DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9552#0177
TO THE CHRISTIAN PUBLIC.
147
in searching for the truth, without preferring any claim
to ubiquity ? We find similar expressions in the Scrip-
tures, wherein the guidance of the Prophets of God is
also meant by words that would imply their presence.
Luke, ch. xvi. ver. 29 : Abraham saith unto him, 'They
have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'
No one will suppose that this expression is intended to
signify that the Jews actually had Moses and the Pro-
phets in person among them, or that they could hear
them speak in the literal and not in the figurative sense
of the words ; nor can any one deduce the omnipresence
of Moses and the Prophets from such expressions.
The second position advanced by the Reverend
Editor is, that "Jesus ascribes to himself a knowledge
and an incomprehensibility of nature equal to that of
God, and peculiar to God alone ;" and in attempting to
substantiate this point, he quotes Matthew, ch, xi. ver.
27 : "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father ; neither
knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Here the Editor
seems to rest on two grounds ; 1st, That God is incom-
prehensible to man ; 2ndly, That incomprehensibility of
nature is peculiar to God alone :—whence the Reverend
Editor draws his inference that Jesus, knowing the
nature of God, and being himself possessed of an incom-
prehensible nature, is equal with God. Now I snould
wish to know if the Editor, by the term "incomprehen-
sible," understands a total impossibility of comprehen-
sion in any degree, or only the impossibility of attaining
to a perfect kowledge of God. If the former, I must be
under the necessity of denying such a total incompre-
hensibility of the Godhead ; for 'the very passage cited
147
in searching for the truth, without preferring any claim
to ubiquity ? We find similar expressions in the Scrip-
tures, wherein the guidance of the Prophets of God is
also meant by words that would imply their presence.
Luke, ch. xvi. ver. 29 : Abraham saith unto him, 'They
have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.'
No one will suppose that this expression is intended to
signify that the Jews actually had Moses and the Pro-
phets in person among them, or that they could hear
them speak in the literal and not in the figurative sense
of the words ; nor can any one deduce the omnipresence
of Moses and the Prophets from such expressions.
The second position advanced by the Reverend
Editor is, that "Jesus ascribes to himself a knowledge
and an incomprehensibility of nature equal to that of
God, and peculiar to God alone ;" and in attempting to
substantiate this point, he quotes Matthew, ch, xi. ver.
27 : "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father ; neither
knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Here the Editor
seems to rest on two grounds ; 1st, That God is incom-
prehensible to man ; 2ndly, That incomprehensibility of
nature is peculiar to God alone :—whence the Reverend
Editor draws his inference that Jesus, knowing the
nature of God, and being himself possessed of an incom-
prehensible nature, is equal with God. Now I snould
wish to know if the Editor, by the term "incomprehen-
sible," understands a total impossibility of comprehen-
sion in any degree, or only the impossibility of attaining
to a perfect kowledge of God. If the former, I must be
under the necessity of denying such a total incompre-
hensibility of the Godhead ; for 'the very passage cited