very imperfect; but in this it can have none. Every idea of generation and Sonship is totally excluded, and the most exprefs and uniform declarations of them in 'Scripture are intirely perverted into metaphor and impropriety.

As this opinion is inconfiftent with the general terms in which revelation affirms and explains our Saviour's fonship, it cannot be expected to have fupport from any particular parts of it. Thofe words of our Bleffed Saviour to the Jews, "Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified "and fent into the world, thou blafphemeft, be"cause I said I am the Son of God," John x. 36, have been, often adduced in proof of this doctrine, but do not prove it. Our Saviour In his public difcourfe had called God his Father, and affirmed that he and his Father were one, ver. 30. The Jews thereupon accused him of blafphemy, who being in their apprehenfion a man only, called himfelf God and the Son of God. Jefus, in vindication of what he had said, refers his adverfaries to a part of their own infpired writings, Pfalm 1xxxii. 6. where princes or prophets to whom the word of God came, investing them with these offices, are called Gods and children of the Moft High: and if fuch perfons, from their mere commiffion from God, and in language plainly metaphorical, were called children of God, much more may he whom the Father had fanctified or confecrated to the office of Meffiah by the union of a divine perfon with his holy human nature, Luke i. 35. and who as his begotten Son was fent into the world, affirm himfelf to be the Son of God. They were God's fons by confecration and office, he was God's Son by generation alfo and in perfon. They became the fons of God after they came into the world,

and

and when called to their office; Chrift was born into the world in this character, and held it not by his confecration, at his baptifm, as fome have imagined, but was the Son of God, as the Scripture often teftifies, from his conception and birth. Their fonfhip, like the divinity there afcribed to them, was merely figurative, but his was natural and proper. This fonfhip Chrift did not think fit at that time particularly to explain, any more than his effential unity with his Father. But from the general characters in which he defcribes it as being brought with him into the world, he intimates, it was not merely official and metaphorical, like that of the perfons the refers to, but that he was the Son of God, not in that only, but in a much higher fenfe, and which can apply to none but himself, his truly begotten and proper Son. Many paffages of Scripture affirm the Son of God to be the Meffiah, and call Meffiah, or Chrift, the Son of God. These fhow that the characters Son of God and Meffiah apply to the fame perfon, but not that they are applied to him on the fame ground. The first relates to his perfon, and denotes his filial relation to his Father: the fecond expreffes his office, and that to that office he was anointed and confecrated by him. His being confecrated to the office of Mediator may imply that he is the Son of God, for none else can poffefs that character and discharge the offices of it; but it is never affigned in Scripture, and in the nature of things never can be affigned as the foundation of his Sonship.

4. One explication more has been given of our Saviour's Sonfhip that merits any confideration, which is, that he is fo called on account of his refurrection by the divine power from the dead.

But

But this is equally improper and unfupported as the former. He was declared to be the Son "of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by his refurrection from the dead," Rom. i. 4. But this did not make him God's Son, but only declared him to be fo. He is called the firft-begotten and the first-born from the dead, Rev. i. 18. and 5. for the word in both places is the fame. But this does not exprefs that proper generation by which he became the Son of God, for God, angels and men, had all afcribed this generation and Sonship to him before. This generation we fhall fee commenced at his incarnation, when the divine eternal Word was made flesh; and as he resumed this flesh, and entered anew upon his complete life, his refurrection is reprefented as a fort of regeneration. It did not conftitute him the Son of God, but only refers us to the proper ground of it, His incarnation; declares this character, Son of God, to belong to Chrift, and raises Chrift to the honour due to this character. These things are fo evident in themselves as to require no confirmation. Chrift is God's begotten Son, which his refurre&ion did atteft, and neceffarily fuppofed, but could not conftitute. And he is called his only begotten Son, by which he is perfonally distinguished and exalted above the whole creation; but multitudes rofe with him at his refurrection, and the whole world shall be raised by him at the last day. Such are the chief opinions upon this long debated fubject. They have all arifen from inaccurate ideas of generation, a pártial view of the glorious perfon it is affirmed of, and an attention only to thofe Scriptures that feemed in any degree to fupport the different

2

theories

theories which different writers have adopted on this article, without confidering the doctrine of Scripture in general. None of them agree with the declared ground of our Saviour's Sonship, his proper generation by the Father. None of them are fupported by any clear, general and confiftent voice of revelation. Some of them are altogether falfe and foreign to the fubject; and those which have any relation to it, exhibit often fuch mistaken, and always fuch imperfect views of it, as come greatly fhort of the real truth. But the proper exhibition and establishment of this point fhall be the fubject of the next chapter.

CHA P. III.

Of the proper and Scriptural Senfe in which Chrift Jefus is the Son of God.

I

Have proved that in the perfon of our Bleffed Saviour, there co-exift two diftinct natures, divinity and humanity, with all the effential properties belonging to each. I have showed that this complex perfon is called the Son of God, his proper, his begotten; his peculiar, his only begotten Son. I have afcertained the proper notion of generation, and have expofed the improper and unfcriptural fenfes in which this character of our Saviour has been hitherto explained. I proceed now to fhow directly in what fenfe Chrift is the Son of God, and to establish this point by unquestionable evidence.

1. Son is a perfonal name, and must therefore be understood as relating immediately to the perfon of Chrift. As this glorious perfon contains two natures, the divine and the human, he can be conceived to be the Son of God in three refpects, and in three only. Thefe are, the generation of his divinity, as fecond perfon in the Godhead; the fupernatural formation of his human nature, by the power of God; or, laftly, the unition of these two natures in his incarnation, producing his complex perfon, as God-man. The firft we have fhowed is too high to confift with the equal divinity, eternity, and felf-existence, which every perfon in the fame immutable Deity muft poffefs. The fecond is too low to found the high character which, in fupereminence to God's whole created offspring, is afcribed