d most
instructive truth into a truism. "But if not as the Son of God,
therefore 'a fortiori' not as the Son of man, and more especially, as
such, in all that refers to the redemption of mankind."

Ib. p. 267.

To this glory Christ, as God, was entitled from all eternity; but did
not acquire a right to it as man, till he had paid the purchase by his
blood.

I too hold this for a most important truth; but yet could wish it to
have been somewhat differently expressed; as thus:--"but did not acquire
it as man till the means had been provided and perfected by his blood."

Ib. p. 268.

If Christ in one place, ('John' xiv. 28,) says, 'My Father is greater
than I'; he must be understood of his relation to the Father as his
Son, born of a woman.

I do not see the necessity of this: does not Christ say, 'My Father and
I will come and we will dwell in you?' Nay, I dare confidently affirm
that in no one passage of St. John's Gospel is our Lord declared in any
special sense the Son of the First Person of the Trinity in reference to
his birth from a woman. And remember it is from St. John's Gospel that
the words are cited. So too the answer to Philip ought to be interpreted
by ch. i. 18. of the same Gospel.

Ib. p. 276.

I confess I do not agree with Skelton's interpretation of any of these
texts entirely. Because I hold the Nicene Faith, and revere the doctrine
of the Trinity as the fundamental article of Christianity, I apply to
Christ as the Second Person, almost all the texts which Skelton explains
of his humanity. At all events 1 consider 'the first-born of every
creature' as a false version of the words, which (as the argument and
following verse prove) should be rendered 'begotten before', (or rather
'superlatively before'), 'all that was created or made; for by him' they
were made.

Ib.

'Of that day, and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which
are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.'

I cannot explain myself here; but I have long thought that our Saviour
meant in these words [Greek: ainittein taen theotaeta ahutou]--and that
like the problem proposed by him to the Scribes, they were intended to
prepare the minds of the disciples for this awful mystery--[Greek: ei
mae ho pataer]--"unless, or if not, as the Father knows it;" while in
St. Matthew the equivalent sense is given by the omission of the [Greek:
oud' ho uhios], and its inclusion in the Father. 'As the Father k