to any peculiar mode of derivation or existence; but is used to express merely a higher degree of affection, and is applied to Isaac, though Abraham had other sons." Isaac is, however, so called, because he was the only child which Abraham had by his wife Sarah, and this instance is, therefore, against them. The other passages in this Gospel and in St. John's First Epistle, in which the term is used, give no countenance to this interpretation, and in the only other passages in the New Testament, in which it occurs, it unquestionably means an "only son or child." Luke vii, 12, "Behold there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother." Luke viii, 42, "For he had one only daughter." Luke ix, 38, " Master, look upon my son, for he is my only child.” Here, then, on the one hand, there is no passage in which the epithet only begotten occurs, which indicates by any other phrase or circumstance, that it has the force of well beloved; while there are several, which, from the circumstances, oblige us to interpret it literally as expressive of a peculiar relationship of the child to the parent, an only, an only-begotten child. This is, then, the sense in which it is used of Christ, and it must respect either his Divine or human nature. Those who refer it to his human nature, consider it as founded upon his miraculous conception. It is, however, clear, that that could not constitute him a son, except as it consisted in the immediate formation of the manhood of our Lord by the power of God; but, in this respect, he was not the "only begotten," not the "only Son," because Adam was thus also immediately produced, and for this very reason is called by St. Luke, "the son of God." Seeing, then, that povoyevns, only begotten, does not any where import the affection of a parent, but the peculiar relation of an only son; and that this peculiarity does not apply to the production of the mere human nature of our Lord, the first man being in this sense, and for this very reason, "a son of God," thereby excluding Christ, considered as a man, from the relation of ONLY Son, the epithet can only be applied to the Divine nature of our Lord, in which alone, he is at once naturally and exclusively "the SON OF THE LIVING GOD."

All those passages, too, which declare that "all things were made by the Son," and that God "sent his Son," into the world may be considered as declarations of a Divine Sonship, because they imply that the CREATOR was, at the very period of creation, a SoN, and that he was the SON OF GOD, when and consequently before, he was sent into the world; and thus both will prove, that that relation is independent either of his official appointment as Messiah, or of his incarnation. The only plausible objection to this is, that when a person is designated by a particular title, he is often said to perform actions under that title, though the designation may have been given to him subsequently. Certain acts may be said to have been done by the king, though, in fact, he performed them before his advancement to the throne; and we ascribe the

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Principia" to Sir Isaac Newton, though that work was written before he received the honour of knighthood. In this manner we are told, by those who allow the Divinity of Christ, while they deny his Divine Sonship, that, as Son of God was one of the common appellations of Christ among his disciples, it was natural for them to ascribe creation, and other Divine acts performed before the incarnation, to the Son, meaning merely that they were done by that same Divine person who in conse quence of his incarnation and miraculous conception, became the Son of God, and was by his disciples acknowledged as such.

The whole of this argument supposes that the titles "THE SON," "THE SON OF GOD," are merely human titles, and that they are applied to Christ, when considered as God, and in his pre-existent state, only in consequence of that interchange of appellations to which the circumstance of the union of two natures, Divine and human, in one person, so naturally leads. Thus it is said, that the "Lord of glory" was "crucified;" that God purchased the Church" with his own blood;" that "THE SON OF MAN" was "in heaven" before the ascension. So also in familiar style, we speak of the Divinity of JESUS, and of the Godhead of the SON OF MARY. An interchange of appellations is acknowledged; but then even this supposes that some of them are designations of his Di. vine, while others describe his assumed nature; and the simple circumstance of such an interchange will no more prove the title SON OF GOD to be a human designation, than it will prove Son oF MARY to be a Di. vine one. Farther, if such an interchange of titles be thus contended for, we may then ask, which of the titles, in strict appropriation, designate the human, and which the Divine nature of our Lord? If "Son of God" be, in strictness, a human designation, and so it must be, if it relate not to his Divinity, then we may say that our Saviour, as God, has no distinctive name at all in the whole Scriptures. The title "GOD" does not distinguish him from the other persons of the trinity, and WORD stands in precisely the same predicament as Son; for the same kind of criticism may reduce it to merely an official appellative, given because of his being the medium of instructing men in the will of God; and it may, with equal force, be said that he is called "the Word" in his preexistent state only, because he in time, became the Word, in like man. ner as, in time also he became the Son. The other names of Christ are all official; and as in the Scriptures we have no such phrase as "the second person in the trinity" and other theological designations, since adopted, to express the Divinity of Christ, the denial of the title SON as a designation of Divinity leads to this remarkable conclusion, (remarkable especially, when considered as coming from those who hold the Deity of Christ,) that we have not in Scripture, neither in the Old nor the New Testament, a single appellation which, in strictness and truth of speech, can be used to express the Divine person of him who

was made flesh and dwelt among us. If, then, an interchange of Divine and human designations be allowed, the title "SON OF GOD" may still be a Divine description for any thing which such an interchange implies; if it is not a designation of his Divinity, we are left without a name for our Saviour as God, and considered as existing before the incarnation, and so there can properly be no interchange of Divine and human titles at all.

But the notion that the title Son of God is an appellation of the human nature of our Lord, applied sometimes to him, when his Divine character and acts are distinctly considered, by a customary interchange of designations, is a mere assumption. There is nothing to prove it, while all those passages which connect the title "Son," immediately, and by way of eminence, with his Divinity remain wholly unaccounted for on this theory, and are, therefore, contrary to it. Let a few of these be examined. It is evident that, in a peculiar sense, he claims God as his Father, and that with no reference either to the incarnation or resurrection, or to any thing beside a relation in the Divine nature. So, when he had said to the Jews, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work;" the Jews so understood him to claim God for his Father as to equal himself with God" they sought the more to kill him, because he had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, rarega idov, HIS OWN PROPER FATHER, making himself EQUAL with God;" and, so far from correcting this as an error in his hearers, which he was bound to do by every moral consideration, if they had so greatly mistaken him, he goes on to confirm them in their opinion as to the extent of his claims, declaring, that "what things soever the Father doeth, these also doth the Son likewise; and that as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given the Son to have life in himself." In all this it is admitted by our Lord, that whatever he is and has is from the Father; which is, indeed, implied in the very name and relation of SON; but if this communication be not of so peculiar a kind as to imply an equality with God, a sameness of nature and perfections, there is not only an unwarrantable presumption in the words of our Lord, but, in the circumstances in which they were uttered, there is an equivocation in them inconsistent with the sincerity of an honest man. This argument is confirmed by attending to a similar passage in the tenth chapter of John. Our Lord says, They shall never perish; my Father which gave them me is greater than I, and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father ARE one. Then the Jews took up stones to stone him." And they assign, for so doing, the very same reason which St. John has mentioned in the fifth chapter: "We stone thee for blasphemy, because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Our Lord's answer is: "Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the Scriptures cannot be broken," i. e. if the language of Scripture be unexceptionable, "say VOL. I. 35

ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?" These words are sometimes quoted in support of the opinion of those who hold that our Saviour is called the Son of God, purely upon account of the commission which he received. "But the force of the argument and the consistency of the discourse require us to affix a much higher meaning to that expression. Our Lord is reasoning a fortiori. He vindicates himself from the charge of blasphemy in calling himself the Son of God, because even those who hold civil offices upon earth are called, in Scripture, gods. 6) But that he might not appear to put himself upon a level with them, and to retract his former assertion, 'I and my Father are one,' he not only calls himself him whom the Father hath sent into the world,' which implies that he had a being, and that God was his Father, before he was sent; but he subjoins, 'If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him,' expressions which appear to be equivalent to his former assertion, 'I and the Father are one,' and which were certainly understood by the Jews in that sense, for as soon as he uttered them they sought again to take him." (Hill's Lectures.)

To these two eminent instances, in which our Lord claims God as his Father, in reference solely to his Divine nature, and to no circumstance whatever connected with his birth or his offices, may be added his unequivocal answer, on his trial, to the direct question of the Jewish council.Then said they all, Art thou the Son of God? and he saith unto them, Ye say that I am," that is, I am that ye say; thus declaring that, in the very sense in which they put the question, he was the Son of God. In confessing himself to be, in that sense, the Son of God, he did more than claim to be the Messiah, for the council judged him for that reason guilty of "blasphemy;" a charge which could not lie against any one, by the Jewish law, for professing to be the Messiah. It was in their judgment a case of blasphemy, explicitly provided against by their "law," which inflicted death upon the offence; but, in the whole Mosaic institute, it is not a capital crime to assume the title and charac. ter of Messiah. Why, then, did the confession of Christ, that he was the "Son of God," in answer to the interrogatory of the council, lead them to exclaim, "What need we any farther witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth-he is worthy of death." "We have a

(6) "This argument, which is from the less to the greater, proceeds thus: If those who having nothing Divine in them, namely, the judges of the great sanhedrim, to whom the psalmist there speaks, are called gods for this reason only, that they have in them a certain imperfect image of Divine power and authority, how much more may I be called God, the Son of God, who am the natural Son of God." (Bishop Bull.)

The reason is given, "because His "blasphemy" was alleged to

law, and by our law he ought to die." he made himself THE SON OF GOD." lie in this; this, therefore, implied an invasion of the rights and honours of the Divine nature, and was, in their view, an assumption of positive Divinity. Our Lord, by his conduct, shows that they did not mistake his intention. He allows them to proceed against him without lowering his pretensions, or correcting their mistake; which, had they really fallen into one, as to the import of the title "Son of God," he must have done, or been accessary to his own condemnation. (7)

As in none of these passages the title Son of God can possibly be considered as a designation of his human nature or office; so, in the apostolic writings, we find proof of equal force that it is used even by way of opposition and contradistinction to the human and inferior nature. Romans i, 3, 4, "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." A very few remarks will be sufficient to point out the force of this passage. The apostle, it is to be observed, is not speaking of what Christ is officially, but of what he is personally and essentially, for the truth of all his official claims depends upon the truth of his personal ones: if he be a Divine person, he is every thing else he assumes to be. He is, therefore, considered by the apostle distinctly in his two natures. As a man he was "flesh," "of the seed of David," and a son of David; in a superior nature he was Divine, and the Son of God. To prove that he was of the seed of David, no evidence was necessary but the Jewish genealogies: to prove him Divine, or, as the apostle chooses to express it, "THE SON OF GOD," evidence of a higher kind was necessary, and it was given in his "resurrection from the dead." That "declared him to be the Son of God with power," or powerfully determined and marked him out to be the Son of God, a Divine person. That an opposition is expressed between what Christ was according to the flesh, and what he was according to a higher nature, must be allowed, or there is no force in the apostle's observation; and equally clear it must be, that the nature, put in opposition to the fleshly nature, can be no other than the Divine nature of Christ, the apostolic designation of which is the "SON OF GOD."

This opposition between the two natures is sufficiently marked for the purpose of the argument, without taking into account the import of the phrase in the passage just quoted, "according to the Spirit of holiness," which, by many critics, is considered as equivalent to "according to his Divine nature."

(7) See this argument largely and ably stated in Wilson's " Illustration of the Method of explaining the New Testament, by the early opinions of Jews and Christians concerning Christ."