Of the same kind is that which Mr B. next urgeth from Heb. i. 4, 5, only it hath this farther disadvantage, that both the verses going immediately before and that immediately following after do inevit- ably evince that the constitutive cause of the sonship of Jesus Christ, a priori, is in his participation of the divine nature, and that it is only manifested by any ensuing consideration. Verses 2, 3, the Holy Ghost tells us that " by him God made the worlds, who is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person;" and this as the Son of God, antecedent to any exaltation as mediator. And verse 6, "He bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, and saith, Let all the angels of God worship him." He is the first-be- gotten before his bringing into the world ; and that this is proved by the latter clause of the verse shall be afterward demonstrated. Be- tween both these, much is not like to be spoken against the eternal sonship of Christ. Nor is the apostle only declaring his pre-emi- nence above the angels upon the account of that name of his, the "Son of God," which he is called upon record in the Old Testament, but the causes also of that appellation he had before declared.
The last place urged to this purpose is of the same import. It is Heb. V. 5, " So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest ; but he that said unto him. Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee." When Mr B. proves any thing more towards his purpose from this place, but only that Christ did not of his own ac-
' So tbat TrfcoTOToxo; -xaan; KTiaioi; is, o Ttx^^h """po "trlffni Kr'iiriui, qui gcnitus est prior omni creatura, vel ante omnem creaturam, for so ■r-uToi sometimes signifies comijai-a- tively. Arist. Avibus. 484, ■xfurot ^a^i'iou, id est, -^fiin^iv, Johan. i.l5; TpZros i^ou nv, that is, ^firipos- and 1 Johan. iv. 19, ^r^wro? tiya-rfia-iv, that is, Trponpo;. His generation was before the creation, indeed eternal. Tertullian saitli so too. Lib. de Trinitate : " Quo- modo priraogenitus esse potuit, nisi quia secundum divinitatcm ante omnem creaturam ex Deo Patre Sermo processit."
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cord undertake the office of a mediator, but was designed to it of God his Father, who said unto him, " Thou art my Son, to-day- have I begotten thee," declaring him so to be with power after his resurrection, I shall acknowledge him to have better skill in disput- ing than as yet I am convinced he is possessed of.
And thus have I cleared the eternal sonship of Jesus Christ, and evinced the vanity of attempting to fix his prerogative therein upon any other account, not doubting but that all who love him in sin- cerity will be zealous of his glory herein. For his growing up to be the Son of God by degrees, to be made a God in process of time, to be the adopted Son of God, to be the Son of God upon various accounts of diverse kinds, inconsistent with one another, to have had such a conception and generation as modesty forbids to think or express, not to have been the Son of God until after his death, and the like monstrous figments, I hope he will himself keep his own in an ever- lasting abhorring of
The farther confirmation of the deity of Christ, whereby Mr B.'s whole design will be obviated, and the vindication of the tes- timonies wherewith it is so confirmed from his masters, is the work designed for the next chapter.
There are yet remaining of this chapter two or three questions looking the same way with those already considered, which will, upon the principles already laid down and insisted on, easily and in very few words be turned aside from prejudicing the eternal deity of the Son of God. His 10th, then, is, —
"What saith the Son himself concerning the prerogative of God the Father above him ? " and answer is given John xiv. 28; Mark xiii. 32; Matt. xxiv. 36: whereunto is subjoined another of the same, "What saith the apostle Paul?— ^. 1 Cor. xv. 24, 28, xi. 3, iii. 22, 23."
The intendment of these questions being the application of what is spoken of Christ, either as mediator or as man, unto his person, to the exclusion of any other consideration, namely, that of a divine nature therein, the whole of Mr B.'s aim in them is sufficiently already disappointed. It is true, there is an order, yea, a subordi- nation, in the persons of the Trinity themselves, whereby the Son, as to his personality, may be said to depend on the Father, being be- gotten of him ; but that is not the subordination here aimed at by Mr B., but that which he underwent by dispensation as mediator, or which attends him in respect of his human nature. All the diffi- culty that may arise from these kinds of attribution to Christ the apostle abundantly salves in the discovery of the rise and occasion of them, Phil. ii. 7-9. He who was in the form of God, and equal to him, was in the form of a servant, whereunto he humbled himself, his servant, and less than he. And there is no more difficulty in the questions wherewith Mr B. amuses himself and his disciples than