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1 §* jjfitm iJfiPg ' Y $ < ^ t * . «» d-repeat him * onli J ^ ulpgfxiar , e to remember that what is trailed repentance when applied to God , doeW riot arise from inadvertency , as in riifen ^ for so he has himself cautioned us , NtimU- x ^ ili . 19 , Go <{ is not a man that he $ h&utd fie , tieither the soft of man that h 0 \ s $ of 0 t repetot . Seje also lSam . xv .
2 ^ . tAg&in > if it griebed the Lord at Ms h&Bwt * $ jim . + vt . 6 ; and if his soul were grieved for the misery of Israel , Judges x . 16 ^ 4 eljjiis believe that it did grieve him . For the affections which in a good man ar £ good , and rank with virtues , in God are holy' If after the work of six days it Tie said of God that he rested and was
refreshed , Exod . xxxi . 17 ; if it be said that he feared the wrath of the enemy , Deut . xxxii . 27 , let us believe that it is not beneath the dignity of God to grieve in that for which he is grieved , or to be refreshed in that which refresheth him , or to fear in that he feareth . For
however we may attempt to soften down such expressions by a latitude of interpretation , when applied to the Deity , it comes in the end to precisely the same . If God be said to have made man in his own image , after his likeness , Gen . i . 26 , and that too not only as to his soul , but also as to his outward form , ( unless the same
words have different significations here and in chap . v . 3 , Adam begat a son in his own likeness , after his imaged ) and if God habitually assign to himself the members and form of man , why should we be afraid of attributing to him what he attributes to himself , so long as what is imperfection and weakness when viewed in reference to ourselves be considered
as most complete and excellent whenever it is imputed to God ? Questionless , the glory and majesty of the Deity must have been so dear to him , that he would never say any thing o himself which could be humiliating or degrading , and would ascribe to himself no personal attribute which he would not willingly have
ascribed to- him by his creatures . Let us be convinced that those have acquired the truest apprehension of the nature of God who submit their understandings to his word ; inasmuch ad he has accommodated his words to their understandings , and has shewn what he wishes their notion of the JJeity should be . Xi
To speak summarily , God either is , or is not , such as he represents himself to be . If he be really such , why should we think otherwise of him ? if he be not , such , on what authority do we say
what God has not said ? If at least it be his will that we should thus think of him , why does our imagination wander into some other conception ? Why should wu hesitate to conceive of God according
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to what he has not he ^ tated declare explicitly respecting himself ? For such knowledge of the Deity as was necessary for the salvation of many he has ; hitriself of hisi gootfpessfciM ^ plea ^ d' 4 tor re ^ ai abundantly . Deut . xxix . 29 , The setret things belong tmlo Jehovah , but those things which are repealed belong unto us —that we may do them .
* ' In arguing thus , we do not say that God is in fashion like unto man in all his parts and members , but that as far as we are concerned to know , he is o that form which he attributes to himself in
the sacred writings - If therefore we persist in entertaining a different conception of the Deity than that which is to be presumed he desires should be cherished , inasmnch as he has himself disclosed it
to us , we frustrate the purposes of God instead of rendering him submissive obedience . As if , forsooth , we wished to shew that it was not we who had thought too meanly of God , but God who had thought too meanly of us . "—Pp . 16—19 .
In his statement of the < Names and Attributes of God / 5 Milton adheres to the language of Scripture . Tire criticism , in the following passage , is one of the earliest proofs that we observe of the superiority of his mind to traditionary divinity .
" God considered in his most simple nature is a Spirit . Exod . iii . 14 , 15 , / am that I am . Rom . xi . 36 , Of him and through him are all things . John iv . 24 , God is a spirit . What a spirit is , or rather what it is not . is shewn , Isa . xxxi .
3 , Flesh , and not spirit . Luke xxiv . 39 , A spirit hath not flesh and bones . Whence it is evident that the essence of God , being iu itself most simple , can admit ni > compound quality ; so that the term
hypostasis , Heb . i . 3 , which is differently translated substance , or subsistence , or person , can be nothing else but that most perfect essence by which God subsists by himself , in himself , and through himself . For neither substance nor subsistence make
any addition to what is already a most perfect , essence ; and the word person in its later acceptation signifies any individual thing gifted with intelligence , while hypostasis denotes not the ens itself , but the essence of the ens in the abstract .
Hypostasis , therefore , is clearly the same as essence , and thus many ot the Latin commentators render it in the passage already quoted . Therefore , as Godi » a most simple essence , so is he also a pnCst simple subsistence . " —P . 21 .
Having produced some of t | ie mi ^ t pointed iis&ertionj * , in tb ^ Olife ^' ineiit , of the- Uwiiv of (* <* » * Mi Uoii
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612 Revieu\—* Mihon * s Treatise of Christian Doctrine
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1825, page 612, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2541/page/36/
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