1850.
Defense of an Essay, &c.
037
tual beings, Dr. I might have mentioned that He is necessarily existent; whereas the existence of all other spiritual beings is contingent and depen- dent upon Him: that He is almighty, while they are of a weak and feeble nature; that He is omniscient, omnipresent, &c., &c. Knapp explains this matter very clearly in his 3d Article "On the NATURE and Attributes of God." Ilis words are, "The nature of God is the sum of all the Divine perfections; the attributes of God are the particular distinct perfections or realities, which are predicable of the Divine nature (predicata Dei necessaria ob essentiam ei tribuenda, Morus, p. 58, not. 1). The Divine attributes do not therefore differ materialiter from the Divine nature, but only formaliter (i, e. the difference be- tween nature and attribute is not objective, or does not appertain to God him- self; but is subjective, formal, or as the older theologians say, secundum nostrum concipiendi modum). The attributes of God are merely our notions of the particular distinctions, which taken together compose the Divine nature. We are unable to take in the whole object at a single glance, and are compelled, in order to accommodate the weakness of our understanding, to consider it in separate portions." Art. 3d, § 18.
We must here carefully distinguish between the sense of the word “attri- bute," as applied to the essential attributes of God, and the logical use of this word, as the opposite of "substance," i, e. "a predicate which may be present or absent, the essence of the species remaining the same." See this point illus- trated by St. Augustin, De Civ. Dei, XI. 10. "Propter hoc itaque natura dicitur simplex, cui non sit aliquid habere, quod vel possit amittere, vel aliud sit ha- bens, aliud quod habet," &c. This reasoning Hagenbach declares identical with the proposition of Schleiermacher, “that in that which is absolute the subject and the predicate are one and the same thing." Which agree ex- actly with the views of the Divine nature and attributes presented in the quo- tation from Knapp. But to return to our argument.
There is another point which clearly manifests the sense in which the word God is used in the Athanasian Creed and other Christian formulæ, in connec- tion with the Trinity: I refer to the two natures of Christ. To express the divine nature, the words God and Godhead are used indifferently, just as the words man and manhood are used to express the human nature: thus in the Second Art of the Church of England, "the Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man.” The words are too clearly defined here to allow of mistake; "very God and very man" express the two natures called above the Godhead and manhood,
The Westminister Divines use language almost identical; they say, "so that two whole perfect and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ."