Chapter IX: Appendix (4)

No fact can be more extraordinary than that a Revelation from God should give rise to endless disputes among men, that “light” should produce the effects of “darkness,” causing confusion and doubt. A Revelation in which nothing is revealed! A Revelation that occasions the most bitter controversies upon every question and interest it embraces! A Revelation that perplexes mankind with the most uncertain speculations, and splits the body of believers into sects and divisions too numerous to be told! A Revelation in which nothing is fixed, in which every point is debated and disputed from the character of God to the character of sin! A Revelation which is so little of a Revelation, that after nearly two thousand years the world is wrangling about what it means: this surely is a fact that demands an explanation, which should make the Believer pause and ask whether he may not be guilty, by some dogmatism about what he calls essentials, of casting this discredit upon Revelation, making the very word a mockery to the Unbeliever, who inquires in simplicity “what is _revealed_? I find you disputing about everything and agreeing about nothing;” and to whom the Believer is certainly bound to render an account of this strange state of things, before he condemns his infidelity. Can any two ideas be more opposed, more directly inconsistent, than Christianity considered as a Revelation, a gift of LIGHT from God, and Christianity as it exists in the world—the most dark and perplexed, the most vexed and agitated of all subjects, no two parties agreeing where the light is, or what the light is, or who has it? Surely if Christianity is a Revelation, the things it has _revealed_ must constitute the essence of the Revelation, and not the things which it has left _unrevealed_. Surely the illumination from God must be in the clear Truths communicated, and not in the doubtful controversies excited. Surely it is a mockery of words to call that a Revelation upon which there is no agreement even among those who accept the Revelation. A Revelation is a certainty, and not an uncertainty: and therefore we must strike out of the class of revealed truths every doctrine that is disputed among Christians. Many of these doctrines we may possess other and natural means of determining; but it is clear that that which is so far _unrevealed_ as to be constantly debated among believers themselves, cannot yet be _revealed_ by God. Now the UNITY of God is not one of these debated points. All Christians regard it as revealed; and therefore _it_ remains as a part of the Revelation. But the doctrine of the Trinity, an addition to the Unity, and as some think a mode of the divine Unity, _is_ a disputed point; it does not manifest itself to all believers; it does not make a part of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; Christ’s life would teach no man that there are three persons in the Godhead—neither would Christ’s words; the doctrine is not anywhere stated in Scripture; it is deduced by a process of fallible reasonings from a number of unconnected texts, doubtful both in their criticism and in their interpretation; it is not a declaration made by God, but an inference drawn by man, and, as many think, incorrectly drawn; the doctrine of the Trinity therefore, whether true or not, cannot be regarded as a _revealed_ Truth; what is still a subject of controversy cannot be a portion of Revelation. If then, turning away from our disputes, we could ascertain the universal ideas which Christianity implants in _all_ minds which receive it; the images of God, of Duty, and of Hope, which it deposits in _all_ hearts; the impression of Christ taken off by every spirit of man from the Image and Son of God;—these would be the essentials of the Revelation, for since these are the only uniform impressions that Christianity has actually made upon those who believe it, we must suppose that these were the chief impressions which God intended it to make. This alone can be “the light which, coming into the world, lighteth every man.”

But I may be answered here, that Christianity itself is a matter of debate, and that if doubtful things cannot be revealed, then Christianity itself is not a Revelation. To this I reply, that Christianity is a matter of debate chiefly because Christ himself is not offered to the hearts of men, because controversialists thrust forward their own doctrinal conceptions as the essentials of Christianity, presenting _themselves_, and not Jesus to make his own impression on the heart. If not creeds, but Jesus the Christ was offered spiritually to the souls of men, unbelief would be soon no more. No earnest and pure mind would reject from its love and faith the serene and perfect image of the living Jesus. Men can deny metaphysical doctrines: but they could not deny the spiritual Christ. The spirit of God in every man would bear witness to _him_ who was the fulness of that spirit, and would recognize the heavenly leadership of the Son of God. If the essentials of Christianity had not been made by Divines and Theologians to consist in disputed doctrines, if it had been offered to faith on the ground of its inherent excellence, its ample attractions for our spiritual nature, how readily, how universally would it have been received by all who felt that it had echoes within the soul, and that Jesus was indeed the brightest image of God, and the very ideal of humanity! Who would not be a Christian, if to be a Christian required faith only in such truths as these:—that the holy and affectionate Jesus was the human image of the mind of God, and that the Universal Father is more perfect and more tender than his holy and gentle child, by as much as Deity transcends humanity; that the character of the Christ is God’s aim and purpose for us all, the result at which He desires each of us to arrive through the discipline and sufferings of earth;—that traces of Immortality were upon that heavenly mind; that his profound sympathy with the Spirit of God, the surrender of his own immediate interests for the sake of the purposes and drift of providence, the identification of himself with the will of God, the constant manifestation of a style of thought and action drawn on a wider scale than this present life, and that placed him in harmony with better worlds,—that these marked him out as a being whose nature was adjusted to more glorious scenes, whose soul was out of proportion to his merely earthly and external lot, and whose appropriate home must be the pure Heaven of God? Would any one refuse admission to these spiritual views as they are given off to our souls from the pure life of Jesus, if he was permitted to receive them from Christ himself, and not obliged on his way to that Heavenly Image of grace, liberty, and truth, to stoop his free neck to the yoke of Churches and of Creeds? But men preach themselves, not Christ. They embody their own conceptions of Christianity in formulas, and pronounce these to be essentials, instead of suffering Jesus to make his way to the heart, and stamp there his own impression. Hence the origin of unbelief. I quote the words of an eminent Unitarian, himself converted from orthodoxy chiefly by the force of the argument I am about to state: “Settle your disputes (says the unbeliever), and then I will listen to your arguments in defence of Christianity. Both of you, Romanists and Protestants, offer me salvation on condition that I embrace the Christian faith. You offer me a sovereign remedy, which is to preserve me alive in happiness through all eternity; but I hear you accusing each other of recommending to the world, not a remedy but a _poison_; a poison, indeed, which, instead of securing eternal happiness, must add bitterness to eternal punishment. You both agree that it is of the _essence_ of Christianity to accept certain doctrines concerning the manner in which the Divine Nature exists; the moral and intellectual condition in which man was created; our present degradation through the misconduct of our first parents: the nature of sin, and the impossibility of its being pardoned except by pain inflicted on an innocent person; the existence or non-existence of living representatives of Christ and his apostles; a church which enjoys, collectively, some extraordinary privileges in regard to the visible and invisible world; the presence of Christ among us by means of transubstantiation, or the denial of such presence; all this, and much more, some of you declare to be contained in, and others to be opposed to, the Scriptures; and even here, there is a fierce contention as to whether those Scriptures embrace the whole of that Christianity which is necessary for salvation, or whether tradition is to fill up a certain gap. I am, therefore, at a loss how to account for the invitation you give me. To me (the unbeliever might continue) it is quite evident that the ablest opponents of Christianity never discovered a more convincing argument against REVELATION in general, than that which inevitably arises from your own statements, and from the controversies of your churches. God (you both agree), pitying mankind, has disregarded the natural laws fixed by himself, and for a space of four thousand years, and more, has multiplied miracles for the purpose of acquainting men with the means of obtaining salvation, and avoiding eternal death, _eternal death_ signifying almost universally, among you, _unending torments_. But when I turn to examine the result of this (as you deem it) _miraculous and all-wise plan_, I find it absolutely incomplete; for the whole Christian world has been eighteen centuries in a perpetual warfare (not without great shedding of blood), because Christians cannot settle what is that faith which alone can save us. Have you not thus demonstrated that the revelation of which you boast cannot be from God? Do you believe, and do you wish me to believe, that when God had decreed to make a _saving truth_ known to the world, he failed of that object, or wished to make Revelation a snare?”[133]

Now not believing that Revelation has failed of its object, or that it is a snare, and believing that under all the so-called Essentials, which we regard as mere human additions, there is yet a true and universal impression received from the spirit of Jesus, believing, in fact, that our Controversies are about accidentals, and that under all our differences there is, deeper down, the untroubled well of Christ springing up into everlasting life, I would proceed to expose those errors in the Trinitarian conception of Revelation which have laid it open to the charge of _not being a Revelation_, of dividing mankind by Controversies instead of uniting them by moral Certainty,—and to contrast this Trinitarian Conception of Revelation with what, for the following reasons, we hold to be the _true one_; because it represents God as accomplishing what, from the very nature of a Revelation, he must have intended to accomplish, namely, the communication of moral and spiritual knowledge: because it removes the materials for doctrinal strife and controversial rancour which never could have been God’s object in sending a Revelation, but which are inseparable from Trinitarian ideas of Revelation; and because it would realize that union for which Christ prayed and Apostles intreated, a moral oneness with God as revealed in Jesus, a unity _of spirit_ in the bond of peace.

Let us suppose, then, God having the design to send a Revelation to Mankind. There are two methods, either of which He might adopt in the execution of that intention. He might send them a written Revelation in the form of a Book: or He might send them a living Revelation in the form of a Man. He might announce to them His Will through _words_: or He might send to them _one of like nature with themselves_, who would actually work the Will of God before their eyes; one who, passing through their circumstances of life and death, would show them in his own person the character which God intended this present discipline to create; and who, appearing again after death, morally unchanged, and passing into the Heavens, would reveal to them, by these his own destinies, the unbroken spiritual connection of the present with the future, and the immortal home which God has with Himself for the spirits of those holy ones who are no more on Earth. In the first case, then, we suppose God to send a verbal Message to men, a communication by words teaching doctrines, spoken first, and afterwards committed to writing: in the second case we suppose that a pure and heavenly being, manifesting the will and purposes of God through his own nature, which is also our nature, is _himself the divine Message_ from our Father; one who walks this earth amidst our sorrows and our sins,—transfiguring the one and reclaiming the other—and gathering up into his own soul the strength that is to be derived from both; who enters our dwellings, sheds through them the divine light of heavenly love, plants the hope of immortality in the midst of trembling, because loving and dying, beings, and binds together the perishing children of Earth in the godlike Trust of imperishable affections which Death can glorify but cannot kill; who places himself in our circumstances of severest trial, and shows us the energy of a filial heart, and the unquenchable brightness of a spirit in prayerful communion with the God of Providence; who, that he might be a revelation of a heavenly mind amidst every variety of temptation, passed on his way to death through rudest insults, and showed how awful a thing is moral greatness, how calm, how majestic, how inaccessible, how it shines out through aggressive coarseness, a mental and ineffaceable serenity, a spirit that has its glory in itself, and cannot be touched;—who, having showed man how to live and to suffer, next showed him how to die;—who in the spirit and power of Duty subdued this garment of throbbing flesh to the will of God, and in the death agonies was self-forgetful enough to look down from the cross in the tenderest foresight for those he left behind, and to look up to Heaven, presenting for his murderers the only excuse that heavenly pity could suggest,—“Father forgive them! they know not what they do;”—and who having thus glorified God upon the earth, and finished the work given him to do, was himself glorified by God; taken to that Heaven which is the home of goodness;—thus showing the issues to which God conducts the tried and perfected spirit, that His Faithfulness is bound up with the destinies of those that trust Him, and that His providence is the recompense of the just, who live now by Faith.

Now the first thing that will strike you in comparing these two possible methods of a Revelation is, that the written communication containing doctrines is cold, formal, indistinct and distant, when contrasted with the living presence of a pure and heavenly being, who places himself at our side, enters into our joys and sorrows, shows us in action and in suffering the will of God reflected on every form of life, and works out before our eyes the vast idea of perfection. No message, no written document, no form of words, could leave such distinct impressions or quicken such sympathy and love, as the warm and breathing spirit who entered into communication with us, whose influences we felt upon our trembling souls, whose eye penetrated and whose voice melted us, and who took us by the hand and showed us how children of God should prove their filial claim, and through the vicissitudes of a Father’s providence pass meekly to their Home.

Such a living Revelation could of course be preserved for _posterity_ only through the medium of written records, but then these records would be chiefly descriptive; and their grand purpose would be faithfully to convey to the men of other times the true image of that heavenly being; to re-create him, from age to age, in the heart of life; to introduce the Son of God with the power of reality into the business and the bosoms of men; to impress upon the silent page such graphic characters that they give off to the mind animated scenes, and bring the living Christ before the gazing eye; and the written Revelation would perfectly fulfil its mission, when by vivid and faithful narrative, without comment or reflection of its own, it had placed us in the presence of Jesus, and left us, like the disciples of old, to collect our impressions of the Christ as we waited upon his steps, and watched the spirit working into life, and caught the tones of living emotion; when we walked with him through the villages of Galilee, and saw him arrest the mourners, and touch the bier, and restore the only son of the widowed mother; when we retired with him to the lone mountain, and witnessed how the spirit ascended to God before it entered into the conflicts of temptation; when we stood with him in the Temple Court, and beheld how much more noble than the Temple is the Spirit that sanctifies the Temple, and how the Priest in his strong hold quailed and trembled under the thrilling tones and simple majesty of Truth; when we followed him to his home, not neglecting to observe how his eye, that was never cold to goodness, fell upon the widow and her mite as he left the Temple; when we leaned with the loved disciple on his bosom, and watched his last offices, and listened, with hushed hearts, for his last words; when we saw him kneel at the disciples’ feet, that the spirit of equality and brotherhood might enter into their hearts; and break the bread of remembrance and distribute the parting cup,—that bound up with such symbols of self-sacrifice, he, the living Christ, might come back in moments of severe Duty, and pour his own spirit of self-denial through deathless memories; when we listened to his last prayers and consolations, and observed that, in that awful pause between life and death, he was the comforter; when we watched with him in Gethsemane’s garden, and beheld the tears of nature, the holy one and the just, beneath the awe of his mission, trembling and melted before God; when we stood by him in Pilate’s hall, and saw the moral greatness of the unassailable spirit unobscured by bitterest humiliation; when we drew nigh to his cross, and witnessed the crown placed upon a glory that in mortal form could rise no higher—“It is finished.” To place us by its vivid descriptions in such communication with Jesus himself, is the great purpose of the historical record of Christianity; and in proportion as it makes this intercourse real and intimate, does the New Testament become to us the instrument and vehicle of a Revelation. Without this reproduction in our hearts of Jesus, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the Scriptures are but a dead letter, barren symbols, perverted to mere verbal and logical uses, that awake no life, and serve no spiritual purpose.

The next observation that could not fail to strike you in contrasting the two methods of Revelation which I have supposed, a written communication containing doctrines, and a living character representing the will of God, is the great uncertainty and liability to _various_ interpretations of the written method of Revelation when compared with the acted Revelation, the will of God embodied in Christ Jesus. Nothing is so unfixed as the meaning of words; nothing is so fixed as the meaning of actions. Nothing is so vague as language; nothing is so definite as character. You may fail to collect the exact ideas of a written communication; but you _cannot fail to understand_ a living, feeling, acting, suffering, and dying man, who, on his own person, works out the will of God before your eyes; and, instead of communicating with you through writing, communicates with you through a character that can have no two meanings, and that requires no doubtful application of scientific rules of interpretation to make it plain. Place me in the presence of Christ, and the Revelation is impressing itself on my answering heart, and exhibiting itself before my living eyes. Place me before some lengthened statement in words, and I may draw from them a variety of senses, and perhaps fix upon, as their true sense, one that their Author did not intend. Who will protect me from error in all my applications of the difficult science of interpreting words? How, for instance, shall I be certain that I do not impress my own limited conceptions upon the most solemn and inspired language? How shall I rise through words, which are mere symbols, to conceptions, which, not being in my own soul, mere words do not suggest? If I saw a living being embodying these sublime conceptions before me, or read a description of him that brought him vividly before the soul, then the words would be no longer clothed with my poor meanings, but would bring before me the living forms of goodness and of greatness into which they expanded when represented by that heavenly mind. To illustrate my meaning by a single instance: Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” Now how poor would be my conception of that duty, if I had only these words, if I had not his own acted interpretations of their fulness, if I could not stand by his cross, and witness his own exhibition of this heavenly spirit. The precept would be narrowed to my own littleness if I had not the illustration of the living Christ. It is possible to put a limitation upon the revelation of mercy as it is written in the dead words: it is not possible to put any limitation on “the word made flesh,” the Revelation of Mercy breathing from the dying Jesus. Such then is the greater clearness, and freedom from uncertainty, of the meaning of God, when that meaning is revealed on the person of a living being, than when it is a statement of Doctrines expressed through a medium so indefinite, so susceptible of a variety of interpretations, as written language.

That there is a distinct branch of study called the Art of Interpretation; that its principles are derived from the profoundest acquaintance with the Mind; that it is in fact a practical Metaphysics, which even, when most fully understood, requires, for its correct application to ancient writings, the most varied and extensive knowledge, and the utmost natural acuteness, disciplined by long practice,—these things, which every one knows, scholar or no scholar, are standing and undeniable proofs of the inherent ambiguity of language, of the variety of meanings, which no skill in the use of words can possibly prevent, and out of which we have to make a selection of some one, when we apply ourselves to interpret a document. Now were I to enter into a full enumeration of the considerations that should determine an interpreter of the New Testament, and out of all the possible meanings direct his selection of that one which he adopts, I should have to present you with a disquisition on perhaps the most profound and difficult department of literary inquiry. I should have to speak of Archæology and original languages, themselves even in their most general character, the study of a life; I should have to speak of one form of those original languages, peculiar and a study in itself, the Hellenistic Greek, in which the New Testament is written, and in the interpretation of which we are left without the aid that is derived from the usages of language by other authors: I should have to speak of the particular writer whose words we were examining, of the character of his mind, of the peculiarities of his style, whether he wrote oratorically or scientifically, whether we were to tame down his metaphors, or whether we were to regard them as literally descriptive; I should have to speak of the age and country in which he lived, of the state of opinion and philosophy in his times, of the colourings which his words or thoughts were likely to adopt from the then prevailing theories, of the particular purpose for which he was writing, and of the particular minds, their circumstances and states of knowledge to which the writing was addressed; and after all this I could not allow any man, however erudite, to be a competent Interpreter who was not richly endowed with that noble but most rare Faculty which can re-create the past and place us in the heart of a by-gone world, that Historic Imagination which throws itself into the sympathies of Antiquity and re-produces the living forms of Society that kindled the very thoughts and modified the very language now submitted to our minds; and in addition to all this I should demand, also, as an essential requisite for an Interpreter, a mind emptied of all prejudice, a calm and sound judgment.

Now it is most evident that a result depending on so many qualifications will be necessarily uncertain; that in every separate man who comes to the study of the New Testament, according as these instruments of interpretation exist in different degrees of perfection will they derive various meanings from the written document; and that consequently, since nowhere do these requisites for a perfect interpretation exist in perfection, there is no one of the contested meanings that can be relied upon with an absolute confidence. It is also to be noticed, that this uncertainty attending the meaning of words does not attach to the _narrative_ or _historical_ portion of a document, but is very much confined to that portion of it which contains doctrinal ideas, philosophical theories, or metaphysical statements. The descriptive portion of an ancient writing (and especially when, as in the case of Christ, the description is of a moral nature, and is addressed to the affections and the soul, which are the same in all ages,) will convey a uniform and universal impression, whilst the didactic portion of the very same writing will suggest as many meanings as there are varieties of intellectual texture and complexion in the minds that read it. The character of Jesus shines out from the Gospels to be seen of all men, full of grace and truth. No one mistakes that. It does not depend upon the skilful application of the science of Interpretation. The symbols of language that reveal the living Jesus are of universal significance, and finding their way at once to every heart, stamp upon it a faithful image of the Christ. But doctrinal conceptions cannot be conveyed in this way: there is no universal and unchanging language for metaphysical ideas—and consequently it is impossible that any written communication on such subjects should be free from a variety of interpretations. And especially must this be so, when, as is the case with the Trinity, the doctrine is nowhere expressly stated in the document, but is only inferred by connecting together into a system a number of ideas which it seems to contain. Let me give you an illustration that was lately brought before me of the impossibility of a Revelation of doctrines being made to man, by means of written language, upon such subjects as the Trinity, the modes in which the essence of the Deity enables him personally to subsist. I heard it stated on a late occasion by Dr. Tattershall, that the Trinity existed as one nature in three personalities; and that to ask how three could be one and one three, was to ask an unmeaning and irrelevant question, because that the Trinity was three and one in different senses, three in Person but one in Essence. I turn now to Dr. Sherlock, and I find these words: “To say,” says Dr. William Sherlock, “that there are three divine persons, and not three distinct infinite minds, is both heresy and nonsense.” “The distinction of persons cannot be more truly and aptly represented than by the distinction between three men; for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are as really distinct persons as Peter, James, and John.” Here then we have Dr. Tattershall charging Sherlock with polytheism; and we have Sherlock charging Dr. Tattershall with Heresy and nonsense. That is, neither of these Trinitarians regards the other as having the true faith. Is it not evident then, that the doctrine of the Trinity, seeing how Trinitarians themselves charge one another with heresy, cannot be a doctrine of _Revelation_, cannot be a part of that universal Gospel which was preached to the poor, and revealed unto babes?

It was stated in Christ Church, by the Rev. Mr. Byrth, that the controversy between us was solely a question of Interpretation. It is so, because in the case cited, our dispute is about doctrines. The question of _Unitarianism_ or _Trinitarianism_ must be decided by Interpretation after Criticism has fixed the Text to be interpreted; but I deny, altogether, that the question of _Christianity_ or _No-Christianity_ is to be decided by any such imperfect and doubtful instrument. Though no one honours Scholarship more, or has a profounder veneration for its noble functions, and altogether renouncing the vulgarity of depreciating its high offices, and maintaining, wherever I have influence, especially for our own Church and in our own day, the necessity for a learned Ministry, able to refresh their souls at the original wells and unfrighted by confident dogmatism to give a reason for the faith that is in them, I yet declare, that Christianity is a religion for the people; that the Gospel was originally preached to the poor; that Christ is manifested to the heart and soul of every man whom he attracts by heavenly sympathy; that when not many wise, not many learned were called, the lowly but honest in heart, recognized the divine brightness, and sat at the feet of Jesus docile and rejoicing; and I protest altogether against any learned Aristocracy, any literary Hierarchy, any priestly Mediators, having more of the true light that lighteth every man than the humblest of their brethren, who has taken to his heart the free gift of God, and loves the Lord Jesus with sincerity.

Now, strange to say this principle was broadly admitted. It was broadly admitted that Christianity is not the property of scholars or critics, but the gift of God to all men; and yet, with a remarkable inconsistency, it was added, that “the all men” to whom Christianity is the gift of God, must find in it the doctrine of the Trinity, else they are no Christians at all. That is, Christianity is the gift of God to those who, by the aids of interpretation and criticism, become Trinitarians, and to all those who, following their leaders, accept this doctrine; but is not the gift of God to Unitarians, who, though loving Jesus as their Light on Earth and their Forerunner amid the skies, cannot so read either the written Gospel or the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as to collect from them the doctrine of a Trinity. If Trinitarianism is Christianity exclusively, then Christianity _is not_ the gift of God to all men; for many, in all ages of the Church and in the first century, perhaps, without exception, have accepted Christ, but knew no Trinity. If Trinitarianism is Christianity exclusively, then Christianity is the property of critics and scholars, for that doctrine is not a self-evidencing Truth, it does not shine out from the Gospels so that no honest mind and pure heart can fail to receive it, and, if capable of being proved at all, it can only be proved by a most technical and subtle logic, by far-fetched inferences from disconnected texts, every one of which is open to a hostile criticism, and by a most scholastic and indirect system of interpretation, which is a task, and that a most painful one, for plain men to comprehend. My audience will be enabled to judge of this matter for themselves when I tell them that one of the strongest reliances of modern Trinitarians, until proved to be completely fallacious, was the power of the Greek article; and that one of the texts long used in this controversy, and still used,[134] owes its whole importance to an accident so minute as this, whether the letter O was written with a central dot, or without the dot; so that the chance touch of a transcriber might put in or put out one of the principal proofs of the doctrine of the Trinity. Now I further declare, that all the strongest evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity is exactly of the same critical nature—that the only text of the slightest difficulty, cited in Christ Church on Wednesday evening, owes its whole force to a question of punctuation; and that the best critics and scholars, and they Trinitarians, for true scholars never degrade their high calling, nor enter the solemn sanctuary open to them alone, to falsify the oracle, give many authorities against the Trinitarian, and in favour of the Unitarian, Interpretation.[135] Now will any man tell me that the doctrine of the Trinity, which, if true, is the most awful Truth that ever bowed down the heart, that the God of Heaven walked this earth, a partaker of our sufferings and our sorrows, and lived our life, and died our death, would be left to be proved by evidence of this nature, by a controversy nearly two thousand years after the Revelation, about the force of the Greek article and the punctuation of a Greek manuscript? Is this the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world? There could have been no difficulty in revealing this doctrine, in words at least, if it was intended to be revealed. The Athanasian Creed is at least explicit enough, and leaves us in no doubt of the purpose of its Author. Now I conclude that if Trinitarianism alone is Christianity, and if such are the processes of criticism and interpretation by which alone that doctrine can be proved, then Trinitarianism _is the property of Critics and Scholars, and those who implicitly trust them_; and Christianity requiring us either to be Critics or to prostrate ourselves before Critics, not agreed among themselves, is not the free “gift of God to all men.” The rightful privileges of critics and scholars are large enough, and let no man disown them; but I do disown this literary Hierarchy arrogating to themselves sole access to the oracles of God, and limiting Christ’s free approach to the souls of the people to long processes of inferential reasoning and the winding ways of a syllogism. I entreat them to stand aside, and let the living Jesus come into communication with the living heart, and not place themselves, like the multitude who threatened the blind beside the way, between the ready mercy of the Heavenly Teacher and the humblest follower who seeks his face, that a ray of the light that shineth there may fall upon eager and wistful, though dimmed and earth-stained, eyes. “And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way-side begging. And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, saying, Jesus thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.”

I trust that you will perceive now the essential distinction between a Revelation by words, of doctrines, and a Revelation by a living being; between the uncertain meaning that is arrived at by the interpretation of language, and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shining on the face of Jesus Christ. In the one case we have a statement of doubtful doctrines in written words; in the other we have a living Character. In the one case we have the dead letter; in the other we have the “word made flesh.” In the one case we have the Mind of God stated in propositions; in the other we have the Image of God set up in our hearts, and the purposes of God for man, both while on earth and beyond the grave, realized before us, to be seen of all men. If Christianity is a scheme of doctrines in a written communication from God, then of course it is subject to all the necessary ambiguities of language; and expositors will be busy upon it, to draw out of it all the meanings it can possibly contain; and every fresh interpretation will be regarded by some as part of the Revelation from Heaven, and never will men rest lest there should be some lurking sense in it that they have not reached, and every interpreter will thrust in the face of the world, _as the essential and saving meaning_, his own reading of the document. And as language is a thing that is never fixed, but is always gathering fresh imports from the developments of Time, this is a process that must go on for ever, and the document will speak a new Message to the men of every age, and the Doctrines that constitute Salvation will be always the subject matter of a controversy. But if Christianity, instead of a form of written words, is a character sent to us by God, to manifest his will in the flesh, and to reveal living Truth in a living being; if Jesus himself is the record we are to study; if it is not an inspired Book but an inspired Life that is the gift of God; if his works of Power and Love, his actions and his sufferings, his holy living and dying, are the full and spiritual Scriptures imprinted on humanity by God’s own hand, then the whole work of a Christian is to understand and love that Character,—then is the Revelation like a light shining in a dark place, “a salvation prepared before the face of all people,” “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of his people Israel,” a ray of God’s light shining into the heart of man, touching the mountain tops of humanity and piercing the deep valleys, that all flesh may see it together.

It is in remarkable consistency with these views that very little is said in the popular systems of Christ’s character. The doctrinal ideas respecting Jesus are all in all: the moral and spiritual ideas are looked upon as not peculiarly Christian. A vast deal is said about his Rank, his Merits, his Mediatorial Distinction: very little is said about his Life, his Example, his Revelations of Duty and of Destiny. The Trinitarians taunt us with having no use for Christ in our system. Certainly we believe in a God who does not require their Christ. We do not speak of Atonement therefore. But we might retort, that if we neglect their metaphysical Christ, they neglect our moral and spiritual Christ. They speak little of his character, his life, his example, as a model for humanity: nor could they in consistency with their system. Jesus, as God and man, is powerless as an exhibition of what man may be. He is no revelation of Humanity to Humanity. Humanity with Deity attached to it, or indwelling, is Humanity no more.

If Christianity is a system of doctrines to be deduced from words, and if our salvation depends upon the certainty of our deductions, then is it not clear that God would be requiring an absolute Truth of Interpretation which he has not given us the means of attaining, and that the Revelation, even to “Critics and Scholars,” would be an _uncertain property_? But if Christianity is an inspired Life, the Duties and the Destinies of Man shown forth on the Son of God, the word made flesh, the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ, a character perfectly reflecting the purposes of Providence, and preserved for us, in faithful narratives that still enable us to have the image of Jesus formed within us, then is it not clear that the Revelation is perpetuated in our hearts, and that the Christ with us still, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, is the gift of God to all men? “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the world.” Now this is Christ’s own account of himself as a Revelation. “I am the Light of the world.” “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him.”[136] “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”[137] “Whoso hath seen me hath seen the Father also.” And to crown all this scriptural evidence, this is God’s own account of his Christ as a Revelation, authenticating him at the opening of his Mission, and repeated again as His seal upon its close, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

I have shown that there is no doctrinal certainty in Christianity considered as a _written_ Revelation: but neither is there _any moral certainty_ as to the Will of God and his practical requirements conveyed by mere words. When God tells me in words to love Him and to love my neighbour, I do not know what practical forms these feelings are to assume, neither do I know how all the influences of my present life are to control me in the exercise of these affections. But I understand what God means when I see Jesus interpreting for me this will of God by his own character, and combining in his own life, through all circumstances, the perfect love of God and Man. Now I maintain, that no system of Doctrine could be a Revelation to me of the purposes and ends of life. It is a practical question, and practically must it be solved. He who will work out for me on this scene of things the great designs of my being, and show to me, in action and in suffering, in sympathy and in struggle, in the throbbings of life and in the hushed sublimities of death, the right attitudes of my nature, the fitting dignities of enlightened and heaven-bound man,—he who is not the Prophet merely of divine Truth but the Impersonator of his own views, who stands successively in each practical position and robes himself in the living glories of duty,—he alone can pretend to be a Revelation of character, as God wills it, having stamped upon his views illustrations of Reality. And he alone can pretend to have unravelled the mystery of our Discipline, who himself passes through our trials, and transmutes them into the nurseries of Power, the pregnant schools of Character—who shows us the outward circumstance, as a torch to the Spirit, lighting up the energies of Duty’s inviolable will,—who moves amid the evil that is in the world, and is not overcome by it, but overcomes it with good,—who encounters sin and sinners, and treats them with the pity of a brother, yet with the holiness of one whose Father is the spiritual God,—who stands amid baffled purposes of good, the broken projects of benevolence in the unquelled trusts of Faith, seeing, though afar off, the Harvest of this unpromising Spring,—in whom the worst aspects of Humanity only draw out the unselfishness of Charity; and the clouded countenance of God, veiled to sight though not to Faith, the perfect peace of a filial Spirit. He who passes for us through all this variety of mortal circumstance, and exhibits each, even the most dark and unpromising, as full of the materials of our Education, contributing to the formation of that perfect mind which is the end and heaven of our being, is indeed a perfect Revelation, “unimproved and unimprovable,” though improving _us_ to the end of Time, an embodied Scripture, the word made flesh and dwelling amongst us.

Christianity will be a matter of controversy so long as men look to it for what they are _to think_, and not for what they are _to trust in and be_. Creeds will divide the world, so long as Christianity is regarded as a Revelation of Doctrines, and not as a Revelation of Character, of Practical Interests, of Destinies and of Duties. In the one case it will be the “property of Critics and Scholars,” held by an uncertain tenure; in the other case, it will be “the gift of God to all men.” Strange that all Protestants do not feel the force of this argument! And as for Roman Catholics, if we had any controversy with them, the argument has only to take another step to hold them too in its grasp.

And now I shall be obliged to speak of Critics and Scholars in a way that Critics and Scholars should never expose themselves to be spoken of. I have a most painful duty before me, very different from the one I had been led to expect,—which I had hoped would have been to answer calm, learned, judicious reasonings, instead of simply to resist pretension, a task, which if much easier, is yet one that neither elevates nor instructs. Nothing could justify me in using in this place the language of grave remonstrance, but the consciousness that thereby instead of indulging I am wounding my own feelings, and the conviction that, in this case, Duty to Truth and to the Public requires it from me. Every one must have felt that the declaration before the world, of “the Unitarian Interpretation of the New Testament, based upon defective Scholarship, or on dishonest or uncandid criticism,” ought to have been amply supported, or never made. To fail in the proof was to pass not only intellectual but the severest _moral_ condemnation on such a statement. I know of no abuse of Power and Place more immoral, than when a Scholar uses his Scholarship to libel others before the unlearned, than when a Preacher uses his sacred and elevated standing to make assertions that are taken upon his word, but which are not correct, and of which nothing but the _certainty_ that they were correct could justify the utterance. If I cannot take example from what I witnessed in Christ Church on Wednesday evening, let me at least take warning. I will not pray to be preserved meek and truthful, and then regard my prayer as an indemnity for unlicensed speech. I will not commit here the disrespectful impropriety of quoting Greek. Neither will I pay this audience the false compliment of pretending to make such subjects intelligible and interesting to them, but I will make some statements that shall go forth to the world, and there find fitting judgment. There are some points, however, to which I shall have to advert, of which every one may judge.

1. It was stated by the Preacher that he could not himself believe the mysterious statements of the New Testament unless he first believed in their inspiration, and that this alone could command his faith. Now there was great candour in this, but no Scholarship. You cannot prove the Inspiration of the Bible except by first proving the truth of the Bible, for there are no proofs of Inspiration except what the Bible itself contains. To believe in the truth of the Bible, because it is inspired, and then to prove it inspired because it is true, is an error in reasoning inexcusable in the divines of the Church of England, for an eminent Bishop of their own Church, Bishop Marsh, has abundantly exposed it.

2. It was stated that every Unitarian Minister in England was as much bound by the Improved Version, as every Clergyman of the Establishment was by the Articles of the Church. The Preacher has written his name beneath those Articles; as long as he remains in the Church he has, to use Milton’s expression, to those Articles subscribed “Slave;” he has entered into a vow to preach nothing contrary to them; he belongs to a body of men organized to prevent all dissent from those Articles, and pledged to oppose and avenge every attempt to break up the dogmatical principle of their Church Union, and yet he stated solemnly before an assembled multitude that no Clergyman of the Church was more bound by the Articles of the Church than was every Unitarian Minister by a Book which one man edited on his sole literary responsibility, and which other men contributed to publish, simply because they expected from it some valuable scriptural aid. Now when a man is capable of making such a statement, when his judgment will allow him to do so, his credibility as a witness to facts I do not dispute, but _his opinion_ on any question, merely as coming from him, I cannot feel deserving of my confidence. I might quote passages of contemporary Unitarian criticism reflecting on the Improved Version; I might quote Dr. Carpenter in his answer to Archbishop Magee, ascribing the whole responsibility to Mr. Belsham; I might quote Mr. Yates in his able answer to Mr. Wardlaw, exposing the false impression made by Dr. Magee, that the Improved Version was the Unitarian Version: but I cannot so misuse your time. The Unitarians, most of whom never saw the work, and whose pride it is that their Ministers study the Scriptures freely, and lay before them the results, will smile at the idea of these Ministers being as much bound by the Improved Version as the Clergy by the Articles of the Church, though in a graver spirit they must morally condemn an assertion so recklessly made. It was stated that all Protestant Christians were satisfied with the received Version up to the time of the Improved Version, and, to advance no other proof of the ignorance displayed by such a statement, in the next breath it was declared that the Improved Version was on the basis of Archbishop Newcome’s Translation, the title of which is this, “An Attempt towards revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures.” But what means this attempt to fasten us down to the Improved Version? Is it not clear that these clergymen wish us to fight the battle upon a disadvantageous ground? Is it not clear that they wish us to take up some weak position, and defend that, rather than meet us in the strongest positions that criticism and scholarship enable us to assume and to maintain? Is not our controversy between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism, and what can be more unworthy of critics and scholars than to conduct that controversy on any ground but that of the original Scriptures? We do not think of fixing _them_ down to any particular critic of their own church, many of whom we could advance who abandon almost every position they maintain; we freely give them advantage of the best criticism and the best scholarship they can anywhere obtain; and we do confess that we hold it very uncandid towards us, and very unconfiding in their own strength, and very disloyal towards Truth, to tell opponents, I wish I could say fellow inquirers, that they are not to defend their cause by the best arguments known to them, but by a certain set of arguments published in a certain book more than thirty years ago, and before some of _us_ now engaged in this controversy were born. Our controversy is not about the Improved Version, but about the Greek Testament; and I must certainly regard any attempt to intercept us in our appeal to the original Scripture, by thrusting any other Version in our faces, as a sign either of great weakness or of great unfairness. Where would the Lecturers at Christ Church have got matter of indictment against us, if it had not been for this Improved Version?