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The eternal Sonship of Christ, moreover, may be inferred from various parts of God's word; we shall refer to a few in proof -In Psalm ii. 7, we read, "The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." The words this day have have I begotten thee,' is the stile or expressive of eternity, verbs and adverbs of the present time and tense expressing eternity. fore Abraham was I am," says Christ, and "I AM hath sent me," Exod. iii. 14. So this day with God is an everlasting day, it is no to-morrow or yesterday. As God was always God, so always a Father, and so Christ always was and is God's Son. Now this cannot be said of Christ if he had only been his Son as man by union, for then he would have been the Son of the Holy Ghost, because this man was by the Holy Ghost conceived. The Holy Ghost was not the cause of his being a Son, for this very Spirit is termed the Spirit of his Son : Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father." How often do we see unrenewed men stumble and fall into every heresy because they cannot comprehend this word begotten. The Father, they say, must necessarily be before the Son in priority of existence: but this is unscriptural and untrue; for as Christ is the Father's only begotten Son, then this relationship must be coeval, the one could not by possibility be before or after the other; and that the Son was eternal, is fully confirmed in the Psalms, where the Father is speaking to his eternal Son: For unto the Son he saith (mark the words), Thy throne, O God, is for

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ever and ever.” Then if the Son's throne was eternal, the Son must be eternal, for the words, for ever and ever, imply the same as the words, from everlasting to everlasting and this is fully confirmed by the prophet Isaiah, ix. 6; we will render the passage in the order it stands in the Hebrew-"For unto us a Child is born, unto us the Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, Godman, my eternal Father's Prince of Peace." While, then, Biblicus and others who cavil at the truth of God which they cannot bring within the limit of their puny and finite powers of reason, for while the mysteries of our holy faith are not opposed to right reason they are infinitely beyond its grasp; it is our mercy the Lord will preserve his children from the wiles of Satan and the cunning subtlety of wicked men, that

"Where reason fails with all her powers, There faith prevails and love adores.”

Again, we read in Micah, v. 2, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." In this beautiful prophecy, while the incarnation of Christ is most strikingly foretold, the Holy Ghost inspired the prophet to revert most pointedly to Him who went forth in covenant, for the salvation of his people, as the eternal Son of God from of old, yea from everlasting. So in Psalm cxiii. 2, the Psalmist referring to the majesty and power Christ's kingdom, says, "Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting." To this those scriptures which speak of Christ as the begotten, the only begotten of the Father might be added; John i. 14— 18; iii. 16: 1 John iv. 9: which passages cannot refer to, nor be un

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derstood of him as a man, for as such he was not begotten, and so was without father, the antitype of Melchizedec, who is declared to be without beginning of days and end of life. In Romans i. 3-6 it is written, that Jesus Christ our Lord was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness.” Here the seed of David clearly means that Christ was the Son of David: but how? according to the flesh; and was also the Son of God, but according to the Spirit. Now the word spirit is opposed to the word flesh; and will any one dare to invert this order, and say that Jesus Christ was the Son of God according to the flesh, and the seed or Son of David according to the Spirit?

On page 11, Mr. Gunner asserts, "The human nature of Christ is not a person." To this Biblicus objects, and vauntingly calls upon us to defend the assertion. It is not necessarily required of us to defend every line in every book which we may review; but the one referred to we unhesita

tingly approve. When the second person in the Godhead became incarnate, he took our nature, body and soul, into union with his divine person; but it was human nature, not a person, he so took; it was that holy thing; nor did that human nature ever exist but in union with the Godhead; and it was this mysterious union which the apostle Paul justly terms "The mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh :" that constituted the God-man Mediator. But, says Biblicus, it was the man Christ Jesus whom Pilate condemned. This is, indeed, a full proof of our opponent's dainnable errors. Where was the divinity of our blessed Lord, if it was only the man that stood at Pilate's bar? We well know that Pilate could see nothing in our Emanuel but the man Christ Jesus, nor does the unbelieving world now see any thing more March, 1842.]

in him; but the mere babe in grace will exclaim, It was God and man in one Christ that condescended to stand at Pilate's bar, and pass through all the stages of his humiliation here below, for the salvation of his church.

Again Biblicus asserts, that no instance of divine worship to Christ as the Son of God while on earth can be produced; the Godhead alone was and is the object of that worship, &c. In these assertions the cloven foot of Sabellius, though hid beneath the jesuitical long-robe of a professed trinitarian creed, is fully apparent. Good Mr. Hart says, and it is a sentiment to which we give our hearty

amen,

"That Christ is God I can avouch,

And for his people cares;
Since I have prayed to him as such,
And he has heard my prayers."

The Christ which Biblicus represents as having stood at Pilate's bar a mere man, is not an object of wors ip, cer. tainly! But the Christ which the scriptures reveal, the Christ of God, the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, did receive, and was most truly and properly an object of divine worship. We read, in Matt. ii. 12, "And when they (the wise men) were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him." Chap. viii. 2, Behold there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord." Chap. ix. 18, "Behold there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him." Did not the thief on the cross worship him, when he prayed to Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom?" And the eleven disciples, it is said, worshipped him at Bethany at his ascension. Also the man that was born blind, whose sight Jesus restored, when asked by the Saviour "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" replied "Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him." And was not unbelieving Thomas a worshipper of

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the Son of God, when he exclaimed, My Lord! and my God!"

And that divine worship was given to the Son of God while on earth, may be fairly inferred from the circumstance, that no one ever came to Christ to solicit cure at his hands, addressing him as Lord, but were made whole; while those who, like Biblicus, coldly addressed him as Good Master, were sent away uncured. If then the Son of God is not an object of divine worship, would he have sanctioned idolatry? May Biblicus blush at his awful temerity, and learn not to blaspheme. But says Biblicus, the Godhead alone was and is the object of worship." We reply, that as the human nature of Christ never existed but in union with the divine, such a remark has no force whatever. The God-man Christ Jesus was and is an object of divine worship, and no poor sensible sinner need fear to pour out all his supplications to this all-gracious, all-merciful, and ever-loving Saviour, for God the Father has commanded all creation to honour Him even as they honour the Father. Never, poor sinner, listen to the suggestions of Satan, or to the lies of such men as Biblicus, but pray for the teachings of that blessed Spirit who will testify of Jesus as the Eternal Son of God.

Biblicus goes on to inquire, Did Christ as man ever pray to the Son? Yet if the Son was God, as he was a Son, why should not the man Christ pray to him also, and not always as he does, to the Father." As God-man Mediator the Saviour while on earth, fulfilling that obedience, active and passive, which in the eternal covenant he had engaged to accomplish for his church, necessarily addressed his prayers to the Father. And, as we have before stated, he took human nature, and not a human person, into union with his divine; therefore our objector's term the man Christ, grates very much on our ears, and compels us to conclude that he

believes him to be only a mere man, and does not believe in three distinct persons in the Godhead. And it is remarkable, Biblicus refers us in a few lines on to Luke i. 35, as a proof of why and how Christ is the Son of God; and this passage is quoted, and the same construction put upon it by Socinus himself: but let it be remembered that the angel does not say the holy thing born of the virgin should be, but should be called, the Son of God. The angel is not giving the reason why Christ should be called the Son of God, but why his people should receive him and own him as such. It is the manifestation and declaration of him as such in the human nature, to which the angel refers ; and as to how the union of the two natures existed in one Christ, is a subject which the angel does not attempt to explain-it is a matter for faith and not for reason. Again Biblicus says, Christ has not two Sonships: but Christ speaking to his disciples says. Whom say ye that I the Son of God am? Whom do men say that I the Son of man am ?” evidently proving, that while the unbelieving world would, like Pilate and Biblicus, look on him and view him only as the man Christ, his own peculiar people, redeemed by his precious blood, would worship and adore him as the eternal Son of God.

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But we must notice one more passage. Biblicus's words are, 'By holy scripture we are forbidden to worship two gods, whether both supreme, or one inferior to the other: so the mystery of God, even the Father, and of Christ, is simply thisThere is to us, as St. Paul saith, one God the Father, and that God was in Christ reconciling the (elect) world unto himself: and Jesus Christ was and is the Son of the Blessed,' in his human nature, and as I believe in his-human nature only, of which God the Father was the real father and Mary the real mother.". To this heterodox sentence we would reply very

briefly. The church of the living God worship one Jehovah-" the Lord our God is one Lord "-revealed in a Trinity of Persons-Father, Son, and Spirit-alike equal in power and majesty, the one neither before nor after the other. But that God the Father was in Christ we do not admit. God was in Christ: but the Father never became incarnate, neither did God the Holy Ghost. Nor do we admit that God the Father was the father of Christ's human nature; scripture expressly ascribes that to the Holy Ghost an therefore in respect to the humanity of our Lord, he was like his type Melchizedek, without father; and in his divine nature, without mother. As man, he was the son of Mary; as God, he was the only begotten Son. But it is clear that Biblicus believes in One God, denies the trinity of persons in that one God, and holds that the whole Deity was embodied in the Son; and that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are names of office, not Persons : thus embracing the indwelling scheme.

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There are several other points to which we ought perhaps to allude, but we have already exceeded our limits. Upon so fundamental a doctrine, and thus publicly challenged, we deemed it our duty to defend our sentiments; but it must be understood, that a lengthened controversy upon this subject will not be allowed. The Spiritual Magazine is a Trinitarian Magazine, and as Biblicus must now in future rank himself as a denier of the Three that bear record in heaven, and which Three are One, his communications for the future must seek a place in some publication, if there be any such, conducted by the modern adherents of the heretic Sabellius.

Oh! it is a fearful sign of a reprobate spirit, when a man will pry into mysteries which the human mind cannot fathom, and which God hath not seen fit to reveal. Where the scriptures have no mouth, the believ

ing child of God should have no ear; and while his faith embraces the revelation of three divine persons subsisting in one God, corroborated as it is by his own heart-felt realization of the separate and actual work of each in the matter of his own soul's salvation, he will not, when in, a right spirit, seek to inquire How three can exist in one, and yet neither be less than the other. Let none say we are advocating a blind, ignorant faith; God's children know that it is not so: and, if it were worth while, such reasoners as Biblicus might be silenced with innumerable facts in nature, which they can never explain, and which yet they unhesitatingly believe. We cannot close our remarks better, than with the following extract from Gregory Nazienzen :

Let the generation of God be honoured in silence; it is a great thing, (abundantly so,) for thee to learn or know, that he is begotten; but how he is begotten is not granted thee to understand, nor indeed to the angels. It is enough for me that I hear of the Son; aad that he is of the Father; and that the one is a Father, and the other a Son: and nothing besides this do I curiously enquire after.

Do you hear of the generation of the Son? do not curiously inquire the how it is. Do you hear that the Spirit proceeds from the Father; do not curiously enquire the manner how he does; for if you curiously inquire into the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Spirit: I also, in my turn, will curiously inquire of thee, the temperament of soul and body; how thou art dust, and yet the image of God; what it is that moves thee, or what is moved; how it is the same that moves and is moved; how the sense abides in one, and attracts that which is without; how the mind abides in thee, and begets a word in another mind; and how it imparts understanding by the word; and, not to speak of greater things,

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what the circumference of the heavens, what the motion of the stars, or their order, or measure, or conjunction, or distance; what the borders of the sea; from whence the winds blow or the revolutions of the seasons of the year, and the effusions of showers? If thou knowest not any of these things, O man, of which sense is a witness, how canst thou think to know God accurately, how and what he is? this is very unreasonable."

And this short but excellent sentence from Athanasius-

How the Father begat the Son I do not curiously inquire; and how he sent forth the Spirit I do not likewise curiously inquire; but I believe that both the Son is begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds, in a manner unspeakable and impassible."

THE EDITORS.

EXTRACTS FROM SERMONS DELIVERED

eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

I shall take up the words of my text as they lay before us. On the first speak of this refuge in a threefold way-in the past, the present, and the future tense. In the first I have no doubt all of you as children of God can join me, When brought into heavy trials, arising from whatever quarter they may, we have proved by heartfelt and happy experience the blessedness of this refuge, and can say with the prophet, “ Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress; a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall."

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PEL, LEWES.

No. 11.-To be Continned.

Psalm ix. 9, 10.-" The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in time of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee, for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee."

WHEN a soul is awakened to feel his lost and undone estate- when God's law has entered the sinner's conscience-when all his sins are before his face, and knowing that he must ere long be brought to the house appointed for all living, feeling sensibly that without an interest in the everlasting love of God, he must for ever perish such a soul will well know how to prize a refuge, which I humbly conceive is more particularly meant in the words of my text. But at other times it refers, when speak ing of a refuge, to Jehovah, in his threefold character-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-as the following: "The

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the living."

But, 3. the most trying part is to say, in the words of my text, "The Lord also will be a refuge." Here I find after preaching of a Sunday find my daily exercise. I generally brought through, a suggestion of this morning, although most wonderfully

kind:

You will never get through the evening service.' Oh! my base unbelief; and what a cruel foe is Satan, the great enemy of our souls, to labour to dishonour our dear Lord and his precious word of promise. I am sure if any have cause to trust him, I have, who has brought me through such unnumbered difficulties and trials. But perhaps, my dear friends, did I not go through these exercises, I could not speak a word in season to those who are weary, and travelling the good old beaten path of tribulation; but sure I am, that we shall have to prove the Lord to be our refuge, live as long as we may. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and