58. We see, then, that two sorts of
impossibility furnish no explanation, i.e. we
are not to suppose that in S. John v. 19 Jesus refers to any sort of physical
impossibility, to any external restraint or limitation. inasmuch as the Power of God can be
neither insensible nor weakly. Will you then proffer the third
kind [as an account of the matter], namely, that He can do nothing,
just as an unskilled apprentice can do nothing without his
master’s instructions, or a slave can do nothing without his
lord. Then didst Thou speak falsely, Lord Jesu, in calling
Thyself Master and Lord, and Thou didst deceive Thy disciples by Thy
words: “Ye call Me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so
I am.” S. John xiii. 13. Nay,
but Thou, O Truth, wouldst never have deceived men, least of all them
whom Thou didst call friends. S.
John xv. 14, 15.