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is the Son of God, Acts viii. 37. and this was the sum and substance of the ministry of the apostle Paul, with which he first set out, and continued in, that Christ is the Son of God, Acts ix. 20. 2 Cor. i. 19. and indeed, it is the distinguishing criterion of the christian religion, and what gives it the preference to all others, and upon which all the important doctrines of it depend; even upon the Sonship of Christ as a divine person; and as by generation, even eternal generation. Without this the doctrine of the Trinity can never be support. ed; of this the adversaries of it are so sensible, as the Socinians, that they have always set themselves against it with all their might and main; well knowing, that if they can demolish this, it is all over with the doctrine of the Trinity; for without this, the distinction of Persons in the Trinity can never be maintained; and, indeed, without this, there is none at all; take away this, and all distinction ceases. A writer of the present age, and who was the first among us who objected to the eternal generation of the Son of God, though Roell, a Dutchman, before him, attempted to explain it away; or, at least, to a different sense; indeed, pretends to hold the doctrine of three distinct persons in the Deity, and yet explodes this: a strange paradox! he owns some divines have strenuously maintained, and judiciously defended, the doctrine of the Trinity who held the eternal generation of the Son, and the procession of the Holy Ghost. Why then should this judicious defence be deserted by us? he owns that these properties, begetting, begotten, and proceeding, plainly prove the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be distinct persons; why then should they be laid aside? and especially, since without them there is no proof to be made of their being distinct Persons in the divine nature. He says, that his account of Christ's Sonship, that is, by office, and not by nature, does not take away any argument by which we prove his Deity. But without his eternal generation no proof can be made of his being a distinct divine Person in the Godhead, and so not of his Deity: he farther says, that it does not take away any argument to prove his distinct personality from the Father and the Holy Ghost; whereas it takes away that which is the only proof of it, without substituting a sufficient one in its room; and, indeed, no other in the divine nature can be substituted in its room; not the office of Christ, as Mediator; for he must first be proved to be a distinct divine Person, before he can be considered as Mediator. The doctrines of redemption, justification, atonement, and pardon of sin, depend upon the divinity of the Person of Christ, as the Son of God. Gal. iv. 4. Rom. viii. 3, 4. Heb. i. 2, 3. 1 John i. 7.

I cannot see there is any reason to object to the use of the phrase eternal generation, as applied to the sonship of Christ, since one divine person is said to beget, Psal. ii. 7. and therefore must be a Father; and another divine person is said to be begotten, John i. 14, 18. and elsewhere, and therefore must be a Son; and if a begotten Son, as he is often said to be, then he must be a Son by generation: for he must be a very illiterate man indeed who does not know that ta beget and generate are the same, and that also to be begotten and generated are Ridgley's Body of Divinity, vol. 1. p. 121. Ibid. p. 127.

the same; and therefore generation, with great propriety, may be used of the divine persons; and if used of the divine persons as in the divine nature, as if of the Father in the divine nature, then of the Son in the divine nature; and there being nothing in the divine nature but what is eternal, then this generation must be eternal generation; there are no persons in the divine nature but who are eternal, the eternal Father, the eternal Son, and the eternal Spirit; nor is there any thing in it but what is eternal; every attribute in it is eternal, as eternal power, eternal wisdom, &c. every will, decree, and purpose in it is eternal, the eternal birth of the eternal mind'; why not then the Son of God, the Word and Wisdom of God? and indeed Wisdom, or Christ, is expressly said to be brought forth, nn, a word expressive of generation, twice used in Prov. viii. 24, 25. and there, in some ancient versions, rendered begotten, as non brought up, v. 30. is in some later versions rendered carried in the bosom, as a son in the bosom of the Father; all which is spoken of as done in eternity: now if Christ was begotten from everlasting, or ever the earth was, before there were any fountains of water, or mountains and hills, and was as early as a son in the bosom of his father, one would think there can be no difficulty in admitting his eternal generation. To which may be added, that if no moment or instant can be given or pointed at, neither in eternity nor in time, in which Christ was not the begotten Son of the Father, then he must be eternally begotten of him, or be his Son by eternal generation; but no moment and instant can be given or pointed at, neither in eternity nor in time, in which Christ was not the begotten Son of the Father; therefore he must be eternally begotten of him; or, in other words, be the Son of the Father by eternal generation. The phrase eternal generation is said to be a contradiction in terms; surely, not more so, than eternal creation, and an eternal creature: it may be thought so by those who will say the same of a Trinity in Unity, or of three being one, though expressly asserted in 1 John v. 7. and so is no more a contradiction than a Trinity of persons in one God. Indeed if the phrase was used of human generation, and applied to that, it might well be thought to be a contra'diction in terms; but not as used of divine generation, and as applied to that; the one being in a nature finite, the other infinite. Perhaps the distinction of a priority of order, and a priority of time, may serve to remove the seeming contradiction; the former may be in things eternal, but not the latter. Thus, for instance, God is eternal, and so are his decrees; as the decree of election, or rather God's act of choosing men before the foundation of the world; now God may be conceived of as previous to his act of choosing in priority of order, though not in priority of time, which cannot be admitted in eternity. So the Father generating the Son, may be considered in priority of order previous the Son generated by him, though not in priority of time, of which there can be none in eternity;

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Zeph. ii. 2. pantequam nascatur decretum, Sheindler. Lexic. col. 759. antequam edetur edictum, Castalio: that is, before the decree conceived or begotten in the mind of God from eternity, is born or brought forth into open execution,

considering therefore the Son's generation of the Father from eternity, in a priority of order, though there can be none of time, it will not appear to be a contradiction in terms.

When the scriptures ascribe generation to the Divine Being, it must be understood in a manner suitable to it, and not of carnal and corporal generation; no man in his senses can ever think that God generates as man does; nor believe that ever any man held such a notion of generation in God; yet Socinus" has the impudence to say that some called Evangelics, hold that God generates in the divine essence one like himself, more animantium, as animals do. But generation must be understood of such generation as agrees with the nature of a spirit, and of an infinite uncreated spirit, as God is; that spirits generate we know from the souls or spirits we have about us and in us; our minds, which are spirits, generate thought; thought is the conception and birth of the mind; and so we speak of it in common and ordinary speech, I conceive, or such a man conceives so and so; this is my conception of things, such are the conceptions of others, &c. So with the Platonic philosophers, thought is the birth of the mind; they call it the mind begotten by the mind, as it were another like itself; now as soon as the mind is, thought is, they commence together and they co-exist, and always will; and this the mind begets within itself, without any mutation or alteration in itself. Now in some respect these answer: the mind to God who is N85, the eternal mind, and thought, the birth of the mind, to Christ, the eternal Aoyos, word and wisdom of God; who is in some sort represented by 2070s Eveiaderos, the internal mental word So Plato says, "thought is hoyos, word or speech, by which the soul declares and explains to itself what it considers;" or elsewhere", "thought is a discourse within the soul to itself, without a voice." Aristotle somewhere calls it the aoyos, or word, 72 vol ouvaidion, co-eternal with the mind. Now if our finite created spirits, or minds, are capable of generating thought, the internal word or speech, and that without any motion, change or alteration, without any diminution and corrup tion, without division of their nature or multiplication of their essence; then in an infinitely more perfect manner can God, an infinite uncreated spirit, beget his Son, the eternal Word, wisdom, reason, and understanding, in his eternal mind, which he never was without, nor was he before it: In the beginning was the word, &c. John i. 1. and this same Word is expresssly said to be the only begotten of the Father, 14. and this perfectly agreeable to the sense and language of the old jewish church, as appears from the ancient paraphrases, and from Philo", who says of the Aoyos, or Word, that it is not unbegotten as God, nor begotten as men, and that it is the first begotten Son, with other expressions of like nature: these things considered, may serve in some measure to relieve our minds, and make it more easy to us to conceive of this wonderful and myste "Quod Regn. Polon. c. 4. s. 2. p. 698. Opera, vol. 1. w Vid. Zanchium de Natura Dej. c. 7. P. 145. * In Theæteto, p. 138. Ed. Ficin. y In Sophista, p. 184. 2 Apud Polan, gyntagm. Theolog. 1. 3. c. 4. p. 202. Quis Rer. Divin, Hæres. p. 509. de Agricult. p. 195'

de Confus. Ling. p. 341.

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Tious affair. "Mental or metaphysical generation, as a learned divine' observes, is a similitude and adumbration of divine generation; as the mind begets by nature, not by power, so likewise God; as the mind begets a birth co-essential and co-eternal, so God; as the mind simple and perfect begets a birth simple and perfect, so God; as the mind begets immutably (or without mutation) so God; as the mind begets of itself in itself, so God; as the mind does not beget out of matter without itself, so neither God; as the mind always begets and cannot but beget, so God the Father; as metaphysical generation abides, so the divine." Not but that there is in some respects a great dissimilitude between these, as the same writer observes; for the mind begets only a faculty, or an inexistent propriety, but God the Father begets a person existing by himself; the mind begins to beget in tune, but God begins not to beget, but always begets from eternity, &c. To this may be added another similitude, which may help us in this matter, and serve to illustrate it; and that is the sun, to which God is sometimes compared; the sun generates its own ray of light, without any change, corruption, division and diminution; it never was without ray of light, as it must have been had it been prior to it; they commenced together and co-exist, and will as long as the sun endures; and to this there seems to be an allusion, when Christ is called the brightness, aravyacua, the effulgence, the beaming forth of his Father's glory, Heb. i. 3. ut radius ex sole, as the ray from the sun, as Tertullian expresses it. Though such allusions are not to be stretched too far, nor admitted where they imply any imperfection. It will be granted that the phrases begetting and begotten, as attributed to the divine persons in the godhead, are used in reference to human generation; between which and divine generation there is some resemblance; as likeness, sameness of nature, personality, &c. and as we consider divine generation, it comes nearer to generation, properly so called, than any scheme or hypothesis opposed to it; but then care must be taken to remove from our minds every thing carnal and impure; and what implies an imperfection; as division of nature, multiplication of essence, priority and posteriority, motion, mutation, alteration, corruption, diminution, cessation from operation, &c. to reason from the one to the other, as running parallel to each other, is unreasonable; to argue from human to divine generation; from that which is physical, or natural, to that which is hyperphysical, or supernatural; from what is in finite nature, to that which is in a nature infinite, unbounded and eternal, is very irrational; and to reason from the one to the other, without limitation, restriction, care and caution, is very unsafe and dangerous; since it may lead unawares into foolish and hurtful errors; and when objections of this sort are inade, as they too often are, in a vain, ludicrous and wanton manner, they are to be rejected and detested, as impious and blasphemous; and they that make them are not to be disputed with, but despised: what is objected in a modest and decent way may be attended to; and the chief that I have met with are, that the sonship Polanus ut supra, p. 204. Adv. Praxeam, c, 18, 22.

of Christ by generation makes him to be later than the Father, to be dependent on him, and subordinate to him; or in other words, that it seems to be contrary to his eternity, independence, and equality. Let us a little consider each of these objections.

1. It is urged, that he that generates must be before him that is generated; a father that begets must be before the son that is begotten by him; and putting the sonship of Christ on this foot, he cannot be co-eternal with the Father, but must have a beginning. This is the old stale objection of the Arians, and of Arius himself, who stumbled at this, and set out with it, reasoning thus, "If the Father begat the Son, he that is begotten must have a beginning of his existence; and from hence it must be evident that there was a time when he was not a Son, and therefore it must necessarily follow, that he has his subsistence out of nothing." And so Aetius, a follower of his, could not understand how that which is begotten, could be co-eternal with him that begets. But a little attention to a plain rule will set this matter in a clear light, and remove this objection: the rule is, and I think it is a good one, and will hold good, that "correlates mutually put or suppose each other;" that is, they commence together, they exist together, they co-exist, and that one is not before the other, nor the one after the other. Now father and son are correlates, they suppose each other; a father supposes a son, and a son supposes a father; they commence and exist together, they co-exist, they, are not one before nor after another: the father, as a father, is not before his son, as such; nor the son, as a son, is not later than his father, as such; let a man have a first-born son, as soon as he has one he becomes a father, and not before; and his son is as early a son as he is a father; and supposing they live together a term of years, be it an hundred years if you please, which is not an unreasonable supposition, since it has been a fact, that father and son have lived together a longer term of time; now at the end of these hundred years, the father, as a father, will not be a moment older than the son, as such; nor the son, as a son, one moment younger than the father, as such; their relations rise and continue together till one or other of them cease. There is no priority nor posteriority, no before nor after in these relations; and so, as an ancient writer says, "with God there is no post-existence of him that is begotten, nor pre-existence of him that begets:" if there is an eternal Father, there must be an eternal Son, and therefore must be co-eternal; there cannot be a father without a Son, that would be an absurdity, and therefore not before him.

Should it be said, that though these mutual relations exist together, and that one is not before the other; yet surely he that is a father, though not as a father, must exist before him who is his son. As plausible as this may seem to be, it may not appear so plain when examined; for this objection may arise from a false notion of animal generation. Generation is not a production of a non-entity into being, or a bringing into existence what did not exist, Socrat. Hist, 1. 1. c. 5. Justin. Qu. & Respons, qu. 16, p. 400.

Ib. 1. 2. c. 35.

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