Ib. p. 159.

  That he ’being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal
  with God’, &c.—­Phil. ii. 8, 9.

I should be inclined to adopt an interpretation of the unusual phrase [Greek:  harpagmon] somewhat different both from the Socinian and the Church version:—­“who being in the form of God did not ’think equality with God a thing to be seized with violence’, but made, &c.”

Ib. p. 160.

Is a mere creature a fit lieutenant or representative of God in personal or prerogative acts of government and power?  Must not every being be represented by one of his own kind, a man by a man, an angel by an angel, in such acts as are proper to their natures? and must not God then be represented by one who is God?  Is any creature capable of the government of the world?  Does not this require infinite wisdom and infinite power?  And can God communicate infinite wisdom and infinite power to a creature or a finite nature?  That is, can a creature be made a true and essential God?

This is sound reasoning.  It is to be regretted that Sherlock had not confined himself to logical comments on the Scripture, instead of attempting metaphysical solutions.

Ib. pp. 161-3.

I find little or nothing to ‘object to’ in this exposition, from pp. 161-163 inclusively, of ‘Phil’. ii. 8, 9.  And yet I seem to feel, as if a something that should have been prefixed, and to which all these considerations would have been excellent seconds, were missing.  To explain the Cross by the necessity of sacrificial blood, and the sacrificial blood as a type and ’ante’-delegate or pre-substitute of the Cross, is too like an ‘argumentum in circulo’.

Ib. p. 164.

And though Christ be the eternal Son of God, and the natural Lord and heir of all things, yet ‘God hath’ in this ‘highly exalted him’ and given ‘him a name which is above every name, that at’ (or in [Greek:  en]) ‘the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven’, &c.—­Phil. ii. 9, 10, 11.

Never was a sublime passage more debased than by this rendering of [Greek:  en] by ‘at’, instead of ‘in’;—­’at’ the ‘phenomenon’, instead of ‘in’ the ‘noumenon’.  For such is the force of ‘nomen’, name, in this and similar passages, namely, ‘in vera et substantiali potestate Jesu’:  that is, [Greek:  en logo kai dia logou], the true ‘noumenon’ or ’ens intelligibile’ of Christ.  To bow at hearing the ‘cognomen’ may become a universal, but it is still only a non-essential, consequence of the former.  But the debasement of the idea is not the worst evil of this false rendering;—­it has afforded the pretext and authority for un-Christian intolerance.

Ib. p. 168.

’The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son’.—­John v. 22.  Should the Father judge the world he ‘must’ judge as the maker and sovereign of the world, by the strict rules of righteousness and justice, and then how could any sinner be saved?

(Why?  Is mercy incompatible with righteousness?  How then can the Son be righteous?)