is independent of all externals, but is only intelligible to us upon a lower plane and we

instinctively think of light in the way in which we perceive it by our senses.

All words used to express the nature and attributes of God are used analogically.

It will be perceived that care must be taken so that analogical expressions be not

pushed beyond their legitimate boundaries. For example it would be easy to reduce the

idea of a `mother country' to ridiculous nonsense if pushed to extremes.

The figure of speech known as Anthropopatheia from anthropos `man' and pathos

`feeling', is used in the ascription of human passions, actions or attributes to God. We

have touched upon it when dealing with the subject of Figures of Speech in the series

entitled With all thy getting get understanding (Volumes XXII-XXVII).  Type, and

teaching by type is the character of Scriptural revelation by sheer necessity.

Bosanquet says "Paley's analogical argument (of the watch necessitating a

watchmaker, so creation necessitating a Creator) is unanswerable, and entirely

convincing to the unsophisticated mind. It is only the refinement and subtlety and

conceit of philosophy that finds and approves distinctions that can weigh against it".

What a different book the Bible would be if it had been framed by a theological

professor! It would have been beautifully subdivided, all the attributes of God would

have been brought together in a long list, doctrines would have been dealt with

systematically, but it would never have spread over the earth with its life-giving message.

It would have been placed upon the shelf of a museum or library to be consulted by the

learned. Instead, we realize the greatness of the Creator by the description given of

Creation. We realize the character of sin by the story of Eden. Justification by faith lives

and breathes in the biography of Abraham, and John 3: 16 takes a deeper meaning

when we read of Abraham's son, his only son Isaac whom he loved (Gen. 22:).

Even in those epistles which touch the highest spiritual note, namely the prison

epistles of the Apostle Paul, we find figure after figure. The church is called `the body'

of which Christ is `the Head' and believers `members'. It is called a `Temple' of which

believers are `living stones' and Christ `the chief corner stone'. The figure of adoption is

used of this company as of Israel. Citizenship is theirs, and the middle wall of partition

that stood in the courts of Herod's temple is employed to teach the profound truth of the

newly created new man.  In Philippians and II Timothy, the Apostle uses imagery

borrowed from the Greek games, in order to enforce the teaching he gives concerning

prize and crown, saying of himself: