The believer's defence, or The doctrine of the Trinity of God and atonement of Christ defended against Unitarianism

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Introduction

The compiler of the following pages probably would never have stepped out of his beloved obscurity for the purpose of defending one of the most impoitant doctrines in Christian theology, had not a train of circumstances compelled him to enter the field of controversy, or abandon what he deemed to be fundamental truth in our holy religion, to the reckless assaults of its enemies, who, ha^g grown bold tlirough neglect, challenged him to public combat under circumstances which left him but one alternative, either to give up the truth as indefensible, or " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." Under these circumstances, the design of publishing the present work WELS conceived.

The compiler makes no pretensions to originality. Various authors have been consulted, and in m-ost cases the language of other writers has been adopted. Alterations having been made only when it was thought such alterations would increase the force or clearness of the argument.

The authors tliat have been consulted are Wesley, Fletcher, Clark, Abbadie, Drew, Hare, Luc key, Lee, and various others. The most copious extracts, however, have been made from the •v\Titings of the Rev. Richard Watson, whose works are worthy the attention of all who are seeking after the t'uth as it is in Jesus.

It is well known that Unitarians, in consequence of the diversity of opinions existing among them on subjects of minor importance, are divided into various sects, among whom are to be found a class of people calling themselves Christians, but commonly known by the name of New-Lights. Against tliese the following work is more particularly directed, but not to the exclusion of the rest, the author having endeavored so to manage the argument tha^ all classes of Unitarians are opposed by the same proofs.

IV

INTRODUCTION.

Some may suppose that enough has been written on this subject, and that there is no call for a work of this description at the present time. This has been considered by the author, and after a due examination of the principal works on this important subject, he has come to the conclusion to add one more to tlie number, for which he offers the following reasons :

1. " The works which have already been published have not yet fully put a stop to the errors against which they have been directed, nor do they appear likely to accomplish this object, very seasonably, without additional aid. While others have commenced the assault and battered down some of the bulwarks of error, the writer of these pages wishes to add his humble efforts, hoping that others will follow his example, until her strongest holds shall be demolished, and the heresy shall be known only in the history of the past"

2. Unitarianism " has so shifted its ground and changed its complexion, that many of the works which, at the time they were witten, were directed against it with a deadly aim, are now left to spend their sti'ength in the air, the enemy having fled and erected his battery on other ground, from whence he renews his incendiary warfare, and talks as much of courage and victory as though he had never been defeated."

3. iMost of the works which have been published on the subject, are too voluminous to admit of a general circulation, or to be read by a large portion of the public. The compiler of this work has, therefore, looked upon it as an object of no small importance, to put into the hands of the public, in one convenient volume, a refutation of Unitarianism in all the various forms which it assum.es, as it is driven from one position to another.

In conclusion, whatever may be the fate assigned to these pages by the impartial judgment of the public, the compiler can appeal to his Divine Redeemer, the adorable Immanuel, to whom he now dedicates this work, for the rectitude of his motives ; to whom, also, he directs his most feiTent prayers, that both writer and reader may be guided into all truth,

Bloomfield, August 1, 1841,

BELIEVER^S

DEFENCE.

CHAPTER L

ON THE IMPROPRIETY OF MAKING HUMAN REASON THE TEST OF THE DOCTRINES OF DITINE REVELATION.

It is one of the disadvantages to be encountered in this work, that while the evangehcal party take only the Scriptures for their guide, Unitarians claim it as a privilege to appeal from the sacred writers to the dictates of unassisted reason. The latter will submit their opinions to the test of Scripture, only when the Scriptures w^iil stand the ordeal of their opinions. Or, to speak with greater propriety, they choose to try rather the Scriptures by their creed, than their creed by the Scriptures. When the language of the evangelists and apostles appears to favor their hypothesis, they are prepared to make the utmost use of its authority : but when the contrary is the case, and the plainest declarations of the sacred WTiters cannot be transformed into metaphor, allegory, or figurative representation : when the primitive teachers of Christianity obstinately refuse to become Unitarians, or even to be neutral, our opponents are prepared to pix)nounce against them a sentence of excommunication, and to erase their testimony from the record, as an interpolation, a corruption of the sacred text, or an inconclusive argument.

That this is the course pursued by Unitarians, the following extracts from some of their principal writers, will abundantly show :

Socinins, the founder of Socinianisra, while speaking on the doctrine of Atonement, says :— ^' Though it were found not only once, but frequently, written in the Holy 1*

Scriptures, I indeed would not believe it to be entirely as you suppose. Though the divine oracles may attest things to be so in appearance, yet they cannot by any means be admitted, because they are very evidently impossible.''

Smalcius, another Unitarian, says : — We believe that though we should find it not once, nor tvvice, but very frequently, and most expressly written in the Scriptures, that God was made man, it would be much better, as it is an absurd proposition, entirely contrary to sound reason and full of blasphemy, to invent some other way of speaking which might render it safe to be affirmed of God, rather than understand it in the literal sense.*'

Dr. Priestly, a very celebrated Unitarian, says, in the Theological Repository I think I have shown that the Apostle Paul often reasons inconclusiveJv, and therefore that he wrote as any other person of his turn of mind or thinking, and in his situation, would have v\ ritten without any particular inspiration."

Mr. Belsham. of the same school, says : — That Jesus of ?^l^azareth was a man constituted in all respects like other men, subject to the same infirmities, the same ignorance, prejudices and frailties.''

Mr. Theodore Parke, in an Ordination Sermon, recently preached in Boston, after speaking of what he calls the difficulties of the Bible, says : —

••^ Hence the attempt which always fails, to reconcile the philosophy of our times with the poems in Genesis, written a thousand years before Christ; hence the at* tempt to conceal the contradictions in the record itself. Matters have come t@ such a pass that even now, he is deemed an infidel, if not by implication an atheist, whose reverence for the Most High forbids him to believe that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, a thought at which the flesh creeps with horror ; to believe it solely on the authority of an oriental story, written down nobody knows when, or by whom, or for what purpose: which, may be a poem, but cannot be

DOCTRINES OF REVELATION.

the record of a fact unless God is the author of confusion and a he." — pp. 20, 21.

On the authority of the written word, man was taught to beheve fiction for fact ; a dream for a miraculous revelation of God ; an oriental poem for a grave history of miraculous events ; a collection of am^atory idyls for a serious discourse • touching the mutual love of Christ and the Church ; they have been taught to accept a picture sketched by some glowing eastern imagination, never intended to be taken for a reality, as a proof that the infinite God spoke in human words ; appeared in the shape of a cloud, a flaming bush,, or a man who ate and drank and vanished into smoke ; that lie irave counsels to-day, and the opposite to-morrow ; that he violated his own laws, was angry, and was only dissuaded by a mortal man from destroying at once a ^^ hole nation — ^millions of men who rebelled against their leader in a moment of anguish.*' — pp. 19, 20. . *' The history of opinions on the New Testament is quite similar. It has been assumed at the outset, it would seem, with no sufficient reason, without the smallest pretence on its writers' parts, that all of its authors were infallibly and miraculously inspired, so that they could commit no error of doctrine or fact. Men have been bid to close their eyes at the obvious difference between Luke and John ; the serious disagreem.ent between Paul and Peter ; to believe on the smallest evidence, accounts which shock the moral sense and revolt the reason, and tend to place Jesus in the same series with Hercules and Apollonius of Tyana, accounts which Paul in the Epistles never mentions, though he also had a vein of the miraculous running; quite throuo^h him." - — p. 22,.

Who shall assure us that they [the writers of the New Testament] were not sometimes mistaken in historical, as weil as doctrinal matters, did not sometimes confound the actual with the imaginary j,. and that the fancy of these pious writers never stood in the place at their recollection." — pp. 27, 28.

No doubt the time will come when its tme character will be felt. Then it will be seen, that, amid all the contradictions of the Old Testament ; its legends so beautiful as fictions, so appalling as facts ; amid its predictions that have never been fulfilled ; amid the puerile conceptions of God which sometimes occur, and the cruel denunciations that disfigure both Psalm and Prophecy, there is a reverence for man's nature, a sublime tmst in God, and a depth of piety rarely felt in these cold northern hearts of ours."'— p. 30.

It may be pleaded in favor of Unitarianism that the opinions of Mr. Parker are not generally held by its adherents. This we hope is really the case : but what are we to make of the following notice of Mr. Parker, which recently appeared in the Unitarian Christian Register, the great organ of the Unitarians in Boston ;

" We doubt not that the author is eminently a Christian in life; and we have not said, nor dare we say, that he is otherwise than a Christian in belief.''

Mr. Grundy, another late author, says : — ^' To what end was reason given ? Precisely, that it m.ay be the rule of life ; the helm, by vvhich we must steer our course across the tempestuous billows of mortality ; the touchstone of every doctrine ; the supreme umpire in every difficulty and doubt."

Mr. Millard, of that class of Unitarians who claim to be called Christians, talks of bringins^ the doctrine of the Trinity to the test of reason, (see his work called the True Messiah, p. 23,) while it is well known that all classes of Unitarians call in question the translation of every passage of Scripture that stands opposed to their views.

These quotations clearly show that Unitarians do appeal from Revelation to the dictates of human reason in matters of religion ; yea, that they receive reason as the test" and touchstone of every doctrine" as the rule

DOCTRINES OF REVELATION.

of life'' and ^^the helm by which we are to steer our course across the tempestuous billows of mortality." They say that it is ''the supreme umpire in every difficulty and doubt and not content with thus exalting reason above Revelation, they proceed to tell us that the Scriptures contain '-puerile conceptions of God that -'cruel denunciations disfigure both Ps aim and Prophecy that contradictions are to be found between different parts of both the Old and New Testaments ; that Paul reasoned inconclusively, and was not inspired ; that the Saviour was ignorant and prejudiced as other men ; and finally, boldly affirm that if the Bible contains any thing contrary to their reason, they will not believe it, but invent some other way of speaking.

What is this but saying we are determined to regulate, not our theological sentiments by the Scriptures , but the Scriptures by our pre-conceived opinions ? As we be- Keve that this course of our opponents, in thus placing reason above Revelation, is calculated to sow the seeds of infidelity in the minds of the unwary, we shall, for the following reasons, here enter our solemn protest against it :

1. Human reason has been con^upted by sin. Were it not for this, we might have placed a great degree of dependence upon it ; yet even then it would not have been rational, to rely more on the powers of our own understanding, than on the light of Divine Revelation, supposing such a Revelation to have been enjoyed : because the knovvledge of man, when his reason was unimpaired, was limited ; but the knowledge of God is infinite. What a disparity, then, must there be, when the human understanding is not only limited, but corrupted; when the unavoidable commerce between a man's thoughts and his depraved passions, fills his mind with a multitude of prejudices, which have a tendency in various ways to disguise, or conceal, the truth !— Were we bound to believe nothing but what appears conformable to reason, in its pjesent state, we might soon reject the great objects revealed in the gospel, in general. For, after all the strenuous efforts of our adversaries, to remove the grand difficulties attending the Christian religion ; there are, and there always will be, such depths in it, as are unfathomable by the plummet of human reason. On this account, the apostle of the Gentiles calls the gospel foolishness. If the doctrines of Christianity had nothing mysterious and inexplicable in them, there would be no difficulty in believing; nor would faith be any more the gift of God, than the persuasion we have of natural truths. Consequently, there would be no more occasion for the agency of the Holy Spirit, in order to our believing the truths of the gospel, than there is to our understanding the problems of geometry.

2. To act on this principle of our opposers is to treat God, as if he were less worthy of credit than an honest man. A fallible mortal, who has not forfeited his character, as a person of veracity, \\'Ould take it deservedly ill, if, when speaking of an extraordinary fact, of which he was an eye-witness, he was to say, 'Take my word for it ; it is as I assert :' and we should reply, ' We must consider what you say. If we find it agreeable to our reason, we will believe you ; if not, we shall entirely reject your testimony.' If, then, such language would be reckoned indecent towards a fellow-worm, what must we think of a similar conduct, in regard to God, who is equally incapable of deceiving us, as he is of being deceived ?

3. ''If reason were to be the rule of our faith. Revelation would be superseded. For, to what purpose should God make known the counsel of his will, if reason were allowed to say : ' This is not the counsel of God. It cannot be, for I do not comprehend it r' Thus the conscience would be influenced, not by Revelation, but by the doubt which reason had raised upon it. — ^Besides, if it were lawful for human reason to sit in judgment on Divine Revelation, the darkness introduced on our minds, by sin, could never be dissipated. For how

DOCTRINES OF REVELATION.

should reason, proud of her own pretended abilities, and resolved to correct Revelation itself, be enlightened ? Accordino; to this arroo;ant and self-sufficient notion, faith in the Divine testimony is entirely set aside ; reason being resolved on following her own light, in preference to that of God in the Scriptures. So that, instead of saying, I believe such a proposition, how incredible soever it may seem, because God has revealed it ; we must say, Though God has revealed it in the most plain and express terms, we will not believe it, because it appears incredible to us.

4. Were we thus to exalt reason, what is usually called Divine faith, would be much inferior to that which is human ; because we should not pa}^ so great a regard to the declarations of God, as to those of our parents, masters and tutors ; on whose bare authority we receive a great number of tmths, relating to the affairs of common life. But, in such a case, where is humility, where is that filial, teachable spirit, which is one of the marks of our adoption and regeneration ? What need of submitting to the dictates of Inspiration, because it is the Eternal Sovereign who speaks : when we have nothing to do but convince ourselves of all necessary truths, by their own internal characters ; and to reject, or embrace them, in exact proportion as they agree or disagree with the lidit of our own understanding; ?

•••Reason, our opponents will say, reason is the foundation of faith : consequently, faith cannot be more certain than reason.* — Reason, I confess, leads to Revelation : because we are taught by it^ that God is mfallibly wise, and that we are liable to err ; that we cannot, therefore, do better than regard the light of Revelation, in preference to the uncertain conjectures of our own minds. But then, as reason leads us to this infallible rule, which was given by uncontrollable authority : she requires us to receive, with submission, whatever the Great Revealer asserts, as a fact ; commands, as a duty ; or proposes, as an object of faith." — Abbadie.

5. However unwilling modem philosophers , who have received all their true wisdom from the Bible, may be to confess the insufficiency of human reason in things Divine, the sages of antiquity were honest enough to acknowledge the uncertainty of its researches.

^' Pythagoras changed the name of wise men into lovers of wisdom, as believing it not to be attained by human means. Socrates often repeated, ' that he knew but one thing with certainty, and that was his ignorance of all things.' Plato frequently reminds his pupils, that in religious subjects they were not to expect proof, but only probability from them. Aristotle condemns his predecessors as the most foolish and vain-glorious persons in the world, from a conviction of their ignorance, and the vanity of imagining that he had carried philosophy to the utmost perfection it was capable of ; though no one said or believed less of Divine things than he did. Tully complains, that we are blind in the discernment of wisdom ; that some unaccountable error, and miserable ignorance of the truth, has got possession of us. The Stoics pretended to know all things ; yet Plutarch says, ^ that there neither had been, nor was a wise man on the face of the earth.' Lactantius observes, • They could not exceed the powers of nature, nor speak tn.ith on these (sacred) subjects, having never learned it of him who alone could instruct them ; nor ever came so near it, as when they confessed their ignorance of it.' Epictetus found so much uncertainty in Divine things, that like many other heathen philosophers, he advised every one to follow the custom of his country. (Dr, ElJis on the Knowledge of Divine Things,)

•^'Socrates told Alcibiades, 'It is necessary you should wait for some person to teach you how you ought to behave yourself toward both the gods and men. He (says he) will do it who takes a true care of you. But methinks, as we read in Homer, that as Minerva dissipated the mist that covered Diomedes, and hindered him from distinguishing God and man ; so it is necessary

DOCTRINES OF REVELATION.

that he should in the first place scatter the dai'kness that covers your soul, and afterward give you those remedies that are necessary to put you in a condition of discerning good and evil : for at present you know not how to make a difference.' ( Stanley^ s Lives,) ' Plato wished for a prophet to reveal the will of God to us. vrithout which we cannot know it.' And Plutarch says the same, ' that the knowledire of the eods can be had only from them.' Thus did they plainly attribute whatever they knew of the gods, or of divine things, to no principle but the gods.

When Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, asked the philosopher SimonideS; that important question. What is God ? the pmdent philosopher required a day to consider it, and doubled his request whenever he Vv^as called upon to give in his ansvv er. When Hiero was v^-eary of procrastination, and inquired the reason of his delay: — • Because,' said the philosopher, ' the longer I consider the subject, the more I am at a loss for a reply.'

'•Such were the modesty and diffidence of Simonides I One who was much more justly reputed for vrisdom, exclaimed, ' O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his vrays past finding out !' Rom. xi, 33. ' Canst thou by searching find out God ? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? It is as high as heaven : what canst thou do ? deeper than hell, what canst thou know ? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. But vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt.' Job xi, 7, 9, 1*2. The labor, however, has always been useless : ' the world by wisdom knew not God.' 1 Cor. i, 21. Among those who have not seen the dawn of Divine revelation, -there is none that understandeth, that seeketh after God.' Rom. iii, 11. ^' For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the sphit of a man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.' 1 Cor. ii. 1 L

The Christian Church was scarcely formed when m different places there started up certain pretended reformers, who, not satisfied with the simplicity of that religion which was taught by the apostles, set up a new relio;ion drawn from their own licentious imaginations. Several of these are mentioned by the apostles, such as Hymeuceus and Alexander. The influence of these new teachers was but inconsiderable at first. During the lives of the apostles then attempts toward the perversion of Christianity were attended with little success. They however acquired credit and strength by degrees ; and even from the first dawn of the Gospel laid imperceptibly the foundation of those sects which produced aftenvard such trouble in the Christian Church.

' Among the various sects that troubled the Christian Church, the leading one was that of the Gnostics. These self-sufficient philosophers boasted of their being able to restore mankind to the knowledge (gnosis) of the supreme Being, which had been lost in the world. Under the general appellation of Gnostics are comprehended all those who, in the first ages of Christianity, cormpted the doctrine of the Gospel by a profane mixture of the tenets of the oriental philosophy, with its Divine truths.' (Mosheim. book i, part ii, chap, v.) From these ^ knowing ones' arose, in the first and second century, a rich harvest of heretics and heresies, of which, not to mention them in detail, the reader may find an ample account in the first volume of JMosheim's Ecclesiastical History. A few specimens would show that the apostles acted wisely when they cautioned their disciples against every thing destructive to the simplicity of the Gospel, and that they were not mistaken in the results of this unnatural coalition of philosophy and revelation, which they predicted. ' There is no observation capable of fuller proof, than that religion, through all ages of the Christian Church, was more or less pure according to the alloy of philosophy or human reason mixed up with it. There was scarcely a heresy in the primi-

DOCTRINES or REVELATION.

live Church that was not imbibed from Plato's academy, Zeno's portico, or some vain reasonings of the pagan wise men. In latter ages the schoolmen rejected Plato^ and exalted Aristotle into the chair of Christ, says Tilenus, (TiL Syntagm,^ part ii, disp. 16, thes. 31,) esteemino; him the o-od of wisdom who could not err. And the controversy long subsisted to which of them an appeal lay for the determination of truth. Such is the vain arrogance of human reason, as to have puffed up some in every age to promise they would show us the truth by the mere light of it, and maintain it as the only rule of faith. ' Philosophy and vain deceit' have always proved highly injurious to the purity of religion, and the great objects of faith wdiich are supernaturally revealed.' (Dr. Ellis.)

Since philosophy has fallen into the hands of sincere and devout Christians, who valued above all learning the faith delivered to the saints," and contended" for that faith as the truest wisdom, it has been much reformed. But so long as it is human wisdom, it will never be fit to take the lead of revelation. Modern philosophers, as well as those of antiquity, whenever they attempt to model their creed by the rule of their reason, show themselves capable of the greatest absurdities. With our Unitarian divines, (as they are pleased exclusively to denominate themselves,) it is a first principle that reason directs to whatever is tme in speculation." To set reason free from the fetters of education, they have renounced the doctrine of human depravity, and of eternal punishment. Thus inspired with unlimited confidence in their own understanding, and divested of all apprehension of eternal consequences, they are ' induced to reason cautiously and frequently, and learn to reason well,' So says one of themselves.^ And what can be more reasonably expected from them than that they should all reason alike ?

* Mr. James Yates, in a sermon on the grounds of Unitarian dissent, preached at Glasgow, pp. 16, 17, 22, 25.

But their one, perfect, infallible, and unchangeable guide, which ^ directs to whatever is true in speculation,' is far from leading them all in the same path. A few lines from the author just mentioned will amply illustrate their agreements and their differences.

'^^In order to convej a just idea of the constitution of Unitarian societies, it is necessary to premise, that, while we are united l3y a few great principles, there are numerous topics of inferior consequence respecting which we differ in opinion among ourselves. All Unitarians agree in denying that Jesus Christ was the eternal God ; and that he is the object of religious w^orship. Some of them, however, believe that he was employed, as an instrument in the hands of the Deity, to create the material vrorld, though not possessed of underived vvisdom and independent power : others believe only in his pre-existence. Some 0:0 still farther, maintaining: that he was simply a human being, but conceived in the womb of the virgin according to the introductory chapters of Matthew and Luke's Gospels : others see reason to believe that those chapters are interpolations, and therefore deny the doctrine of the mkaculous conception. In like manner all Unitarians agree, that the death of Christ was an incalculable blessing to mankind : some, however, do not presume to determine the exact manner in which it conduces to the good of men, while others think that the mode of its beneficial operation may be distinctly pointed out ; but all reject the Trinitarian ♦ doctrines of satisfaction and vicarious atonement, believine, not that Jesus saves his followers from the everlasting misery to which they are supposed to havebeen doomed in consequence of the sin of their first parents, but that he saves them, by the force of his doctrines, precepts, and example, from \^ce, ignorance, and superstition, and from the misery which is their natural result. The ordinance of baptism is a subject on which we entertain various opinions ; some of us practise the baptism: of infants, others of adults, and some tliiaik that

DOCTRINES OF REVELATION.

n the use of water may be omitted entirely. Concerning the question of an intermediate state, and the philosophical doctrines of materialism and necessity, we either remain in doubt or espouse opposite sides. On these and other points, which have been debated by orthodox Christians with rancorous animosity, we agree to differ.' (Mr, Yates^ Sermon, pp, 13 — 15.)

Mr. Yates ought to have the thanks of the Christian world for speaking the truth. This curious passage shows that reason, as well as nature, has her frolics. The ' few great principles' in which the Unitarians agree, Mr. Y. has carefully laid down : viz. 1. ' The free and unbiassed use of the understanding on religious subjects.' 2. ' They ought to offer prayer and adoration to God, the Father, only.' 3. ' They regard holiness of heart, and excellence of conduct, as the only means of obtaining salvation.'