is the communication of life, therefore, there must be a like communication in the case of the Son of God. (See De Moor, tom. i., p. 736.) This analogy, and the passage in John v. 26, in which the Father is said to have given the Son to have life in himself (which some of the advocates of this doctrine explain as referring to Christ in his divine nature), are almost the only grounds, as far as we know, for this particular view of the subject. It should be remarked, however, that the venerable men, who felt themselves constrained to present the doctrine in question, in this light, were very far from attaching any of those gross ideas to the phrase, "communication of the divine essence," which have been supposed to be necessarily included in it. They expressly state, in what sense they use the expression; that all ideas, inconsistent with the spirituality and infinite perfection of God, are to be excluded from it; and consequently, all idea of posteriority, dependence, or change. Generatio, non nisi summa Deo tribuitur, ita omnes imperfectiones, quae finitam creaturarum generationem sequi solent, a generatione hac divina longissime sunt removendae, nimirum dependentia, successio, mutatio, divisio, multiplicatio, &c. (De Moor, p. 736.) If it be said, that the ideas of posteriority, dependence, and mutability are necessarily included in this phrase, and that if these be denied, the very thing asserted is denied; the friends of this definition would say, that all such objections arise from transferring the gross ideas which we derive from sensible objects, to an infinite spirit. That it is just as impossible to conceive how the Father and Son should have the same divine essence, and yet remain distinct persons, as that this essence should be communicated from one to the other. And we are free to confess that if the à priori objections urged against this doctrine, are to be considered valid, we cannot see how we can consistently remain believers in God's omnipresence, eternity, or any other doctrine which is confessedly incomprehensible. We are not, however, the advocates of this definition, nor do we consider it as at all essential to the doctrine of Christ's divine and eternal Sonship. It has never secured the favour of many who are firm believers in this doctrine. Lampe, in his Commentary on John v., 26, expressly rejects the interpretation of the passage which is considered as the chief ground of this particular view of the Sonship of Christ. The life there said to be given to the Son cannot, he maintains, be referred to his divine nature; because such a gift would be inconsistent with his independence and necessary existence. He opposes, strenuously, the idea of any communication of essence, and yet declares, se generationem Filii Dei naturalem, ad ipsam divinam essentiam pertinentem, unicam, aeternam absolute necessariam, sancte agnoscere, libere confiteri masculeque asserere. (See Preface to vol. iii. of his Commentary.) It is true that Lampe, by many of his brethren, was blamed for taking this course, and they accused him of thus committing an "atrocious injury" on the cause of orthodoxy. This, however, does not alter the case, nor

affect the correctness of our position, that the doctrine of Christ's divine Sonship does not consist in this idea of the communication of essence. The same view of John v. 26, as that presented by Lampe, had been given before, by Calvin, Beza, and many others. Morus, in his Commentarius Exegeticus in suam Theol. Christ. Epitomen, tom. i., p. 256, would explain the doctrine thus: Filius per Patrem est, et talis, qualis est, per Patrem est; which in the language of the church, would be, Filius natus est ex Patre, and in philosophical language, Pater cum Filio essentiam communicavit. On page 249, and seq., when speaking of the appellation vios Tov Ocov as applied to Christ, he says, Significatus dogmaticus nominis vios rov Ocov huc redit; aequalis Deo, qui habet eandem naturam; eadem attributa, eadem opera, quae Pater. Such passages as John v. 26, Matthew xxviii. 18, and John xvii. 2, in which life, power, and ability to save, are said to be given to the Son, he understands, not as referring to Christ as Mediator, but as God, and consequently as affording ground for the statement, that the Son has what he has, and is what he is, through the Father. He appears to lay no stress upon the philosophical definition of the Sonship, so often mentioned; but says that we should tell the people, that when they hear the word generation used in reference to Christ, they should think that the Son is even as the Father, has the same essence and the same attributes; that he can and does do whatever the Father does. Only the Son is through the Father.

Knapp, in his Vorlesungen über die Christliche Glaubenslehre Erster Theil, p. 214, in speaking of the sense in which God is called the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, after stating that the expression sometimes refers to the relation which Jesus, as the Saviour of men, sustains to the Father, says that "it undeniably refers, in several passages, to a certain internal relation in the Godhead, of the Godhead of Jesus to the Godhead of the Father; the real nature of which, however, the Bible has nowhere clearly explained, and which indeed must be incomprehensible to men. Only the Son, says he, has all from the Father, although he makes himself equal with God." In like manner he maintains that the name vios Tov Ocov in Rom. i. 3, 4, John v. 17, John i., and Heb. i., unquestionably refers to the divine nature of Christ. The name, Son of God, he says, should only awaken in us the idea of the participation of Christ in the divine essence that he is of the same nature with the Father, even as, among men, a son is of the same nature with his parent.

Zachariä, in his Biblische Theologie, Göttingen, 1775, vol. i., p. 503, gives, as the result of his examination of the scriptural doctrine of the Sonship of Christ, in substance the following statement. There is in God himself, that is, in the divine essence, an internal relation which has some similarity to the relation between father and son among men. This follows from the names father and son, if these names refer, as in his opinion they do, to the first and second persons in the Trinity as such, and are founded on

their relation the one to the other. This relation includes the idea of the sameness of nature, and this is the only idea essential to it. Everything else included in it, being merely human, cannot be transferred to God. The Son, therefore, must have the divine nature because the Father has it, or in other words, there must be a certain relation, in virtue of which the Son is a partaker of the divine nature or essence. A nearer or more definite explanation of the nature of this relation between the Father and the Son, cannot be given, on account of our limited knowledge of the divine Being; or because there is nothing analogous to it among men. And at best our analogical knowledge of God extends but a little way. This relation must have existed from eternity, and is therefore a necessary and unchanging relation.

The idea of generation, strictly speaking, considered as an internal act of the Father, by which he confers the distinct character of Son on the second person in the Trinity, is neither in his opinion taught in the scriptures nor essential to the doctrine of Christ's divine and eternal Sonship.

We think that it must be admitted, that the essence of the doctrine under consideration is something different from any, or all of the various definitions of which it has been the subject. The revealed fact, as we believe, is that Christ, in his divine nature, is the Son of God. That this implies that there is some ground in the nature of the relation of the Father and Son, for the application of these relative terms, will hardly be questioned. But what the nature of this relation is, the scriptures have not revealed, and we therefore cannot undertake to decide. It will not be denied, that much evil has been produced, by the attempt to reduce to distinct formulas the general truths of the Bible, nor that many have been led to reject this, as well as other doctrines of the word of God, from the difficulties with which they conceived the definitions of them to be incumbered. Calvin long ago exclaimed, Utinam sepulta essent nomina (Trininatis opoovaiov, &c.) constaret modo haec inter omnes fides, Patrem Filium et Spiritum Sanctum esse unum Deum: nec tamen aut Filium esse Patrem, aut Spiritum Filium; sed proprietate quadam distinctos. (Inst. Christ., Lib. i., cap. 13, § 5.) It might, with equal propriety, be desired, that theologians had contented themselves with asserting the Bible fact on this subject, without attempting to decide whether Christ was the Son of God by emanation, communication of essence, or merely by oneness of

nature.

A mere statement of the principal à priori objections to the divine Sonship of the Redeemer, will be sufficient to show, that they are all directed against the idea of derivation of the second person in the Trinity from the first, and consequently that they bear not against the doctrine itself, but against some few of the forms in which it has been exhibited. We shall mention the principal of these objections, as they are given in substance, in Roell's Dissertatio de generatione Filii Dei, as they are the same which have

been presented both before and since. It is said that the doctrine contains a contradiction in terms, that it is utterly incomprehensible how the divine essence can be communicated to the Son, and yet retained by the Father.* That this objection is directed to the idea of communication of essence, its very terms imply. And that it is valid, may be admitted, if the word communication is to be taken in a physical sense. But those who employ this term, tell us that this is not the sense in which they use it; that being applied to a spiritual being, it is absurd to speak of whole and part, as though God were capable of division; and that if it be allowable to demand how the divine essence can be communicated from the Father to the Son, and yet retained by the Father, the objector must submit to a similar demand, how three distinct persons can have the same numerical essence? how God can be in heaven and on earth at the same time, and yet not partly in the one and partly in the other? It is evident, that when we speak thus, we use words nearly without meaning; human language is so little adapted to the things of God, and our knowledge is so limited, that we may be said not to know what we say, nor whereof we affirm. When speaking of God's essence, his omnipresence, his unsuccessive eternal existence, or mode of subsistence, our ideas are at best merely negative. We endeavour to deny everything inconsistent with absolute perfection, but we are unable to state affirmatively, what we mean by any of these terms. Frequently, as the distinction between the brand the s is upon our lips, we are constantly disposed to forget it. Nor do we feel as we ought how infinitely such subjects are beyond our reach.

A second objection is, that the doctrine in question is inconsistent with the eternity of the divine nature of Christ, since, from the nature of the case, the Father must be prior to the Son.† And thirdly, it is objected that it necessarily involves a denial of the independence and self-existence of the Son. These objections amount to the same thing, that this doctrine is inconsistent with the proper deity of the Son of God. Now whether this is so or not, it should be recollected that the uncaused, self-existent, independent divinity of Christ, is as strongly asserted by the advocates of this doctrine, as it is by any class of theologians whatever. It is true that some of the Fathers used language apparently inconsistent with this statement. But even Bishop Bull objects to calling the Son and Spirit (airiarovs) caused. Although he says he can conceive of a sense, in which the Son may be called an eternal and infinite effect of an eternal and infinite cause. Such lan

Vel Pater totam Filio dedisset vitam, quando ipse eandem amisisset; vel partem essentiae divinae tantum, quando nec Pater nec Filius eam possideret. See De Moor, caput v.

Si generatio illi tribuatur qui cum conscientia operatur, ut enti mere rationali, vel ratione saltem praedito, voluntarius sit oportet generandi actus. Ex quibus apertum est, in ejusmodi proprie dicta generatione generatum esse genito priorem. Quis non hoc per se intelligit,-id omne quod et quatenus genitum est, eatenus dependere a generante, tanquam effectum a causa.

guage, however, has never been adopted by the great mass of believers in the eternal generation of the Son of God. It is impossible to express in stronger language, faith in the uncaused, self-existent, and independent deity of Christ, than has been done by these men. Calvin, Beza, Mark, De Moor, and as far as we know, Protestant divines generally, teach that Christ is properly called AUTOCOS, Deus a se, and prove that it must be so, from the verity, supremacy, and independence of his Godhead. De Moor says (p. 772), Si Filius sit verus Deus, est Deus independens: nam independentia est inter attributa Dei facile prima, atque ab essentia Dei inseparabilis. See also Calvin's Theological Tracts, tom. 7, of his works, p. 672, where he maintains that the Son and Spirit not less than the Father are to be called airosos. They further deny any kind of dependence of the Son on the Father, in reference to his divine nature, but maintain that the several persons in the Trinity are alike independent, of equal dignity and perfection. Omnis igitur epox Patri supra Filium tributa, spectat non ad naturalem Patris et Filii subsistendi modum in se consideratum, sed ad redemtionis oeconomiam et munus mediatorium a Deo Filio voluntarie susceptum. (De Moor, p. 721.) It must not be supposed, therefore, that it is the exclusive privilege of those who deny the Sonship of Christ, to regard their Redeemer as self-existent, uncaused, and independent, nor that it is necessary to give up the self-existence of the Logos in order to believe that he is the Son of God. The only question is, whether the communication of the divine essence from the Father to the Son, be consistent with this belief in the self-existence and independence of the latter? We find the advocates of this definition, almost with one voice, asserting that it is; declaring that they associate no ideas with the phrase in question, inconsistent with these divine attributes; that it is as unreasonable to force upon them a meaning of the expression which they disclaim, as it is for Unitarians to assert that we are necessarily Tritheists in believing that there are three persons in the Godhead; that there is no more necessity for using the word "communication," as applied to God, in its common sense, than there is for using the word person in the same sense when applied to God, as when applied to men; that the of all such objections lies in pressing the analogy between divine and human things too far, and thinking and speaking of God as though he were material, or at least altogether such an one as ourselves. It is plain that if it be permitted to apply to God forms of expression in the same sense in which they are used among men, there is no one subject on which we may not be involved in contradiction and absurdity. We say that the Father and Son have the same numerical essence, and yet we say that the Son became incarnate, and the Father did not, that is, that the same numerical essence did and did not become incarnate. Is it not something worse than useless for us to speculate so confidently on subjects at such an infinite remove above our conceptions, and to avail ourselves with so