22 HYPOTHESIS OF GOD'S IMPASSIBILITY.

CHAPTER II.

Prevalent Hypothesis of God's Impassibility considered-Supported by Great Names-Correct when applied to Involuntary SufferingIncorrect when applied to Voluntary Suffering-Argument of Bishop Pearson examined.

We are met at the very threshold of our argument with the preliminary objection that the divine nature is impassible, or, in other words, that God cannot suffer. This objection, if true to its unlimited extent, is doubtless insuperable; for if the divine nature of Christ is incapable of suffering, he must necessarily have suffered in his human nature alone. We must, therefore, pause at once in our argument until we have explored the foundations of this startling objection, lest we should come, unwittingly, into collision with the awful attributes of Jehovah. The hypothesis that God is impassible is stated broadly by its advocates without restriction, qualification, or exception. It applies, therefore, as well to voluntary as to involuntary suffering by either of the persons of the glorious Trinity.

If a dogma pertaining to the viewless attributes of the unsearchable Godhead can rest for its sup

port on mere human authority, then the hypothesis in question is, indeed, to be regarded as impregnable. It has stretched itself over Christendom, and stood the ordeal of centuries. The Roman Catholic Church has adopted it as one of her settled axioms; the venerable Church of England has lent it the names of her Hooker, her Tillotson, her Pearson, her Barrow, her Beveridge, her Horne, and her Horsley; the Protestant Church of France has sanctioned it by the adhesion of her eloquent Saurin; the Baptist Church has added the name of her no less eloquent Hall; and the Presbyterian Church has crowned it with the accumulated authority of her Owen, her Charnock, her Edwards, her Witherspoon, her Dwight, her Mason, and her Emmons. To these high intellectual dignitaries a lengthened, and still lengthening list might be added from the dead and the living.

Against names so distinguished for talents, learning, and piety it is with unaffected diffidence that we venture to raise the voice of our feeble dissent. We should scarcely have entered on the arduous undertaking, but from our firm conviction that these illustrious personages have endorsed the hypothesis without that profound attention and discrimination which has usually marked the movements of their mighty minds. None of them has, to our knowledge, fortified it by a single quotation

from the oracles of truth, or devoted to it a single page of argument, with the solitary exception of Bishop Pearson. The brief remarks of that learned prelate will be noticed hereafter.

The other distinguished fathers, whose revered names we have recorded, have generally dismissed the hypothesis with a mere passing sentence. "God is impassible," or some other expression, of almost equal brevity, is the only notice they have bestowed on a proposition high as heaven, and vast as infinity. So far as we may judge from their writings, they received the hypothesis as a consecrated relic of antiquity, without pausing to inquire whether its materials were celestial or carthy. It passed from their hands, bearing no marks of ever having been tested by the touchstone of the Bible.

To the prevalent hypothesis, so far as it relates to involuntary or coerced suffering by the Being of beings to whom it is applied, we make no objection. It would be both irrational and irreverent to imagine that the Omnipotent could be forced to suffer against his own volition. No hostile darts can pierce the thick "bosses of his bucklers."Job, xv., 26. Once, in the history of the universe, has the futile experiment been made. The malecontents of heaven, a mighty host, aspired to shake

the throne of the Highest. Their catastrophe has engraved on the walls of the celestial city and on the vaults of hell a lesson lasting as eternity. God's impassibility to coerced suffering is a plain and palpable principle of natural religion, resulting inevitably from his attributes of infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom, and infinite power.

But as we enter the sphere of voluntary suffering, the question assumes a new and very different aspect. We are, indeed, still met at the threshold with the ever-present hypothesis, " God is impassible." But upon what authority do its adherents apply their standing axiom to the suffering of one of the persons of the Trinity, emanating from his own free volition and sovereign choice? They hold the affirmative of their hypothesis. The rules of evidence, matured and sanctioned by the wisdom of ages, devolve on them the burden of proof. To the living alone can we appeal; and from them we solemnly invoke the proof of an hypothesis gratuitously advanced, and which commingles itself with the vital elements of Christian faith. We affectionately point them to the Bible as the only true foundation of a theory seeking to limit the omnipotence of the Godhead. The Bible gives them no favourable response. From Genesis to Revelation, both inclusive, there is not, to our knowledge or belief, a passage which intimates, C

directly or indirectly, that one of the persons of the Trinity has not physical and moral ability to suffer, if his suffering is prompted by infinite love and infinite wisdom.

Do the advocates of the hypothesis of the divine impassibility appeal to the Areopagus of human reason, that proud tribunal, to which even the heathen gods were said to have referred their controversies? We respectfully, yet confidently, meet them there. From none of the physical attributes of the Deity can human reason legitimately draw her bold inference, that one of the persons of the Trinity, to whom "all things are possible," may not, in the plenitude of his omnipotence, become the recipient of voluntary suffering. God indeed is a Spirit; but that a spirit can suffer is fearfully demonstrated in the history of the uni

verse.

Is the inability of a person of the Trinity to suffer, when, in his benignant, and wise, and infinite discretion he elects to become a Sufferer, to be deduced from any of the moral attributes of the Deity? It is indeed a blessed truth, that God will not transcend any of the holy elements which constitute his august being. It is revealed to us that he cannot violate the awful sanctity of his truth. That he can do no other wrong, is justly to be in