OF THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST. 181
scilicet semen illud, quod a Deo creatum, et cum semine Mariee con- junctum fuit, dicatur non virile, quia non a viro profectura sit, vel ex viro in uterum Virginis translatum, ut quidam opinantur, qui semen Josephi translatum in Virginis uterum credunt," cap. xviii. p. 158. And thus far are men arrived: Unless this horrible figment may be admitted, Christ is not the Son of God. He who is the " true God and eternal life" will one day plead the cause of his own glory against these men.
I insist somewhat the more on these things, that men may judge the better whether in all probability Mr B., in his " impartial search into the Scripture," did not use the help of some of them that went before him in the discovery of the same things which he boasts himself to have found out.
And this is the first reason which our catechist hath taken from his masters to communicate to his scholars why Jesus Christ is called the " Son of God." This he and they insist on exclusively to his eter- nal sonship, or being the Son of God in respect of his eternal gene- ration of the substance of his Father.
The other causes which they assign why he is called the " Son of God" I shall very briefly point unto. By the way that hath been spoken of, they say he was the Son of God, the natural Son of God. But they say he was the Son of God before he was God. He grew afterward to be a God by degrees, as he had those graces and excel- lencies and that power given him wherein his Godhead doth consist. So that he was the Son of God, but not God (in their own sense) until a while after; and then when he was so made a God, he came thereby to be more the Son of God. But by this addition to his sonship he became the adopted Son of God ; as, b}' being begotten, as was before revealed, he was the natural Son of God. Let us hear Smalcius a little opening these mysteries. " Neither," saith he, " was Christ God all the while he was the Son of God. To be the Son of God is referred to his birth, and all understand how one may be called the "Son of God" for his birth or original. But God none can be (besides that one God), but for his likeness to God. So that when Chi'ist was made like God, by the divine qualities which were in him, he was most rightly so far the Son of God as he was God, and so far God as he was the Son of God. But before he had obtained that likeness to God, properly he could not be said to be God."^
1 " Nee enim omni tempore quo Christus Films Dei fuit, Deus etiam fuit. Filium enim Dei esse, ad nativitatem etiam referri, et ob ortum ipsum aliquom Dei Filium appcUari posse nemo non intclligit. At Deum (prsetcr unum ilium Deum) nemo esse potest, nisi propter similitudinem cum Deo. Itaque tunc cum Christus Deo similis factus esset per divinas quoe in ipso erant qualitates, summo jure eatenus Dei Filius, qua Deus, et vicissim eatenus Deus, qua Dei Filius. At ante obtentam illam cum Deo similitudinem Deus propria dici non potuit.'' — Smalc. Respon. ad Smiglec. cap. xvii. p. 154.
182 VINDICIiE EVANGELICiE.
And these are some of those monstrous figments which, under pretence of hai^e adherence to the Scripture, our catechist would obtrude upon us : First, Christ is the Son of God ; then, growing like God in divine qualities, he is made a God ; and so becomes the Son of God. And this, if the man may be believed, is the pure doctrine of the Scripture ! And if Christ be a God because he is like God, by the same reason we are all gods in Mr B.'s conceit, being all made in the image and likeness of God ; which, says he, by sin we have not lost.
But what kind of sonship is added to Christ by all these excel- lencies whereby he is made like to God ? The same author tells us that it is a sonship by adoption, and that Christ on these accounts was the adopted Son of God. " If," saith he, " what is the signifi- cation of this word adoptivus may be considered from the Scripture, we deny not but that Christ in this manner may be called the * adopted Son of God,' seeing that such is the property and condition of an adopted son that he is not born such as he is afterward made by adoption. Certainly, seeing that Christ was not such by nature, or in his conception and nativity, as he was afterward in his succeed- ing age, he may justly on that account be called the 'adopted Son of God.'"^ Such miserable plunges doth Satan drive men into whose eyes he hath once blinded, that the glorious light of the gospel should not shine into them ! And by this we may understand, whatever they add farther concerning the sonship of Christ, that all belongs to this adopted sonship ; whereof there is not one tittle in the whole book of God.