45. But the Apostle does not neglect to say
with what manner of confession we should bear witness of God.
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past tracing out! For who hath known the mind of the
Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first
given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him? For of Him,
and through Him, and in Him are all things. To Him be the glory
for ever and ever Rom. xi. 33–36.. No earthly
mind can define God, no understanding can penetrate with its perception
to sound the depth of His wisdom. His judgments defy the
searching scrutiny of His creatures: the trackless paths of His
knowledge baffle the zeal of all pursuers. His ways are plunged
in the depths of incomprehensibility: nothing can be fathomed or
traced to the end in the things of God. No one has ever been
taught to know His mind, no one besides Himself ever permitted to share
His counsel. But all this applies to us men only, and not to Him,
through Whom are all things, the Angel of mighty
Counsel Isai. ix. 6 in the LXX and Old Latin., Who said, No
one knoweth the Son save the Father: neither doth any one know
the Father save the Son, and him to whom the Son hath willed to reveal
Him St. Matt. xi. 27.. It is to
curb our own feeble intellect, when it strains itself to fathom the
depth of the divine nature with its descriptions and definitions, that
we must re-echo the language of the Apostle’s exclamation, lest
we should attempt by rash conjecture to snatch from God more than He
has been pleased to reveal to us.