Him (S. John x. 15; cf. S. Matt. xi. 27). This is one side of the truth concerning the Person of Christ, as disclosed in the Gospel narrative. It is explained by the fact that though the essential properties of Deity are not communicable to man's nature, yet the supernatural gifts, graces, and effects thereof are," and by what Hooker calls "the gift of unction," as a consequence of the close union of the two natures in a single. Personality, supernatural gifts and graces flowed in from the higher upon the lower nature united to it, infinitely ennobling and exalting it, but not in any way destroying its true and perfect human character, nor endowing it with the properties of Deity. Thus the body of Christ was a true human body, enabled by a divine gift to walk upon the water, but not able to be in two places at once, which would be contrary to the properties of human nature. The power of working miracles was, in the same way, a supernatural effect of Deity, as was also the enlightenment of the human soul with the knowledge of "what was in man." But there is another side as well to the portrait drawn in the Gospels, and from many passages we can see that, though for all purposes of His divine mission and work our Lord's manhood was thus supernaturally enlightened and endowed with divine powers, yet in ordinary matters, outside the sphere of the special work He had come to do, He accepted the limitations common to men in general, and natural to His position as born in a particular spot, at a particular time in the world's history. Though He miraculously

1 Ecclesiastical Polity, bk. V. ch. liv.

2 The expression is justified by S. Peter's words in Acts x. 38: "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil: for God was with Him." Cf. also S. Luke iv. 18. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed me, etc."

fed the five thousand in the wilderness, yet when He
was Himself an hungered, He was content to wait while
His disciples went into the city to buy food to supply
His needs (S. John iv. 8). In reference to His human
intellect, it is said that He "increased in wisdom"
(S. Luke ii. 52). Of the day and hour of the last
judgment He Himself tells us that He did not know.
"Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the
angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father"
(S. Mark xiii. 32). He raised the dead to life, but

when His hour was come, Himself submitted to the
power of death.
Both classes of passages to which
attention has been drawn refer to one and the same
Person, and that Person the Eternal Son of God. That
which explains them is the fact that in taking upon
Him our nature He voluntarily limited Himself. In S.
Paul's phrase, éxévwσev čavтóv (Phil. ii. 7), He "emptied
Himself "not of His Godhead, for that were an
impossibility, but of the exercise of His divine pre-
rogatives. He condescended" in all things to be made
like unto His brethren" (Heb. ii. 17), "sin only excepted"
(Heb. iv. 15; 2 Cor. v. 21; 1 Pet. ii. 22).1

1 Since peculiar difficulty is sometimes felt with regard to the question of
the limitation of knowledge in the human soul of Christ, it may be well to
add a brief note on the subject. Infinite knowledge, in the strictest sense of
the word, can only belong to an infinite mind. It is, therefore, a "pro-
perty" of the Godhead (cf. Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, V. liii. § 1),
and to say that the knowledge possessed by Christ's soul was infinite is
practically to fall into the heresy of Apollinaris. Though, however, the
finite human soul could not be possessed of infinite knowledge, yet, short
of this, there is nothing of which we should be justified in saying that
Christ as man "could not have known it." Each "piece of information
is finite, and, as a supernatural gift, not a property of the Godhead, might
therefore have been communicated to the manhood. Had He so willed,
He might have known it. Of one fact we have the express warrant of
His own word for saying that He did not know it (S. Mark xiii. 32).
What further limitations of knowledge there may have been beyond this
can only be a matter of reasonable inference from the Gospel narrative.

III. The Atonement.

Who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.

Whatever they were, they were purely voluntary. If there were matters which He did not know, it was not because He could not have known them, but because He condescended not to know. Theologically, there is no greater difficulty in believing that He was ignorant of a hundred things than in believing that He was ignorant of one. If one fact was hidden from His human intellect we are forced to admit the co-existence of ignorance and infinite knowledge in a single Personality. But this, as the late Dr. Liddon has pointed out in his Bampton Lectures, is but one of the many contrasts which, in accepting the Incarnation at all, we are bound to admit ; nor is it really more mysterious than many "other and undisputed contrasts between the divine and human natures of the incarnate Son-e.g. the co-existence of local presence and omnipresence— of absolute blessedness, and intense suffering" (see Liddon's Bampton Lectures, p. 463). Dr. Liddon urges that we have no right to infer from St. Mark xiii. 32 ignorance on Christ's part on any other subject. It is true that we are never directly told of anything else that He did not know. But there are various expressions in the Gospels which appear to indicate that there were limitations of knowledge beyond this, and that on ordinary matters He willed to be dependent on ordinary means of information. He "increased in wisdom." Seeing the fig-tree with leaves the usual sign of fruit-He came to it, "if haply He might find anything thereon" (S. Mark xi. 13). Again and again we read that He "marvelled" at something. Moreover, His questions, though doubtless often asked to "prove" His disciples, yet sometimes appear to have been called forth by a desire for information, e. g., "Where have ye laid him?" (S. John xi. 34). "How many loaves have ye?" (S. Mark vi. 38, viii. 5). "How long time is it since this hath come unto him?" (S. Mark ix. 21). See further, Gore's Bampton Lectures, Lect. vi., and "An Inquiry into the Nature of our Lord's knowledge as Man," by W. S. Swayne. It may be added (in order to avoid misconception) that no argument can justly be drawn from limited knowledge to error or fallibility on the part of our blessed Lord, for, as the late Bishop Harold Browne pointed out, “Ignorance does not of necessity involve error. Of course in our present state of being, with our propensity to lean on our wisdom, ignorance is extremely likely to lead to error. But ignorance is not error; and there is not one word in the Bible which could lead us to suppose that our blessed Lord was liable to error in any sense of the word, or in any department of knowledge."-Pentateuch and Elohistic Psalms, p. 13.

In the wording of this portion of the Article four expressions are worthy of especial notice.—

1. "Who truly suffered."-So in Article IV. we read, "Christ did truly arise again from death." There is evidently a special emphasis upon the word "truly " in each case. And there can be no doubt that it was designedly added to guard against a Docetic view of the Incarnation, which had recently been revived by some among the Anabaptists. The heresy of the Doceta (4ожηтai) appeared in very early days. Its advocates maintained that our blessed Lord's body was like ours only in appearance, and not in reality. According to S. Jerome, "while the apostles were still surviving, while Christ's blood was still fresh, in Judæa, the Lord's body was asserted to be but a phantasm." This view, which it is almost needless to say, contradicts the whole tenor of Scripture, was very prevalent among the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, many of whom denied altogether that Christ really took flesh in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and thus were led on to deny the reality of both His passion and His resurrection. Hence the insertion of the word "truly " here, and also in Article IV.

"1

Exception is

2. To reconcile His Father to us. sometimes taken to this phrase, on the ground that it is unscriptural; for the Bible speaks of the need for men to be reconciled to God, but says nothing of God being reconciled to man. As far as the merc form of expression is concerned it must be admitted that the objection can be sustained. The following are

1 Adv. Lucif. 23.

See the Preface to Bishop Hooper's Lesson of the Incarnation, where it is noted that this "most pestilent and dangerous" doctrine has "gotten into the hearts of many."-Later Writings of Bishop Hooper (Parker Society), p. 3.

the only passages in the canonical books of Scripture in which the word "reconcile" occurs in this connection, and in none of them does the phrase used in the article

occur.

Rom. v. 10, 11: "For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God (κατηλλάγημεν τῷ Θεῷ), through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled (KATAλλAYÉVTES), shall we be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (καταλλαγή). 2 Cor. v. 18-20: “But all things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself (TOû καταλλάξαντος ἡμᾶς ἑαυτῷ) through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation (Tŷs Kaтaλλayĥs); to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation. We are ambassadors, therefore, on behalf of Christ, as though God were intreating by us: we beseech you, on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God." Eph. ii. 16: "That He might reconcile them (ȧжокатаλλáğŋ) both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." Col. i. 19-22: "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell; and through Him to reconcile (άπокαTaλλáğaı) all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him."

The Socinians, and those who with them object to the language of our Article point to the form of expression