{ 103} The scantiness of statements in the Articles, as to the inspiration of Holy Scripture, may illustrate this. Had it been possible to foresee the boldness of unbelief which these days have brought to light on this subject, or had our Reformers been now drawing up the Articles, we may feel very certain they would not have been content to leave that matter as it there stands. But they were engaged with practical errors of their own day, and not in stating all dogmatic truth upon other points. Many things were so fully assumed to be true as to need no assertion of their truth.
{ 107} Mede’s “Christian Sacrifice,” lib. ii. cap. 4, quoted in Carter, p. 65.
{ 108} Cardwell’s “Documentary Annals,” chap. vii, prop. 2.
{ 110} Hickes’s Treatises, vol. ii. pp. 183, 184.
{ 111a} Bramhall’s “Protestant Ordination Vindicated.” Discourse vii. 3.
{ 111b} St. Jerome, adv. Lucif. c. 8. Carter, pp. 22, 23.
{ 123a} Hickes’ “Christian Priesthood Asserted,” pp. 184, 185.
{ 125d} “But the man that is clean, and is not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep the passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.” (Numb. ix. 13.)
{ 135} The following sermon, although perhaps in strictness hardly one of this course, was preached almost immediately after the others, and, in some measure, as a sequel to them. It is evidently not unconnected with their subject, inasmuch as the whole Doctrine of the Priesthood,—Christ our High Priest, through His Manhood “able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” and the sacerdotal powers derived from Him to “the ministers and stewards of His mysteries,”—is intimately related to, and dependent upon, the doctrine of the Incarnation.
{ 139d} “Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” by E. Harold, Lord Bishop of Ely, Art. II. p. 69.
{ 140} Owen’s “Introduction to the Study of Dogmatic Theology,” pp. 265, 266. See also, “Pearson on the Creed,” Art. iii. § 3.
{ 142b} St. Mark xiii. 32; St. Matt. xxiv. 36.
{ 144b} It may be observed that the above explanation does not in any way impair the argument in our Lord’s reply to His disciples. It furnishes quite a sufficient reason why such mysteries as “when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?” should be unrevealed to flesh and blood, that they are unknown to be angels of heaven, and even to the Son of Man, if His humanity be contemplated apart from His Divinity.