and princes.
[←48]
Objurgatory: Designed to chide; containing or expressing reproof.
[←49]
Latin: the gods have deemed otherwise.
[←50]
Prolixity: boring wordiness.
[←51]
Irrefragable: not to be refuted or overthrown; undeniable.
[←52]
See Locke’s Essay, vol. i. pp. 195-200. b. ii. c. 21.
[←53]
Tertium quid: some third thing similar to two opposites but distinct from both.
[←54]
I was once asked, why, with such an excellent treatise as Jonathan Edwards’ and others, in our own language, I thought it necessary to revive Luther. Here is my answer: Your great metaphysicians decompound man; and if they could, they would decompound God. Your great theologians do the same. But if we would really know either man or God, we must first learn to take the Bible for granted, that it is the word of God; and then study both, as drawn and described in it: not imagining a God for ourselves, by decking out some we know not what substratum with a number of what we call attributes; but remembering, that what we hear called His attributes are in reality parts of His essence, and considering, that it is that Good One who has devised, foreordained, and in his appointed time, manifested the Lord Jesus Christ as the image of Himself, in his person and in his actings, which is our God; and that we ourselves are parts of that Adam, by his dealings with, and declarations concerning which, in Christ, He has been and is effecting the manifestation of what He himself is.
[←55]
That is, scholastics, such as Anselm, Peter Abelard, William of Ockham, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas.
[←56]
It may not be improper to observe that Luther himself, many years afterwards, had so good an opinion of it, as to declare that he could not revjew any one of his writings with complete satisfaction, unless perhaps his Catechism and his Bondage of the Will.
[←57]
See Joh 1.17; 14.6. Eph 1.13; 4.21; Col 1.5; 1Joh 5.20.
[←58]
See, among other places, Joh 1.1-14. 1Joh 1.1, 2. Col 1.15-20. Heb 1. Pro 8.22-31. Mic 5.2.
[←59]
See especially Matt. 12.28. Acts 1.1, 2. 2.22, etc. 10.38.
[←60]
The essence of Christ’s person is God-manhood: He is God, the equal of the Father and of the Holy Ghost: He is man by the conception of the Holy Ghost in the Virgin; He is God-man in one substance, through that union of his God person with his man person, which is effected by the agency of the Holy Ghost; Who, being one in essence with his God person, inbabits that manhood of His which he has generated. What is that manhood so generated? Its essence is a pure, spotless, sinless spirit inhabiting (in the days of his flesh, and while yet it was flesh and blood) a sinful body. Romans i. 3, 4. rightly interpreted, confirms this satisfying account of the matter: “Who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, that is, the body; Who was declared to be Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness that is, according to his spirit which was holy (the opposition, I maintain, is between his flesh and his spirit) — from the period of his resurrection (ex anastasewv}. The whole tenour of Scripture declaration falls in with this view. His body is his connecting link with manhood, that is, with Adam-hood: Son of man is not man merely; man anyhow begotten, anyhow made, anyhow existent (as the Lord God might have made five hundred species of men); but Son of Adam, one who has his being somehow through and of the stock of Adam.
[←61]
The notes referred to are explicit and full; but take an illustration, which may be of use to some, 1. from the case of Rebekah, Genesis 25.21-23. (…”Two nations are in your womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from your bowels); and 2. from Heb. 7.9, 10. (For he was yet in the loins of his Father, when etc.)
[←62]
God has given a commandment, “Repent, and believe the Gospel;” “And this is his commandment, that we believe on the name ” etc. This command is congruous to that manifestation which he makes of himself in his super-creation kingdom; I say rather, is congruous to what He himself is — He being, even as He has hereby shown himself to be, the God who in perfect harmony and consistency with all other perfections, is love, grace and mercy. The giving of this commandment, and the receiving of his people according to it, falls in with his great design of God-manifestation, by drawing out, as it does, what is in man, and showing HIM as dealing with what is so drawn out, according to justice and equity. — In no way does it disparages the freeness of the grace, while it manifests to the uttermost the justness of the indignation. Which of the reprobate disobeys the Gospel edict, because he counts himself to be a reprobate? And which of them has any right to deal with himself as such?
[←63]
The law is a perfect transcript of creation man’s duty, in enigma; typical emblem of Christ as the unblemished Lamb, and of the law of the Spirit of life which is laid up in Him (“Your lamb shall be without blemish,” Exo 12.5…” And put the tables in the ark which I had made,” Deu 10.5…” A new covenant … I will put my laws into their mind, ” etc. Heb. 8.8-11.), and real teacher that Adam cannot obey his Maker; or rather, that creature, as creature, cannot fulfil the law of his sort. But grace has a new mind to study, and it is cast into a mould correspondent to that mind — brought to a mind which is of a much higher tone, and of another string, than that which God taught and demanded at Sinai.
[←64]
I would be understood as not pretending to make full and accurate references in proof of Luther’s seeings and not seeings (which would, in fact, be to analyze and anatomize the whole of his work), but merely to give a hint at each. And now, I well know how I will be arraigned of arrogance for having dared to controvert his positions, even more, to judge and to condemn him. I can only say, as Luther did at Worms; Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. May God help me. Amen. It is the fashion to speak of Luther and the rest of the reformers as little less than inspired men, and of the era of the Reformation as the season of an effusion of the Spirit: the same sort of expression has been applied also to later times; to a supposed and, as I will hope, real revival of religion which took place in Whitfield’s time. Such expressions are unwarranted. I know of but one effusion, when “being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, Jesus shed forth that which was seen and heard,” on the day of Pentecost. Granting, therefore, what I would by no means dispute, that it has been the Lord’s blessed will from the beginning to make peculiar display of his Spirit at certain seasons — as in private and personal experience, so in the community of his people — and not sticking at a word, but calling this effusion, if you please; what is the extent of the benefit? It is not meant that the atmosphere is impregnated with spiritual influences, so that all who live at such a period, and within the circle of it, are made partakers of the boon. Otherwise, where did the Caiaphases and Alexanders, the Felixes and Caesars come from? It goes no further than that certain persons are specially taught, strengthened, and comforted at these seasons; and that the number so instructed and enlivened is greater than in ordinary times. It does not follow, that the blessed Spirit has, at these seasons, taught and shown all that is ever to be taught and shown of God and of his truth. The Bible and other records show that there has, on the contrary, been a progression in His teaching; in the manner of revealing, if not in the matter revealed. Though all truth is contained in, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman ” etc. this truth has been made plainer, in various degrees, since the beginning; to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to the Prophets, the Evangelists and the Apostles. It would not be adventurous to affirm that, as the Prophets spoke to as well as of the Apostles’ days, so the Apostles have spoken to as well of later times — times yet to come. Is it sacrilege or blasphemy to say that what Paul and John wrote and spoke will be better understood, and is even now better understood generally in the church, than it was by their own immediate hearers and readers, if not by themselves? Surely it would be preposterous to affirm that nothing lias been added to the store of evangelical learning, since Luther’s time, by the discovery of additional manuscripts, and by their collation; by the improved knowledge of the original languages; by the illustrations of travellers, and other sources of intelligence, inquiry and communication. While all other knowledge is progressive, why should biblical knowledge be stationary? Has it, in fact, been so? is it even yet so? And it is plain, this remark does not apply to the elucidation of prophecy exclusively; it extends to the counsel and truth- of God. Take our fourth Article as a specimen. In Luther’s and our reformers’ time, I suppose everybody expected to rise