This was necessary, because their Law was ordained by angels.
Now this is an instance of what I cannot help regarding as a superstitious excess of reverence for single texts. We know that long before the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the Alexandrian Church, which by its intercourse with Greek philosophers, chiefly Platonists, had become ashamed of the humanities of the Hebrew Scriptures, in defiance of those Scriptures had pretended, that it was not the Supreme Being who gave the Law in person to Moses, but some of his angels. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, arguing
ad homines
, avails himself of this, in order to prove that on their own grounds the Mosaic was of dignity inferior to the Christian dispensation. To get rid of this no-difficulty in a single verse or two in the Epistles, Skelton throws an insurmountable difficulty on the whole Mosaic history.
Ib.p. 265.
Therefore, he saith,I(as a man)can of myself do nothing.
Even of this text I do not see the necessity of Skelton's parenthesis (as a man). Nay it appears to me (I confess) to turn a sublime and most instructive truth into a truism. "But if not as the Son of God, therefore
a fortiori
not as the Son of man, and more especially, as such, in all that refers to the redemption of mankind."
Ib.p. 267.
To this glory Christ, as God, was entitled from all eternity; but did not acquire a right to it as man, till he had paid the purchase by his blood.
I too hold this for a most important truth; but yet could wish it to have been somewhat differently expressed; as thus:—"but did not acquire it as man till the means had been provided and perfected by his blood."
Ib.p. 268.
If Christ in one place, (Johnxiv. 28,) says,My Father is greater than I; he must be understood of his relation to the Father as his Son, born of a woman.
I do not see the necessity of this: does not Christ say,
My Father and I will come and we will dwell in you?
Nay, I dare confidently affirm that in no one passage of St. John's Gospel is our Lord declared in any special sense the Son of the First Person of the Trinity in reference to his birth from a woman. And remember it is from St. John's Gospel that the words are cited. So too the answer to Philip ought to be interpreted by ch. i. 18. of the same Gospel.
Ib.p. 276.
I confess I do not agree with Skelton's interpretation of any of these texts entirely. Because I hold the Nicene Faith, and revere the doctrine of the Trinity as the fundamental article of Christianity, I apply to Christ as the Second Person, almost all the texts which Skelton explains of his humanity. At all events 1 consider
the first-born of every creature
as a false version of the words, which (as the argument and following verse prove) should be rendered
begotten before
, (or rather
superlatively before
),
all that was created or made; for by him
they were made.
Ib.
Of that day, and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
I cannot explain myself here; but I have long thought that our Saviour meant in these words
Greek: ainíttein tàen théotaeta ahutou
—and that like the problem proposed by him to the Scribes, they were intended to prepare the minds of the disciples for this awful mystery—
Greek: ei màe ho patáer
—"unless, or if not, as the Father knows it;" while in St. Matthew the equivalent sense is given by the omission of the
Greek: oud' ho uhíos
and its inclusion in the Father.
As the Father knoweth me, so know I the Father
.
It would have been against the general rule of Scripture prophecies, and the intention of the revelation in Christ, that the first Christians should have been so influenced in their measures and particular actions, as they could not but have been by a particular foreknowledge of the express and precise time at which Jerusalem was to be destroyed. To reconcile them to this uncertainty, our Lord first teaches them to consider this destruction the close of one great epoch, or
Greek: aiôn
as the type of the final close of the whole world of time, that is, of all temporal things; and then reasons with them thus:—"Wonder not that I should leave you ignorant of the former, when even the highest order of heavenly intelligences know not the latter,
Greek: oud' ho uhíos, ei màe ho patáer
; nor should I myself, but that the Father knows it, all whose will is essentially known to me as the Eternal Son. But even to me it is not revealably communicated." Such seems to me the true sense of this controverted passage in Mark, and that it is borne out by many parallel texts in St. John, and that the correspondent text in Matthew, which omits the
Greek: oud' ho huíos
conveys the same sense in equivalent terms, the word
Greek: emou
including the Son in the
Greek: patàer mónos
. For to his only-begotten Son before all time the Father showeth all things.
Ib.p. 279.
But whether we can reconcile these words to our belief of Christ's prescience and divinity, or not, matters little to the debate about his divinity itself; since we can so fully prove it by innumerable passages of Scripture, too direct, express, and positive, to be balanced by one obscure passage, fromwhence the Arian is to draw the consequence himself, which may possibly be wrong.
Very good.
Ib.p. 280.
We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.—l John v. 20. The whole connection evidently shows the words to be spoken of Christ.
That the words comprehend Christ is most evident. All that can be fairly concluded from 1 Cor. viii. 6, is this:—that the Apostles, Paul and John, speak of the Father as including and comprehending the Son and the Holy Ghost, as his Word and his Spirit; but of these as inferring or supposing the Father, not comprehending him. Whenever, therefore, respecting the Godhead itself, containing both deity and dominion, the term God is distinctively used, it is applied to the Father, and Lord to the Son.
Ib.p. 281.
But, farther, it is objected that Christ cannot be God, since God calls himhis servantmore than once, particularly 'Isaiah' xlii. 1.
The Prophets often speak of the anti-type, or person typified, in language appropriate to, and suggested by, the type itself. So, perhaps, in this passage, if, as I suppose, Hezekiah was the type immediately present to Isaiah's imagination. However, Skelton's answer is quite sufficient.
Ib.p. 287.
Hence it appears, that in the passage objected, (1 'Cor'. xv. 24, &c.) Christ is spoken of purely as that Man whomGod had highly exalted, and to whom he had given a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.(Phil. ii. 9, 10.)
I must confess that this exposition does not quite satisfy me. I cannot help thinking that something more and deeper was meant by the Apostle; and this must be sought for in the mystery of the Trinity itself,
in which
(mystery)
all treasures of knowledge are hidden
.
Ib.p. 318.
Hence, perhaps, may be best explained what St. Peter says in the second Epistle, after pleading a miracle.We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well that you take heed.
I believe that St. Peter neither said it, nor meant this; but that
Greek: Bebaióteron
follows
the prophetic word
. We have also the word of prophecy more firm;—that is; we have, in addition to the evidence of the miracles themselves, this further confirmation, that they are the fulfilment of known prophecies.
Ib.p. 327.
Agreeable to these passages of the Prophet, St. Peter tells us (Actsx. 38),God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power.
I have often to complain that too little attention is paid by commentators to the history and particular period in which certain speeches were delivered, or words written. Could St. Peter with propriety have introduced the truth to a prejudiced audience with its deepest mysteries? Must he not have begun with the most evident facts?
Ib.Disc. VIII.
The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity vindicated.
Were I a Clergyman, the paragraphs from p. 366 to p. 370, both inclusive, of this Discourse should form the conclusion of my Sermon on Trinity Sunday,—whether I preached at St. James's, or in a country village.
Ib.pp. 374-378.
As a reason why we should doubt our own judgment, it is quite fair to remind the objector, that the same difficulty occurs in the scheme of God's ordinary providence. But that a difficulty in a supposed article of revealed truth is solved by the occurrence of the same or of an equivalent difficulty in the common course of human affairs—this I find it hard to conceive. How was the religious, as distinguished from the moral, sense first awakened? What made the human soul feel the necessity of a faith in God, but the apparent incongruity of certain dispensations in this world with the idea of God, with the law written in the heart? Is not the reconciling of these facts or
phænomena
with the divine attributes, one of the purposes of a revealed religion? But even this is not a full statement of the defect complained of in this solution. A difficulty which may be only apparent (like that other of the prosperity of the wicked) is solved by the declaration of its reality! A difficulty grounded on the fact of temporal and outward privations and sufferings, is solved by being infinitely increased, that is, by the assertion of the same principle on the determination of our inward and everlasting weal and woe. That there is nothing in the Christian Faith or in the Canonical Scriptures, when rightly interpreted, that requires such an argument, or sanctions the recourse to it, I believe myself to have proved in the
Aids to Reflection
. For observe that "to solve" has a scientific, and again a religious sense, and that in the latter, a difficulty is satisfactorily solved, as soon as its insolvibility for the human mind is proved and accounted for.
Ib.(Disc. XIV. pp. 500-502.)
Christianity proved by Miracles.
I cannot see and never could, the purpose, or
cui bono
, of this reasoning. To whom is it addressed? To a man who denies a God, or that God can reveal his will to mankind? If such a man be not below talking to, he must first be convinced of his miserable blindness respecting these truths; for these are clearly presupposed in every proof of miracles generally.
Again, does he admit the authenticity of the Gospels, and the veracity of the Evangelists? Does he credit the facts there related, and as related? If not, these points must be proved; for these are clearly presupposed in all reasoning on the particular miracles of the Christian dispensation. If he does, can he deny that many acts of Christ were wonderful;—that reanimating a dead body in which putrefaction had already commenced,—and feeding four thousand men with a few loaves and fishes, so that the fragments left greatly exceeded the original total quantity,—were wonderful events? Should such a man, 'compos mentis', exist, (which I more than doubt,) what could a wise man do but stare—and leave him? Christ wrought many wonderful works, implying admirable power, and directed to the most merciful and beneficent ends; and these acts were such signs of his divine mission, as rendered inattention or obstinate averseness to the truths and doctrines which he promulgated, inexcusable, and indeed on any hypothesis but that of immoral dispositions and prejudices, utterly inconceivable. In what respect, I pray, can this statement be strengthened by any reasoning about the nature and distinctive essence of miracles 'in abstracto'? What purpose can be answered by any pretended definition of a miracle? If I met with a disputatious word-catcher, or logomachist, who sought to justify his unbelief on this ground, I should not hesitate to say—"Never mind whether it is a miracle or no. Call it what you will;—but do you believe the fact? Do you believe that Christ did by force of his will and word multiply instantaneously twelve loaves and a few small fishes, into sufficient food for a hungering multitude of four thousand men and women?" When I meet with, or from credible authority hear of, a man who believes this fact, and yet thinks it no sign of Christ's mission; when I can even conceive of a man in his right senses who, believing all the facts and events related in the New Testament, and as there related, does yet remain a Deist, I may think it time to enter into a disquisition respecting the right definition of a miracle; and meantime, I humbly trust that believing with my whole heart and soul in the wonderful works of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall not forfeit my title of Christian, though I should not subscribe to this or that divine's right definition of his
idea
of a miracle; which word is with me no
idea
at all, but a general term; the common surname, as it were, of the wonderful works wrought by the messengers of God to man in the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.
It is to these notions and general definitions, far more than to the facts themselves, that the arguments of Infidels apply; and from which they derive their plausibility. Nor is this all. The Infidel imitates the divine, and adopts the same mode of arguing, namely, by this substantiation of mere general or collective terms.
For
instance, Hume's argument (stated, by the by, before he was born, and far more forcibly, by Dr. South, who places it in the mouth of Thomas,)
2
—reduce it to the particular facts in question, and its whole speciousness vanishes. I am speaking of the particular facts and actions of the Gospel; of those, and those only. Now that I should be deceived, or the eye-witnesses have been deceived, under all the circumstances of those miracles, with all antecedents, accompaniments, and consequents, is quite as contrary to, that is, unparalleled in my experience, as the return to life of a dead man.
So
again in the second paragraph of page 502
3
, the position is true or false according to the definition of a miracle. In the narrower sense of the term, miracle,—that is, a consequent presented to the outward senses without an adequate antecedent,
ejusdem generis
,—it is not only false but detractory from the Christian religion. It is a main, nay, an indispensable evidence; but it is not the only, no, nor if comparison be at all allowable, the highest and most efficient; unless, indeed, the term evidence is itself confined to grounds of conviction offered to the senses, but then the position is a mere truism.
There is yet another way of reasoning, which I utterly dislike; namely, by putting imaginary cases of imaginary miracles, as Paley has done. "If a dozen different individuals, all men of known sense and integrity, should each independently of the other pledge their everlasting weal on the truth, that they saw a man beheaded and quartered, and that on a certain person's prayer or bidding, the quarters reunited, and then a new head grew on and from out of the stump of the neck: and should the man himself assure you of the same, shew you the junctures, and identify himself to you by some indelible mark, with which you had been previously acquainted,—could you withstand this evidence?" What could a judicious man reply but—"When such an event takes place, I will tell you; but what has this to do with the reasons for our belief in the truth of the written records of the Old and New Testament? Why do you fly off from the facts to a gigantic fiction,—when the possibility of the
If
with respect to a much less startling narration is the point in dispute between us?"
Such and so peculiar, and to an honest mind so unmistakeable, is the character of veracity and simplicity on the very countenance, as it were, of the Gospel, that every remove of the inquirer's attention from the facts themselves is a remove of his conversion. It is your business to keep him from wandering, not to set him the example.
Never, surely, was there a more unequal writer than Skelton;—in the discourses on the Trinity, the compeer of Bull and Waterland; and yet the writer of these pages, 500-501! Natural magic! a stroke of art! for example, converting the Nile into blood! And then his definition of a miracle. Suspension of the laws of nature! suspension—laws—nature! Bless me! a chapter would be required for the explanation of each several word of this definition, and little less than omniscience for its application in any one instance. An effect presented to the senses without any adequate antecedent,
ejusdem generis
, is a miracle in the philosophic sense. Thus: the corporeal ponderable hand and arm raised with no other known causative antecedent, but a thought, a pure act of an immaterial essentially invisible imponderable will, is a miracle for a reflecting mind. Add the words,
præter experientiam
: and we have the definition of a miracle in the popular, practical, and appropriated sense.
Vol. III.
That all our thoughts and views respecting our Faith should be consistent with each other, and with the attributes of God, is most highly desirable: but when the great diversities of men's understandings, and the unavoidable influence of circumstances on the mind, are considered, we may hope from the Divine mercy, that the agreement in the result will suffice; and that he who sincerely and efficiently believes that Christ left the glory which he had with the Father before all worlds, to become man and die for our salvation,—that by him we may, and by him alone we can, be saved,—will be held a true believer,—whether he interprets the words
sacrifice, purchase, bargain, satisfaction
, of the creditor by full payment of the
debt
, and the like as proper and literal expressions of the redeeming act and the cause of our salvation, as Skelton seems to have done;—or (as I do) as figurative language truly designating the effects and consequences of this adorable act and process.
Ib.p. 393.
But were the prospect of a better parish, in case of greater diligence, set before him by his Bishop, on the music of such a promise, like one bit by atarantula, we should probably soon see him in motion, and serving God, (O shameful!) for the sake of Mammon, as if his torpid body had been animated anew by a returning soul.
Without any high-flying in Christian morality, I cannot keep shrinking from the wish here expressed; at all events, I cannot sympathize with, or participate in, the expectation of "an infinite advancement" from men so motived.
Ib.p. 394.
Yet excommunication, the inherent discipline of the Church, which it exercised under persecution, which it is still permitted to exercise under the present establishment.
Rarely I suspect, without exposing the Clergyman to the risk of an action for damages, or some abuse. There are few subjects that more need investigation, yet require more vigour and soundness of judgment to be rightly handled, than this of Christian discipline in a Church established by law. It is indeed a most difficult and delicate problem, and supplied Baxter with a most plausible and to me the only perplexing of his numerous objections to our Ecclesiastical Constitution. On the other hand, I saw clearly that he was requiring an impossibility; and that his argument carried on to its proper consequences concluded against all Church Establishment, not more against the National Church of which he complained, than the one of his own clipping and shaping which he would have substituted; consequently, every proof (and I saw many and satisfactory proofs) of the moral and political necessity of an Established Church, was at the same time a pledge that a deeper insight would detect some flaw in the reasoning of the Disciplinarians. For if A. be right and requisite, B., which is incompatible with A., cannot be rightly required.
And
this it was, that first led me to the distinction between the
Ecclesia
and an
Enclesia
, concerning which see my Essay on Establishment and Dissent, in which I have met the objection to my position, that Christian discipline is incompatible with a Church established by law, from the fact of the discipline of the Church of Scotland
4
. Who denies that it is in the power of a legislature to punish certain offences by ignominy, and to make the clergy magistrates in reference to these? The question is, whether it is wise or expedient, which it may be, or rather may have been, in Scotland, and the contrary in England? Wise or unwise, this is not discipline, not Christian discipline, enforced only by spiritual motives, enacted by spiritual authority, and submitted to for conscience' sake.
Ib.p. 446.
Be this as it may, the foreknowledge and the decree were both eternal. Here now it is a clear point that the moral actions of all accountable agents were, with certainty, fore-known, and their doom unalterably fixed, long before any one of them existed.
Strange that so great a man as Skelton should first affirm eternity of both, yet in the next sentence talk of "long before."
These
Reflections
5
are excellent, but here Skelton offends against his own canons. I should feel no reluctance, moral or speculative, in accepting the apparent necessity of both propositions, as a sufficient reason for believing both; and the transcendancy of the subject as a sufficient solution of their apparent incompatibility. But yet I think that another view of the subject, not less congruous with universal reason and more agreeable to the light of reason in the human understanding, might be defended, without detracting from any perfection of the Divine Being. Nay, I think that Skelton needed but one step more to have seen it.
Ib.p. 478.
In fine.
To what purpose were these Reflections, taken as a whole, written? I cannot answer. To dissuade men from reasoning on a subject beyond our faculties? Then why all this reasoning?
Vol. IV. p. 28. Deism Revealed.
That there is a sophism here, every one must feel in the very fact of being 'non-plus'd' without being convinced. The sophism consists in the instance being 'haud ejusdem generis'
Greek: élegchos metabáseôs eis állo génos
see previous image
; and what the allogeneity is between the assurance of the being of Madrid or Constantinople, and the belief of the fact of the resurrection of Christ, I have shown elsewhere. The universal belief of the 'tyrannicidium' of Julius Cæsar is doubtless a fairer instance, but the whole mode of argument is unsound and unsatisfying. Why run off from the fact in question, or the class at least to which it belongs? The victory can be but accidental—a victory obtained by the unguarded logic, or want of logical foresight of the antagonist, who needs only narrow his positions to narrations of facts and events, in our judgment of which we are not aided by the analogy of previous and succeeding experience, to deprive you of the opportunity of skirmishing thus on No Man's land. But this is Skelton's ruling passion, sometimes his strength—too often his weakness. He must force the reader to believe: or rather he has an antagonist, a wilful infidel or heretic always and exclusively before his imagination; or if he thinks of the reader at all, it is as of a partizan enjoying every hard thump, and smashing 'fister' he gives the adversary, whom Skelton hates too cordially to endure to obtain any thing from him with his own liking. No! It must be against his will, and in spite of it. No thanks to him—the dog could not help himself! How much more effectual would he have found it to have commenced by placing himself in a state of sympathy with the supposed sceptic or unbeliever;—to have stated to him his own feelings, and the real grounds on which they rested;—to have shown himself the difference between the historical facts which the sceptic takes for granted and believes spontaneously, as it were,—and those, which are to be the subject of discussion; and this brings the question at once to the proof. And here, after all, lies the strength of Skelton's reasoning, which would have worked far more powerfully, had it come first and single, and with the whole attention directed towards it.
Ib.p. 35.
This is the ever open and vulnerable part of Deism. The Deist, as a Deist, believes,
implicite
at least, so many and stupendous miracles as to render his disbelief of lesser miracles, simply because they are miraculous, gross inconsistencies. To have the battle fairly fought out, Spinoza, or a Bhuddist, or a Burmese Gymnosoph, should be challenged. Then, I am deeply persuaded, would the truth appear in full evidence, that no Christ, no God,—and, conversely, if the Father, then the Son. I can never too often repeat, that revealed religion is a pleonasm.—Religion is revelation, and revelation the only religion.
Ib.p. 37.