posed that these thirty years, of the history of which only two or three particulars are recorded, were spent by him in doing nothing? Would a Divine Being have remained so long in a body taken from the elements of this world, were there not a gradual process going on essential to the accomplishment of the work for which he came into this world, and previous to the arrival at a certain stage of which he was not in a capacity of working those miracles, and of speaking those words of eternal Truth, by which his public career was distinguished?— When he had so far advanced to oneness with the Father that his external man, by which he spoke and acted in the world, was open even to him, that is was in immediate communication with his Divine Essence, (of which the decent of the dove at his baptism, as a symbol of the Holy Spirit, or Divine Life, flowing into him immediately from his Divine Essence, was the token,) he went about the world performing the wonderful works which are recorded of him; and when his external man was perfectly united with the Father, thus was rendered Divine by the full reception of the Divine Essence in all its faculties, he appeared on earth no longer, but ascended up into heaven,*" and sat on the right hand of God." By this phrase is not meant that he literally sat down by the side of another Divine Person; but, as the hand is the part of the body by which all of its powers are exerted, it is always used in the Word to signify power; as is also the practice in many eastern nations at the present day; hence by the right hand of God is signified Divine Omnipotence, to the possession of which the Lord as to his Human Nature, was now exalted: as he says himself, in reference to the same subject in Matthew, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." ‡ "ALL power" is Omnipotence: by "ME," he means the Human Nature, to which were now given, that is, communicated, all the attributes of the Essential Divinity, rendering it a perfect One therewith. We are now in possession of everything that is requisite to the solution of all the objections to the doctrine of the sole Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, which are drawn from the fact, that, while in the world, he sometimes spoke as if the Father were a Being seperate from himself. So long as he was in the world, we have seen there was a part of his nature which was not Divine and so far as the sphere of his thoughts decended into it, he would have a sense of seperate existence. Thus there are various occasions on which Jesus is recorded to have prayed to the Father, and at sometimes with great distress and anxiety; the reason of which was, because he was : * See also above, pp. 17, 18 † Mark xvi. 19. Matt. xxviii. 18. then in his state of humiliation, or the sphere of his consciousness was chiefly in the infirm Humanity taken from the mother; and, being engaged in combats with the infernal hosts, these at such times prevailed so far as to shut out the perception of communication with his Divine Essence, and to occasion doubt, to his unglorified human nature, whether its union therewith could ever be effected, and, of consequence, whether the salvation of the human race, which depended upon that union, could be accomplished. Man, in his Christian progress, undergoes states in some degree similar. He cannot always be kept in a state of elevation,-in the perception of those heavenly principles which he has received by the internal man from the Lord; but he sometimes sinks into the external man merely, and finds himself there so beset with impressions opposite to heavenly ones, as to be brought to doubt whether he has ever realy received anything of a heavenly nature or not. Such also was the case with our Lord; except that his internal part was not only, as with others, formed by principles of goodness and truth received from the Divine Being, but Divine Goodness and Truth themselves; and that, in his external part, he had to combat with the whole infernal host, under forms of horror and overwhelming terror that would infalibly have destroyed any merely finite being-any man whose soul was any other than Divinity itself. No wonder, then if, when in such states, he sometimes appeared at a distance from his Father, and prayed to him in a manner that might lead us to regard the Father as a Being different from himself! At other times, he gives thanks to the Father; which, though not implying so great an idea of distance as in the former case, still conveys to the uninformed mind, an idea of separation. To give thanks to the Lord, in the language of Scripture, implies an acknowledgement, that all that we receive, which is the subject of our thanks, is from him. This also is the meaning when Jesus gives thanks to the Father; he acknowledges by the action, that it is from his Divine Essence, that Divine Love, Wisdom, and Life, are imparted to his Humanity. Our Lord, accordingly, constantly declares that he does nothing of himself, "but that the Father that dwelleth in him, he doeth the works; *" by which he instructs us, that his Humaninity alone, were it separate from his Divinity, would be powerless, but that by union with the Divinity it has Omnipotence. This may be clearly illustrated by the case of the soul and body of man; the body separate from the soul would be a mass of dead matter; but in union with the soul it has all the power of the soul in it: nay, further: the soul, without the body would have no power whatever in * John xiv. 10. C this world of nature to which the body belongs; and just so, when man had sunk into a merely natural state, the divine influences were rendered incapable of affecting him in a saving manner, till they had invested themselves with the requisite instrument, by clothing themselves with a Humanity capable of making them felt in that sphere of life in which man then stood. It would, however, be absurd, because the body has nothing but what it receives from the soul, to regard the body as a distinct person from the soul; nor is it less so, because all the power of the Lord's Humanity is a consequence of the Divinity's dwelling within it, to consider it as a distinct person from the Father. Accordingly, it was only while the work of glorification was in progress, that Jesus either prayed to the Father or gave him thanks. After it was accomplished, he never did either the one or the other; but although, for the sake of conveying the notion of Divinity and Humanity in the Lord, distinct mention continues to be made of the Son and of the Father, both in the gospels after the resurrection and in the Apochalypse throughout, there is no hint whatever of any address from the one to the other. Only let this fact be fairly looked at, and it must be seen to be decisive. From the period of the resurrection, there is no hint whatever of any address of any kind, from the Son to the Father or from the Father to the Son; all trace of inferiority on the part of the Son disappears; the angelic hosts, with equal reverence, sing "Blessing and honor, glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." The reason is, because, the union between them being fully accomplished, all the Divine Essence belongs equally to the Humanity, and the Humanity is the perfect form and adequate instrument of action of the Divine Essence. While this work was in progress only, our Lord prayed and gave thanks to the Father--ascribed all to him: but after its accomplishment he does so no longer, because there is no longer anything in him which is not absolutely one with the Father: on the contrary, he now assumes to himself the most absolute and incommunicable of the Father's attributes; as when He says, "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the First and the Last, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." Thus, when it is known that there was no Son of God born from eternity, but this is the proper title of the Humanity born in time; and when it is known that this Humanity, though not Divine when born, was rendered such by a process which it was undergoing during the whole period of our Lord's existence on earth. It is obvious that all objections to the doctrine of the New Church respecting the Divine Trinity, as concentered in the Glorified or Divine Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, fall completely to the ground; and we see how it is true, that notwithstanding his having appeared in the form of an ordinary man in the world,-in a form which was liable to infirmities, to sufferings, and to death, he now ever liveth and reigneth with the Father, an Indivisible One, the only God of Heaven and Earth. SECTION VII. THE TRINITY, AS CENTERED IN THE PERSON OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. PART III. Tritheism the Alternative of the True Doctrine of the Trinity. ABUNDANT proof has been now given, in the preceeding Parts of this Section, as I trust will be acknowledged by the Candid and the Reflecting, of the grand doctrine of the New Church which we believe to be prefigured by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation, that the whole Divine Trinity is centered in the single Glorious Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Copious stores of Scripture evidence have been adduced, directly establishing his Sole Divinity; and such explanations of particu ar parts of the Doctrine have been offered, as indirectly establish the same truth, and take away the ground of all the objections that can possibly be raised against it. Virtually then, every objection advanced by the writer, whom, in this work, I principally follow, and by all other adversaries, has already been answered. Every difficulty that has ever been raised has in effect been solved, and all further refutation is unnecessary. Nevertheless, as I wish every thing to be fully met that is advanced by the author of the Anti-Swedenborg, whose objections and arguments are the same as those of other assailants, of all of whom he may be taken as the representative; I will specifically apply the principles already developed to the solu tion of the difficulties which he has attempted to raise. The result if I do not grossly mismanage the discussion, cannot fail to be the more irrefragible establishment of the truth; for how can the genuine truth,-that the whole Trinity is centered in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, be more powerfully corroborated, than when it is seen that its only real alternative is he doctrine of Tritheism, or the avowal of the existence of three distinct Gods? The only way in which the doctrine of the Sole Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and, consequent ly, the concentration of the Trinity in his single Person, can be evaded, is, either by denying the Trinity altogether, and affirming his simple humanity, as is done by Unitarians; or, if a Trinity be acknowledged, by regarding the three subjects of it, the three Divine Persons, as they are commonly called, as three distinct Gods. The writer whom I here follow, with all the numerous class of whom he is the legitimate representative, sometimes, to avoid the acknowledgement of the Lord's Sole Divinity, argues like those who assert his mere humanity; and it is perfectly evident, that, with all his suffragans, he views the Lord's Humanity as not essentially differing from that of an ordinary man. He allows him however, to be a Divine Being, as well; but, as God, he denies him to be the same God as either the Father or the Holy Ghost. He openly avows in everything but the name, the doctrine of Tritheism; and his observations are such as clearly evince, that this is the only ref fuge which remains open to those, who, asserting a Trinity, insist that it is a Trinity of seperate Persons, and deny that it is centered in the single Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The avowal of Tritheism is most plainly made by this opponent, in his endeavors to elude the force of the three texts, on which, as he represents the matter, our doctrine of the Sole Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is founded. The true meaning of these texts, therefore, shall be vindicated, and the Tritheism of those who resort to such attempts to evade their testimony, established, in the present Part of this Section. The Baron's Creed," says this objector*"allows of a Trinity in the Godhead, and the following is the scheme of it: Jesus Christ is God, and beside him there is no other; the Spirit within him is the Father; his body is the Son; and the operations and actions proceeding from both constitute the Holy Ghost." And he immediately calls this, without excepting any part of it, an "anti-scriptural doctrine." Let this be looked at for a moment. Our Doctrine, as here stated, affirms that "Jesus Christ is God, and beside him there is no other." The objector declares, that this is an "anti-scriptural doctrine." Consequently, this opponent believes, either. that Jesus Christ is not God at all, or that there is another God beside him. But we find that he does not mean to deny Jesus Christ to be God at all: consequently, his belief is that there is another God (if not two) beside Jesus Christ. I should not have pressed this conclusion from his words, had he not repeated the sentiment. I should have concluded that he had merely made a slip of the pen, in seeming to assert that there are other Gods beside Jesus Christ. But that such is really his opinion, wheth * Anti-Swedenborg page 10. |