"GOD IN CHRIST" 117

Taking as a text 1 John i. 2, he states that his
purpose is to show that " the reality of Christ is
God," and that the term " was manifested " covers
and contains this fact. , He defines the divinity of
Christ as follows : " He is in such a sense God, or
God manifested, that the unknown term of his
nature, that which we are most in doubt of, and
about which we are least capable of any positive
information, is the hmnan " (p. 123). It should
be stated at the outset that this definition, which
has been and is still more criticised than any other
made by BushneU in connection with the trinity,
was due in part to the fact that his chief per-
plexity as to the person of Christ grew out of the
orthodox doctrine of two distinct or distinctly active
natures.
The tritheism implied in three metaphysical per-
sonalities in the essential Godhead was equally
perplexing. In order to escape from both, he
merged the personaliiy of Christ in the Father,
and so escaped the first difficulty. By refusing to
penetrate the interior nature of God he escaped
the other. His method may not be correct, and
the vagueness of his treatment of the himianity of
Christ raises the suspicion that it is not, but it is
easy to see why he followed it : he saw at the
time no other way of escape.
