We have only touched cursorily on these proofs, because
our object is to pass on to other points. You at your leisure can
put together the items of the evidence, and then contemplate the height
of the glory and the preeminence of the power of the Only
Begotten. However, to the well-disposed hearer, even these are
not insignificant, unless the terms “right hand” and
“bosom” be accepted in a physical and derogatory sense, so
as at once to circumscribe God in local limits, and invent form, mould,
and bodily position, all of which are totally distinct from the idea of
the absolute, the infinite, and the incorporeal. There is
moreover the fact that what is derogatory in the idea of it is the same
in the case both of the Father and the Son; so that whoever repeats
these arguments does not take away the dignity of the Son, but does
incur the charge of blaspheming the Father; for whatever audacity a man
be guilty of against the Son he cannot but transfer to the
Father. If he assigns to the Father the upper place
by way of precedence,
and asserts that the only begotten Son sits below, he will find
that to the creature of his imagination attach all the consequent
conditions of body. And if these are the imaginations of
drunken delusion and phrensied insanity, can it be consistent
with true religion for men taught by the Lord himself that
“He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the
Father” John v. 23. to refuse to
worship and glorify with the Father him who in nature, in glory,
and in dignity is conjoined with him? What shall we
say? What just defence shall we have in the day of the
awful universal judgment of all-creation, if, when the Lord
clearly announces that He will come “in the glory of his
Father;” Matt. xvi. 27. when Stephen
beheld Jesus standing at the right hand of God; Acts vii. 55. when Paul testified in the spirit
concerning Christ “that he is at the right hand of
God;” Rom. viii. 34. when the Father
says, “Sit thou on my right hand;” Ps. cx. 1. when the Holy Spirit bears witness that
he has sat down on “the right hand of the
majesty” Heb. viii. 1. of God; we
attempt to degrade him who shares the honour and the throne, from
his condition of equality, to a lower state? Mr. Johnston
well points out that these five testimonies are not cited
fortuitously, but “in an order which carries the reader from
the future second coming, through the present session at the right
hand, back to the ascension in the past.” Standing and sitting, I
apprehend, indicate the fixity and entire stability of the
nature, as Baruch, when he wishes to exhibit the immutability and
immobility of the Divine mode of existence, says, “For thou
sittest for ever and we perish utterly.” Baruch iii. 3, lxx. Moreover, the place on the right
hand indicates in my judgment equality of honour. Rash,
then, is the attempt to deprive the Son of participation in the
doxology, as though worthy only to be ranked in a lower place of
honour.