Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/48

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The Doctrines of the New Church.

ceiving such revelation. And when a revelation is not received or comprehended, nothing is really revealed. Relatively viewed, it is no revelation.

What can finite minds comprehend of absolute Divinity? To see or know God as He is in his Infinity, we must ourselves be infinite. Our finite capacities, by the very fact that they are finite, limit us, hem us in, and render our comprehension of God in his essential Divinity absolutely impossible. Those who imagine that they can know God as He is in his infinite perfections, are much mistaken. Such ability is not vouchsafed to men or angels. Its possession would imply both divinity and infinity in its possessor. Only the Infinite can comprehend the Infinite. Hence the Scripture declaration: No one hath seen God [the absolute Divinity] at any time: the only begotten Son [the humanity] which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath brought Him forth to view."

The infinite God, therefore, descends and reveals Himself (so far as that is possible) under finite conditions and in a finite human form. Divinity comes down, and speaks and acts and prays and labors and agonizes and suffers, and thus reveals Itself in humanity,—the Divine in the human, the Infinite in the finite, the Father in the Son; and this, in infinite condescension to our human wants and finite capacities. It is