Possible salvation 01 pious heathen. §. 6. The possible salvation of pious heathen under the law of nature, (yet ever by mediation of the CHRIST,) hath engaged the interest of Christians in every age. Not only Alexandrian Fathers favoured the notion, but S. Gregory the Great was persuaded of the salvation of Trajan and S. Cadoc of Vergil's. (See Sanct. Catholicum, p. 51.) The Jews too say that the soul of the emperor Antoninus Pius was saved by the prayers of Rabbi Jehuda the Holy. (Talmud, Abodah Zarah, cited by R. Simeon Singer in the Homilist.') Erasmus could hardly refrain from an 'Ora pro nobis,' when he thought of Sokrates. The Jesuits in China maintained there was no idolatry or atheism in the teaching of Confucius. (Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais, IV. c. 18.) Bishop Fowler "would not for a world pronounce all the heathen damned." Leibniz declares in favour of the Jesuits on this head. (Opp. p. 725.) The unwisdom of another course is shown by the story of Radbod king of the Frisians, who on being told of the positive damnation of his heathen ancestors withdrew from baptism. (Robertson, History of the Christian Church, Vol. II. p. 76.) Guy Tachard, a Jesuit missionary in Siam in 1687, says that the bearing of the Buddhist priests at their prayers made him feel "more than all the sermons and spiritual books" the humility due before GOD in church or in private. Subdued passions and features "placid as the sky above them were theirs, in the eyes of an English officer in 1834. (Asiatic Journal of Bengal, IV. 32.) This is preferable to the bigotry of Sir Thomas Herbert, (Charles I.'s faithful attendant;) who in 1627 admits that they taught the people to love one another and forbear bloodshedding, yet pronounces their chaunts "sweete musique to the Deuill, thereby to delight his melancholy." (Travels, p. 196). If the Koran holds out hope to virtuous Jews and Christians,' and even to all' who practise virtue and believe in One GOD and the life to come,' I trust the benevolence of the Gospel will not be found narrower. (Pp. 58, 72. Lisbon, 1861.) vetus, pertinebant vero ad novum. ministrabant in mysterio, ut illam consequerentur in præmio." (S. Aug. De Gratia Novi Testamenti seu Ep. 140, Tom. II. p. 423.) What Christian of mental culture, who possesses a human heart, but must blush to claim Heaven as the home of baptized worldlings, who palpably fall short of the moral elevation of so many who on earth have not known the CHRIST ? Divines have all, more or less, sat at the feet of Aristotle or of Plato; moralists have learnt the lessons of M. Tullius and Epictetus; sovereigns might reverence their superiors in the two Antonines; we all have drank in noble sentiments from the fountains of Homer and Vergil. Can we doubt that the Father of lights will recover these choice vessels through His incarnate Wisdom? And, if I may thus introduce the following chapter, the dwelling of the WORD in our nature is the response of GOD, in Himself unapproachable, to the need of "the soul petrified by the sentiment of the infinite," as Mark Pattison writes of himself. (Letter to M. Edmond Scherer in the Times, June 2, 1885.) Grant that this hope is 'without warrant of GOD's law' and only 'a presumption of what may be,' if it be not of faith, it is, I trust, of hope and charity. "Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O LORD GOD, thou knowest." (Ezekiel xxxvii. 3.) Of the cessation of Prophecies. §. 7. Two circumstances deserve to be noticed in connection with the Divine Preparation for CHRIST's Coming, Oracles and which, though of an historical rather than of a theological character, are yet too remarkable in the way of collateral evidence of design to be lightly passed over. The first is the important place assigned to Oracles in the heathen world, and the fact of their cessation about the period of our SAVIOUR'S Coming. For no less grave a writer than Dr. Jackson maintains "from the joint authority of all ancient writers, as well profane as sacred, that GOD in former times had spoken unto the world by dreams, visions, oracles, priests, and prophets; and that such revelations had been, amongst the Israelites, as the stars or night-lamps; amongst the heathen as meteors, fiery apparitions, or wandering comets, for their direction in the time of darkness and ignorance." But now that it is an acknowledged fact, "that all the former twinkling lights are vanished, the reason of this alteration men might seek by natural causes, as Plutarch did; but this doubt is cleared, S 258 OF THE PREPARATION FOR THE COMING OF CHRIST. and the question truly resolved by (the) Apostle in these words, At sundry times and in divers manners GOD spake in the old time to our Fathers by the Prophets; in these last days He hath spoken unto us by His SON, Whom He hath made heir of all things, by Whom also He made the world': Who, being the brightness of His glory, hath put the former lights, which shined in darkness, to flight." "h The second circumstance is, the cessation of miracles, of oracles, and of prophecies, even among GoD's chosen people, antecedently to the same event. Jackson notes the religious sobriety of the later writers of the Bible or other godly men, who have written of Jews' affairs; not one of them since Hezekiah's time relating such wonders as their fathers had told them, as a proof, "that the former miracles were no fictions of human fancy: otherwise the Jews, living between Hezekiah's and CHRIST'S time, would have been copious in their inventions of the like; as we see by experience, that the learned Jews since our SAVIOUR'S time have been most ridiculously apish in coining, and the illiterate as gross in believing, most absurd and filthy fables. That this people, during the whole time of the second temple, added no books to the Canon of the Bible, confirms their forefathers' care of admitting none in former times, but upon evident and sure experiments of their Divine authority. Again, it was most miraculous, that this people, which had prophets and sacred writers in every age before the Babylonish Captivity, should after their redemption thence lie so quiet, that not the most learned among them did ever challenge the name of Prophet; though they had men of divine spirits and excellent observation in heavenly matters, as appears by the Author of Ecclesiasticus, the Book of Wisdom, and other books of good use amongst all religious men, though not canonical amongst the Jews themselves. * The reason of all which I have given before. GOD had enjoined a general silence throughout this land, that all might hearken more attentively unto the crier's voice appointed to prepare the way of the LORD."i h Jackson's Works, Vol. I. p. 37, Bk i. ch. 10. i Ibid. c. 17, p. 66. 259 CHAPTER XIV. OF THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD OR SON OF GOD. k §. 1. THE Incarnation or the great mystery, wherein GOD the SON "came down from heaven, and was incarnate (for us) by the HOLY GHOST of the Virgin Mary, and was made man," is clearly set forth in the following passages of Scripture. "The HOLY GHOST shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the SON of GOD." "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the FATHER,) full of grace and truth."1 "But when the fulness of the time was come, GOD sent forth His SON, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.m "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." It was to be expected, that, when this central doctrine of the Gospel came to be presented to the acceptance of men, it would receive accretions of error according to the previous bias and prejudice of classes and schools of opinion. Thus, while the ordinary Jewish mind associated the idea of the MESSIAH with the secular glory of David and Solomon, and when that illusion vanished would still be apt to fall back n 0 on some example of heroic suffering in the records of their past history, such as Elias and Jeremias, to furnish a parallel to the Man of Sorrows; on the other hand, a disciple, imbued with the mysticism of Buddha, or bent on idealising human nature with whatever help from Platonic theories, would be tempted to dismiss the fact of the real humanity of CHRIST as trenching on the majesty of His Godhead. The two great divisions of heterodox statements respecting the Incarnation, the Nestorian and Eutychian, are traceable accordingly, the first through Paul of Samosata to the Jewish Ebionites, the second through Apollinarius of Laodicea to the Eastern heresy of Manes. Paul held that CHRIST was bare Man, and that the Divine LOGOS dwelt in him as He had done in the old Prophets; so that there were two natures in CHRIST, separated from each other and with no intercommunication, insomuch that CHRIST was one, the indwelling WORD another. His theological successors, whether Theodore of Mopsuestia or Nestorius, affecting to maintain Catholic language but in a non-natural sense, stated the union of GOD the WORD with Man, but qualified the admission by representing it to be according to grace or operation or dignity or relation or power. For, calling the LOGOS JESUS and CHRIST, and naming the Man separately CHRIST and SON, and evidently mentioning two persons, they professed to acknowledge one Person and one CHRIST according to appellation only and honour and dignity and worship. But they did not confess the union of God the WORD with flesh endowed with a rational and intellectual soul to have been a person (κal' úπÓσтаσw), as the holy Fathers taught and for this reason, that His Person (or Hypostasis) was One, which is the LORD JESUS CHRIST, One of the HOLY TRINITY.P Theodore indeed appears to have anticipated Socinian error, when he is reported to have held that CHRIST, having obtained God's grace in the way of growth and proficiency, is thence named GOD: that He was first endowed with the Spirit at His baptism in Jordan; and that the LOGOS after His own good pleasure dwelt in Him on account of His excellent virtue, and imparted to Him of His own • Geo. Cedreni Historiarum Compendium, p. 260. P Conc. Constant. ii. Ecumen. v. Canon. 4, ap. Labbe. Tom. V. p. 569. |