186 VINDICI^ EVANGELICiE.
Romans/ the apostle had before mentioned other sons of God, who became so by adoption, verses 15, 16; but when he comes to speak of Christ in opposition to them, he calls him " God's own" or proper "Son," — that is, his natural Son, they being so only by adoption. And in the very words themselves, the distance that is given him by way of eminence above all other things doth sufficiently evince in what sense he is called the "proper Son of God:" "He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not with him give us all things?"
2. The only-begotten Son of God is his natur^al Son, begotten of his essence, and there is no other reason of this appellation. And this is farther clear from the antithesis of this " only-begotten" to " adopted." They are adopted sons who are received to be such by grace and favour. He is only-begotten who alone is begotten of the substance of his father; neither can any other reason be assigned why Christ should so constantly, in way of distinction from all others, be called the " only-begotten Son of God." It were even ridiculous to say that Christ were the only-begotten Son of God and his pro- per Son, if he were his Son only metaphorically and improperly. That Christ is the proper, only-begotten Son of God, improperly and metaphorically, is that which is asserted to evade these testimonies of Scripture. Add hereunto the emphatical, discriminating significancy of that voice from heaven, " This is he, that well-beloved Son of mine ;" and that testimony which in the same manner Peter gave to this son- ship of Christ in his confession, "Thou art the Son of the living God ;" and the ground of Christ's filiation will be yet more evident. Why the Son of the living God, unless as begotten of God as the living God, as living things beget of their own substance ? But of that place before. Christ, then, being the true, proper, beloved, only-begotten Son of the living God, is his natural Son, of his own substance and essence.
3. The same truth may have farther evidence given unto it from the consideration of what kind of Son of God Jesus Christ is. He who is such a son as is equal to his father in essence and proper- ties is a son begotten of the essence of his father. Nothing can give such an equality but a communication of essence. Then, with God, equality of essence can alone give equality of dignity and honour ; for between that dignity, power, and honour, which belong to God as God, and that dignity or honour that is or may be given to any other, there is no proportion, much less equality, as shall be evi- denced at large afterward. And this is the sole reason why a son is equal to his father in essence and properties, because he hath from him a communication of the same essence whereof he is partaker. Now, that Christ is such a Son as hath been mentioned, the Scripture abundantly testifies. "My Father," saith Christ, " worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his
OF THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST. 187
Father, making himself equal with God/' John v. 17, 18. Verse 1 7, having called God his Father in the particular manner before men- tioned, and affirmed to himself an equal nature and power for opera- tion with his Father, the Jews thence inferred that he testified of him- self that he was such a Son of God as that he was equal with God.
The full opening of this place at large is not my present business ; the learned readers know where to find that done to their hand. The intendment of those words is plain and evident. Grotius ex- pounds "laov savTov Tui &SUI, by " It was lawful for him to do what was so to God, and that he was no more bound to the Sabbath than he; which," saith he; "was a gross calumny."'^ So verse 19, these words of our Saviour, " The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do" (wherein the emphasis lies evidently in the words d(p' iavrou, for the Son can do nothing of himself but what the Father doth, seeing he hath his essence, and so, consequently, will and power, communicated to him by the Father), he renders to be an allusion to and comparison between a master and scholar;^ as the scholar looks diligently to what his master doth, and strives to imi- tate him, so was it with Christ and God; — which exposition was the very same with that which the Arians assigned to this place, as Maldonate upon the place makes appear. That it was not an equal licence with the Father to work on the Sabbath, but an equality of essence, nature, and power between Father and Son, that the Jews concluded from the saying of Christ, is evident from this considera- tion, that there was no strength in that plea of our Saviour of work- ing on the Sabbath-day because his Father did so, without the violation of the Sabbath, unless there had been an equality between the persons working. That the Jews did herein calumniate Christ or accuse him falsely, the Tritheists said, indeed, as Zanchius testi- fies;^ and Socinus is of the same mind, whose interest Grotius chiefly serves in his Annotations: but the whole context and car- riage of the business, with the whole reply of our Saviour, do abun- dantly manifest that the Jews, as to their conclusion, were in the right, that he made himself such a Son of God as was equal to him. For if in this conclusion they had been mistaken, and so had ca- lumniated Christ, there be two grand causes why he should have de- livered them from that mistake by expounding to them what manner of Son of God he was: — First, Because of the just scandal they might take at what he had spoken, apprehending that to be the sense of his words which they professed.* Secondly, Because on that account