BX 5137 .M23 1853 Macbride, J. D. 1778-1868. Lectures on The Articles of the United Church of Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/lecturesonarticlOOmacb LECTURES Logical stv^ THE ARTICLES UNITED CHURCH ENGLAND AND IRELAND. BY JOHN DAVID MACBRIDE, D.C.L. PRINCIPAL OF MAGDALENE HALL, OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER ; AND 377, STRAND, LONDON. 1853. BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD- TO THE MEMBERS OF MAGDALENE HALL, THESE LECTURES. WRITTEN FOR THEIR INSTRUCTION, ARE DEDICATED, WITH AN EARNEST DESIRE AND FERVENT PRAYER FOR THEIR ETERNAL WELFARE, BY THEIR FAITHFUL AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, THE PRINCIPAL. Oxford, June ], 1853. LECTURES UPON THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES OF THIS CHURCH OF ENGLAND. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, The Dissenter reproaches the Church of England with retaining a portion of the alloy of Popery ; the Roman Catholic condemns her as heretical ; while she appeals to her Articles, approved by her Clergy and confirmed by the authority of Parliament, as her reply to both. A knowledge of them seems then indispensable to the members of her communion, to enable them to answer the question, Why do you not return to the ancient Church from which your ancestors seceded ? or, if a Protestant, Why do you prefer your own denomination to others, which profess to have acted more in conformity with the principles of the Reform- ation, by departing to a still greater distance from Rome ? I have therefore thought it might be useful to persons, who cannot, generally speaking, be supposed to be acquainted with the controversies which divide Christians, or to have read many theological works, to draw up for them an elementary Course of Lectures upon this national Confession of Faith. In an undertaking of this description, I must be as concise as is consistent with sufficient explanation and proof of the tenets affirmed, since these Articles condense into a few sentences propositions, many of which have been keenly contested by disputants of ability and learning, and have formed the subject of volumes of controversy. Take, as an B •2 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. instance of this, the simple assertion, that our Saviour is very God. The main tamers of his divinity and of his simple hu- manity alike appeal to Scripture, and the belief of the primitive Church. The many texts brought forward on both sides have been critically examined, and differently interpreted; and we may say without exaggeration, that, independent of the re- marks dispersed through Commentaries, and Sermons, and ar- ranged in systems of Theology, a collection of the treatises in which this doctrine has been defended or opposed would almost form of itself a little library. In religion, however, as in other branches of knowledge, there is much repetition ; and in every age and country, arguments have been brought forward which have appeared before in another form or language, and have been urged already with equal or perhaps greater force. Sometimes we find an ancient and almost forgotten author very superior to a popular modern, and again a modern will sometimes compress the remarks of his predecessors so judiciously, and in a manner so much more agreeable to us, as entirely to supersede them. It is also to be remembered, that arguments are not to be numbered but weighed ; and that one strong one is better than a thousand weak ones : and here the Protestant, who appeals " to the Law and to the Testimony," and who regards uninspired writers only in as far as they adhere to this sole standard of truth, has an incalculable advantage over the Roman Catholic, who is weighed down by authorities, which he dares not set aside, but which are often perplexing, not only from their multitude, but from their contradictory character. The Pro- testant, it is true, after making the most liberal deduction, has remaining a number of volumes deserving of an entire and attentive perusal, sufficiently alarming when we consider how short life is, and how much is to be done in it as well as learnt; not to speak of many more which ought to be partially consulted. The study of them, however, is not obligatory upon us, as that of the Fathers and the Decrees of Councils are upon the Roman Catholic divine ; not that we despise, as they reproach us, the writings of the early Christians, most of whom we allow to be men of eminent piety, some of learning and talents, and all competent to INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. report the opinions that prevailed in their own time. With respect to the rites and practices of the primitive Church, we believe that they cannot be mistaken : in all interpretations that turn upon the meaning of words, those who, like Origen and Chrvsostom, spoke the language in which the New Tes- tament is written, have an undeniable advantage over us, but still we are not enslaved to their authority ; we assume the right of judging for ourselves, and of calling no man upon earth master ; and we do not find that any of these Fathers require the unhanded submission which the Romanist claims for them. Certainly, it is an advantage not to be estimated at a low rate, that we are not required to read through the Decrees of Council after Council, and to examine the voluminous works of the Fathers, that is to say, of Eccle- siastical authors from the immediate successors of the Apostles down to St. Bernard, not to speak of the School- men, as Thomas Aquinas and his predecessor Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences, a compilation from Augustine and subsequent Latin authors, the great class book, from which Theology was learnt in this and in other Universities, till the Reformation. Whereas the Roman Catholic must assent to whatever the Church believes, as handed down to her by Tradition, and must take her interpretation of Scrip- ture, whether agreeable or not to his own judgment, as the true Catholic Faith, without the profession of which no one can be saved. In a course of years there will be much of human opinion to be rejected, even when that of honest well- meaning minds; how much more must we discard not only as frivolous but pernicious, if there have been ignorance, super- stition, credulity, and interest to originate and sanction the doctrine, and party zeal, ambition, and enthusiasm to nourish and establish it. What disciple of St. Peter, unless endued with the spirit of prophecy, could have imagined how in subsequent ages essential Gospel truth could have been not only concealed, but perverted, under the influence of a series of Bishops, who claimed to be his successors, and who as such, assumed the right of being the infallible Vicars, the assumed right, which he never claimed, of being the Vicar and representative of his Master upon earth. At the period of the 4 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. Reformation, it was high time to throw off the enormous mass of traditions which, accumulating for ages, had en- cumbered, and well nigh smothered, the truth ; and happily we Protestants, taking for our guide the axiom embodied in our Articles, that the Scripture is the only test of truth, are free, without any bigotted deference to authority, to examine and prove all doctrines by that, our only rule of faith. We shall see hereafter, that there are some, as Purgatory, and the Adoration of Relics, which even by the confession of their advocates rest mainly upon Tradition. Before I enter upon the explanation and proof of the Ar- ticles, I wish to premise, that Truth itself may be unskilfully defended. If therefore any statement I make shall be erro- neous, or the arguments by which it is supported untenable, I have to request that the doctrine may not be surrendered as de- fenceless, because its advocate may have failed in defending it. It is also my desire to impress upon your minds, that this branch of knowledge is not a science discovered by man's genius, and improved and enlarged by the experience and observations of successive generations, but the revealed will of God ; and though it must be shewn to be his will, and requires to be vindicated and enforced, and admits of ex- planation and illustration, it cannot from its nature be sus- ceptible of alteration, or even of development. As proclaimed by its inspired promulgators, it is perfect, and all that subse- quent generations have to do is to endeavour to comprehend in all particulars the Record which they have left us. The use of other knowledge is limited to our abode upon earth ; but when all the ties that bind us to our families, our country, and mankind, are burst asunder by death, it will be of incalculable importance to us to have understood the character of the awful Being, to whom we shall be responsible for our conduct here, and to know what conduct will procure our admission into His joy, or banish us into eternal punishment. And no reasonable person will deny, that a right faith is required to produce right and acceptable conduct. Some indeed of these Articles only concern us as members of the Church militant upon earth ; but others must be believed; or, to say the least, we have no scriptural INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. •3 warrant for believing that we shall be admitted into the Church triumphant in Heaven. Belief in what God has been pleased to reveal, and obedience to what He has commanded, is our undeniable and indispensable duty ; but unhappily upon these vital points, contradictory opinions exist ; and it would be the height of folly, (a folly notwith- standing to which some of the most gifted and eminent of the men of this world must plead guilty,) either to reject without examination, or to take upon trust, matters of infinite importance, in which there are errors both on the right hand and the left; several of them injurious, and some which it may be feared will prove fatal. While Rome demands implicit faith, and requires her members to declare they believe whatever the Church believes, without enquir- ing what that belief is, or knowing why she believes it, let us never forget, that it is our boast and privilege, as Protestants, to judge for ourselves ; and that in this respect at least, we are hardly entitled to the appellation of rational beings, if upon the most important topic that can occupy the mind, we do not prepare ourselves to give a reason of the faith, and, I would desire to add, of " the hope that is in us." Lastly, let me entreat you to remember, that we are now treading on holy ground, and that the subjects which Theology presents to our examination and belief, are not to be discussed with the same indifference as the demonstrations of science. Mathematical and physical truths convince the understanding without affecting the heart ; but religious questions involve the moral character and government of that awful Being, who has not only brought us into existence and preserves us here, but will dispose of us as He sees fit hereafter. It seems impossible to approach truths which will affect us in eternity, as well as in time, with indifference, much more in a tone of levity ; yet unhappily, as upon other topics, so even upon this, familiarity has a tendency to blunt our feelings and extinguish our reverence. If any doubt the danger, I would appeal to the mortifying fact, that a profane application of scriptural phraseology, which almost irre- sistibly provokes a smile, is often even more than tolerated 6 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. in circles, which would be shocked at being considered irreligious. There is also unhappily a method of proving even the leading truths of our holy Faith ; such as the Divinity of our blessed Lord, and that inestimable proof of his love, his purchasing us with his most precious blood, which rather shows the sturdy polemic, proud of the skill with which he wields his weapons against a fellow-sinner, than the devoted believer who feels with the Apostle, that he must live unto the Saviour that died for him, denying all ungodliness, and consecrating his talents and means unreservedly to his glory. On the other hand, we must be on our guard against the opposite fault, the hypocritical affectation of a devotion which we do not feel : we shall best preserve the happy medium, by encouraging the reality of devotion; and this may be preserved or excited by studying these serious truths, not as subjects of barren speculation, but by medi- tating on them, so as to make them principles of conduct, and sources of consolation. The enquiry, though not a religious exercise, should be prosecuted in the spirit of religion; and we should bear in mind, that Theology ought to be studied not to show off our attainments in it, or to advance our worldly interest, or gratify the love of distinction, but that we may form correct and orthodox opinions ; and orthodox opinions are not to be sought to gratify curiosity, or obtain the credit of learning, but that as we thus better know, wre may better fulfil our duty. As man is not a solitary independent being, but born a member of society, even religion itself is not merely a per- sonal concern between himself and his Creator. That connection, it is true, will continue after every other has been dissolved : but much of practical religion in this world consists in the performance of relative duties to man; and even our duty to God requires, that we should honour Him before our fellow-creatures; and without neglecting private prayer, which becomes us as individuals, should in public unite in offering supplications for future blessings, and thanksgiv- ings for those received, with other believers, as members of society. Reason suggests, that the whole human race is one INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 7 great family under the government of the common Parent of all, and consequently brethren; and Revelation both confirms this deduction, and exhibits to us the Deity in a still more intimate relation, as Redeemer and Sanctifier. The Scrip- tures represent our Lord Jesus Christ as the Head of a peculiar, that is purchased, people, denominated the Church; and the Apostle Paul shows the sympathy that ought to prevail among them, by comparing it to the human body. Brotherly love, meaning thereby love to those who are par- takers of the same faith and the same hope, is enforced in the New Testament, independently of, and in preference to, charity, or love to men as our fellow-creatures, and is even made the characteristic of Christianity. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; and every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him. (1 John v. 1.) These things I command you, that ye love one another. (John xv. 17.) The institution of the two Sacraments proves the social nature of our religion, since they cannot be administered in solitude; as therefore we are by nature members of the State, so by baptism we become, and through the Lord's Supper we continue, members of the Church. Now the Church as well as the State must have officers and regulations : and the acknowledgment of the same leading truths, and agreement both in the object and mode of worship, is indispensable not only to its welfare, but its existence. Hence the origin of Creeds and Articles of Faith. Much has been said in modern times of the liberty and rights of con- science, and of the tyranny of requiring subscription to any human formularies. The declamation is specious, and is apt to delude the Protestant, who from experience of the Papal yoke is naturally suspicious of whatever seems to interfere with the right of private judgment; yet a calm investigation will satisfy the reasonable enquirer that it is a fallacy. The question before us is not of what Articles our Creed should consist, but whether we should have any. There are no doubt subordinate points on which we may agree to differ; but reduce them ever so much, there must be fundamental tenets, without assenting to which we cannot be members of the same Society. For instance, unless we agree in the object 8 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. of our worship, we cannot unite with others in prayer. The conscientious Anti-Trinitarian, who regards our blessed Lord as a mere man, would feel himself guilty of idolatry in con- forming to the Liturgy of the Church of England, in whose Liturgy He is so often invoked as God \ while the Churchman or orthodox Dissenter could not, without doing violence to his conscience, join in prayers in which the Son was not honoured as the Father. There must also be an agreement in the mode of conducting religious services. The Roman Catholic and we believe alike in the divinity and the efficacy of the death of the Son of God, yet we cannot assemble round our table or their altar to keep His dying command, while one regards the elements as only indicating His spiritual presence to the worthy communicant, and the other worships what he eats, as the actual Deity. Every Society must have a right to form its own rules, which its members are bound either to keep or to withdraw ; for we protest against that iniquitous dogma of Rome, which claims the allegiance of all baptized persons, treating as rebels those who deny her right to teach and govern. The Church is a voluntary union ; we may be dismissed from it if we will not conform to its discipline, or we may leave it of our own accord ; but while we continue in it, we must submit to its rules. Baptism, the rite appointed by our Lord for our admission into the Church, significantly declares, that we renounce the service of every other master, and represents the purification required in persons who enter into his. Christ's last instruc- tions to his Apostles was to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ; that is, into a religion, the characteristic doctrine of which was a belief in the ever-blessed Trinity. A declaration therefore to this effect was from the beginning required from adult candidates for Baptism, and a belief in these Three Divine Persons, necessarily included not only a declaration of who they were, but what they had done for the believer. It was, to use the language of our own Cate- chism, a confession of faith "in God the Father, who hath made all things ; in God the Son, who hath redeemed all mankind ; and in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth the INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 9 elect people of God." As errors concerning the nature and offices of these Persons originated and spread, it became necessary to enlarge these Confessions of Faith, in order to exclude heretics. At first, each Bishop drew up a Creed for his own diocese; but the Council of Nice, which was held principally to suppress the Arian heresy, compiled one which soon became that of the Eastern Church, superseding the more ancient local ones. The Apostles' Creed, as it is com- monly called, was that of the Apostolic Church of Rome, so termed, because reputed to be founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul; the Athanasian, which seems to have origin- ated in France, was afterwards adopted into the Roman Liturgy; and these three Creeds were the only Articles of Faith, previous to the Reformation. The Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, aware of the evil of multiplying them, had decreed, that the Nicene Creed, as enlarged at Con- stantinople, should receive no additions; notwithstanding it made decrees in points of faith as well as of discipline. Succeeding Councils followed this example ; and though no declaration of faith appears to have been required from others, Bishops engaged to observe all the decrees and tra- ditions of holy Councils and Fathers ; and when the Papal power became predominant over Episcopacy, took an oath of obedience to the Bishop of Rome, but it contained no point of doctrine. The Reformation necessarily required from those who had embraced it, a more explicit declaration of faith than was contained in the ancient Creeds, especially on the points on which they differed from the received opinions. The Churches which separated from the communion of Rome, were bound to shew what were the errors against which they protested, and what were the doctrines they retained. Besides, at the period of the Reformation, as of every revival of religion, tares sprang up together with the good seed, and the pernicious tenets of the Anabaptists and other Antinomians, who turned the grace of God into licentiousness, were charged by Roman Catholic contro- versialists upon all the Reformers. For their own credit, therefore, and to preserve their less instructed members 10 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. from dangers of another description, it became desirable that the world should know, that the errors of Rome were not the only ones rejected. We see, therefore, that our Articles, and the Confessions of the foreign Protestants, were drawn up to exclude all, whether Romanists or others, whom it was deemed unfit to admit within the pale of the Church. They are not therefore to be regarded as a state- ment of fundamental truths, an epitome, as it were, of Theology, but as an abstract both of what is at all times to be received, and of prevalent errors which it was then especially desirable to condemn. Some seem to be such obvious and undeniable propositions, that we wonder at their being brought forward; while others treat of such profound and, I may add, unfathomable mysteries, that we are surprised at their admission into a formulary not de- signed for Professors of Divinity, but for all the Clergy. History explains the introduction of both. The order too in which they are arranged appears, at first sight, objection- able. It seems natural to settle the rule of faith first, and then to proceed to a statement of the doctrines to be believed ; that is, that as in some of the foreign Confessions, and in that of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, the Article on the Sufficiency of Scripture should stand first, and that those upon doctrines should follow ; but our Reformers preferred stating first the tenets which they held in common with their opponents, before they came to the points of difference. The first five Articles, accordingly, which contain fundamental articles respecting the Deity, are common to us with the Church of Rome. In the three following, the rule of faith is established and explained ; the next ten relate to Christians as individuals; the remain- ing twenty affect them as members of the Church. The Articles therefore may be arranged in four parts. It is now more than three centuries since Martin Luther, appointed by the Elector of Saxony Professor of Divinity in his new University of Wittemberg, in the 36th year of his age, boldly commenced the Reformation, by the overt act of burning the Papal Bull, which had condemned him as an obstinate heretic. Determined publicly to break off for INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 11 ever his connection with the Church of Rome, he had pre- pared a pile of wood without the city walls, and in the presence of the Professors and Students and the inhabitants, committed to the flames the declaration of his excommu- nication, together with the volumes of the Canon Law respecting the Pontifical jurisdiction; and to shew that this defiance of the ecclesiastical sovereign of Christendom was no sudden ebullition of passion, he had selected several Articles from the Papal Creed as samples of its iniquity, accompanying them with concise remarks, which he printed, that the public might judge of this proceeding. His indignation had been roused by the sale of Indulgences ; and it is remarkable, that they were issued for the completion of St. Peter's Church at Rome, regarded as the noblest edifice of modern art, which has thus become undesignedly a monument of the Reformation. The sale had been delegated to John Tetzel, a Dominican monk of licentious habits, yet of popular eloquence, who executed his commission with effrontery, and shocked even unthinking persons of the world by his scandalous behaviour. A teacher then of the piety and zeal of Luther could not continue a silent unmoved observer of such gross abuses. He accordingly from the pulpit, in the great Church of Wittemberg, inveighed against the vices of those who published Indulgences, and pointed out the danger of relying for salvation upon any other means than those appointed by God. Roman Catholic authors, even moderate ones, such as Guicciardini and Father Paul, ascribe his opposition to his envy at the sale, being entrusted to monks of a rival order. But this has been disproved by Dr. Robertson ; and his appeal to Scripture, and his avowal of the doctrine of justifi- cation by faith in his conference with Cardinal Cajetan, before throwing off his allegiance to the Pope, show that he was actuated by no worldly motives : and Erasmus expresses his belief, that it was the erroneous preaching of the monks and friars that put him on this dangerous work, and that his greatest offence was his preference of the Gospel to the teach- ing of the Schoolmen. He had already published his Com- mentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, which was read with avidity, and was a most powerful instrument in promoting the 12 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. Reformation, not by correcting the abuses of papal doctrine, but by demolishing the foundation upon which the system stood, in proving by numberless arguments, and particularly by the marked opposition between law and grace, that in justification before God all sorts of works, moral as well as ceremonial, are excluded. He restores likewise, says Dean Milnera, to the Christian world the true forensic sense of the term, and rescues it from that in which it for many ages had been misunderstood, as though it meant infused habits of virtue, whence it had been usual to confound justification with sanctification. Luther, he continues, was evidently rather the instrument than the agent of the Reformation, for he was led from step to step by a series of circumstances, which far beyond his original intentions, and in a manner which might evince the excellency of the power to be of God, and not of man. The doctrine of Justification, in its explicit form, had been lost for many ages. In whatever manner the Papist might subtilize and divide, he was compelled by his system to hold, that, by a compliance with the rules of the Church, pardon was to be obtained, and that the satisfaction of Christ was not sufficiently meritorious for this end. It was evident that no Reformation could take place through the medium of qualifying and correcting the abuses in the sale of Indulgences. The system was wholly impious, and the right knowledge of justification the only remedy; this then was the object of the Reformation, and in the demolition of one of the vilest perversions of superstition, there suddenly revived in all its simplicity that Apostolical doctrine, in which is contained the great mystery of the Scriptures. By this doctrine rightly stated, with all its adjuncts and depend- encies, a new light breaks in on the mind, and Christianity appears singularly distinct not only from Popery, but also from all other religions. The glory of the purchase of pardon and peace belongs demonstrable to Christ alone, and thus the self-righteous are rebuked, distressed consciences are relieved, and believers are enabled to bring forth all the fruits of righteousness. The Author had ploughed deep into the human heart, and knew its nature and depravity ; he had * History of the Church of Christ, vol. iv. ch. 6. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 13 long laboured to no purpose to gain peace of conscience by legal observances and moral works ; and had been relieved from the most pungent anxiety, by a discovery of the remedy. He was appointed in the counsels of Providence, by no means exclusively of the other Reformers, but in a manner more extraordinary and much superior, to teach, after upwards of a thousand years obscurity, this great evangelical tenet, compared with which how little appears all other objects of controversy ! Amidst the divisions arising out of Luther's exposing the errors of the Church, the remedy to which all looked, who wished to combine the present system with the reformation of glaring abuses, was a General Council ; and to this Luther himself had originally appealed. The Court of Rome, though averse to a measure which might end in the diminution of the Papal authority, could not with decency reject the repeated applications made from the most respectable and even from the highest quarters. Clement, however, who had been not long delivered from his imprisonment during the occupation of his capital by a German army, and could not forget the deposal of his pre- decessors by the Councils of Pisa and Constance, would offer none but on terms which the Princes who favoured Luther would reject. The Emperor Charles V. therefore, who had just been crowned by him at Bologna, was determined to try the effect of another Diet, which he summoned at Augsburg ; the sixth before which the religious differences of the empire had been brought. The first was that at Worms, 1521, where Luther ventured to appear, and de- fended himself in the presence of the Emperor and his feu- datory Princes, but was proscribed as a heretic. In the second held at Nuremberg, 1522, Pope Adrian VI. acknow- ledged the need of Reformation ; and the German Princes presented their list of a hundred grievances, which the Empire suffered from the Court of Rome. The decree of this Diet virtually abrogated the edict of Worms. The fifth was held at Spire in 1549, after peace had been con- cluded between the Emperor and the Pope. Here the indulgence granted at the former Diet held in the same place was rescinded ; for further innovations in religion were 14 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. prohibited, and the Mass was not to be abolished before the meeting of a General Council. The Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Dukes of Luneburg, the Prince of Anhalt, together with the deputies of fourteen free cities, entered a solemn protest against this decree as unjust and impious. On that account they were distinguished, adds Dr. Robertson, by the name Protestants, an appellation which hath since become better known and more honourable, by its being applied indis- criminately to all the sects, of whatever denomination, which have revolted from the Roman See. An extraordinary change, however, has come over the minds of many who have been educated within the pale of our Church, but clearly never trained up in its Homilies and Articles, who repudiate with more or less disgust the title as a foreign appellation, with which Anglican Churchmen ought to have no connec- tion. For this novelty they plead, that it does not occur in our Liturgy, and that Protestantism is a mere negation of error. But to this it is a sufficient reply, that the use was not to be expected in a book of prayers, which is not of a controversial character, and that the Reformed Protestant Church is in our Acts of Parliament the recognised legal title of the branch of the Church Catholic, which is happily established in England and Ireland. The abnegation of error, it should be remembered, is equivalent to the affirm- ation of the contrary truth, and the most cursory perusal of the Augustan Confession, or of our Thirty-nine Articles, agreeing with it in doctrine, and often in words, will convince any one that they positively maintain the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. It is desirable, especially in these days of Papal aggression, that a term should be brought prominently forward, that shews at once our substantial agreement with the Reformed Congregations on the continent, and may dispel a notion that some persons wish to encourage, that our Church is an insulated one, and is to maintain itself alone, instead of being one in the great confederacy of the Churches of the Reformation, who have a common cause of truth and liberty to support against the common enemy, and whose extension, if not existence, depends so much INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 15 upon union. At this Diet, the Elector of Saxony and his friends were called upon to present a summary of their faith, and an account of the reformation of abuses which they demanded. The Elector and his friends were pre- pared ; the Confession or Apology, that is, Defence, as it was at that time called, had been drawn up sometime; Luther had furnished the materials, and it received its form from the pen of Melancthon. It consists of twenty-one chief Articles of Faith, to most of which are rejoined rejections of the opposite errors, so that each topic may be said to be explained both positively and negatively. It is followed by seven others, on the Mass, Communion in both kinds, Confession, and other abuses, and concludes with an Epilogue, in which it is observed, that numerous others might have been specified ; but that to avoid prolixity and to promote conciliation, the writers had confined themselves to such1' as were most essential. Upon this Confession, the continuator of Milner's History remarks, that the Doctrine of the Reformation is all one in the main ; and that the slight differences in the formularies of the several Churches are not worthy to be named in comparison with their general agreement. He notices, that there is no Article answering to our XVIIth; but that the XXth, on Faith and Good Works declares that God's promises are to be received as generally set forth in holy Scripture, and that as the preaching of repentance is universal, so also is the promise of grace. It would also seem not to admit final perseverance. With all its zeal against justification by works, the Con- fession is less scrupulous in the use of certain terms than almost all have now learnt to be, for it hesitates not to say of repentance, that it deserves [meretur] the remission of sins. Further, like a few incidental passages in our Homilies, it seems sometimes to approach too near to con- founding faith with the assurance of personal acceptance; and Mr. Scott judges the Confession most defective, as to the work of the Holy Spirit in first preventing and afterwards in working with us. But these are, he adds, only specks in the sun, and that as a whole it is a noble monument of what b Scott's Continuation, vol. i. eh. 1. p. 28, &c. 16 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. the Reformers contended for, namely, Christian truth, liberty, and spiritual worship. It is no cold dry doctrinal statement, a sacred unction overspreads it; and it bears upon its face to be the production of men, with whom religion is a matter of deep and serious feeling, and it has a direct reference to give relief to distressed consciences, and to produce spiritual obedience. The Reformation spread rapidly, but with the formation of the order of Jesuits, a powerful reaction ensued. The Re- formation had spread over the whole of Germany, but Protest- antism gradually died away in the south, which has been long regained by Rome. Happily it still predominates in the north ; and is established in Scandinavia, Holland, and the British empire. In Italy and Spain it was soon suppressed by per- secution ; in France it has experienced a variety of fortunes. Calvin, obliged to fly his native land, sought refuge in Geneva, which had already embraced the new doctrines, and had ejected its Bishop, who was also the temporal sovereign. His influ- ence soon enabled him to establish there his own Presbyterian platform of Church Government, which he had devised, not in preference to Episcopacy, but as a substitute, because circumstances rendered it impracticable to retain it; and this scheme, which was adopted in Scotland, has had no inconsiderable effect upon England. The French Reformed Church was in its infancy formidable to the Establishment, as reckoning among its supporters many of the nobility, and some of the princes of the blood ; and King Henry the IVth, though he renounced on his accession that faith in which he had been educated, granted not merely toleration, but equal civil and political privileges to his Protestant subjects. This edict, which derived its name from Nantes, the city in which it was issued in 1598, was revoked by his grandson Louis XlVth, 1685. Their temples were in con- sequence demolished, their worship was proscribed, the per- secuting cruelty of the middle ages was revived, and many thousand of his most industrious subjects fled to Germany, Holland, and England, where they as manufacturers became useful citizens, and enriched the countries which granted them a home. Protestantism, however, continued to exist, by INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 17 degrees the authorities connived at it, but it was not legally tolerated till the Revolution placed it on an equality with the Roman Church, by granting pensions of equal value to their ministers and the priests. All Protestants agree in the common and distinguishing principle, that Scripture is the sole source of religious know- ledge, and they have in general come to the same conclusions as to its meaning ; for although one of the most specious arguments of the Romanists, which Bossuet has handled with great adroitness, is the endless variety of the Protestant opinions, against which he urges, that the only remedy is an appeal to some infallible authority, examination will prove that differences have been greatly exaggerated, and that in leading essential Articles there is a substantial uniformity. The Lord's Supper, which ought to be the closest bond of union, we must allow to be an important and melancholy exception. The Lutherans maintain Consubstantiation, that is, the actual existence, after consecration, of Christ's body and blood together with the material elements in the Eu- charist; while the followers of Zwingli and of Calvin, the reformers of Switzerland and Geneva, like our own Church, acknowledge no more than a spiritual presence in the receiver. This difference divides those who have separated from Rome into two bodies, the Protestants and the Reformed, terms which in England are commonly used as synonymous, but correctly speaking the first is equivalent to the Lutheran Church, or Evangelical, to use their own denomination of it, the second to the French or Calvinistic. In Scotland and on the Continent the Reformation, with few exceptions, ascended from the lower and middle to the upper classes of society. It was generally opposed by the Clergy, who, where they had not power or influence enough to crush it, were swept away by it in its course, and their revenues and episcopal succession were lost ; whereas in our country it originated with a few leading men who held the highest offices in Church and State, and had imbibed the doctrines of Luther, and who instead of following gave an impulse to the public mind. A reformation, commenced and carried on by Prelates acquainted with ecclesiastical c 18 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. antiquity as well as Scripture, and who anticipated their countrymen, and communicated to them as they could bear it, the light which had gradually broke in upon themselves, was cautious and moderate. It was a reformation, not a revolution. The nomination of Cranmer to the Archbishopric of Canterbury providentially gave him the highest authority in the Church, and the death of the overbearing Henry, and the accession of his son, a child ten years of age, enabled him, as far as circumstances would permit, to model our Church both in doctrine and discipline according to his ideas of primitive Christianity. Thus while all other Protestant Churches, Sweden alone excepted, from necessity rather than choice, have lost episcopal government, substituting as in the Lutheran for Bishops superintendents, our own has retained its Prelates in an unbroken succession, not a new but a revised Liturgy, freed from mediaeval superstitious additions, and rites and ceremonies which were in use in the early ages. Henry himself seems to have been solely actuated by personal and political motives, and appears from his Will to have died a doctrinal Roman Catholic. He seems to have considered supremacy and infallibility as inseparable, as if the Act of Parliament which transferred the first could convey the second. As he changed his own opinions, he expected that his subjects should change theirs ; he opposed all who differed from him, and sometimes there might be seen in the same fires, Roman Catholics condemned for refusing to acknowledge his supremacy, and Protestants for denying the real presence of Christ in what was called the Sacrament of the Altar. Cranmer, freed from his control, proceeded, but by slow degrees, to establish Protestantism. The laity, excepting those who profited by the spoliation of the Church, seem in general to have been attached to the old religion ; his making the German Bucer, and the Italian refugee Peter Martyr, Professors of Divinity at Cambridge and Oxford, shows that the Universities were popishly inclined; and we know the latter was obliged to fly from his residence in Christ Church, upon the arrival of the intelligence of Edward's death, which was celebrated with bonfires and other demonstrations of joy. The composing of the First INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. ID Book of Homilies, which was Cranmer's earliest undertaking, seems to prove not only the ignorance of the parochial clergy, but an unwillingness to let them preach their own Sermons. Henry had abolished the greater monasteries, partly in order to secure an ascendancy in the Upper House of Parliament, in which the Spiritual Lords, while they included mitred Abbots, in consequence of the extinction of titles by the civil wars, and his father's reluctance to confer new ones, doubled the number of Barons. For the same purpose of promoting the Reformation, the Lower House was enlarged in Edward's reign, by calling upon twenty-two Boroughs which were under Crown influence, seven of them in Cornwall, to return Representatives. In fact, the Reformation appears to have been introduced into England before it was ripe for it, and this opinion derives strength from the fact, of the readiness with which, on Mary's accession, it relapsed into Popery. " Many thought," says Burnet0, " that Cranmer should have begun with the Articles, and he was much pressed about it by Bucer ; but till the Bishoprics were generally filled with persons favourable to the Reformation, it would have been hardly practicable ; and the modes of worship by which men in their addresses to the Deity were involved in unlawful compliances, called for reformation more urgently than the settlement of speculative points." Whoever wishes to trace the gradual progress of our Reformation, should examine the formularies that appeared in the preceding reign. These have been printed at our University Press, and the following report of their contents is taken from the present Bishop of St. Asaph's 'Sketch of the History of the Church of England d.' The works are three: 'Articles devised by the King's Highnes Majestie to stablyshe Christen quietness and unitie among us, 1536;' which were inserted nearly verbatim into the two others. 2. 'The Institution of a Christian Man, 1537;' and, 3. 'A necessary doctrine and erudition for any Christian Man, 1543.' The first, being dedicated by the Bishops to the King, is called the Bishops' book. It had been long supposed that the Reformers were mainly in- e History of the Reformation, vol. ii. book i. p. 166. d Vol. i. p. 225. C 2 20 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. debted to Cranmer for this formulary of doctrine; and the fact is now established beyond dispute, by the recent publication of some letters to Cromwell from Latymer and Fox. The second, by being addressed by the King to his people, is called the King's book, and is a step back towards Romanism. Even the former must not be taken as the fixed and deliberate judgment of Cranmer, which will be found in the Articles published in Edward's reign, sanctioned and probably drawn up by him. These earlier formularies exhibit a mixture of light and darkness, not day light, but rather the dawn that precedes it. It was not till 1551, that Cranmer received an order, probably at his own request, to frame a book of Articles of Religion. Another cause of delay may perhaps be found in the hope which he long cherished of arranging by common consent a general confession of faith for all the Protestant Churches. The plan originated with Melancthon, but in vain did Cranmer repeatedly invite him into England ; and finding at length the impracticability of a project, which however desirable is never likely in the present condition of human imperfection to be achieved, he proceeded to draw up a separate formulary for his own branch of the universal Church. Negociations had been carried on as long back as 1538, between Henry and the German Protestants, for this purpose, first abroad, and afterwards in London. It was arranged according to the Augsburg scheme, that the representatives of the two nations should first settle the chief articles of faith, and should then proceed to inquire into the abuses and corruptions alleged to have crept into the Church. The first division of their consult- ations they brought to an happy issue ; but when they came to examine the abuses, the King differed so widely from the Germans, as to cut off all hope of a satisfactory settlement. There is every probability, that their Confession of faith has been lately found among Cranmer's papers in the State Paper Office. The document is manifestly founded on the Confession of Augsburg, departing from it exactly in these instances where a variation might have been expected. It is also in Latin, which adds to the probability of its having been com- INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 21 posed in concert with foreigners ; for the formularies of Henry's reign, designed for domestic use, are in English. It appears that this was the groundwork of the forty-two Articles of 1552, and that it was through this channel that the language of the German Confession was introduced into them. At least the inference is supported by the fact, that the expressions in Edward's formulary, usually adduced to prove its connection with that Confession, are also found in this Book, while it contains others common to the two, which will be sought for in vain in the Confession. And to this Book, if it was the result of the Conferences of 1538, the framers of Edward's Articles would be likely to have recourse. They would naturally be anxious to meet the views of their brethren on the Continent, as well as of their countrymen ; and they could not pursue a surer method of attaining this object, than by borrowing from a form of doctrine already approved by bothe. These Articles, however, do not servilely follow either; they are at once more compre- hensive and more brief, containing judgments on a greater variety of questions, but entering less into the grounds on which these judgments rest. Their publication might also have been delayed till the King was out of pupillage, that his sanction might give them the more weight, which was obtained only a few days before his death; and it is doubtful whether they obtained any other. The Title, " Articles agreed to in the Synod of London, in 1552, by the Bishops and other godly and learned men," conveys the idea of having been approved by Convocation ; but Cranmer when interrogated replied, I was ignorant of the setting to of that Title, and as soon as I had knowledge thereof, I did not like it; therefore, when I complained thereof to the Council, it was answered by them, that the Book wTas so entitled because it was set forth in the time of the Convocation. This, however, is unimportant; for their promulgation was rapidly followed by their abrogation. The accession of Mary was the signal for the overthrow of all that had been accomplished, and the reestablishment c These remarks are taken from Dr. Jenkyns's Preface to his edition of Cranmer's Works, in which he has printed the Articles themselves. 22 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. of the ancient superstition. Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, and Latymer, the chief instruments in effecting the changes under her brother, testified the sincerity of their attach- ment to Protestantism by martyrdom ; others who returned to complete the work of reformation, of whom Grindal, Coverdale, Fox, Nowell, and Jewel, still preserve their celebrity, found an asylum in Geneva, Frankfort, and Zurich ; and continued in exile until after an interval of five years and a half. Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, and the cruelties of her Sister, which seemed likely to extinguish it, are said to have had more effect than all the preaching or writing of the Reformers, to alienate the nation from Popery. Dr. Parker was appointed Primate. The fabric of error and superstition had been demolished by Cranmer, but his improvements had also been levelled to the ground ; and it was Parker's delicate task to rebuild the national Church on the true foundation. He began with procuring the reenaction of the Prayer Book; but though Elizabeth succeeded in 1558, it was not till 1562 that he could get the Articles authorized. A Synod of the Clergy of both Provinces was then assembled, and to them the Archbishop submitted for examination a copy which he had prepared, with considerable alterations, of King Edward's Articles. There is no authentic copy of the Thirty-nine Articles, for it perished with the other records of Convocation in the fire of London. But the Archbishop's own draft is preserved with his other Manu- scripts, which he bequeathed to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge ; of which Society he had been Master. Strype's account, which used to be followed, is inaccurate ; and the recent publication by Dr. Lamb, the late Master, enables me to correct it. The Manuscript is in Latin, in a small pale hand, not very correct, and several passages are marked with a red pencil to be omitted, but not by the Archbishop previously in private, as Strype supposed, but afterwards by the Upper House of Convocation, where twenty Prelates, including the Archbishops, testified their approbation of the rest by their signatures. The other Manuscript is an English copy of the Articles, as signed again in 1571. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 23 The Archbishop's scheme, as finally adopted by Convoca- tion, has four entirely new Articles'"; omits four, and alters seventeen, leaving only four untouched. Several of his alter- ations are taken from the Wirtemberg Confession, 1551. The meaning of the descent into Hell is left open to private judgment, probably in consequence of the request of Alley, Bishop of Exeter, as the subject had excited much discus- sion in his Diocese. The books of Scripture are enumerated, and an important point is gained by the distinction now introduced between the Canon and the Apocrypha. A sentence is dropped from the twenty-eighth Article, con- tradictory of the real presence of Christ's body in the Sacrament, and to Ubiquitinarianism. Burnet can hardly be correct in his supposition, that this was done to conciliate the Roman Catholics, because the sentence before, which denies Transubstantiation, was not altered; and a new sentence, declaring that the body was only eaten after a heavenly and spiritual manner, was added. A Declaration similar to the omitted sentence had been appended to the Communion Service in King Edward's second book ; in Elizabeth's, 1560, it was left out; but was restored at the last revision, 1662, with some alterations. The twentieth Article now commences with these words, " The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in con- troversies of faith." It has been eagerly disputed, whether they were omitted in some editions of the Articles, or inserted in others without authority. Laud on his trial cleared himself from the charge of having forged it, a notary public testifying before the Starchamber, that the clause did exist in the authoritative copies of the Acts of the Convocation, then still remaining in St. Paul's. It does not appear in the Archbishop's draft, submitted to the Upper House, nor in the English copy, printed under his direction, and which would be translated from his copy, nor afterwards in the Latin, or in Jewel's English edition. It first appears in Reginald Wolfe's, that is, the first edition of the Latin, published under the immediate authority of the Queen, and f 5, 12, 29, 30, new.— 10, 16, 10, 41, of King Edward's omitted.— 2, 0, 7, 9, 10, 11, 17, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 34, 35, 30, 37, altered more or less. 24 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. must therefore have been inserted either by the Lower House of Convocation, or by those that copied their Records. The Queen was then endeavouring to establish her pre- rogative in Church affairs, and to be not only Protector but Director of the faith of her subjects. It might be thought that neither she nor her Council would take upon them- selves to alter Articles approved of in Convocation; but we know that the twenty -ninth, " The impious eat not Christ's body," was omitted both in the English and Latin, printed before 1571, in compliance with the wish of Cecil, probably at the suggestion of his Sovereign. The Articles were brought before the Convocation of 1572, and subscribed, and it was ordered that they should be read quarterly in every parish church, and the Ratification was now added. For this purpose, Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, author of the celebrated Apology of the Church of England, was commissioned to superintend the impression of them in English, as well as in Latin. He adopted, with a few verbal variations, the translation already before the public ; and we shall find that words ambiguous in the one, are plain and un- equivocal in the other. An Act of Parliament in the same year made them a part of the law of the land. They were once more solemnly acknowledged in Convocation, under Bancroft, in 1604, and at the suggestion of Laud, an edition came forth in 1628, with a declaration by Charles I. calling upon all to submit to them in their plain and literal grammatical sense, and not to draw the [that is the XVIIth] Article any way. His object was to discourage any discussion of the Predesti- narian Controversy. Before the Revolution, Dissent from the Established Church was punishable as an offence against the State ; but Toleration was granted to Protestant Dissenters on the accession of William and Mary. Toleration, however, was very different from the entire religious liberty now enjoyed, for dissenting ministers were considered as pledged to the doctrine of the Church, though allowed to reject its discipline; and they were accordingly, till within the present generation, required to sign the Articles, with the exception of three and a half, that is, the 34th, 35th, 36th, and the disputed clause in the 20th. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 25 The agreement of the different Protestant Confessions is shown in a work printed at Geneva early in the seventeenth century, entitled, Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum Fidei, accompanied with Scripture proofs, and testimonies from the Fathers ; and an examination of these, especially of that presented in 1530 to the Diet at Augsburg, will throw con- siderable light upon our own. The first and second of the Thirty -nine are obviously taken from the first and third of the Augustan Confession. The ninth, sixteenth, twenty- fifth, and thirty-first, are principally derived from the same source ; and others contain expressions, as ex opere operato, common to both. The verbal correspondence is more strongly marked, by comparing these coincidences with those parts of the Helvetic Confession, in which the same ideas are conveyed in very dissimilar language. There are passages in the works of Luther and Melancthon, which from the similarity of idea, and occasionally of expression, leave little doubt that they were present to the mind of the framer of the seventeenth Article e. We may conclude, that the eleventh, on Justification, was drawn from no other source than the investigations of Cranmer himself ; for in a book of his own, wherein he had written out a large collection of quotations from Scripture and different authors, he sums up the argument in words corresponding in a great degree with those of that Article ; and reference is made to the Homily on Salvation, though under a false title, which is generally supposed to be his composition11. When Luther appealed from the Pope to the Church, as represented in a General Council, his demand, supported as it was by Princes and by public opinion, could not be refused, though the Roman politicians delayed it as long as they could. The long promised Council, the last ever convened, assembled in 1547, one year after the death of Luther, and in the same month with that of Henry VIII. It began with settling the standard of appeal, and put h Archbishop Laurence's Bampton Lectures, viii. notes 4. 0. see also Luther's Treface to the Epistle to the Romans, translated by Justus Jonas, s Bishop of St. Asaph's History. 26 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. Tradition upon the same footing as the Scriptures, declared the Apocryphal books to be as much the Word of God as the canonical ones, the Latin Vulgate translation to be as authentic as the original, and forbad all explanations of it contrary to the decisions of Holy Mother Church, to whom only, as it affirms, appertaineth to judge of its sense and interpretation. A year and a half after, a fever broke out at Trent, which afforded an excuse for removing the Council to Bologna, in the Pope's dominions, but no business was transacted there ; and in 1551, it resumed its Sessions at its original station. In the following year it was dispersed on the alarm of the approach of Protestant troops through the Tyrol, and was not revived till the year in which our Articles were finally settled. According to Hallam1, the Council of Trent, especially in its later Sessions, dis- played the antagonistic parties in the Roman Church, one struggling for lucrative abuses, the later anxious to overthrow them. They may be called the Italian and Spanish parties, the first headed by the Pope's Legates, dreading above all things the reforming spirit of Constance and Basle, and the independence either of private or national Churches ; the other actuated by much of the spirit of these Councils, and tending to confirm that independence. The French and German Prelates usually sided with the Spanish, and they were together strong enough to establish as a rule, that in every Session a decree for reformation should accompany a declaration of doctrine. It closed in 1564, when the upright members were compelled to let it close, after having effected such a reformation of discipline as they could obtain. Upon the whole, the result was favourable to the Church, for the benefit of which it had been summoned. In the deter- mination of doctrine, the Council was generally cautious to avoid extremes, and left in important points, such as the invocation of Saints, no small latitude for private opinion. The rigid definition of Transubstantiation has been con- demned as imprudent; but Hallam maintains that there was no alternative, as it had been declared plainly by a Lateral! 1 History of Literature, ii. 2. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 27 Council. And he opposes the modern notion, that the Trent Decrees made important innovations in the prevailing esta- blished doctrines of the Western Church. " It will," he continues, " appear, that these decrees were mostly conform- able with the sense of the majority of those doctors who had obtained the highest reputation ; and that upon Transub- stantiation, Purgatory, and Invocation of Saints, they assert nothing but what had been so ingrafted into the faith of this part of Europe, as to have been rejected by no one without suspicion or imputation of heresy." These decrees were not formally promulgated till after the XXXIX Articles, but must have been already known here, from the allusions con- tained to them in that formulary. These rejected doctrines are stated in the 14th, 22d, 25th, 28th, 30th, and 31st, of our Articles. Other doctrines retained by name, are changed in substance; as the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th. By a review of the doctrines discarded by our Church, on the principle that they are not warranted by Scripture, and by a comparison with the corresponding decrees of the Council of Trent, we discover in these very decrees a confirmation of the principles to which the Church of England appeals ; for in none has the Council of Trent pretended to rest on the sole authority of Scripture. Where appeal is made to Scripture appeal is made also to Tradition. But in most, the appeal is to Tradition alone, and in one to neitherk. The result of the Council was a reformed Breviary or Prayer-book, a Catechism, and a Creed called from the name of the reigning Pontiff, that of Pius IV. which every beneficed priest is required to subscribe ; and these supply the accre- dited doctrines of the Church of Rome ; to which, instead of searching the Acts of ancient Councils, or referring to a variety of divines, whose opinions may, whenever it is con- venient, be disallowed as those of unauthorized individuals, controversialists have an undeniable right to appeal. It is commonly asserted, that the Trent decrees are not received in Germany or France; but it is only in respect to questions of discipline, for its doctrinal decisions bind all Romanists, k Bishop Marsh's C oniparative View of the Churches of England and Rome, iii. p. 42 — 47. 28 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. nor can they with any show of reason reject them ; for though the respective rights of Popes and Councils are still contested, these decrees, which emanated from the latter, and have been ratified by the former, must be, however reluctantly, admitted. A reformation of the Ecclesiastical Law had been projected as early as 1532, and commissioners clerical and lay appointed to gather and put in order the materials ; but the matter was wholly entrusted to Cranmer. It was not finished in time to become Law under Edward VI.; and the attempt to establish it under Elizabeth failed; so that in Ecclesiastical questions our Courts are still governed in all points not anti-protestant by the Papal Canon Law. The Reformatio Legum was first printed in 1571h, but though invested with no authority, it may be safely referred to as an authentic record of Cranmer's opinions. My reason for mentioning it here is, that it opens with a statement of religious doctrines, in which the tenets of the Articles are expressed in other words, and with more diffuseness. Our Saviour's last command was to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature; and in his discourse with Nicodemus at the opening of his Ministry he had declared, that God so loved the world, that He gave his only- begotten Son, to the end that all who believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life : for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Salvation therefore is offered to all to whom the Gospel is preached; yet experience teaches us, that in all countries and in all ages, while some receive the truth in the love of it, others even under exactly the same outward circumstances show, that if acknowledged in words, it makes no impression on the heart, while some even despise and reject it. Since all were alike dead in tres- passes and sins, none could quicken their own souls ; those who believe must have been chosen by God the Father in h A corrected edition of this work has lately issued from the University Press, under the careful superintendence of Dr. Cardwell, to whom the world is greatly indebted both for editions of Greek Authors, and of the Liturgies, Injunctions, and other documents of our ecclesiastical history. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 29 Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blame before Him in love, being predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. The fact is undeniable ; still it is not surprising, that the moving cause of this everlasting purpose of God to deliver from damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, since his counsel is secret to us, should have been and still is warmly contested by disputants of different schools ; and not only in the Churches that have emancipated themselves from the bondage of Rome, but even within the pale of Rome itself, notwith- standing the proud boast of unity and infallibility. There have been Popes and their advisers inclined to the opposite sides. " The doctrine, that every sinner is capable of seeking the aid of the Holy Spirit, which will not be denied him, and consequently of beginning the work of conversion by his own will, is," says Mr. Hallamm, " commonly admitted to have been held by the Greek Fathers ; but the authority of Augustin and the decisions of the Western Church caused it to assume the character of a heresy : it was generally held by the Schoolmen, by most of the early Reformers, and seems to be inculcated by the decrees of Trent, as much as by our Articles, In a loose and modern acceptation of the word, it often goes by the name of Calvinism ; but if it is meant to imply a particular relation to Calvin, it is a mis- statement of the historical part of the question." For these mysterious doctrines, which are not revealed in Scripture with the same clearness as the essential Articles of the Faith, were keenly disputed long before the existence of Calvin and Arminius, who among Protestants have given name to their respective systems, of the divine sovereignty, and of foreseen faith, and have since their time been carried on by the Jansenists and Jesuits. Nor is this surprising, since the dispute is not confined to Christianity, predestination and free-will having been warmly agitated among Mahometans, and even by those philosophers who deny any revelation ; for the difficulty is one of natural religion, and will be felt by all who acknowledge the omniscience and omnipotence of History of Literature, vol. iii. 2. 30 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. God, and the responsibility of man. Luther, in his treatise on the bondage of the will, De servo Arbitrio, in reply to the Diatribe of Erasmus on its freedom, and in other works, had expressed himself quite as strongly, though not so systema- tically, as Calvin did at a later period ; and the compilers of our Articles thought, that in a summary of the faith they could not pass over predestination. It is however evident, that they were fully aware of the difficulties of the subject ; and while they felt it their duty to affirm what they be- lieved, their charity and liberality induced them to state the doctrine in a manner as unobjectionable as possible to its opponents. They express themselves with brevity and singular discretion, confining themselves as closely as they could to the very words of Scripture, wholly omitting reprobation, and studiously as it seems forbearing to give needless offence "to curious and carnal persons lacking the spirit of Christ," and adducing (in contradistinction to God's counsel secret to us) his promises in such way as they are generally set forth in holy Scripture." Under this saving clause, persons who cannot digest the doctrine of Predestination, feel themselves authorized to sign the XVIIth Article; and they are supported by the opinion and practice of many approved writers of our Church, since the introduction of Arminianism through the influence of Archbishop Laud. Before his time there was a general consent among our Divines; for, as Bishop Carleton observes, though disputes arose between the Bishops and the Puritans with respect to Church government, they perfectly agreed in doctrine. Anti-Calvinists have indeed endeavoured to force the Article to speak their own sentiments ; yet they must confess, that they would not have expressed them in those words ; and a sufficient refutation of their statement is the fact, that Rogers, the first expositor of the Articles, and Chaplain to Archbishop Bancroft, to whom he dedicated his work, main- tains, that it conveys a contrary meaning. Indeed such a statement will not be credited by those who know, that the notes of the Geneva Bible were highly approved by Arch- bishops Parker and Grindall, and that those attached to the Bishops' Bible are of the same character; and that INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 31 Calvin's Institutes was the book in which candidates for Orders were chiefly examined. The first disturbers of this Uniformity, says Bishop Carleton, were Barrett and Baro in Cambridge, in 1595. The latter was the Lady Margaret's Reader in Divinity; and Whitaker, his con- temporary and opponent, who was the Regius Professor, thus writes on occasion of the Sermon which led to this dis- cussion. " The Church of England, ever since the Gospel was restored, has always held and embraced the opinion of election and reprobation. This Bucer in our University, and Peter Martyr at Oxford, have professed ; two eminent divines, who have most abundantly watered our Church with their streams, in the days of King Edward. This opinion their auditors in both our Universities, the Bishops, Deans, and Divines, who upon the advancement of our famous Queen Elizabeth to the Crown, either returned from exile, or were released from the prisons into which they had been thrust for the profession of the Gospel ; or saved from the hands of persecuting Bishops ; those by whom our Church was reformed, our religion established, Popery thrust out and quite destroyed, (all which we may remember, though few of this kind be yet living,) — this opinion, I say, them- selves have held and commended to us ; in this faith have they lived, and in this they died, and in this they always wished that we should constantly continue." And in a Sermon preached before the same University in 1625, a few years after the Synod of Dort, Dr. Ward said, " This also I can truly add, for a conclusion, that the Universal Church hath always adhered to St. Austin, ever since his time till now. The Church of England also from the beginning of the Re- formation and this our famous University, with all those from thence till now who have with us enjoyed the Divinity Chair, if we except one foreign Frenchman, (Peter Baro,) have like- wise constantly adhered to him." Barrett in his Sermon not only preached against the received Calvinistic doctrines, but even denounced by name Calvin and Beza. He was required to make a public recantation, which he did in so unsatis- factory a manner, that he was again summoned before the authorities. He appealed to the Archbishop, but it was an 32 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. appeal to one who was disposed to go farther than these Reformers at least thought expedient in a confession of faith. Whitgift drew up nine propositions, in which the highest supralapsarian Calvinism is embodied, and these received, from his official residence, the title of the Lambeth Articles. They were transmitted to Cambridge, in order to be a directory to the preachers ; but Lord Burleigh, the Chancellor, was too sagacious to approve of this attempt to narrow the terms of communion; and the Queen, who resented the presumption of the Archbishop as an in- terference with her prerogative, reprimanded him, and suppressed them. In England they hear no more of them, except that a proposal for their adoption was made at the Hampton Court Conference; but in Ireland they were appended to the Thirty -nine in 1615, but afterwrards were dropped, though never formally revoked. This unsuccessful attempt to impress upon our Church the most ultra Calvinism, induces me to mention, though only indirectly concerning us, the formal acknowledgment of this system, in the milder sublapsarian form, in 1618, by the Synod of Dort, the only assembly of Protestant Divines which bears any resemblance to a General Council, as it was convened by the States General of the United Provinces, and was attended by deputies from most of the Reformed Churches. Its object was to decide the question between the Calvinists and the Arminians, who were then heard of for the first time, and derive their name from a Dutch Professor, known in other countries by the Latinised form Arminius. The fate of this Divine is extraordinary: for his celebrity, like that of Jansenius, a Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands, who did not live to publish his volume on the doctrines of Augustin, was posthumous ; and neither could have imagined the influence they have since exer- cised with respect to the profound subjects of their study, even beyond their own contemporaries, and the pale of their respective Churches. Arminius, though brought up in the doctrines of Calvin, and in his University, originated a con- trary system, popularly considered as equivalent with Anti- Calvinism, though modern Arminians recede much farther INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 83 than lie did from the Reformer of Geneva. Accord- ing to him, foreseen faith is the cause that moved God to bestow salvation, and this he expanded into live Articles. His position at Ley den as a Professor, gave him oppor- tunity to propagate his system with considerable success, and this he was enabled to do with impunity, as these profound questions had not been settled by the Belgic Confession. Arminius himself died nine years before the Synod; and their leader there was Episcopius, who had been his disciple, who was also a Leyden Professor, and was celebrated for eloquence. But no other opportunity of taking advantage of it was allowed him than an introductory address, as his proposal of beginning their defence by refuting the Calvinists was rejected ; for the Synod deter- mined that they ought in the first instance to prove their own opinions. They refused to submit to this dictation, and withdrew; and after an examination of their writings in their absence, their doctrines were proscribed, and their meetings suppressed". The Deputies sent to the Synod by James were Carleton Bishop of LlandafF, Hall afterwards Bishop of Norwich, Davenant the Cambridge Margaret Professor, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and Ward, Master of Sidney College. Walter Balcanquall, Fellow of Pembroke Hall, was afterwards added as a representative of the Church of Scotland. The Bishop of LlandafF in the name of the rest protested against the decree, maintaining the parity of ministers0; but approved of all their doctrinal decisions; and Bishop Hall thus decidedly states his assent ; ' I shall live and die in the suffrage of the reverend Synod, and do confidently avow, that those other opinions cannot stand with the doctrines of the Church of England.' In 1643, the Parliament having suppressed the Established Church, convened an Assembly of Divines, consisting of such persons from the several counties as the Members chose to summon to form a new settlement of religion. They were 120, to whom ten Peers and twenty of the House of Commons were added ; but the general attendance varied from eighty to sixty. The Assembly was entirely dependent n Mosheim, vol. v. sect. IG. ch. 2. 0 Fuller's Church Hist. v. x. s. 4. D 34 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. on the Parliament, and was in fact but a Committee to prepare ecclesiastical matters for their consideration. Their first undertaking was a revision of the Articles, which pro- ceeded no further than the fifteenth, the work being suspended by their examination of the " Solemn League and Covenant." The alterations are few. The descent into hell is explained to mean, being under the dominion of death. Neither the Creeds nor the Apocrypha are mentioned. The imputation of Christ's obedience and satisfaction to us is introduced, and "works which have the nature of sin" is changed into sinful. They then proceeded to draw up an independent confession of faith, which is a body of divinity in rather striking con- trast with the studied brevity of the Thirty -nine Articles. Mr. Marsdenp, in his history of the later Puritans, cha- racterises it as in many respects an admirable summary of Christian faith and practice. " The style is pure and good, the proofs selected with admirable skill, the argu- ments are always clear, the subjects well distributed, and sufficiently comprehensive to form at least the outline of a perfect system of divinity." On the other hand, one fault pervades the whole : it is cast in the most exact and rigid mould of ultra-Calvinism, and treats the most difficult questions of the divine decrees with an air of con- fidence, which has a tendency to repel English Christians, who will heartily agree in their concluding sentence. " The doctrine of this high mystery of Predestination is to be handled with especial prudence and care ; that men attending the will of God, revealed in his word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal elec- tion. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reve- rence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel." Their other works were a Directory for Public Worship, and a larger and a shorter Catechism ; which are used both in the Kirk of Scotland, and by the orthodox Dis- senters in England. On the doctrine of the Sacraments, we do not perceive a shade of difference from the teaching p Chap. 2. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. •35 of the Church of England. It was determined that there should be no proposition in the Catechism, that was not contained in the Confession. On the Restoration, the Liturgy and Articles recovered their legal authority ; but in Scot- land, the Confession of these Westminster Divines became the rule of faith of the Kirk, as it was established at the Revolution. Our estimation of the Articles will increase on comparison with the formularies of other Churches, by which the pru- dence and moderation of those who drew them up will appear, who we shall be satisfied made them as compre- hensive as they could, without opening the door to dangerous error. Roman Catholics of course were to be excluded ; but there were also serious differences among Protestants. In Mary's reign, there had been discussions among those who were in prison for religion respecting Predestination ; but the 1 7th Article remained untouched, being very cau- tiously worded, and little more than a transcript from Scripture. Great moderation is also shown in the question of Church government: for though a declaration is required, that the form appointed for Ordination of Ministers con- tains all things necessary to give it validity, and no thing- superstitious or ungodly ; there is no condemnation of the Presbyterian, or of any other method. An objection has been made to the number of these Articles, yet the framers of them, by reducing them from 42, showed that they wished to have no more than they deemed necessary ; and if in process of time any should become obsolete, its retention is no grievance, it is but superfluous. There is also a fallacy in objecting to their number, for none can object to those that do not contradict their belief ; and therefore it is indifferent to a Protestant how many of the Roman Catholic peculiar tenets are condemned. Articles of faith, we should remember, are the results of events, and are designed to oppose existing errors. This distinguishes them from systems of divinity, which explain and prove tenets, though they may not be disputed. The foreign Confessions are fuller, and support their assertions by proofs ; and the Westminster Divines confirmed ours by texts. In an ex- d 2 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. position it is desirable, but not in the actual formulary, since the application may be erroneous, and, as far as it is so, would commit us to a false interpretation of Scripture. Their conciseness and reference to doctrines which they condemn without confuting, as of the Pelagians and the Schoolmen, assuming them to be known, seem, at least after a lapse of time, to require a commentary. The earliest exposition, that of Roberts, dedicated to the Archbishop, appeared in 1607, little more than forty years after their reception. It is very short, but specifies, like the foreign Con- fessions, the parties against whom each Article is directed, and supports the doctrine by citations from these Confessions, from the Fathers, and from the Bible. He has been followed by many expositors, of whom Bishops Burnet and Tomline are the best known. The work of the former is full of information, especially on the Roman Catholic controversy. That of the latter is principally an abridgment of it, with additions from Bishop Pearson's Exposition of the Creed. I have made some use of the work of the pious Bishop Beveridge, the appearance of which in a complete form, from the University Press, we owe to the purchase of the manu- script of the concluding volume by the learned and venerable President of Magdalen College. But my chief obligation is to Dr. Hey's Lectures on Divinity, which suggested to my mind this compilation, and without the important assistance of various kinds derived from it, I should never have com- pleted it. I am indebted for the history of the Articles to his text, or the authorities which he has quoted ; and for many reflections, which I have often given in his own language, as more expressive than any that I could commend. I therefore greatly regret my inability to give his work unqualified praise. He is the critic as well as the interpreter, and is of that lax school, which would explain away or lower some vital truths; so that I must often dissent from his conclusions, and lament that his boldness, and the tone that pervades the work, prevent my recommending it to the student, though on subordinate points I have greatly profited by its perusal. In an irreligious and latitudinarian age, an opinion was started, that the Articles were only Articles of peace, that is, INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 37 that those who signed them only engaged not to contradict their assertions. This appears to me to be no better than a transparent fallacy, by which persons, whose worldly interest, as tutors or incumbents, required their conformity to this standard of doctrine, endeavoured to pacify their consciences. Such when they preach must at best be silent on tenets, on which they dissent from the judgment of the Church to which they profess to adhere ; but what society would be satisfied with neutrality ? Surely churchmen have a right to demand, that the doctrines of their Church should not merely be not opposed, but that they should be explained and enforced. Many who favoured this view, petitioned Parlia- ment to be relieved from subscription; and few, I apprehend, who have no scruples in signing, will be convinced by them. The advocates of this evasive scheme were mostly of doubt- ful orthodoxy with respect to the cause of justification, and of the proper Divinity of the Author of our redemption, and found some favour in Cambridge. The supposition will seem most unreasonable to an unbiassed mind ; and I appre- hend never occurred, till Protestants began to doubt of the doctrines of the Reformation. In our own days, a similar attempt has been made in the opposite direction. A resident Fellow of a College, following out the almost forgotten work of Francis a Santa Clara, who, in the reign of Charles the First, published a celebrated Tract, in which he endeavoured to shew, by a strained non-natural inter- pretation, how all these Articles could be honestly signed by. a believer in the peculiar tenets of Rome ; and another gloried in the liberty of professing within our Church the whole circle of Roman doctrine. Some made a distinction between holding and maintaining, between believing and teaching ; but most of these have shown in the completest maimer their conviction of their error, by conforming to the Church to which they were already in judgment and feelings attached. We may fairly conclude, that the Articles were framed to exclude those who maintained what the framers of them regarded as damnable heresies, for they condemn not exploded but prevalent errors ; and the notion is re- futed by the very title, "Articles agreed upon for the avoiding 38 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. of diversities of opinions, and for the establishment of consent ;" and could never be honestly advocated by those who are called upon to sign the 36th Canon, which includes an acknowledgment that all and every Article, besides the Ratification, are agreeable to the word of God. This is positively asserted, as Dr. Wilson reminds us, in the Ordi- nation Service, in the solemn injunction to the candidates, to bring those committed to their care to such an agreement of faith, that there be no place left for error in religion. His comparison of the Articles with the more expanded state- ment of doctrine in the Homilies, and their practical appli- cation in the Liturgy, is a most elaborate work, which few would have had the perseverance to complete, but which has amply repaid his labour of love, by the perfect harmony which it demonstrates to pervade all our authorized for- mularies. He has extended his citations to Nowell's Cate- chism, Jewel's Apology, and Bullinger's Decades of Sermons, which though they do not formally demand our assent, speak, we cannot doubt, the sentiments of our Reformers; for in the same Convocation which directed the setting forth of the Articles, it was ordered, that these two books should be joined with them in one book, to be authorized as containing true doctrine. In the Convocation of 1586, among other " Orders for the better increase of learning in the inferior Ministers, and more diligent preaching and catechizing ;" the especial study of these Sermons was enjoined on Curates; and whoever has read our ecclesiastical history, knows that Bullinger was the personal friend of those who restored the Reformation in England, and that they were ever ready, in all questions of doctrine or discipline, to defer to his judg- ment. LECTURE I. ARTICLE I. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions ; of infinite power, ivisdom, and goodness : the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in the Unity of this Godhead there be Three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The existence, unity, and perfection of the Deity, are taught by Natural Religion : they can, therefore, occasion no disputes among Christians ; yet it seems desirable, if not indispensable, to open a Confession of Faith with an ac- knowledgment of these fundamental truths, as introductory to the assertion of a tenet, denied by some, and incorrectly stated by more ; which reason, though it accepts, is incapable of discerning — the Plurality of Persons in this Unity, which Theologians for convenience call by one word, Trinity. Taking as we do the word of God for our rule of faith, we have no need curiously to search for a truth which lies on the surface. For it was thus emphatically announced by Moses a, Hear, 0 Israel, Jehovah thy God is one Jehovah, accompanied with its proper consequences ; Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy might b ; and solemnly repeated under the new Covenant by our Lord, who, when questioned by a Scribe, replied, that it was the first and great commandment. Still if there be any dispute respecting this foundation of all a Deut. vi. 4, 5. b In the original, with all that is thine, which may apply to energy of mind or to property, in which latter sense it is taken by the Targum and the Syriac version. 40 LECTURE I. religion, it must be with the Atheist ; and therefore instead of referring to the word of God, as we shall do with Chris- tian disputants, it seems reasonable to deduce this doctrine from what is called natural religion. But before we con- sider the discoveries or rather the conjectures of unassisted reason0, I would point out the distinction drawn by the late Dr. Chalmers between unbelief and disbelief. "The former," writes that eloquent theologian and able metaphysician, " we apprehend to be the farthest amount of the atheistical verdict on the question. He does not positively affirm the position that God is not, but he affirms the lack of evidence for the position that God is. He is but an Atheist, not an Antitheist." And there is one consideration which affords the enquirer a singularly clear and commanding position at the outset of this great question. It is this. We cannot, without a glaring contravention to all the principles of experimental philosophy, recede to a further distance from the doctrine than simple Atheism. To be able to say that there is a God, we have only to look abroad on some definite territory, and to point to the vestiges of his power and presence somewhere. For man not to know of a God, he has only to sink beneath the level of our common nature; but to deny Him, he must be a God himself. " The wonder," says Foster in one of his Essays, " turns on the great pro- cess by which a man could grow to the immense intelligence that can know there is no God. This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied; for if he cannot assign with certainty the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know every thing that has been done, some things may have been done by God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects, does not exist." There are two methods of proving the Divine existence. We may by a train of subtle reasoning deduce this primary truth from the nature of things, which is called the argu- mentum a priori ; or instead of descending from meta- physical abstraction, we may ascend from the contemplation ' I Bridgwater Treatise, chapter on the defects and uses of Natural Theology. LECTURE I. 41 of effects, to the first Great Cause of all things, and rise " through nature up to nature's God." One of the ablest attempts of the first kind is the work of Dr. Samuel Clarke, which he confidently calls a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. " I have confined myself," he observes, " to one only method or continued thread of arguing, which I have endeavoured should be as near to mathematical, as the nature of such a discourse would allow." He proceeds to state twelve Propositions, which grow out of one another; but for them and his chain of reasoning, I must refer the reader to the work. Let him, however, not be disheartened, if he should find it difficult to follow, or if it fail to con- vince him. Our great satirical poet, who viewed the con- temporary metaphysician with no friendly eye, replies to Dulness in the person of a gloomy clerk, Sworn foe to mystery, yet divinely dark, at once alluding to the name as well as to the profession of this eminent author0. Let others creep by timid steps and slow, On plain experience lay foundations low, By common sense to common knowledge bred, And last to Nature's cause through Nature led. All seeing in thy mists, we want no guide, Mother of arrogance, and source of pride ! We nobly take the high Priori road, And reason downward till we doubt of God. Nor is this to be altogether set down to Pope's ill-nature, for there are grave and unprejudiced authors who maintain that such metaphysical reasonings should be discarded, as endangering instead of maintaining natural religion. This very demonstration they endeavour to shew us is inconclusive. It is an attempt to demonstrate, that there is a first cause, by shewing that an infinite series of causes and effects makes the absurdity of an effect without a cause, and yet the notion of a first cause necessarily implies exists ence without a cause. The questions of natural religion are facts, it must therefore like natural philosophy be an inductive science. Our knowledge of the existence and c Dunciad, iv. 405. 42 LECTURE I. attributes of God, as far as that knowledge is traceable by the light of nature, is acquired by the same intellectual process as our knowledge of the laws of the physical world. By this reasoning Newton discovered the true system of the heavens, and it is only by this reasoning that the Theist can ascertain from the light of nature the existence and the attributes of Him who made the heavens. Newton discovered by a complete induction, that the principle of attraction extends throughout the universe. Experience assures the Theist of the general fact, that in human affairs intelligence produces regularity, order, and the aptitude of means to ends ; and looking through nature, he every where observes the same, though in a higher degree, and hence infers, that intelligence pervades and governs the universe. Whiston, pointing to a nettle while walking with Clarke, told him, that it contained better evidence of the existence of the Deity than all his metaphysics; to which he answered, that as Theism had been metaphysically assailed, he was anxious to show that it might be metaphysically defended ; and indeed in this very discourse he allows, that the argu- ment a posteriori is more satisfactory. " The substance of Dr. Clarke's argument," says Dugald Stewart0, "is supposed to have been suggested to him by a passage in Newton's Principia, and is essentially the same, amounting to the following proposition, ( that space and time are only abstract conceptions of an immensity and eternity, which force them- selves on our belief ; and as immensity and eternity are not substances, they must be the attributes of a Being who is necessarily immense and eternal.' " " These," says Dr. Reid, "are the speculations of men of superior genius; but whether they be as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond the limits of human understanding, I am unable to determine." To this his able and admired disciple, Stewart, adds, " After this candid acknowledgment, I need not be ashamed to confess my own doubts. But although the argument as stated by Clarke does not carry complete conviction to my mind, there is something peculiar and very wonderful in these Philosophy of the Active and Moral Towers of Men, vol. i. p. 334, &c. LECTURE I. 43 conceptions of immensity and eternity, which force them- selves on our belief. Nay further, I think that they furnish important lights in the study of natural religion. For when once we have established the existence of an intelligent and powerful Cause from the works of creation, we are unavoidably led to apply to Him our conceptions of immensity and eternity, and to conceive Him as filling the infinite extent of both with his presence and his power. Nor is this all. It is from our ideas of space and of time, that the notion of infinity is originally derived, and it is thence that we transfer the expression by a sort of metaphor to other subjects. When we speak therefore of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, our notions if not wholly borrowed from space and time, are at least wonderfully aided by this analogy, so that the conceptions of immensity and eternity, if they do not of themselves demonstrate the existence of God, yet necessarily enter into the ideas we form of his nature and attributes." The existence of the Deity is not an intuitive truth, but the process of reasoning consists only of a single step, and the premises belong to that class of first principles, which form an essential part of the human constitution. These premises are two in number. The one, that every thing that begins to exist must have a cause ; the other, that a com- bination of means conspiring to a particular end implies intelligence. It is interesting to hear Voltaire say, that he doubts if there be any metaphysical proof which speaks more forcibly to man than the admirable order that reigns in the universe ; and if there has ever been a better argu- ment than the verse, the heavens declare the glory of God ; and you see that Newton produced no other at the end of his Optics and the Principia. This argument from final causes, it is observed by Reid, when reduced to a syllogism, contains twro propositions ; the major, that design may be traced from its effects ; the minor, that there are appearances of design in the universe. The ancient sceptics granted the first, but denied the second ; the moderns, as Hume, in consequence of the discoveries in natural philosophy, have been obliged to abandon the ground which their pre- 44 LECTURE I. decessors maintained, and have disputed the major: and Stewart agrees with Hume, that our belief of the existence of a designing cause is not the result of reasoning ; but, he adds, that it arises from the intuitive perception of the mind. The authority of these truths are at least on a footing with those that rest on demonstration, in as much as all demon- stration is ultimately founded on them ; and it is incom- parably superior to that of truths learnt from experience, in as much as the contrary of these is always conceivable, and never implies any absurdity or contradiction. As a further proof that this principle is not demonstrable, we may remark, that those authors wTho have been most successful in exposing the doubts of sceptics on the subject, have had recourse not to argument but to ridicule, and have rested their cause chiefly on a view of the absurdity and incon- sistencies, into which similar doubts would lead us, if they were extended to the common concerns of life. Thus Tillotsone declares, that as there is nothing before God, nor any cause of his being, neither his attributes nor his exist- ence can be proved by way of demonstration, but of conviction, by shewing the absurdity of the contrary. Waterlandf has taken an historical and a critical view of this argument a priori, and the result of his examination is, that it has been maturely considered by men of the brightest parts and coolest judgments, by ancients and moderns, Pagans and Christians, Fathers and Schoolmen, and by all as with one voice condemned and exploded, though disposed, if it were of any force, to accept it : for who would not prefer, if it could be had, demonstration to the highest probability? Two eminent men of our day, Chalmers and Lord Brougham, have lately written upon Natural Theology, and both agree in pronouncing Dr. Clarke's Demonstration inconclusive. Lord Brougham shows that it has no existence, being no more than a very imperfect process of induction ; and Chalmers detects in it two fallacies. Dr. Brown observed before them, that these reasonings a priori, if strictly analysed, are found to proceed on some assumption of the very truth for which they contend ; and that instead of throwing ad- ■ Sermon 100, vol. ii. ( Ch. i. p. 426. LECTURE I* 45 ditional light on the argument for a Creator, they have only served to darken it, by leading us to conceive, that there must be some obscurity in Truths, which could give an occasion to reasons so obscure. " God, and the world which He has formed," says Chalmers, "are our great objects. Every thing which we strive to place between them is nothing. We see the universe, and seeing it, wre believe in its Maker. It is the universe therefore which is our argument, and our only argument; and these obscure and laborious a priori reasons would rather lead us to doubt than to believe. Surely if they had any weight, they would as demonstrations convince even sceptics. We cannot perhaps without an inspired teacher attain to a firm belief in the moral attri- butes of God ; but an intelligent first cause of all things seems to be a necessary conclusion, from the fact of our own existence, and of that of the world we live in. Since the world exists, it must have existed as it is for ever, or have had a Creator. Now the possibility of our conceiving its non-existence, or its existence under another form, con- tradicts the first supposition. Effects imply a cause, and in the animals that inhabit the earth, in the structure of that earth itself, and in the heavenly bodies, we see with the mind's eye, as if reflected in a mirror, Him who is in Himself invisible. And it appears from St. Paul's delineation of the natural man in his Epistle to the Romans, that the eternal power and Godhead are so legibly impressed upon the works of God, that they who open not their eyes to such evidence, are without excuse. Conscience, the monitor whom God has placed within us, above all, ought to convince us of the existence of some Being to whom we are accountable. Our belief then in this most important truth need not depend upon abstruse metaphysical reasoning. We have but to look around, and every where we shall see evidence of an intelligent Creator, that is, of God. A closer examination will strengthen the impression, and the better we become acquainted with his creatures and with their adaptation to promote their own happiness, and the general good of the whole, the more deeply we shall be convinced, that the world exhibits not the mere exertion of power, but ±6 LECTURE 1. such an adjustment of means to an end, as we call wisdom ; and that the end is the distribution of universal happiness, which gives us the highest conception of goodness. A foundation so deeply laid in the constitution of the human mind for belief in a Deity, has produced in every age an acknowledgment of his existence all but universal. Accordingly, the few tribes who are said to have no idea of God, are in a state little raised above the brute creation, and seem to have few of the perceptions and sentiments of men ; and some even of these may have vague notions which they cannot express. The testimony of those who have been left to their own surmises without the light of Revelation on such a subject, are of the first importance. I therefore introduce a passage from Cicero's dialogue on the Nature of the Gods. (ii. 88.) "Whoever thinks that the won- derful order and incredible constancy of the heavenly bodies and their motions is not governed by an intelligent Being, is himself void of all understanding ; for shall we, when we see an artificial machine, a sphere or dial, acknowledge at first sight that it is the work of art and understanding, and make any doubt that the heavens are the work not only of reason, but of an excellent and divine reason ?" Galen indeed lived after the Christian asra, but it is not probable that he condescended to learn from persons so despised as Jews and Christians, and of whom he himself speaks con- temptuously ; and therefore his testimony to the Divine perfections may be taken as the testimony of genuine natural religion, that is, not of Christians who lay aside for the moment Revelation, but of heathen sages. In concluding his treatise on the use of the parts of the human body, he says, that " a work which may at first appear to be of small acoount, is the beginning of accurate Theology, which is more valuable than the whole practice of medicine." Having expressed his opinion, that if any person from ignorance of her works accused Nature of want of skill, a study of anatomy would make him ashamed, and bring him to a better state of mind ; being convinced by Hippocrates, who in all his works is praising her justice and prudence towards animals, he particularises some atheistical objec- LECTURE I. 47 tions which had been brought against the human structure, and then bursts into this magnificent encomium. " But if I should make further mention of these cattle, persons of sound mind would justly blame me, and say, that I polluted this sacred discourse, which I put together as a genuine hymn to our Creator ; and this I esteem real piety, not that I should sacrifice thousands and thousands of hecatombs of his bulls, and offer up cassia and ten thousand other odours as incense ; but first, that I should myself understand Him, and then explain to others what He is, as to wisdom, as to power, and as to benignity. To will to adorn this whole world, and to leave nothing destitute of his goodness, I lay down as a proof of perfect benignity, and therefore He is to be praised by us as good ; but to discover how this may be best adorned is the height of wisdom, and to effect whatever He hath chosen is evidence of power that cannot be with- stood." Even Cicero with his imperfect knowledge could find reason to say, that all "the parts of the world are so constituted, that they could not be either better for use, nor more beautiful for show." In his eloquent description of man?, the idea of which was probably suggested by a dis- course of Socrates recorded by Xenophonh, he speaks with peculiar admiration of the hand, which Galen deemed was alone sufficient to prove the wisdom of the Creator ; and it might be a vague recollection of this that induced the Earl of Bridgwater, in leaving his magnificent prize for a Treatise on the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the creation, to specify the construction of this instrument, which may be considered as the organ which above all gives to man a superioity in his physical con- struction to the animals, who approach him nearest in shape or sagacity. " If," says Dr. Clarke, in the Discourse which we have been considering, " Galen could perceive in the human body such undeniable marks of design as to force him, though originally inclined to atheism, to acknowledge the wisdom of its Author, what would he have said if he had known the late discoveries in anatomy, such as the circu- lation of the blood ?" Had he lived in our age, he would s De Nature, ii. GO. h Memorabilia. 48 LECTURE I. have improved his hymn with the grateful recognition of the Psalmist, " I will praise thee, 0 Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!" This evidence is of a growing kind, proportioned to the advancement of knowledge ; and in no age is it so striking as in our own, when every year is accumulating new facts in natural history ; and chemistry and electricity are con- tinually supplying us with new agents to decompose what our ancestors thought were elementary substances, and to explain the phaenomena of nature. The telescope and the microscope have also opened to us two new worlds ; and philosophers have been so astonished with the magnifying power of the latter, that they have exclaimed, that the Creator is greatest in most minute works. Our writers in natural philosophy often pause to express their admiration of the laws to which it has pleased the Creator to subject matter and organised beings ; and several works have been written with the purpose of deducing the wisdom and benevolence of the Supreme Being, from a scientific examination of his works. Of these the most popular is the Natural Theology of Paley, who though a great borrower, has the happy art of giving to what he selects an air of originality. The comparison, with which it opens, of a stone and a watch, and the pointed terms in which he explains how the parts of the latter are put together for a purpose, contrasts favourably with the tedious enumeration of Nieuentyt, from whose treatise the idea of a watch is borrowed. It had been already in the preceding century brought forward by Sir Matthew Hale, and may be traced up to the passage which I have quoted from Cicero. The inexhaustible marks of design in exist- ing objects, which our increasing knowledge is continually enlarging, has a tendency to weary ; and therefore it is perhaps well to take Paley 's advice. " In all cases, wherein the mind feels itself in danger of being confounded by variety, it is sure to rest upon a few strong points, or perhaps upon a single instance ; among a multitude of proofs, it is one that does the business. For my part, I take my stand in human anatomy. And then he draws out a few examples of mechanism from the copious catalogue which it LECTL'KE I. 49 supplies. Chalmers is of the same opinion, and shows, that as in astronomy the independent elements are few and simple, whereas in anatomy there is a crowded and com- plex combination of them ; we find in the construction of an eye, more intense evidence for a God, a more pregnant and legible inscription of the Divinity, than can be gathered from a broad and magnificent survey of the skies, lighted up though they be, with the glories and wonders of astronomy." He proceeds to observes, that it is not in the laws of matter but in their collocation that the main evidence for a Divinity lies, because of the utter inadequacy of the existing laws to have originated the collocations of the material world. " It is true, that we accredit the author of natural mechanism with the creation, and laws of matter, as well as with its dispositions ; but this does not hinder its being in the latter, and not in the former, that the manifestations of skill are most apparent." Newton, towards the end of the third Book of the Optics, bears this very distinct testimony upon this subject. " For it became Him who created them to set them in order ; and if He did so, it is unphilosophical to seek for any other origin of the world, or to pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws of nature ; though being once formed, it may continue by these laws for many ages." I am myself more struck with the adaptation of independent beings to one another, than with the relations of the parts of any one animal to the whole. Take the instances suggested by Paleyh; "Can it be doubted whether the wings of birds bear a relation to air, and the fins of fishes to water ? The organs of voice and respiration are indebted for the success of their operation to the peculiar qualities of the fluid in which the animal is immersed. And the element of light and the organ of vision, however related in their office and use, have no connexion whatever in their origin. The animal eye does not emit light, and the sun might shine for ever on other parts of the body without the smallest approach towards producing the sense of sight. Thus the sheep is evidently made for the clothing and food of b Introduction. h Natural Theology, 17. E 50 LECTURE I. man, but it could not exist unless the earth had been covered with herbage ; and He, whose tender mercies are over all his works, has contrived this not only for the existence but for the pleasurable life both of sheep and man. At the termination of each day's creation it is said, God saw what He had made, and it was good; but when the whole was com- pleted, God pronounced it very good. And by this I under- stand, that plants, fish, birds and beasts, and man, the crowning work of creation, were all good in themselves ; but that when the Creator viewed the creation as a whole, and the bearing of one part upon the rest, He then pro- nounced it to be very good. This argument is as inexhaustible as creation, of which every object is a wonder, and proclaims the incomprehensible power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. Every star in heaven, every beast upon earth, every plant, some in a language very loud and express, others in a strain more still and low, (yet sufficiently audible to an attentive ear,) proclaim these glorious properties of God. There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard among them; their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words to the ends of the world\ No man hath seen God at any time) ; his existence, there- fore, is not known, but believed ; and this is the grand obstacle to belief, but it is only an obstacle because we do not form a proper estimate of our faculties. The Deity is not the object of any of our senses, but even in this world some animals possess senses of wThich others are destitute; and a higher order of rational beings than our- selves may have the capability of perceiving the presence of spirits. The irrational powers of nature are known to us only by their energies; thus gravitation, though pene- trating all bodies, and exerting its influence every where, is not cognizable by the senses, and is only known to exist from its effects. It ought not, therefore, to surprise us, that we cannot see the Divine Nature ; but we may be sure that He is not the soul of the universe, or any portion of it ; for organized substances include marks of contrivance, ' Natural Theology, 28. Fs. xix. 3, 4. i John i. 18. LECTURE I. 5i but whatever shows contrivance carries us to something beyond itself, as the contriver must have existed before the contrivance. After all the schisms and struggles of a reluctant philosophy, the necessary resort is to a Deity. The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is God. But our feelings seem to reproach us with endeavouring to ascertain by a process of reasoning, what the heart admits at once as a self-evident proposition, the existence of that great First Cause, in whom we live and move and have our being; and indeed the conviction, that we do not live " in a fatherless world," but under the providential care of a benevolent God, which can alone sustain us in the hour of affliction, once received, cannot be renounced by the human mind, till it is blinded by pride, hardened by corruption or discontent, or misled by sophistry. Practical Atheists are too common, but specu- lative rejection of this fundamental truth ever has been, and we may venture to say ever will be, exceedingly rare. The Psalmist k tells us, that it is the fool who says that there is no God; and the world without us, and perhaps our own mind, still more powerfully proclaims his existence. M Therefore," says Bacon, " there was never miracle wrought to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God ; but miracles have been wrought to convert the idolatrous and superstitious, because no light of nature extendeth to declare the will of God. His works do show the omnipotence and wisdom of the Maker, but not his image1." This train of thought seems to have been antici- pated in the nineteenth Psalm, where after pointing to the heavens as declaring the glory of God, the Psalmist sends us to the brighter revelation of the Law as alone capable of converting the soul. The Scriptures accordingly, though abounding in the grandest descriptions of the attributes of the Holy One that inhabiteth eternity, never condescend to argue his existence. This is in part to be ascribed to the circumstances under which they were composed. A Mis- sionary to the heathen may, like Paul at Lystra and Athens, v Ps. jriv. 1. 1 Advancement of Learning, b. ii. E 2 52 LECTURE U find it necessary to commence with this elementary truth ; for it is a knowledge that ignorance may lose, and false philosophy may explode ; but the Israelites had been favoured with a visible manifestation of the Deity, and had been accustomed to a series of miraculous interferences, before Moses committed their history and the Law to writing. It would have been superfluous to have announced the existence of the Deity to a people who had heard his voice, and been delivered from their enemies by his out- stretched arm, and maintained in the wilderness by his special Providence. The descendants of Noah, however far they might wander, would carry with them a traditionary knowledge of the existence of God ; and it would be more correct to say that this truth was discoverable, than that it had been discovered by reason : for man, even in the original unimpaired perfection of his intellectual and moral powers, was not left to ascer- tain this truth either by the a priori or by the a posteriori method. His Creator revealed Himself to him at his creation, and made known his will ; and even after his disobedience, continued his intercourse with him. God was pleased to renew his covenant with Noah, who may be regarded as the second parent of the human race; and such was the longevity of man, even after his age had been shortened at the deluge, that Shem was contemporary with Abraham, and might communicate to the men of that generation the traditionary knowledge of the Antediluvians. Truth, notwithstanding, was soon intermixed with error ; the heavenly bodies and deceased benefactors were gradually introduced to share the worship due to the Creator alone, till they engrossed the devotion of the nations ; and the only real God would have been forgotten, had He not called Abraham out of a land of idolaters, to make him the parent of a people who were to be separated from the rest, in order to keep up in the world a belief in this fundamental truth. It was Polytheism, not Atheism, that was the error of ancient times; "for there was no nation," says Cicero"1, " so barba- rous as not to acknowledge God ; the idea is born with and De Natura, ii. 4. LECTURE I. 53 as it were engraved on the minds of all, that there are gods; their existence none denies, but they differ much as to what they are ;" and from a superstitious fear of offending any by neglect, they seem to have been continually increas- ing their number. It was in a later age that the absurdities of the popular belief and the vicious character of their deities, disgusted thinking men, and drove them into the opposite extreme of renouncing all religion as the invention of inte- rested priests. Paley11 affirms, that the argument for the Divine Unity goes no farther than to an unity of counsel ; yet his own remarks upon the uniformity of plan observable in the universe, seem to compel us to refer the whole to one simple, indivisible, eternal, unlimited cause, and he ends with saying, "One Being has been concerned in all." One Being, possessed of all the attributes which we ascribe to Deity, is sufficient to produce and regulate the effects which we behold, and to advance what it is unnecessary to admit, is contrary to the rules of philosophizing. Self-existence and infinity exclude the supposition of plurality. If another could partake of them, the first would be deficient and limited. Two such beings of different nature could not coexist, being equal and every where ; meeting they would destroy each other; if of the same, their existence would coincide, that is, they would be but one0. Let it be con- sidered also, that the unity of the Supreme Being is even admitted by Polytheists. We may therefore conclude, that it is a doctrine congenial to the human mind, since those who maintained a plurality of Gods, agreed in their sub- ordination to one, the King and Father of them all. "So speak," I quote Maximus TyriusD, "the Greek and the Barbarian, the islander and the inhabitant of the continent, the wise and the unwise:" and Tertulliani writes, "The greater part of mankind, even when idolatry obscured the sense of the Divine Sovereignty, appropriated the name of God more especially to One, being accustomed to say, if God grant, and, I commend it to God." Thus Jupiter is n Natural Theology, 25. • Wollaston's Religion of Nature, v. vii. I Diss. i. q Apol. adv. Gentes. 54 LECTURE I. called continually by Homer, the Father of gods and men. Plato refers the creation to one Being, whom he calls the Father and Maker of the universe : and Aristotle and the Stoics usually mention God in the singular number. Seneca says, " As often as you please you may variously name the Author of things; there may be as many appellations of Him as He has offices and operations : our people fancy Him to be Bacchus, and Hercules, and Mercury ; they call Him also Nature, Fate, Fortune : all these are but names of the same God, variously using his power1." These philosophers seem to waver between Theism and Polytheism ; but though they deify the powers of Nature, and raise his creatures to be the companions of the Creator, the existence of one Supreme Being, which is all I contend for, seems to have been generally allowed. The existence of the Deity involves a proper eternity, that is, that He never began and never will cease to be ; for since He never depended upon another, He cannot be anni- hilated; as He cannot but love Himself as the best and chiefest good, He cannot give up his being. There is nothing in his nature that can introduce decay, there is nothing beyond that can control or affect one whose power and wisdom are infinite. The question which Zophar put to Jobs carries with it its own proof ; Canst thou by searching find out God ? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? The only notion we can form of this awful Being, however inadequate, is by ascribing to Him all perfection, and ab- stracting from Him all imperfection ; for as the first cause He must not only include in Himself all the excellence He hath communicated, but every perfection possible in itself will be actually in Him*. Thus, when we say that He is a substance, having no proper denomination for his essence, we separate our idea of Him from matter, and conceive of Him as a pure and simple Spirit; when we attribute activity to Him, we view Him as an indefatigable agent, exempt from the labour, pains, and care which it occasions to other beings ; and when we ascribe to Him knowledge, we must r Do Benef. iv. 7. * Job xi. 7. 1 Scott's Christian Life, ii. vol. i. LECTURE I. 55 exclude the reasoning by which inferior intellects arrive at conclusions from his infinite mind, which intuitively beholds at once premises and conclusions, and all things and events, past, present, and future. Above all, we must be careful that no moral imperfection should connect itself with our conception of this all-perfect Being, and we must endeavour to comprehend his excellence, not in parts, but as a whole ; for his attributes are, correctly speaking, though exerting themselves in different ways, and admitting accordingly of different names, but one simple principle of action, whose acts of wisdom are infinitely good, whose acts of goodness are infinitely wise. We have found it necessary to refer to general consent, and to the evidence afforded by ourselves and the world we live in, for the proof of the existence of the Deity; for to appeal to the Word of God would be of no avail to those who question his existence. We must first satisfy them, that God is, and that He is a diligent rewarder of them that seek Himu. Instead therefore of disparaging, as some are prone to do, the deductions of our unassisted reason, I would say with the pious philosopher Boyle, that natural religion is the stock upon which Christianity must be en- grafted. But when it is conceded that He not only exists, but has made a revelation of his will, and that the Bible is that revelation, then we open that volume for a brighter manifestation of this glorious and gracious Being, whom reason can but dimly discern ; and not only obtain more distinct views of the attributes which the light of nature discovers, but others also which more nearly concerns us, justice, holiness, mercy, which it can scarcely even conjecture. These attributes divide into two classes. 1. Those peculiar to Him, as immutability and omnipresence ; and, 2. those, such as wisdom and benevolence, which are in a degree communicable to man. We may then well act upon the striking prayer of the great author of the inductive phi- losophy ; " Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more : I have sought Thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found Thee in thy temples." u Heb. xi. 6. 5(5 LECTURE I. The title of the Article shows, that its main object is to affirm the doctrine of the Trinity; and this explains why the statement of the Divine character is so incomplete ; for, unlike the Helvetic Confession, which describes God as " merciful, just, and true," and that of Westminster, which more largely supplies the deficiency, it names no other moral attribute than goodness; yet holiness is one that the Deity continually claims for Himself, and the atonement was required to preserve his justice unimpaired, that He might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus*. Like many other of our Articles, it closely resembles that in the Confession of Augsburg, but it omits the explanation of the term Person, which might have put an end to some verbal disputation, and the condemnation of the heretics that deny the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. It affirms, that there is one true and living God, one as opposed to many, true as opposed to false ones ; living as opposed to idols, the work of men's hands, who have mouths but speak not? ; and not only Himself living, but the Author of life, in whom all live7-. Without body. Bodies are visible, and may be touched, but the invisible Deity is imperceptible ; and He must be distinct from matter, which is not Himself, nor an emanation from Him, but his work; for if he were material and omnipresent, there could be no motion, and He must be liable to change, a supposition inconsistent with his necessary and immutable existence ; and to suffering, incompatible both with his power and happiness. If material, He would be limited as to place, and affected by external causes. Whatever arguments are advanced against the materiality of the human soul, applies more forcibly against that of the Deity. God, says He, who alone perfectly knows Him, and came forth from Him, is a Spirit ; and the wisest of the Heathen were led by their reasoning to this truth. "God," says Plutarch, "is an abstract Being, pure from all matter, and distinguished from whatever is capable of suffering :" and according to Cicero, we can only conceive of Him as " of a pure mind entirely free from mortal mixture." * Rom. iii. 26. > Ps. cxv. 5. * Acts xvii. 28. LECTURE I. 57 Without parts, the necessary consequence of his imma- teriality. Without passions, which would be incompatible with his perfection. Both parts and passions, however, are continually ascribed to God in the Bible, but this arises from the necessary imperfection of language. Words, from the nature of the case, primarily denote objects which fall under the cognizance of the senses, and the operations effected by them or on them. When we wish to speak of our mind and our reasonings, and feelings, and of God, and of the spiritual world, we can only make ourselves intelli- gible, while we are in the body, by transferring the words in a figure from matter. Thus, eyes in every place beholding the evil and the good*, represent God's omniscience and pro- vidence ; and a mightyh hand and a stretched out armc, are such significant symbols of irresistible power, that they do not mislead the least cultivated understanding. All perceive that they are used in accommodation to our capacity, espe- cially as it is declared in other passages of Scripture, that God is a Spirit6-, whom no man hath seen or can seee / and Moses f emphatically reminded the Israelites, that they had seen no similitude of the Lord, to whom nothing in heaven or earth can be likened, when He spake unto them out of the midst of the fire. So also of the passions, when the Bible ascribes to Him anger and repentance, they are to be understood not to indicate such perturb- ations as are incompatible with his perfection, but to mark out in a manner intelligible to us, the conduct which in man would be the result of these passions. To prevent the taking such phrases in a literal sense, there are contra- dictory texts. Thus, the Lord repented that He had made mans, is corrected by, God is not a son of man that He should repenth: I am the Lord, I change not1; and, ivith God there is no variableness or shadow of turning*-. When we say that God is without passions, we must beware of falling into the error of heathen philosophers, who universally maintained, that the gods neither will or can hurt any one, as what is a Prov. xiv. 3. b Exodus xxii. 11. « Dent. iv. 34. d John iv. 24. ■ 1 Tim. vi. 10. f Deut. iv. 12. * Gen. vi. (5. h Numb, xxiii. 10. ' Mai. iii. 6. k James i. 17. , 58 LECTURE I. capable of hurting is capable of being hurt. Thus Tully in the Offices1, speaking of the oath of Regulus, considers that it ought to have been kept out of respect to justice and fidelity, but not out of fear or anger of the gods, for there is no such thing. This pernicious error, which destroys the moral cha- racter of the Deity, led Lactantius to write on the wrath of God, and drove him into the opposite extreme, so difficult is it to preserve the mean on such topics. We should always recollect, that it is metaphorically, and as it were by anthro- popathy, that anger and its contrary are predicated of the immutable Divinity ; for there are no sudden and violent perturbations in Him, as in man, rising and falling as occa- sion serves, but fixed, tranquil, and eternal inclinations of the will, according to the different nature of things, either contrary or agreeable to it. There are in man some habitual and perpetual affections, as love and hatred ; much more hath the eternal will of God eternal affections, while it moves itself to objects without alteration, impression, or passion ; so God hates evil and loves good, both in the abstract and universal idea, and also in the concrete or particular, as far as it agrees with the general. The Latin term Impassibilis, translated without passions, is to be taken also passively, meaning that God is not acted upon, is not capable of sustaining pain or injury. Those who confound the Persons of the Father and the Son are called Patri- passionists, because they make the Father to suffer; and when we speak of the Son's sufferings, we must restrict them to his human nature. Of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, means what the etymology of the epithet teaches, that we can set no limits to these attributes. The arguments that prove the existence of God, prove these qualities, which are inherent in his nature; and the Scriptures, especially Job and the Prophets, who delight in contrasting his majesty with the vanities and abominations of the Heathen, as they justly called their Gods, abound in magnificent declarations of his power, wisdom, and goodness. But from Omnipotence we must exclude the power of doing what would imply a physical or > De Offic. iii. 28. LECTURE I. 59 mora] contradiction. Even God cannot recall the past, or cause a thing to be in more places than one at the same time. He cannot lie, make wrong right, or falsehood truth. Creation and Providence proclaim to all, who do not wilfully shut their eyes that they may not see, the wisdom and goodness of God: and our perception of these will ever become more distinct and influential, in proportion as we study his works and his ways. Goodness is a comprehensive term, including many particulars. " The inexhaustible fountain of Divine beneficence, as it terminates upon different objects, is dis- tinguished by different names. When it confers happiness without merit, it is grace ; when against merit, it is mercy ; when conferred according to promise, it is truth ; when it commiserates the distressed, it is pity ; when it supplies the indigent, bounty ; when it succours the innocent, righteous- ness ; when it pardons the penitent, forgiveness ; when it bears with the criminal, patience or long-suffering™." This wise, and benevolent, and mighty Being is declared to be the Maker and Preserver of all things. Creation, in the proper meaning of the term, that is, to use Scripture language, the making of things seen out of things that do not appear*, was a stumblingblock to the ancient philosophers. That nothing could proceed from nothing, was with them an established maxim ; and they therefore, probably without exception, fell into one of two errors, derogatory from the honour of God. They either maintained, that matter was eternal, not made, only brought into shape and form by God, who like a workman does not make, but uses materials existing; the former being, according to Cicero0, an absurdity, that had never been affirmed by any phi- losopher who had studied nature; or that the world itself was an animated being, " whose body nature is, and God the soul," as it is expressed by our poet, who thus advocates, we hope unknowingly, Pantheism, or the Deification of all things; which though in his beautiful Essay on Man, and in many ancient writings bearing the semblance of a sublime Deism, is no better than Atheism. " Jupiter est quodcunque vides quocumque moveris," is the sentiment which the Stoic Lucan m Charnock on the Attributes of God. n Heb. xi. 3. 0 Timseo. LECTURE I. puts into the mouth of Cato ; and it is revealed to Eneas by the shade of his father; but the inward spirit of Virgil, which feeds the heaven and earth, the moon and stars, and the mind that agitates the mass, differs but in name from the secret unknown power of the atheist Lucretius. According to this scheme, the soul of man is no better than that of the brutes, not created, but emanating from the soul of the world, being therefore a particle of Divinity detached from it to be united to a body, and to be absorbed into it at death but without consciousness ; just as the contents of a bottle floating on the sea, on its fracture mix again with the waves. Such an immortality is but nominal ; but the Bible teaches us, that God breathed into man the breath of life; and that after death it will again animate the body, and ever retain an independent existence either in happiness or misery. It is a melancholy reflection, that Buddhaism, the religion of Ceylon and Tartary, and professed by a large proportion of the Chinese, which reckons more adherents than its success- ful rival Brahminism or Mahometanism, is no better than Atheism, under a specious disguise. How much more melan- choly, that Pantheism, which is in spirit the same, should have fascinated so many of the philosophical literati of Germany, and that such visible darkness should be preferred by men, who boast of their intellect, as superior to the bright and warming beams of evangelical light. One cannot but fear that these vain writers, who, while they are the slaves of their own imagination, despise the truth which would guide them into peace, and usefulness, and sobriety of judgment, must have been given over to a reprobate mind. This Pantheism was generally received among the Pagan philosophers; and Lactantius justly says, that under the name of Nature they comprehended things entirely different from one another ; God and the world, the workman and his workmanship ; and say that the one can do nothing without the other ; as if nature were God and the world mixed together; for sometimes they so confounded them, as to make God to be the soul of the world, and the world to be his body. This gave occasion to those extravagant flights LECTURE I. 61 of the Stoics, as being themselves a portion of the Deity ; and even after Christianity had shed its light upon this thick darkness, the philosophers abused this doctrine to the justification of Polytheism, as worshipping the several parts of the world, not as being themselves so many gods, but as making up one God in the whole, which yet might be wor- shipped in its several parts. That vaunting sage Marcus Anto- ninusp, who despised the Christians, actually addresses pra)rer to the world ; and so much was the heathen possessed with the notion, that Strabo supposes, because the Jews had no images, and in prayer lifted up their hands and eyes to heaven, that Moses affirmed the universe which contains us all to be God. (xvi.) Galen, however, a much later writer, knew better, for he acknowledges, that the opinion of Moses, who ascribed the production of all things to God, is far more agreeable to reason than that of Epicurus, who attributed it to a fortuitous concussion of atoms; yet even he asserts the preexistence of matter, and that the power of God could not extend itself beyond the capacity of matter which it wrought upon. The Bible opens with a declaration, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and the peasant who reads and believes this, is wiser than all the sages of antiquity. The fact is repeatedly announced or implied in the sacred volume, and is urged as an argument against idolatry, as a ground of confidence, and as a reason for prayer and adoration ; for He who is our Maker can dispose of what He has made as seemeth Him best. Thus, Tell it out among the heathen that Jehovah is King, and that it is He who hath made the round world so fast that it cannot be moved\ For among the gods who is like unto Thee, 0 Lord, neither are there any works like unto Thy works. Happy is he, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein isT. The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land, O come, let us bow down, and worship*. p iv. 23. On Pantheism and the whole of the religion of the Greeks and Romans ; much valuable instruction may be found in Dr. Leland's Advantage and Necesssity of the Christian Revelation. i Ps. xcvi. 10. r ps. xxviii. 8. » Ps. xcv. 5. 62 LECTURE I. The Gnostic heretics, however, were deeply imbued with the oriental notion of the inherent evil of matter, and therefore independently of the objection of the philosophers to a proper creation, they could not reconcile with their prepossessions the idea of its even being brought into form by a benevolent Being. Their various sects differed among themselves as to the agent, some ascribing the creation to an aeon, or ema- nation of God, of higher or lower rank, and others even to the evil principle, whom they acknowledged as an independent self-existing being. This system, which has obtained much celebrity under the name of Manicheism, was borrowed by Manes from the Persian Theology, which thus endeavoured to account for the origin of evil, and vindicated the goodness of God at the expense of Ylis power ; but God Himself long before, in refutation of this error, had said by the mouth of Isaiah to Cyrus, the future sovereign of that country, / am the Lord, and there is none else : I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things*. It was expedient, therefore, since even some who professed themselves Christians denied this tenet, to make it an Article of the Creed ; and that nothing might be excluded, the words" all things visible and invisible" are added in that of Nice. Moses in his description of the creation, does not mention the angels, but the Psalmist calls them the ministers of Jehovah, that do his pleasure*. St. Paul expressly declares1, that by Christ (without whom we know from St. Johny, that not a single thing was made) were all things created, visible and invisible, thrones and dominions, principalities and powers. And the opening of the epistle to the Hebrews contrasts the dignity of the Son with the inferiority of angels as creatures. The preservation of all things naturally follows their creation, and is a prominent doctrine of the Scriptures. Thus in the passages just cited, it is added, by Him all things consist; and, upholding all things by the word of his power. Still there are many who while they allow a general reject a particular Providence ; yet how can it be inculcated in stronger terms than by our Lord, not az sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father : 1 Isa. xlv. 6. u Psalm ciii. 21. x Col. i. 16. y John i. 3. 1 Matt. x. 29—31. LECTURE I. 63 ye are of more value than many sparrows : even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Reason teaches, that what God hath brought out of nothing, can only be pre- served in existence by the same Omnipotence that produced it; and it is impossible to conceive how the care of the whole is compatible with overlooking the individuals of which that whole consists ; or how the greater events of our lives can have been directed by Providence, if it extends not to those apparent trifles which often originate the former. The notion that such a minute superintendence is beneath the dignity of God, only betrays the con- tracted mind of him who makes the observation. Perfect goodness will care for whatever it creates ; omnipotence will not find the government of the universe and of all that it contains difficult or oppressive. How powerfully the speculations of philosophers on this subject have been influenced by prejudices suggested by the analogy of human nature, appears from various passages, in Pagan and even Christian authors. In the Treatise concerning the world ascribed to Aristotle, but written according to Dr. Parr after the Christian sera, we read, that "if it were not suitable to the majesty of Xerxes, the great king, to condescend to do the meanest offices himself, much less can this be imagined in respect of God." Pliny*, who seems to have been acquainted with the whole of Greek philosophy, regards the notion of the Supreme Being interfering in human affairs as ridiculous, considering that He would be polluted by so sad and so diversified an office : and Minucius Felix introduces a Roman lawyer Caecilius as a type of the educated heathen of his day, urging as an objection against Christians, that their God, whom they could neither hear nor see, inspects not only their actions and words, but even their thoughts ; and that He is impertinently curious and busy, since He interests Himself in all things, whereas He cannot attend to every particular while employed about the whole, nor take care of the whole while busied about particulars. Sim- plicius, a commentator upon Aristotle, more wisely observes, a Hist. Nat. ii. 7. 64 LECTURE it that it cannot be beneath the dignity of the Deity to take care of whatever he has condescended to make : and Platob, in his Laws, says expressly, that providence extends to small things as well as to great; justly remarking that He who sees and knows all things, cannot be subject to negligence or sloth, and that great things cannot be rightly taken care of if small ones are neglected. He adds, that the more perfect an artist becomes, the more will his skill be shewn in both : and let us consider the Deity as not inferior to mortal artists. The notions of the Epicureans concerning the happiness of the Deity, which they thought could not fail to be impaired by the incessant cares and unremitted ex- ertions of a superintending Providence, plainly took their rise from the same source. Plutarch blames Plato for his view of the Providence of God, making him thereby a wrretched being subjecting himself like a workman or a mechanic to heavy burdens, and anxious cares in the composition and government of the world0. A wiser philosophy teaches, that the conservation as well as the creation of things is his delight. Every active intellect even among us knows and feels that it is a high enjoyment to exert its intelligent capacity, it is the misery not happiness of a thinking being to have nothing to do. We may therefore be satisfied, that the Divine Mind, possessing such energies of omnipotence, and having exerted them so multifariously as the universe with its hosts of beings testify to us that He has done, can never be inactive. Every individual of the human race has been always living under the unceasing superintendence and control of his Creator ; and let it be our ever comforting recollection, that we are all partaking of that care, which only becomes general because applied to every one of usd." Judging from ourselves, we are apt to think this minute superintendence if not impossible, wearisome and intolerable ; and the notion gave birth to Materialism, to the mechanical theories proposed by Descartes and Leibnitz, and to various other schemes equally gratuitous. According to the first, the phenomena of nature are the result of certain active powers essentially inherent in matter, and the language of b v. x. c Plauta i. 7. d Turner's Sacred History, vol. ii. p. 72. LECTURE I. 65 the Newtonian Philosophy is somewhat apt to encourage in superficial thinkers, prejudices which lead to Materialism ; but it must not be forgotten, that Sir Isaac himself employed the words attraction and gravitation, merely to express a fact ; and that he was at pains to guard his readers against that very misapprehension of his meaning, which has been so often imputed to his Philosophy. According to Derham, it hath pleased the Author of all things to imprint by his fiat certain active powers on matter on its creation ; while Cudworth supposes a plastic or formative nature, which he defines as " a vital and spiritual, but unintelligent and necessary agent created by the Deity for the execution of his purposes." Dissatisfied with these theories, others have revived the ancient hypothesis of mind, and supposed every elementary particle of matter to be endued, not only with a power of motion, but with intelligence. Even the devout Boyle observes, " that as it more recommends the skill of an engineer to contrive an elaborate engine, so that there need nothing to reach his ends in it, but the contrivance of parts void of understanding, that if it were necessary ever and anon a discreet servant should be employed to concur notably to the operations of this or that part ; so it more sets off the wisdom of God in the fabric of the universe, that He can make so vast a machine perform all these many things which He designed it should, by the mere contrivance of brute matter managed by certain laws of motion, and upheld it by his ordinary and general concourse, than if he employed from time to time a diligent overseer to regulate and control the motions of the parts." "And this argument," says Lord Karnes, " is to me perfectly conclusive." Dugald Stewart prefers the simple and sublime doctrine, which con- ceives the order of the universe to be not only at first established, but every moment maintained by the incessant agency of one Supreme Mind ; a doctrine against which no objection can be stated, but what is founded on prejudices resulting from our own imperfections ; and he quotes from Clarke. " All things that are done in the world are done either imme- diately by God Himself, or by created intelligent beings. Matter is evidently incapable of any laws or powers, so F 66 LECTURE I. that all the things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, are indeed (if we speak strictly and properly) the effects of God's acting upon matter, continually and every moment, either immediately or mediately, so that there is no such thing as what we commonly call the course of nature." This appears to be most consonant to Scripture, and is a position which broadly stated no one, I presume, will deny. But how this is effected is a great question. The common sense view takes it literally, and here I believe common sense and genuine philosophy will coincide. But if the Deity be allowed not only to preserve, but to govern his whole creation, moral and rational beings as well as the material world and brutes, it matters little whether we suppose He effects it immediately or by general laws, having before provided for such exceptions from them as He foreknew would be required. The great question is, whether his Providence be general or particular. Cer- tainly, the latter is strongly expressed in Scripture, and confirmed I conceive by reason ; for how can the whole be taken care of, and not the parts of which that whole consists? nay, that whole itself is only a philosophical abstraction ; individuals alone having a real existence. One use of the Bible, consisting in great part of a narrative of events, is to teach from authority the doctrine of a particular Providence. We cannot doubt this in the life of Joseph, and we are not to suppose that his history is an exception from the general rule. The only difference is, that the Jewish annals apprise us of God's designs, and hence we conjecture the same in profane history. It may be beyond our capacity in all cases to write confidently, but it is plain that many events, sucli as the dispersing of the Spanish Armada, and the discovery of the Gunpowder plot, were providential. T specify the history of Joseph, because he lived before the descendants of Abraham had been placed under their pe- culiar economy: and it has had its counterpart in the history of slaves in modern Egypt, who have risen to be its masters. I have also selected it, because, extraordinary as it is, it is not miraculous ; and the wonderful concatenation of events LECTURE I. 07 to produce some great and unexpected result, has been ac- knowledged even by those who had no belief in a first cause. Thus Pliny remarks, that the most trifling facts have led to the greatest consequences, mentioning as an instance, that it was not the Roman battles, but Cato's showing African figs to the senate, that occasioned the destruction of Car- thage ; and thoughtful individuals, however insignificant they may comparatively be, who meditate on the occurrences of their own lives, must acknowledge, that an apparent accident, such as turning down one street instead of another, has been the first of a train of circumstances which have given a colour to their future existence. The conclusion of the whole matter will be found to be, that we must see God in all things or in nothing ; for else, while we talk of his Providence, we shall, as too many do, banish from his own creation Him " in whom we live and move and have our being."" The doctrine is unpopular, because it is thought to be incompatible to the free agency of men. This I believe can be shown to be an error, though I do not deny the plausibility of the objection ; but we must submit to be ignorant in this as in other high points of theology. The believer in a particular Providence may be said to be liable to become superstitious or enthusiastic ; he who denies it, is exposed to the more serious danger of becoming a practical atheist. It is clear that the reasonableness of prayer depends upon this doctrine ; for unless we believe that God can be moved to grant our petitions, they will not extend beyond general terms, and whatever is not specific will be cold, and what is cold will be ineffectual. Dr. Price, an author whom none will charge with en- thusiasm or superstition, refers us to the religion of nature, as showing how it may be consistent with the laws imposed upon matter and the liberty of man, by secret influences and by other ways, so to direct all occurrences, that nothing unsuitable to any case shall come to pass. And he adds, that it is self-evident, that if there be one event of which all the care is not taken that is right to be taken, the ad- ministration of the world is so far defective. It follows therefore, that no one who believes a perfect Deity can f 2 68 LECTURE I. deny a Providence, or doubt if it be particular. Towards the close of his Dissertation, he observes, that the sove- reign Arbiter of nature is in every breath we draw, and in every thought wre think, and for the very reason that He is every thing to us, he becomes nothing to us. His power is really put forth as much in common as in extraordinary events : but what happens out of the usual course we are never backward to ascribe to Him, what is done constantly wTe are readier to consider as coming to pass of itself. My limits will not permit me to insert the pious conclusions he draws from this consolatory and cheering doctrine ; but I cannot resist adding, that he regards the account which the Scriptures give of Divine Providence as an argument for their heavenly origin, considering the whole history they contain to be one uniform display of the divine superintendence of human affairs. It is, he continues, a remark as true as common, that whereas other histories seldom go higher than the passions of men for the sources of events, this always directs us to God as the guide and governor of whatever happens e. And the Bible allowed to be God's word, it furnishes in turn an argument for Providence, especially in its numerous prophecies ; and as several, such as the destruction of Babylon, and of the dispersion of the Jews, are universally agreed to have been accomplished, we must allow them to have been dictated by the Author of Nature, who can employ moral agents without their know- ledge in the fulfilment of his purposes, as the scourges or deliverers of nations f. " When we peruse the instructive page of history, we behold empires successively rising and falling, and we adore the Pro- vidence of Him who ruleth in the kingdoms of men ; and putteth down one and setteth up another, ordering all things according to the counsel of his own will. From the sacred Scriptures we leari>what that will is, and how gracious an aspect it always bears towards the servants of God. We see the most untractable of persons unconsciously working together for good to them who fear and worship the Creator and Governor " Isaiah xiv. 7. Amos iii. 0. Psalm cxlviii. Prov. xvi. 33. f Dissertation on Providence, p. li — 17. 171. Sec. LECTURE I. 69 of the universe. We perceive the potentates of the earth becoming subservient to the kingdom of the Messiah, and carrying on the dispensations of mercy and judgment to- wards his people, as their obedience from time to time leads for the one, or their transgressions call for the other. The fate of empires being interwoven with that of religion, it pleased God to communicate to his servants, the prophets, the secrets of his administration with regard to them. And having done so in these cases, He thereby showeth us how He acts in others, and enables us to form a competent idea of our own situation and circumstances. It is therefore no less curious than useful in reading history, to mark the dispositions and characters of nations, and of the men who are the instruments working under the direction of Pro- vidence, for the fulfilment of its designs, without any infringement of their free will g. Divine Providence is a theme upon which a devout mind, accustomed to trace up causes and events to the great first cause, will delight to dwell ; but my limits forbid my expatiating upon a doctrine so full of comfort, as I must proceed to those that are more prominently brought forward in these Articles. I will therefore dismiss the topic with a fine passage from Bacon, in which the highest philosophy is expressed in the language of poetry. " It is an assured truth and a conclusion of experience, that a little or super- ficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind to atheism, but a further proceeding therein doth bring it back again to religion ; for in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next to the senses, do offer themselves to the mind, if it stay there, it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause ; but when a man passeth on further, and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of Providence, then according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe, that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the feet of Jupiter's chair." The self-existence and the governing power of the Supreme Being is at once expressed in the Bible in the title so often repeated, but I fear too seldom duly weighed, Jehovah s Bishop Home's Discourses, xxxiii. 70 LECTURE I. Sabaoth. The Septuagint translator renders the first '0*£lv, the one who exists [that is, preeminently] ; and this St. John, deeming it an inadequate rendering translates, 6 w xu) >jv xa» 6 egxapevog, meaning in the language of another inspired writer, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He is also the God of Sabaoth, that is, of hosts or armies, not merely of heavenly spirits, but of all his creatures marshalled or arranged in order, and all but man, knowingly or by instinct, fulfilling his behests. Thus far, that is in the acknowledgment of one supreme Creator and Governor of the world, the Deist will go along with us. But this is a most imperfect view of the Divine Being, for in his Unity there is a Trinity of Persons. We allow that Revelation alone makes known to us the existence and offices of the Son and the Holy Spirit; yet this we consider as no presumption against the doctrine, for a moment's reflection must convince us, that we who know nothing of the essences of things, and do not comprehend even our own compound nature, while we cannot deny its existence, have no right to declare this doctrine to be impossible ; and our incompetence to discern it is a reason why God should please to declare it, if we at the same time bear in mind, that it is not, as unbelievers misrepresent or misconceive, a mere speculative knowledge for the information of the understanding, but is one designed to promote our moral improvement. Whoever attentively reads the Bible will allow, that the object of it is the revelation of truth in order to influence the conduct. It was necessary that we should be informed of our fallen state, and of the plan of our recovery from sin and punishment : but how could this have been made known to us, or the obligations that flow from it, without a revelation of the Trinity ? Remove this doctrine, and how does Christianity differ from Deism ? It would only differ by the attestation of the resurrection of Jesus to a state of future rewards and punishments; and the system of the modern Unitarian seems to be nothing more. Christianity is a manifestation of the Three Divine Persons, as engaged in the great work of man's redemption, in their several relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, LECTURE I. 71 Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. If there be no Son of God, where is our redemption ; if there be no Holy Spirit, where is our sanctification ; and without both, where is salvation ? The dereliction of this faith then would leave us under the guilt of our sins and the curse of the Law. The opposers of this doctrine in modem times have assumed the appellation of Unitarians, as if the Trinitarians denied the Unity of the Supreme Being ; but this we main- tain as strongly as themselves. Reason teaches us this fun- damental truth, which is j;>roclaimed in every part of the Bible. The law of Moses, which separated the Jews from the worship of the gods of the nations, asserts the unity in the plainest terms. Our Saviour adopted this unity as the principle of the first and great commandment ; and an Apostle announces11, that there is one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all. There cannot therefore be three Gods, but there must be a sense in which these three Persons are one God. Our oppo- nents seem to think that the doctrine is formed in an arbitrary and presumptuous manner, by going beyond what is revealed : but we in fact proceed as we should do in solving any phenomenon of nature. Many texts at first sight seem contradictory : some supposition is to be formed which shall make them consistent, and the supposition wrhich answers this end is to be received as truth. Class all the expressions in Scripture relating to the Deity according to the catholic doctrine, and they are interpreted in the most natural manner, according to the soundest principles of grammar and criticism, so as they would be interpreted separately, taking each text with its context, if no par- ticular end were in view. The force of this induction has been felt in all ages. The earliest Christian writers, who paid the same honours to the Son and to the Holy Ghost as to the Father, declared their abhorrence of Polytheism, and considered themselves as worshippers of the one true God. The Divinity of the Father is questioned by no one ; I have to treat on that of the Son and of the Spirit in the fol- lowing Articles ; I have only at present then to consider L Eph. iv. o. 72 LECTURE I. the scriptural manner of putting them together. Dr. Clarke has forty-eight texts, in which the three Persons are mentioned together, and it appears that precedence is sometimes given to the Son, or to the Spirit, as the occasion may require, Of these the form of baptism is the most decisive, for it is the solemn act of worship by which converts were to renounce their false gods, and to be initiated into the true faith. They could not therefore fail to believe that Christ designed to teach them, that each of these persons was God ; and it is worthy of notice, that he uses not names but name ; the meaning of which seems to be, that they are to be admitted into a religion, of which the Trinity should be the characteristic doctrine. Since we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we acknowledge that "their Godhead is all one, their glory equal, their majesty co-eternal," for it cannot be sup- posed that God would suffer two creatures to be joined with Him in so solemn an act, nor would the meek and lowly- Jesus, if he had been no more than a man, have joined his own name so familiarly to that of his Lord and Maker in so solemn a commission. As it was given as the form by which the apostles should baptize, it was undoubtedly in- tended as the summary of the doctrine which they should preach, and which their converts should profess. In answer to this it has been pleaded, that in the Acts we read of persons baptized only in the name of Jesus; but we maintain, that this Trinitarian formula is implied where i St. Paul asks the Ephesians, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since you believed? for when they answered, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost, he imme- diately replies, Unto what then were you baptized? Their first baptism, that of John, he declares to be insufficient, by baptizing them again in the name of the Lord Jesus. We cannot suppose, that by omitting the name of the Holy Spirit in this new baptism, that great defect in their previous faith, which this very baptism was intended to remove, should be still permitted to remain. We may therefore conclude, that the entire form of baptism prescribed by our Lord was 1 Acts xix. 2 — 5. LECTURE I. 73 here observed, though it is only thus briefly noticed. In truth, if we were at this day speaking of the reception of a heathen into the Church, we should express it by saying he was baptized in the name of Christ, without thereby implying that the names of the Father and the Holy Ghost were omitted at the administration of this sacrament. The narrative of the devout Cornelius and his friends thus concludes, While Pete?' yet spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word, and they spake with tongues, and magnified God. Can it be supposed that in this baptism the name of that Holy Ghost should be omitted, whose gifts were at that instant poured out on the converts ; or the name of the Father, whom the influence of that Spirit impelled them to magnify ? It is obvious then, that to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus is merely an abridged formula, taken from its chief characteristic ; for in the case of Cornelius and the Eunuch, they had already acknowledged the Father. And in the account of our Lord's own baptism, there was a manifestation to the senses of the three, the Holy Spirit visibly descending, the Son coming up from the water, and the Father who is not visible was yet distinctly heard, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased^. The blessing with which our Morning and Evening Service concludes, being that of an inspired Apostle1, is scarcely less decisive, for it cannot be a prayer to God, a man and attribute, as it must be on the Socinian hypothesis. Other passages may be cited, in which the three Persons are mentioned together. Through Him (Christ) we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Eph. ii. 18. The Lord (Holy Ghost) direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. 2 Thess. iii. 5. Christ through the eternal Spirit offered Himself to God. Heb. ix. 14. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. 1 Pet. i. 2. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; there k Matt. iii. 16. Luke iii. 21. ' 2 Cor. xiii. 11. 74 LECTURE I. are differences of administrations ; but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God. 1 Cor. xii. 4 — 6. Now God Himself, even our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you, and the Lord (the Holy Ghost) make you to increase and abound in love one towards another. 1 Thess. iii. 11, 12. In the Old Testament, the references are less numerous and more obscure. I specify the plural noun for God, Elohim, in construction with the verb in the singular, and still more the consultation, Let us make man, which is not likely to have been said to Angels. Nor is it satisfactorily explained by the European use of the plural by kings, which has never been proved to have been customary in ancient times, and does not occur in the Bible. I cite a passage from Isaiah, xlviii. 16. / have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was there am I : and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me. And I conclude with the triple benediction appointed for the priests, Numbers vi. 24 — 26. The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee, the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. Divine teaching is ascribed to all the Persons of the Godhead. John vi. 45. They shall be all taught of God. Gal. i. 12. Neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. John xiv. 26. He (the Holy Ghost) shall teach you all things. The divine law is the law of the Trinity. Rom. vii. 25. The law of God. Gal. vi. 2. The law of Christ. Rom. viii. 2. The law of the Spirit of life. Sin is an olfence against the Trinity. Deut. vi. 16. Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God. 1 Cor. x. 9. Neither let us tempt Christ. Acts v. 9. Ye have agreed to tempt the Spirit of the Lord. LECTURE I. 75 The three Persons have fellowship with the faithful. 1 John i. S. Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. xiii. 14. The fellowship of the Holy Ghost. And they are spiritually present in the souls of believers. 1 Cor. xiv. 25. God is in you. 2 Cor. xiii. 5. Jesus Christ is in you. John xiv. 17. He (the Spirit of truth) dwelleth with you and shall be in you. It is a frequent cavil, that the term Triad, or Trinity, was introduced into theology from the Platonic philosophy by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, in the second century. But this is a frivolous objection, since if Scripture contains the doctrine, it is convenient to be able to express it not by a circumlocution, but by a single word. Hypostasis indeed, which our version renders person™, is scriptural; but the re- mark applies to many other of these consecrated terms ; and Triad must have soon become familiar, for it was used in the successive disputes about the doctrine by Praxeas, Noetus, and Sabellius, and is ridiculed by the heathen author of Philopatris". Metaphysics were not called in to guard the faith, till heretics had shown the way, and forced the orthodox to encounter them with their own weapons. We find, according to Justin Martyr, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost not nominally, but really distinct. Yet the distinction was not marked by person, 7rg6(roo7rov, nor the union by moaraa-is, which soon acquired the meaning of substance. Sabellius took the former in its theatrical sense, and sheltered under it his heresy. After a lapse m Heb. i. 3. Exj)ress image of his person. ° This tract, which is very interesting from its description of St. Taul, in which a resemblance to the Socrates of Aristophanes is insinuated, is pub- lished among the works of Lucian, but is now supposed to be of later date. To the question, By whom shall I swear ? it is answered, 'Ti|/i/xe5ovTa Qebv fxzyav, &jx^poTOV ovpaviu>va, Tlbv Tlarpbs, Hvzvfxa e/c Tlarpbs eK.Tropzv6iJ.zvov, *Ev 4k Tpiwv teal e| evos rpla. Immortal, heavenly, great, wide-ruling God, Son of the Father, Spirit from the Father proceeding, One fiom three and three from one, These regard as Jove, these take for God. 76 LECTURE I. of centuries, this sophistry was revived in the Roman Church by Laurentius Valla, who applied it to the Latin persona, and by Servetus, who was burnt alive chiefly as an anti-Trinitarian at Geneva, 1553, whose death has in modern times drawn a veil over the memory of Calvin, though few of his contemporaries did not approve of his conduct on that occasion. The fanatic Servetus, writes Melancthon, plays upon the equivocal sense of this word, maintaining that anciently it signified no more than the distinction of an office ; as speaking of an actor we say, Rescius supports the person, sometimes of Achilles, some- times of Ulysses ; and in like manner Cicero says, I sustain three persons [parts], that is, of myself, my opponent, and my judge. But, continues Melancthon, let us avoid and execrate these impious evasions, and let us know that the language of the Church is different, which defines a person to be an intelligent and incommunicable individual sub- stance. It was thought necessary by the framers of the Augsburg Confession, of which he was the chief, to define person as used by ecclesiastical writers, to signify neither part nor quality, but that which has a proper subsistence. Sabellius's abuse of the term 7T£ocra>7rov, that is, person, in- duced the orthodox to substitute for it hypostasis, which it was determined in a Synod at Alexandria, where Athanasius presided, might be taken indifferently for person or sub- stance, so long as they agreed in the common faith. Even homoousion, of the same substance, says Waterland, might have been spared, at least out of the Creed, had not a frau- dulent abuse of good words endangered the Catholic faith under Catholic language. A doctrine so clearly revealed in the holy Scriptures, cannot consistently be rejected by any who bow to their authority. Accordingly we find, that with the exception of a party exceedingly small, both in ancient and modern times, and which in our days is more distinguished by in- tellectual attainments than by piety, this doctrine, as Bishop Burnet observes, " has been universally received over the whole Christian Church, long before there was either a Christian Prince to support it by his authority, or a Council LECTURE I. 77 to establish it by consent." In fact, he might have said, from the preaching of the Apostles. Heresies we know sprung up even in their time, but the disputes that harassed the primitive Church arose not from a denial of this great truth, but from injudicious endeavours to explain it. The nature of the Son and the Holy Spirit were the subjects in debate in the first four General Councils, but their divinity was then acknowledged by all. The modern Uni- tarians however assume, that the doctrine is contradictory, consequently incredible; they therefore maintain, that all the passages that seem to declare it are mistranslated or misinter- preted. This is not the place to enter upon a critical discussion of texts ; but I will only state what no one, looking into the so called " new and improved version," published under their patronage, can doubt that it is so forced and unnatural, that it is more reasonable, allowing their assertion to be true, to deny the authority of the New Testament, than to question the received translation which believers and infidels allow to be correct. Their assertion, however, we do not allow ; for it proceeds upon a fallacy. They say we confess that God is both three and one; we reply, that we use the words in two senses, three in person one in essence; the charge of contradiction therefore falls to the ground. It is a just remark, that there is an essential differ- ence between a tenet being above reason, and contrary to it, and that it may be the former without being the latter. We may go a step further, and affirm, that the very fact of its being the former precludes the possibility of proving it to be the latter ; for unless we comprehend in part the subject, on what principle can we make out that an opinion is contradictory ? The truth is, we are completely lost, whenever we begin, in any view of it whatever, to think about the Divine Essence; yet we may easily conceive, that the Godhead is not like other beings even in its manner of subsistence. Created beings subsist singly, but it is the transcendent property of the Divine Nature to dwell in more persons than one, and these we learn from revelation are neither more nor less than three. The following is an attempt to illustrate this high and 78 LECTURE I. mysterious doctrine. We feel in ourselves that every mind has its word and spirit, and cannot be conceived without them ; it may therefore be presumed, that the eternal Mind has also its eternal Word and Spirit: in us they are the perish- ing creatures of the mind, which vanish as soon as they are produced ; but in the eternal Mind they are permanent and subsisting, and can never be separated from it. Such essential processions are not only coeval and con substantial with the nature from which they flow, but whatever distinction there is between them, they are one individual nature, since whatever is essential to a being, must be of the same nature with it. We are apt to run into a gross notion, that the Son and Holy Spirit are distinct in being, because we can only conceive from ourselves, of such distinctions by division and separation ; but unity is the essential attribute of the divine nature, and therefore we use the word communication, and understand thereby that the Father from all eternity gave his divine nature to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, and yet continues to have it in Himself undiminished and unim- paired. If then the Father communicate his whole nature without division or separation to his Son, and the Father and the Son together, communicate the same whole nature to the Holy Ghost, they continue in the most perfect notion one, since there is one and the whole entire and perfect Divinity in the three. As we all agree that we cannot comprehend the Divine nature, it might have been wiser to have left the doctrine of the Trinity in the same general terms in which we find it in Scripture, than to attempt to define it. This is a charge often brought, and more especially against the statement in the Atha- nasian Creed, in which the catholic doctrine is so clearly and briefly stated, that even Baxter, though a dissenter, accounts it the best explication of it he ever read. But, in truth, the fault is not in the orthodox but in the early heretics. The opposers of the faith first innovated in the language ; the maintainers of it therefore were compelled to reply in terms opposite, and by propositions contrary to theirs. If the former invent explications and distinctions, the latter must obviate and answer them. The definition in our Article, Three LECTURE I. 7<> Persons of one substance, power, and eternity ; according with the language of the ancient Church, \l\ol ov Gibbon, chapter xlvii. h Book v. .r)4. 1 Pearson. LECTURE II. 99 so interpreted Jeremiah's prophecy1, Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth; a woman shall compass a man; and as in the former instance, the context is favour- able, to this interpretation. An allusion to his peculiar birth occurs in Isaiah ; " Listen, 0 isles, unto me, and hearken, ye people, from far ; Jehovah hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother liath he made mention of my namei." But the passage of Micah is most decisive; for having first spoken of the antecedent generation, from everlasting, of the future ruler of Israel, who is to be born into this life at Bethlehem, he says, that God ivill give up the nation until she who travaileth hath brought forth*. It is implied in the excessive honour, too early paid to our Lord's Virgin Mother, (notwithstanding what I cannot but regard as a designed lowering of her in the Gospels ;) which in the Church of Rome, has degenerated into idolatry. The conception of Jesus is the point from which wre date the union between his two natures ; and this being miraculous, the existence of the person in whom they are united was not physically derived from Adam. Even then as the son of man, Jesus is exalted above his brethren, and preserved from the contamination of original corruption, adhering to the race whose nature he assumed ; and is peculiarly, as foretold to Eve, the seed of the woman. Since Jesus the Christ is both God and man, it follows that each nature in him is complete ; and the connection between soul and body is a very inadequate representation of this personal or hypostatical union, as it is called by theologians. The soul without the body has no instrument of its operations, the body without the soul is destitute of the principle of life, and the two are only different parts of one complex nature. But Jesus the Christ was God before he became man ; and there was nothing deficient in his manhood ; so that he united in himself two distinct natures, each of which is perfect. This union is the key which opens to us a great part of the phraseology of Scripture. He is sometimes spoken of as God, and sometimes as man, and things peculiar to 1 Jer. xxxi. 22. j Is. xlix. 1. k Micah viii. H 2 100 LECTURE II. each nature are affirmed of him, not as if he possessed one nature to the exclusion of the other, but because possessing both, the characteristics of each of which may equally be applied to him ; the properties of the one nature are sometimes in consequence, though not in strict accuracy, referred to the other ; as, the Son of man hath power to forgive sins ; the Lord of glory was crucified. It is this distinction between the divine and human natures which enables us to explain the humiliation and exaltation of the Son of God, and the termination of his mediatorial kingdom. This union is the corner stone of our religion ; and if in our meditations we never lose sight of it, we shall perceive in the nature of the Messiah a completeness and a suitableness to the design of his coming, which of themselves create a strong presumption that we have rightly interpreted the Scriptures ; and the different modes in which he is spoken of, as either nature was in the mind of the writers, can only be reconciled upon this the orthodox hypothesis. The Article begins with saying, that the Son is the Word of the Father, and this must be granted by all who receive St. John's Gospel. The Greek term is an ambiguous one, for it means reason, whether existing in the mind as thought, or as communicated to others as speech ; and those who wish it to be considered only as a divine attribute, not as a person, translate it by the first. But the corresponding terms in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac, do not convey the first meaning : and though the description of that wisdom which Jehovah possessed in the beginning of his way1, might justify its application in that sense to the second person of the Trinity ; still the context shows that the latter was intended by the Evangelist. A man's word or thought is not called man ; nor would the word or wisdom of God be called God, if a mere attribute or operation was intended. Allowing then the Logos to be a person, the Evangelist says, that he was with God, and it cannot be supposed that he was the self- same person with whom he was, that is the Father, nor is it said that he was in God, which would be the proper mode of expressing an attribute. The Apostle observes also, that 1 Proverbs viii. LECTURE If. 101 the Baptist was not that Light, intimating that it was of a person that he had been speaking ; and concludes with declaring that this Logos, the only-begotten of the Father, and therefore not the same, became incarnate01. This personality, so strongly insisted upon and enforced by St. John, appears also in the voluminous works of the contemporary Jew Philo, in the Chaldee Targums or paraphrases of Scripture, and in some remarkable passages in the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon : and none who acknowledge this will deny the application of the term Word to the Son. Various conjectures have been formed of its origin. To me the most satisfactory is, that it had become familiar to the hellenizing Jews as the Septuagint rendering of the Word of the Lord; and this at the same time explains its occurrence in Philo and the Apocrypha, anterior to Gnosticism. I conceive the best ex- planation of its use is the substitution of the abstract for the concrete. Salvation is put for Saviour in the Gospels, ac- cording to the genius of the Hebrew tongue : and Word for the speaker of words is a most appropriate title for him, who has declared or explained h^zyr^uTO to mean his God. Probably this introduction to the Gospel of St. John would never have been written, if the author had not lived in an age and place infected with that philosophical and in reality unchristian system, which assumed the proud title of Knowledge yvoutng ; for after referring to it as he does to Light and Life, terms likewise desecrated by the Gnostics, he uses it no more throughout his narrative. He had previously employed it in the opening of his Epistle ; and gives the title in the Reve- lation to the triumphant Redeemer ; but it clearly never became a popular word among the orthodox : though I pre- sume it was in use among the heretics, at least those of Arabia, for it has been perpetuated as a title of our Lord in the Koran. The Moslem, however, ignorant of Gnosticism, take it in a literal sense, and interpret it to mean, that the son of Mary was not generated, but created by a word n. The Logos is called the Son, and the Son of God, in so emphatic a manner, or under such circumstances, as to be applicable to him only in his preexistent state. As when the Father's voice from " Wuterlaud, Lady Mover's Lectures. " Maracci's Koran, iii. and the notes. 102 LECTURE II. heaven proclaimed him his beloved son in whom he was well pleased, for he was then only about to enter upon his office as Messiah, and this love prior to amy act of his on earth, infers a higher and antecedent filiation. No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, implies that the knowledge of the two is reci- procal"; and all men should honour the son as they honour the Father0, is equivalent. St. Paul's description of our Lordp as the seed of David after the flesh, and the son of God declared with power according to the Spirit of holiness, contrasts his divine and human natures; and even the passage i, Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee, (though at first sight it might seem to refer to his birth into this world,) is brought forward to show his superiority to Angels. This eternal filiation is supported by St. Johnr; and as Jesus is thus em- phatically called the Son, so is the first person of the Trinity called his Father in a peculiar sense ; as when the Apostle says% with one mind and with one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christx. The demons them- selves acknowledged Jesus to be the Son of Godu, which the Jews understand as equivalent to Deity; for when Peter replied not only, Thou art the Christ, but also the Son of the living Godx, Jesus declared him blessed for the acknow- ledgment of a faith which God had revealed to him ; and it is incontrovertible, that our Lord suffered death for making himself the Son of God, which (on this very account) they accounted blasphemy y. And this mystery is probably inti- mated in the metaphors which designate him as the Branch of Jehovahz, the brightness of the Fathers glory, and the express image of his person3-. Everlasting seems to be added, to show that he is not so called merely because of his conception by the Holy Ghost, but that before his birth he had been a Son, and that " there had never been a time when he was not." n Matt. xi. 27. o John v. 23. P Rom. i. 3, 4. i Heb. i. 5. ' John iii. JG, L7. xvii. 24. Mark xii. 6. Heb. i. 0. I John iv. 9. Col. i. 13—17. Rev. viii. 3, 32. 1 John i. 3. ■ Rom. xv. G. 1 2 Cor. i. 3 ; xi. 81. Eph. i. 3. 1 Pet. i. & ' Matt, x iii. 29. Mark i. 21; iii. U. Lnkc iv. 34; viii. 28. * Matt. xvi. 15—17. 1 Matt. xxvi. G3. e Isaiah iv. 2. Zech. iii. 8 ; vi. 22. » 2 Cor. iv. 4. Col. i. I Heb. i. LECTURE II. 103 Of the Father, makes this generation still more definite. The term begotten is implied whenever Father or Son is mentioned; and only-begotten, used by St. Johnb, and by our Lord himself in his discourse with Nicodemusc, evi- dently declares that he was his son in a higher sense than any other being: and for this we have the authority of the Evangelist ; for upon our Lord saying, My Father ivorketh hitherto, and I work, he observes, therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his [own or peculiar TStov] Father, making himself equal with Codd. Bishop Pearson has shown that the Deity of Christ is comprehended in the phrase only Son : and were it not, the Creed would have been insufficient, and could be rehearsed with propriety by the modern Unitarian. " The Socinians take only-begotten to be nothing more than most beloved of all sons, because Isaac was called the only son of Abraham, when we know that he had Ishmael beside ; but the terms are not synonymous, for a son is beloved because he is an only one, not an only one because beloved. Beside, Isaac was so called for another reason, for he was the only son of the free-woman, the only son of the promise made to Abraham e. We must therefore, avoiding this exposition as far short of the true notion of the only-begotten, look upon it in the most proper, full, and significant sense, as signifying a son so begotten as none ever is, was, or can be. Others we acknow- ledge are frequently called the sons of God ; and wre call the same God our Father, whom Christ called his, and he is not ashamed to call us brethren ; but the sonship into which we come is but that of adoption, showing the generation by which we are begotten to be but metaphorical; whereas Christ is so properly, and by nature, the son of God, that even in his humanity he refuseth the name of an adopted son ; for when the fulness of time icas come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, (not that he, but) we might receive the adoption of sons. He then whose b John i. U— 18. and 1 John iv. ]9. « John iii. 16, 18. d John v. 18. e Gen. xviii. 14; xxi. 12. Heb. xi. 17. 104 LECTURE II. generation is totally different from ours, is truly the only- begotten ; notwithstanding the same God hath begotten us by his word; and the reason is, because the divine essence was communicated to him in his natural and eternal gene- ration, whereas only the divine grace is conveyed unto us in our adoption f." The very and eternal God asserts our Lord's divinity in its proper and strict sense ; a sense to which Arians cannot subscribe: nor those who like Socinus consider him as con- stituted on his resurrection the object of adoration, as the reward of his obedience and sufferings; a position, we may observe, so extraordinary, that nothing can account for his invention of it but the fact, that the Testament so decidedly proclaims his divinity, that he was obliged in a qualified sense to admit it. The student of ecclesiastical antiquity may easily satisfy himself, from the testimony both of Christians and of the Heathen, that it has ever been the received doctrine of the Church, not merely as a speculative opinion, but followed out into its proper consequence, divine worship. Pliny, the earliest of the latter, whose description of the worship of the Christians has reached us, informs the Emperor Trajan, in an official Letter as Governor of the province to the believers in which St. Peter had written, that they met on stated days to sing hymns to Christ as to God ; and they were com- monly reproached with the absurdity of worshipping one that had been executed as a malefactor. Celsus objects against us, says Origene, I know not how often respecting Jesus, that we consider him as God with a mortal body. Indeed, his principal objection seems to have been the union of the two natures in the person of Christ. He saysh, that the place is shown where he who is worshipped by Christians was born ; and ridicules their inconsistency in blaming the worshippers of Jupiter, whose tomb was shown in Crete, while they worship as God the sophist who was crucified in Palestine. Such a testimony from a professed enemy of f Pearson, on the Creed, p. 130. e Orig. iii. 11 1'hv (xt ya yuvi/ t-Ktivov fri atfiuvoiv 6.vQpu)nov, thv eV rfj Ua\aioTivii avacrno- huiTiotvTa. Peregrine Proteus. LECTURE II. 105 the Gospel in the second century, allowed to be true by the Christian writer who confutes him in the third, is decisive of the fact. Lucian, the contemporary of the former, shows that this was no novelty, for he saysh, that they still worship that great man who had been crucified ; and we learn from the ecclesiastical historian Socrates, that the orator Libanius praised Porphyry and the Emperor Julian for confuting the folly of a sect, which styled a dead man of Palestine God, and the son of God. The Deity of Christ is expressly asserted by Igna- tius1, Justin, and Irenaeus, the earliest Fathers; and the testimony of their successors, down to the Council of Nice, may be seen in Bishop Bull's celebrated work, or more conveniently in the English volume of Dr. Burton, who has translated and arranged in order the passages which bear upon this controversy. Eusebiusk relates, that it was expressly declared in hymns and psalms of the earliest date ; and that Theodotus a tanner, in the second century, was the first who ventured to maintain, what he emphatically stig- 11 5E7ret8ay 07ra| Tra.paf5a.VTts, deovs fxkv rods 'EWtjvikovs anapau^acoyTai, rbv 5e aveaxo'Koitio'ix^vov, 4k€?uoi/ « Col. i. 17. » Rev. i. 8. 0 Phil. iii. 21. p John i. 3. q Col. i. 10. r 1 Cor. viii. 0. Heb. i. 2. LECTURE II. 2. The preservation of what he originally made. Up- holding all things by the word of his power*. 3. The government of all things, asserted in the second and seventy -second Psalms. Christ who is over all things*; gave him to be head over all things unto the churchu ; at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of beings in heaven, earth, and under the earthv : and he strengthened the Apostles for their great work of converting the world by the assurance, that all power had been given unto him. As Christ governs the world now, he will judge it hereafter, ivhen he shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then shall he reward every man according to his works™ : for the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Sonx; who is ordained to be judge of quick and dead, when all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and he will give to his sheep eternal life?. 4. His working miracles, in his incarnate state, not like the prophets and his apostles by previous prayer to God, but by his own authority. Thus to the leper, / will, be thou clean a ; to the sea, Peace, be still, and the winds and the sea obey himh; and by that undoubted prerogative of Deity, forgiveness of sins; Who can forgive sins, but God alone; a power denied to him by the scribes, but asserted by himself, which he proved he possessed by the miraculous cure of the paralytic ; that ye may knoiv that the Son of man hath power to forgive sins, he said to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk0. 5. Redemption is also ascribed to the Son, not as his Father's instrument, but as his own voluntary act. Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey himd : Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity e. The idea that redemption conveys to the English reader, is the recovery of a slave from bondage by purchase, or by the superior power of a conqueror ; and the latter well s Heb. i. 2. 1 Rom. ix. 5. u Eph. i. 20. » Phil. ii. 9—11. w Matt. xvii. x John v. 22. y John v. 28. * John x. 28. * Matt. viii. 3. b Matt. viii. 27. Mark iv. 39. « Matt. ix. 27. d Heb. v. 9. ■ Titus ii. 14. I 114 LECTURE II. expresses the deliverance of the captives of Satan. But in Hebrew there are two words for Redeemer, and the most important of these, Goel, is of a much higher significance, since it declares the nature as well as the work of the redeemer, and the reason for his redeeming ; and affords a proof, overlooked by or unknown to many, of the divinity of our deliverer. I recommend the perusal of the chapter on the Goel in Michaelis' Mosaic Law, translated by Smith, in which it appears, that the office, though adopted by the Hebrew legislature, was anterior to the Law, is still existing under another name among the Arabs, and with some modifi- cation prevails in most countries in an early stage of society. The Goel is the nearest kinsman, and undertakes all the duties of consanguinity. The idea being unknown to modern times, translators have endeavoured to explain it, by rendering it next of kin, when the Goel is called on, as in the tale of Ruth, to marry, and blood avenger, when it is his duty to slay the murderer of his nearest relation. Such a redeemer must be, of necessity, a kins- man : and if our Saviour be also in this sense our Re- deemer, he must be a partaker of our flesh and blood, to entitle him to undertake the office. But flesh and blood we know, however willing, could never have achieved his triumph ; our Goel therefore must be also divine ; and for the strong consolation of the intelligent student of the sacred language it is written, thy Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, that Lord of Hosts, whom we know from other texts to be the second person of the Trinity. In the early book of Job, the patriarch declares his trust in his Redeemer, and expresses his fervent desire that a speech so weighty should be graven on a rock in characters which should last for ever. I believe with the ancient interpreters, that he looked forward to no restoration to health and property : and that with Schultens he meant it to be an epitaph on his tomb, (probably an excavation in a rock,) in evidence of his dying in the full assurance of hope. There seems to me no doubt, that he believed after his body had apparently perished, he should on his resurrection see in the flesh his near kinsman*, f Ik, xliv. G ; liv. b. LECTURE II. 115 and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth to claim him from the grave ; and wished to record his con- viction, that he was not a temporal deliverer, but that his Redeemer was the Living onee, the God whom he should then see in the flesh. It may however be asked, why are we left to deduce his divinity from the attributes and offices assigned to him ; why is he not expressly declared to be God ? and we reply, that his divinity is affirmed in several passages, and in none with more effect and solemnity than in the Gospel of St. John, which opens with the positive declaration, that the Logos, whose history in his incarnate state he was about to give, was God ; and not limiting himself to the mere ascription of the name, he describes him in such terms as show that he intended no nominal or inferior Deity, but God in the true, strict, and proper sense, eternal and im- mutable, of the same power and perfections and nature as the Father. And as he began his Gospel with observing, that the Son as well as the Father is God, so it is re- markable that he ends his Epistle with the same doctrine. This is the true God and eternal life : and in the Revelation Christ not only appears with all the divine attributes, but declares, / will be a God to him that overcomethh. Of whom (the Israelites) as concerning the flesh the Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever, is the climax with which Paul closes his enumeration of the privileges of his countrymen, which Unitarians have in vain endeavoured to force ungrammatically, to bear another sense, which would deprive of meaning the clause as concerning the flesh '1. The same Apostle furnishes other passages. Thus in the first Epistle to Timothy, God manifested in the flesh, which even if we adopt the readings who or which, may be shown from the context still to assert the Saviour's divinity. And in that to Titus, looking for the appearance of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, not so rendered in our present, though it was in our former version, and which the genius of the language and the express declaration of the Greek Father Chrysostoin prove, can only be applied * Job xix. 23—37. h Rev. xxi. 7. 1 Rom. ix. 5. I 2 116 LECTUHE II. to the Son; which the sense also shows, since there will be no manifestation or epiphany of the Father, whom no man hath seen or can see'h This rule of interpretation gives us St. Peter's testi- monyk, through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, which is also borne out by the meaning. The application of the forty-fifth Psalm to him by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is equivalent to calling him God; Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever; and the mighty God, the title which is given to the one supreme God of Israel1, is among those that are assigned to the child, whose birth is announced by Isaiah, and who he says shall be called Emmanuel, or God with us. This evidence had been almost altogether overlooked by modern critics. The philanthropist Granville Sharp had the merit of reviving it ; and Dr. Wordsworth, the late Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, proved by a variety of passages in prose and verse, that the same idiom pre- vailed in classical Greek. It was however no discovery, though its importance was not generally understood till the publication of Bishop Middleton's work on the Greek Article. It is maintained without the least hesitation by Beza, in his note on the celebrated passage in Titus, and it may be proved by the exposition of the Greek Fathers on some of these texts. It is allowed by Jerome; but seems to have been lost sight of in the Western Church, the language cf which is destitute of the article. The rule is, that when two or more personal nouns of the same gender, number, and case are connected by the copulative, if the first has the article and the others not, they all relate to the same person ; or, as Beza long ago expressed it, in a note to his Greek Testament, Postulat Grasci ser- monis constructio ut ad unum idem que subjectum re- feratur utrumque prasdicatum nec magis probabiliter rou fjAycttov 0=o'j xa\ (tmtt^oc, r^oov ad duos distinctos personas re- ferri quam 6 Osog y.cti I7«t^ 'Irjcroy XqivTOu itaque sic concludo i Clement of Alexandria agrees with Chrysostom, and the translation is approved alike hy Whitby and the Roman Catholic commentator Calmet. k 2 Pet. i. 1. 1 Isaiah x. 21. LECTURE II. 117 Christum Jesum hie aperte magnum Deum dici, qui et beata ilia Spes nostra metonymice vocatur. Illi igitur ut vero magno et aeterna Deo bpoovcricp xa) 1 Pet. iv. ft. K 130 LECTURE III. cried out, Why hast thou forsaken me ? Finally, there are persons who preach, that this Article is not contained in other symbols : and all these sayings they ground upon Erasmus, and the Germans, especially Calvin and Bullinger; the contrary side bringing forward in their support the universal consent of the Fathers of both Churches0. It was certainly judicious to omit the reference to Peter's Epistle, which would commit the Church to a doubtful sense of a text, and it is contrary to the principle of Articles which ought to be dogmatical, leaving the proofs to commentators who do not write with authority. For the doctrine may be true, and its supporters mistaken in the texts which they bring forward to prove it. The fact itself cannot be denied by any who believe the Scriptures. Voltaire says it is not mentioned in the Gospels or in the Acts. In the first, it could hardly have been expected ; but it is mentioned in the latter, not it is true in the narrative, yet by St. Peter as the authoritative application of a prophecy ; Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither tvilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption^ ; and it is upon this text that the doctrine chiefly rests. It has been so universally received, that Augustin exclaims, " Who but an infidel ever denied that Christ had been in helle;" and all men, observes Bellarmine, agree, that Christ descended into hell, though they differ as to the meaning. The subject in England has been much discussed soon after the first Articles wrere agreed upon in 1566, and afterwards in 1597, when Bilson Bishop of Winchester maintained, in a sermon preached at Paul's Cross, that Christ descended to the lowest hell, there to triumph over Satan in his own dominions. " But why," says Bishop Pearson, " should he descend to hell to triumph there over them over whom he had already triumphed on the cross ? why should he go to lead captive those, which he wras to captivate when he ascended into heaven ? and as to the testimonies of the Fathers, they c Strype's Annals, i. c. 31. and Life of Parker, i. 5 J 3. In 1567, Lord Burleigh thanks tbe Archbishop for his care in appeasing the unprofitable controversy then newly raised upon the descent of Christ into hell. d Acts ii. 24—31. • De Cbristo, iv. 6. LECTURE 111. 131 will appear of small validity to conlirm the triumphant descent, as it is distinguished from the two effects which we have seen fit not to admit, the removal of the saints to heaven, and the delivering the damned from the torments of hell." Archbishop Whitgift, till convinced by Broughton, had been of Calvin's opinion, that it was to be taken meta- phorically for Christ's enduring in his soul the pains of hell upon the cross, when forsaken of his Father. Some even, among whom was Latimer, maintained, that he endured them in hell itself, literally undergoing them as the substitute of sinners, that he might pay the whole penalty of sin ; an opinion not held by his original editor, who adds a marginal note to one of his sermons, " bear with Father Latimer in this." We know the moderation of the other revisers of the Articles, and their wish for as comprehensive union as practicable : and therefore we may readily conceive why they struck out the quotation from St. Peter, and left this subordinate question open to private judgment. Those who used it in this sense had influence enough to procure the omission of the conclusion of the Article, which has a tendency, sometimes an unconscious one, to wrest Scripture from its obvious meaning to another more in harmony with our preconceived notions. Augustine, notwithstanding his remark, probably had not this Article in his own creed, since he omits it when explaining the others ; and it does not occur in the most ancient we have, those of Irenaeus and Tertullian. St. Paul when rehearsing f the chief articles of the Gospel which he had preached to the Corinthians, and which he de- clared would suffice to their salvation, passes over this tenet, though he enumerates the death, burial, and resurrection. The words are ambiguous, for strange as it may seem to the un- learned, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, has, and may be translated, Thou wilt not leave my body in the grave: 4>v^y} properly means the animal soul as distinguished from srveSjxa, the spirit, but is applied to a dead body in the Septuagints; and "ASyis, Hades, is the habitation of men after death. That of the body is the grave; unhappily in modern English the habitation of a soul has no name; for hell, f 1 Cor. xv. % Lev. xx. 1, 11. Nunib. v. 2. vi. 6. K 2 132 LECTURE III. which had that meaning originally, is now taken exclusively for Gehenna, the place of future punishment. In our version it answers to both ; thus we have hell for Gehenna, God is able to destroy body and soul in hellh; and for Hades, hell delivered up her dead, and that is the hell in which the rich man suffered in the parable1. Hell is derived from the Saxon word, to hide, or cover; and Hades has a similar meaning, being contracted from 'Athog, invisible. This is properly the abode of all departed spirits, whether good or bad, who have their respective mansions, in which they remain in a state of consciousness till the day of judgment, which they may be said already to anticipate ; for though the wicked will not be cast into Gehenna till then, when they shall be reunited to their bodies, they now suffer being in torments, as we are taught by the parable k. Hell in the modern sense of the word it could not be into which our Lord descended, since it is Hades, in the earliest Creed in which the doctrine occurs, quoted by Eusebius, who translated it from the Syriac, as that by Thaddaeus at Edessa; and in Cyril of Jerusalem's Creed, it is xarij>.0ev gig t« xaTa%0o'vja, to which the Latin ad inferna cor- responds. This opinion is also overturned by our Saviour's reply to the penitent thief, This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise, a term by which, as well as by Abra- hams bosom, the Jews distinguished the division of Hades which was the abode of the blessed spirits. And Calvin's notion, that our Lord might be said figuratively to de- scend into hell, because he suffered the pains of hell in his soul, is not only a harsh and forced interpretation, but is confuted by St. Peter in the passage on which the h Luke xii. 5. 5 Rev. xx. 13. Our translators have increased the perplexity, by their uncertainty ; thus they translate, 1 Cor. xv. 55. O grave, where is thy victory, placing hell in the margin. The gates of hell shall not prevail, is our version in the New Testament, Matt. xvi. 18. whereas in Isaiah, xxxviii. 10. the same words are rendered the gates of the grave. In Psalm lxxxix. 48. we have grave in the Bible, and hell in tbe Prayer Book version. We may also compare Prov. xxx. ]0, where one of the four things never satisfied is the grave, with Prov. xxvii. 30. Sell and destruction are never full. And this strongly shows the want of critical accuracy in the same translator. LECTURE III. 133 doctrine mainly rests ; for when he says that God would not leave his soul in hell, he evidently speaks of what happened after our Lord's death and burial. The opinion, that it means no more than that his body was buried, is more plausible, for we have seen that the words will bear this translation ; and it is urged, that when one article is in- serted in a Creed, the other is omitted ; thus our Nicene has the burial and not the descent, and the Athanasian the descent and not the burial. Rufinus mentions it as in that of his own Church Aquileia, but not then in the Roman, into which it seems afterwards to have been introduced from the Athanasian. Burnet speaks as if Rufinus himself confounded these two articles : he however expressly tells us, that he considered them as distinct events, only he thought, that when any Church which had the descent omitted the burial, it was because that Church confounded the two. The Bishop mentions three senses. 1. Going to preach to the spirits in prison; 2. burial; 3. and the descent into the place of departed spirits ; and thinks a person may subscribe in any of them ; yet surely he could not in the second, as that would annihilate the Article which says, as Christ was buried, so also he went down into hell. This Article was omitted by the American Episcopal Clergy on their revision of the Prayer Book. Much of the perplexity on the subject is occasioned by the ambiguity of language. Infernum in the Latin Church came gradually to mean the place of torment. But this mis- conception could not prevail where the Greek language was in use, for Hades still retains the sense it bears alike in the Septuagint, and in classical authors. The gates of hell used by our Lord in speaking of the permanence of his Church, is an expression put long before by Homer into the mouth of Achilles^ ; and the Hades both of the poet and of the parable includes in different divisions the good and the 1 Tlv\ai"A5ov ov naTMTxvo'ovo'iv avTrjs. Matt. xvi. 18. 'Exfy>bs yap poi kzIvos 6/xcDs 'Ai'Sao nv\T](riv, "Os x tTcpov pikv KevOr] eVl (ppcalv, aWo 8e efrrr/. Iliad, ix. 815}.. Who dares think one thing and another tell, My soul abhors him as the gates of hell. 134 LECTURE III. wicked. In the Revelation, when our Lord declares' that he has the keys of hell and of death, he refers to places that are in due time to be opened ; and at the close of the book" we read, that death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and were themselves cast into the lake of fire; that is, henceforward after the judgment, all will be translated into an eternal unchangeable stage of bliss or woe. Irenseus tells us1, that as our Master did not ascend to heaven immediately, but waited the time appointed by his Father, so must we also wait the time of our resurrection ; and the opinion now so prevalent among Protestants, if we may judge from their ordinary language, that those who die in the Lord go at once to heaven, was regarded as so serious an error by Justin Martyr, that he will not allow to those who believed it the title of Christians. Tertullian holds the same language, for it was Ambrose11 who first in- troduced into the west Origen's opinion, that the souls of the patriarchs and other saints went to Hades on their decease, where they remained in a state of imperfect happiness till the arrival of our Saviour's separated soul, when he brake their bonds, and triumphantly at his re- surrection took them with himself to heaven, into which the souls of all who are saved now immediately go. The Roman Catholic doctrine, which sends even those who depart in the faith into purgatory, is more modern ; yet even their divines make an exception in favour of infants dying after baptism before they can commit sin, of martyrs, and of saints. To me the doctrine of those early writers Justin Martyr and Irenseus appears to be that of the Scriptures ; and if it be, it de- molishes at once the propriety of prayer to those who do not already enjoy the beatific vision, and whose happiness is not complete, since as yet our incarnate Lord is the only partaker of our flesh and blood who is in heaven. The contrary doctrine is indeed affirmed in the third part of the Homily concerning prayer, but our approval of these dis- courses does not pledge us to every tenet, or to every fact they contain. Several of our reformers, as Tyndall and Frith, both martyrs for the faith, declare against it as a » Rev. i. ]K. * Rev. xx. 18. 1 Iren. v. 31 . " Pe Fide et Gratian. iv. 1. LECTURE III. 135 tenet of heathen philosophers; and the former asks this pertinent question, " tell me if their souls be in heaven, why they should not be in as good case as the angels, and then what cause is there for the resurrection?" He considers also that it destroys Christ's argument for the resurrection of the body, from the declaration, lam the God of Abraham, &c. Homer in the opening of the Iliad s, speaking of dead warriors, marks death by the separation of the two parts of man's compound being, giving the body to dogs and birds of prey, and assigning the soul to Hades. And it is this sepa- ration which I understand the Article to affirm, meaning thereby no more than that he actually died. In the same manner, I believe we shall at our death descend, that is, our disembodied spirits, to Hades, and remain in a state of consciousness, where those who are hereafter to rise to glory are in a state of great though still imperfect enjoy- ment. The principal reason for introducing this Article into the Creed was, the guarding against the doctrine of Apollinarius, who believed that our Lord assumed only a human body, and that the place of the soul was supplied by his divinity. He was anathematized by the second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, and it occurs, it is true, before that time in an Arian Creed, and is com- mented upon by Epiphanius and Cyril of Jerusalem, but first appeared in a public authorized Creed, as mentioned by Ruhnus, in that of the Church of Aquileia7. x noAAos 5' Icpdi/movs \pvx&s &'8t Trpo'idtyev 'Hpuoov, avrovs 5' kKoipia revx* Kvyeacriy Olaivoicri Te ttchti- Iliad, i. 3. Many brave souls to hell untimely sent Of heroes ; and themselves to dogs a prey And all the birds. y Matt. xvi. 18. LECTURE IV. ARTICLE IV. OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of mans nature ; wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day. This Article continues our Lord's history, and asserts, l.his resurrection; 2. his ascension; 3. his sitting now at the right hand of God ; and, 4. his future coming to judgment. It would have been unbecoming to have closed the state- ment of our belief in him with his humiliation, and not to have proceeded to his exaltation, though this Article is not in conformity with our definition, that it ought to be directed not against infidels, but against Christians who, acknowledging the authority of Scripture, interpret it differently from ourselves. With them on these topics can be no discussion ; for however they may differ as to the nature of Christ, and the object of his mission, none in modern times have called in question these fundamental truths ; and indeed the name of Christian cannot be con- ceded to one who denies them ; for the Apostle's de- claration is self-evident ; that if Christ be not risen, then is his preaching and our faith vain, we should be yet in our sins*. Happily we have sufficient evidence, though not over- ■ ] Cor. xv. LECTURE IV. 137 powering and irresistible, that as he was delivered for our offences, so he rose again for our justification^. By his death we know he suffered for sin ; by his resurrection we are assured that the sins for which he suffered were not his own ; had no man been a sinner, he would not have died ; had He been a sinner, he would not have risen again ; but dying for those sins which men had committed, he rose to show that he had made full satisfaction for them, being by his resurrection declared, or proved to be, the son of God with power0. His death assures us of his humanity, this event of his divinity. By his resurrection his Father is said to have begotten him^; and thereby he also hath begotten believers, who are called brethren, and co-heirs with Christ. We are the members of that body of which Christ is the heade; and if the Holy Spirit dwell in us, as it does in all true Christians, then he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit dwelling in us ; for, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive : and hence our comfort is, that his resur- rection is the evidence and pattern of our own ; If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, ive shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection*. Let us ever re- member the Apostle's inference, as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so should we walk in newness of life. As might be expected, this funda- mental fact, upon which our wrhole religion rests, is narrated by all the Evangelists ; is the great subject of the Apostle's preaching ; and is taken for granted and made the basis of reasoning and exhortation in - the Epistles. None of his followers were present at it ; and we know not the precise hour at which he burst these bonds of death, which it was impossible should detain him ; but he by infallible proofs convinced the disciples of the reality of the event, being seen of them for no less a time than forty days, and speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. The following appearances are recorded : 1. On the resurrection-day, to the women ; to Peter; to b Rom. iv. e Rom. i. 4. d Psalm ii. quoted in the Acts ; 1 Pet. i. 3. e Rom. viii. f Rom. vi. 138 LECTURE IV. the two disciples walking to Emmaus ; and to the whole company, when assembled at their evening meal, when he ate before them. He now left them to consider the proofs he had given them of his resurrection, particularly the fulfilment of the prophecies, that he should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead. 2. On the following Sunday, when he again appeared to them all, including Thomas, who before was absent, and refused to believe on their report, but was now convinced by the offer of the very test he had himself required, of the bodily appearance of his Master. 3. At the lake of Galilee to seven, when he granted them, as at the opening of his ministry, a miraculous draught of fishes. 4. At the mountain in Galilee, which seems to be the appearance mentioned by St. Paulg to five hundred bre- thren at once, many of whom were, when he wrote, alive. 5. To James, mentioned only in the same chapter. And, 6. To the whole company, when he led them out to the mount of Olives, previous to his Ascension. To these we may add his appearance after the Resurrec- tion, to Stephen, to Paul, and to John in Patmos. No others are specified, perhaps, because, as West on the Resurrection suggests, these answered the purpose of their conviction, and are enough for our's ; the other which occurred during the forty days, were for their instruction in the faith. It has been objected, that the resurrection was attested only by interested persons and Peter allowTsh, that God shelved him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before of him. It is therefore of the more im- portance that we should be satisfied with their credibility ; and to establish it, we are to show, 1. that they were not themselves deceived; and, 2. that they did not intend to deceive others. 1. The fact was obviously one of which they were able to judge ; the appearances were frequent, and to many at once, and were not momentary, but the Lord suffered e 1 Cor. xv. »» Acts x. LECTURE IV. 139 them to touch him, and ate and conversed with them. They were not enthusiasts, and the event was contrary to their preconceived notions ; and the narrative shows that they were slow of heart to believe, first that our Lord would suffer, and then that he would triumph over the grave. Nor were the witnesses so few as infidels represent. On one occasion ten persons were present, at another eleven, at one five hundred. Most of the extraordinary and inexplicable tales of supernatural appearances, in which, illusion may be supposed to have taken place, are reported to have been seen by a single person ; it would be difficult to find an instance in which two unexceptionable witnesses have testified to the same illusion, and when we raise the number to eleven, the improbability becomes incal- culable. It is also enhanced beyond measure, by the repetition of the fact in so many instances, to so many persons together, with all the circumstances by which it was attended. But when we remember that Christ not only appeared, but ate and drank, walked and conversed with them, through forty days, the improbability changes into impossibility, for they had all the evidence that they could have that he was living, and which they had of the life of each other. The simplicity and artlessness of their character places them be}Tond every reasonable suspicion of intentional deception, and they could, if so inclined, have had no adequate temptation to attempt to impose upon the world, since a report so extraordinary had no chance of being received. Such a story if false would certainly not be credited now, though liable to no other objections than those which arise out of itself; but then the Jews were called upon to acknowledge as the Messiah one whom they had put to death as a blasphemer, and to sacrifice their hopes of earthly power and glory. The Apostles knew, that in the attempt they must undergo contempt and sufferings ; and as they gained nothing in this world, so if impostors they could expect nothing in the next but to endure the wrath of God. If Christ were not raised from the dead, the report could 140 LECTURE IV. have been immediately disproved by the exhibition of his body. Why was it not then produced ? The Jews indeed said, the only thing that they could say, that his disciples had stolen it; but how was this practicable ? they had themselves provided the strongest evidence against their own story, for they had sealed the sepulchre and set a watch, not less probably than sixty men ; the disciples were few, friendless, and discouraged, in hourly expectation of arrest, and when they ventured to assemble, fastened the doors, for fear of the Jews. The time was the passover, when the town was crowded, and there was a full moon, and therefore light, and the tomb was just without the walls, and exposed to continual inspection. Could the whole guard be sleeping, and if sleeping could they be com- petent witnesses of what happened ? and why were they not examined, and all the Apostles seized and imprisoned till they should give up the body ? But the Sanhedrim did not themselves believe the story to which they endeavoured to give currency ; for when the Apostles were brought before them twice, and boldly declared that him whom they had put to death God had raised, they did not venture to make this charge. It is however an objection as old as Celsus, that Jesus ought to have publicly shown himself as the Messiah ; Origen answers, that as the pure in heart only can see God, this was a privilege of which the nation was not worthy, and which could not with propriety have been granted. Bishop Sherlock also suggests, that our Lord took a solemn leave of the Jews when he quitted the temple, telling them that they should see him no more till they should welcome him as the Messiah : and that after his resurrection he opened a new Commission addressed to the world at large, and that once opened, all preference of them was at an end. Modern infidels have required even more than this ; they ask that demonstration should be afforded to all countries and all ages : but they misconceive the nature of the case, for such evidence would be irresistible, and belief would be swallowed up in certainty. We are to walk not by sight but by faith; the Apostles indeed, who were to be witnesses to the world, had this evidence ; and so LECTURE IV. 141 indispensable was it, that the Apostle of the Gentiles, who was added to the number after our Lord's ascension, was favoured with the sight of him in glory ; and he appeals to this fact as a test of his Apostleship, Am not I an Apostle, have 1 not seen the Lord ? but our conviction does not rest merely on their words as honest credible witnesses. We have also the witness of God, as our Saviour himself said, the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me; and this he did by the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost, only ten days after the ascension, when Christ received gifts for men. It was to this evidence that Peter appeals in his speech on that memorable day, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear; that is, the gift of tongues : and all the subsequent miracles which the Apostles worked are a confirmation of the reality of this event. The same evidence establishes also the Ascension. The Apostles would never have proclaimed the Gospel, had they not been endued with power from above ; this power they would not have received, if the Holy Ghost had not de- scended upon them ; and the Holy Ghost would not have descended, except our Saviour had ascended first. If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. The Apostles did not see Christ when he arose ; it was sufficient that they afterwards saw him alive whom they knew to have been put to death ; for whatsoever was a proof of his life after death, was a proof of course of his resurrection ; but as they were not to see him in heaven, it was necessary they should be eye- witnesses of the act, as they were not to behold the effect : they were therefore all present at the ascension. Our Article maintains, that our Lord rose, and ascended with the same body in which he was incarnate ; " with flesh, bones, and all things pertaining to the perfection of man's nature." The idea of his having flesh and bones in heaven, has been condemned in two Councils ; and many Christians seem to think that he has now only an apparent body : yet he evidently took pains to convince his disciples that it was 142 LKCTURE IV. a real one, by eating, and by inviting them to handle it; and with good reason, since it is only because his body rose again, that we have reason to believe there will be a resur- rection of our own. They urge, however, that he forbad Mary Magdalene to touch him ; but the meaning seems to be, you need not detain me now, for as I have not yet ascended, you will have other opportunities of seeing me. That it was for no mysterious reason appears from the fact, that immediately after he suffered the embraces of the other Mary and of Salome. But it is presumed that he had now a spiritual body, because he entered a room, the doors of which had been fastened. The phrase «T0£ eysveTO, how- ever, means no more than that he ceased to be seen, as it is rendered in the margin: and it is used in other writers where nothing supernatural is intended1. As plausibly might it be urged that he had never a real body; for when at Nazareth, the irritated multitude would have thrown him down a precipice, he went through the midst of them unseen. Still it is asserted, that such a body as ours cannot ascend, and that flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- dom of heaven; but though we maintain that it is the same identical body, we do not affirm that it has undergone no alteration; it may be, in the act of ascending; on the contrary, we believe that it has been so far changed, as to suit it for its present abode ; and this Scripture teaches, when it says of our own, that it has been sown a natural, that it will be raised a spiritual body ; and that he shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious bodyv. We may presume that the transfiguration was an exhibition by anticipation, both of his appearance and of ours, if we are counted worthy of admission into his presence, for when we see him, we shall be like him. There is therefore "a man in heaven," the Adam from above; acting both as our intercessor and as our sovereign ; for all 1 The word is often used of those who in a way, and especially abruptly or suddenly, withdraw, and are no longer visible. Blomfield's Keceptio Sy- noptica. He produces several examples in prose as well as in poetry, as 'Ei/Ob nod rhv Fayv/xribrju apnaaOcvTa a2. f Horn, in Matt. * A.D. 420. »• A.D. 430. LECTURE VI. 171 because we read it ; that she did marry after her delivery we believe not, because we do not read itg." " Those things which they make and find, as it were, by Apostolical Tra- dition, without the authority and testimony of the Scriptures, the sword of God smites in Aggai." From Augustine let these suffice. " Whatsoever ye hear from the Scriptures, be that well received by you ; whatsoever is not in them refuse, reject, lest you wander in a mistV " All writings since the confirmation of the Canon of Scripture are liable to dispute, and even Councils themselves are to be examined and amended by Councils. Whatever our Saviour would have us read of his works and words, he commended his apostles and disciples to write as his hand1." With us Protestants the Fathers have no other authority on questions of doctrine than other uninspired authors ; but as their voluminous works are included in the mass of documents which the Church of Rome receives as the unwritten word of God, it is important to show that they are really on our side. It should also be observed, that they use the word Tradition in a larger sense than the Romanist, according to its etymology, for whatever has been delivered down both in writing as well as orally. Thus St. Paul using the word thus largely says, for I delivered unto you 7r«£=bWa that which I have received ; and he expressly commands the Thessalonians to hold fast the traditions H-agaSoVs^ which they had received, whether by his word or his epistle ; and Jude speaks of the faith delivered iragotZoHslo-r, once for all. In the same sense Irenaeus calls it a tradition, that Christ took the cup. The following passage from Irena3usk is claimed by Romanists as favourable to their view, and certainly uses Tradition in their sense. " If the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures, must we not then have followed the order of Tradition, which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches ? To this course truly assent many nations of the barbarians who have salvation, without ink or characters, upon the heart." And certainly even in modern times, in the conversion of all heathen nations, even of the most learned, preaching generally speaking must precede read- * Contra Helvidium, h De Doct. Ch. ' De Consensu Evang. k iii. 4. 172 LECTURE VI. ing; still the missionary who knows how uncertain a guide Tradition cannot fail to be, will, as William Williams the Evangelist of New Zealand has done in the Maouri tongue, as soon as it is practicable, commit the truths he has proclaimed to writing; and that this was the ancient practice appears from the remarkable fact, that Ulphilas, who con- verted the Goths, translated for his converts the Scriptures, and like our modern missionaries embodied in a grammar the rules of their tongue, and introduced a written character. The continuation of the citation from Irenaeus, respecting the ancient tradition, shows that he afterwards uses the word in the original not in the Roman sense ; for his examples are doctrines that have been recorded in Scripture, and their tradition is recommended, because it professes to add. knowledge not contained, therein, exactly in kind the same as that of the Gnostics, as appears from this remarkable passage of the same ancient writer1. "When these heretics are accused, by Scripture, they accused Scrip- ture itself, because it varies in its sayings, and because truth cannot be obtained from it by those who are ignorant of Tradition. For the truth was not delivered by writing, but by the living voice. But when we again refer those who are averse to Tradition, to that Tradition which is from the Apostles, and which is preserved by succession of presbyters in the Churches, they will say that they are not only wiser than the presbyters, but also than the Apostles, and have found out the unadulterated truth ;" Irenaeus then, we may conclude, would have rejected Roman as well as Gnostic additions to the written word. We have reason to think, that whatever was necessary to be known or done, would be written in the Christian Law, as it had been in the Jewish ; and what could be God's design in first ordering Moses, and after him all inspired persons, to write down his communications, but to preserve men from the uncertainty and corruption of oral tradition. In the first ages there were circumstances which have long ceased, very favourable to its purity : the doctrines and rites to be handed down were few and simple ; the whole race 1 Iren. iii. 2. m Gnos. iii. 2. LECTURE VI. 173 of mankind sprung from one common pair, and the life of each individual was protracted greatly beyond the period allowed to later generations. Methuselah lived above three centuries during the life of Adam, and Shem, who was almost a hundred years of age when Methuselah died, was also the contemporary of Abraham. Thus two persons might have conveyed down the knowledge of true religion to the father of the faithful : and yet we know, that when it pleased God to reveal himself to him beyond the river, and commanded him to forsake his country and kinsmen, they were idolaters. What could be more likely to be remembered than the law delivered at Mount Sinai, from the aweful manner in which it was promulgated, and from the brevity and the distinctness of the commandments ? yet even the Decalogue was written or engraved upon two tables of stone. What could make a deeper impression, than the deliverance of the whole nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage by the miraculous destruction of their oppressors ; yet this marvellous event was recorded during the time of the very generation that had experienced it, though annual festivals were appointed to preserve the memory of it, and wThile the Urim and Thummim might be consulted. Why write so much, if oral teaching could be perfectly preserved ? And how much more necessary was it that Christianity should be fixed at its commencement, and not left to the looseness of reports, since that dispensation was immediately to be spread to distant countries among the inhabitants of which there could be little intercommunication. The Jews were a small people kept together by many ceremonial observances, and destined to live alone, and not to be reckoned among the nations. Christianity was designed to be an universal religion, and to combine with customs and manners of every kind, from barbarism to the utmost refinement, and no more than two external rites were positively enjoined. Since then oral tradition, when it had on its side the utmost possible advantage, failed so much in the conveyance of natural religion, and was not entrusted with that of Israel, we conclude that it cannot be relied upon for Christianity : we see that it is not recognised in the New Testament, and 174 LECTURE VI. practically we do not feel any want of it. The most specious argument in favour of Tradition is, that the religion itself was professed and flourished before the books were written, from which alone, our opponents say, according to us, it can be learned. They taunt us with the fact, that the Apostles went not with books in their hands to deliver Christ's doctrine, but words in their mouths ; and that primitive antiquity learnt their faith by another method before these books were in existence. To this, as I think only plausible objection, I answer, that they overlook the fact, that the Old Testament was then extant, and that our Lord and his Apostles appealed to it. While they survived, their living voice was sufficient for those whom it could reach ; but as soon as they could, they communicated the revelation to writings, which were to be their only autho- ritative successors. It is a probable tradition, that when they were about to separate, Matthew drew up his gospel, that a sketch of our Lord's ministry might be preserved in an authentic form, and not be left to the possibility of alteration in passing through many mouths. Our Lord's promise, that the Holy Spirit would bring all things to their remembrance, seems to imply, that they were to record them ; and the fact that the former dispensation had been com- mitted to writing is a presumption, that it was designed to employ the same method of securing the latter from the variations that might be introduced, either with or without intention. There might be no need of committing Chris- tianity to writing while there was access to infallible wit- nesses ; but it became necessary when those who could correct errors were no longer wTithin reach, and supernatural aid had been withdrawn. If preachers now could give us the same evidence of public and unquestionable miracles, then we need not examine their doctrines by any other rule. But it is manifest, that the Apostles themselves, from their writing gospels and epistles, would not trust to such an uncertain conveyance, and the disciples who immediately succeeded the Apostles as they travelled to preach the gospel, did, as Eusebius" tells us, at the same time deliver n Eusebius iii. LECTURE VI. 175 to their converts the writings of the holy Evangelists ; and Ignatius as he travelled towards Rome, where he was to suffer martyrdom, exhorted the Churches of every city to which he wrote, to hold fast the traditions of the Apostles, which for greater security he held necessary to be copied in writing for the instruction of believers. We may assume, that no essential or really desirable information has been withheld : nor do the early opponents of the faith attack any fact or tenet that is not found in Scripture. The sufficiency of the New Testament may be argued from its completeness. If God has given us eternal life in his Son, and St. John wrote his gospel, that by believing we might have life in his name, it follows that we have all we require ; and we have a right to ask the Romanist, in what respect the New Testament is deficient. When hard pressed, they say that we learn only from Tradition the practice of infant baptism, and the transfer of the Sabbath from the last to the first day of the week. We allow that Tradition is a safer hander down of rites and ceremonies than of doctrines. Still we reject its right of deciding even in such cases, and believe (though we allow weight to primitive usage) that both are inferred from Scripture0. They also assume, that our Lord's divinity can only be proved by Tradition, and in their zeal endanger the basis of the faith ; for who would accept the doctrine, if the inspired writers had not affirmed its truth. It is a sufficient answer, that none of the Fathers can have argued from it, or deduced from it more forcible appeals to conscience and gratitude, than Paul, Peter, and John; and I refer to my exposition of the second Article ° The lawfulness and duty of baptizing infants is argued from the analogy of circumcision : from the probability that there were such in the households mentioned in the Acts, as baptized at the same time with the heads of the families ; and from St. Paul's reasoning, 1 Cor. vii. 14. St. John expressly states that he was in the spirit on the Lord's day, Rev. i. 10.; and He himself appears to have consecrated the first day by his resurrection, and so his Apostles seem to have understood him, since they met together on tbe same day in the following week, John xx. 26. And the fact is inferred from passages in the Acts, Acts xxi. 4; xxviii. 14. and especially when the disciples emu together lo break bread, Acts xx. 7. or, as we should now express ourselves, to partake of the Lord's Supper. 176 LECTURE VI. for the scriptural evidence of this vital essential truth. Finally, Scripture maintains its own sufficiency. Tt may be said, a book can no more than a man bear witness to its own veracity. But my reply is, that it can, when it is allowed by both parties to be true. Its sufficiency is allowed by the Fathers and the Councils from the beginning ; and what has Rome to urge for Tradition, but her own modern and on this question interested divines? Our Lord ascribes the error of the Sadducees to their not understanding the Scriptures. Even these early Scriptures are declared to be able to make the reader wise unto salvation ; and if they needed no living interpreter, still less can the Christian additions to the Canon, which exhibit not the shadow but the substance ; not the truth through the veil of types and predictions, but stated in the plainest language. And the whole tone and spirit of St. Paul's Epistles to the Ephesians and other Christians show, that the fault was not in these writings, but in themselves, if they did not comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ, and be filled with all the fulness of God. But dismissing Tradition, as the equal or rival of Scripture, it comes before us in the most insidious form of its friend and ally, as affording us amid contradictory inter- pretations an authorized guide, upon which we can rely with confidence. No doubt a Church that pretends to infallibility might be expected to have long ago put an end to all disputes, by producing an infallible commentary. Yet, though we hear so much of infallibility and of tra- dition, we find as much difference of opinion among Roman Catholic as Protestant commentators, and the Church has never put forth one in her name. Subjects which do not interfere with the claims of the Church, are left as with us to private judgment ; thus the doctrine of the divine decrees has divided them as much as us ; yet the Church, unwilling to offend either the Dominicans or the Jesuits, who have taken opposite sides, has never ventured to pronounce judgment. When this question is asked, a triumphant appeal is made to the decisions of general Councils ; yet LECTURE VI. 177 there is much of Scripture, especially of the obscurer parts, which they leave altogether untouched : and it is deserving of note, that the doctrines which the early ones, which we acknowledge as orthodox, determined, they decided not by the opinion of divines, but exclusively by Scripture. Whatever tends to show the perspicuity of the Bible, is of course unfavourable to Tradition, either as a substitute, or as its interpreter. It is therefore the object of the Romanist to dwell upon its obscurity : and so far do their divines proceed in this profane attempt, that they have by exaggeration furnished infidels with weapons against Christianity, and have said nearly as much as was possible to lower it in public estimation. Not content with disparaging it as obscure, while they acknowledge its inspiration, they presume to call it a dangerous book, and obstruct consistently its perusal. The supreme Pontiffs, perceiving by a sort of instinct of self-preservation that the Book condemned by anticipation their unchristian doctrines and usurped authority, have in every age exerted themselves to suppress this witness against them. Thus Wycliffe's translation was denounced by a Papal Bull, addressed, A.D. 1378, to our University, which favoured his religious movement, and being exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, wras able to protect him. Luther, and our own Tyndale in a later age, had to encounter similar treatment. Nor can we wonder that the noble undertaking of modern philanthropy, which aspires to supply the whole family of mankind with the word of God, should be the special object of Roman abhorrence. It was denounced, (as soon as it became for- midable to this perverter of the truth, who hated the light that would detect and reprove him,) in A.D. 1816, as a crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined. He confirmed the Trent determination, that the Bible printed by heretics, (that is, Protestants,) should be included in the index of prohibited books, it being- evident from experience, that the holy Scriptures circu- lated in the vulgar tongue, produce more harm than good ; thus declaring the Word of God to be, without an interpreter, not only an insufficient, but a dangerous guide. The pro- N 178 LECTURE VI. hibition was renewed by his successor Leo ; and again by the present Pope, who, though hailed on his election with enthusiasm as a reformer of the State, has shown no dis- position to improve the Church, but added a new Article, the immaculate conception of the Virgin, to the heretical creed of the predecessor whose name he bears, and whose memory he professes to revere. In the prohibition of God's Word, as has been observed, the Popes have only acted in conformity with the Council of Trent. Thus early in the preceding century Father Quesnel had written some edifying reflections on the New Testament, which were widely circulated, and were ad- mired and recommended by the most pious prelates in his own Church. But he had dared to announce the position that "It is useful and necessary, at all times, in all places, and for all sorts of persons, to know the spirit, piety, and mysteries of the Scripture :" and for this offence he was imprisoned. He contrived to escape to Holland : and the Pope, on the soli- citation of Louis XIV, issued the Bull Unigenitus, which condemned this proposition as false, scandalous, impious, blas- phemous ! Such being the decrees of the heads of that corrupt Church, we cannot wonder that the Bible is treated with contempt by individual members. Pighius teaches us to call it a nose of wax, and Turrian a shoe that may fit any foot ; and we have lived to see it burnt by the priests of Ireland, who had been told by Leo XII, that through a perverse inter- pretation there has been framed out of the Gospel of Christ, a gospel of man, or what is worse, a gospel of the devil ! They catch eagerly at Peter's warning, but they reject his remedy : they would close the book ; he would have his converts grow in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour. He speaks of some things hard to be understood, and only in St. Paul's Epistles ; they object to the whole volume. And these things, before they can injure must be wrested, that is, tortured; and the persons named by him the untaught, or unteachable, are also described as unstable. It is out of a tender care of souls that Rome professes to forbid the laity to read even Roman versions with approved notes, without a written licence from the Bishop of the diocese, with the advice of a priest; yet LECTURE VI. 179 their own Dupin truly observes, that the perusal seldom causes any but the learned to fall into error, and that generally the simple have found in the Scriptures only instruction and edification. Now that ultra-montanism seems to have extinguished whatever liberality had lingered in that Church, this defender of the Gallican liberties will find less favour than ever ; but even Bellarmine, who advocates extreme views, maintaining the Pope's personal infallibility, allows, that almost all heresiarchs were bishops or presbyters. This prohibition is an express contradiction of St. Paul, who adjures the Thessalonians to read out his Epistle in the congregation. In fact, the Bible is the common property of Christians ; and who shall presume to keep back from any what the Holy Ghost has indited for the benefit of all? yet Rome arrogantly claims it as her exclusive possession, Milner, in his so-called 'End of Controversy,' thus unblushingly stating to his opponent the difference of their position. " I am bound, dear Sir, in conformity with my rule of faith, to protest against your right to argue from Scripture, for I have proved to you that the whole business of the Scriptures belongs to the Church, who alone authoritatively explains them. It is impossible that the sense of Scripture should ever be against her ; hence I might quash every objection you draw from any passage by this short reply, the Church understands the passage differently, therefore you mistate it! Such a claim can only be supported by the partial defini- tion of a Church common with those who think with him, a definition which substitutes a part for the whole, the ministry for the congregation. Roman Catholics enlarge upon the enthusiasm of Pro- testants, as arising out of an abuse of the Bible ; but where shall we discover so many whose enthusiasm has driven them, at least to the verge of insanity, as among their monks and nuns, or in any denomination men who have inflicted such injuries on mankind, as the founders of their two orders of begging friars, the half-crazy Francis and Dominic, the hard-hearted fanatical founder of the Inquisition ? They are also fond of dwelling upon the varieties of doctrine among Pro- testants, which they ascribe to their perusal of the Scriptures. N 2 180 LECTURE VI. Thus Bossuet, relying on the boldness of his assertion, says, that the Church, which professes to teach no more than she has received, never varies ; whereas heresy, which began by innovation, is always innovating. Ecclesiastical history however, and this he could hardly fail to know, abundantly confutes him, by marking the precise aera at which image worship, transubstantiation, and other pernicious errors, were introduced ; and the published Confessions of the reformed Churches will, to any who will compare them, show them substantial harmony in all leading doctrines. It may be also argued, that the Bible is a sufficient rule of faith and morals, because no other exists. Believers of the primitive times have transmitted it to us, and proved from it their faith. The rule being a written one may be con- sidered an accident; still because written it is more accurately preserved, more certainly transmitted, and fitter for use ; and we may say that the Protestant aphorism is established by the fact, that there is no doctrine that can pretend to a clear universal tradition, and the testimony of the first ages and churches, but what is contained in the Old and New Testaments. Reason satisfies us, and the fact is confirmed by St. John, that Jesus must have said and done much more than has been recorded of him. It may be natural to wish for a fuller statement, but we must bow to the superior wisdom which has arranged it as it is ; and it is wonderful, and no doubt providential, that we have not, as of other eminent characters, speeches and actions of our Lord handed down by subsequent authors. Suppose Clement, or Polycarp, or Ignatius, had supplied any probable anecdotes, we could hardly have refused to accept them, as in profane history we do those of Diodorus of Sicily or of Plutarch, on the presumption that they found them in earlier writings, which have since perished. Certainly the more we reflect upon the subject, the more thankful we shall feel that so very few sayings of our Lord have been recorded that are not embalmed, as it were, in the G ospels : and that they are obscure and unimportant, except the one which St. Paul, by quoting it to the elders at Miletus, has stamped with scriptural LECTURE VI. 181 authority. The early Fathers neither appeal to Tradition, or express a wish for it ; and the Scriptures being designed for all, are written in a style intelligible to the unlearned. Much too of Scripture is now easy, that was once difficult ; and passages which are still difficult, time will make as easy. For instance, many of the types and prophecies which relate to the Messiah were perhaps till his coming, at least as to their chief intention, unintelligible, which to us who live since are plain and perspicuous. We allow, however, that there are still difficulties : we do not however find that Tradition has explained them to the Roman Catholics; and the obscurity of any part does not affect our argument, if we can show, that the leading doctrines and duties may be easily understood by pious and well-meaning men, though of little education. This is a practical question, which the experience of every age abundantly demonstrates. For wherever the Scriptures have been allowed to have free course, there they have been glorified, in the conversion of souls ; or in the edification in the faith and of good works of . those converted, through the instrumentality of preaching. Whether as converting, or as sanctifying the previous believer, they have proved themselves by their effects wherever they have been read to be the word of God. This argument may, however, be pushed too far ; for it is the pure and holy doctrine, so worthy of a perfect Being, so suitable to our wants, so consolatory to our feelings, and so calculated to improve us, which we are convinced is from above. As to the language in which it is conveyed, we can hardly venture to affirm that we could have always distin- guished it from that of pious uninspired men, conveying in their own words the same doctrine; especially in the historical books, though exceptions must of course be made for pas- sages which speak authoritatively, or report a message avowedly from God. If asked why we receive the present canon, we refer to historical testimony: and then the tra- ditionist comes round upon us to convict us out of our own mouths, maintaining that we believe the Scriptures upon the authority of the Church, and therefore end in submission to Tradition. To avoid this embarrasment, many of the Reformers 182 LECTURE VI. declared that the Scriptures manifested themselves to be the word of God. According to the Belgian confession, they themselves testify their authority ; the Gallican proceeds fur- ther, not only declaring faith in the Scriptures to depend upon the internal persuasion of the Spirit; but that thereby they know canonical from ecclesiastical or apocryphal books ; and the Assembly's Confession solves our conviction ultimately into internal evidence. " "We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to a high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture: and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, and the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole of which is to give all glory to God ; the full discovery which it makes of the sole way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evince itself to be the word of God ; yet notwithstanding, our full per- suasion and assurance of the infallible and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts." Whitaker, in his controversy with Bellarmine, goes so far as to say, the sum of our opinion is, that the Scriptures have all their authority from themselves: that they are to be received, not because the Church has so appointed, but because they come from God ; and that they came from God cannot be certainly known, but by the Holy Ghost. Calvin says, the majesty of God will presently appear in them to every impartial examiner, and extort his assent, so that they act preposterously, who endeavour by argument to beget a solid credit to them, as the word will never meet with belief, till it be sealed by the internal testimony of the Spirit who wrote it. The internal evidence of the truth of Christianity itself will be allowed by all genuine believers to bring home conviction both to the understanding and the heart; but this is the effect of the doctrine, whether conveyed orally, or by writing ; but with respect to the channel through which this doctrine is conveyed, that is, the books in which it is preserved, this proof 1 conceive would at the utmost only apply to our LECTURE VI. 183 Lord's own discourses, and parts of the Epistles : and with- out an immediate personal revelation, no man would in this way have a satisfactory conviction, that the books them- selves and no others, are the word of God. We grant that the fabrications of gospels, acts, and epistles, which have come down to us, carry with them from their absurdity or inability their own condemnation ; but we know that seven of the books now admitted into the New Testament, were at one time only partially acknowledged. This, as Burnet observes, is only an argument to him who feels it : and to assert that the Scriptures can be only proved by the testi- mony of the Spirit, is likely to introduce such enthusiasm as would render the Canon uncertain and precarious; for as every person must be the only judge for himself of this testimony, it will not be strange, if some should urge it for other books not commonly received, and if they should, how can these divines answer them ? According to this hypothesis, all who believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, must have the testimony of the Spirit ; whereas it is a fact, that multitudes firmly believe in them, who are not conscious of such an inward illumination. " For my part," says Baxter, whose integrity none will deny, " I confess I could never boast of any such light of the spirit, or reason either, which without human testimony, would have made me believe, for instance, that Solomon's Song is canonical ; and the Book of Wisdom apocryphal ; nor could I have known all or any historical books, as Joshua and Judges, (and we may add the Gospels and Acts,) to be written by divine inspiration, but by Tradition." We cannot show the genuine gospels and acts to be inspired, since we could imagine similar uninspired ones, written by competent reporters, that should be true, and between which and the four received ones our own judgment would not allow us to discriminate. It is well known, that, in point of fact, no higher authority than this is allowed to tho^e of Mark and Luke by Michaelis and other critics. Some, unwilling to dispute the validity of the argument from internal evidence, have attempted a sort of medium ; as Placaeus, who observes, that the truly canonical books 184 LECTURE VI. have more or fewer characters and evidences of their in- spiration, as they are more or less necessary ; and that apocryphal books, as they are more or less unfit for the Canon, have more or fewer marks of human composition, so that there may be books, as that of Esther, which we shall hardly be able to prove canonical, and such a com- position as Manasses' prayer, which we shall hardly be able to prove apocryphal, by any other arguments than such as are drawn from the language in which they are written, and the constant testimony of the Church. If of books claiming inspiration, we are to judge from their style and contents, without any external arguments from tradition, since each party will be most attached to such as seem most to favour its scheme of divinity ; it is a probable conclusion that several now received would have been at times rejected. It is well known, that the early heretics acting upon this principle, rejected books because they were not in harmony with their preconceived opinions ; and their reasoning has been well confuted by Augustinp. The advocates of this kind of proof would do well to con- sider, how uncertain they make the Canon. In the Church of Corinth were deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, and artfully imitating their doctrines. Now if such had published books under the names of the genuine Apostles, it would have been almost impossible, without some rational arguments, for the ordinary believers to have detected their forgeries ; and St. Paul did not put them upon this method of ascertaining the genuineness of his epistles. Knowing them as he did to be from God, still he did not trust to their intrinsic evidence, but mentions the mark which he made use of in all, to distinguish them from supposititious ones. The other extreme is to receive the Scriptures solely upon the authority of the Church, as if it depended upon Popes and Councils to sanction or reject at their pleasure. This we regard as too absurd to require confutation ; we must then acquiesce in the only remaining method, tradition handed down from those who lived in or near the time of their P Contra Faustum, xi. 2 ; xxxiii. 0, LECTURE VI. 185 being written. The question is concerning the fact, whether certain books were written by their reputed authors, and we prove it in the same way, only with much stronger evidence, as we prove that Virgil or Livy wrote the works that have always passed under their names. The scriptural works have also the advantage of having been published as soon as written, being delivered to the churches for their use ; they who first received them knew them to be the works of those names they bore, and could and did testify to the succeeding age their knowledge of this fact. This testimony is still faithfully preserved in the writings of the ancient Christians, and is therefore not only a sufficient, but the principal cause of our conviction. This, says Huet, is an axiom which cannot be disputed by those who will allow any thing in history to be certain : and the deference which has been always shown to the Scriptures, and the copious citations from them by the Fathers, and their continual perusal, must have secured them from corruption. The early Christians were not credulous, but very careful to separate the true from the false. This appears from the fact, that it was long before some of the books were universally received, and from the steps they took to discountenance the spurious. Thus when Paul, a presbyter of Asia, confessed that he has written in the Apostle Paul's name the acts of Paul and Thecla, a notice of his forgery was conveyed to the African church. Modern advocates of infidelity assert, that the New Testament Scriptures, as we have them, were never accounted canonical, until the Council of Laodicea, as late as A.D. 364. The canons of this Council are, we allow, the earliest extant, which give a catalogue ; but there is reason to believe, that the Bishops there present did not meet to settle the Canon, but simply to determine what books should be read out in the congregation. This explains the otherwise unaccountable omission of the Revelation, which could not fail to be known to them, Laodicea being one of the seven churches more peculiarly under St. John's care, to which it was addressed, and to whom no doubt a manuscript of it must have been confided. A similar catalogue had been given before by Cyril Bishop of Jerusalem, by Eusebius, and by 186 LECTURE VI. Athanasius, including the Revelation. We may ascend as high as to Origen, A, D. 210; and (since the publication of Jones's instructive Dissersation on the Canon) a fragment has been discovered of the lost dialogue of the still earlier author Caius, in which he enumerates twenty-two books out of twenty-seven, and makes a marked distinction between the Canonical and the Apocryphal, saying that it is not fit that gall should be mixed with honey. Neither the names of the persons concerned in forming the Canon, nor the date of it, can be ascertained ; but it is a probable opinion, that it was determined by St. John, who long survived his brethren. We at least know that he approved the three first gospels, and added by way of a supplement his own, and it may be presumed that the books once disputed were subsequently added. This statement by no means makes oral tradition the rule of faith. Oral tradition, for example, sufficiently assures us that a certain ancient document is Magna Charta, and that the Statute books contain the laws, but it does not therefore follow that Tradition can report to us the substance of these laws better than the written laws themselves3. Suppose any oral message, consisting of an hundred particulars to be deli- vered to an hundred persons of different degrees of under- standing and memory, by them to be conveyed to an hundred more, who were to convey it onwards ; is it probable that this message with all its particulars would be as truly con- veyed through so many mouths, as if it were written down in so many letters, concerning which every bearer need say no more than this, that it was delivered to him as a letter, written by him whose name was subscribed to it ? The letter is a message in which no man need err, but as to the errand, every messenger may either forget, or make some mistake in it. It was a great omission in King Edward's Article, that though the sufficiency of Scripture is asserted, Scripture is not defined ; and this is the more extraordinary, since we are not only at issue with the Church of Home as to its autho- rity, but as to the books of which it consists. In this a Lancaster's Bampton Lectures. LECTURE VI. 187 enlarged edition under Elizabeth this is rectified, a list being given of the books which we retain, and of those we reject. In the enumeration, Nehemiah is considered as a continuation of Ezra, and therefore called, the second book of Esdras, his name being so written in the Vulgate. The Bible of the Roman Catholics, it is to be remembered, is not identical with that of the Protestants. The Lutherans are satisfied, generally speaking, with Luther's translation, and we with our excellent authorized version, yet neither regard them as infallible; and therefore if any dispute on the meaning of a particular text arise, we refer to the original. The Council of Trent, on the contrary, professing to have con- stantly in view the removal of error, and the preservation of the purity of the gospel, has declared, that the vulgate Latin translation should be held as authentic in all public lectures, disputations, and sermons, and that no one shall under any pretence presume to reject it. Having thus decreed, the Council with reason ordered a careful revision of St. Jerome's version. This was executed in 1590 by the command of Sixtus V. who denounced with the greater excommunication not even to be absolved by the Pope, any person who should presume to change the smallest particle. Yet Clement VIII. published only two years later an improved edition, with no less than two thousand corrections. Not only has Rome substituted a translation for the originals, but it includes in the Bible several books which our Reformers rejected. Our Lord acknowledges the same division of the Law, the Psalms, and Prophets, as Josephus, who was almost his contemporary: "We have not," says that author*1, "myriads of books differing from each other, but only twenty-two, which comprehend the history of all past time, and are justly believed to be divine. And of these, five are the works of Moses, which contain the law^s, and an account of things from the creation of man to his death : the Prophets then recorded the transactions of their own times in thirteen books: and the four remaining ones contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human i Against Appian. i. 8. 188 LECTURE VI. life." How our thirty-nine books are more particularly reduced to this number, is not settled by any authority ; but we have evidence enough from the modern Jews compared with this passage, that all our books are comprehended in the three classes. The Jews reduced their sacred books to twenty-two, the number of letters in their alphabet; but it appears, that in the time of Jerome some persons, as now, made twenty-four; and this is easily done, as Ezra, and Nehemiah, and the Chronicles might reckon respectively for one or two, and, according to Jerome, Ruth was detached from Judges, and the Lamentations from Jeremiah. The historical books, as we call them, are arranged by them among the Prophets, which shows their opinion that they are as much inspired as the rest. So far of the Old Testament collectively : and when we examine the authority of particular books, we shall find our Lord's attestation to the inspiration of more of them than we should have supposed. I premise that we receive the same books as the Jews, and that their scriptures are authorized by our Saviour without any exception; and when blaming them for superseding the Scriptures by their traditions, he gives no intimation of their having added to, taken from, or in any way corrupted them. Also St. Paul, calling them the Oracles of God, committed to their care, implies that he found no fault in their preservation of them. When our Lord was tempted by the devil, he put the tempter to flight by texts chosen from Deuteronomy, saying, it is written; and if it had been asked where, He would have answered, in the word of God. In the sermon on the mount he continually refers to the Law as divine, declaring that he came not to destroy but to fulfil it; and charges the Pharisees with making void God's commandments, expressly referring to the fifth and seventh. He in this way attests the reality of many of the events recorded in the Pentateuch, as the creation, the institution of marriage, the deluge, and the fate of Sodom, and of Lot's wife ; and in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, he names Moses and the Prophets as sufficient, and therefore inspired guides. He likewise refers to the history of David, of the Queen of LECTURE VI. 189 Sheba, and of Elijah, and Jonah, and bears testimony to several verses of the Psalms, and the Prophets q. The external testimony to the integrity of the Hebrew text is stronger than is generally supposed. The examin- ation of manuscripts, commenced by Kennicott and carried on by De Rossi and others, has proved the care with which the Jews have preserved their Scriptures ; for it appears from their collations, that all that they compared were of the same family, exhibiting scarcely any various readings of importance. No collusion can be imagined between Jews and Christians, who have been in opposition to each other from the beginning; and neither party, supposing it to have had the will, had the power of interpolating or altering any of the books of the Old Testament. The Septuagint translation substantially re- presents the Hebrew text before the incarnation, and that and the other Greek versions vouch for its integrity in their respective ages. The Chaldee Targums or versions carry us back to a still earlier period ; and for the Pentateuch we have the additional authority of the Samaritan copy, which must have existed before the captivity of Israel, and is probably nearly as ancient as the disruption of the state into two kingdoms, since neither the ten nor the two tribes were likely to accept a copy from the other. As- suming this view to be correct, we have all the evidence which the case will admit, for it ascends beyond that for the authenticity of the poems of Homer, the earliest of un- inspired compositions. In our authorized Bible there are inserted between the Old and New Testament nine books, six. historical, and the remainder moral or didactic, with a few additional chapters to Esther and Daniel. And these are called Apocryphal, hidden or secret, either because their authors were unknown, or that they were not read out in the congregation. In the Septuagint and in the Vulgate they are intermixed with the others, so that the unlearned reader may not easily discover that they are not entitled to equal authority ; and i Ps. viii ; lxxxii ; cx ; cxviii ; Isaiah vi. 9; Daniel x. 27 ; Hosea vi. 6 ; Jonah i. 17 ; Mieah vii. (i ; Malachi iii. i ; iv. 5, (j. 190 LECTURE VI. the firm adherence of the British and Foreign Bible Society to its principle of circulating nothing but the Word of God, has alienated from it many of the Lutherans. Our reformers placed them in a supplement, and sheltered their rejection of their authority under St. Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate, and a better judge of the question than Augustin or any other ancient writer. The following is the original of the passage translated in the Article, and is taken from his preface to the books ascribed to Solomon. " Sicut ergo Judith et Tobiae et Maccabueorum libros legit quidem Ecclesia sed eas inter canonicas Scripturos non recipit, sic et hac duo volumina legit ad adificationem plebis, non ad auctoritatem ecclesiasticarum dogmatum conflrmandam." The Church, that is, the Church at large, not merely the English branch of it, orders them to be read, as she does homilies or sermons. In the former they are cited occasionally as Scripture, but no chapters of the books of Esdras, Maccabees, or Esther are readoutin the congregation, andnosunday lessons are taken from the remaining books. Neither our Lord or his Apostles appeal to them; and Josephus says of them in general, " There is a continuation of writings from Artax- erxes to the present time, but they are not considered deserving of the same credit, because there was not a clear succession of prophets." The early Christians do not bring proofs of doctrine from them, though they sometimes in- troduce passages for the sake of their moral instruction. And those who give catalogues of canonical books may be said to omit them, though the exception of a book or two may occur in some of their lists. They were mostly the works of the Jews of Alexandria. One can hardly suppose that the Wisdom of Solomon was meant to pass for more than a successful imitation of his writings: and the prologues to the most valuable of them, Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, is so far from claiming equality with the Law and the Prophets for this compilation, that it calls the author an imitator of Solomon, and describes him as no more than a man of great diligence and wisdom, who did not only gather the grave and short sentences of wise men, but himself also uttered some of his own, full of LECTURE VI. 191 much understanding and wisdom." A few of his maxims are objectionable : and, as might be expected, the work can bear no comparison with the inspired Proverbs; but our jealousy for the superiority of the Bible may perhaps make us unjust; and it must be allowed to be a valuable compendium of ethics, far excelling the precepts of any heathen moralists, yet owing its superiority to the light reflected from the Scripture. According to Dupin, the apocryphal books were first received as canonical by a provincial synod at Hippo, A.D. 393, but subject to the confirmation of the Church beyond the sea ; and its decree was accepted by the Pope and bishops of Italy, but was not formally established before the Council of Trent. It rejected however the Prayer of Manasseh, and the third and fourth books of Esdras, appa- rently because they were not in the old Latin version. Bellarmine has made great use of these books, arguing from them in favour of purgatory, and the worship of saints, quoting Wisdom in commendation of monastic life, and supporting papal supremacy from Judith. Happily there is no Apocrypha to the New Testament ; for though fragments of many spurious works under the name of Apostles are extant, none of them have been ac- knowledged by the Church ; and the most cursory examin- ation of any will convince a reader, that such idle and sometimes objectionable legends will be accepted as Scrip- ture by no reasonable person. Fortunately the canon of the New Testament was fixed at an early date ; and in the catalogues, beginning with that of Origen, all the books are enumerated, except in some, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Revelation. Eusebius, our earliest informer, divides the Scriptures into the books acknowledged by all, and those which had been spoken against by some, but were in his time gene- rally received, and were believed to be authentic by himself. These are in number seven, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and those of James and Jude, the second of Peter, and the second and third of John, and the Revelation. All are cited as Scriptures by authors who lived near their time, and their doctrine is in harmony with those books of which no doubt was ever entertained. In those early times the 192 LECTURE VI. communication between distant countries was not so rapid and so frequent as it has been since ; and therefore letters addressed to the Christians of one country might remain for years unknown to those of another. Gospels would spread sooner and farther than Epistles, for no one could well go to teach Christianity any where, without taking with him one. Epistles would have a more confined and local interest, and these to particular Churches would sooner be acknowledged than those to dispersed converts. Suppose any one to ask whether or riot the Epistles to the Corinthians and that of James were authentic, the former he might be sure to find at a well-known city, and many witnesses ready to vouch for its genuineness ; and this certainty would have weight at any distance, whereas the evidence of the latter would be more scattered and feeble. Their being then received upon examination, after being confounded with other books, is a strong presumption in their favour, a more rigid trial than if they had met with acceptance on their first appearance ; and it is a satis- factory reflection, that the claims of these books have been weighed and allowed, when the materials for forming a judg- ment were more abundant than at present. Pursuing this thought, we ask how it happens that all Christians have long since agreed upon their authenticity ? This is no ordinary phenomenon ; a point once disputed generally continues to be disputed, but in this there is now no dissenting Church, scarcely an hesitating individual. The Epistle to the Hebrews is quoted by Barnabas Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Clement of Alexandria, as may be seen in Lardner's elaborate and accurate work ; the Councils of Laodicea, A.D. 364, and Carthage, A.D. 397, sho w, that by that time all doubt was at an end. The Epistle is in general ascribed to Paul: and if the language be thought too classical, which is the main objection with critics, we may suppose that it was composed in Hebrew, and turned into Greek by Luke, Silvanus, or some other of his companions. The internal evidence is strong, for it is such a commentary upon the Law as we might expect from him. Timothy is spoken of in it in a manner like that of Paul; the term Medi- LECTURE VI. 193 ator occurs in this and twice in the other Epistles which have been always ascribed to him, and in no other part of Scripture ; and a resemblance may be pointed out to passages in his un- questioned writings1. The Epistle of James is acknowledged by the earliest Fathers, but it does not seem to have reached those of the West, as Tertullian and Cyprian. Its apparent opposition to St. Paul's doctrine of justification by faith, as set forth in his Epistle to the Romans universally received, might for a season delay its reception : and its being more moral than doctrinal, is a reason why it should be quoted less often. The Second Epistle of Peter contains allusions not likely to be in a forged letter, to his presence at the trans- figuration, (i. 18.) and to our Lord's foretelling his death, (i. 14.) which he intimates to be near. The difference of style which has been brought forward against it is limited to a single chapter, which strikingly resembles, not only in matter but in unusual words, the Epistle of Jude ; and it is thought with probability, that they had both before them the same written description of false teachers, from which they borrowed both facts and remarkable expressions. It is alluded to by our earliest Fathers, as Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, and Irenasus. We cannot be surprised that the two short Epistles of St. John should be at first neg- lected as private letters. It is only the circumstances that led them to be regarded as catholic wThich caused them to be placed in the canon. If we take them to be written to remedy evils then common, though with a view only to two particular instances, they might be in time perceived to be generally applicable. By calling himself not an Apostle but only an elder, some were led to ascribe them to another John mentioned by Eusebius ; but there is reason to think he took this title on account of his old age, and to avoid assuming too much consequence. The internal evidence is, I should say, decisive, since many of the verses are identical with those in his undisputed Epistle. The Epistle of Jude has early evidence in its favour, and the only difficulty is concerning the quotation from Enoch ; but though the r Heb. v. 12. compared with 1 Cor. iii. 2 ; Heb. xii. 3 ; Gal* vi. 0; xiii. 16 <6bil. iv. 18. 0 194 LECTURE VI. book which now bears his name is fabulous, the verse with which it begins might in substance have been handed down by Tradition. And certainly it opens that book, and is unconnected with what follows. The Apocalypse has the earliest and most frequent attestations to its authenticity ; and such is its nature and obscurity, that it was not likely to have been received unless known to be written by the Apostle. Its authority, however, sunk, as it was found to give occasion to gross interpretations of the Millenium, which led to an early rejection of that doctrine of the first Christians. Its genuineness was then called in question, and it was gradually neglected, but rose again into repute at the Reformation, when the reformers generally inter- preted the woman on the scarlet coloured beast, the mystical Babylon, as symbolical of Papal Rome. Thus we have seen, that the Roman Catholics and all Protestants differ in the point from which they start, the Rule of Faith ; and therefore it is not surprising that they arrive at such different conclusions on so many articles of belief. Ours is a simple and a reasonable one; and as they acknowledge the Bible to be the Word of God, they cannot deny its truth, and are obliged in order to make room for Tradition, to magnify its difficulties, and to misrepresent and exaggerate the results of private judgment. The Pro- testant Churches, however, they must be aware, have not been content with opening the Bibles to their members, and leaving them to form a creed for themselves. All have their authorized confessions and catechisms ; and divines in each have written learned treatises on the various articles of faith, and compiled bodies of divinity ; but in these works and in their sermons, whatever they advance is substantiated by texts of Scripture. The Roman Catholic also admits the authority of the sacred Scriptures, but it is according to the sense of Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation ; and he must also interpret them according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers. Pie also receives all things declared in all the Councils, particularly in that of Trent; and must firmly admit all the Traditions of the Church. The Romanist LECTURE VI. 195 then who would seek the truth for himself must examine a multitude of volumes, some of which are contradictory, and can only be read in Latin. By the unlearned, or even to the learned who has other pursuits, such a search must be given up in despair. What then becomes of their boasted cer- tainty, which they oppose to an assumed doubt? Milner contemptuously pities those who cannot even make an act of faith. But can the Roman Catholic? Let the reader judge from this definition in the Douay Catechism : ' Oh great God! I believe all the sacred truths which thy holy Catholic Church believes and teaches, because thou hast revealed them.' But not a single one is specified. For real belief then they substitute what they call implicit faith. Those who believe in doctrines on examination of them are explicit believers ; those who believe in a presumption of their credi- bility, implicit ; nor is such belief considered less efficacious than the former. Thus it is an imputative faith ; and the Romanist believes by proxy, and cheats himself by reliance upon what is done by others. It is the Word preached that has been in all ages and countries the ordinary instrument of conversion ; and indeed before the invention of printing the written word was accessible to few, and reading was a rare accomplishment. More than eighteen centuries have passed, since the inspired preachers of the faith have been removed ; and we have now no authoritative guide, except the few and short works which the Holy Spirit suggested to them to write, that after their decease believers might have the facts and doctrines and precepts and promises of Christianity in remembrance. Even now, in a cultivated and reading age, the majority of professing Christians still receive their knowledge of religion from the lips of living ministers, or from written discourses and tracts ; but all teaching will be of no avail, and will fall without power on the ear, except in as much as directly or indirectly the instruction is drawn from the pure well of scriptural truth. To the Law and to the Testimony the parochial minister at home as well as the missionary abroad must appeal, as his own guide, and without prayerful meditation on the Word, he will have no security o 2 196 LECTURE VI. for his own orthodoxy. Let any who think this an exag- gerated statement, examine the annals of the Jesuit mission- aries recorded by themselves, and they will find in China, Japan, and India, unjustifiable suppression of vital truth in deference to pagan prejudices ; the adoption of idolatrous rites, denounced as such even by Popes, and false reports of the country from which they came, and the religion they professed, by which they boasted that they had procured a more favourable reception. There are still countries only accessible to these silent missionaries; for if the preachers of the Gospel should venture to return to Madagascar, we can hardly doubt that the tyrant queen would put them, as she has done some of her own converted subjects, to death. It is painful to think, that in countries much nearer home, where- ever the Pope has unrestricted power, the simple perusal of the Bible is an offence, punished in the noble by exile, in the lower ranks by imprisonment. To the indiscriminate perusal of the Word of God we have seen that the Roman Church ascribes the overflowings of ungodliness and vice, but mediaeval history teaches us a different lesson. The chronicles of those days depict a period of feudal tyranny and general licentiousness, of coarseness and violence in the gentry, and of ignorance and insolence in the clergy. As the morning of the Reformation began to dawn, there came with Gospel truth a moral improvement ; and to what human agency can we ascribe it but to Wycliff's translation of the Scriptures in our country, and in Germany to the version of Martin Luther ? And what but a prevalent know- ledge of the Word of God has produced the comparative purity of manners in Protestant countries, beyond the standard S2t up in Spain, and the Spanish settlements in America, in Portugal, and in Italy? To judge of the effects of an open Bible, let us turn to the least promising portions of our native island, and even there we shall find the spiritual darkness vanishing before this marvellous light, which, while it enlightens the understanding, purifies and warms the heart. In the retired recesses of our great towns, swarming with a squalid miserable and depraved population, it is only the Scripture reader that will care to penetrate. LECTURE VI. 197 There by a self-denying and judicious reading of the Word he will often bring the sinner to a conviction of guilt, and. gradually prepare him to be a worshipper in the house of God; while in the country, the pious cottager, who has digested the Word's saving truth, finds in it a transforming efficacy, which, while it assures him of a blessed futurity, ennobles his present character, and stamps upon him the genuine dignity of an immortal being saved by unmerited favour, and ready at his Master's call to run with alacrity in the way of his commandments. Such a book may well be called in its own language, a light to the feet, and a lamp unto the path ; and never can we be sufficiently grateful, that it is not so large a volume as to deter the busy from its perusal, or to be placed beyond the purchase of any but the rich. Far more than any classical remains does it deserve to be read by day and to be meditated on in the night. A cursory though a repeated perusal will never satisfy one who has tasted of the sincere milk of the Word, and grown thereby. He will gladly avail himself of the help afforded by theological works, but his ambition will be that the Word shall dwell richly in his heart through faith ; he will be constantly digging into this mine for himself, and he will not only repeat the Advent Collect, but really make it his own petition, that not only by hearing and reading, but by marking and inwardly digesting all holy Scriptures, he may ever hold fast the blessed hope of ever- lasting life, which God the Father has given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Spirit breathes upon the Word, And brings the truth to sight ; Precepts and promises afford A sanctifying light. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic, like the Sun, 1 1 gives a light to every age ; It gives, but borrows none. The hand that gave it still supplies The gracious light and heat; His truths upon the nations rise ; They rise, but never set. 198 LECTURE VI. Let everlasting thanks be thine, For such a bright display; It makes a world of darkness shine, With beams of heavenly day. My soul rejoices to pursue The steps of him I love, Till glory breaks upon my view In brighter worlds above. LECTURE VII. ARTICLE VII. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. The Old Testament is not contrary to the New : for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth ; yet notwith- standing, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral. This Article is supplementary to and explanatory of the sixth, and is opposed to those who in different ages and in various manners have set aside or misconceived the authority of the Old Testament. The Gnostics were led by their peculiar notions to reject it, and some of them went so far as to maintain, that the God of the Old Testament was not merely a Spirit inferior to the Supreme Being, but that Christ was manifested to overthrow the system which he had introduced. At the time of the Reformation the Antinomians abounded, and Luther was obliged to write against them, for they had perverted the doctrine of justifi- cation by faith alone; and because it was rightly maintained that works were not meritorious, they argued that the moral Law was abrogated. It was probably in opposition to this 200 LECTURE VII. pernicious heresy that our Article was chiefly drawn up ; but there was a contrary error even then beginning, and which during the civil wars attained its height, that the ceremonial and political laws of Israel were binding upon Christians. There is also a confused notion prevalent more or less among many, that the old dispensation is superseded, instead of a clear understanding that since the fall there has been but one method of salvation for a sinner, that is, through the atonement effected by the propitiatory sacrifice of the Son of God; and that the only difference between the believers of these times and of those preceding Christ is, that the latter looked forward to a Redeemer promised, the former back to one already come. Though the first proposition of our Article, " The Old Testament is not contrary to the New," brings on a com- parison of the whole of both, yet since the reason assigned is, that " both teach everlasting life through Christ," they need be compared only in that particular : and in order to show that they are not contradictory with regard to this leading doctrine, it will suffice to examine the Old, since none doubt Christ has clearly brought life and immortality to light ; and if we prove that the Old Testament promises Christianity, it must follow that it also promises life and immortality. Now the promise of Christ is the grand subject of prophecy, from the mysterious intimation of it to Eve in paradise, until its completion in Malachi. Express decla- rations of a future state are to be found in the ancient Scriptures, though they are both less frequent and more obscure than might have been presumed in a divine reve- lation. Much misconception has prevailed upon the subject by confounding the Mosaic dispensation, or the system of divine appointment, under which the Israelites were governed as a nation, with the belief of the individuals recorded in the Bible, who lived under or before that dispensation. War- burton has built his argument for the divine legation of Moses upon the fact, that unlike other Legislators who have called in religion to their aid, he has purposely kept a future life out of sight. He thus recapitulates his cele- brated theory. The doctrine of a future state is necessary to LECTURE VII. 201 the well-being of civil society under the ordinary government of Providence; and all mankind have ever so conceived of the matter. The Mosaic institution was without this support, and yet it did not want it; what follows, but that the Jewish affairs were administered by an extraordinary Providence, distributing reward and punishment with an equal hand, and consequently that the mission of Moses was divine. Thus far we may agree with him ; and it might easily be shown, that a national code of laws can have no other than temporal sanctions : but this great writer, pushing his doc- trine to an extreme, which his hypothesis by no means required, unhappily proceeds to state, that in no one place of the Mosaic institutes is there the least mention, or any intelligible hint of the rewards and punishments of another life, and that to the time of the captivity, the Israelites were never influenced by it. I may well say unhappily, for too many even in our time, still dazzled by the splendid paradoxes, and borne down by the learning and dogmatism of this eminent prelate, maintain this doctrine in its full extent, hereby contradicting' this very Article, and classing themselves with those whom our Saviour condemns, as greatly erring, and not understanding the Scriptures, when he shows that a future life was revealed to Moses by God when he addressed him out of the fiery bush. Warburton himself seems to have been hurried by his ardour into this untenable and unnecessary extension of his theory, for he afterwards so qualifies and limits it, as to remove from it whatever is offensive and objectionable, though his followers and admirers almost universally overlook these concessions in subsequent editions. A future state of rewards and punishments made no part of the Mosaic dispensation, yet the Law had certainly a spiritual meaning to be understood when the fulness of time was come, and hence it possessed the nature and afforded the efficacy of prophecy. In the interim, the mystery of the Gospel (including by this learned writer's own definition the doctrine of a future retribution) was occasionally revealed by God to his chosen servants, the fathers and leaders of the Jewish nation, and the dawning of it was graduallv 202 LECTURE VII. opened by the prophets to the people3. In another passage b, he limits his position to the Mosaic dispensation, saying, that no texts are to the purpose after the time of David. Thus Warburton himself supplies a contradiction to the offensive part of his theory, which we may accept as modified by Dr. Greaves, that Moses did not sanction his laws by the promise of future rewards and punishments, and that the history he records shows not only his own belief in it, (which Warburton admits,) but contains passages which must suggest it to every reflecting mind, though with less clear- ness than the succeeding works of the Old Testament, which exhibit this great truth with a perpetually increasing brightness, till by the prophets it was so authoritatively revealed, as to become an article of popular belief. How far the Israelites understood the promises of a Saviour and of eternal life, we cannot of course ascertain ; no doubt, while some more or less entered fully into the spiritual meaning of types and ceremonies, there were many who rested in the letter, contented with the plainer, and to them more attractive, promises of temporal prosperity ; yet we cannot imagine that those to whom spiritual blessings were revealed, and often as a special favour for their consolation, could be themselves ignorant of their meaning. As to Abraham, our Lord's declaration, that he saw His day and rejoiced, doubtless when he was favoured with a figurative representation of it in the ram caught in the thicket, and provided as a substitute for his son, seems decisive. Christ was promised to Abraham; and the reason- ing in Galatiansc seems to imply, that Abraham had a competent understanding of the promise and covenant made with him. How indeed can a person be a party in a cove- nant, without some knowledge of its conditions? As to Moses, it is not easy to conceive, that when he wrote of Christ, he had not some conception of the person and offices of that legislator and prophet like unto himself, whose coming he foretold ; and this will be confirmed by the declaration in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that he feared not the wrath of the King, but endured as seeing him who is invisibte ; and a B. vi. s. v. b B. vi. B. i. c Gal. iii. 16. LECTURE VII. 203 that he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Indeed the whole chapter shows of all the elders from the time of righteous Abel, that they looked not for transitory promises. i( The Patriarchs before and after Job, and the Israelites before Christ, had a notion of a future state. By sacrifices was plainly shown that there was a way open to the divine favour, and the favour of God imports happiness, which to Abel, who, because he was accepted by God, was unjustly slain, could be only in a future state, and dying on account of that faith ; he being dead yet speaketh of an in- visible state of reward hereafter. The translations of Enoch and Elijah in two distant ages, were also demonstrations of a future state of reward and glory d." Of the Patriarchs it is expressly said, that they did not receive the things pro- mised, seeing them only afar off; and because they were not satisfied with Canaan, but desired a heavenly country, there- fore God had prepared them a city, a city concerning the site of which there can be no doubt, for it is one whose builder and maker is God. Wherefore, the writer infers, God is not ashamed to be called their God; and of this we have our Lord's interpretation, that since God is not the God of the dead, they are now alive unto Him. Can we then suppose that they would have suppressed this important truth, since it was the support of their virtue and the source of their consolation through all the sufferings of their eventful lives? The peculiar purposes of the divine economy did not permit the Jewish lawgiver to employ it as the sanction of his laws, which were to be enforced by an immediate extraordinary providence, but it was his own support as an individual, and doubtless that of many of his people, in his own and succeeding generations, in their in- dividual, though it could not be in their national, capacity. The Psalms contain strong assurances of a future state, nor is it easy to conceive how such passages as, Thou shall show me the path of life; in thy presence is the fulness of joy, and at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore^ — As for me, I will d Taylor's Scheme. « Ps. wi. 204 LECTURE VII. behold thy presence in righteousness ; and when I awake up after thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with its — God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive meh — can be neutralised by others seemingly of a different tone. This doctrine, incidentally mentioned in the Proverbs1, is the great basis of Ecclesiastes, the object of which is to prove the insufficiency of earthly pursuits to procure happiness here, and thence to infer its existence in a future state beyond the grave. It is unnecessary to trace the doctrine through the Prophets, because their knowledge of it is conceded; but I cannot refrain from referring to the assevera- tion of Job, which was probably the earliest committed to writing, and which if we adopt this the ancient, the obvious, and the only reasonable interpretation, because in harmony with the scope of the book, well deserved the solemnity with which it was introduced : 0 that my words were now written, that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for everk I The entire omission of future punishments in the Mosaic Law, I apprehend, only excites surprise, because as we do not live under that dispensation, and his statutes are not referred to by our judges, we are apt to consider it not so much as a code of laws, as a system of ethics. In the latter point of view the omission would have been unreason- able, in the former it ought to have been expected ; and Michaelis, in his Commentaries on this Law, makes the following judicious reflections. " I do not wonder at the Hebrew legislator's omission of any reference to rewards or punishments in another world, but at the short-sighted- ness of those who look for such a sanction to a civil and political constitution. Moses was no impostor or enthusiast, and such alone can sanction civil laws by the terrors of futurity. God we know will not punish all, even of the most heinous capital offences beyond the grave ; for even the greatest criminal, who even at his last hour throws him- self unreservedly on his mercy, may escape everlasting misery. No legislator, since he cannot read the heart, g Ps. xxi. xlix. h Ps. lxxiii. 1 Proverbs iv. 18 ; xiv. 32. k Greaves on the Pentateuch. LECTURE VII. 205 would venture to lay down such a law, since it would be liable to endless exceptions; and now instead of threatening such criminals with the torments of hell, the mercy of Christian governments gives them time and means, as the attendance of a minister of religion, to lead them to repentance. The remainder of the Article is designed to rectify oppo- site errors, then beginning to appear, which in a later age became prevalent, and have not yet altogether ceased, respecting the obligation of the Mosaic Law. While one party judaised, deeming the civil and political regulations of the Hebrew commonwealth the model after wrhich a Christian state should be formed, there was another that regarded obedience to its moral precepts as an intolerable burden, not to be endured by those who had been admitted into the glorious liberty of the Gospel. These have in consequence been called by their opponents Anti- nomians. The Jews maintain the perpetual obligation of the Law, and appeal to the solemn asseveration of their legislator continually repeated, that his statutes should be kept for ever, throughout their generations, in all their dwellings11. Other passages, however, occur, that show that the expression must not be taken literally; and that in many instances it is clear that eternity means no more than an unlimited futurity, and that a law which has no definite duration assigned to it, is considered perpetual, because no time can be specified at which its authority is to cease. While the Israelites sojourned in the wilderness like the wandering Arabs, it was required of any wrho would kill a sheep or bull, to bring it as an offering to the Lord. Such a law however would have been impracticable, when they were settled as a nation in the promised land, and it was consequently abrogated \ The Jews also urge, that on our own confession the Law was dictated by the infinite wisdom of the Deity, and that u Lcvit. xiii. 14. 21. 31. 41. x Deut xii. 15. 20. Strangers, after a price paid for them, are to be bond- men for ever Lev. xxv. 46. Yet they might be at any time manumitted, and seem to be so called in contrast to Israelites, wliose term of slavery must expire at the next jubilee. Michaelis gives several other instances. 206 LECTURE VII. if it were not the best that could have been devised, it implies imperfection to promulgate it, or, and if the best, to repeal it. Yet it is the highest wisdom not to enact a code abstractedly the best, but one which will best suit the cir- cumstances and capabilities of a people; and as they change to introduce suitable alterations. What it was wise to in- troduce to effect a particular object, it may be equally wise to abolish, when that object has been attained. The many statutes designed to insulate the Israelites from other nations, that they might dwell alone, and carefully preserve the knowledge of the one true God, had no inherent excellence, and were ready to vanish away when He came, who though a Jew by birth, was to be the King of the whole earth. The time being come when the partition wall was to be removed, and Jew and Gentile were to become one people under the promised Messiah, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed ; the many laws which prevented their amalgamation had become not only useless but injurious; and the sacrificial service which prefigured the offering of the only victim that could really atone for sin ought to pass away, when all these types had been fulfilled in the propitiatory death of our Redeemer. Thus to take a son who is come to maturity from his schoolmaster is as much an act of wisdom, as it was before to place him under him. St. Paul calls the Law our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith ; but after that faith is come, he adds, we are no longer under a schoolmaster1 ; and the Epistle to the Galatians is written on purpose to prove, that the ceremonial law has been superseded by Christianity. The author reproves them for their folly in wishing to return to its beggarly elements, and to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage, instead of standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free. In the same spirit he says to the Colossians, Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ111: and in the Epistle to the Hebrews" it is argued, from the transference of the Priest- I Gal. iii. 24. m Col. ii. 16, 17. " Heb. vii. 12. LECTURE VII. 207 hood from the tribe of Levi to that of Judah in our Lord's person, that there is made of necessity a change also in the Law. The same Epistle declares the weakness and unpro- fitableness of the Law, which is therefore disannulled ; and not only shows that the first covenant hath given place to a better one, established upon better promises, but quotes Jeremiah0, Isaiah p, and Zechariah'i, as foretelling the change : Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of Judah. He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away, is the comment of the inspired Apostle; and even some Jews have expected a a new law on the coming of the Messiah. The command to go up to Jerusalem thrice a year, is incompatible with universality; yet the universality of the religion of the Mes- siah is a frequent subject of prophecy r. The Jewish ritual could not therefore be perpetual, because it could not be universal. And as St. Paul taught it was to be abolished, he acted in consistency with his declarations, for he would not permit Titus a Greek to be circumcised, and withstood Peter to the face, because on the arrival of certain Juda- izing brethren, he left off eating with the Gentiles. God indeed had shown Peter by a vision, that the distinction of meats, one of the peculiarities that prevented much social intercourse with Gentiles, was at an end; and the Apostles in their council3 refused to put the yoke of the ceremonial law upon the neck of Gentile converts, only requiring them to abstain out of charity from certain things that would have offended the converts from Judaism, as eating things strangled, and blood. The religious and ceremonial laws were blended together, and were calculated to prevent their intercourse with the rest of mankind. The obligation ceased with the coming of the Messiah, and the ceremonial 0 Jer. xxxi. p Isa. fiv. 13. ws ex $wto$, light out of light, " bright effluence of bright essence increate," as our own poet beautifully renders it, is the same idea con- veyed by a metaphor, and is certainly sanctioned by the cnruv- yaafxct rr\g lofo of the Epistle to the Hebrews, a ray beaming from his Father's brightness, a ray, be it observed, imme- diately from him, which cannot be affirmed of any other being, for even the most glorious and highest archangel was made through him ; and the western Church maintains, that the Holy Spirit itself is an emanation from the Father through the Son. The subordination of his divine nature in this sense is understood by Athanasius and other orthodox fathers to be revealed by himself, when he says, My Father is greater than I, though modem divines generally refer it to his humanity. Still it must be granted, than an Arian could assent to these propositions ; but then the Creed pro- ceeds to add, that he is of the same nature with the Father, and to preclude the possibility of error, it went on to state, that " the Son was not created or variable, that he existed before he was born or made, and that there never was a time when he was not," words which since the extinction of the Arian heresy have been dropped. The original Nicene Creed is supposed to have terminated with the simple asser- tion of belief in the Holy Ghost, and that all that follows was added, A.D. 381, at the Council of Constantinople, which decided against Macedonius, who denied his divinity. Several of these articles however appear in earlier Creeds ; that opinion therefore seems to me most probable, that the Nicene fathers being assembled, not to make a creed, but to authen- ticate what had always been the catholic faith, passed over the articles that were not then in discussion, and have given us in substance the Creed of Cassarea. The Holy Ghost is here designated as the Lord and Giver of life, and the English reader is led to suppose that life alone is here ascribed to him. The articles in the original, tov Kvgiov xcti to Q *2 228 LECTURE VIII. ImkoCov, however, show that we confess him, like the other persons of the Trinity, to he the Lord, as well as the giver of spiritual life. The Church might deduce his right to the title of Lord from a comparison of Acts i. 16 ; iv. 24. wTith Exodus xxiv. 4; and 2 Cor. iii. 17. and 1 Thess. iii. 12. That He spake through the prophets is declared by St. Peter1. The Athanasian Creed, as it is called, is a full and accurate statement of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation, of the former of which Athanasius was the per- severing, undaunted, and ultimately triumphant champion; but though it faithfully records his belief, it is a vulgar error to suppose it to be his composition. Though written in a language he did not probably know, this error generally prevailed among the learned, till it was confuted by Vossius in 1642; yet the compilers of our Articles seem to be aware that it was ascribed to Athanasius without sufficient autho- rity, for the rubric says, commonly so called. Nor is it properly a Creed, for it was never recognised by any Council, or used in baptism ; it is rather an Exposition of the faith, and this, or the Catholic Faith, or the Faith of Athanasius, is the title it really bears in manuscripts. It has not been adopted by the Greek Church, and though extant in Greek, the original is certainly Latin. The time of *its introduction into the Roman liturgies is unknown, but was probably the tenth century. We know that it was previously in use in this country, Germany, Spain, and the diocese of Milan, and it is likely that it was first used in France. From the close resemblance between many of its clauses, and passages in Augustin's writings, it must have been written by one to whom they were familiar ; and Waterland, to whose learned history of this Creed I would refer those who wish for more complete information, has made it probable that it was written about A.D. 430, before Nestorianism was much known in the West, and that the author was Hilary, the distinguished Bishop of Aries. It may surprise the reader to learn, that it was used in France before it was at Rome : but the fact is overlooked in modern times, that though the Papal preeminence was insisted on, uniformity of ceremonies 1 1 Peter i. 10. LECTURE VIII. 229 and services was not then thought, as now, essential to union. Our Church even in its most distant colonies has the same identical liturgy; and one was drawn up for all the branches of the Roman Cathcflic Church by the order of the Council of Trent ; but previous to the Reformation there was more liberty. Thus in our own country there were several in use. That of Salisbury, compiled for that diocese, was the most approved, and was even used in Normandy, while Canterbury alone conformed to the Roman ritual. We have already seen, that the Nicene Creed did not for some centuries supersede the original one in Rome. The exposition of the Athanasian Creed speaks for itself. I need only observe, that the term incomprehensible may mis- lead the English reader, as it is the rendering of immersus, meaning what cannot be limited. The damnatory clauses have caused much uneasiness to the scrupulous : and few will be disposed to believe, that an assent to so many metaphysical definitions can be required as necessary to salvation. It is now, I believe, the received opinion, that we are only expected .to profess belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is in fact a statement of the orthodox exposition of these two fun- damental Articles. Having affirmed that we are "to worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, not confounding the persons nor dividing the substance," and added explanations, the first part concludes with the warning, " let him who will be saved thus think, ita sentiat, of the Trinity." The second part is thus introduced. "It is furthermore necessary to ever- lasting salvation, that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ," which is treated in the same manner. Still though it is generally held that our salvation does not depend upon the acceptance of the following exposition, 1 cannot but agree with Bishops Burnet and Tomline, that it is highly desirable that these clauses should be expunged. And this is to be wished not merely out of charity to tender consciences, but because they naturally excite a prejudice against the Exposition itself, and afford a specious pretence to those whose real objection is to the doctrine which is therein so clearly stated. We have a precedent for their omission ; for the anathema with which the Council of Nice 230 LECTURE VIII. strengthened their Creed has been long universally dropped. It was the custom for Councils to anathematise those pro- fessing heretical opinions; and it is the invariable termination of each dogma decreed by the Council of Trent. Thus, for example, " whoever shall say that by the sacraments of the new law grace is not conferred by the mere performance of the act, ex opere operato, let him be accursed, anathema sit." The phrase occurs only in one of our own Articles, the eighteenth. " They also, sunt anathematizandi, are accursed that presume to say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that law." This however seems not quite so strong as the Athanasian clauses; anathematised or cursed means put out of the church, and if a person dies excommunicated, he cannot of course claim any of the privileges promised to its members. Nevertheless, she pronounces not their external damnation, she leaves them to the uncovenanted mercies of their God. Some divines, observing that the Church had been satisfied for centuries with two Creeds, (for the Athanasian cannot be reckoned such.,) have expressed their regret that the Reformers should have encumbered themselves with minute confessions of faith, which instead of putting an end to controversy, provoke it. Bishop Taylor even suggests, that we ought to be content with the Apostles' Creed; but surely a careful examination of it will lead any one on reflection to perceive, that it bears so little on the contested points of modern theology, that it could be signed by persons of opposite opinions, and could produce only an apparent conformity. According to our notions, Confessions of faith include too many particulars : and with our expe- rience we should be disposed to leave as open questions, several which our ancestors thought themselves bound to determine. In every Church there will be a high and low school, and each will have a tendency to different doctrinal views; but considerable latitude will be granted on both sides on questions which have not been recently debated. The Laity indeed, speaking generally, have only to recite the ancient Creeds, for there is no other test of their con- LECTURE VIII. forinity than their joining in the use of the Book of Common Prayer. But from those who have not only to administer the Sacraments but to teach the congregation, it is reason- able to require a more specific test of their orthodoxy. The Creeds also rather state the facts than the doctrines of our religion. The modern Unitarian indeed could not repeat the Nicene : but I doubt if a conscientious one would have any scruple to call the second Person of the Trinity the only-begotten Son of God. His birth, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, are facts which he maintains ; and nothing is affirmed of the atoning efficacy of that death, or of the fulfilment of the intercessory office of his priest- hood in heaven. The Holy Ghost he will acknowledge in name, though he denies his reality ; and nothing is declared respecting the doctrines of grace. The forgiveness of sins is all that is said respecting the scheme of salvation. In the Nicene Creed indeed it is connected with Baptism, but nothing is added respecting Regeneration. The other Sacrament is altogether overlooked, though it presents the most marked difference between Roman Catholics and Pro- testants, and even separates the latter into two grand divisions. The Creeds, short as they still are, were enlarged from time to time to exclude heretics as they arose ; but these heresies have died away. The early Church discussed the nature of the Deity ; the subjective divinity of modern times has more wisely examined the nature of the salvation wrought, and the method by which a sinner is to obtain an interest in it. The ancient Creeds have been retained by the Reformers, but they found it necessary to draw up ad- ditional statements to explain the Articles on which they differed from Rome, and the Pope found it equally ex- pedient to lengthen the Nicene Creed. LECTURE IX. ARTICLE IX. OF ORIGINAL OR BIRTH-SIN. Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and cor- ruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated ; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek, tpgovypoL tbs, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin. Having laid down the doctrines of the Church as far as concerns the Deity, having acknowledged the three ancient Creeds, and declared that the Scripture is the only source of religious knowledge, we proceed to the second division of the Articles, which treats of the application of the salva- tion provided by God to Man, who is first considered as an individual ; and in the discussion of this we must consider his moral nature, both as he is by birth, and under the covenant of grace, that is, as a Christian. In our first LECTURE IX. 233 division, with the exception of the Article on the sufficiency of Scripture, not only the Church of England and other Reformed Churches, but that from which we have seceded, and the orthodox dissenters, that is, all who have seceded from us, with the exception of the Unitarians and the Friends, are unanimous ; upon this second division there is consider- able difference of opinion. St. Paul informs usa, that no other foundation of Christian doctrine can be laid than Jesus Christ : and unless this foundation be correctly and deeply laid, the superstructure will not answer its purpose, and will be in perpetual danger of falling. But what ne- cessity, the unbeliever proudly and scoffingly asks, for this foundation ? Is it not sufficient for God to declare his will, and for man to obey it? To this we readily reply, that nothing more is or could be required by God than perfect obedience, and this (which divines call the covenant of works) was the religion revealed to our first parents in paradise. Adam was created with the ability of keeping this law, which ability he lost by his disobedience, both for himself and his posterity ; and certainly if any man could have since kept the whole moral law, Christ need not have died for him ; but who will dare to challenge the scrutiny of the heart-searching God ? The experience of all, even of those who by baptism have been admitted into covenant, and placed under the most favourable circumstances, de- monstrates that this is impossible ; and if any maintain the contrary, it must be from some misconception of the divine law. As soon as he perceives that it extends to the thoughts and desires, not being like the law of man restricted to the cognisance of actions, that it requires the dedication of all our faculties, times, and means, to the service of God the Giver, that it makes no allowance for omissions, and demands constant obedience to every precept; he must confess, that at least, if he hath committed no positive offence, he has some- times failed in the performance of duty ; and as the law knows nothing of repentance, which derives its efficacy solely from the death of the Saviour, a transgressor can have no hope from an agreement, the condition of which is, ■ 1 Cor. iii. II. 234 LECTURE IX. do this and live, the penalty, cursed is every one who con- tinueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do themh. This impossibility is occasioned by human depravity, that is, the corrupt nature that we have all in succession inherited from our progenitor Adam. A belief therefore in his fall and its consequences, which makes the satisfaction and atonement wrought by Christ indis- pensable, is the first principle of genuine Christianity, and therefore the Articles upon this branch of Theology com- mence with one on Original or Birth-sin. This tenet must be acknowledged and heartily embraced, before we can see the necessity of the foundation that is laid ; and it is from ignorance or disbelief of it, that this living stone, chosen of God and precious, has been disallowed by so many builders, and become even a stone of stumbling and rock of offence. To them who believe, He is precious; and in proportion to their knowledge of the divine perfections, and their sense of their own sinfulness, will be their love and gratitude ; thus while to the contrite and humble Christian his Saviour appears to be altogether lovely, the chief est among ten thousand, the self-righteous can see no comeliness in him that they should admire him. The pride of man naturally revolts from this humiliating doctrine, and endeavours when it cannot wholly deny it, to evade it ; and too many who admit it into their creed, show that though they acknow- ledge it for form's sake, it has no practical influence upon their system. It is therefore the more important that our faith in this fundamental doctrine should be fully established. It follows from this truth, that all systems of Ethics, however plausible and imposing, which assume that man is originally innocent, and of his own accord prefers virtue to vice, are radically erroneous. The works too of heathen moralists, however admirable as literary compositions, though they may contain many just remarks, and excellent rules for conduct in particular cases, must never be appealed to as authorities, but are themselves to be tried by the only standard of right and wrong, the revealed word of God. If read in the Christian spirit, they have their use in showing b Girl. iii. 10. LECTURE IX. 235 the limits of our faculties in religious and moral speculations, and in some instances shaming those who enjoy greater light. But taken as guides, they will only feed our self- righteousness with exaggerated notions of our dignity and excellence. The best systems also devised by human moralists view man only as a creature ; but his duty as such is clearly not the same as when to this relation is superadded that of a sinner justified. The wisdom that cometh from above, that is, Christianity, discloses the remedy which in- finite wisdom and mercy have provided for the recovery of sinners, both from the guilt and from the power of sin. This is implied in the very language of religion ; a Redeemer intimates a previous captivity ; a Sanctifier previous impurity ; atonement to divine justice our righteous condemnation ; regeneration or a new birth the necessity of a complete change both of state and of character. So obvious is this, that no believer in Christ can well deny this statement. Accordingly all concede some degree of corruption, yet an attempt is often made to reduce it almost to nothing. This opposes the doctrine of the Reformers: and the Church of England in particular maintains in this Article that this corruption is total. " Man is very far gone from original righteousness, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." The context sufficiently denotes the meaning ; some however have eagerly caught at the antiquated phrase, "very far gone from original righteousness," as if equivalent to not altogether departed from it. The Latin, quam longissime, shows that this is a misconception. Still such an important doctrine will not depend upon the strict meaning of a single phrase. If indeed the belief in it was firmly rooted in the minds of all the Reformers, it may then be expected to be showing itself continually in all their formularies, and that it doth pervade them is a matter of notoriety. Upon what other view can we explain the following passages in our own Book of Common" Prayer ? "there is no health in us, — make clean our hearts within us, — O God, from whom all holy desires do proceed, — who seest that of ourselves we have no power 236 LECTURE IX. to help ourselves, — we cannot do any thing good without thee." The Homilies are so full of this doctrine, that our only difficulty is selection. The following quotations will suffice. From the second. "On the Misery of all Mankind." " We are sheep that run astray, but we cannot of our own power come again to the sheepfold in ourselves ; therefore may we not glory, which of ourselves are nothing but sinful. The Holy Ghost in writing the holy Scriptures is in nothing more diligent than in putting down man's vain glory and pride, which of all vices is most universally grafted in all mankind, even from the first infection of our first father Adam. Of ourselves and by ourselves, we are not able to think a good thought, or work a good deed, so that we can find in ourselves no hope of salvation, but rather whatsoever maketh for our destruction." And from the Homily for Whitsunday. • "Man of his own nature is fleshly and carnal, corrupt and naught, sinful and disobedient to God, without any spark of goodness in him, without any virtuous or godly motion, only given to evil thoughts and wicked deeds." Let us now examine how far the charge is borne out by Scripture ; and here again the subject recurs so continually, that we have abundance of texts. The imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth0. There is no man that sinneth notA. The flesh is weak*. I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members*. The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can beg. Our Saviour's argument with Nicodemus is, that man must be born again, because he is flesh ; now a new birth implies not a partial amendment, but an entire renovation; and St. Paul arguesh, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and treats the subject methodically in the Epistle to the Romans, the object of which is to prepare mankind for the reception of the good tidings of salvation, by showing that both Jews and Gentiles, that is, all the descendants of Adam, are guilty before God, and that by the deeds of the law no flesh c Gen. viii. 21. d 1 Kings viii. 46. « Matt. xxvi. 41. f Rom. vii. 23. k Rom. viii. 7. h 1 Cor. v. 14. LECTURE IX. 231 shall be justified in his sight. Now if one sinless man had ever existed, he would have been justified by his own obedience; as therefore no flesh, that is, no child of Adam, shall be justified by the works of the Law, it follows that every one is a sinner. St. Paul thus announces it; What then are we — that is, Jews, who had an advantage in their knowledge of God's revealed will, and at least outward assistances — better than they ? No, in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin ; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. He prefers this and other quotations from the Old Testament to words of his own, because they would have more weight with those to whom he was writing ; and they also prove that he is not declaiming against the particular depravity of his own age, for his design is not simply to bring them to repentance, but to convince them that all are sinners, and that not by habit or imitation, but by nature ; for otherwise his reason- ing could not stand, that salvation is from the free unmerited mercy of God. Such is the language of Revelation, and what it declares on this head is abundantly proved by experience. The universality of sin is shown by the history and present state of every nation, which presents a general picture of war, tyranny, and rebellion. Laws are made to prevent or punish crimes ; they exist in every country, and are changed continually, as they are found to fail of their effect, by the substitution of others that promise greater success. To this head are to be referred all the means of safety devised for our persons and property ; the bolts, bars, and locks by which we defend our houses, the notes, bonds, and deeds, by which we endeavour to secure our contracts, prevent fraud, and compel the dishonest to fulfil their engage- ments ; also prisons and legal punishments ; for in a world of virtuous beings, none of these would be wanted, and we should have no prisons or legal punishments. The religion of heathen nations confirms the same doctrine, for it is every where expiatory, that is, its object has been to appease an offended Deity ; it therefore consists of penances, ablutions, and sacrifices. The two first speak for themselves; attempts LECTURE IX. have been made to explain away the latter; but though the offerings of fruits, as the result of the labour of the hus- bandman, may be resolved into a thanksgiving, the death of unoffending animals, especially of human victims, shows that the worshippers conceived it necessary to appease the offended Deity, and that he was an object of his displeasure. The writings of moralists, poets, and historians, attest the same fact of human corruption ; none of them have ever referred us to any character, in any age, that they have considered to be free from sin; and if they have ever attempted to delineate such an one from imagination, it has always been pronounced unnatural ; " A faultless monster, whom the world ne'er saw." The fact is so undeniable, that it has forced itself upon the notice of the thoughtful in every age. Thus Cicero1 observes, that if nature had so framed us as to give us a full and perfect view of her, and ability to follow her as a guide, then mankind would have needed no other teacher ; but that the true light of nature is now no where to be found. No sooner are we born than we fall into all depravity, and extreme perversity of opinion, so that we seem to suck in error almost with our own nurse's milk. And St. Augustin quotes him as complaining that nature had brought man into the world more like a stepmother than a parent, too weak for labour and too prone to desire, with some sparks indeed of the divine fire in his mind, but those smothered and obscured. His remark is, that Cicero very clearly saw the thing, but was ignorant of the cause ; he knew not the reason why so heavy a yoke was laid upon the sons of Adam, and being unacquainted with the sacred records, was a stranger to the doctrine of inherited sin. The cause they could not know, but they saw and felt the effect; and the Manichean fancy of an evil principle, and the philosophical notion that this depravation proceeded from a pre-existent state, and that our propensity to sin in this world was an evil habit contracted by the soul in another, by a voluntary deviation from God, for which ' Tuscul. Disp. iii. LECTURE IX. reason it was sent into the body, were only unsuccessful endeavours to explain it; while the fable of the golden age and of the reign of Saturn, indicated an original state of perfection which had ceased. The best of Christians have always been the most ready to acknowledge this humiliat- ing truth, because they are best acquainted with the extent and spirituality of the divine law; but the conscience of every man convicts him, to say the least, of some sin com- mitted, or some duty neglected, and when he endeavours to keep the Commandments, though his judgment approves of them as excellent, he finds within himself a spirit reluctant to perform them. Even the heathen poet Ovid makes Medea say, " I see and approve what is better, I follow what is worse." And this struggle was delineated long before him by Xenophonk, in his tale of Araspes, who, when overcome by his passion for Panthea, his captive, against his sense of duty, exclaims, that the sophist love has taught him that he has two souls, for if he had but one, it would not at the same time be both good and bad. The fear of death, and the aversion to any intercourse with the Creator, found in all, except in as far as they are renewed in the spirit of their minds, spring from a sense of sin ; for the good would have nothing to fear from a just Judge, and would delight in communion with a holy God. The rejection of the word of God, which is never received in the love of it, except where nature has been subdued by grace, is a decisive proof of this depravity. This is strikingly manifested by the manner in which it has been rejected, for its opponents have always treated it with contempt or hatred; and though they have declaimed in praise of virtue, they have generally been the slaves of sin, and in no instance to be compared as moral men to the real followers of Christ. The practical unbelief of nominal Christians is substantially of the same character, for they deny the real import of the book they profess to receive ; its doctrines they have in forms very different, but in design and spirit wholly the same, lowered continually down, so as to suit, or at least so as not to dis- gust, the taste of a sinful heart. The extent also and k Cyropajdia, vi. 240 LECTURE IX. purity of its moral precepts they have contracted and debased, so as to license many evil practices that are grati- fying to the natural mind. The sum of this argument is, that God has not only given to man a perfect law for the government of his conduct, reasonable and just in itself, but has annexed a reward to its performance, and punishment to the breach and neglect of it ; if therefore man was vir- tuously disposed, he would render an immediate cheerful and universal obedience to it as soon as proposed. Now even supposing such a being to apostatize, and afterwards to be informed of a method by which it might return to obedience, and the favour of God, still if he did not prefer sin, he would accept it with gratitude ; now this we have already stated, that no man is inclined to do, unless by the preventing grace of God. The unwillingness of Christians to embrace this tenet in all its fulness, arises, I conceive, from misconception. They perceive neither in themselves, nor in their acquaint- ance, that entire unmixed wickedness, which they suppose to be necessarily comprehended in it ; but they forget, and we are all apt to forget, that in making this broad state- ment, we are not talking of Christian but of human nature. The grace conferred in baptism, even allowing it to be as weak as those maintain who lower it, as much as is con- sistent with distinguishing it as a sacrament from a rite, must, unless entirely lost, make an essential difference between the weakest Christian and a heathen. Inasmuch as any partake of the spirit of Christ; and the gradations are more than we can enumerate ; they have subdued sin, and though it still dwells in them, opposing itself to their good resolutions, it no longer, as in the unregenerate, reigns. They should also consider, that some vicious habits are con- trary to others, and that the sinful principle will not break faith into all kinds of overt acts in the same individual ; each has his constitutional bias or besetting sin ; one is more tempted by the lusts of the flesh, another by those of the spirit ; but St. James shows, that he who is guilty in one point is guilty in all, for all sins being forbidden by the same legislator, the same authority is defied, whichever LECTURE IX. 241 we break; and if a sense of duty cannot keep us, for instance, from stealing, from the strength of our inclination, we have no reason to conclude it would from adultery, or murder, if our tendencies towards those crimes were as strong. Love is the fulfilling of the law; selfishness therefore, or the preferring our own supposed interest or gratification to the welfare of our neighbour, or the command of God, is the contrary. The virtues of heathens are pleaded as an objection; but, strictly speaking, we cannot allow their title to this appellation, since they do not spring from the perfect motive, the desire of obeying their Creator. Augustin calls them shining vices, splendida vitia; and though men are accustomed with classical enthusiasm to admire, perhaps to magnify them, we shall, on calmly weighing them in the balance of the Sanctuary, find the best of them defective, and some that have been highly extolled more deserving of blame than praise. Nor is he more rigid than our own Church, which affirms in a following Article, XIII, "in- asmuch as such actions spring not out of faith in Jesus Christ, they are not pleasant to God, yea rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded, we doubt not that they have the nature of sin." We must alsc bear in mind, that much of the depravity of man is unknown to us. God hides from all but his own eyes that worst of sights, " a naked human heart ;" shame, outward circum- stances, and the fear of consequences, will often restrain the disposition from declaring itself in actions. If all of these impediments were withdrawn, how much worse would men appear to be than they now do ? and such we must recollect they do appear to the heart-searching God. In all there- fore of this description, who keep up a fair show of outward conduct, there must be an inward latent depravity, much greater than is suspected by others, or even by themselves. After all, I allow that the doctrine may be overstated. That all men are by nature as bad as possible, cannot be maintained, because we observe gradations of evil in the wicked ; and the same wicked person, unless he amend, will not be stationary, but will grow worse and worse; so that in R 242 LECTURE IX. an earlier stage of his course he must have been com- paratively innocent. The natural man has also preserved some feelings of benevolence and justice, though not suffi- cient to preserve the name of goodness, because the exercise of them has not its source in the love of God, is not directed to his glory, nor regulated by a reference to his will. It is spirituality of mind that was lost. According to Augustin, the supernatural talents were totally lost, but the natural ones only corrupted; reason may be debilitated and vitiated, but it is not destroyed ; and the intellectual faculties of man, however impaired, still proclaim, that the hand that made him is divine. Majestic though in ruins, the exertions of human genius, as exhibited in poets, artists, philosophers, and statesmen, are still wonderful. It is when it goes beyond the limits of the present life, that the understanding best shows its imbecility. So the will of man, being in- separable from his nature, was not annihilated by the fall ; it has only received such a bias from that event, that it is now inclined to evil ; it is under no necessity from any external cause to do wrong, but it does wrong because it suits its inclination, and will not do right, till it is freed from the slavery of sin by divine grace. With respect to the theoretical knowledge of duty, the Apostle declares to the Romans, that when the Gentiles who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, they are a law unto themselves, which shows a natural consciousness of right and wrong ; we cannot therefore say, that they are altogether ignorant of their duty, and indeed if they were, they must be absolved from guilt. St. Paul had said just before, as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law ; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law. Because it would appear unreasonable, that the Gentiles should suffer for their transgression of a law that had not been made known unto them, he subjoins, that their conscience supplied the place of positive prohibitions, and deprived them of the plea of ignorance ; for it is not the want of knowledge, (though that be imperfect,) but the want of inclination to practise what they knew to be right, that will condemn them. LECTURE IX. 243 It is so natural to wish to underrate the degree of human depravity, that all observations that have this tendency ought to be received with suspicion, as it is well known how much, even where there is no intention to mislead, the understanding is biassed by the will. All that I mean to contend for, when I say that the image of God in which Adam was created has been destroyed, is, that man is now so depraved, that he cannot of himself do any thing pleasing to God, and that he does not even wish to be liberated from this bondage of sin. And this is fully proved by a survey of the business and the amusements of mankind, even in Christian countries; the difficulty there is found of sup- pressing vice, and promoting virtue by education, exhort- ations, or rewards and punishments ; and by the confessions of those who in their renewed state of heart, have looked back upon their original condition. The inspired writers acknowledge, that even the Christian who has been freed by grace from the dominion of sin, much more than the mere natural man, is not sufficient of himself to think any thing as of himself. David, conscious of this imbecility, prays that understanding may be given him, to enable him rightly to learn the commandments of the Lord ; for his ardent and repeated desire to obtain a new understanding, implies the insufficiency of his own. And what he requests for himself, St. Paul frequently supplicates for the Church at large. We do not cease to pray for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. This picture of man's depravity will be heightened, if to his vices and defects we add the imperfection of his best qualities, which I give in the energetic language of Hooker, in his Sermon on Justification. "If we could say we are not guilty of any thing at all in our consciences, (we know ourselves far from this innocence,) should we therefore plead not guilty before the presence of our Judge, that sees further into our hearts than we our- selves can do ? If our hands did never offer violence to our brethren, a bloody thought does prove us murderers before him ; if we had never opened our mouth to utter any scan- it 2 244 LECTURE IX. dalous, offensive, or hurtful word, the cry of our secret cogitations is heard in the ears of God. If we did not commit the sins, which daily and hourly, either in deed, word, or thought, we do commit, yet in the good things we do, how many defects are there intermingled ! God in that which is done respecteth the mind and intention of the doer; cut off therefore all those things wherein we have regarded our own glory, those things which men do to please men, and to satisfy their own liking, those things we do for any bye respect, and a small score will serve for the number of our righteous deeds. Let the holiest and best things we do be considered. We are never better affected unto God than when we pray, yet when we pray, how are our affections many times distracted ? The best things we do have something in them to be pardoned, how then can we do any thing meritorious or worthy to be rewarded? Indeed, God doth liberally promise whatever appertaineth to a blessed life, to as many as sincerely keep his law, though they are not able exactly to keep it ; wherefore we acknow- ledge a dutiful necessity of doing well, but the meritorious dignity of doing well we utterly renounce." It must also be remembered, that Hooker is here speaking of believers, who as baptized are renewed at least in part. This depravity shows itself most strikingly in aversion to the real character of the Deity, and by real I mean his character as delineated in Scripture ; that is, as including the attributes of justice and holiness ; for the natural man and the worst of sinners may form to themselves such a notion of God as they can delight in, that is, a Being all love and mercy, too kind to punish any sins which are not greatly injurious to mankind, and those only for a season. This however is little better than a refined species of idolatry, and it seems to be with reference to such persons, who substitute for the true God an idol of their own imagination, that the Deity is thus introduced in the fiftieth Psalm. These things (that is, theft, adultery, and other sins enumerated) hast thou done, and I held my tongue, and thou thoughtest wickedly that I am even such an one as thy- self'; but I will reprove thee, and set before thee the things that LECTURE IX. 245 thou hast done. The truth of this statement will appear from the opposition made to the character of God as revealed in his own word, which avowed infidels argue against, or ridicule, and which too many others labour to explain away. From the moment Adam ate the forbidden fruit, God was no longer his delight ; he was alarmed at his pre- sence, and would fain have hid himself from him. This feeling his posterity inherits : and God being reconciled to man by the atonement effected by his Son, now through his Holy Spirit reconciles man to himself. According to this view, which is that of our own Church, which we have confirmed by the Bible, and supported by facts, man naturally utterly destitute of love to God considered as he is, not as he would wish him to be, seeks his own gratifica- tion only, and chooses voluntarily as his portion, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. Hence, when thwarted in his pursuits, proceed envy, hatred, malice, and, according to the different habits and propen- sities of men, unrighteousness, licentiousness, or ungod- liness. Eternal punishment is annexed to every transgres- sion of the divine law, which prohibits all sin ; and when this is made known to the sinner, unless it convince and convert him, his hatred to God will then manifest itself. The next enquiry is, whence doth this tendency to evil proceed ? and the Article explicitly answers, " it is the fault of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam," and not as the Pelagians vainly talk in the following, that is the imitation, of Adam. The Pelagians are so called from one Morgan a Welshman, a monk, who was in Rome in A.D. 405, where he lived in friendship with the best and most eminent Christians, and who is mentioned by his illustrious opponent Augustin, as a man of extraordinary capacity and accomplishments, and one whom he should much admire and love, were it not for his heterodox opinions. The Greek term UsKuyio^ mari- time, by which he is known, is a translation of Morgan, and was given to him, or assumed by him, because he came from beyond sea. Rome having been sacked in A.D. 410, we find him in Africa, and afterwards in Palestine. He 246 LECTURE IX. had two followers, Celestius and Julian, as well known as himself. The Christian world was so much agitated by the discussion of his doctrine, that no less than twenty-four Councils were held upon the subject, between 412 and 430. St. Jerome wrote against him ; but his most distinguished opponent was St. Augustin, who completely confuted him, and the doctrine of original sin has ever since been held in all the divisions of the Western Church. The term he first used, but the doctrine, though like others before it had been called into question, it had not been so fully stated, or so clearly proved, being an essential one, may be found in the earliest fathers, who call it the old guilt, the ancient wound, the common curse. The following quo- tations may suffice. " Christ was born and crucified for mankind, who through Adam had fallen under death and the deception of the serpent, besides the particular sins of which each person is guilty1." Origen, " the curse of Adam is common to all menm." And from the words of David, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother con- ceived me. And from the practice of Infant Baptsim, which, as Augustin argues against Pelagius, is decisive of the opinion of the Church, for if there were nothing in children which required remission, the grace of Baptism would seem superfluous. The universality of the corruption proves it to be com- mon to the whole race now ; and as far as history goes back, we find it to have been the same. The antediluvian world we know to have been drowned, with the exception of a single family, because the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually; and the first descendant of Adam mur- dered his brother. Imitation will not explain the crime of Cain, for there is reason to believe that his parents were penitent: and if mankind were by nature virtuously inclined, or even in a neutral state, good examples would be more followed, or at least as much as bad ones. The passages from Scripture already cited are in opposition to the Pelagian view, which followed out into its legitimate con- sequences would bring us to Socinianism, which maintains 1 Justin Martyr, Dialogue. m Celsus iv. LECTURE IX. that we derive no other advantage from Christ's righteous- ness than the proposal to our imitation of a perfect example. But it appears certain that in the same manner as other animals beget an offspring resembling themselves, we all, since Adam sinned before he had any children, derive from our progenitor a nature so frail and inclined to sin, that as soon as temptations arise, it will show itself forth in actual transgressions4 Thus Augustin, though he calls it the sin of another, the more clearly to intimate its transmission to us by propagation, yet at the same time asserts that it belongs to each individual. Our Saviour and his Apostles declare that we are born with sinful dispositions; and it could not be otherwise, unless God had interposed to restore Adam to his original righteousness, which we know he did not ; for it is expressly said, that Adam was created in the divine image, which he lost, and afterwards that he begat Seth in his own image. Both circumcision, the initiatory rite before the coming of Christ, and Baptism which since succeeded it, signify that flesh and blood, that is the nature we derive from Adam, cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven. But original sin does not only con- sist in the corruption of our nature, but is generally con- sidered as also a state of condemnation, in which we are born, or, as it is said, the sin of Adam is imputed to us as guilt. This is objected to by many as a harsh saying; nor can they perceive how it can be consistent with the goodness or even the justice of God, to render men guilty of a sin in which they had no personal concern. We can readily conceive, they say, how God in the riches of his grace may transfer merit and blessing from one person to another ; this is an economy of mercy wherein all is free, and such a method is taken herein as best demonstrates the goodness of God ; but. in the imputation of sin and guilt, which are matters of strict justice, the case is widely dif- ferent; and therefore we find God often appealing to man- kind concerning the righteousness of his ways, denying expressly that children are to suffer for the transgressions of their parents", but that the soul that sinneth it shall die, and n Ezek.xviii. 20. 248 LECTURE IX. affirming positively, that every one shall bear his own burden0, and give an account of his own works*. Yet the Apostle's comparison between the first Adam and the second, as he calls Christ, seems to show, that as through faith the merits of the latter are imputed to us for justification, so by the offence of one judgment came upon all to condemnation; and by one man's disobedience many would be made, or treated, as sinners1!. And the whole design of the dis- course seems to be defeated, if this imputation be denied, nor can Adam upon this view be called the figure of the Messiah. God, according to our doctrine, is represented as making Adam stand forth as the representative and surety of his posterity, to make a covenant for them, as well as himself ; and the condition of his obedience was eternal life, the penalty eternal death; and of this, temporal death is the sign, and the latter at least can hardly be denied, for death hath certainly passed upon all men, and even those who have committed no actual sins, that is, infants, die. That the Scriptures do sometimes represent men as to be considered, nay, even to be rewarded or punished, not only individually, but collectively, may easily be proved; considered, as when Levir paid tithes in Abraham to Melchizedec ; rewarded, as when Abraham was made the father of the faithful, and when believers are redeemed in Christ; punished, as when God himself declares, that he himself will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. The chief objection seems to be the consequence that is hence supposed to follow of the condemnation of infants not baptized, or at the utmost, not the offspring of at least one believing parent, to eternal punishment. This is a doctrine certainly revolting to the feelings; as stated by Augustin, it is less offensive, for he assigns to them a particular abode ; which is no more than the loss of Heaven without any positive suffering ; but the Calvinists in general go further, and as the Westminster Confession affirms, that elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated, and saved by Christ, this very declaration seems to imply, that there are other infants 0 Gal. vi. 5. p Rom. v. 15. «* Rom. v. JO. r Heb. vii. 4. LECTURE IX. 249 condemned to eternal perdition. But these consequences do not seem to me to be necessary ones. I will grant, that they are, if we look exclusively to the imputation of original sin ; but the Apostle, from whom the doctrine is derived, tells us at the same time, that the remedy is com- mensurate with the injury. As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive3. As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. The doctrine therefore of universal redemption, which is declared in the second, and still more explicitly in the thirty-first, Article, entirely removes this objection. If the offering of the Lamb, slain from the found- ation of the world, be a perfect redemption and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual, and the whole scheme of man's salvation had been decreed from all eternity in the divine counsel, and was actually promised, before any child of Adam was born, even before sentence was pronounced, the benefit of redemption immedi- ately commenced. Upon this hypothesis then every infant that comes into the world, brings along with it at the same time the guilt of Adam's sin, and the benefit of Christ's meritorious death ; nor can the want of baptism be any obstruction to the remedy, since the remedy was ex- hibited long before the institution of this Sacrament. With this explanation, I hope that no objection will be felt to the doctrine of the imputation of original sin, for I think it is conveyed as well as that of a depravity of nature by our Article, which goes on to say, in scriptural language, that it deserves God's wrath and damnation, which in the case of infants, and they are evidently here included, must mean eternal ; I observe by the way, that to say it deserves, is very different from saying it will receive, and this is expressly stated in the Augustan Confession1: from which it appears, that the Lutherans as well as we maintain, 8 1 Cor. xv. 22. 1 Quo nascentes Adae propter lapsum rei sunt irse Dei et mortis crternce. Est vitium origines vere peccatum damnans et afferens nunc quoque cetemam mortem his qui non renascuniur per baptismum et Spiritum Sanctum. 250 LECTURE IX. that this guilt is washed away in baptism, in which opinion also we accord with Rome ; and it is indeed implied in the term Regeneration, so that those who do not consider that act as always taking place in baptism, still take care to maintain this position. This the Dort Canons, which profess Calvinism more fully than any other Con- fession, say is not imputed for condemnation to the children of God. "We have now traced up moral evil to the first man, but it would be an aweful impiety to suppose that the pure and perfect Creator could be the author of it. This only have I found, saith the Preacher, that God made man upright, but they have found out many inventions. We know that God, on completing all his works including man, declared them to be very good, and that Adam was created in his image ; by which we are not merely to under- stand that he was a rational being, but, as it is explained by St. Paul1, like his maker in holiness and righteousness. His reason, as our Homily for the Nativity expresses it, "was incorrupt, his understanding pure and good, his will was obedient and godly ; he was made like unto God in righ- teousness, in holiness, in wisdom, and truth. But though innocent, he was, as we now all are, a free agent, and placed in a state of probation ; life and death were set before him, and he chose the latter. If it be asked, by whose fault ? we answer in the words of our great Poetu, Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of God All he could have; He made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. Why he was permitted to fall, I presume not to enquire ; it is enough for us to know, that as he was the author of his own sin and misery, he was inexcusable ; and that though he might have been justly left in the condition which he had chosen, God, who is rich in mercy, and can bring good out of evil, has taken occasion from his fall to exhibit to angels and men his own glorious attributes, * Eph. iv. 24. u Book iii. LECTURE IX. 251 which could not otherwise have been made so fully known, his holiness, his justice, and his mercy. An act which brought sin and death into the world, and to remove the effects of which it was necessary that the coequal Son of God should become incarnate, and endure an ignominious and painful death, could be no slight offence; but as in- fidels represent it as by no means proportionate to God's indignation, and that he is described as unreasonable and severe, and as even some believers in a degree feel the objection, it may be proper briefly to consider the nature of the test of his obedience. We premise, that the objection carries with it its own refutation ; for in the proportion in which they would represent the eating of the forbidden fruit as a trifle, in the same proportion they lower the temptation, and enhance the guilt of the offender. God's eye fixes upon the state of the mind, and this is discovered as much, or rather more, in matters comparatively small, and in an arbitrary appointment more than in a moral precept, which would at once recommend itself to the judgment. Many of the latter he as lord of all that he beheld, and with no other fellow creature, except her who had been given to him as a friend and assistant, had not the power or temptation to break ; nor if he could, would they have been so correct a trial of the state of his heart towards his Maker. If he put the question, How can this be? ought not the word of God to have satisfied him ? It is fit then a creature should obey his Creator, and it is his interest as well as his duty, nor could he as a rational and moral being be otherwise virtuous and happy. Now obedience supposes a previous commandment, and none could be easier, for Adam possessed whatever he could need or require, and was not like many of his descendants tempted by any sense of want. His acceptance we must also remember was suspended upon a single point, of which he was previously fully warned, so that he completely knew his duty, and might summon all his strength and watchfulness to his support in this only assailable quarter. His experience taught him, that God could have no other design in this trial than his good ; he had the strongest motives to 252 LECTURE IX. obedience, arising from gratitude, a knowledge of his in- terest, the fear of punishment, and the hope of reward, and above all, being as yet innocent, he had no sinful propensity. The trial therefore was not a hard one. But why was the offence so strictly punished ? We reply, what hath been said tends to show its magnitude, which was indeed of the deepest die ; it was not the mere gratification of appetite, or curiosity, inexcusable as that would have been, but an act of decided rebellion, a practical declaration, that God was a severe master who forbad his creature what would have improved his condition; it was therefore distrust and want of faith in the highest degree, and that under circumstances which were most favourable to its exhibition ; and if it be asked why a fruit was fixed upon, we answer, that whatever was the mode or instrument of rebellion, the sin was substantially the same ; for the same authority was despised, the same obligation broken, and the same guilt incurred. It is essential not only to sound theological knowledge, but to genuine confidence in and reliance upon God, as a just and merciful Governor of the world, (as a means to which sound knowledge is requisite,) that we should not only acknowledge, but feel that the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works ; we must therefore endeavour to convince ourselves, that God is perfect in all his moral attributes, and consequently that his condemn- ation of our progenitors was just. Thus only can we be prepared to appreciate the inestimable gift of redemption, and to receive it with humble gratitude ; for unless we acquiesce in the justice of the sentence, we shall look upon the remedy provided, rather as a debt due to human nature, to compensate for what it lost in Adam, than as an act of free unmerited mercy. But when brought to this acknow- ledgment, (which is difficult to the best of us from the remainder of this corruption which still worketh in us,) we shall find Christianity to deserve the title of Gospel, or good tidings, and shall comprehend why the Saviour d-emands from us the highest degree of love, and why the Epistles abound with exhortations to gratitude ; St. Paul's LECTURE IX. 253 prayer for the Ephesians will then be made our own, that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, they might be rooted and grounded in love, and be able to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge ; we shall then, in the language of the Homily on the Kativity, " praise him with our tongues, believe on him with our hearts, and glorify him with our good works." There are some who are misled by a false analogy to conclude, that it would not have been unbecoming, and might have been honourable to the Deity, to have pardoned the offence, because forgiveness is a virtue in man ; but these persons do not consider, that what is fit from one imperfect being to another, cannot be so between a perfect Creator and his guilty creature ; for that which it was right to threaten, it must be right to execute. The true cause of the punishment of sin is not the vindictive feeling of an injured or offended Being, but the justice of God, which is an essential property of his nature ; and this is the same with his holiness, so that he does not punish arbitrarily ; but these attributes require it, as it is indispensable that God should in all things be just and holy, in other words, that he should continue to be God. In proclaiming his cha- racter to Moses, he declares that he will by no means clear the guilty ; the punishment therefore of every transgressor, if not in his own person, yet by his surety, does not depend upon a mere optional arrangement, nor is it solely resolv- able into God's veracity in fulfilling his threatening, but is antecedently necessary, unless we would have the divine nature changed, that sinners might enjoy impunity. We may add, that if the penalty depended only upon the revealed will of God, and his faithfulness to his engagements, it would be expected only by those nations to whom his will was revealed ; yet those that have not the written law to instruct them, find when they sin, as the Apostle says, that conscience accuses them, and accordingly they have invented various methods of appeasing the Deity whose displeasure they fear, which proves that even the light of nature shows that sin is worthy of punishment. Scripture affirms x, that it is * 2 Thess. i. 6. 254 LECTURE IX. a righteous thing with God to render tribulation to sinners, and he is saidy to have declared his righteousness by the sufferings of Christ. This exhibited his justice no less than his mercy, but if it were just to punish sin, it must have been unjust to pardon it. Men are too apt to fancy, that though God's promises will be fulfilled, his threat- enings may not be executed ; but it was through this very delusion that sin entered into the world, " Has God said that you shall die if you eat ?" A suggestion arises, that if this be the meaning, still it will not be acted on, and this delusion still widely prevails ; but what ground is there for this presumed distinction between threats and promises ? What difference between these two clauses in their autho- rity, He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned 'i Many who allow the reasonableness of punishment, stumble at the notion of its eternity, since the sins to be punished are finite, transient, temporary. Yet even among ourselves we consider the- guilt of crimes to be aggravated in proportion to the excellence of the person against whom they are committed, and our obligations to respect and love them ; now no creature, knowing fully the Deity against whom all sin is committed, can fully understand its enormity; and God alone understands what it is for his creature, who is dependent upon him for life and all things, to withdraw himself as it were from his government, and to oppose his authority. He alone knows what sin deserves, and what ought to be the degree and duration of punishment. Some Christians, even contradicting the words of Scripture, deny the eternity of future punishments ; but this is setting up their own notions of fitness against God's express declara- tion, and we may reprove them in the words of Balaam, God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it; or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good* ? If the wicked are to be punished for ever, it is the part of mercy to reveal the fact, in order to alarm men, and bring them to repentance ; but to hold out threats which are not to be J Rom. i. 18. 1 Numbers xxiii. 19. LECTURE IX. 255 executed is derogatory from God's moral character, and would leave us incapable of trusting him for the pro- mised rewards of Heaven. Such a supposition, though it may have the semblance of piety, must arise from inadequate views of holiness and sin, and from a notion that punishment is of a purifying quality ; but so far is this from being true, that it would increase the wickedness of the sufferer, and especially his hatred of the Being by whom it is inflicted. And it is disproved in the case of the evil spirits, who in our Saviour's time had been enduring punish- ment for thousands of years, and were no less hostile then to God than when they fell ; and they we know are reserved to everlasting torments. If men, therefore, in a future state continue to sin, they will continue to suffer punishment; re- straining grace will be withdrawn from them, the Holy Spirit will no longer strive with them, and therefore they will grow worse continually, so that as they are immortal beings, they will ever remain in the state in which death has found them. We have seen that God is not the author of evil, and that the man and woman whom he created were free from any sinful inclination. How then came they to disobey? By the deception of an evil spirit, who had himself previously fallen through the suggestion of his own mind. If the inquiry be pushed a step further, and it be asked why or how evil should originate in the creation of a Being of perfect power and purity, we must confess that our limited faculties are unequal to the discovery. It is one of the deep things of Him whose ways are past finding out. Metaphysicians have exhibited much sub til ty in their dis- quisitions, yet have " found no end in wandering mazes lost ;" it is the part therefore of real wisdom and genuine piety to refrain from such high and dangerous speculations, and to rest satisfied with knowing, that even moral evil itself shall be ultimately overruled so as to raise those who really turn to God to a happier and more glorious state through the second Adam, than they would ever have enjoyed, if the first Adam had not fallen. Canst thou by searching find ou t God ? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? Higher than heaven, what canst thou do? deeper 256 LECTURE IX. than hell what canst thou know ? longer than the earth is his measure, and broader than the sea", is Zophar's just rebuke to Job. And certainly, if we were fully sensible of the distance between God and ourselves, we should see the reasonableness of the Apostle's interrogation, Who art thou, 0 man, that repliest against Godb? If we find fault with God's government of the world, we virtually declare our- selves fit to be His counsellors; whereas it becomes us to cry out, 0 the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! The consideration of the infinite distance between His understanding and ours should make us cheerfully acquiesce in all He does, however mysterious ; nor have we a right to expect that He should give us an account of his matters. We find, therefore, that when Job was per- plexed with the divine dispensations, God answered him not by a vindication of his providence, but by showing him how infinitely he was his superior. It became Job to submit to his Creator in those things which he did not understand, and to believe that his reasons, though unknown, were good, in other words, to have faith ; and the reply, which so awefully proclaims the divine power, wisdom, and sovereignty, had a tendency to bring him to this. Job accord- ingly ceases to justify himself, or to repine, but exclaims as a penitent, Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee ! 1 will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer ; yea twice, but I will proceed no further ! It is not astonishing that a God of infinite glory should shine with a brightness too dazzling for mortal eyes, when even Angels are represented as veiling their faces in this overpowering light. The practical importance of the doctrine of original sin should be attentively marked, for there is a cold and specu- lative assent to it, that has no influence upon the conduct. If a man assumes that he was originally virtuous, and only corrupted by example, he will be apt to think himself as good as a frail imperfect creature can expect to be, and he will consider justification and acceptance as his due; or if • Job xi. 7—9. b Rom. ix. 20. LECTURE IX. 257 he should allow that Christ has in some sense died for him, he will conceive that his merits make up for his own de- ficiencies, and will regard, him rather as an assistant in the work, than as the author and finisher of his faith, and consequently of his salvation, so that his reliance will be mainly upon himself. To him the gospel, instead of being what its name imports, is but a valuable system of morals, purer indeed than any other, and enforced by stronger sanctions ; whereas he who commences his moral course, with a full conviction of his exposure to God's wrath, of the corruption of his nature, and his danger of final con- demnation, will proceed in a different path. As a sinner he will feel himself to be guilty and condemned, yet as an object of mercy he sees glorious hopes dawning upon him from heaven. Christ to him will be infinitely precious, and to his atonement he will fly for refuge, because he can make no atonement for himself. The renewing power of the Holy Spirit will appear to him to be necessary, because without his divine energy exerted upon his heart, he must continue a sinner for ever. With these views his self-examination, his prayers and praises, resolutions and efforts, will take their peculiar character from this primary and leading truth, that he is by nature depraved. His life therefore will be the life of a returning penitent, owing infinite obligations to the free unmerited grace of God ; and he will feel more to animate his love and gratitude, and to stimulate him to show it forth by obedience, than an Angel could feel, with the same powers, because he is a forgiven and restored sinner, forgiven an immense debt, restored to endless life, and enabled, by the preventing and cooperating grace of God, to love and to serve him, though imperfectly, yet sincerely, notwithstanding the fall of his progenitors, and his own hereditary corruption. He is not therefore preserved from sin by the servile motives of the rewards and punishments held forth, nor yet by the nobler, yet it is to be feared too feeble, sense of duty, which has been rarely able to hold out against strong temptation ; but by that overpowering gratitude which the cross of Christ alone can excite. This will not merely keep him innocent, but s 258 LECTURE IX. sustain him in the heaviest trials, and constrain him to a life of active service, for he judges with 'the Apostle, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto them- selves, but unto him who died for them : therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature0; sl principle which is recognised by our Lord, if you love me, keep imy command- ments. We have seen, that the judgment brought upon the human race by the offence of its first federal head, has been re- moved through the meritorious obedience of the second. We know also, that the new covenant of grace made with him, provides not only pardon, but divine cooperation; and that though by nature born in sin and the children of wTrath, on our admission into it by baptism, we are said to be born again, and become the children of God. That Baptism is regarded by our own Church, which therein repeats the uni- versal opinion of Christian antiquity, as the sign and instru- ment of Regeneration, is evident from the baptismal service, and from this very article, for the original Latin has renatis and credentibus nulla propter Christum est condemnatio, as answering to the English, there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized; and the Church of Rome takes regeneration in so strict a sense, as to maintain that original sin is entirely removed in Baptism, contradicting Augustin, to whose authority it so often appeals. He writes, " Is all iniquity blotted out in baptism, doth no infirmity remain ? if no infirmity remained, we might live without sin ; but who can say this, unless he be proud ? unless unworthy of the mercy of the Redeemer ? unless he will deceive himself, and be one in whom is no truth ?" And in another place ; " let it not be thought that we should say, that concupiscence is sanctified, with which the Regenerate themselves are forced to contend in an intestine war as with an enemy ; and in baptism sin is dismissed, not that it does not exist, but that it is not imputed." And that Scripture main- tains this doctrine, appears from the very passage that is intro- duced into the Article from the Epistle totheRomansd. " And c 2 Cor. v. 14. d Rom. viii. LECTURE IX. 259 this infection of nature doth remain even in them that are re- generate, whereby the $go'wjaa