ii., p. 216. He adds to this
definition its Latin form, in which the words “certain
characteristics” stand “certis characteribus hypostaticis.”

73 Quoted by Schleiermacher, “Glaubenslehre,” § 170.

74 See the full discussions of these terms in Twesten (as above), Hase,
“Christl. Glaubenslehre,” § 56. Strauss, “Christl. Glaubenslehre,”
vol. i. Hase, “Dogmatik,” &c.

75 Dogmatik, § 239.

76 Augustine (de Trinit.), says, “One life in man, but three
faculties—memory, intelligence, will.” But how if this is bad
psychology?

77 Erigena, “The Father in the soul, the Son in the reason, the Spirit
in the sense—this makes the most luminous illustration.”

78 Abelard (quoted by Strauss).

79 Richard St. Victor (quoted by Hase), “There can be no possible
communion of affection between a less number than three persons.” So
Augustine, “Cum aliquid amo, tria sunt—_ego_, et _quod_ amo, et ipse
_amor_.” Such illustrations are hardly satisfactory at the present
day. Poiret says the Father is “_Deus a se_,” the Son is “_Deus ex
se_,” the Holy Spirit “_Deus ad se refluens_.” Angelus Silecius
makes the Trinity a divine kiss. “God kisses himself—the Father
kisses, the Son is kissed, the Spirit is the kiss.”

80 Translated from the Latin in Hagenbach (Compend of the History of
Doctrines, vol. i. p. 289). We agree with Strauss, who says,
“Fürwahr, wer das _Symbolum Quidcunque_ beschworen hatte, der hatte
die Gesetze des menschlichen Denkens abgeschworen.” So the Pastor
Bost (Le Protestantisme Liberal), after giving the Creed, in a
somewhat different form, adds, “ubi insana faciunt, mysterium
appellant.”

81 “Incomprehensible,” Church of England Liturgy.

82 Or “each person by himself.” The word in the Latin is “sigillatim,”
a word not in most of the dictionaries, but in some of them made
equivalent to “singulatim.”

83 Tertullian said, we can call Christ “God” when we speak of him
alone; but if we mention him with the Father, then we must call the
Father “God,” and call Christ only “Lord.” “For a ray of light
shining into a room, we may call the sun shining there; but if we
speak of the sun at the same time, then we must distinguish the ray,
and call it not sun, but sunbeam.”

84 The decrees of the Council of Nice inclined to Sabellianism. The
term ὁμοούσιος (_of the same essence_) was a Sabellian term.
Sabellianism could, in fact, stand most of the tests of modern
Orthodoxy, since it maintains _three persons and one essence_, μίαν
ὑπόστασιν and τρία πρόσωπα; and Schleiermacher, in one of his most
elaborate treatises (Ueber den Gegensatz zwischen der
Sabellianischen und der Athanasianischen Vorstellung von der
Trinitat. Theolog. Zeitschrift. Berlin, 1822), has sought to
rehabilitate Sabellianism. Moses Stuart translated this treatise,
and plainly advocated a similar view. Hase (Kirchengeschichte, § 91)
defines the view of Sabellius as making “Father, Son, and Spirit the
different forms of revelation of the Supreme Unity unfolding itself
in the world history as the Triad.” Perhaps (see Baur) the chief
peculiarity of Sabellius is in making the Triad begin and end with
the process of revelation. The Monad is God in himself: the Triad is
God in the process of self-revelation (Baur, “Christliche Lehre von
der Dreieinigkeit,” and “Lehrbuch der Christlichen
Dogmengeschichte”).

85 “Dictum est tamen tres personæ, non ut illud diceretur, sed ut ne
taceretur.” Aug. de. Trin., quoted by Hase, Dog. § 238.

86 John of Damascus (quoted by Twesten) made his boast of Christianity,
that it united what was true in Polytheism with what was true in
Judaism. “From the Jews,” he says, “we have the oneness of nature,
from the Greeks the distinction in hypostases.”

87 The substance of what follows in this section, appeared in the
“Christian Examiner.”

88 The _nature_ by which the heathen “do the things contained in the
law,” i.e., obey God, which is here (Rom. 2:15) called “the law
written in the heart,” is in Rom. 7:23 called the “law of the mind.”
Olshausen (a sufficiently Orthodox commentator), says, “It is wholly
false to understand ὅταν ποιῆ of a mere ideal _possibility_; the
apostle speaks evidently of a real and actual obedience. Paul infers
that, because there are actually pious heathen, they must have a law
which they obey.” _Ad locum._

89 We have no room to enter into an examination of this question at
this time, and can only give a general statement on this subject
from one of the authorities which happens to be at hand:—

“_All_ the Fathers” (before Augustine, fourth and fifth century)
“differed from Augustine in attributing freedom of will to man in
his present state. Thus Justin: ‘Every created being is so
constituted as to be capable of vice or virtue.’ Cyril of Jerusalem:
‘Know that thou hast a soul possessed of free will; for thou dost
not sin by birth (κατὰ γένεσιν), nor by fortune, but we sin by free
choice.’ _All_ the Latin Fathers also maintained that free will was
not lost after the fall. The Fathers also denied in part, that man
is born infected with Adam’s sin. Thus Athenagoras says in his
Apology, ‘Man is in a good state, not only in respect to his
Creator, but also in respect to his natural generation.’ ”—Wiggers,
_Augustinism and Pelagianism_. Translated by Rev. Ralph Emerson,
Professor in the Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass.

90 “Abi ad Jordonum, et Trinitatem disce,” was on early notion.

91 Dr. Horace Bushnell, a favorite authority with Dr. Huntington, whom
Dr. Huntington quotes largely, and whose views he earnestly
recommends, gives us his testimony to this point, thus (“God in
Christ,” pp. 130, 131):—

“A very large portion of Christian teachers, together with the
general mass of disciples, undoubtedly hold three real living
persons in the interior nature of God; that is, three
consciousnesses, wills, hearts, understandings.”

“_A very large portion of Christian teachers_” hold, then, to a
belief in three Gods; and with them is joined “_the general mass of
the disciples_.” The only Unity held by these teachers is, he goes
on to say, “a social Unity.” Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are, in
their view, socially united only, and preside in that way, as a kind
of celestial Tritheocracy, over the world. This heresy, he says,
“because of its clear opposition to Unitarianism, is counted safe,
and never treated as a heresy.” That is, the Christian Church allows
the belief in _three Gods_, and will not discipline those who hold
that opinion; but, if you believe strictly and only in _one God_,
you cannot be saved!

92 Dr. Bushnell goes on to say (p. 133), “While the Unity is thus
confused and lost in the threeness, perhaps I should admit that the
threeness sometimes appears to be clouded or obscured by the Unity.
Thus it is sometimes protested, that in the word, ‘person’ nothing
is meant beyond a threefold distinction; though it will always be
observed, that nothing is really meant by the protestation; that the
protester goes on to speak and to reason of the three, not as being
only somewhats or distinctions, but as metaphysical and real
persons.... Indeed, it is a somewhat curious fact in theology, that
the class of teachers who protest over the word ‘person,’ declaring
that they mean only a _threefold distinction_, cannot show that
there is really a hair’s breadth of difference between their
doctrine and the doctrine asserted by many of the later Unitarians.”

93 “It has often been asserted _and admitted_,” says Tweaten, one of
the strongest of modern Trinitarians, “that even the principal
notions about which the Church doctrine turns are foreign to the New
Testament; as οὐσία and ὑπόστασις, τρόπος ὑπάρξεως and ἀποκαλύψεως,
τριάς and ὁμοούσια.”(Twesten: Dogmatik, vol. ii. p. 281.)

94 “Who will venture to say that any of the definitions heretofore
given of personality in the Godhead, in Itself considered,—such
definitions as have their basis in the Nicene or Athanasian
Creed,—are intelligible and satisfactory to the mind? At least, I
can truly say, that I have not been able to find them, if they do in
fact exist; nor, so far as I know, has any one been able, by any
commentary on them, to make them clear and satisfactory.” (Prof.
Stuart, Biblical Repository, April, 1835. See Wilson, Trin. Test.,
p. 272.)

95 See the creed in Hagenbach (History of Doct., vol. i. p. 208): “Θεος
ἐκ Θεοῦ, φῶς ἐκ φωτὸς, Θεον ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ.”

96 Thus speaks Dr. Bushnell on this head (“God in Christ,” p. 139):—

“Besides, it is another source of mental confusion, connected with
this view of three metaphysical persons, that, though they are all
declared to be infinite and equal, they really are not so. The
proper deity of Christ is not held in this view. He is begotten,
sent, supported, directed, by the Father, in such a sense as really
annihilates his deity. This has been shown in a truly searching and
convincing manner by Schleiermacher, in his historical essay on the
Trinity; and, indeed, you will see at it at a glance, that this view
of a metaphysical Trinity of persons breaks down in the very point
which is commonly regarded as its excellence—its assertion of the
proper deity of Christ.”