But why should not the conclusion be given up, since it is possible Christ may have had two natures in him, so as to have been less than the Father in respect to the one, and equal to him in respect to the other. I understand these words ('My Father is greater than I') of the divinity--and of the Filial subordination, which does not in the least encroach on the equality necessary to the unity of Father, Son, and Spirit. Bishop Bull does the same. See too Skelton's own remarks in Discourse V. p. 265. Ib. p. 251. This was necessary, because their Law was ordained by angels. Now this is an instance of what I cannot help regarding as a superstitious excess of reverence for single texts. We know that long before the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the Alexandrian Church, which by its intercourse with Greek philosophers, chiefly Platonists, had become ashamed of the humanities of the Hebrew Scriptures, in defiance of those Scriptures had pretended, that it was not the Supreme Being who gave the Law in person to Moses, but some of his angels. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, arguing 'ad homines', avails himself of this, in order to prove that on their own grounds the Mosaic was of dignity inferior to the Christian dispensation. To get rid of this no-difficulty in a single verse or two in the Epistles, Skelton throws an insurmountable difficulty on the whole Mosaic history. Ib. p. 265. Therefore, he saith, 'I' (as a man) 'can of myself do nothing'. Even of this text I do not see the necessity of Skelton's parenthesis (as a man). Nay it appears to me (I confess) to turn a sublime and most instructive truth into a truism. "But if not as the Son of God, therefore 'a fortiori' not as the Son of man, and more especially, as such, in all that refers to the redemption of mankind." Ib. p. 267. To this glory Christ, as God, was entitled from all eternity; but did not acquire a right to it as man, till he had paid the purchase by his blood. I too hold this for a most important truth; but yet could wish it to have been somewhat differently expressed; as thus:--"but did not acquire it as man till the means had been provided and perfected by his blood." Ib. p. 268. If Christ in one place, ('John' xiv. 28,) says, 'My Father is greater than I'; he must be understood of his relation to the Father as his Son, born of a woman. I do not see the necessity of this: does not Christ say, 'My Father and I will come and we will dwell in you?' Nay, I dare confidently affirm that in no one passage of St. John's Gospel is our Lord declared in any special sense the Son of the First Person of the Trinity in reference to his birth from a woman. And remember it is from St. John's Gospel that the words are cited. So too the answer to Philip ought to be interpreted by ch. i. 18. of the same Gospel. Ib. p. 276.