Father's wrath, "the righteous judgment of God” impending over all mankind. And when the fulness of time was come," then said he, "Lo, arguments of Dr. Owen, taken from his short, yet convincing "Treatise on the Doctrine of the Trinity." Alluding to the Socinians, he says, "They acknowledge Christ to be God, and that because he is exalted unto that glory and authority, that all creatures are put into subjection unto him; and all, both men and angels, are commanded to worship and adore him; so that he is God by office, though he be not God by nature. He is God, but he is not the most high God. And therefore they accuse us as ignorant of the state of the controversy, in that we have not proved Christ to be the most high God; in subordination to whom, they acknowledge Christ to be God, and that he ought to be worshipped with divine and religious adoration. But by such pretences they only accumulate their errors:-for, 1st, the name of the most high God is first ascribed unto God, in Gen. xiv. 18, 19. 22. denoting his Sovereignty and Dominion. Now, as other attributes of God, it is not distinctive of the subject, but only descriptive of it. So are all other excellencies of the nature of God. It does not intimate that there are other Gods, only he is the most high, or one over them all, but only that the true God, is most high, that is, endued with sovereign power, dominion, and authority over all. To say, then, that Christ indeed is God, but not the most high God, is all one as to say he is God, but not the most holy, or not the true God. And so they have brought their Christ into the number of false gods, whilst they deny the true Christ, who in his divine nature, "is over all, "God blessed for ever." Rom. ix. 5.—a phrase perfectly expressive of this attribute, the most high God.—Secondly, This answer is suited only to those testimonies which express the name of God, with a corresponding power and authority unto name. For in reference to these alone, can it be pleaded with any pretence of reason, that he is a God by office. But most of the testimonies produced, speak directly unto his divine excellencies, and properties, which belong unto his nature necessarily and absolutely. That he is eternal, omnipotent, immutable, omniscient, infinitely wise, and that he is,—and that he produces effects suitable to all these properties, and such as nothing but these properties could enable him to produce, is abundantly proved by the foregoing testimonies. Now all these concern a divine nature, a natural Essence, a Godhead,—and not such power or authority as a man may be exalted to,-yea, the ascribing any of them to a man, implies the highest contradiction.——Thirdly, 9 Gal. iv. 4. 8 Rom. ii. 5. I come to do thy will, O God." That will was the salvation of sinners. "Herein (then) was ma"nifested the love of God towards us, because he This God in authority and office, and not by nature, that should be the object of divine worship, is a new abomination. For they are divine, essential excellencies, that are the formal reason and object of religious and divine worship. And to ascribe it unto any one that is not God by nature, is idolatry. By making, therefore, their Christ such a God as they describe, they bring him under the severe commination of the true God. "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even "they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." Jer. x. 11. That Christ they worship, they say is a God; but they deny that he is "that God that made the heavens and the earth;" and so leave him exposed to the threatenings of him who will accomplish it to the uttermost. -The following rules also will be found useful in refuting other objections raised by adversaries of the truth: 1. Distinction of persons, it being in an infinite substance, does no way prove a difference of essence between the Father and the Son. Where therefore Christ as the Son, is said to be another from the Father, or God, spoken personally of the Father, it argues not in the least that he is not partaker of the same nature with him. That in one essence there can be but one person, may be true where the substance is finite and limited, but has no place in that which is infinite. 2. Distinction and inequality in respect of office in Christ, does not in the least take away his equality and sameness with the Father, in respect of nature and essence, Phil. ii. 7, 8. A son, of the same nature with his father, and therein equal to him, may in office be his inferior, his subject. 3. The advancement and exaltation of Christ as Mediator to any dignity whatever, upon, or in reference to the work of our Redemption and Salvation, is not at all inconsistent with the essential honor, dignity, and worth, which he has, in himself as God, blessed for ever. Though he humbled himself, and was exalted in office, yet in nature he was one and the same, he changed not. 4. The Scriptures asserting the humanity of Christ, with its attendant circumstances, as his birth, life, and death, do no more thereby deny his Deity, than by asserting his Deity with its essential properties, they deny his humanity. 5. God working in and by Christ as he was Mediator, denotes the Father's sovereign appointment of the things mentioned to be done, not his immediate efficiency in the doing of the things themselves."-Owen on the Trinity. 1 Psl. xl. 7. Heb. x. 9. "sent his Son, to be the propitiation for our sins."a His Son his beloved son, in whom he was ever well pleased-his only-begotten Son, who "was by "him, as one brought up with him; who was daily "his delight, rejoicing always before him." This is the foundation of the Apostle's argument in the text, the ground of his triumph, that God manifested his immutable love, by the ratification of "the "counsel of peace" which was "between them both," by giving up his Son, (who, on account of the communion of nature, and his eternal generation,* must have been inexpressibly dear,) by not 2 1 John iv. 9, 10. 3 Prov. viii. 30. * It has already been proved, in the foregoing Notes, that Jesus Christ our Redeemer had an existence before he became incarnate-that that existence also was eternal, and consequently divine. The Deity of the Saviour has likewise been shown from abundant testimonies of Scripture, and deductions made from them. But another point remains to be noticed with respect to the Godhead of Christ, and that is his eternal Sonship. Now it is very evident, from numerous passages of Scripture, that Jesus Christ is spoken of as the Son of God, prior to any right he had to that title as Son of man. Thus we read of Him as "the only-begotten Son"the only begotten of the Father." John i. 14. 18. This surely denotes that he is God's own Son by nature— a divine Son, as truly derived from the essence of God, as a human son is derived from the substance or essence of man. Now "we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in "Unity;" that is, the revealed object of a Christian's worship is one Godhead in three Persons,-or, three Persons in one divine indivisible essence, viz. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. These are all co-equal and coeternal. The Godhead of the Father is universally acknowledged; to prove it, therefore, would be altogether useless, since it is undeniable.-The Godhead of the Son has also been clearly demonstrated.-The Godhead of the Holy Ghost will afterwards be proved. Now the Father is generally placed first, and really is the first Person, not as if he was superior, for they are all co-eternal; but because the second and the third Person re E sparing that Son, but delivering him up for us all. Now that the time had arrived when “the Sun 66 ceived their essence from Him; for the Son was begotten of the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceedeth both from the Father and the Son. This note, however, must be confined to the eternal generation of the Son of God; or, in other words, the communication of the divine essence of the Father to the person of the Son, which was from all eternity. What the manner of this eternal generation, or begetting of the Son of God is, none need inquire; for it is one of "the deep things of God”—a mystery not to be fathomed by finite minds-not to be comprehended as yet, even by the more enlarged capacities of angels. But this may be safely deduced from Scripture, that the Son derives his substance from the Father in some such manner, (wisely withheld from us,) as is best expressed under the term begotten. We should therefore rest satisfied with admitting that the second Person in the blessed Trinity derives his nature from the first Person only; and that, neither by creation out of nothing, nor by formation out of any pre-existing matter, but by being begotten of the very essence of the Father, which renders him truly and properly a Son. This may be proved from John v. 26, where Christ says—“ as the Father hath "life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” Now, as Bishop Beveridge remarks, “ To have life in himself is an essential property of the divine nature; and therefore wheresoever that is given or communicated, the nature itself must needs be given and communicated. Here we see how God the Father communicated this his essential property, and so his essence to the Son; and, consequently, though he be a distinct person from him, yet he hath the same unbegotten essence with him; and therefore, as the Father hath life in himself, so hath the Son life in himself-and so all other essential properties of the divine nature, only with this personal distinction, that the Father hath this life in himself, not from the Son, but from himself; whereas the Son hath it not from himself, but from the Father; or, the Father is God of himself, not of the Son; the Son is the same God, but from the Father, not from himself; and therefore not the Father, but the Son, is rightly called by the Nicene Council in their Creed — God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.' ”— Beveridge's Works, vol. i. P. 345. But it must be further observed, that this generation of the Son is eternal, and is perfectly consistent with his co-equality with God the Father. For, as Wheatley argues this question, "from things finite we may learn, that a being which receives existence from another, may exist as early as the source from wheuce its existence "of Righteousness "* should abase himself, and hide for awhile the brilliancy of his divinity, veiling his effulgent glory beneath a cloud of human is derived. For though the cause will be always before the effect in our minds, yet it is not always before it in time. For when the effect is essential to the cause, and flows necessarily from it, the cause cannot exist a moment without it. For instance, we know that the sun sends forth its rays; and yet our own apprehension will inform us, that the rays must be strictly coeval with the sun; and yet it was impossible for the sun to have existed before them. But on the contrary, could we suppose the sun to have been eternal, we must suppose its rays to have been eternal also: they must have been co-eternal, surely, with the sun, from which they could not but necessarily proceed. Consequently, the Son and Holy Spirit, the two Persons in the holy Trinity, if they were necessarily derived from the Father, could not but have existed co-eternally with the Fatherthe necessary Head and Fountain of both. So also with regard to the coequality of the Son and Holy Spirit with the Father, as to essence and nature. In this the Father has no supremacy. The nature is one and the same in all. God cannot possibly excel God. One Divine person cannot be greater than another as divine. Neither can the Son and Holy Ghost, by any thing they submit to, render themselves less divine, than from all eternity they have been, and to all eternity they must continue. No office or economy can either add to them any super-excellencies they have not, or decrease, or detract from, the excellencies they have. In whatever respect they minister to God the Father, they must minister to Him as God his only Son and God his holy Spirit, as Persons in the same eternal nature, and therefore not as to one of a higher or superior nature to them. For, as the Athanasian Creed asserts, such as the 'Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost;' which is proved by the repeated declarations of Father and Son concerning each other."Wheatley's Moyer's Lectures, pp. 245. 252. * 6 It has been often asked, if the incarnation was necessary, why was it so long delayed? To this it may be replied, that had not the incarnation been delayed, its necessity would not have been seen. Had the Word been made flesh immediately on the Fall, sin would not have had sufficient time to develope its native malignity, nor would the miserable and degraded state of man have sufficiently appeared. It was necessary that man should be placed in a great variety of situations, both before and after the |