Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTE. Page 68.—Dr. George Macdonald's ' Antiphon ' On Justice And Mercy As Personifed In ' Christ's Victorie.' I Give the passage referred to in extenso: "To understand the first, [extract] it is necessary to explain, that while Christ is on earth a dispute between Justice and Mercy, such as is often represented by the theologians, takes place in heaven. We must allow the unsuitable fiction, attributing distraction to the divine Unity, for the sake of the words in which Mercy overthrows the arguments of Justice. For the Poet unintentionally nullifies the symbolism of the Theologian, representing Justice as defeated. He forgets that the grandest exercise of justice is mercy. The confusion comes from the fancy that justice means vengeance upon sin, and not the doing what is right. Justice can be at no strife with mercy, for not to do what is just would be most unmerciful." (p. 151) ("England's Antiphon. By George Macdonald, LL.D. (Macmillan) 1869 cr. 8vo.) For the genius and fine nature and nurture of Dr George Mac- Donald, I have admiration and love that words were empty to express the depth of: but none the less, rather all the more—because of his wide and potent influence—must I be rude enough to reject all this, absolutely, as being at once mistaken in its application to the poetry under review, and fundamentally untrue in its teaching on the thing. I submit these counter remarks : (a) The ' divine Unity' is left untouched by our Poet. ' Distraction' is the reverse of the matter-of-fact. Justice and Mercy are Personified in accord with the ground-plan of the Poet—as shewn in our Essay ante—and the Personifications demand that we shall regard them as outside of the 'divine Unity,' that unity being guarded by the ' pleading' of Justice and Mercy as two Personalities ad... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.