ther by an eternal generation; not as creatures, who are made out of nothing and were made by him, but in a manner peculiar to himself, and inconceivable to us."* The late Dr George Hill, too, speaks of the communication of the Divine essence from the Father to him.”+ But for a considerable time past, such expressions have, in general, been disliked, and laid aside by the friends of the truth,-partly be cause they bear some appearance of an attempt to explain what the Scripture has not explained ;-partly because they are extremely apt to be misunderstood, and have in fact been often misunderstood by plain Christians;-and partly, in fine, because they have been egregiously perverted by the enemies of the necessary existence and su preme divinity of the Son and Spirit. That Witsius himself would have abstained from such expressions, had he been fully aware of the abuse to which they are liable, cannot be questioned by any one who perceives aright the prevailing spirit of his writings, or who will peruse with attention his observations on the word create,‡ or his reasoning against Episcopius.§

"As for the manner of the Father's eternal begetting of the Son," says Sir Peter King, "there are various similitudes used by the an→ cients to help our conceptions therein, as that the Father begat the Son as a fountain doth her streams, and the sun light, and a root the branches, and several other such like. But whether all of them will abide a strict scrutiny, I shall not here inquire: only this I will venture to affirm, that none of them doth yield us any adequate or satisfactory apprehension of this sublime and incomprehensible mystery. For which reason great caution is to be used in our searches thereunto and expressions therein, that we do not, with too great nicety and curiousness, dive into this profound and incomprehensible secret, lest while we endeavour to show our learning and knowledge, we betray our ignorance, and what is worse, conceive and utter things unbecoming the Divine and infinite Majesty." The late venerable Mr John Brown of Haddington, in his "Compendious view of Natural and Revealed Religion," makes the following just remarks. "It being plainly evident from God's own word, that each of these three Persons is equally the Most High and only true God, no term or phrase must be admitted in the explication of their personal properties, which can in the least interfere with the Divine

See his Lectures on the Creed in his Works, vol. iv. p. 278. +Theolog. Institutes, p. 64.

Dissert. viii. sect. 6.

17.

equality or absolute independence of any of them. Subordinate godhead is no godhead at all, nor any thing but a mere chimera in men's brain. By calling the Father the Fountain of the Deity or of the Trinity, by saying that the Divine essence is communicated, or the Son and Spirit are produced, or that they have a personal though not an essential dependance on the Father,—learned men have inadvertently hurt this mystery, and given occasion to its enemies to blashpheme." "It is certainly absurd," adds the same author, "to attempt an explication of the personal properties, BegelBegotten, Proceeding,-by terms which are more unintelligible; and where to find clearer ones, I know not."-" Explaining a mys tery," says Mr Bradbury with his usual vivacity, "must be quite wrong. It is best to keep it in its own language, and not utter words hard to be understood. It is at least a daring practice, not treating it as a mystery, but throwing it into a rumble of sounds. For these reasons, I could wish that saying had not obtained among Divines, that the Father is the Fountain of the Deity. This is a nicety that we have nothing in Scripture to lead us into. It is being wise above what is written, and exercising ourselves in things too high for To these quotations on this solemn and weighty topic, it may be sufficient to add, that Dr Campbell, after some keen remarks on certain Greek and Latin expressions which were employed by Christians in their early disputes on the subject of the Trinity, concludes with the following words; "It were to be wished that on topics so sublime, men had thought proper to confine themselves to the simple but majestic diction of the Sacred Scriptures."+

NOTE XL. Page 153, line 3 from the bottom.

Our venerable Author, in common with Bishop Pearson, and many other respectable Theologians of former times, seems to consider the expression in John v. 26. as having an immediate reference to that life which is essential to Christ as a Divine Person. But amongst Divines of the present day, who maintain the proper divinity and necessary existence of the Son of God, it is the prevailing, if not the universal sentiment, that our Lord, in this verse, speaks of the life which he possesses in his Mediatorial character. It is of importance indeed to remember, as Witsius suggests, that unless Christ had been originally possessed of the same Divine nature and life with the Father, he could never have had, as Mediator, a foun

Mystery of Godliness, vol. i. p. 97.

+ Eccles. History, vol. ii. Lect. xiv. p. 4.

Exposition of the Creed, Art. i. pp. 34, 35, 8th edit.

tain of life in himself for quickening the souls or bodies of men. But the question at issue here is this-Doth our Lord appear to affirm that it has been given to him by the Father to possess the Divine life? Now, however consistent this view of the expression might appear to Witsius and others to be with the essential independence of Christ and his perfect equality with the Father, it seems much more proper to adopt a different sense, if this can be done without violating the rules of sound interpretation; and whoever attends to the connexion between the 26th and 27th verses may be expected to conclude, that the sense now generally embraced by those who hold the doctrine of Christ's proper divinity is not merely admissible, but the most obvious and natural. "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man." The meaning is, that, because Christ is "the Son of man," and undertook to accomplish our redemption, the Father honoured him as Mediator, both by appointing him a living and quickening head, and by giving him authority to execute judgment. In his original character as a Divine Person, he has "life in himself” no less originally and independently than he has "authority" to act the part of Universal Sovereign and Judge. "Some judicious expositors think," says Dr Guyse," that the Father's giving to the Son to have life in himself, relates to the eternal and inconceivable generation of the Son, by which the same perfection of life was necessarily communicated to him as is in the Father himself. But others understand it as an economical communication of life to the Son as man and Mediator, founded upon and answerable to his original participation of the same divine life with the Father. And I rather incline to the last of these senses, because of the close connexion there is betwixt this and what is said in the following verse about the Father's giving him authority to execute judgment-both of which are brought in as proofs, not of what our Lord had said about his doing all things in the same manner that the Father does them, (ver. 19.) but of what he had said in the immediately foregoing verse about the Son's quickening the dead in the administration of his kingdom; and because it seems to me that his being the Son of man is added at the close of the next verse (v. 27.) as the reason of both those donations.”

NOTE XLI. Page 157.

Our Author allows that Calvin and some other Protestant Divines have considered the expression, Acts xiii. 33. άvaotnoas 'Inouv, as re

• Practical Expositor, John v. 26. Note.

ferring to Christ's resurrection from the dead; and that this was the sense in which it was understood by the Translators of our authorised English Version, appears from their having rendered it—" He hath raised up Jesus again." Witsius, however, with Beza, Junius, and others, seems to have been decidedly of opinion, that the expression refers to God's sending Jesus into the world, or to his exhibiting him as a Saviour; and accordingly he contends for this interpretation not only in these Dissertations on the Creed, but also in his "Conciliatory Animadversions." Nor is this interpretation destitute of probability.

That the Greek word in question properly signifies, to raise up, or cause to appear in general, and that it is often applied to our Lord's manifestation in the flesh and his exhibition to mankind, is unquestionable. See Mat. xxii. 24. Acts ii. 30. iii. 22. vii. 37. Heb. vii. 11, 15. The term, it is allowed, frequently denotes also the raising of persons from the dead, as in John vi. 39, 40. Acts ii. 24, 32. But there is considerable force in the argument which the Author derives from the phrase at the beginning of verse 34th, “And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead,”—which seems to intimate that the Apostle makes a transition from speaking of the Father's having exhibited Christ as a Saviour to speak of his having raised him from the dead. Had Paul referred in verse 33d to the resurrection from the dead, it is probable that, with a view to render the meaning of avaras indisputable, he would have there added the expression iz vixqw," from the dead." This seems much more likely, than that he would have added this expression to avastassy, " he raised him up," in verse 34th; if, in reality, he had already referred to our Saviour's resurrection in verse 33d.

To evade the force of this argument, it might indeed be alleged, that in verses 32d and 33d the Apostle speaks of God's raising Christ from the dead only in general; and that at verse 34th he proceeds to show that the Father raised him up. " now no more to return" to the grave. This allegation, however, though somewhat specious, is not sufficient to invalidate our Author's argument. Nor is its force weakened by the notice taken of the resurrection in verses 30, 31. At the conclusion of verse 31st, the Apostle seems to pause; and having, in a preceding part of his discourse, announced God's raising up Jesus in both senses of the expression, first by exhibiting him as an incarnate. Saviour verse 23d, and then by bringing him again from the dead verse 30th, he goes forward to show the corre

Chap. iii. Sect. 13.

spondence of both with the Old Testament Scriptures. Having formerly remarked, that "of this man's seed hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus," he, in the first place, in similar terms, adverts again to the exhibition of Christ in the flesh; " And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus; as it is also written in the second Psalm, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." The Apostle then shows, in the second place, verses 34-37, that in the Saviour's resurrection to immortal life, to which he had previously referred in verses 30th and 31st, we behold another striking instance of the accomplishment of ancient promises.

A difficulty with reference to the eternity of Christ's Sonship, it is commonly thought, arises from Paul's quoting Psalm ii. 7, in verse 33d, whether the verse be interpreted as relating immediately to his incarnation, or his resurrection. It is not intended, however, to protract this Note by a minute consideration of the supposed difficulty. Suffice it to observe, agreeably to the comment of Witsius himself in the Section now referred to, that whichever of these views be adopted, the Apostle ought not to be understood as intimating that the Messiah became the Son of God at a certain period, but only that his exhibition to mankind in the fulness of time, his wonderful incarnation, or his glorious resurrection from the dead, served to manifest his character as the Only-begotten of the Father, "whose goings forth have been from of old, even from everlasting." The doctrine of the Sonship of Christ being in reality Divine and Eternal, is satisfactorily confirmed by Dr Jamieson, in that part of his elaborate work on the Deity of Christ, in which he considers the evidence of this momentous article arising from the use of that expression the Son of God. It abounds with just and pertinent as well as ingenious and striking observations on the various testimonies borne to Jesus as the Son of God, by the Father, angels, devils, the enemies of Christ, and by our Lord himself and his Apostles. See also Dr Owen on Heb. i. 5.

The subject of this Note is briefly adverted to by the Rev. Mr Bell; and it may be just mentioned, that he shows at length, that the Apostle's quotation from Isaiah, "I will give you the sure mercies of David," although, at the first glance, it might appear to have

• Micah v. 2.

+ A Vindication of the doctrine of Scripture, &c. Vol. i. pp. 347-492. Translation of the Irenicum, Note 6, p. 204, et scq.