6

is it, therefore, if the authority of Rome,' which could command the adoption of image-worship, 'with the belief of human infallibility,' ' transubstantiation,' and the like, should equally command the belief of eternal generation,'-an abstruse and speculative point of faith, which, though human reason be not able to apprehend it, may still, it seems, depend for support, on a little scripture, and a little primitive language wrested to that purpose..

Even when, towards the close of the fourteenth century, there appeared, in England, a dawn of reformation by Wickliff, and in Bohemia, some years after, by Huss, no notice is taken of the modes of doctrinal expression, then in use. These men's attention was principally, if not solely, directed to more palpable, and visible instances of what they deemed corruption. Whatever their inclinations might have been, they had no time to discuss the contendible minutiae of existing systems. Nay, Luther himself, and his valuable assistant Melancthon, the great instruments, under God, of effecting the long attempted reformation, seem not only to have adopted the current language, on this subject, but to have afforded the advocates for the doctrine of ⚫ eternal generation' authority for condemning any other mode of illustrating the Deity of Christ. With their rival reformer, Calvin, this is not the case. By giving our Saviour the title "Auro God of himself," Calvin renders the doctrine of eternal generation worse than nugatory. For this he

is bitterly attacked by the Jesuits-while the very thought seems horrible to the learned Dr Bull, who exclaims, "Horresco hæc referens!"

When Arminius set himself to oppose the rigid tenets of the Calvinistic school, which were afterwards established in the Synod of Dort, he also impugned the title which Calvin bestowed on Jesus Christ; and, from his chair, as divinity-professor at Leyden, boldly decided, that making Christ AUTO9, was a novel opinion, unknown to the ancient Greek and Latin churches. These, according to him, always affirmed, that the divinity of the Son was derived from the Father by an eternal generation; though, at the same time, he acknowledges that," as Aurol had been used by Epiphanius, and by "other orthodox divines, both ancient and modern, it was not absolutely to be rejected if rightly understood."

The first protestant Confession of Faith submitted to the Scottish church has nothing in it, which can be said even to allude to generation of any sort, eternal or otherwise. The first Article, in describing Almighty God, declares him to be-" omnipo"tent, invisible, of one substance, and yet distinct "into three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, by whom all things were created,” &c. While the sixth Article, entitied-" Of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ," does equally abstain from the use of the term generation; and speaks only of our Lord, as "the just seed of David, the I 2

66

angel

angel of the great Councell of God, the very Mes"sias promised, whom we acknowledge and con❝fess Emanuel, very God and very man, two perfect natures, united, and joined in one person. By which our confession, we condemn the dam"nable and pestilent heresies of Arius, Marcion, Eutyches, Nestorius, and such others, as either deny the eternity of his Godhead, or the verity of his human nature, or confound them, or yet divide them."

"

This confession, in XXV articles, was drawn up, under the immediate eye of John Knox, who, being Calvin's disciple, in all probability adopted his Autothean plan. Having been presented to the convention of estates, anno 1560, it was ratified by them, and continued to be the only public standard of faith to all the protestants of Scotland, whether episcopalian or presbyterian, until the revolution in 1688.

In the article of our Saviour's Deity, the Church of England seems rather to incline towards the creed of Arminius-but with that modesty and reserve which characterise the standard faith of that church. The Son, which is the word of the Father, begot"ten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, "took'," &c. The words, "begotten from everlasting of the Father," it will not be denied, are

See Thirty-nine Articles of Religion-Art, 2.

exactly

exactly conformable with the words in the Nicene Creed, "begotten of his Father, before all worlds," language, as Arminius said of Autofe," not to be rejected, if rightly understood."

The Westminster Assembly, having been ordered, anno 1643, to examine the English Articles, and to render them conformable with their own tenets, did however, in this instance, abandon the Genevan oracle, and adopt the belief of Arminius-that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father'." And again," it is proper to the Son to be begotten of "the Father from all eternity." I do not say, that those divines of the English church, who have so strenuously espoused this doctrine, took "the West"minster Confession of Faith" for their warrant. But I do maintain that they are, in the point of eternal generation, more warranted by that confession, than they are by the thirty-nine articles of their own church; which neither require nor countenance their positive explication of it. And I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise, that, in so valuable work as Dr Pearson's Exposition of the Apostle's Creed, after having confirmed by scriptural authorities, Christ's fourfold right to the titleSon of God, the learned author should have added-" beside these four, we must find yet a more

I See Confess. ch. 2.

3

1st. By generation, as begotten of God. 2d. By commission, as sent by him. 3. By resurrection, as the first-born. 4. By actual possession, as heir of all. See Exposition of the words, "His only Son,"

"peculiar ground of our Saviour's filiation, totally distinct from any which belongs unto the rest of "the sons of God-that he may be clearly and ful"ly acknowledged the only begotten Son." As if any of the four particular sources of right, which he justly ascribes to our Saviour, had ever belonged to, or had ever been claimed by any other being, to have rendered the task, which the expositor here binds himself to discharge (" we must find") necescessary. Nor are the terms, in which Dr Pearson announces his mode of discharging this necessary task, less calculated to excite our surprise, than the task itself. 66 First, I will clearly prove, out of the holy Scriptures, that Jesus Christ, &c. Secondly, "I will demonstrate from the same Scriptures, &c. Thirdly, we will shew that the divine essence, which he had, he received, as communicated to him by the Father. Fourthly, we will declare "this communication of the divine nature to be a proper generation'." In his two first positions, our author talks of " clearly proving," and "demonstrating" FROM SCRIPTURE-in the two latter, he simply undertakes to "shew" and "declare," and that, without mentioning a word of Scripture.-What a falling off is here! But such must always be the case, when, in religious investigation, we seek to find what Scripture has not to bestow. True, the learned Doctor in "shewing" and " declaring" what, in the above instances, he engages to shew

See Expos. edit. 3. p. 107.

and