is it possible he should thus talk!
"The precise metaphysical relationship of the Son to the Father." p. 323[1].
Why called metaphysical, I do not understand, but we have been already introduced to this word by Mr. Erskine, whose original fallacy also, be it observed, is faithfully preserved in this passage;—"questions which can be of no practical consequence," as if we have any warrant thus to limit, or to decide upon, the gracious revelations of God. He continues,
"We have said they are of no practical consequence; of course an ingenious reason can contrive to connect practical consequences with any subject whatever, and in his zeal he will exaggerate the importance of the connexion;"
I interrupt the reader, to remind him that the subjects spoken of in this careless self-satisfied way, are those which from the first have been preserved in Creeds and Confessions as the most necessary, most solemn truths;—
"in fact every subject in the moral world is more or less connected with every other one; nothing stands out entirely detached and isolated, and consequently a question which its arguers will admit to be merely a theoretical one, will never be found." p. 32, 4.
But if so, who shall draw the line between truths practical and theoretical? Shall we trust the work to such as Mr. A.? Surely this passage refutes his own doctrine. We also say that there are no two subjects in religion but may be connected by our minds, and therefore, for what we know, perchance are connected in fact. All we maintain in addition, is, that evidence of the fact of that connexion is not necessary for the proof of their importance to us, and further, that we have no right to pronounce that they are revealed merely with a view to their importance to us.
He disposes of the Catholic doctrine of Christ's eternal Sonship by calling it metaphysical: how he escapes from the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation we have already seen,—he resolves it into a moral Manifestation of God in the person of Christ. But his view requires a few more words of explanation. First he speaks of God in pantheistic language, as an Anima Mundi, or
- ↑ Vide also p. 197.
