aker and sovereign of the world, by the strict rules of
righteousness and justice, and then how could any sinner be saved?
(Why? Is mercy incompatible with righteousness? How then can the Son be
righteous?)
But he has committed judgment to the Son, as a mediatory king, who
judges by the equity and chancery of the Gospel.
This article required exposition incomparably more than the simple
doctrine of the Trinity, plain and evident 'simplici intuitu', and
rendered obscure only by diverting the mental vision by terms drawn from
matter and multitude. In the Trinity all the 'Hows'? may and should be
answered by 'Look'! just as a wise tutor would do in stating the fact of
a double or treble motion, as of a ball rolling north ward on the deck
of a ship sailing south, while the earth is turning from west to east.
And in like manner, that is, 'per intuitum intellectualem', must all the
mysteries of faith be contemplated;--they are intelligible 'per se',
not discursively and 'per analogiam'. For the truths are unique, and may
have shadows and types, but no analogies. At this moment I have no
intuition, no intellectual diagram, of this article of the commission of
all judgment to the Son, and therefore a multitude of plausible
objections present themselves, which I cannot solve--nor do I expect to
solve them till by faith I see the thing itself.--Is not mercy an
attribute of the Deity, as Deity, and not exclusively of the Person of
the Son? And is not the authorizing another to judge by equity and mercy
the same as judging so ourselves? If the Father can do the former, why
not the latter?
Ib. p. 171.
And therefore now it is given him to have life in himself, as the
Father hath life in himself, as the original fountain of all life, by
whom the Son himself lives: all life is derived from God, either by
eternal generation, or procession, or creation; and thus Christ hath
life in himself also; to the new creation he is the fountain of life:
'he quickeneth whom he will'.
The truths which hitherto had been metaphysical, then began to be
historical. The Eternal was to be manifested in time. Hence Christ came
with signs and wonders; that is, the absolute, or the anterior to cause
and effect, manifested itself as a 'phenomenon' in time, but with the
predicates of eternity;--and this is the only possible definition of a
miracle 'in re ipsa', and not merely 'ad hominem', or 'ad ignorantiam'.
Ib. p. 177.
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