§ 3. Mr. Abbott’s “Corner Stone”
Postscript
Here then we have arrived at a point where we part company with Mr. Erskine, and join Mr. Abbott, who advances further in a most perilous career. The principle with which Mr. Erskine began has been above discovered to issue in a view or theory of the Gospel, which may be contemplated apart from that principle. That the human mind may criticize and systematize the Divine Revelation, that it may identify it with the Dispensation, that it may limit the uses of the latter to its workings through our own reason and affections, and such workings as we can ascertain and comprehend,—in a word, that the Gospel is a manifestation, this is the fundamental principle of Mr. Erskine’s Essay. Mr. Jacob Abbott seems so fully to take this principle for granted, that it would be idle to do more than notice his doing so; it will be more to the purpose to direct attention to his treatment of the Theory, in which Mr. Erskine’s principle seems to issue, viz., that the Gospel is a collection of facts. I am now referring to Mr. Abbott’s work called “The Corner Stone,” which I do not hesitate to say approaches within a hair’s breadth of Socinianism: a charge which I would by no means urge against Mr. Erskine, whatever be the tendency of his speculations.
1.
In the work in question, Mr. Abbott disclaims entering into theological questions, properly so called (Preface, p. vi.); nor is there any necessity for his entering into them, so that the line of discussion which he does take, does not intrude upon them or provoke them.
“I have made this exhibition of the Gospel,” he says, “with reference to its moral effect on human hearts, and not for the purpose of taking sides in a controversy between different parties of Christians.”
Again:
“A system of theology is a map or plan, in which every feature of the country must be laid down in its proper place and proportion; this work is, on the other hand, a series of views, as a traveller sees them in passing over a certain road. In this case, the road which I have taken leads indeed through the heart of the country, but it does not by any means bring to view all which is interesting or important. The reader will perceive that the history of Jesus Christ is the clue which I have endeavoured to follow; that is, the work is intended to exhibit religious truth, as it is connected with the various events in the life of our Saviour. In first introducing Him to the scene, I consider His exalted nature as the great moral Manifestation of the Divinity to us. Then follows a view of His personal character, and of His views of religious duty,” etc.—Pp. vi. vii.
Let us observe here the similarity of language between the two writers I am speaking of. They are evidently of the same school. They both direct their view to the Gospel history as a Manifestation of the Divine Character; and though, in the above extracts, Mr. Abbott uses language more guarded than Mr. Erskine, there will be found to be little or no practical difference between them. But there seems this most important distinction in their respective applications of their Theory, though not very distinct or observable at first sight; that Mr. Erskine admits into the range of his Divine facts such as are not of this world, as the voluntary descent of Christ from heaven to earth, and His Incarnation, whereas Mr. Abbott virtually limits it to the witnessed history of Christ upon earth. This, so far as it exists, is all the difference between orthodoxy and Socinianism.
For this encroachment Mr. Erskine indeed had prepared the way; for he certainly throws the high doctrines of religion into the background; and the word “Manifestation” far more naturally fits on to a history witnessed by human beings, than to dispositions made in the unseen world. But Mr. Erskine certainly has not taught this explicitly.
If we wish to express the sacred Mystery of the Incarnation accurately, we should rather say that God is man, than that man is God. Not that the latter proposition is not altogether Catholic in its wording, but the former expresses the history of the Economy, (if I may so call it,) and confines our Lord’s personality to His divine nature, making His manhood an adjunct; whereas to say that man is God, does the contrary of both of these,—leads us to consider Him a man primarily and personally, with some vast and unknown dignity superadded, and that acquired of course after His coming into existence as man. The difference between these two modes of speaking is well illustrated by a recent Unitarian author, whom on account of the truth and importance of his remarks, I am led, with whatever pain, to quote:
“A quick child, though not acquainted with logic, … will perceive the absurdity of saying that Edward is John … As the young pupil must be prepared to infer from the New Testament that a perfect man is perfect God, he … must be imperceptibly led to consider the word God as expressing a quality, or an aggregate of qualities, which may be predicated of more than one, as the name of a species; just as when we say John is man, Peter is man, Andrew is man … And so it is, with the exception of a few who, in this country, are still acquainted with that ingeniously perverse system of words by means of which the truly scholastic Trinitarians (such as Bishop Bull and Waterland, who had accurately studied the fathers and the schoolmen,) appear to evade the logical contradictions with which the doctrine of the Trinity abounds; all, as I have observed for many years, take the word God, in regard to Christ, as the name of a species, and more frequently of a dignity.”—Heresy and Orthodoxy, p. 91.