tains them as the Father, and are mutable in the Son, who did not always possess them in perfection, and once not at all, when he died. The first and third together, shew that the Word and the Son are widely different states: In the first case, the Word is Wisdom and Power themselves, and Life and Light are inherent in Him, and God can do nothing without Him; In the second case, the Son has neither Life, nor Light, nor Power of his own, but derives all these from the Father, without whom he can do nothing. Which plainly shows that the Word are attributes of the Supreme Subsistence, and that the Son derives his Deity from those attributes, which by a sort of Prolepsis, when solely belonging to the Supreme Subsistence, are called Jesus Christ, himself: thus, To us there is one God, the Father, out of whom are all things, and we into him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him, 1 Cor. viii. 6, when the latter had no proper personal existence. In the same way it is said, that God created all things by Jesus Christ, meaning nothing more than that God created all things by his own power and wisdom, which constituted the Deity of Jesus Christ, who was the final cause of their being exerted, as all things were created by him, and FOR him. Col. i. 16. The Jews of Palestine, says Kuinoel, Vol. iii. p. 80, 82, in Dr. Pye Smith's Testimony to the Messiah Vol. 1. p. 609, (as appears from the work of the Son of Sirach, who was a Jew of Palestine, and from the Chaldee Targums,) and also the author of the apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon, employed the expression (Word) merely as a periphrasis for the Deity, and very often as a personi fication of the power and wisdom of God. The Word therefore could be no Person of God, since both the Father and Son have power and wisdom the Father, because the Son is said to derive them from him; the Son, because in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Col. ii. 3, by him all things consist, Col. í. 17, and he upholdeth all things by the word of his power, Heb. i. 3. The Word, therefore, must have been the Essence of God; and Christ originally that Essence, by which God created all things, to whom the creation and preservation of the world are ascribed as well as to Christ, Acts, xvii. 24, 31. Rev. iv. 11; John, v. 17. If Christ had not been the Essence, could not God have created all things by himself? If the Word had been a Person and distinct from God, i.e. from the Supreme Subsistence: then the Word would have been Power and Wisdom, and the Supreme Subsistence not Power and Wisdom, i. e. the Supreme God or Subsistence would have been no God, which is an absurdity. But how clear is every thing, if we attentively consider the passage, 1 Cor. viii. 6, just quoted. God is there originally the all-comprehensive subsistence, the universal Father, mentioned in Article I; and the Lord, (i. e. the LORD or Jehovah, or Fiat, or Word, or First Cause, as Jehovah means,) is the Essence of that all-comprehensive Subsistence.

But St. John assures us that, though no human systems would know to the last the name or nature of the Word, yet that the Word of God itself contains it, and that it will finally overthrow the theories of the Beast and False Prophet: He had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And his name is called the Word of God, Rev. xix. 12, 13; it being a part of the good Providence of God, according to 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12, to send upon

a corrupt church strong delusion and a lie, that they may bring on her temporal damnation, when she at last finds out her error or rather heresy. St. John says that the Word existed from all eternity, was originally with, or rather belonging to (gs) the Supreme Subsistence (TON ov) and was in fact Deity, (eds) or of a Divine nature itself-that it was originally with or belonging to the Supreme Subsistence, as he repeats-but afterwards dwelt in our nature and was BEGOTTEN flesh, and that then we saw his glory, as the glory of an only-BEGOTTEN from a father (ὡς μονογενούς παρὰ πατρὸς); i. e. the Supreme Subsistence became to a property or essence in himself, which he afterwards begat in flesh, a father as in any human procreation. He does not mention a syllable concerning an eternal GENERATION. He says at once," In the beginning was the Word," i. e. from all eternity, ungenerated: and instead of saying that the Word was from eternity begotten of God, he says, that the Word was from eternity with or belonging to God. He is begotten of God, he "comes out from God," John, xvi. 27, only when he is begotten flesh. And though he afterwards returned into God's self, John, xiii. 31, 32; xvii. 5, as I shall hereafter explain, between the death of the Son of God, and his resurrection, and became again confused with God, yet St. John, who wrote his Gospel after that event, deelares the Son of God to be now upon the bosom (tis TOY KÓλToy) of the Father, no longer with, belonging to, or coincident with the Supreme Subsistence as the eternal Word, but a distinct Subsistence. He farther draws a broad line of distinction between the "Word" which was God," and the Son of God, by saying, "that no man hath seen God at any time," but that they "saw his glory, the glory as of an only-begotten from a father," in other words, that they saw his glory reflected in a procreation of himself in flesh, as a father is seen in his son, John, xiv. 9; which procreation St. Paul calls "the image of the invisible God," "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person." St. John does "In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with the Father, and the Son was God." This would have incontrovertibly established the incomprehensible mystery of the false church, and the heresy or "lie" of Antichrist; as "Jesus" would not then have been" the Christ the Son of God," but a common man endowed with the Son of God's nature, whose blood would have then formed no proper part of the Son, and consequently could never have "cleansed us from our sins, nor "purchased the church," and the relation of Father and Son would in effect have been utterly denied by the palpable falsity of making the Father and Son have the same "beginning," when those very terms, we may be assured were employed to denote that subordination in age and rank, which is usually intended by them. St. John, therefore, is obliged to introduce an unusual term, in order to express the relation, which he who became the Son, bore to the Supreme Subsistence, before he became the Son; and wishing to be particularly technical, which is not generally the case with the Inspired Writers, he does not call even the Supreme Subsistence the Father, when he says, "The Word was with GoD," because

not say

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plainly no such relation as Father and Son then existed. God, it is true, was always the universal Father, but not from eternity the Father of the Son. This technical accuracy indeed is not observed at 1 John, i. 1, 2, with respect to the Father, but we even there how St. John in his intentness to exhibit the Son as the realisation of the ideal and abstract combination, the Word, in flesh, nevertheless delicately escapes confounding the pure Word itself with its audible, visible, and tangible amalgamation, the Son. For though he directly says, that he saw the Life, (and life may be seen,) yet he avoids directly saying, that he saw the Word of Life, the Author or Cause of Life, nicely avoiding so gross an absurdity and inconsistency with the commencement of his Gospel, John, i. 1, 18, by a convenient "of" or "with respect to," 1 John, i. 1, "that which " or "what "of" or "with respect

to the Word of Life," &c. The Father also may here mean the universal and not particular Father, as at 1 Cor. viii. 6, But how explicit is St. Luke, i. 35! The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; THEREFORE also that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God; and St. Paul, St. Luke's teacher, we may suppose, who makes our Lord of the seed of DAVID according to the FLESH, but the Son of GOD by a miracle according to the SPIRIT OF HOLINESS or HOLY GHOST, proved by the resurrection of bis body, Rom. i. 3, 4, thus ascribing the Sonship solely to the Holy Ghost, as a new name or nature of the Word of God, and not to any preceding generation.

There is no passage of Scripture which speaks of any generation of the Son of God prior to that which St. Luke mentions, though there is a passage which speaks of one subsequent to it, viz. his generation or resurrection from the dead, Acts, xiii. 32, 33, and then only because his Sonship is by that time completed by his succeeding to the inheritance, and becoming the "Lord of all," and "heir of all things" by possession, as well as by the title derived from his birth of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost, Acts, ii. 36; Philip. ii. 9,11; Heb.i. 2; Matt. xxviii. 18. He is then truly the Son of God, because his divinity is then perfected, being set down with his Father in his throne, having seven eyes and seven horns, being endowed with all knowledge and all power, Rev. iii. 22; v. 6. He is then also the first born from the dead, Col. i. 18, the first-begotten of the dead, Rev. i. 5, the first-fruits of them that slept, I Cor. xv. 20. The passage Micah v. 2, has been made to signify a prior and even eternal generation of the Son of God. But besides being falsely translated, it alludes to quite a different thing. But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from old, not from everlasting, but from the days of yore, according to the meaning of the words by pp at Deut. xxxii. 7; Gen. vi. 4; Ezek. xxvi. 20. And these goings forth allude to nothing more than the march of the Word or Jehovah, or Omnipotence and Omniscience, before the Israelites to the promised land in the days of Moses, in character or quality of his future Sonship or generation in flesh. For it is not denied that the Supreme Subsistence always carried on transactions with the human race as trustee for

the future and additional Subsistence of his Essence, the Son, by prophetical anticipations of him as the man his fellow, or by symbolical prefigurations of him as the Angel of the LORD, and the Captain or Prince of the Lord's host, Zech. xiii. 7; Ex. xxiii. 20, -23; Josh. v. 14, 15; Dan. viii. 11, 25; ix. 25; x. xii. 1 ; Mal. iii. 1.-See MICHAEL.

21;

But it is argued that because God is said to send his Son, (notwithstanding it is expressly said, that he was sent, made of a woman,) he must have had some Son beforehand to send. Now this is a good argument with those who take for granted that a popular mode of expression is also a logical mode, or that the construction of all language is built upon strict principles of reasoning, or that the rules of logic are to be applied to the interpretation of rhetoric. This I say is a good argument with those who do not know, that the language of Scripture is more rhetoric than logic, very often technically and literally false, and only popularly and figuratively true. This I say is a very good argument with those who do not know, that the New Testament contains more paradoxes than any other book in the world, and that its expressions are sometimes, what I may call in this scientific age, exceedingly loose. This I say is an exceedingly good argument with those who do not know, that the truths of our Holy Book are elicited only by the collision of its strong antagonist statements. For it is the very same argument by which the devil proved to the Papists the sublime doctrine of Transubstantiation: This is my body,' literally and NOT symbolically, said the Dragon. It might be just as well said, that Christ was the Son of Man before he was born of the Virgin, because he is made to say, What, and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? John, vi. 62. Was Christ the Son of Man before he took upon him our human nature? No-no more than he was the Son of God before. What then? Why, God did have something to send. But it was neither the Son of Man nor the Son of God strictly speaking, but his own Power and Wisdom, or his own Omnipotence and Omniscience, which he had to send, which became the Son of Man, and the Son of God by their union with human nature, which were called the Son of Man and the Son of God before, only by a figure of rhetoric called a Prolepsis. In which figure God is also said to send prophets. Luke xi. 49. Nor is the sacrifice so vividly painted by St. Paul, Rom. viii. 32, which God made of his Son, the less, because the Son had no personal existence, before the Incarnation; because it appears by the constitution of the Son, that God gave up, not merely a being eternally distinct from himself, but one which must have been infinitely more dear, a procreation of himself.

But that the Son of God consisted solely of the union of a divine with a human nature, where it is not expressed, is implied throughout the New Testament, to which the very name as 'new,' perhaps Dan. iii. 25 excepted, is peculiar. Thus St. Paul in his celebrated first chapters to the Hebrews and Colossians, though he ascribes the creation of the worlds to the Son in his eagerness, common to the Sacred Writers, to identify the Essence of the Son with the Word or Fiat or LORD, yet plainly had no notion, that the Son had any proper existence before the Incarnation. For

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what does he say? He says that the Son seated himself on the right hand of God by virtue of his being the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of his person, being made so much better than the angels in proportion as he HATH OBTAINED the more honorable name of the Son. Now, why is the Son the brightness or visible splendour of God's glory? The only Scriptural reason is, because God's glory, (for the Word was God,) was seen as the glory of an only-begotten from a father in a Schechinah of flesh, because he that hath seen the Son, hath seen the Father, John, xiv. 9. And why is he the express image, or impression, or mark of God's person, or being, or existence? The only Scriptural reason given is, because in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity BODILY, Col. ii. 9, because he is the IMAGE of the INVISIBLE God; Col. i. 15. It is true he was made a little lower than the angels as well as so much better, Heb. ij. 7; i. 4; but the former regards his human body solely, as the latter does his divine soul shining through his human body. If the Son was not constitutively a visible being, could he have been the image of an invisible one, or an ocular mark or proof to men of God's existence? And on the other hand, if the Son had been constitutively an eternal, invisible being, could he have been rendered more visible than the Father, of whom it is said, Not that any man hath seen the Father, John, vi. 46? Yet the visibility of the Son is not only never denied but plainly affirmed, John, ix. 37, and more strongly implied than affirmed. What then? He was made so much better than the angels in proportion as he hath OBTAINED (xExλngovóμnnev) the more honorable name of the Son. Now, here plainly the prevailing notion is, that the Sonship was a new acquisition to the maker of the worlds. He does not say in proportion as he was the Son of God before, but in proportion as he hath obtained that name since. He was made i. e. out of the all creative substance or essence and flesh, a creature more exalted than any that had yet been made, because he was to be the SON, the heir of all things and Lord of all, Heb. i. 2; Acts x. 36, the first-born or chief of every creature, Col. i. 15, the beginning or head of the creation of God, Rev. iii. 14, the first-born among many brethren, Rom. viii. 29, because he was to be the crownwork of his own visible creation by becoming a visible creature himself. Coloss. i. 15, 16. And what is further implied when St. Paul says, When he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith let all the angels of God worship him? Was not the Son of God worshipped by the angels before he was brought into the world, i. e. this world according to John, xvi, 28? No-nor ever seen of them till then, according to 1 Tim. iii, 16. Yet the angels always see the face of his Father which is in heaven, Matt. xviii. 10. And what is further implied, when St. Paul says, But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity: THEREFORE, O God, thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows? Does not this prophecy denote, that the distinct Godship, and the exaltation to the more honorable name of the Son or first-born among many brethren, above his fellows, were accorded rather subsequent than prior to Christ's meritorious victory over sin here on earth? Assuredly as is explicitly stated