'To be content with these bounds of our knowledge': the Aberdeen Doctors, Bishop Forbes, and theological reserve
it is certayne, that the glorie and happinesse, which the dead, who haue died in the Lord, shal haue after the generall judgement, shall be greater extensive, in extention, nor it is now; and that because it shall be extended, or communicated, to their bodies also. But whether or not it shall be intensive greater, after the generall judgement; that is, whether anie farther degree of glorie shall be then given to their soules, it is not so certayne. For manie of the Ancients, and some judicious and orthodoxe Divines, doe thinke, that although they are now with Christ, in the companie or fellowship of the blessed Angels, and in an estate of vnspeakable joye; yet they haue not attayned, as yet, vnto that consummate, and accomplished happinesse, which consisteth in the vision, or immediate sight of God's glorious essence ... Others boldlie affirme, that they haue alreadie gotten a full sight of God's glorious essence; and, that nothing is wanting to their happinesse, but the glorification of their bodies.
Amongst "the Ancients" indicated by Baron in a footnote were Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, and Bernard. For the "judicious and orthodox [contemporary] Divines", Baron quotes Calvin and Spalatin. It is not too speculative, I think, to consider the significance of both categories invoked by Baron. Amongst "the Ancients", Augustine is placed as but one authority, with Chrysostom quoted first. For the "judicious and orthodox Divines", Calvin is placed alongside the Lutheran Spalatin, a significant statement in a time of often intense Reformed hostility towards Lutherans. There is, then, something of an eirenic quality to Baron's invoking these authorities.
As to the question at hand, Baron states:
For my part, although I incline most to the first opinion, esteeming it more probable ...
This was, of course, not at all controversial, being a standard Reformed view. Baron goes on to state the Scriptural grounds for this understanding:
in respect of the consent of Antiquitie, and of diverse places in Scripture, which seeme to favour it; (for wee reade in Scripture, that wee shall bee satisfied with the lykenesse of God, when we awake; that is, in the day of our resurrection; that the labourers shall bee called together in the evening; that is, at the ende of the worlde, and shall then receaue their hyre, that the Crowne of Righteousnesse shall be given that day to all these who loue the Lord's appearing; and, that when Hee shall appeare, wee shall bee lyke Him, and shall see Him as Hee is).
What is significant is not Baron setting forth a standard Reformed understanding but, rather, what he says next:
yet, I thinke, they are wysest, who suspende their judgement, and are not bold to determine anie thing in such matters as are not clearlie revealed in God's word; of which sort this whereof I am now speaking, is one. Iudicious and learned Calvine, who also inclined more to the first opinion, condemneth their foolish rashnesse, who prye too narrowlie into this secret; and willeth vs, to be content with these boundes, or limites, of our knowledge, concerning this matter, which are praescribed in Scripture.
Baron prudently and wisely invokes Calvin by name at this point, as this exhortation against prying "too narrowly into this secret" echoes early 17th century controversies that would have been impolitic for a minister of the Church of Scotland to explicitly mention. For example, in 1628, King Charles I had issued his Declaration concerning the heated debates in the Church of England regarding predestination:
That therefore in these both curious and unhappy differences, which have for so many hundred years, in different times and places, exercised the Church of Christ, we will, that all further curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth to us in the Holy Scriptures ...
One year prior to Baron's sermon, the Church of Ireland had received and approved the Thirty-Nine Articles in place of the Irish Articles of 1615, thus embracing Articles which did not "pry too narrowly into [the] secret" of predestination. Even more controversially, the Remonstrant Confession of 1621 had concluded with an exhortation against such prying:
laboriously and subtly scrutinize those things which were not revealed to us, lest indeed we stick our feet into that which the most wise God wants to be kept secret.
Mindful that Baron echoes these statements in the context of a matter which was not seriously contested within the Reformed tradition, it does seem most likely that his exhortation " to be content with these boundes, or limites, of our knowledge" was not primarily addressed to the mostly uncontested doctrinal issue to which he had referred. Rather, he was setting forth a key principle for the eirenic theological vision promoted by the Aberdeen Doctors: that in place of a contentious and divisive insistence on defining doctrines beyond what is 'prescribed in Scripture', a theological reserve was both prudent and right.
Such theological reserve, Baron pointed out, reflected the wisdom of the father of the Reformed tradition, the 'judicious and learned Calvin'. This exemplified how the Aberdeen Doctors challenged the radicals who would become the Covenanter tradition in Scotland, insisting that Calvin and the wider Continental Reformed tradition were considerably more modest and less radical than those who promoted controversy in the Jacobean and Caroline Church of Scotland.
What is more, the theological reserve promoted by the Aberdeen Doctors was, Baron indicated, grounded in Scripture itself. In a footnote to his statement that 'they are wisest, who suspend their judgement, and are not bold to determine any thing in such matters as are not clearly revealed in God's word', he references I John 3.2:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ...
For Baron and the Aberdeen Doctors, who had gathered around Forbes, a theological reserve 'content within these bounds of our knowledge' was not only prudent and for the Church's peace - it was also profoundly Scriptural.
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