How inconsistent and perplexing (may we not exclaim?) are such conceptions! How embarrassing and distressing would they be to those who entertain them; would they venture steadily to look at them! but this they dare not; for they feel that disbelief, which they dread as connected with perdition, must supervene, were they suffered to be made the subject of reflection. Inquiry therefore, is silenced with the incessant cry, "It is a mystery, altogether beyond human comprehension.' Thus the author of the Anti-Swedenborg occupies four pages* with the repetition of this cry, and with endeavors to prove, that ignorance in regard to the Object of their worship is the special priviledge of Christians. And he here only follows the example of his superiors. The celebrated lexicographer, Johnson, defines the word "Trinity" to mean, "the incomprehensible union of the three Divine Persons of the Godhead; and Bishop Tomline, in his Elements of Christian Theology, though he clearly proves the existence of a Trinity, and conclusively establishes the Divinity of Jesus Christ, yet, because he assumes the Trinity to consist of three seperate Persons, repeatedly avows their Unity to be Incomprehensible. Thus it is not the Trinity which the advocates of this creed affirm to be incomprehensible: they evidently have quite distinct notions of three distinct beings; for, admit a plurality of Gods to be possible, and there is no difficulty in conceiving the precise number to be three: but how to conceive that, nevertheless, these THREE are but ONE,-hic labor, hoc opus est! They justly apply, therefore, the epithet "incomprehensible," not to the Trinity, which they acknowledge in fact, but to the Unity, which they only profess in words. Hence they tell us that we must not think about it, because it is a mystery. But pardon me if I ask, whether, when they who ought to be in the light of the gospel excuse their confused notions by the cry of "Mystery!" they do not, in reality acknowledge that they are not the true disciples of Jesus Christ? To his disciples the Lord says "To you it is given TO KNOW THE MYSTERY of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are wITHOUT, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand." In another Evangelist, it is, "the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven." And in reference to this very subject, the Lord says elsewhere, "the time cometh when I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but I shall show you, plainly the Father." But the advocates of the common notions affirm, not only that this promise never has been, but that it never will be fulfilled; that any plain knowl * Pp. 21-23. Mark iv. 11, 12. Matt. xiii. 11. edge of the Father, as one of the characters of the Trinity, is utterly unattainable; that the whole is an incomprehensible mystery, which we are not so much as, with the angels, to desire to look into.* The whole subject, however loses its imputed character of incomprehensibility, and becomes, agreeably to the divine promise iust cited, plain; and the words of the angel Gabriel, in particular, become easy to understand; when we know that the Trinity in the Divine Nature does not consist of three Persons, but of three Principles or Elements in one Person. "THE HIGHEST," which is the term used by the angel instead of " THE FATHER," most clearly denotes the Inmost Principle of Deity, or the Essence of the Divine Nature. Unquestionably, God is not called the Highest or Most High, in reference to any station which he occupies in space; for God is independent of space, and no more stationed in one place than in another. He who is Onnipresent, cannot literally be either high or low. The reason then of his title of Most High is, because he is the Inmost, being everywhere present as the inmost source of the life and existence of all things. And with respect to the three Essentials of his own Nature, it must be his Inmost Divinity which is called the Highest. So, when elsewhere, this Inmost Principle is called the Father, it is because the Essence of Deity is Love, and Love is the Great Parent of all. The Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, in like manner, is not a seperate Person, but is the Divine Emanation of influences and energies proceeding from the Divine Being, by which all things are kept in existence, and especially by which the graces of Heavenly life are imparted to human minds. Much the same is meant by the Power of the highest as by the Holy Spirit; for as the Highest denotes the Divine Essence, so the Power of the Highest denotes the influence and operation thence proceeding; only there is this difference in the import of the two phrases; that the Holy Spirit means the Divine Emanation of Life and influence more with respect to the Divine Truth and Wisdom, and the Power of the Highest is the same Divine Emanation more with reference to the Divine Goodness and Love. What then can be "that Holy Thing," "the Son of God," conceived by the energy of these two Principles within the sphere of Humanity, but themselves, and consequently the Highest with them, brought into open manifestation, concentrated in a Divine Human Form, and thus adapted to be an Object both of the love and the perceptions of finite and infirm human minds? The consequence of this assumption of Humanity by Jeho * 1 Peter i. 12. vah, was, the redemption of mankind, by the subjugation of the powers of hell, which could not otherwise have been approached and conquered; and the communication of saving energies for the restoration of fallen man, with an efficacy which could no otherwise be obtained. But respecting this part of the subject we shall have occasion to say more in the Section on the Atonement. It may be necessary to observe, that we are not to conclude from the fact, that there was no son of God, born from eternity, that, therefore, there was no Trinity from eternity. Though there was not such a Trinity as since the incarnation, there must always have been a Divine Essence, a Divine Form and a Divine Influencing Power. As the Divine Essence is identical with the purely Divine Love, the Divine Form is identical with the purely Divine Truth which is the Word, of which it is said in the beginning of John that it was made flesh, or assumed the ultimate form of existence. The state of the Divine Trinity before the assumption of Humanity, or before the birth of the Son of God, is compared, by Swedenborg, to the state of an angel or spirit; who has a soul or inmost principle of life, a spiritual body, and a sphere of operation thence; but the state of the Divine Trinity since the assumption of Humanity, is compared to the state of a man in the world, in whom his soul and spiritual body are clothed with a natural body also, and thus have a sphere of activity in the world of nature. We may now have advanced as much as was necessary to elucidate this branch of our argument. We were to meet the objections arising out of the belief, that the Being who became incarnate was a Son of God born from eternity, by showing that the phrase, Son of God, is the proper title of the Humanity born in time, and that the Being who assumed it was the One Jehovah. This has, I trust, sufficiently appeared; and with it, we have in some degree seen, how much light the view proposed throws upon the great doctrine of the Trinity. II. I am next to meet the objections which are raised from the fact, that the Lord Jesus Christ, while in the world, sometimes spoke as if the Father were a Being seperate from himself. To this end I am to shew, That, while in the world, he was engaged in the work of glorifying his Humanity, or making it Divine. which was part of his great work of Redemp tion: thus, That so long as he was in the world there was a part of his nature which was not Divine, but that the work of glorifying the whole was completed at his resurection and ascension; that all belonging to him had then been made Divine; and that now he ever liveth and reigneth, with the Father, an Indivisible One, the Only God of Heaven and Earth. A psychological fact is necessary to be premised. It is supposed by many, that nothing is derived by man from his parents but his bodily frame, and that when this has arrived to a certain stage of its growth in the womb, a soul, immediately created for the purpose, is infused into it from God. This notion involves such contradictions, that it is wonderful how any can admit it. How can the human race at the present day be infected with the sin of Adam, as is generally supposed; and how can there be a transmission of mental disposition and character from ancestors, as experience demonstrates to be the fact; if, as to the only part of us which is capable either of sin, or righteousness, or mental character, we are not Adam's descendants, and have no proper ancestors, but are as much original creations as was Adam himself? How much more rational is Swedenborg's doctrine; that the soul is not an independent principle that lives of itself, but is a spiritual form organized for the reception, from moment to moment, of life from God; which life is received and modified by it according to the peculiar character of the form; the form itself being propagated from the parents, and thus resembling what it was in them, as is the case with the body! Many philosophers have seen that such must be the fact. Watts endeavoured to combine both opinions; in which he succeeds in establishing the truth much better than in sheltering the error. "Though the spirit of man," says he, "be incorporeal, and is created by God without depraved or sinful qualities in it," [here is the error: how does it agree with the truth that follows?] "yet it never exists, or comes into being, but as a part of human nature; and that not as a piece of new workmanship, but as a part of mankind propagated from parents, by the continued power of God's creating word, 'be fruitful and multiply.'"* Now be it observed, that there was this difference between the Lord Jesus Christ, while in a body of flesh on earth, and all ordinary men: that whereas they take their soul or spiritual part from a human father, as well as their body or material part from a human mother, and thus are finite human beings as to both, Jesus Christ, having no Father but the Divine Father, had his Soul or internal part from the Divine Essence; and as the Divine Essence is obviously incapable of division, the Divine Essence Itself, or the Father, was in fact his soul or internal part; while his body or external part, including the affections, &c. of the natural man, was all that he took from the mother. So long as he had attached to him this body from * Works, vol. ii. p. 322. the mother, he was necessarily an inhabitant of this material world; nor could he return, as he expresses it in John, to the Father, and "be glorified with the glory which he had with him," as the Divine Truth or Word in union with the Divine Good or Love," before the world was,*" until his external part, even to the very body, by the assumption of which "the Word was made flesh,t was glorified or made Divine: nor, till then, was the whole Humanity the appropriate Divine Form of the Divine Essence that was resident within, and which was continually endeavoring to bring it into a state of perfect agreement with itself, that it might impart itself to it, and thus dwell in fullness in it, as the soul in its body. Thus our Lord's state by birth bore an exact analogy to man's state by birth. Man has, we know, an internal man and an external man, which are by birth in opposition to each other, the internal man inclining to heavenly things and the external only to earthly things; wherefore man, before he can be elevated to heaven, must be regenerated, that is, his external man must be formed anew, so as to become the image of the internal, and to incline, like it, to heavenly things, and only to earthly in subordination to heavenly. But that which, in our Lord, may be called his internal man, was Jehovah, or the Essential Divinity itself; but his external man, being taken from a human parent, was at first merely human and finite, and partook of human, finite and earthly things; wherefore, before the Lord could return to complete oneness with the Father, his external man was to be formed anew, so as to become the exact image of his internal, thus like it, Divine and Infinite. Now this renewal of his external part was going on during the whole course of his life in the world. That the Lord was not born Divine as to his external part, but only as to his internal part, is generally known but that he was continually engaged in rendering his external part Divine also, which at last was completely effected, is as generally overlooked. That as to his external man, he advanced in inteligence as well as in bodily growth, is evident from the declaration of Luke, that, when a child, "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man; "‡ where by his increasing in favor with God and man, is meant his approximation to union with his Divinity, and his reception of Divine principles from his Divine Essence in his Humanity. The same truth is further evident from the circumstance, that he is stated to have been about thirty years old before he enter ed on his public ministry. This is a fact which cannot possibly be accounted for on any principles but ours. Can it be sup John xvii. 5. † Ch. i. 14. Ch. ii. 52. |