Chapter XII: Appendix (2)

I anticipate the objection that the glories of his deity were concealed, and that this concealment was necessary to his mediatorial work. I answer then, that when he had departed, and when such a secresy was no longer needful, his apostles on some of the most solemn occasions merely asserted his humanity, on occasions, too, when, if he were God as well as man, the whole truth were to be expected. Paul,[153] in announcing him as the great and final judge of the world, calls him no more than man. Nor does his language assume a higher import when he speaks of him as the pattern and pledge of immortality.[154] No other conclusion is to be drawn from the address of Peter to Cornelius; and if a belief of Christ’s deity be necessary to salvation, the centurion might, for anything Peter asserted, have gone direct to perdition.[155] Still more remarkable is it, that in this apostle’s first public address after the departure of his master to the skies, we have nothing more than the same declaration. The occasion and the circumstances not only justified, but demanded the highest announcement that could be made respecting Christ. The disciples had just seen him taken up into heaven, and the awe of the ascension was yet upon their hearts. He who had trod this weary earth in many sorrows was taken from their sight. They who had recently seen his blood streaming warmly on Calvary, had come fresh from the glory of Olivet. He who had been their suffering companion and instructor was now their blessed and triumphant master. Alone in the midst of a gainsaying and persecuting world, with gladness solemnized by reverence, and victory tempered by grief, they had assembled to await the promised Comforter. After that event they were to be separated, and each was to take his own path in the moral wilderness that stretched far and desolately before him. The Spirit of Promise came. The cloven tongues of fire fell upon them: that beautiful emblem of the eloquent spirit of the gospel that was to carry light and heat to the hearts of all generations, and through every language of earth; that beautiful emblem of a Christianity which might exist in many forms, but be at the same time enlightened and enflamed by the soul of a common charity. Multitudes from all nations were collected in the Holy City;—under the influence of recent and solemn events Peter rises to address them. The tragedy of Calvary was yet fresh in the general imagination, the stain of a slave and malefactor’s death was still dark on the forehead of Christianity. This surely was the time to cover the ignominy that lay on the humanity of Jesus by proclaiming the resplendent glory of his godhead. This was especially to be expected from Peter. He had on a preceding occasion spurned the idea of such a shameful death, though coming from Christ’s own lips; now was the time to pour the glory of the God over the humiliation of the man; he too, who in an hour of weakness denied his master, was the one who in the time of his strength and repentance would be most ready to vindicate and assert his highest honour. It is said that the apostles were not thoroughly inspired, and did not fully know Christ before the day of Pentecost. But this was the day of Pentecost. If, besides, it was the speaker’s object—as indeed it must have been—that Christ should be rightly and widely known, now was the opportunity to send forth his name and nature through every kingdom and in every tongue. If, according to the doctrine some time since propounded in Christ Church, the sin of the Jews was dark in proportion to the grade of being in which we place the Saviour, now was the time, while the event was recent, to strike their hearts with terror and compunction. Contrast, then, these natural, these fair and unexaggerated expectations, with the actual speech of Peter, and without a word of comment the contrast is itself the strongest argument. “Ye men of Israel hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know: him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” (Acts ii. 22, 24.) Had you been listeners to this address, I ask your candour, I ask your intellect, could you conceive that the apostle was speaking, not of a glorified man, but of an incarnate Deity? No, certainly.

The testimony of Peter thus clearly given, is more and more confirmed as we look upon the life of Jesus. In every stage of that life we see him human, and though in all moral purity and moral grandeur, yet _simply_ human. We are not ashamed of our belief. No, we glory in it, and we rejoice in it. We glory in it, for it is the proof that the elements of our nature can be moulded into such beauty; and we rejoice in it, for it is the proof that he who left a religion for the immortal heart of man was himself purely and simply of the nature he would sanctify. We see him as the infant cradled in Bethlehem, the nurseling hanging on a mother’s care, and we escape the moral and intellectual confusion of joining the omnipotence of a God with the feebleness of a babe. We see him in maturer years in his social relations and social intercourse casting a holy light around him, and spreading the influence of all that is most blessed in human affections. We destroy not the virtue of the man by absorbing it in the glory of the God. Human, and _only_ human, we see him in goodness, in duty, and in suffering. Even in his most marvellous works of mercy, so harmonious is his power with our common nature, that we feel as if they were merely ordinary acts of kindness. When he compassionated the widow’s anguish and restored her son; when pitying the blind, he opened their eyes to the joy and beauty of light; when to the ears of the deaf he gave an inlet to the music of nature and the voice of friendship; when he cast out the dumb spirit and unclosed sealed lips in hymns of gratitude and praise; when he fed multitudes on the mountain’s brow; when lepers went clean from his presence to their fellows and their homes; when parents clung to their restored children, and friends who had separated in despair met again in hope,—wonderful as are all these events, we connect them with the _man_ Christ Jesus, the real, simple, holy, and perfect man.

The lecturer in Christ Church stated three peculiarities which distinguished the Unitarian from the orthodox belief in Christ’s humanity. The third of these was his pre-existence. The Lecturer defined with admirable accuracy the essentials of humanity, one of which, as would be universally admitted, was _to be born_. I was therefore not prepared to hear the proper humanity of Christ before he was born most zealously defended. I look upon it, however, as a mere oversight, and no doubt it will be corrected in the printed lecture.

The main point is, however, that of Christ’s pre-existence, which independently of mistake in arrangement or expression is a fair topic of argument and discussion. The Lecturer quoted a number of texts from the evangelist John,—from any other of the gospel-writers he could not have taken the shadow of a proof: these he seemed to think invincible evidence. Good scholars, however, and candid critics, aye, and honest Christians, have found such explanations of these expressions as satisfied both their intellects and their conscience. Orthodox commentators are aware that the idiom of the New Testament frequently uses the tense grammatically past to signify events which are actually future. I ask those critics what they have urged, what they usually urge, against Roman Catholic controversialists, who, in proving the doctrine of transubstantiation, quote the text, “This is my body which is broken for you.” What says the Protestant opponent? Oh, it is a mere idiomatic expression, by which an event is represented as complete which is yet to be accomplished. In like manner and with a like interpretation, we hear the orthodox use the phrase, “The lamb _slain_ from the foundation of the world.” They have in this case no scruple to speak of that as actually existing which was merely contemplated in eternal foreknowledge. If it be said that all events are present to the mind of God, so we answer are all persons; and so was Christ. This view of the subject has satisfied many reflective, and whatever our opponents may think, many able and honest minds. But I avail myself of this opportunity to state distinctly and plainly, that though challenged by our opponents in the title of their subject to discuss this point, it is one on which Unitarians have great differences of opinion, but one which would not disturb a moment’s harmony in Unitarian Churches. Personally the Lecturers in the present controversy, on our side, do not believe the pre-existence of Christ; but there are congregations and individuals amongst us, with whom we hold, and wish to hold, kindly, brotherly, and Christian communion, who cling to this doctrine most sacredly and most reverently. We all agree in maintaining the absolute unity of God, and if I may so speak, the CREATURESHIP of Christ. We desire to bind our charity to no dogmas, and we simply say, with the Apostle, “Let every man be persuaded in his own mind.”

On this point, and indeed in this discussion generally, I have observed with great pain a disposition on the part of our opponents to connect the venerable name of Priestley with odium. It is an unworthy office for men of education in the nineteenth century. We take not the authority of Priestley, nor of any other, except Jesus. One is our Master, even _Christ_: and all we are brethren. But in venerating Priestley, yea, and in loving his memory, we are guilty of no Sectarianism, we but agree with the generous, the excellent, the enlightened of the earth: we but agree with Robert Hall, a stern but eloquent Trinitarian, who in allusion to the Birmingham riots, deprecated in glowing language the insults offered to philosophy in “the first of her sons.” Both his critical and his religious opinions are fair subjects for investigation and opposition. But great sacrifices and honourable consistency should render his moral character sacred, if any thing could melt the stony heart of polemical austerity. When we hear, as lately we did hear, that Priestley sought not for truth, but for arguments to sustain a system, we are not only impelled to ask, with Pilate, “What is truth?” but also to inquire, “Who are those who seek it?” One thing we do know, that if he gave himself to a system, it was a devotion to one which had little wherewith to recompense him; and we know also that as far as the good things of this world is concerned, that he might have turned his devotion to a far better purpose. Instead of having his home and his all shattered in the storm of popular turbulence, instead of being left houseless in the land of his nativity, he might have been great amongst the heads of colleges, or first upon the bench of Bishops; instead of being expatriated amidst vulgar execration, he might have spent his life fairing sumptuously every day, clothed in purple and fine linen, with a dignified hypocrisy; instead of burying his later sorrows in a foreign land, and dropping there his last and most bitter tears, and leaving there his venerable dust, and his still more venerable memory, to the shame of England, and to the immortal honour of his most generous and hospitable entertainers, we might now have had proposals for a national monument to him, long lists of subscribers’ names, and loud clamours of exulting praise. One consolation at least was left: his right hand was clean, and had he been dragged to the stake he need never have thrust it in the flame for having been the instrument to give signature to a lie, from a beggarly, a dastardly, and a cowardly fear of death. If he could look from where he lives in heaven, he would have a still nobler consolation, in being aware that, despite of bigots, his name is treasured in venerated recollection with the pious and philosophical of all sects and parties—that to give him due and most beautiful praise[156] was amongst the last earthly acts of a kindred spirit, but of another soil, that fanatics may rant and rage, but the good will love.—That when this, with such controversies in general, sink into the common and oblivious grave to which all polemical divinity is doomed, the good his invention have given to mankind will survive, and the witness he has left of an upright conscience will be an everlasting example.

The conviction of his reason, it is true, was so strong against the pre-existence of Christ, that he would suppose the apostle misunderstood the Saviour’s words, or the amanuensis mistranscribed the apostle’s language. This was urged as a mighty accusation, as a most blasphemous transgression. There are here an opinion and an alternative. The opinion is the belief in Christ’s simple humanity; the alternative is merely to suppose the want of memory in an evangelist, or the want of accuracy in a copyist. Place in contrast to this Coleridge as quoted by our opponents. He has also an opinion and an alternative—his opinion is, that Christ was God, and his alternative is, that if _not God_ he was a _deceiver_. If Dr. Priestley was wrong, he left not only Christ but his apostles morally blameless—if Coleridge mistook, he attributed directly and without compromise the want of even common honesty to the Author of our religion: I leave you to judge between the two cases. I do not wish to disparage erring and departed genius; but when the name of Coleridge is called up in my mind in connection with that of Priestley, it is not in human nature to avoid comparison. The one steeped the best part of his life in opium, the other spent it in honourable toil; the one squandered his brilliant and most beautiful genius in discursive efforts and magical conversations, the other with heroic self denial shut himself up in dry and laborious studies for the physical good, and the moral wants of mankind; the one wrote sweet and wild and polished poesy for their pleasure, the other has left discoveries for their endless improvement. Yet orthodoxy builds for one the shrine of a saint, but like those who in other days dug up the bones of Wickliff to be burned, drags forth the memory of the other from the peaceful and forgiving past, to inflict an execution of which we might have supposed his lifetime had a sufficient endurance. Tranquil in the far-off and quiet grave be the ashes of the Saint and Sage: his soul is beyond the turmoils and battles of this fighting world. When these who are now in strife shall be at last in union, his will not be the spirit to whom that blessed consummation will give least enjoyment.

The preacher in Christ Church made some lengthened observations on the two-fold nature of Jesus. This topic will more properly be included in another lecture. I only mention it here for the purpose of making a passing remark. The preacher’s language implied that among our reasons for rejecting the doctrine is, that it is a mystery. Now we maintain that a mystery is properly no doctrine, for it can be neither affirmed or denied. The lecturer observed that there are mysteries in life and nature. If by such he meant facts which we do not fully comprehend, or ultimate facts beyond which we cannot penetrate, he is right. But of these we assert nothing, of these we deny nothing. Intellectually or spiritually they are in no sense subjects of contemplation. The preacher, if my memory deceives me not, maintained that philosophy has also mysteries. The principles or phenomena of Philosophy are not mysteries—and so far as they are mysteries they are not philosophy. We reject not the doctrine proposed to us on any such ground. We reject it, not because we do not understand the terms in which it is expressed, but because we _do_ understand them, and find them equally repugnant to reason and to Scripture. We reject it because it does equal violence to faith and intellect; we reject it, not only from the want of consistency, but the want of evidence.

The apology for mystery made by the defenders of the incarnation has been as often, as ably, and as successfully used by the advocates of Transubstantiation. Among other questions, we are asked by both parties—it is a favourite illustration—if we know how a grain of wheat germinates and fructifies! Without hesitation we reply—no. And not only do we not understand this _how_, but many others which might seem very much simpler. But where, I ask, is the analogy? A grain of wheat is buried in the earth, and the spirit of Universal Life prepares it for reproduction, and in the harvest it comes forth abundantly multiplied, to make glad the hearts of men. On this point I am equally willing to confess my ignorance and my gratitude. All the facts are not known to me, but such as I do know are perfectly consistent with each other. If I am told that I know not how a grain of wheat germinates, I admit it without hesitation; but I should certainly be startled if I were also told, that besides being a grain of wheat it was also, by a mysterious compound of natures, the Planet Herschel, or the archangel Michael. And yet this does not amount by infinite degrees of self-contradiction to the assertion, that the same being is God and man; that one part of the nature is weary, and hungry, and thirsty, bowed down by every want and grief, while the other is resting in peace and blessedness—that in the same person there is one mind which is ignorant of that which is to come in a day, and another in which reside the secrets of the universe, of time, and of eternity.

The preacher, in speaking to Unitarians specially, commenced his address to us in a tone of exhortation, and closed it in that of rebuke. And what was the ground and subject of rebuke? Why, the smallness of our numbers. He exhorted us on our want of humility, of modesty, in opposing the whole Christian world. I wondered, if I were in a place of Protestant worship, or if I heard an advocate for the right of private judgment. My mind, as by a spell, was thrown back upon the early and infant history of Christianity; I saw the disciples going forth on that opposing world, of which their master had given them no enticing picture; I saw Peter at Antioch, and Paul harassed and toil-worn at Rome and Athens; I heard the cry of the vulgar, and the sarcasms of the philosophical, going forth in prolonged utterance in condemnation of the strange doctrine; I visioned before me the little knots of Christians, bound to each other in love, holding their own faith, despite of multitudes and despite of antiquity, fronting the world’s scorn and the world’s persecution. I thought of Luther, standing, as he confessed, against the world, an admission which was made one of the strongest arguments against him,—an argument that there are piles of divinity to maintain on the one side, and to repel on the other. I thought on the persecution of the Waldenses and the Albigenses; I saw them, few, and scattered, and shivering, and dying, in their Alpine solitudes: for persecution, like the sun, enters into every nook. I thought of the early struggle of Protestantism in this country,—of Latimer, of Cranmer, and of Ridley; I thought of these honest and right-noble beings given, by a barbarous bigotry, to a death of infamy; delivered over to the fires of Smithfield; perishing amidst vulgar yells; not only abandoned, but condemned, by episcopal domination. I remembered having read, in the Life of Saint Francis Xavier, precisely similar objections made against him by the bonzas of Japan. I also considered how many societies at present send missionaries to the Heathen. I considered that, amidst the populousness of India, the Brahmins might make a similar objection with much greater force. Our fathers, they might say, never heard these things; our people repudiate them.

But notwithstanding such general objections, we do not withhold our admiration from Xavier and such self-denying men who were willing to spend and be spent so that they might make known the glory of Christ; we rejoice in seeing men thus forget their persons in love to their principles, and in Doctor Carey standing alone, preaching under a tree opposite to Juggernaut—we recognize with joy the impersonation of Christian sincerity and Christian philanthrophy. If numbers were the proof of truth, what changeful shapes might not truth assume to meet the humour of the multitude! And we hear the immortal Chillingworth—the first of logicians, the most charitable of polemics—thus replying to one of his assailants: “You obtrude upon us,” says he, “that when Luther began, he being yet but one, opposed himself to all, as well subjects as superiors. If he did so in the cause of God it was heroically done of him. This had been without hyperbolizing, _Mundus contra Athanasium et Athanasius contra mundum_. Neither is it so impossible that the whole world should so far lie in wickedness (as St. John speaks,) that it may be lawful and noble for one man to oppose the world. But yet were we put to our oaths, we should not surely testify any such thing for you; for how can we say properly that he opposed himself to all unless we could say also that all opposed themselves to him?” The same noble writer goes on to say “that though no man before him lifted up his voice as Luther did, yet who can assure us but that many before him both thought and spake in the lower voice of petitions and remonstrances in many points as he did?”—One fact at least must be conceded, and we are entitled to any advantage it implies, that it is more painful and self-sacrificing to be of the few than of the many, that there is far more to endure in being a little flock, than of the great multitude; and that in maintaining with all honesty our opinions in the face of the world’s odium and the world’s revilings, in despite of popular outcry and theological accusation, if no other virtues, we can surely claim those of sincerity and fortitude, of moral courage and moral consistency.

The preacher alluded to the ransom which Christ paid for sinners, and compared it to that which anciently was given in exchange for slaves. The question is, to whom were mankind slaves? To whom or what was the purchase-ransom to be paid? Was this slavery to sin, to Satan, or to God? Whosoever or whatsoever held the captive, must, of course, receive the price of redemption. To which of these was it due, and how holds the analogy? I leave the subject with the lecturer.

I now turn to what is greatly more agreeable in this discussion, the statement that we hold Christ to have been morally perfect. To this we assent with all our conscience, with all our hope, and with all our hearts. We regard him as pure and perfect in every thought and word. We see him with a holy piety illuminating his whole character and conduct. We see him, in solitude and society, holding communion with his Father and our Father, his God and our God. We see him in darkest moments, in periods of deepest anguish, maintaining a hopeful and a trustful spirit; in every affliction holding true to his love for God and man. We see him with a patience that toiled for all, and never tired. We see him plodding through every thankless labour, which here can find no recompense, except it be that wherein the act itself is a blessing to the Spirit. We see him in vexation and sorrow; and, whilst we gaze upon his tranquil brow, we feel our stormy passions silenced into peace. We see him in his struggles and temptations, and we feel how poor and pitiful are our deepest griefs or sorest trials compared with his. We regard him in the greatness of his benevolence, and we hear from his lips such words as never man spake before. We behold him, whose soul was never tainted with sin, turn most mercifully on the repentant sinner, striking the heart with rending anguish, yet filling the eye with sweetest and most hopeful tears. We see him with a bosom throbbing with all human charities, and an ear open to every cry of woe and wretchedness. We see him in all unselfish sacrifices, and all generous labours; and regarding our nature in him as most lovely, most glorious, and most triumphant, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. We see him as the most perfect image of his Father; and the first, among all his brethren, filled with the inspiration of God, and spreading it forth abundantly on the souls of men.

Amongst other wrongs to Christ, we are accused of taking away all motives of love to him. It may be fair, then, to ask, for what do Trinitarians love him? And it may be also fair to ask, what is it in him that moves their affections which may not equally move ours? They cannot love Christ the God in the same sense or on the same grounds on which they love Christ the man. For what, then, do they love Christ the man, or Christ the mediator, for which, in that aspect, we may not love him as deeply and as truly? Is it for his many and great labours? On even the orthodox doctrine, these were the toils of the manhood and not of the godhead. Is it for his sufferings? The God could not suffer, could not be weary, could not be persecuted, could not die, could neither be hooted nor crucified; if, therefore, all the strongest motives of love to Christ be founded in his humanity, then I assert we have all these motives. On any supposition, it was not the second person of the godhead that bent his bleeding head on Calvary, it was the _man_ Christ Jesus. If it be said that Unitarian views do not move the heart, we have only with sorrow to confess, that no views of Christ’s nature or character move us practically as they ought; and for the small results which his doctrines have produced amongst us, we, with others, have reason to bend down our heads in deepest humiliation: but we solemnly deny that our convictions about Christ have any tendency to produce such an effect. In the case of wrong, the fault is in ourselves, and not in our doctrines.

II. Having thus explained our views on Christ as a man, I shall occupy the remaining part of this discourse by stating, as briefly as I can, the difference between Trinitarians and ourselves on his character as a mediator.

What are the religious needs of man? says the Trinitarian. Consequently, What is the office of the Messiah? If we take the Calvinistic scheme, and at present that is the most popular, the reply would be, or should be, thus:—There is a decree of eternal election and reprobation by which millions, before the foundation of the world, were destined to be saved or lost. The numbers were fixed, and could neither be enlarged or diminished. For the salvation of the elect, and these only, the second person in the godhead became incarnate: them he purchased with his blood, and the rest were left to perish. The elect entered into life with the seal of predestination on their birth, redeemed, to be justified, to be sanctified, and finally to be glorified. _The remainder_ came into the same life burdened with the imputation of a sin committed centuries previous to their existence. Foredoomed to perdition, overpassed by the Father, and disregarded by the Son, and unvisited by the Holy Spirit, they die in their sins, enter on their predetermined destiny, and, to use the tremendous language of the Athanasian Creed, “perish everlastingly.”

In this statement, I do no wrong to Calvinism, and scarcely justice. It might easily be made more dark, and without a whit of controversial exaggeration. But if this be a true idea of Christianity, it is a system of terror and not of mercy, an anathema and not a blessing, the fiat of universal wrath and not the words of universal mercy, the proclamation from an austere and angry Deity and not a remedy for a weak and erring humanity. Orthodoxy in this scheme, instead of endearing Christ to the human heart, alienates and removes him from it; instead of making him an encouragement, renders him a terror; instead of placing him before us as the impersonation of almighty clemency, through him proclaims an almighty vindictiveness; places Jesus out of the sphere of human affections, and wrenches him from the worn and suffering heart of man. On the orthodox principle, he is out from us, and not of us. He is alone in his own mysterious nature. Our affections are perplexed, and our heads are bewildered. To offer our sympathy, or to look for his, would be the very climax of presumption. He is in no proper sense identified with us, or allied to us. His example is more an accident than an essential of his work. The substance of his work, on the orthodox scheme, might have taken place in the most secret recesses of the universe; and God would be satisfied, and the elect would be redeemed.[157]

What, says Unitarianism, are the moral wants of man? Consequently, what is the mediator he requires?

Religion, we maintain, was made for man, and not man for religion. The mediator, therefore, which we require, is one who would guide and not confound our nature; who would ennoble but not perplex it. We would look for a mediator by whom we should receive the light and truth of God and heaven to our souls. We need to see the capacities, the duties, and the destinies of our kind, in one who is perfectly, but yet simply, of ourselves. Our sorrows, our sufferings, and our darkness, we regard as but so many reasons why our Redeemer and Saviour should be entirely of our own kind. We require one who would manifest to all that God is really interested in us. We require one who would show that we are not shut out from communion with the infinite, the invisible, and the future. We require one who would correct our evils, and yet resolve our doubts. We require one who could sympathize with our weakness. We require one who would show us of what our nature is capable, and thus flash upon us the guilt of our deficiencies, or inspire us with the hope of advancement. We are feeble, and need strength; we are tempted, and need support. Jesus proves to us that the strength is in us, if we use it; and that the support is at hand, if we choose to apply it. In our transgressions, we are but too much inclined to yield to, or justify ourselves with, a guilty sophistry; but our views of Jesus leave us no room for such delusion. Whilst Trinitarianism places most of our religious wants afar off and outside us, Unitarianism fixes them within us. Whilst Trinitarianism demands a Christ which shall reconcile God to us, Unitarianism holds a Christ which shall conform us to God:—to us his word and work is a spirit of life, his word and work to them but dogma or mystery.

Upon our views, Christ is properly a mediator; on those of orthodoxy, he can bear no such character: compounded of Deity and humanity, he is truly of neither. It is said that we have no need of Christ; that, in fact, he has no purpose in our system; that he might be taken from it without creating any loss. We maintain the contrary. We maintain that Christ is our all in all; that he is the impersonation of our religion, that he is bodily our Christianity. Whilst others principally regard him in the retrospect, we have him as a present and a living reality. Whilst others trust him for what he has done, we love him for what he was. Whilst others make his nature the subject of hard and abstruse dogmas, we hold it forth as the subject of affectionate contemplation. Whilst others propose faith, we propose imitation as the greatest virtue. We look upon him as the Instructor in our moral doubts; the enlightener of our ignorance, which, in so many cases, press down our hearts respecting the general course of Providence and our future destiny; of our ignorance respecting God, and all that belongs to the future, the Past, and the Invisible.

The Past, yea, and the present also, is filled, we confess, with difficulties that alarm our fears, and call forth our sorrows. And it is only when we look to Christ as really and simply human that we have any tangible consolation, or any solid support. The trials or temptations or sufferings of a God are not only repugnant to our reasons, but foreign to our hearts. Such ideas can create no confidence, and therefore can afford no ground of sympathy—and no ground of hope, of strength, or of consolation. If one who is a God—were temptation to such a being possible—overcomes temptation, on what grounds can any other conclude he can resist it?—If one who is a God resists indignity with quietude and calmness, on what ground can another make such conduct an example?—If one who is a God meets agony and death with confident and fearless mind—knowing that his life is safe in eternal beatitude—on what possible principles of reason or expectation can this be a consolation or hope to feeble mortals?—If a God by his own inherent power rise from the dead, by what logic of faith or intellect are we to conclude _man_ as _man_ is to live for ever? It is only then upon our principles that I think he can properly fulfil the offices that pertain to his character as Mediator, that he can be our Teacher, that he can be our Exemplar, that he can be the Discloser of our duties and our destinies, that he can be at the same time a revealer and a revelation, that he can be the foundation of our hope and the source of our strength:—that he can, I say, be our Teacher; for what is necessary to the position of a moral instructor? not merely to be able to announce truth, but to announce it with living effect. The being who suffered no pain would have no power in preaching fortitude. Sympathy is necessary to confidence, and confidence is necessary to moral influence. Christ in his simple humanity has a power which we could not give to him, supposing he was of a compound constitution. Without this belief that he was simply and naturally man, his instructions have small effect, and his actions have no reality.—Moreover, I assert it is only in this view he can be our exemplar, I mean the ideal, or representative of what we ought to be, or of what in a more perfect condition we will be: for it is utterly and outrageously absurd to propose as the pattern of human conduct or human hopes, one who had in the same person the might and security of a Deity with the dangers and the trials of a man: and in truth it is outrageously absurd to say he could have such dangers and trials at all,—it would not be a mystery but a mockery:—and, lastly, I contend, that it is our views—weakly I have expressed them—which bring to the human spirit most of strength and most of comfort. They give consistency and sublimity to his communion with God, and to his revealings of another world. They give immeasurable value to his miracles. They put the seal of divine confirmation on his resurrection as the pledge of human immortality. He is then our Instructor in every doubt; our Consolation in every sorrow; our Strength in the griefs of life, and our Support in the fears of death. We see him in his own ennobling and sanctifying human nature, and by his impressive and vital energy sending out from him the power for its redemption.

The character of God, as revealed in Christ’s teaching, and manifested by Christ’s life, in the Unitarian faith, is not only discerned with a clearer light, but commands a more sacred reverence, as well as a more willing love. He that hath seen me, says the Saviour, hath seen the Father. Now we believe this expression to be full of profoundest truth, if we receive it as a moral revelation; but orthodoxy reduces it to a mystical enigma, and robs it of meaning and of value. We discern God through Christ as a Father, universal, merciful, good, holy, and all-powerful. This we collect from the teachings of Christ; we could never deduce it from the teachings of Calvinism. If we turn to the teachings of Christ, we hear of a Father impartial and unbounded; if we turn to the teachings of Calvinism, we read of a God that, in any benignant sense, is but father to a few, and these few purchased by the agonies of innocence; if we turn to the teachings of Christ, we are instructed of a Father who is merciful, and that mercy is proposed to us as the most perfect object of imitation; if we turn to the teachings of Calvinism, we are told of a Father who properly cannot be merciful at all, for the good he gives has been purchased, and is the equivalent of a price; a Father, I repeat, whose good-will is paid for; the primary element in whose character, as drawn in many popular creeds and formularies, is a stern wrath, falsely called justice; the imitation of which, in the creature, would turn earth into a darker hell than ever theology visioned. If we turn to the teachings of Christ, we find in them a Father supremely good, holding towards all his creatures a benignant aspect; who, when his children ask for bread will not give them a stone,—who casts with equal hand the shower and the sun-shine; who rules in the heavens with glory, and in earth with bounty; who hears the raven’s cry as well as the Seraph’s song. If we turn to Calvinism we are informed of a Deity who has seen the ruin and the wreck of his own workmanship, and pronounced a curse over that which he did not choose to prevent; we are told that all creatures sicken under that original curse; that earth feels it to her centre; that it spreads a frown over heaven, and roars with a voice of destruction in the thunder and the tempest; that living creatures throughout all their countless tribes, suffer by it; that it pursues man from the first tears of infancy to the last pang of death. If we turn to the teachings of Jesus, we are taught that God is most holy; we are placed before that invisible Being who searches the heart, and sees it in its last recesses. Thus piercing to the very source of action, Christ makes guilt and holiness inward and personal, inflicts on the criminal the full penalty, and secures to rectitude its great reward: covering the one with moral hideousness, and the other with exceeding beauty. If we turn to the teachings of Calvinism, sin is contracted by imputation, and righteousness is acquired by imputation also. The lost endure the penalty of guilt in their own persons, the elect endure it by substitution, in the person of another. If we turn to the teachings of Jesus, we have a Father whose power is infinite as his goodness, in which we trust for the redemption and perfection of the universe. If we turn to the teachings of Calvinism, we see God consigning a vast portion of his rational creation to eternal sin and misery, and therefore, if we would save his benevolence we are constrained to sacrifice his power. Christ, Saint Paul declares, is the image of God; but if the Father be the avenger, and Christ the victim, he is not his image, but his contrast, and then our souls, instead of ascending to God in love, turn from him, and fix all their sympathies on Christ. As Unitarians apprehend him, we conceive him in perfect union with the Father, imaging, with resplendent sweetness, the attributes of his Father’s character. In the compassion, in the benevolence, in the purity, and in the miracles of Christ, we have revealed to us the goodness, the holiness, and the power of God; upon the calm and gracious countenance of Jesus we may read the glory of God, and, as in a stainless mirror, behold the scheme of his providence.

Place these views side by side with common experience and human feeling, and which, I ask, is the most consistent? Who, in a healthy state of mind, has any compunction because Adam sinned—but who, with his moral emotions awakened, is not anxious to know what is the duty of man here, and what his destiny hereafter? By which scheme, I inquire, are these momentous problems best resolved? Testing these views by the common experience to which I have appealed, taking its ordinary convictions as the standard, I may fairly inquire, whether our principles are not consistent in their hopes, and high and pure in their consolations? Comparing each with the history and life of Christ, I have no doubt of what would be the result, if system or dogmatism did not interfere with our convictions. Regarding Christ as our perfect, immortal, but human Brother, we have the living evidence that God is our Father, and Heaven is our Home.—Our views of Christ makes his history of most precious value to us—his life, his death, his crucifixion and his resurrection—Christ becomes to us the great interpreter of Providence, equally of its fears and hopes. He becomes to us the symbol of humanity, equally of its grief and glory—near his cross we weep over death, and at his tomb we rejoice in the certainty of life. In Christ crucified, we see our nature in its earthly humiliation; in Christ glorified, we behold it in its immortal triumph. As Jesus on the cross sets forth our sorrow, so Jesus from the tomb sets forth our hope. Identified with Jesus in the one, we are also identified with him in the other. We behold “the man,” and in that man we behold the two solemn stages of our nature, the struggle of affliction and the glory of success.—We see the man of sorrow and the man of joy—the man of earth, and the man of heaven—the man of death and the man of immortality. We are made more assured of that doctrine to which we fly in every painful turn of life—and in which we seek a deeper and kinder refuge as years and troubles gather over us. Without this persuasion we feel ourselves creatures weak and desolate; when our pleasures here have sunk, when our hopes here have long since died, how much would we, in this wilderness, desire to lay our heads, as Jacob did, on a cold stone, if like Jacob we beheld an opened heaven; but how much more sweetly may we look upon the risen and the living face of Jesus. He was of ourselves. He was identified with us. I see then in Jesus, not the illustration of an argument or of a theory. I see in him the embodiment of human goodness, human affections, and human hopes, and human capacities, and human destinies. When, especially, I think of human suffering, some necessary and some blameless,—when I behold the ignorant and the vicious, the ignorant and the wretched pining away in a crowded solitude,—when I see the man of weary years and many adversities, seeking at last but some spot in which to die,—when I see a sickened wretch, tired of existence, poor, indigent, cold and naked, the victim of almost every want and grief, toiling through life and shivering into death,—when I see laborious age, after few enjoyments of either soul or sense, lying at last on the bed where the weary are at rest, where at last the still small voice of Christ is more desired than all the logic of polemics,—when I see multitudes with dead, or dormant, or perverted energies—benevolent ardour wasted, or most honourable philanthropy defeated,—when I consider the thousands, and the tens of thousands of human beings chained to a dark fatality in the destiny of moral and physical circumstances—the ignorance, the bondage, the cruelties, the unrevealed wretchedness without a name heaped on the heads of myriads, generation after generation,—when I think of unspeaking and unspeakable agonies lurking in every corner of civilized society—hereditary penury, unavoidable ruin, unforeseen misfortune, the pangs of noble minds struggling in vain against dependence; the writhings of dying hearts, concealing their last sighs from watching friends, the stifled laments of honest virtue cast forth on over-grown cities and populations, where sufferer after sufferer sink unheard in the noise of indifferent millions,—when I remember unrewarded toil, fine spirits crushed, and fair names blighted,—when I see the enjoyment of the worthless and the prosperity of the vicious, the success of the worst passions, and the basest plans, the triumph of wickedness over truth and virtue,—when I reflect seriously and solemnly on the strange sights which this world has seen—the persecutor on the throne and the martyr at the stake, the patriot on the scaffold and the tyrant on the bench—the honest man ruined, and the villain the gainer,—I have before me, I admit, a dark and startling problem. In the dying Christ I have the difficulties: in the risen Christ I have their solution. In Christ on the cross I see our crucified humanity—in Christ risen and ascending I see the same humanity glorified; at the cross of Jesus my heart would sink, but at his empty grave my hope is settled and my soul at ease. I go to that vacant tomb, and there I am shown that the bands of death are loosed, and the gates of glory are lifted up. Near Jesus on the cross, I have but thick clouds and darkness; in Jesus risen the shadows are melted, and the gloom is lost in brightness, and the sun which burst it shines forth more resplendent—the blackness of the sky breaks forth into light, and the wrath of the ocean softens into peace, the curtain of mist is folded up, and a lovely world bursts upon my gaze. When I stand at the cross I have man imaged in fears, in struggles and in death. I have around me our nature in its crimes and passions; but when I see the ascending and glorified Christ, I behold humanity in its most triumphant hopes:—When I stand over the silent tomb of Jesus, and would weep, as if all beneath and beyond the skies were hopeless, a light shines out from the darkness, and throws a halo of peace about the desponding soul. In Christ crucified, believing him human, simply human, I feel around me the right of man—in Christ risen, believing him also human, I exult in unclouded and unsetting light:—near Christ crucified, I tremble with exceeding fear; near Christ glorified, I am comforted with exceeding joy—and in each case because I feel he is truly and simply human.

In both parts of his life and history we have opposing aspects of Providence. But if in his sufferings we have the pillar of cloud, in his glory we have the pillar of fire; and in this wilderness pilgrimage we are saddened and solemnized by the one,—enlightened and guided by the other. Christ crucified and Christ glorified, united in our faith and feelings, identified with our nature, our history, and our race, opens views to the Christian’s soul, not only of consolation but of triumph, that defy expression. It pours light and hope and dignity on universal destiny and on every individual condition. In analogy with God’s material creation in its workings, it shows glory arising out of humiliation, and renovated beauty from apparent destruction—it shows in man as in nature—the world of grandeur, of purity, and of softness—born in the throes of chaotic formation; the streams of spring filled with the year’s rejoicing gushing out of the frozen fountains of winter; the fresh, and bright, and peaceful morning generated in the midnight storm. If these views of Christ are seated in our hearts and faith: if we truly identify ourselves with one as with the other: feeling that in each case Christ is simply and perfectly our brother,—what can deaden our hope, and what can sever us from duty? Though friends be absent and enemies be fierce, and pain wreck our frames and poverty lay bare our dwellings, and disappointment wait on our struggles, and grief thicken heavily on our souls, in Christ suffering there is our worst extremity; in Christ glorified there is that worst extremity redeemed into the fulness of salvation; in Christ we see personified our entire humanity, except its sins; in him we behold its subjection and its triumph. View its pains in his humiliation, and its future prospects in his victory, and what a glory does it not spread upon our race? Is there a single track of the past on which it does not rain showers of light—on which it does not leave the persuasion of immortal and universal existence? By Christ’s doctrines and his life we are led to the conclusion that no human existence has been ever spent in vain; that of all the vast ocean of intelligent beings with which generations have flooded the earth; that in that vast universe of life, one heart has never panted without a purpose; that no thought ever started into being, not a throb of misery, not a solitary charity, not a silent prayer, not an honest effort, not a fervent wish or desire, not a single good intention, not a single instance of sacrifice or worth, ever existed to be destroyed, but that on the contrary they have been transferred to more genial scenes in another world, and left seeds for better fruits in this. Believing on Christ the crucified and the glorified, and still regarding him as the image of God, it is pleasant to dwell equally upon the past and upon the future; to think of the good and true who suffered here for virtue, collected hereafter in all the unity of peace, having escaped the fightings of earth, settled in the joys of heaven. But why confine ourselves to the excellent and the great? The glory of Christ proclaims life to all; it attracts to itself whosoever lived or suffered on earth, all that ever will live or suffer. Into what a glory has Christ then not entered: go to the most seclusive church-yard: worlds there moulder in the smallest space; within its range as many sleep as might have peopled an empire, and in a few steps we may walk over millions. Beneath those pacings what parents and children, and companions, have mouldered? What friendships, and hopes, and energies have melted in this simple dust?

But why say a Church-yard? All earth is a grave. The world is sown with bodies: is futurity as filled with souls? Is this spot on which we breathe for a moment a mere speck between two eternities of infinite nothingness? Have the generations as they vanished, sunk into eternal sleep, so that “_It is finished_,” should be the proper epitaph of all departed humanity? Christ alone gives the full solution of this awful problem; and this solution is clear and consolatory, as we feel him to be of ourselves. He is thus the great type of our death and of our life, throwing light over the grave, and opening to our faith a growing and everlasting future,—where all exist, the great and good to more perfect, and the evil to be redeemed,—and where every stream that flows on to eternity will bear along with it a fresh burden of joy and beauty. Jesus the crucified, and Jesus the glorified, of simple but holy humanity, is the great interpreter of the past and the future, and by him interpreted, how glorious are the words, all our memories on earth and our hopes in heaven.

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