[174]. It is orthodox, at the present day, to affirm that the mysteries of the Godhead and Incarnation of our Lord were explicitly taught by himself throughout his ministry, as well as by his apostles afterwards; and Mr. Jones (Lecture, p. 237) assures us that he “received divine homage, whilst on earth, from inspired men and angelic spirits.” This shows how much more clear-sighted is modern orthodoxy than was ancient: for the Fathers thought that a great part of the “mystery” of these doctrines consisted in the secrecy in which they were long wrapped. “In the silence of God,” Ignatius assures us, were the Incarnation and the Lord’s death accomplished; and the ecclesiastical writers of the first six centuries seem not only to have admitted that our Lord concealed his divinity from his disciples, and enjoined on his apostles great caution in this matter, but to have discerned in this suppression a profound wisdom, of which they frequently express their admiration. They urge that the Jews could never have been brought round to the faith, if these doctrines had not been kept back for a while,—a strange thing, by the way, if the whole ritual and Scriptures of this people were created to prefigure these mysteries. But Ignatius threw out a suggestion, which, from the eagerness wherewith it was caught up by succeeding writers, was evidently thought a happy discovery: it was necessary to conceal these mysteries from the Devil, or he would have been on his guard, and defeated everything. The hint of the venerable saint is brief: “The Virginity of Mary, and the Birth and Death of the Lord were hidden from the Prince of this world.” But the idea is variously enlarged upon by the later Fathers; for, as Cotelier observes, “Res ipsa quam Ignatius exprimit, passim apud sanctos Patres invenitur.” Jerome adds, that the vigilance of the Devil, who expected the Messiah to be born in some Jewish family, was thus eluded; and the Author of an anonymous fragment of the same age, cited by Isaac Vos, suggests that, if Satan had known, he would never have put it into men’s hearts to crucify Jesus. And Jobius, a monk of the sixth century, quoted by Photius in his Bibliotheca, and complimented by the learned Patriarch as τῶν ἱερῶν γραφῶν μελέτης οὐκ ἄπειρος, says, “It was necessary to keep in the shade the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, both for the sake of conciliating the hearers, and in order to escape the notice of the Prince of Darkness.”—See S. Ignat. Ep. ad Magnes. ch. xix.; Patr. Apost. Le Clerc’s Ed. Notes; and Priestley’s Early Opinions, b. iii, ch. 3, 4.
[175]. Lambertus Danaus, cited by Drusius, in his Diss. de nom. Elohim. Crit. Sacr. Tractatt. t. 1. See also Drus. de quæsitis per Epist. 66.
[176]. Comment. in Gen. i. 1. Calvin adds, “Imagining that they have here a proof against the Arians, they involve themselves in the Sabellian error: because Moses afterwards subjoins that Elohim spake, and that the Spirit of Elohim brooded over the waters. If we are to understand that the three Persons are indicated, there will be no distinction among them: for it will follow that the Son was self-generated, and that the Spirit is not of the Father, but of himself.” For further notice of this point see Note [B].
[177]. Grammar of the Hebrew Language, art. 228, 6. Note.
[178]. See Scripture Proofs and Scriptural Illustrations of Unitarianism, by John Wilson, second edition, 1837, p. 33, where will be found a curious table, exhibiting the usage of the word God, in every book of the New Testament. Mr. Wilson has collected his materials with great industry, and arranged them with skill.
[179]. Matt. i. 23.
[180]. Isaiah vii. 14. The whole passage is as follows:
“Behold the virgin conceiveth, and beareth a son;
And she shall call his name Emmanuel.
Butter and honey shall he eat,