'The Person by whom the world shall be judged': Samuel Clarke on Christ the Judge

The third 18th century Church of England divine to whom we turn to consider their preaching on the Last Things, during these days of Advent, is Samuel Clarke. Yes, you read that correctly: Samuel Clarke, the divine whose work The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity provoked intense controversy in the years following its publication in 1712, leading to the robust affirmation of Trinitarian orthodoxy by Daniel Waterland. Clarke's heterodoxy on the matter of the Holy Trinity made him the champion of theological radicals and the bête noire of the strongly orthodox, Tory, and High Church Lower House of Convocation. 

Despite this, however, his sermons were popularly received across the 18th century Church of England. This is seen in the fact that the strongly orthodox 'Yale Apostates' - those New Congregational ministers who in 1722 embraced the Church of England and sought episcopal orders - made a point, when in London in March 1723, of hearing Clarke preach. When George Pretyman-Tomline, then Bishop of Lincoln, published his Elements of Christian Theology in 1799, he included "a List of Books, which every clergyman ought to possess". On the list, alongside the works of Secker, the High Church Archbishop of Canterbury 1758-68, and that staple of orthodox 18th century Anglicanism, The Whole Duty of Man, were the 8 volumes of Clark's Sermons.

The grounds of the affection for and recognition of Clarke's preaching were seen in words of Old High Bishop van Mildert, a biographer of Waterland. Writing in 1825, van Mildert said (quoted in Fornecker's excellent Bisschop's Bench):

I have no doubt [Clarke] was a very sincere Xtian, conscientious, pious & moreover, that he meant to be, & believed himself to be, a Trinitarian ... & I can look on his errors (for such Waterland, I believe, has demonstrated them to be) with far more charity, than upon the use which has been made of them, to serve the cause of a species of Unitarianism which he would have regarded with abhorrence.

Clarke's preaching, in other words, was regarded as standing quite apart from his doctrinal errors.

His sermon 'Of a Future Judgement', on the text Acts 17:13, "Because he bath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in Righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained", exemplifies why Clarke's sermons were esteemed by the vast majority in the Church of England who rejected his heterodox views on the Trinity. In Clarke was seen that "clear reasoning, sober argument, and touching exhortation" which defined the preaching of 18th century Church of England divines. 

It also worth noting that this clear, explicit proclamation of Christ the Judge - significantly clearer and more explicit than, I think, much contemporary orthodox Anglican preaching - is by a theologian whose understanding of the Holy Trinity was indeed heterodox, as his nontrinitarian revision of the Prayer Book (unpublished during his lifetime) made abundantly clear. Here he expounds what it means that it is Jesus Christ who "shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and the dead":

The Third thing proper to be taken notice of in the Text, is, the Person by whom the World shall be judged: God will judge it By That man, whom he hath ordained. The Light of Nature teaches us, that God will judge the World; and Revelation has declared to us, that He will judge it By Christ. The Difference of the Person Judging, makes not indeed any Difference in the Rule by which we shall be judged. But it is a Signification of God's merciful Intentions towards Mankind, that he has Appointed the Same person to be our Judge, who condescended to take our Nature upon him, to be made subject to all our Weaknesses and Infirmities, and to be tempted in all things like as We are, Sin only excepted; who

therefore can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also was compassed with Infirmity. And at the same time on the other hand, it is an Aggravation of the Ingratitude and of the Terror of presumptuous and impenitent Sinners, to consider that the fame merciful Saviour, who gave himself for them to have redeemed them from Death, and sent them so many gracious Invitations to Repentance, shall, after all his Offers of Mercy, have been despised, come Himself with ten thousand of his Saints, to execute Judgment upon All: That he shall come in the glory of his Father, and all his Holy Angels with him, and fall sit on the Throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all Nations: That be shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God; Before whose face the Earth and the Heaven shall flee away, and there shall be found no place for them: That he shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels, in flaming Fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel.

(The photograph is of St. James's Piccadilly. Clarke was rector of the church from 1709 until his death in 1729.)