Wesley Corpus

4. "Outbeaming," more exact than the A.V. "brightness." The Son is to the Father as the rays of light are to the sun. "Thought it not robbery:" better, "thought it not an object to be grasped at" to be equal with God. He laid aside for the time His equality with the Father, which was therefore restored to Him when God gave Him the name that is above every name. 5. Pole quotes from Joseph Mede, "Quod jam dixi diem judicii, non intelligi velim de die brevi, sive paucarum horarum; sed de spatio mile annorum quibus dies illa durabit,; i.e. The day of judgement is not to understood as a short day of a few hours, but as the space of a thousand years, during which that day will last." 6. The "eminent writer" is Edward Young, the author of Night Thoughts. The quotation is from his poem, "The Last Day" (1721), 2.19. The original runs: To smooth and lengthen out th' unbounded space. Twice a planetary height. Young, 2:282 says: Now the descending triumph stops its flight From earth full twice a planetary height. Presumably he means twice as far from the earth as the farthest planet. All this seems rather solemn trifling. 7. "Four hundred millions;" it is now estimated as, more or less, fifteen hundred millions. But a few millions more or less are not worth considering in such an altogether indeterminate calculation as this. The quotation is again from Young, 2.193. Wesley protest vigorously against any one altering his own or his brother's verse; but he never hesitates to do the same thing to other people's; the original passage in Young runs -- Great Xerxes' world in arms, proud Cannae's field. Where Carthage taught victorious Rome to yield, Immortal Blenheim, fam'd Ramillia's host. They all are here, and here they are lost. Their millions sell to be discerned in vain, Lost as a billow in th' unbounded main.