of the popish schoolmen in this article, as the best fcheme they yet knew of, for maintaining the divinity of Christ against the attacks made upon it by Arians and Socinians. By this means the generation of the fecond perfon in the Godhead by the firft, hath become a received article in the creeds and confeffions of the Proteftant churches; though many of our divines diftinguished for piety, learning, and orthodoxy, have publickly called its truth and propriety in question. But no church fince the days of the apoftles is infallible. Many have erred, and all of them might have erred. The fcriptures are the only fure foundation and infallible teft of revealed religion, and of every article of it.

And

if we accurately examine this ground of our Saviour's Sonfhip by this unerring ftandard, we fhall find that it has neither the propriety nor the evidence that has been generally believed.

Chrift's Sonfhip, as we have fhewed already, and will show more fully afterwards, is affirmed of his complex perfon in general, but this theory limits. it to one nature only. Generation is not the production of a being that had no kind of existence previous to its generation. But this opinion gives the fecond perfon no proper and perfonal exiftence previous to his generation by the Father; for according to it every thing the Son has, is derived from the Father. Ifit fhould be faid that the divine effence pre-exifted to his generation, the answer is obvious, that that effence then belonged wholly to the Father, and could not belong to the Son, till once it was conveyed to him, or he produced of it. Generation is the unition of a pre exiftent, living principle, of the fame nature, and neceffary existence as the Father, with an additional fubftance derived from the mother;

by which a complex perfon is begotten, poffeffing the nature of both parents, and taking his filial name from both. But here the analogy does not hold in any one inftance, but the fign totally contradicts the thing fuppofed to be fignified by it. The Son, according to the fcholaftic explication, derives his whole effence and exiftence from the Father. He is not only begotten of, but however unintelligible it may feem, begotten in the Father. In his generation, no fubftance but from the Father is communicated to him. There is no complex perfon formed, no fecond parent from whom any part of a complex perfon is derived, and no foundation for different filial cha racters from different parents; for by the fuppofition, there is but one parent: fo that however his production may be called, a communication of effence or existence to another, it never with propriety can be called a generation or if it were, the Holy Ghoft, according to the received opinion of his perfonal proceffion, would with at least equal propriety be called the Son of the first and fecond, as the fecond can be called the Son of the firft perfon.

But as this view of our Saviour's Sonship has no probability from the proper notion of genera tion, fo it has as little proof from direct Scripture. The divine Logos, or fecond perfon of the Godhead, makes the principal constituent of the Son of God. On this account he is truly God, and the Son of God, and is affirmed to be fo by the clearest evidence revelation can give. But. the Scripture no where affirms that he is the Son of God by an eternal generation or production of his divine perfon; nor does it any where lead us to confider his Sonfhip in that light. The paffage often quoted in proof of this from Pf. ii. 7.

"Thou

Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee," confidered in itfelf as exprefsly denoting a generation in time, confidered in connection with both contexts which contain a prediction of the Meffiah or Word incarnate, confidered in the fense of the Jewish paraphrafts, who all understood it of the Meffiah in human nature, and confidered in the light in which the infpired apoftles confidered it, even as defcriptive of God manifefted in the flesh, Acts xiii. 33. proves no fuch doctrine as the generation of eternal Deity; but, as we shall afterwards fhow, puts the Sonfhip of Chrift upon a much more natural, fcriptural and proper footing. The eighth chapter of Proverbs has often been brought in proof of this opinion, and particularly thefe parts of it: "Lord poffeffed me in the beginning of his way, "before his works of old. I was fet up from A "everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the "earth was; when there were no depths I was "brought forth, when he prepared the heavens, "and when he appointed the foundations of the "earth, then I was by him as one brought up "with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoic"ing always before him, rejoicing in the habi"table parts of the earth, and my delights were

The

with the fons of men," Prov. viii. 22--31.These words many have thought apply to our Bleffed Saviour, and intimate the eternal generation of his divine perfon, as the Son of God. But this is building more upon them than the foundation will bear. There is perhaps no paffage of Scripture of more uncertain and various interpretation than the one here mentioned. Of the most judicious interpreters, ancient and modern, fome have understood it only of wisdom confidered as a perfection of the Deity, and fome of a perfon

C 5

in

fu

in the Godhead. Of thofe in the laft opinion, fome of the fathers understood it of the Son,. and fome of the Holy Spirit. Of thofe who understood it of the Son, fome applied it to his di vine perfon; others extended it alfo to his human nature. The orthodox ufed it to prove Chrift's eternal exiftence and fupreme Divinity ;. the Arians employed it to prove that his Deity was only created and inferior; fupported as they thought by the authority of the Septua gent verfion, which renders the word up the Lord poffeffed me, by die the Lord created me. And of late several writers from a conviction that it would neither apply well to preme Divinity, nor could ever be understood of a created Deity, have confidered it as importing the antemundane creation and pre-exiftence of Chrift's human foul in union with the Divine Word, to which all thefe texts would be of more eafy application. But if we accurately examine this paffage, we fhall find with many of the beft interpreters, that there is no folid ground upon which it can be applied to Chrift at all. Solomon, in this as. in most parts of this book, is defcribing and recommending wifdom; by which he means, as The Jews commonly did, that great intellectual and moral principle in the mind, either of God or man, by which we form the best and worthieft defigns in mind, and carry them forward into a wife and a virtuous, courfe of life. To give a clearer and nobler defcription of this comprehenfive excellence, he by a figure frequent with all writers, and efpecially with Solomon, wherever wifdom is his theme, defcribes her under the image of a living perfon. Thus in the beginning of the chapter he reprefents her as a female, which fhows he meant only a moral quality

35quality or virtue, not the fecond person of the Godhead, who is always defcribed in the mafculine gender, John i. 3, 4. Throughout the first part of it he defcribes the happy influence of wifdom on individuals and kingdoms. To aggrandife our ideas of wifdom, and recommend her more effectually to our approbation and choice, he rifes from man to God, and represents wifdom as co effential and co-eval with the Divine Mind itfelf, called forth to direct his eternal councils, and accompanying every exertion of his power in creating the material, particularly the terreftrial fyftem, and in adapting all things upon it, for the benefit of man, who was to be lord of the whole. After which he reprefents wifdom as calling upon mankind to follow her dictates in all religion and virtue, in oppofition to that course of fully and wickednefs defcribed before and after it. With this folly wifdom is here plainly contrafted; but that none might be at a lois to know what Solomon meant by it, he tells us in the conclufion of his noble panegyric, "The fear of "the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the "knowledge of the Holy is understanding," chap. ix. 10. Thus there is nothing in this part of Scripture, accurately confidered, that indicates any reference to the perfon of Chrift. Its defcribing him not as a co-agent with God, as all Scripture reprefents the Divine Word in the works of creation, John i. 1, 2, 3. Col. i. 16. but as an attendant or companion, ftrongly intimates, that the wifdom which is common tɔ alk the perfons in the Deity, not any particular perfon, was there meant. The total filence of the New Teftament directs us to carry it no farther, as neither Chrift nor any of his apoftles make the remoteft reference to it, which we