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| The Force of Sundry Passages of Scripture Illustrated in Relation to the Plurality of Persons and Unity of Substance. There is No Polytheism Here, Since the Unity is Insisted on as a Remedy Against Polytheism.
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Chapter XIII.—The
Force of Sundry Passages of Scripture Illustrated in Relation to the
Plurality of Persons and Unity of Substance. There is No Polytheism
Here, Since the Unity is Insisted on as a Remedy Against
Polytheism.
Well then, you reply, if He was God who spoke, and
He was also God who created, at this rate, one God spoke and another
created; (and thus) two Gods are declared. If you are so venturesome
and harsh, reflect a while; and that you may think the better and more
deliberately, listen to the psalm in which Two are described as
God: “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre
of Thy kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. Thou hast loved
righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even Thy God, hath
anointed Thee or made Thee His Christ.”7906
Now, since He here speaks to God, and
affirms that God is anointed by God, He must have affirmed that Two are
God, by reason of the sceptre’s royal power. Accordingly,
Isaiah also says to the Person of Christ: “The Sabæans, men
of stature, shall pass over to Thee; and they shall follow after Thee,
bound in fetters; and they shall worship Thee, because God is in
Thee: for Thou art our God, yet we knew it not; Thou art the God
of Israel.”7907
For here too, by
saying, “God is in Thee,” and “Thou art God,”
he sets forth Two who were God: (in the former expression in
Thee, he means) in Christ, and (in the other he means) the Holy
Ghost. That is a still grander statement which you will find expressly
made in the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God.”7908
There was One “who was,” and there was another “with
whom” He was. But I find in Scripture the name Lord also applied to them Both: “The Lord said unto
my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand.”7909
And Isaiah says this: “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”7910
Now he would most
certainly have said Thine Arm, if he had not wished us to
understand that the Father is Lord, and the Son also is Lord. A much
more ancient testimony we have also in Genesis: “Then the Lord
rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord
out of heaven.”7911
Now, either deny
that this is Scripture; or else (let me ask) what sort of man you are,
that you do not think words ought to be taken and understood in the
sense in which they are written, especially when they are not expressed
in allegories and parables, but in determinate and simple declarations?
If, indeed, you follow those who did not at the time endure the Lord
when showing Himself to be the Son of God, because they would not
believe Him to be the Lord, then (I ask you) call to mind along with
them the passage where it is written, “I have said, Ye are gods,
and ye are children of the Most High;”7912
and again, “God standeth in the congregation of
gods;”7913
in order that, if
the Scripture has not been afraid to designate as gods human beings,
who have become sons of God by faith, you may be sure that the same
Scripture has with greater propriety conferred the name of the Lord on
the true and one only Son of God. Very well! you say, I shall challenge
you to preach from this day forth (and that, too, on the authority of
these same Scriptures) two Gods and two Lords, consistently with your
views. God forbid, (is my reply). For we, who by the grace of God
possess an insight into both the times and the occasions of the Sacred
Writings, especially we who are followers of the Paraclete, not of
human teachers, do indeed definitively declare that Two
Beings are God, the Father and the Son, and, with the addition of the
Holy Spirit, even Three, according to the principle of the
divine economy, which introduces number, in order that
the Father may not, as you perversely infer, be Himself believed to
have been born and to have suffered, which it is not lawful to believe,
forasmuch as it has not been so handed down. That there are, however,
two Gods or two Lords, is a statement which at no time proceeds out of
our mouth: not as if it were untrue that the Father is God, and the Son
is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and each is God; but because in
earlier times Two were actually spoken of as God, and two as Lord, that
when Christ should come He might be both acknowledged as God and
designated as Lord, being the Son of Him who is both God and Lord. Now,
if there were found in the Scriptures but one Personality of Him who is
God and Lord, Christ would justly enough be inadmissible to the title
of God and Lord: for (in the Scriptures) there was declared to be none
other than One God and One Lord, and it must have followed that the
Father should Himself seem to have come down (to earth), inasmuch as
only One God and One Lord was ever read of (in the Scriptures), and His
entire Economy would be involved in obscurity, which has been
planned and arranged with so clear a foresight in His providential
dispensation as matter for our faith. As soon, however, as
Christ came, and was recognised by us as the very Being who had from
the beginning7914
caused
plurality7915
(in the Divine
Economy), being the second from the Father, and with the Spirit
the third, and Himself declaring and manifesting the Father more
fully (than He had ever been before), the title of Him who is God and
Lord was at once restored to the Unity (of the Divine Nature), even
because the Gentiles would have to pass from the multitude of their
idols to the One Only God, in order that a difference might be
distinctly settled between the worshippers of One God and the votaries
of polytheism. For it was only right that Christians should shine in
the world as “children of light,” adoring and invoking Him
who is the One God and Lord as “the light of the world.”
Besides, if, from that perfect knowledge7916
which assures us that the title of God and Lord is suitable both to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, we were to invoke a
plurality of gods and lords, we should quench our torches, and we
should become less courageous to endure the martyr’s sufferings,
from which an easy escape would everywhere lie open to us, as soon as
we swore by a plurality of gods and lords, as sundry heretics
do, who hold more gods than One. I will therefore not speak of
gods at all, nor of lords, but I shall follow the apostle; so that if
the Father and the Son, are alike to be invoked, I shall call the
Father “God,” and invoke Jesus Christ as
“Lord.”7917
But when Christ
alone (is mentioned), I shall be able to call Him
“God,” as the same apostle says: “Of whom is
Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever.”7918
For I should give the name of
“sun” even to a sunbeam, considered in itself; but
if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I certainly
should at once withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam. For
although I make not two suns, still I shall reckon both the sun
and its ray to be as
much two things and two forms7919
of one undivided
substance, as God and His Word, as the Father and the
Son.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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