Chapter
XIX.
Nevertheless
, since neither those who take the Greek view, nor yet the leaders
of Jewish opinions, are willing to make such things the proofs of that
Divine manifestation, it may be as well, as regards these demurrers to
our statement, to treat more particularly the reason by virtue of which
the Divine nature is combined with ours, saving, as it does, humanity
by means of itself, and not working out its proposed design by means of
a mere command. With what, then, must we begin, so as to conduct our
thinking by a logical sequence to the proposed conclusion? What but
this, viz. with a succinct detail of the notions that can religiously
be entertained of God
1992
?
1992
The
Greek Fathers and the English divines for the most part confine
themselves to showing this moral fitness and consonance with
God’s nature in the Incarnation, and do not attempt to prove its
absolute necessity. Cf. Athanasius,
De Incarn. Verb.
c. 6;
Hooker,
Eccles. Pol.
V. li. 3; Butler’s
Analogy,
pt. ii. c. 5.