TT
2, 15
, Wºº-
REMARKS
ON THE
ETERNAL SONSHIP,
&c. .
REMARKS
ON THE
ETERNAL SONSHIP OF CHRIST;
AND
THE USE OF REASON
IN
|
MATTERS OF REVELATION:
ſºugGESTED BY
SEVERAL PASSAGES
3rt 9)t, 3Dam Clarke's (Commentary on the ſºtta &gtämtlit.
ºxa-ºdº’sºvº.º.º.º.º.º.º.
IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND.
–º-
By RICHARD WATSON.
“ I gratefully receive, and rejoice in the light of revelation, which sets
me at rest in many things, the manner whereof my poor reason can
by no means make out to me.” LoCKE.
LO.W.D.O.W.":
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1818.
*T
2 5
, W 3,4-
REMARKS,
&c.
DEAR SIR,
YOU request my opinion on those passages
of Dr. Clarke's Commentary in which he has denied a
doctrine received in all ages, and by every church, re-
puted orthodox,−the eternal filiation of the second per-
son of the Holy Trinity; and on those principles which
he has laid down in support of his views;–views not new ;
but which have been of late almost peculiar to those who
entirely reject the essential divinity of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.
I should have been very unwilling to be the first to
excite a controversy on these subjects. Had the notes in
question passed off, as certain peculiarities of opinion in
Dr. Clarke's Commentary have done, noticed only for the
moment, and now almost forgotten, I would not have re-
called to them the attention of his readers, better employed,
I hope, on the many excellent things which his work con-
tains. But they have been, as may indeed be supposed from
their notorious opposition to the sentiments most com-
monly received among Christians, and in that religious
body to which Dr. Clarke belongs, the subject of much and
serious discussion: they have made some converts; and
have mooted subjects which have never been put into dis-
cussion in any church, without considerable mischief. This
was the case before any reply was made to them. Since
then a written controversy has commenced, and my reasons
for engaging in it may be briefly stated. I consider it a
very serious one.—I think a clearly revealed truth has been
A 2
º ( 4 )
given up by Dr. Clarke;—and that he has defended his
opinions on the subject by arguments, and on principles,
which however innocently held by himself, as to their prac-
tical influence on his own thinkings on religious subjects,
are very capable of being turned against doctrines which
he reveres, in common with all orthodox Christians.
I would however premise, -
1. That I approach the subject merely as a matter of
theological inquiry. The notes objected to are before the
world, and proposed, as all other writings are, to the judg-
ment of men, and lie open to remark and criticism.
2. That I have no feeling, but that of respect, towards
Dr. Clarke. My personal acquaintance with him is but
slight, and what I know of him by his writings has im- .
pressed me with a high sense of his talents and virtues.
3. That I have not taken up the subject under the idea
that the learned annotator does not most firmly believe in
the essential divinity of Christ; of this doctrine, his notes
afford ample proof, and contain masterly and irrefragable
arguments; and I am further persuaded, that at the time
he wrote those passages, in which he restricts the application
of the term Son of God, as it occurs in the New Testa-
ment as an appellation of Christ, to his human nature, he
conscientiously believed that he was removing an objection
to the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity: and
4. That, though I shall have occasion to remark that
he has, in some instances, adopted the Arian and So-
cinian rules of interpreting Scripture; and, as I con-
ceive, very dangerously, I strongly protest against this
being construed into an insinuation that I associate Dr.
Clarke with theologians of that class; at the same time,
honesty obliges me to confess, that though the Doctor's
great qualities may keep him secure, even upon those pre-
mises which upon some subjects he has assumed, yet that
they have produced contradiction and inconsistency in his
comments; and that, as to many of his readers, it is seri-
ously to be apprehended, that they will be greatly be-
, ( 5 )
wildered by them, in their religious opinions, and that their
direct tendency is to lead to errors, which Dr. Clarke him-
self would be the first to condemn. 4.
These particulars being premised, I hope that it will
appear to you, and to others, that I enter upon the dis-
cussion with the respect for Dr. Clarke, which his learning
and talents demand; and that it is quite consistent with
this respect, to feel that we owe, more than to any man, a
deference to truth,-the one is feeling and propriety, the
other is imperative duty.
The present inquiry respects, first, the Eternal Sonship
of Christ, which Dr. Clarke denies; second, the princi-
ples by which he has corroborated his negation of that
doctrine. -
As to the first, the inquiry is precisely this; are the ap-
pellations, “SoN,” “Son of GoD,” and others of similar
import, in the New Testament, to be considered, in every
instance, designations of our Lord's human nature, and
imposed with reference to his miraculous conception; or
are they used also as appellations of his Divine nature,
with reference to his personal existence in the Trinity,
and expressive of one of his peculiar and eternal relations,
in that personality, to God the Father ? This is the
question; and if it can be proved, that the doctrines of
the eternal filiation of Christ, and the essential personal
paternity of God the Father, are contained in Scripture,
the matter, as to most of Dr. Clarke's readers, will, I
hope, be considered sufficiently determined.
“The doctrine of the eternal sonship of Christ,” says
Dr. Clarke, “is, in my opinion antiscriptural.—I have not
been able to find any eagress declaration in the Scriptures
concerning it.”(1) Here then we are at issue; but, before
the evidence from Scripture is adduced, I must remark
upon his “not been able to find any capress declaration in
the Scriptures” in favour of the doctrine, that if he means,
that there is no passage which states in so many words,
(1) Commentary, Luke i. 35.
( 6 )
that Jesus Christ, according to his divine nature, is the
eternal Son of God; it is an objection to the doctrine,
which he overlooks in other cases. There is no passage,
which, in this sense, that is, in the same terms, expressly
asserts, that the three divine persons are one God; except
it be that in I John, so often disputed, and the genuine-
ness of which Dr. Clarke has given up. No passage
which, in so many words, states the union of two natures
in one person in Christ; and no one which expressly en-
joins the administration of baptism to infants. Yet Dr.
Clarke admits these doctrines, and practises this rite. I
do not know what idea he may attach to the eagress state-
7ment of a doctrine ; but I am warranted to conclude, from
his admission of the doctrines just named, and from his
administering baptism to infants, that he does not in other
cases hesitate to form his judgment on the necessary sense
of scripture, even where he does not find the explicatory
phraseology adopted in the theology of subsequent ages in
the sacred text. To me it appears, and I think also it
appears to Dr. Clarke, where the point in debate is not in
question, that there is an “express” enunciation of a doc-
trine in Scripture, when it is found in the literal sense of
any of its passages; when there is nothing in any other
part of the revelation to oblige us to depart from that literal
sense; when the meaning of other passages restrains us
to this literal signification; and when no consistent sense
can be made out, if the doctrine be not admitted. If this
be allowed, then I hope to make it appear, that the doc-
trine of the eternal sonship of Christ is expressly an-
nounced in the revelation which God has given of his Son.
If words have meaning, and the holy text is not to be
turned from its obvious sense, by subjecting it to some un-
authorized standard of fitness and reason, I do not an-
ticipate any difficulty in the demonstration; and though it
be allowed, that it is not uncommon for the sacred writers,
because of the personal union of the two natures of Christ,
to ascribe actions and relations to our Lord, under the
appellations of the “Son of God,” and “ the Son of Man,”
( 7 )
which interchangeably apply to either nature; if it be
clearly made out, that the term “Son of GoD,” and others
of the same import, are used when the divine nature of
Christ is either contemplated separately, or in direct contra-
distinction to his human nature, the argument, I conceive,
is fairly established; though many passages should be con-
sidered as entirely neutral. Nor would the argument, from
the use of the term, where the divinity of Christ is con-
templated in opposition to his humanity, be at all weakened,
were we to admit, (which I am not prepared to do, not
even in the instance of Luke i. 35, for reasons which shall
be afterwards given,) that the term Son of God is some-
times applied to the human nature of Christ, considered
in like manner separately, and in contradistinction to his
divinity. For, even then, it would remain to be proved,
that it is used in this sense only.
I proceed, therefore, to establish this argument, by ad-
ducing a few passages from the New Testament in which
“Son of God,” and other cognate terms are applied solely
and exclusively to the divine nature of Christ; which
cannot, by fair interpretation, be otherwise understood;
and which are, therefore, to me, decisive proofs of the
doctrine in question.
The epithet “only begotten” occurs, in the New Testa-
ment, only five times, as applied to Christ; and in two of
the passages it is used with great emphasis. They both
occur in the first Chapter of St. John's Gosspel: “And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we
beheld his glory, the glory As of THE on LY BEGOTTEN OF
THE FATHER, full of grace and truth,” ver. 14. “No
man hath seen God at any time, THE onLY BEGOTTEN SoN,
which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,”
wer. 18.
On the latter passage I remark, that if the term “only
begotten Son,” be used, as Dr. Clarke's scheme supposes,
with reference to the human nature of Christ, the text
contains a contradiction. “No man, (ovºsis, nullus, memo, )
hath seen,” that is, in Scripture language, hath known, the
*;
( 3 )
Father; “the only begotten Son,” he hath seen, and known
him, and hath, therefore, declared him: but if this “only
begotten Son,” were the man Jesus, separately and dis-
tinctly considered as a man; then at least one man, one
human being, composed of flesh and blood, had seen God,
and declared him, which the former part of the verse
denies. Between the term “only begotten,” and the mature
of man there is an obvious opposition.
The 14th verse is still stronger. The glory which the
disciples saw, which they exclusively saw, “a glory as of
the only begotten of the Father,” or such as became the
only begotten of the Father, could not be human glory.
Christ had not, like Moses, any splendour of personal ap-
pearance; no rays of light played upon his countenance,
to mark him out as a divine messenger; and if this glory
be referred to his miraculous works, as these works were
wrought, not by his human, but his divine power, this
view would fix the term “only begotten,” as a note of
supreme and absolute Divinity, demonstrating itself by
miraculous operations. There is, however, another and
more striking view of the passage. There appears, as
most critics have observed, an allusion in it to the taber-
nacle of Moses, the sacred tent of the Divine Shekinah.
“The Word was made flesh, and (saxºnywasy) pitched his
tabernacle among us.” Agreeably to this, the fleshly body
of Christ, is represented by the Evangelist as having
an indwelling glory; the glory of a divine inhabitant;
“ the only begotten Son.” This was not seen by the
Jewish people; for though “he came to his own, his own
received him not,” they did not admit his claims. But his
disciples received him : they saw in their habitual converse
with him; in the wisdom with which he spake; the super-
human virtues he manifested; the miraculous works he
wrought; the evidences, the occasional beamings forth of
the divinity which dwelt within him; and this glory is
denominated “a glory as of the only begotten of the Fa-
ther.” This I conceive to be the sense of this noble pas-
sage; but, whatever may be thought of the reference to
( 9 )
the tabernacle of Moses, the argument is not affected by it.
Unless Dr. Clarke will acknowledge the glory seen by the
Apostles to have been merely the glory of his human na-
ture; of which he had none, as far as I can discover, from
the circumstance of having been supernaturally conceived;
the glory must have been that of a higher nature, which
nature is called, “expressly” called, “the only begotten of
the Father,” and indeed as the context shews, was the
glory of the Word made flesh.
There is a singular confusion in Dr. Clarke's note on
this passage, which could only arise from the difficulty of
making out a consistent sense upon the scheme, that the
appellation “the only begotten of the Father,” is given to
Christ, because of his miraculous conception. He first
adopts the allusion to the Divine Shekinah ; and says,
“ the human nature which he took of the Virgin, was as
the shrine, house, or temple, in which his immaculate
Deity condescended to dwell.” The natural inference from
this is, that, as this shrine, house, or temple, had no glory,
being in the “likeness of sinful flesh,” the glory which the
disciples saw, was the glory of that “immaculate Deity,”
which condescended to dwell in it. No, we are told, it
was that glory which “John saw, in company with Peter
and James,” at the transfiguration. This is perfectly gra-
tuitous; nothing is afforded in proof; and it is directly con-
tradicted in the very next page, where he observes very
truly, “While God dwelt in the tabernacle among the
Jews, the priests saw his glory; and while Jesus dwelt
among men, “his glory was manifested in his gracious
words and miraculous acts.” What glory then was that
which was manifested by miracles, but his divine glory, the
glory of a nature superior to his body, the mere shrine in
which it dwelt, and to which higher nature the Evangelist
gives the title “ only begotten Son.” Dr. Clarke himself
has thus given up the point in the same note in which he
wrestles with it !
But the argument from the use of this term does not
terminate here. If it be used to express the production of
( 10 )
the body of our Lord, by the immediate power of God, it
is a false term; the Son of Mary was not in this sense the
“ only begotten of the Father;” for Adam was also imme-
diately formed by God, without human interposition; and,
for that reason, is called by St. Luke, “the Son of God.”
It is, therefore, in exclusive reference to his divine nature,
that Christ can be truly entitled, “the only begotten of
the Father.”
In the other passages where this term occurs, it has
scarcely less emphasis; though the two natures of Christ
are not, as in the former, put in opposition. John iii. 16,
may be an instance for the rest, “God so “loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son,” &c. Let us allow that
the whole compound nature of Christ is here spoken of,
under the term Son; and let the argument just adduced
from the use of the term “only begotten,” be put out of
sight; yet the force of this important text, as an expres-
sion of God’s love to the world, depends upon the use of
that term, as the designation of the divine nature of
Christ. The circumstance in the text, which most strongly
and affectingly marks the love of God to us, is not merely
that he gave to the world a Saviour; but that he gave his
“ only begotten Son,” as that Saviour. It is this which, to
use Dr. Clarke's own words, “has put an eternity of
meaning into the particle ovto, so, and left a subject for
everlasting contemplation, wonder, and praise, to angels
and men.” But if “the only begotten Son” be used as
the designation of the human nature, where is the em-
phatic tenderness of the passage? Was that so eminently
dear to God, that the giving of a human being involved,
so to speak, such a sacrifice of paternal feeling? I at least
cannot discover it; and, I think, I may appeal to every
heart, which beats in unison with this passage, whether the
effect of such an interpretation be not to weaken its power
upon the feelings; whether by ceasing to consider Christ
as a divine Son, and the object of the boundless love of a
divine and everlasting Father, the love of God to our
fallen world does not lose much of its unutterable tender-
( 11 )
ness, and affecting expression. The love of Christ remains
precisely the same; but the love of the Father l is the
emphasis of that in the least heightened by the gift of an
“only begotten Son,” if that Son, as Son, were merely
human? It is by the existence of the tender relations of
Father and Son, in the first and second persons of the
Trinity, that the love which redeemed the guilty is
heightened as much beyond our conception, as the love of .
the Father to the Son is beyond it; it is this which renders
the sacrifice of Isaac, a proper, though a faint type of the
love of the everlasting Father; and it is this that crowds
an infinity of meaning into the particle “ovra, so.”—
“God so loved the world.” “This is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased.” Upon the comparatively cold
interpretation of this text, which must consistently follow
from Dr. Clarke's theory, our perception of the love of
God the Father, I think, would be unspeakably weakened;
and our attention chiefly, perhaps exclusively, concentrated
on the love of the Son himself; which would be most
contrary to every natural impression, which the words of
this text are adapted to convey. It would be nothing in
reply to urge, that the divine mature of Christ could not
suffer pain, and therefore his being “given” as a divine Son,
implies no violation of the tenderness of a Father. If it
suffered no pain, it suffered something; of this there are
mysterious, and, from the nature of the thing, only myste-
rious indications in Scripture; but brief as are these no-
tices, they are strong and emphatic. “He emptied him-
self,” “made himself of no reputation;” and though “equal
with God,” became “obedient,” and, therefore truly “a
servant.” This then is the manifestation of the love of
God the Father, that he “so loved the world,” as, for its
redemption, to humble, and abase this Son, his “only be-
gotten.” “He spared not his own Soº. /*
I find another scriptural #ent Íñ'favour of the doc-
trine in the application of the term Father to the first
person in the adorable Trinity. When Divinity is spoken
of without any reference to the peculiar and mysterious
+
( 12 )
mode of his existence in three persons; Father is one of
those common terms of emphatic and encouraging meaning
by which God has condescended to represent himself to
man. But it is worthy of notice, that when the awful veil,
which shrouds the Incomprehensible, is in part withdrawn
by the Spirit of revelation, and we are permitted, at least
a glance of the ineffable manner in which he subsists;
when the three divine hypostases are exhibited, in mys-
terious distinction and unity, and names are solemnly
given to each; “THE FATHER,” is the high and expressive
distinction of the first. Thus, in the authorized form of
baptism, into the new and finished evangelical dispensation,
communicated by Christ to his Apostles, and entered in
their commission; a form, in which the name of God is
written by himself, where he has “passed before us and
proclaimed it;” where he has perfected the revelation of a
Trinity of persons, in the one name and essence of one God;
and where terms, not only of the most expressive import,
but of the utmost precision, were to be expected, as they
were to present the true God, in the exact views he was
to form of him, to every convert from the worship of false
gods; excluding all figurative and accommodating lan-
guage, for that reason; the three persons are thus distinctly
and emphatically designated. “Baptizing them in the
name of the FATHER, and of the SoN, and of the Holy
Ghost.” The inquiry then is, why the first person in the
Godhead is thus called the Father with relation to a Son,
in a case where there is a distinct consideration of the three:
the first person, as the first person, is called the Father;
and for this no reason can, I think, be given, except that
he is the “Father” of the divine nature “ of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” The terms Father and Son here are exact
correlatives, the first person is the Father, the second is
the Son of that first person; but of the human nature of
Jesus, the first person is not the Father; for the sacred
temple of our Lord's body was produced by the Holy
Ghost, the third person. Yet is the first person, though
in that person not the creator of the humanity of our
( 13 )
£ord, still the Father, the Father of the Son Christ; and
if a father, the reason of the appellation is only to be
found in the doctrine which Dr. Clarke would disprove.
It follows, therefore, that to deny the eternal filiation of the
second person in the Trinity, is to deny the essential paternity
of the first; and by the denial, to take away all meaning
from the first of those correlative terms, which are to be
pronounced as “ the name” of God, and as his name, are
descriptive of his nature, to every new convert to the Chris-
tian faith.
Nor is the term “Son of God,” applied to Christ,
merely with reference to his miraculous production; or
used in those passages in which it can have no such refer-
ence, only in consequence of a common interchange of the
appellations of each nature. Such an interchange of names
and titles I readily allow; but there are passages to which
this rule of interpretation will not apply; passages which,
by no fair criticism, can be made to have a consistent
meaning upon this scheme; passages, in which the superior
and inferior natures are contemplated either in opposition
or in distinction; and in which the term “Son of GoD”
is the denomination which the Spirit of Inspiration has
given to the superior nature, and which, for that reason, I.
think, disprove Dr. Clarke's position, that there is no “ex-
press” enunciation of the doctrine of the divine Sonship
in the Holy Scriptures. And here you will observe, that
we have at least this advantage over the learned commen-
tator, to make his assertion good, he ought, in fairness,
to examine every passage, in which the appellation Son of
God occurs, and prove, that in no one of them is it given
to the divine nature of Christ, considered in contradis-
tinction to his humanity; whilst, if those who take the
other side of the question, can prove, that in only one
passage, Christ is called “ the Son of God,” with express
and distinguishing reference to his Divine nature, the point
is gained. As Dr. Clarke will himself allow, that there is
no passage which denies the doctrine of the eternal Fili-
ation; in how many other senses the term may be taken,
( 14 )
they are not contradictory to that one text, if one only
could be found in the sacred record, in which the divinity
of the Son of God, as a Son, is asserted; whilst on the
other hand, whatever texts he may find, in which the use
of the term is restricted to the human nature, they cannot
shield that general conclusion which he has hastily drawn
from them, from being opposed and swept away by evi-
dence directly contradictory. If we cannot establish the
eternal sonship of Christ, as the express doctrine of Scrip-
ture; no man can bring evidence from Scripture to con-
tradict it: after all, it would be left as a matter of in-
ference; whilst, if the express doctrine be established, the
notion Dr. Clarke has attempted to introduce among us,
is disproved and destroyed. *
I have, however, more than one text to offer to your
attention, which are as decisive as those I have already
adduced. A passage, in which the appellation “Son of
God” most clearly appears to me to be used expressly to
characterize the Divine nature of Christ, and, therefore, as
expressly to prove the disputed doctrine, occurs in Romans
i. 3, 4, “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which
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, by the resurrection from the dead.” A
very few remarks will be sufficient to point out the force of
this passage. The apostle, it is to be observed, is not
speaking of what Christ is officially; but of what he is per-
sonally and essentially; for the truth of all his official
claims depends upon the truth of his personal ones. If he
be a divine person, he is every thing else he assumes to
be. He is, therefore, considered by the Apostle distinctly
in his two natures. As a man he was flesh, of the seed of
David, and a son of David ; in a superior nature he was
divine, and the Son of God. That he was of the seed of
David, no proof was necessary, but the Jewish genealogies;
that he was divine, or, as the Apostle chooses to express
it, “THE SoN of God,” a proof of a higher kind was
necessary; and it was given in his resurrection from the
( 15 )
dead. That “declared him to be the Son of God with
powers” or powerfully determined and marked him out to
be the Son of God; a divine person. That an opposition is
expressed between what Christ was according to the flesh,
and what he was according to a higher nature, must be
allowed, or there is no force in the Apostle's observation;
and equally clear it must be, that the nature put in op-
position to the fleshly nature, can be no other than the
divine nature of Christ, the apostolic designation of which
is the “SoN of God.” According to Dr. Clarke's view
of the meaning of this term, this opposition would be lost,
and the argument of the Apostle destroyed. It would
make him say, that Christ was of the seed of David ac-
cording to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the
flesh; but the manifest opposition is between the flesh, and
some higher nature; between what he was as a man, and
what he was as more than man; a decisive indication of
the Divinity of our Lord, which the theory of Dr. Clarke
utterly sinks and annihilates. Here then, I think, what-
ever may be the sense of the phrase, according to “the
Spirit of Holiness,” which follows, and which, whether it
refer to the Divine nature of our Lord, or to the agency
of the Holy Spirit in raising him from the dead, does not
at all weaken the argument, because it does not affect the
contrast in the text, is a passage in which the two natures
of Christ are placed in distinction, and even in opposition,
and of the higher or Divine nature, it is expressly affirmed,
that it is the “Son of God.”(2)
(2) Though I have not, in the above remarks, attempted to confirm the
argument by the phrase, “according to the Spirit of Holiness;” because of
the disagreeing views of commentators; I have myself, no doubt, but that
it is equivalent to, “according to his Divine nature.” Because of the oppo-
sition stated by the Apostle between what Christ was, xarx, according to,
in respect of the flesh; and his being declared the Son of God with power,
“xarx, according to, in respect of the Spirit of Holiness;” Macknight, fol-
lowing Locke and many others, interprets. the “Spirit of Holiness,” to
mean the divine nature of Christ, as the flesh signifies his whole human
nature. To this Sehleusner adds his authority, sub voce aywavyn; “Summa
Dei majestas et perfectio. Rom. i. 4, x&ra mysvaa aº wavyns quoad vim suam
( 16 )
The way, in which Dr. Clarke, in his note on this place,
avoids the force of the argument drawn from the evident
contrast in the text, between that nature of Christ, which
was of “the seed of David according to the flesh,” and
that which bears the designation “Son of God,” is entirely
to overlook the manner in which the Apostle places the one
in opposition to the other; and in a loose paraphrase in-
forms us, that to be “declared the Son of God,” means
et majestatem divinam. Similiter in vers. Alex. non solum Hebr. ºn
Psalm cºlv. 4, 5. sed etiam ro wip respondet, Psalm xevii. 12. In this
view the passage is even mere strong in favour of the sense given above.
Against this Doddridge, though a believer in the eternal sonship of Christ,
observes, “It seems to me so little agreeable to the style of Scripture in
general, to call the Divine nature of Christ, the Spirit of Holiness, or the
Holy Spirit, that, highly as I esteem the many learned and accurate com-
mentators who have given it this turn, I rather refer it to the operation of
the Spirit of God, in the production of Christ's body, by which means the
opposition between kara, agex, and xara trysva.o. will be preserved; the one
referring to the materials acted upon, the other to the Divine and miraculous
Agent.” The contrast is, however, by mo means preserved by this inter-
pretation; and to give any force to the Apostle's argument, on the view
taken of the passage by Doddridge, it ought to be shewn that the resur-
rection of Christ from the dead, proved that his human nature was formed
by the agency of the Holy Spirit, more eminently than it proved any other
of his high claims. Another objection to this interpretation is, that it mar-
rows the proofs of the resurrection, to the demonstration that the human
nature of Christ was supernaturally formed in the womb of the Virgin,
which might have occurred to a person not divine; whereas it was evidently
intended to be a proof of his Divinity and equality with the Father. “For
as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in
himself.” “I lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.” No creature
could assume this; but it was assumed by Christ, and justified by the resurrec-
tion. If the resurrection of Christ proved him divine, it proved every thing else
respecting him: if it principally proved only that his body was formed by the
Holy Spirit, it did not necessarily prove his divinity. The sense of the ,
Apostle appears to me, therefore, to be this; though Christ was of the seed
of David according to the flesh; yet his resurrection declared him to be
more than a human descendant from David, even a divine person, x&ra,
according to another nature ; that is, the “holy and glorious Spirit,” which
was united to the human body and soul. There is not much force in the
objection, that the phrase, “the Spirit of Holiness,” in this sense, is an
unusual one. St. Paul is not unfrequently unusual in his expressions; but
here he had, at least, the authority of the LXX, who use aylagwyn, as
Schleusner has observed, as the rendering for Tin Psalm cºlv. 5, a word which
signifies glory, majesty, honour.
( 17 )
that Christ was declared to be the Messiah; and, as this
is the usual manner in which, not only those who with Dr.
Clarke oppose the doctrine of the Eternal Sonship of
Christ, but those also who deny his Divinity, endeavour to
dispose of the phrase “Son of God,” denying that it im-
plies any idea of Deity, and asserting that it is merely an
official, or a human personal designation, it shall have a brief
consideration. It is necessary to this discussion, to examine,
whether the term Son of God, was considered a synonyme
of the appellation Messiah, among the first disciples of
Jesus, and among the Jews, with their priests and rulers.
The calling of Nathanael, will afford a striking instance
of the sense in which the term was used by the disciples.
The history is given in John i, 44, ad finem. Nathamael’s
acknowledgement of Jesus is given in these words, “Rabbi,
thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.”
Here Dr. Clarke, and others, consider the titles Son of
God, and King of Israel, as terms of the same import,-
and both as designating the Messiahship. But why do they
not also consider the term “Rabbi,” as synonymous with
the other two, and as an appropriate appellation of Mes-
siah 2 If a distinct idea be attached to the term “Rabbi,”
Master, Teacher, or however it may be rendered, what
reason can be given, that the terms “Son of God, and
King of Israel,” should involve precisely one idea, dif-
ferently expressed ? It appears much more consistent with
the rapid brevity of these expressions of overflowing
feeling, to consider them all as conveying very distinct
ideas. This, I grant, if it stood alone, would be rather
opinion than argument; but it has strong confirmation in
the circumstances of the history. If it be maintained,
that the appellation Son of God is used as synonymous
with Messiah, and that the proof that Christ, as to his
human nature, was miraculously produced by God, was the
proof of his Messiahship; then, before the title Son of
God could have been applied to him by Nathanael, he
must have known that “he was conceived of the Holy
B
( 18 )
Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary.” But nothing of
this appears in the history. He appears to have been an
utter stranger to Jesus, and the circumstances of his life,
before Philip met with him and declared, that he and
others had found the Messias. Nay, the very terms in
which Philip announced him were such as entirely to put
out of sight his miraculous conception, with which Philip
himself was, at that time, apparently unacquainted. “We
have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets
did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the SoN of Joseph. So little
share had the miraculous conception in convincing Philip
that Jesus was the Messias, that he announces him to Na-
thanael as “the Son of Joseph,” which he could scarcely
have done, had he even known that Joseph was his re-
puted father only, if the miraculous conception had been
previously urged upon him in proof of the claims of him
whose call “follow me” he had obeyed. To Nathanael,
however, this proof, was wholly unknown; and yet without
any acquaintance with it, even in opposition to the con-
trary information, that Jesus was “the Son of Joseph,”
did he pronounce him to be the “Son of God.” What then
led to Nathanael's conversion? Not any information of
the manner in which the human body of Christ was formed;
it was not with reference to this, that he saluted him as the
Son of God; but, as the context shews, with reference to
his having exercised a Divine attribute. “Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw
thee.” Christ saw Nathanael, when he was sure no human
being saw him; he knew his secret acts, when he had shut
himself out from all the world; and this proof of divine
knowledge at once convinced Nathanael, that he was more
than man; that he was truly divine; and, under this idea,
the most prominent one certainly in his mind at the time,
after the common salutation of courtesy to superior per-
sons, bearing a sacred character, Rabbi J he confesses that
divinity of which he was convinced, under the appellation
“Son of God,” and then immediately hastens to acknow-
( 19 )
ledge what he, for this reason, was convinced must be true,
because professed by a divine person who could not deceive
mankind, that he was Messias, “the King of Israel.”
I find what appears to me another proof, that the title
Son of God, is not of identical meaning with “Messias,”
in Peter's celebrated confession of Christ, Matt. xvi. 16,
“Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Let any
one ask, what the purpose was of that interrogation being
put which produced a reply for which a special benedic-
tion was pronounced upon Peter. It could scarcely be to
draw forth a confession from the disciples, that Jesus was
the Messias; for that they had confessed from the time
they had left all to follow him; that they confessed at the
very moment by remaining with him. The very reason
they were his followers was their belief of his Messiahship.
But their belief in this did not necessarily involve, in the
first stages of their discipleship, the belief of his divinity.
That the Jews did not generally, in the time of Christ,
expect their Messias to be a divine person, I shall pre-
sently adduce some evidence to establish; and they who
had so grossly misunderstood all that was spiritual in the
predictions of the Old Testament; who had lost all under-
standing of the Mosaic types; of the doctrine of atone-
ment, and pardon through faith in a universal propitiation;
may well be supposed to have been generally blind to the
meaning of those scriptures which array Messiah in the
awful attributes of absolute divinity. In this grossness of
conception we know, by many instances, the disciples them-
selves were involved. With his divinity they were most
probably, at their first call, little, if at all acquainted.
None of them, upon their first vocation, had so clear
a manifestation of it as Nathanael; and none of them pro-
bably had at the time so high a moral preparation to re-
ceive it as he who was declared “an Israelite indeed,” by
the sentence of him who saw him “ under the fig-tree,” and
could therefore read his heart. But at the time the
question, “Whom say ye that I am,” was put, they had
for a considerable time followed him. They had seen many
- B 2
( 20 )
acts of his divine power and majesty; and now, therefore,
he requires from them a higher confession than that of his
simple Messiahship; a confession of his Godhead. The
question is put to them in a remarkable form, and one
which certainly was rather calculated to repress, than to
entice the answer. “Whom say men that I the SoN of
MAN am s” I, who appear before you, obviously a human
being like yourselves? And Peter, after the disciples had
given the opinions of others, said, “Thou art Christ, the
SoN of THE LIVING God.” Here there is a like oppo- .
sition between the terms “Son of Man,” and “Son of
God,” as in the passage quoted from the Romans, which
expresses what Christ was according to the flesh, and what
he was in a higher nature, and in both places he is desig-
nated “ The Son of God.” Upon this confession Jesus
rejoins, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood
hath not revealed this unto thee, but my FATHER which is in
heaven.” That is, as I understand it, this opinion respect-
ing me has not been obtained, from the sentiments which
are generally received among the Jews; but by the in-
fluence of God upon thy mind, giving thee a right under-
standing, and a docile disposition, to yield to the demon-
strations of this high doctrine. But what were these
demonstrations? This is a very important question in the
discussion. If the confession that Christ was “the Son of
the living God,” be taken in Dr. Clarke's view; if the
reason for the use of the term Son of God, were his
miraculous conception, it would follow that Peter believed
him to be the Messiah, because he knew him to be thus
miraculously conceived of the Holy Ghost. But if this
were so prominent and emphatic a proof of the Messiah-
ship of Jesus, that, according to Dr. Clarke's note on
Romans i. 3, 4, it was the great object of the resur-
rection of Christ to demonstrate it, and in this sense to
“declare him the Son of God with power.” Can the Doctor
account for it; can any man account for it; that in no
part of the evangelic history, nor in any of the discourses
of Jesus with his disciples is this circumstance ever urged
( 21 )
upon them in proof of our Lord's claims ? No: though
Mary, the virgin mother, was with them, and might easily
have been referred to ; though they doubted not the truth
of their Master's words, but in this respect would have
received such a declaration from him with humble sub-
mission; I cannot call to recollection a single case in which,
by this evidence, he attempted to reach their judgment.
On the contrary, the class of proofs to which he referred
them was entirely distinct. He referred to his works, and
upon these he rested his claims to call God his Father, and
himself the Son of the living God. Take for instance
these explicit words, addressed to Philip, John xiv. 11,
“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in
one, or else believe me, (not because I was miraculously con-
ceived, this is not so much as hinted at in justification of
this assumption of filiation,) but For THE VERY works’
sake.” I think then, that I am fully warranted in con-
cluding, that the title Son of God, as applied to Christ by
himself and by his disciples, is one which involves the idea
of his divinity, from the very species of proof to which he
resorts for their conviction; it is a kind of proof, the proof
of miracles, which brings the term Son of God into con-
stant collocation with ideas of supreme divinity, and whose
object could only be to demonstrate him to be a divine
person under that appellation. Of the steady and uniform
use of this appellation in the sense of true and absolute
divinity by the disciples, an interesting example is also af.
forded in Matt. xiv. 33. Jesus had walked on the sea to
the ship in which were his disciples. Peter by his permis-
sion goes to meet him, he begins to be afraid of the bois-
ºterous waves, and to sink; he is upheld by the hand of his
Lord; and the astonishing miracle is exhibited to those in
the ship, of the Master and his favoured disciple, both
treading the yielding wavering element, as on solid ground.
And they that were in the ship came and worshipped him,
saying, “Of a truth thou art the SoN of God.” What
idea, in such solemn and impressive circumstances, could
they attach to the term 2 Is it probable that there should
( 22 )
flave been the most transient reference in their minds to
the manner in which our Lord's human nature was pro-
duced; or if there were, could this term have suggested
itself to them as at all a proper one to express their deep
and ample conviction of his superhuman power, had they
not been accustomed to use it as the designation of supreme
divinity?
Another instance of the firm association of the term
“SoN of God,” with the notion of Deity, in a disciple,
is given in John ix. in the case of the man born blind,
whom Jesus healed. After Christ had directed him
to wash in the pool of Siloam; he appears not to have
met with him again till after his examination before
the Pharisees. In that examination he was asked, “what
sayest thou of him 2°—“He said, he is a prophet.” He
does not say, the Messiah; and his boldness before his
haughty examiners, leaves no doubt, but that if he had
heard that Jesus had professed to be the Messiah, he would
have professed his faith in him in that character. Jesus
was evidently a stranger to him; but from the miracle, he
believed him to be a prophet, and a good man; for, as he
argued, “God heareth not sinners.” There is sufficient
reason, therefore, to conclude that the man was ignorant
both of his miraculous conception, and of his professing to
be the Messiah. Certainly his acknowledgment that Jesus
was “a prophet,” did not imply a confession that he was
Messiah, as Dr. Clarke has acknowledged in his note on
the passage. But when Christ afterwards met him, he pro-
poses to him the naked question, “Dost thou believe on the
SoN of God?” He does not say, Messiah the Son of
God, he gives him no information as to his miraculous
conception; and even if we were to allow, that the term
Son of God was understood by the man to comprehend
the claim of the Messiahship, of which no proof is in the
history; yet he could not consider him Messiah, Son of
God, because he was born of a virgin. On the contrary,
the man clearly understood the title Son of God, in the
sense of his being a divine person; for it is added, “he
( 23 )
worshipped him.” He worshipped him, as the Son of God,
a divine person, not as having been conceived out ºf the
ordinary way, or as arguing his divinity from that of which
as he knew nothing; but being convinced of it from his
having wrought a miracle. And here again, I am happy, as
in the text in 1 John, to be able to plead the authority of
Dr. Clarke against himself; for on this act of grateful adora-
tion he observes, “Never having seen Jesus before, but
simply knowing that a person of that name had opened his
eyes, he had only considered him as a holy man, and a
prophet; but now that he sees and hears him, he is con-
vinced of his divinity, and glorifies him as his Saviour.”
Yet, be it observed, that this ample view of his divinity
was conveyed to him by the single question, “Dost thou
believe on THE SoN of God;” which Dr. Clarke contends
is the appellation of the human nature, the man only
I hope then, that I have made it tolerably clear, that
the disciples of Christ did not use the terms Son of God,
and Messiah, as titles of the same import; of this, how-
ever, the evidence is full, that they used the former term, so
as to involve the idea of absolute divinity, a circumstance in
which I shall find a sufficient argument presently. In
the mean time, let us consult the Evangelists for evidence,
to show that the terms Messiah and Son of God were
understood to be of very different import by the Jews in
general; a circumstance which will go still further to prove
that Dr. Clarke is not warranted in considering them as
conveying the same meaning, in the popular language of
the Jews. The question whether the Jews expected a
human or a divine Messiah has been much agitated by
learned men, and very great names are arranged on each
side. But though, to use the words of BASNAGE, who
has carefully examined the opinions of the Jews on this
subject, “it is our interest to be of their opinion who
believe that the Jews in our Lord's time, expected the
second person of the Trinity, as the Messiah, because it
strongly concludes against the antitrinitarians, there ap-
pears no conclusive evidence in its favour.” That the
Messiah of the law and the prophets is a divine person
( 24 )
stands on unshaken proofs; but this doctrine appears to
have been lost to the body of a people, whose chief sects,
the Pharisees and Sadducees, were notoriously, not merely
bad interpreters, but gross perverters of the oracles they
acknowledged to be divine. Among the spiritual per-
sons who remained, better views, though perhaps con-
siderably obscured, would be found; but they were few, and
too unknown to exert any influence, and give any direction
to the public sentiment. The great mistake of those divines
who have attributed to the Jews at large opinions as to
the Messiah so correct appears to have been first, attribut-
ing too much weight of evidence to the Platonic revellings
of imagination in Philo, who, though he uses the term
Son of God, is said, on what I take to be competent au–
thority, no where to apply it to the Jewish Messiah; and
in none of the numerous passages in his writings I have
read, have I found it so applied; and, secondly, in taking
the use of the term Son of God among the disciples of
Christ, who certainly applied it in the sense of divinity, as
indicative of the common opinion of the Jews as to the
Messiah they expected. They, however, forgot that these
were the views of instructed and illuminated persons; that
a moral change had been wrought in their habits; that
their minds were enlightened by special influence; “that
flesh and blood had not revealed it unto them ; but the Father
which is in heaven ;” and the views under which the dis-
ciples considered Messiah, can no more be used in proof
of what were the commonly received opinions, than the
application of them to Jesus, would prove that the body of
the Jewish nation admitted his claims to that character.
Here then we may lay down the following positions—that
the disciples of Christ allowed him to be Messias, and Son
of God; that the Jews doubted whether he were the Mes-
sias, and frequently resorted to him to obtain evidence of
it; that occasionally, in great numbers, they professed to
be convinced, though waveringly, of his claim to that cha-
racter; (on one occasion, they would have proclaimed him
king;) but that, at all times, they steadily resisted his claim
( 25 )
to be the “THE SoN of God;” his claim that God was his
“proper Father,” accused him of blasphemy for this as-
sumption; took up stones to stone him; and at last brought
him to trial and condemned him on this charge. The con-
clusions. I would draw from these positions are, that the
assumption of Messiahship and Sonship were, in the view
of the Jews of our Lord's time, entirely distinct; the latter
being considered by them to involve a claim of divinity;
and that these terms were considered as of distinct im-
port by the disciples, though in their faith they applied,
as was due, both of them to him, and confessed him to
be “the Messiah,” and “the Son of the living God,”—a
divine person. In illustration and confirmation of these
positions, I shall make some quotations from an able dis-
cussion of the subject in a modern work; but for the
argument, in its most extended form, I refer to the work
itself.(3)
“Christ was arraigned, it appears, before the two dif-
ferent tribunals of the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the Roman
governor. In the latter he was accused of sedition, and
acquitted: (4) in the former he was accused of blasphemy,
and condemned: (5) and though the judicial power of the
Jewish court was at that time much abridged, the Roman
governor was prevailed on, by the importunity of the
Jews, to ratify and execute the sentence of the Sanhedrim.
The conduct of the Jews on this occasion appears to have
been determined by the different claims, which Jesus had
advanced. He had sometimes simply declared himself
Christ or Messiah, viz. the King of Israel, foretold by
their prophets; and sometimes, Christ, the Son of God.
The assumption of the first of these titles, combined with
another circumstance, that of being sometimes followed by
(3) An Illustration of the Method of Explaining the New Testament, by
the Early Opinions of Jews and Christians concerning Christ. By W.
Wilson, B. D.
(4) John xviii. 38, and xix. 4.
(5) Matthew xxvi. 65, 66. See also the corresponding accounts of Mark
and Luke.
( 26 )
great multitudes of people, might seem treason against
the sovereignty of the Romans; and of this combination of
alleged guilt he was accused before Pilate. “We found
this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give
tribute to Caesar, saying, that he himself is Christ a
King.”—“He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout
all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place.”(6) But, to
discover what they conceived to be his real offence, we
must refer to the proceedings of their own tribunal.
There, we are informed, after the court had in vain at-
tempted to prove him guilty of blasphemy, by the rules of
evidence laid down in the Mosaic law, that a confession of
his supposed guilt was drawn from him by the High Priest's
examination. With respect to the examination of wit-
messes, St. Matthew has related, that “the council sought
false witness against Jesus to put him to death: yet found
they none, though many false witnesses came.”(7) Accord-
ing to St. Mark, “the council sought for witnesses against
Jesus to put him to death; but found none: for many
bare false witness against him: but their witness agreed
not together.” (8) The obscurity of the first Evangelist is
well explained by the second. The Sanhedrim, it appears,
sought for witnesses to convict Jesus of a capital crime : on
examination, they proved to be false witnesses, either by
the inconsistency or the weakness of their evidence; and,
therefore, by the law of Moses, could have no weight with
the court. By the Mosaic law, the concurrent testimony
of two or three witnesses was necessary to convict any one
of a capital crime; (9) and at last came “two witnesses,” to
testify that Jesus had threatened to destroy the temple, and
build it again in three days: but, either a slight disagree-
ment in their testimony annulled the force of their evi-
dence; or, what is more probable, the fact subtantiated
was not thought to amount to a capital offence. Testimony
(6) Luke xxiii. 2, 5. (7) Matt. xxvi. 59, 60.
(8) Mark xiv. 55, 56. Iga, à ºðrugia, ex mazy. Perhaps the true trans-
lation is, “ their testimonies were insufficient. See Grotius on the term taxi.
(9) Numb. xxxv. 30. Deut. xvii. 6.
( 27 )
sufficient to convict a culprit might be said to be true, in-
sufficient testimony false in the eye of the law. In this
language St. John remarks, “It is written in your law,
the testimony of two men is true:” and it must be accord-
ing to the same sort of phraseology that these witnesses
are called “false witnesses;” for the only fact mentioned,
to which they deposed, appears to have been strictly
true, but not sufficient to prove the crime of blasphemy.
Having failed in establishing this charge, the High Priest
asks, however, for a reply, expecting, perhaps, to meet
with some objectionable matter in a long defence. Having
failed in this also, he proceeds to examine Jesus, in order
to draw from him an acknowledgement of his supposed
guilt: and this he effected. According to St. Luke, our
Saviour was asked two questions: in Matthew and Mark
these are expressed in one, probably for the sake of
brevity: and from these two Evangelists it cannot be cer-
tainly known, whether he was condemned for declaring
himself the Christ, or the Son of God, or for asserting
that he should afterwards appear with glory at the right
hand of God. The doubt, however, is removed in the
narrative of Luke. “As soon as it was day, the elders of
the people, and the chief priests and the scribes came to-
gether, and led him into their council, saying, Art thou
the Christ? Tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell
you, you will not believe; and if I also ask you, you will
not answer me, nor let me go. Hereafter, shall the Son
of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then
said they all ; Art thou then the Son of God? And he
saith unto them, Ye say that I am. And they said, What
need we any further (1) witness? for we ourselves have heard
of his own mouth.”(2) “The High Priest rent his clothes,
saying, he hath spoken blasphemy: what further need have
(1) From this expression it appears, consistently with the whole account
of the trial, that till then further evidence was thought necessary. This
may also be collected from the silence of St. Luke, no less than by his testi-
mony: he has not even mentioned the examination of the witnesses.
(2) Luke xxii. 66–71.
§
( 28 )
we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blas-
phemy: what think ye? They answered and said, he is
guilty of death.”(3) The real ground of his condemnation
also appears from a circumstance mentioned by St. John in
his account of the second trial. The Jews exclaimed to
Pilate, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die,
because he made himself the Son of God.”(4) It appears then,
by very full and decisive evidence, that Jesus was accused
by the Jews before the Roman governor for assuming the
title of the Christ, or Messiah, a King; and that, in a
Jewish court, he was adjudged guilty of the capital crime
of blasphemy by the Mosaic law, for simply declaring him-
self the Son of God. His claim to this title was not set
aside by any additional evidence: but the simple assump-
tion of the title, not only invalidated his pretensions to the
character of the Messiah, but was in itself the crime for
which he suffered.
“To prove that Jesus Christ was tried and condemned by
the Mosaic law, it is sufficient to observe, that his trial
was before a Jewish court. Their proceedings, however,
as described by the three first Evangelists, and a declara-
tion of some of their people, as recorded by St. John,
would place the matter beyond all question, were there
any preceding doubt. They evidently proceeded by the
rule of evidence laid down in Numb. xxxv. 30, and Deut.
xvii. 6. Afterwards, indeed, before Pilate, his prosecutors
did not bring forward at first, the crime of which they
really believed him guilty; because it was not likely to in-
fluence a Roman governor, who might have no respect for
Jewish laws. They accused him, at first, of sedition for
declaring himself Messiah, a King: but the governor per-
ceived this to be an invidious charge: he knew that “for
envy” they had accused him of this crime: and they were
at length compelled to advert to the real grounds of their
prosecution. “We have a law, and by our law he ought to
die, because he made himself the Son of God.” Happily
(3) Matt. xxvi. 65. (4) John Xix. 7.
( 29 )
for the cause of religion and truth, their law has come
down to our times: and it is hardly necessary to observe,
that it is not a capital crime by any statute in the whole
Mosaic code to assume the title and character of the Mes-
siah. The oral law, in the time of Christ, may be said to
have had nearly the same relation to the Pentateuch, in
the opinion of the Jews, that our common law bears to
our statutes: they supposed both to have the same origin
and equal authority: and some parts of the one were, un-
questionably, useful as an explanation and supplement to
the other. The traditionary maxims, which constituted the
second law, were digested and published by a learned and
zealous Jew, about one hundred and eighty years after the
trial of Christ; (5) at a time when Christianity had diffused
itself into every part of the vast extent of the Roman em-
pire; when the Jews had practised every art to defame
the new religion, and to apologize for their own conduct
towards Christ and Christians: no precept or rule, there-
fore, in the oral law, however inconsiderable, that might
in any way tend to justify their conduct, would be left out
of this collection: it is not, however, a capital crime, or
any crime, by any rule found in the Mishna, to assume the
title and character of the Messiah: and, as the Sanhedrim
condemned Jesus by their law, and the Jewish people ap-
proved the sentence, because he professed to be the Son of
God, they must have conceived him to have laid claim, in
these words, to some other title and character, against
which their law was really directed. But, if the Penta-
teuch and Mishna be examined with the utmost care, no
statute or maxim will be found in either, which the Jews
could mistake so far, as to conceive it capable of applica-
tion to this case, unless they supposed Jesus, in declaring
himself the Son of God, to claim divinity: none of their
(5) The Mishna was published by R. Juda about the year two hundred
and twenty : but the Jews had employed themselves in collecting the tra-
ditions and customs, which form the body of this second law, from the time
of their second destruction under Adrian. See Allix Judgment of the Jewish
Church, c. xxiii. p. 395.
( 30 ) 4
laws appear to have any relation to this case, on any other
supposition. If, indeed, our Lord was understood to have
advanced this claim ; having then generally lost all notion
of a trinity of persons in the divine unity, and having
never entertained the idea of the Son of God invested with
human flesh, they would probably believe him guilty of a
breach of the first commandment; and his case would be
supposed to fall under the operation of some of the penal
laws in the Pentateuch, enacted to enforce its observance.
“To express the whole argument in a few words: Jesus
Christ was condemned to death by the Jewish law for ac-
knowledging himself the Son of God: the phrase “Son
God” admits, and merely admits of several different accep-
tations: the declaration must have been thought innocent,
in the eye of the law, in any of these significations except
one: in that, it was liable to be accounted a capital crime;
it might be thought a breach of the first commandment:
in that sense it must therefore have been understood by the
Jews.
“The question before us, it must be remembered, is
this: Whether Jesus, under the external disadvantages of
an humble birth and appearance, was condemned by the
Jewish Sanhedrim for professing to be their Messiah; or,
for claiming a higher nature than they attributed to the
great personage, whom they expected under that title?
Whether he was condemned for indirectly declaring him-
self the Christ, the Son of David and King of Israel; or
for asserting his divinity ? And, in the discussion of this
question, it seems reasonable to judge of the motives of
the Sanhedrim by those of the Jewish people; to explain
the conduct of one body of Jews by the conduct of others,
and to form our opinions on a connected and comparative
view of the whole. If the magistrate and the subject, the
learned and the ignorant, the inhabitant of the city and of
the country, at different times, and in various situations,
appear to have been incensed against our Saviour for as-
serting his divinity, without shewing equal displeasure,
when they conceived him to speak of his divine mission
+
( 31 )
only as Messiah; we are then furnished with a forcible
reason, in addition to those already stated, for believing
that this was, at least the principal, if not the only ground
of his condemnation. And, it may be added, that such a
perfect uniformity in the interpretation of his words by
several different bodies of men of his own time and country,
who all spoke the same language, were conversant about
the same objects, to whom his figures of speech and modes
of instruction would be familiar, such uniformity in the
interpretation of his words by so many different bodies of
contemporaries affords a decisive proof, that his meaning
was not misunderstood. - *
“In order to judge whether the Sanhedrim would con-
demn Jesus, appearing as he did appear, for teaching the
doctrine of his divinity, or for simply declaring himself
the Messiah; we may first appeal to the conduct of a body
of Jews of Jerusalem, described in the fifth chapter of St.
John. It is there related that he spoke of his divine mis-
sion as Messiah; “Ye sent unto John, and he bare wit-
ness of the truth: but I have greater witness than that of
John ; for the works that I do, bear witness of me that
the Father hath sent me.” And no mention is made of
any disapprobation expressed on this occasion. But, a
short time before this, when he had appeared to the same
people to call God his father in a more strict and proper
sense than was consistent with the notion of his simple
humanity, the sacred historian has recorded that they
sought to put him to death. “Therefore, the Jews sought
the more to kill him, not only because he had broken the
Sabbath, but said also that God was his proper father;
TIarsgo. 3ioy s?sys roy Geoy; making himself equal with
God.”(6)
“Some inhabitants of Jerusalem, according to this ac-
count, sought to kill him, because he called God his father
in such a sense as to make himself equal with God: and,
he was afterwards condemned to death by the magistrates
(6) John v. 18.
( 32 )
of Jerusalem, because he made himself the “Son of God.”
We may judge of the interpretation of the latter phrase
by that of the former, one being equivalent to the other;
and conclude, with considerable probability, that he was
on both occasions understood to call God his father in such
a sense as to claim divinity; that, on this account, they at
one time sought to kill him; and afterwards, on the same
account, and not because he called himself the Messiah,
condemned him to the cross. -
“In order to explain the conduct of the Sanhedrim by
that of the Jewish people, our second appeal may be to a
body of Jews collected in one of the courts of the temple
of Jerusalem. (7) In the conference of Christ with the
Jews on this occasion, after having openly spoken of his
divine mission; and having alluded to his divine nature
without being understood by his hearers; (8) he at length
addresses them in these remarkable words. “Verily, I
say unto you, Before Abraham was I am.” This sentence
seems to contain no allusion to the office of the Messiah :
but he directly claims in it eternity of existence, an attri-
bute of God alone: and, that the Jewish interpretation
was the same with our's appears not by any obscure and
ambiguous words let fall on the occasion, but by a speaking
action too expressive to be misunderstood. “Then took
they up stones to cast at him.” Our Saviour asserts his
(7) John viii.
(8) In this conference with the Jews he declares himself a teacher,
“the light of the world;” and appeals to his miracles to confirm this and
his other claims; he speaks of his Father that sent him, bearing witness of
him, and addresses the Jews in these words, “Ye neither know me, nor
my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.”
Here, it will perhaps be said, is a plain allusion to his divine origin; and
yet no violence was offered to him by the Jews. The Evangelist has ob-
served it, as if it were a remarkable circumstance, “While Jesus spake
these words, no man laid hands on him,” viii. 20. and, he soon after even
adds, “As he spake these words, many believed on him,” v. 30. But he
has solved the difficulty, v. 27, “They understood not that he spake to
them of the Father,” i.e. of God being his Father. They believed him to
speak of one, who was strictly and properly his father; but had no con-
seption, on this occasion, that he intimated his Father to be God.
( 83 )
pre-existence, and certain Jews immediately attempt to
destroy him. Consistently with this claim, he afterwards
on his trial professes to be, not merely the Messiah, ac-
cording to the Jewish notions of their Messiah, the Son of
David, but the Son of God: and the Jewish Sanhedrim,
in perfect consistency with the preceding conduct of the
people, unanimously pronounce him worthy of death.
“To account for the conduct of the Sanhedrim by com-
paring it with that of the people, we may appeal, in the
third place, to another body of Jews collected in the tem-
ple. (9) “And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's
porch: then came the Jews round about him, and said
unto him; “If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered them; I told you, and ye believed not: the
works, that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness
of me: but ye believe not; for ye are not of my sheep.
My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow
me: and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never
perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand: my
Father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and none
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my
Father are one.”
“‘Then the Jews again took up stones to stone him.
Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewn you
from my Father: for which of these works do ye stone
me? The Jews answered him, For a good work we stone
thee not, but for blasphemy, and because thou, being a
man, makest thyself God.” -
“In this narrative, two circumstances claim our notice.
When Jesus remarks that he has already declared himself
the Messiah, the observation appears to have made no un-
common impression on his hearers; so far from being
reckoned blasphemous, it seems to have been heard without
exciting more emotion than a common remark: and it is
not till he declares himself one with his Father, that they
take up stones to stone him. Their words, in this case,
(9) John x. 23.
C
( 34. )
are not less significant than their actions. They do not
say, “We stone thee, because thou, being a humble Gali-
lean, makest thyself the Messiah;” but “we stone thee for
blasphemy, and because thou, being a man, makest thyself
God.” The motive of the Jews on this occasion, is avowed
in direct and explicit terms. They attempt to stone him,
because, in asserting his own divinity, he was guilty of
blasphemy, and in their observations and his answer, we
distinctly see the two claims, the combination of which
they conceived to form his guilt. The first and principal,
according to our Saviour's account, was, that he called
himself the Son of God: “Say ye of him, whom the
Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, ‘ thou
blasphemest;’ because I said, I am the Son of God?”
The second, and that which fixed the meaning of the
other, was, that he professed to be one with God, whom
he had called his Father. Both were combined in the
affirmation, “I and my Father are one.” The people, on
this occasion, attempt to stone him for blasphemy; and he
was afterwards condemned by the Sanhedrim for the same
crime. The people attempt to stone him, because he, as
they alleged, being a man, made himself God, by calling
himself the Son of God, and professing to be one with his
Father: and the Sanhedrim also condemned him to death,
because he declared himself the Son of God. This nar-
rative of the proceedings of the people contains a just ex-
position of the motives, which afterwards influenced their
magistrates, and forms a valuable comment on the history
of our Saviour's trial.
“The subsequent conduct of this same body of people
is also not unworthy of attention. Our Saviour reproves
them for considering him as a blasphemer in declaring him-
self the Son of God; when in their own writings princes and
rulers are sometimes, on account of their office, called
gods: and, applying the argument a fortiori, he intimates
that the appellation would be given with a more strict pro-
priety to him, who was sanctifted and sent by the Father.
So far in this expostulation, his language was doubtful.
( 35 )
When he intimated, that the appellation would be applied
with more propriety to him than to others, he might be
supposed either to allude to his divine nature, or to assert
only his divine mission; and so far he was suffered by the
Jews to proceed without interruption. But, when he adds,
“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not :
but if I do, then though ye believe not me, yet believe the
works, that ye may know and believe, that the Father is in
me, and I in him.” The Evangelist then relates, that
“ again they went about to take him?” The strain of this
expostulation appeared to them the same with that from
which they had just concluded, that he being a man made
himself God: and though he knew, that this was their in-
terpretation, he neither on this, nor any other similar oc-
casion, complained of any mistake.
“In order to judge whether the Sanhedrim would pro-
bably condemn Jesus to death, for declaring himself the
Messiah, or for asserting his divinity, we may make our
fourth appeal to the conduct and language of a body of
Jews in Galilee, described in the sixth chapter of St. John.
Five thousand men, who had witnessed his miracles, ac-
tually acknowledged him as “that prophet that should
come into the world,” and were preparing to invest him
with the kingly office; consistently with their notions of
the Messiah. The next day, the same persons murmured
disapprobation, when he intimated in metaphorical lan-
guage that he was more than human nature. “The Jews
then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread
which came down from heaven.” That they understood him
on this occasion to allude to his divinity, and pre-existence,
appears further from their own observation: “Is not this
Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
How then saith he, I came down from heaven P’’ i. e. We
know his father and mother: we know that he was born of
human parents: how then can he be of heavenly origin, as
he affirms ? .
“If this case be viewed in connection with the history
of our Saviour's trial, we may ask, whether it is probable
C 2
( 36 )
that he would be condemned to death by Jews for ad-
vancing that claim, which five thousand Jews had ad-
mitted; or that, at which they had expressed their dis-
pleasure by murmurs? After he had been judged guilty
by the Sanhedrim for professing to be the Son of God:
had the question been proposed to these five thousand
people; had they been asked, what they conceived were
the grounds of his condemnation; would they have de-
clared it their opinion, that Jesus was condemned for pro-
fessing to be that prophet, who should come into the
world, or for the higher, and, as they thought, the more
extravagant claim of divinity? Their language and con-
duct have obviated the question: they have virtually given
their suffrages; and their opinion must have great weight
in deciding ours. - t
“It is on one occasion related by St. John, (1) that
when Christ was speaking of his Father, the people, who
heard him, understood not that he spoke of God: and it
may be reasonably supposed, that when he indirectly or
obscurely advanced the claim of divinity, his meaning
would be sooner discovered by men of learning than by
the common people. Let the conduct of the Sanhedrim
then be compared with that of a body of scribes and pha-
risees assembled from every town of Galilee, and Judaea,
and Jerusalem itself. (2) Before this assembly of men of
education, as well as a great multitude of the common
people, he assumed and exercised the power of forgiving
sins. Then, certain of the scribes said within themselves,
“Who is this that speaketh blasphemy 2 Who can forgive
sins but God only 2” When he asserted the power of for-
giving sins, on this occasion, it was at least suspected by
some of the scribes, that his words amounted to blas-
phemy, the crime for which he was afterwards condemned
by the great national tribunal; which was probably for the
most part composed of priests and scribes. The power of
forgiving sins, far from being allowed to their expected
(1) Chap. viii. 27. (2) Luke v. 17.
& - ( 37 )
Messiah, was considered by the scribes as appropriated to
God alone; and he was afterwards condemned by the San-
hedrim for claiming a higher nature than they admitted in
the Messiah, in declaring himself the Son of God.”
Proved then, as I think it is irrefragably, that the per-
sonal term “Son of God,” was understood in the common
language of the Jews, as one of infinitely higher import
than the official term Messiah, it only remains to apply
this circumstance to the question of the eternal sonship.
If the term “Son of God,” were used with reference to the
miraculous conception; then, as it has been shown, that it was
understood by the Jews and by the disciples to imply divinity;
Dr. Clarke and others on that side must show, in order to
explain and justify its use in their sense, that the miraculous
conception also implied the divinity of him thus supernatu-
rally produced. This would be absurd. It could scarcely be
an evidence of Messiahship as a fulfilment of prophecy; but
could not prove what was false, in fact, that that which was
born of Mary was divine, or, in other words, that the man
was God. Nor was this appellation admitted by Christ
when before his accusers with any reference to the pro-
duction of his human nature. He acknowledges himself
to be the Son of God, in the very sense applied to the term
by the High Priest and others, who challenged his con-
fession. “ Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of
God, and he saith unto them, confessing the fact, in their
sense, with frankness, “Ye say THAT I am :” i. e. I am that
ye say. In no conversation with the Jews, when they were
offended at this title, as implying divinity, did he ever refer
to his miraculous conception, as explicatory of it ; not
even upon his trial was this urged as any evidence of his
right to use it. In both cases the reference in proof was
to his divine works; and in both cases, therefore, must he
have assumed this title in the sense of strict and proper
divinity, and in reference to it. The conclusion of the
whole, as applicable to the text in Romans, is, that the
term Son of God applied to Christ by his followers, and
denied to him by the Jews, being a designation of his
( 38 ) $
divine nature, when the Apostle affirms, that he was “de-
clared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection
from the dead;” he spoke language unintelligible both to
Christians, and to the unbelieving Jews, for whose use it
is plain the epistle to the Romans was also written, if by
placing that term in opposition to what Christ was “ac-
cording to the flesh,” he did not intend to state that he was
a divine person, and as such “the Son of God.”
But though I think it very clear, that neither the dis-
ciples of Christ, nor the Jews of their time, considered
the title Messiah as necessarily including divinity; and
that both used the term Son of God to express a higher
conception; yet it makes little difference in the argument
as to the eternal sonship when the question lies with
those who admit the Messiah to be a divine person,
whether the terms be considered as perfectly synonymous,
or of different import. The argument in that case only
takes another form. We ask, why was Messiah, if he
were acknowledged both by the disciples of Jesus, and by
the Jews, to be a divine person, called the “Son of God?”
Is this epithet a term expressive of humanity or of divinity?
To prove that it was given to Messiah, with reference to
his miraculous conception, it ought to be proved that the
Jews understood that their Messiah was to be born of a
virgin. Now that this was at all a prominent opinion,
and much less an opinion so prominent and decisive,
as the common use of the term “Son of God” among
them must suppose, if used in the sense of Dr. Clarke,
there is not the least evidence; but much contrary
to it. For from what source were they to derive the in-
formation? They had, it is true, a prophecy, “A virgin
shall conceive and bring forth a Son,” &c. But though this
be clear to us, who live after the accomplishment, and who
have seen the sense of the prediction fixed by the Spirit of
inspiration; it could not be a clear prophecy to the Jews.
It would indeed be to them a much more obscure prediction
than almost any other so entirely and exclusively relating to
Messiah in their scriptures. There is nothing in the con-
( 89 )
text to refer it to him; it is unaccompanied with any of
those common notices of him which usually occur in the
prophets where he is spoken of; and even to us, had the
passage not been quoted in the New Testament, it would
not with certainty appear to have an application to any
person or event beyond the times of Ahaz. From such a
prediction, the exact explication of which, with its context,
even Christian divines have found a matter of some
difficulty, the Jews living before the fact of Christ's
miraculous conception cannot be supposed to have deduced
the doctrine, that Messiah would be the Son of David
as to the mother, and the Son of God as to the father
of his human nature. And as they had no sufficient
means of becoming acquainted with the doctrine of the
miraculous conception of their Messiah; they give no in-
dications in the evangelic history of its being at all received
among them. Jesus, says St. Luke, in giving the genealogy
of our Lord, “was the supposed,” the reputed son of Joseph.
As such he was entered in the Jewish genealogies, and was
so “supposed,” reputed, among the people. “Jesus of
Nazareth, the Son of Joseph,” was his common compellation
among his countrymen. Now, if the Jews used Messiah
and Son of God, as synonymous terms, and the latter
with respect to an expected supernatural conception of the
human nature of their Messiah, how is it to be accounted
for, that they never argued against the claim of Jesus to
be the Messiah, that he wanted this proof of Messiahship,
being the Son of Joseph, and not in this sense, the Son of
God P Such an objection would have produced the proper
answer, a statement of the fact; but the objection was
never made, and the correcting information was never
given. It would even perhaps be difficult to prove that the
disciples themselves knew the fact before the giving of the
Spirit, who was to take of the things bf Jesus and reveal
them. It is probable, and that for some obvious reasons,
besides the absence of all allusion to it in the discourses of
Jesus, that it was among the things which “Mary kept in
her heart.” But whatever was the case as to the dis-
( 40
ciples, it is plain that the Jews knew it not; and the term Son
of God as used by them, if even synonymous with Messiah,
was a designation of divinity exclusively. Thus the argu-
ment is gained both ways. If the terms Messiah and Son
of God be of different meaning, it was for the assumption
of the latter in the sense of divinity that Jesus was con-
victed of blasphemy, and it had no reference to his mira-
culous conception, or to that of Messiah, whom the Jews
still expected. If the terms are of the same import, and
the Messiah is allowed to have been in the view of the Jews a
divine person; then their unacquaintance with the doctrine of
the miraculous conception proves that, with reference to that,
they could not use the term Son of God. Son of David
indeed appears to have been their common appellation for
Messiah. So when our Lord asked the scribes, “ What
think ye of Messiah, whose Son is he?” They replied,
“He is the Son of David.”
From the note on the passage in Romans, Dr. Clarke
refers us to his comment on Acts xiii. 33, a passage cited
by St. Paul in his sermon in the synagogue at Antioch,
from the second Psalm, “Thou art my Son, this day have
I begotten thee;” and informs us that the question of the
eternal sonship of Christ is there considered at large. All
the consideration I find given to it, is the assertion that
the term Son must express the production of Christ's
human nature by the Holy Ghost, “for as to his divine
nature, which is allowed to be God, it could neither be
created nor begotten,” with a repetition of the arguments
in the note on Luke i. 35. This is an instance of the applica-
tions of the Doctor's own canon of interpretation, that what
is contrary to reason is contrary to Scripture; and of that
prompt method of despatching a doctrine, when it appears
to the reader that it cannot be true, to which it of course
leads. However, as I have not adopted the canon, I
demur to the decision; and am far from thinking that the
deposition of the second Psalm in favour of the divine
sonship, has been silenced by the note upon Acts xiii. 33.
I do not indeed contend that the term “begotten” there,
( 41 )
(for observe it is not “the only begotten,”) refers to the
eternal filiation of the Christ of God. The evidence of
Scripture is too strong in favour of the doctrine, to render
it at all necessary to go in search of any but clear inter-
pretations. But notwithstanding this concession, the same
conclusion may be reached by another route. If the term
“ begotten” here is not to be applied to the divine nature
of Christ, neither is it to be understood of the incarna-
tion, to which Dr. Clarke inclines, though with hesitation.
The sense of the passage is fixed, firmly fixed, by the in-
spired Apostle who cites it, it is a prediction of the re-
surrection of Christ. The consideration of the whole pas-
sage is all that is necessary to ascertain this, its authorized
sense. “And we declare unto you good tidings, how that
the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath ful-
jºlled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised
up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second Psalm,
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Here the
action predicted is represented as fulfilled by the raising of
Christ from the dead; and no reference at all is made to
the “incarnation;” nor does the argument imply any.
The sense of the passage is therefore obvious, “Thou art
my Son, this day have I begotten thee,” raised thee up from
the dead, in attestation of thy sonship; and it is a passage
of exactly similar import to that in the epistle to the
Romans, which has been already discussed ;—“And de-
clared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection
from the dead.” In both, Christ is declared to be God's
Son; the proof in both cases is rested upon that great
event, his resurrection from the dead; and if it has been
established, that St. Paul, when writing to the Romans,
contemplated the supreme divinity of his Lord under the
title Son of God; we can be at no loss to determine how
he understood it in his quotation from the second Psalm,
when he gives the same proof of the claim implied in it in
both cases, and when it is evident that the same current
of thought was passing through his mind. There is no
( 42 )
authority at all for considering the great object of the resur-
rection to be to prove the miraculous conception, as the
view which Dr. Clarke has adopted necessarily supposes.
If it be said, that its object was to prove, by a further con-
sequence, that Jesus was the Messiah, the proof of the
miraculous conception was but an imperfect proof of it.
In this view it proved one circumstance relative to the
Messiahship, mentioned in what to a Jew must have been
but an equivocal prophecy, and but one,—that he was born
of a virgin; but it left all the other proofs of that claim
untouched. I appeal, however, to every attentive reader
of the New Testament, whether the resurrection of Christ
is not constantly referred to by the first teachers of Chris-
tianity, as the principal, the all comprehending proof of
Christ's mission and of his claims. In the narrow view
which the theory of Dr. Clarke compels him to take of
this miracle, it is not that all comprehending proof; and it
can be that kind of proof only as it declares Christ to be
the Son of God in the sense of proper divinity, for then
all his other claims follow of course; the proofs of his
miraculous birth, his divine mission, his kingly authority,
his eternal priesthood, are all comprehended in this great
proof of his divine sonship. Christ confesses himself to be
the Son of God before the Jewish counsel, they find him
guilty of blasphemy, and obtain his crucifixion; but the
disciples, immediately after the resurrection, take up the
disputed title, assert it before the same people, use it in the
popular and received sense; and appeal, constantly appeal,
to his resurrection, as the ample, the glorious, the eternal
evidence, that “he witnessed a good confession before Pilate,”
and before the elders.
* Of this collocation of the term Son, with ideas of full
and supreme divinity, the second Psalm, from which the text
in question is taken, affords also splendid instances; a circum-
stance of association not to be accounted for if the prin-
cipal reason of its imposition were the formation of an in-
ferior nature. To this SoN the heathen are given for his
( 43 )
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his
possession. He destroys his enemies, the associated kings
and judges of the earth, with all their accumulated powers,
with the ease with which a vessel of earth is broken by a
rod of iron; and they are exhorted to give him the kiss
of homage, lest they “perish from the way, when his wrath
is kindled but a little.” Similar associations of sonship and
divinity, I find in innumerable passages in the Old and New
Testament, for which I cannot account to my own mind, ex-
cept as theomeis constantly understood by the inspired writers
to involve the other. “Is God the fountain of life? to
the Son is given to have life in himself, even as the Father
hath life in himself.” Is the name of God solemnly pre-
sented in the baptismal form? the second divine hypostasis has
the name of Son; is the Father to receive supreme honours?
we are to honour the Son as we honour the Father; is the
Holy Ghost sent forth 2 he is sent as the Spirit of the Son,
and by the Son are all things created 2 they are created
“by the Son and for him.” The Son is appointed “heir of
all things.” This Son is the brightness, (www.vyzopº) the
effulgence, the emitted splendour of the Father's glory,
certainly not as a human being ; and the express, or exact
image, (x,zgaxtºng,) of his person, (rns wroszosos avre,) of
his substance; another expression not in the least appli-
cable to his human body, which had no visible glory, nor
to his human spirit, which however heightened by its union
with the Deity, could not be the exact image of his per-
son; for of his eternity, self-existence, omniscience, and
omnipresence, it could not be even the faint image. His
nature is proved by the Apostle to be superangelic, by the
very title Son itself; “ For to which of the angels said he
at any time, Thou art my SoN,” “ and I will be to him a
Father, and he shall be to me a SoN.” But if that title
were given him solely because of his having been conceived
by the Holy Ghost, it would, as Dr. Macknight observes,
instead of proving him superior to angels, fail to prove
him superior to Adam ; “To the SoN, by way of emphasis
and distinction, he saith, in most solemn and emphatic
( 44 )
association of a divine idea with the term, “Thy throne,
O GoD, is for ever and ever.” These and many similar
passages, to be found scattered through almost every page
of the New Testament, I leave to your own particular
examination, and ask, whether, on the supposition that the
term Son of God were understood by the Apostles in the
low and narrow sense given to it by Dr. Clarke; and
whether if they felt as he feels, that the application of it to
the divine nature, must necessarily impugn his divinity,
and lead to the conclusion, that if he were begotten he
could not be eternal, and therefore could not be God: in
other words, that they were throwing a serious obstacle
in the way of faith in his Deity, they would have ex-
pressed themselves in such terms, and have presented the
Son to us, emphatically and distinctly as the Son, invested
with all the high attributes, and achieving all the works of
supreme divinity ? A slight examination of only another
passage, though several might be adduced, shalk, close
the argument from Scripture. It occurs Hebrews v. 8,
“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the
things which he suffered.” The Apostle, in the preceding
verse, speaks of the sufferings of Christ in terms which
carry us to the solemn scene of the agony in the garden,
“ where he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong
crying and tears;” and then subjoins, “Though he were
a SoN, yet learned he obedience by the things he suffered.”
Now not to argue, that the Apostle uses the term Son in
consequence of his having previously quoted the second
Psalm, ver. 5, “Thou art my Son, this day have I be-
gotten thee,” and cannot be supposed to assign to it a
lower sense than it there bears, and which has been shown
to be one which comprehends the attributes and preroga-
tives of divinity; the very stress of the Apostle's argu-
ment compels us to conclude that in the use of this term in
this passage, he must refer distinctly and exclusively to the
divine nature of Christ. Was it a subject to be introduced
with so great an emphasis of holy wonder, that the Son, if
his human nature alone were contemplated, should become
\, ( 45 )
obedient unto suffering? Christ, considered as a man, was
under a natural law to God; and if the will of God de-
manded that he should submit to death, that will was as
imperative upon him, as upon the Apostles who were called
to “lay down their lives for the brethren,” in attestation
of the truth, and in the service of the church. Nor are the
sufferings of Christ, considering him as a man, more the
subject of admiration than those of his Apostles, who laid
down their lives in the same cause, and with as great dis-
interestedness. The circumstance of the miraculous con-
ception of Christ makes no difference, for, however pro-
duced, he was still a man, and as a man, was still under a
law to God. The force of the Apostle's remark then con-
sists in this, that being more than a man, being a divine
person, and therefore under no natural law or obligation
to do or to suffer, he became voluntarily obedient; put
himself under law, came to do the will of his God and
Father, who had assigned him the work of suffering and
death.” “A body hast thou prepared me,” a body in which
to suffer and to die, “Lo I come to do thy will, O God,
thy law is within my heart.” This is the only consider-
ation which gives us a perfect view of the love of Christ.
“Though he were a SoN,” a divine person, and under no
obligations, yet even he, identified with a suffering nature,
“learned obedience by the things he suffered.” This is
the contrast which only can convey any impression of su-
pererogatory charity: the contrast between natural insub-
ordinate dignity, and conventional and covenant obedience;
between the right of exemption from suffering, and the be-
nevolence of voluntary submission to it; between what he
was as “Son of God,” and what he chose to endure as the
“Son of God” made man. Take the passage in the sense of
Dr. Clarke, “Though he were in his ‘human nature,’
produced by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb
of his virgin mother, “yet learned he obedience by the
things he suffered;” and contrast this exposition, poor,
spiritless, without point, or emphasis, with another passage
in the writings of St. Paul, and you will not hesitate which
( 46 y
view of it to prefer. “Who being in the ForM of God,
thought it not robbery to be EQUAL witH God, but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became
oBEDIENT unto death, even the death of the cross.” The
passages are exactly parallel, the phraseology not greatly
different; and the sense precisely the same. “Though he
were a Son,” “in the form of God, and thought it not
robbery to be equal with God,” “yet he learned obedience
by the things which he suffered,” “he became obedient to
death, even the death of the cross.” The Son, in the passage
in the epistle to the Hebrews, is he who, in the epistle to the
Philippians, is said to be “in the form of God,” and with-
out robbery “equal to God;” in other words, the Son
stands there as a designation to be taken in the exclusive
sense of positive divinity. (3)
Though it would not in the least alter the argument
from Scripture in favour of the divine sonship, to adduce
passages in which a human sonship is expressed, because
both may be true; yet I observed in the former part of this
discussion, that I was not prepared to allow that even
Christ is called the Son of God, in Luke i. 35, with sole
reference to the human nature, or its miraculous conception.
There is certainly there no contemplation of the human
nature of Christ in contradistinction to the divine; but
as in connection with it from the moment of its creation.
This union of the two natures, from the instant of the
creation of the inferior nature, seems to have constituted
the holiness, the peculiar and emphatic sanctity of the
“holy thing,” who was to be born of the virgin. The
only question is, whether the overshadowing of the Holy
Ghost, producing a supernatural conception, was the reason
why the “holy person” to be born was to be called the
Son of God, considered simply as the means of bringing
(3) Consult also Hebrews vii. 28, where the antithesis is equally strong,
and the passage utterly inexplicable on Dr. Clarke's principle.
( 47 )
into the world a faultless man, or considered as the means
and the essential process of the incarnation of God, in a
human body. If the latter be the reason; if the operation
of the Holy Ghost creating a human body in order to effect
an incarnation of Deity, was that which led the angel to
say, “Therefore also, that holy thing which shall be born
of thee, shall be called the Son of God;” there is in the
whole passage so direct a contemplation of divinity as well as
humanity, and of both as united in one “holy thing or
person,” that the passage is by no means so positive a testi-
mony that Christ is called the Son of God with mere re-
ference to the conception of his human nature as Dr. Clarke
supposes. There is nothing in this text to show that
the term Son of God is given with exclusive reference to
the human nature. The holy thing born of Mary, was,
as the angel predicted, called the “Son of God +” but we
have seen he was so called when his miraculous conception
is not in the least referred to, and when it was not even
known. I have examined with some care, I think, all the
passages in the New Testament, where the term Son of
God occurs, as applied to Christ, and I find no one in
which it is used as the designation of the human nature
exclusively, and when the divine nature of Christ is not
also implied; no one in which the humanity is considered
in contradistinction to the higher nature; except it may be
the solitary text, Mark xiii. 32; the difficulty of which
Dr. Clarke confesses, and the genuineness of the clause
“neither the Son,” he appears disposed to give up. He
therefore will not bring that into the argument. On the
contrary, there are passages too numerous to be quoted,
where that term is so used, that the mind is at once carried
to the immediate contemplation of the acts and attributes
of pure and essential Godhead; and utterly loses sight of
every thing human.
Such is the evidence of Scripture on this doctrine, not
indeed by any means the whole which might be adduced;
but it is, I think, sufficient to convince any person who is
willing to settle his opinions upon the plain unfrustrated
( 48 )
sense of the sacred word alone, that in how many senses
soever it may be pretended the term Son of God is used by
the inspired writers; they use it also when applied to Christ
in a sense which marks him out as the Son of God as to
his higher and divine nature; and if that has been proved,
the doctrine of the eternal sonship of Christ is established
by the authority of inspiration itself. Against this we
have Dr. Clarke's principle, that it cannot be true, and
is not the sense of Scripture; because it is contrary to
reason. If Christ be the Son of God as to his super-
human nature, he cannot be eternal, and therefore not di-
vine; if on the contrary he is God, he cannot be the Son
of God, except as to his human nature. Now if I thought
more of this argument than I really do; if to my mind, as
to Dr. Clarke's, the eternal sonship of a divine person, in-
volved a contradiction to my reason; I dare not plead that
circumstance against what appears to me so plainly the
sense of Scripture. How do I know that my reason in
this particular is right reason 2 that the communication of
one single idea, which I may acquire in this life, when my
knowledge is more improved, and my faculties better exer-
cised, or which I may not acquire till I enter the life to
come, may not correct my present views, alter the whole
scope of my present reasoning on these high subjects, and
furnish me with some medium of proof, which shall de-
monstrate what now is to me, not only incomprehensible,
but even contradictory? If the question were concerning
what I could see, handle, weigh, and measure; if it related
to a being, with whose mode of existence, and whose es-
sential and accidental attributes I were fully acquainted in
all those particulars of which any thing is affirmed, the case
would be considerably altered; but it concerns a Being
confessedly the greatest, because the first and the last, the
author and end of all things; whose nature is by necessity
infinite; of whose perfections ages of contemplation in the
nearest and most delightful vision of him will leave an in-
finite of mystery to be unfolded; and who must, to finite
minds, however exalted by station, or matured by duration,
4.
( 49 )
because finite, be still, in respect to their comprehension,
THE UNKNOWN. Is it possible then, that as to his nature
and modes of being, I can have views so certain, so just,
so agreeable to “eternal reason,” that I shall be authorized
to affirm, that the reason of the case to me, is indeed the
reason of the case itself. Where is the man who has not,
in many instances, changed his opinions as to things in-
finitely lower, and within the reach of man? Yet his former
opinions appeared to him to possess satisfactory evidence of
truth; and the same reason which now impugns and rejects
them, formerly regarded them as very undeniable conclu-
sions. Better information, or more patient inquiry, has
put him in possession of new or corrected premises; and
he reasons better, though he reasons differently, perhaps
oppositely. A very laudable kind of self scepticism, grows
up often with our years, and corrects the confidence of
youth. What is this but a proof of the fallibility of our
reason; because it is a proof of the limitedness and in-
correctness of our knowledge. We can argue only from
what we know; and if we err in knowledge, we must err
in reason. Is our reason then the standard by which to
try the word of God? I certainly do not mean that we
ought not to make use of our reason, that is, our under-
standing, in interpreting the sense of the divine volume:
that would be ridiculous, it is what no one says; but is
there not a manifest difference between enquiring for the
sense of Scripture by considering the established meaning
of its terms, the connection of a proposition with the ar-
gument of which it is a part, and the elucidation which
doubtful passages may receive from other more obvious
parts of the sacred record; and approaching to this word
with previous motions assumed as infallible, to whatever
subject applied, because to us they are reasonable; to the
standard of which we summon the declarations of Scrip-
ture, by that to fix their meaning without appeal f
What is said by the God of truth must be true; what ap-
pears reasonable to me, may or may not be true; and the
P
( 50 )
position which best becomes our humility, as fallible crea-
tures, is not that Scripture cannot be true if it be contrary
to my reason; but that my reason cannot be true if it con-
tradict Scripture. This must be held conclusive, at least
by all who believe in the divine authority of the Bible.
The only question among such ought surely to be, not
what ought to be the sense of Scripture; but what that
sense really is; not what we must make it, to make it rea-
sonable; but what it appears when read solely by its own
light: and if Dr. Clarke had made the doctrine of the
eternal sonship of Christ exclusively the subject of scrip-
tural inquiry, he would not have offended against the only
principle which can preserve man in his proper place, an
humble learner at the feet of the great teacher Christ:
“for if any man receive not the kingdom of heaven as a
little child, he shall in no wise enter therein,” he will not
receive its truths.
But as Dr. Clarke has, in the conclusion of his com-
mentary, contended for a right to make use of human
reason in matters of revelation, which to me appears highly
dangerous and unwarranted, I shall give his remarks on
the subject a larger consideration. The passages to which
I refer are the following; and I quote them, that it
may appear that I attribute to him, nothing more than
he has himself expressed as his deliberate views, in the
summing up of his opinions at the end of his learned, and,
generally speaking, very useful commentary on the New
Testament. “The doctrine which cannot stand the test of
rational investigation, cannot be true. We have gone too
far when we have said, such and such doctrines should not
be subjected to rational investigation, being doctrines of
pure revelation. I know of no such doctrine in the Bible.
The doctrines of this book are doctrines of eternal reason,
and they are revealed because they are such. Human reason
could not have found them out; but when revealed, reason
can both apprehend and comprehend them.” “No man either
can or should believe a doctrine that contradicts reason; but he
ºnay safely credit (in any thing that concerns the nature of
( 51 )
God) what is above his reason.” Here are, as you cannot
fail to perceive, some very singular positions, and some
very obvious contradictions.
To most of these positions I object, generally, because
they implicate the pernicious principle, that the meaning
of scripture is to be determined by our own views of what
is reasonable; that human reason is to be made not only
the instrument of investigating the meaning of the revela-
tion, but the judge of the doctrine; a principle, which
makes it a canon of interpretation, that where the letter
of scripture indicates a doctrine which appears unreason-
able to us, it must be taken in a sense which does appear
reasonable. This, I conceive, would authorize the most
unnatural interpretations of even Socinian writers; and
make the sense of revelation to be what every man may
take it to be; thereby destroying the unity of truth,
and leaving us without any standard of opinion, except
the ever varying one of human reason. (4). The applica-
tion of such a canon of interpretation is objectionable in
almost every case, but more especially in all those parts of
the sacred revelation which relate to the manner of the
divine existence. This must, from its nature, be a subject of
pure revelation; “for no man hath seen God at any time;”
and though there is in many cases a great difference be-
tween what transcends, and what contradicts the reason of
man, it is not possible to say, in speculations concerning
the Deity, either that the reason which may be contra-
dicted is right, or always when reason is contradicted or
when only transcended; for, to one person, there may be
(4) “If we come to examine the rules by which mankind give their assent
to many propositions, differing from and contradictory to each other, we
cannot think this procedure of the mind to be a very easy, or sure performance.
The bounds of truth and falsehood have never yet been settled; one is assured
of what another is diffident; evidence in Egypt is but probability at Athens:
and, by all experience and history, we find there has been so little exactness
or certainty in the conclusions of mankind, that they seem to be the result of
inattention, passion, or interest; rather than proceeding on any sound prin-
ciples, or in any rational method of argumentation for the discovery of truth.”
Ellis's Knowledge of Divine Things.
D 2
( 52 )
an evident contradiction, while, to another, only a transcen-
dency. Even Dr. Priestly has observed, “ There is mani-
fold reason to conclude, that the divine nature, or essence,
besides being simply unknown to us, has properties most
essentially different from anything else. God is, and must
ever remain, the incomprehensible.” A just position, which,
had it been kept in mind by Socinians in their inquiries, would
have prevented them from so positively concluding, that
there cannot be three co-eternal and co-equal personal subsis-
tencies in the unity of one divine essence; and would equally
have prevented all who have denied the eternal sonship of
our Lord from concluding as positively, that one of those
subsistencies cannot bear the name and relation of an
eternal son without a contradiction. In both cases, it
were surely the highest reason humbly to receive what
God hath testified of himself, without attempting to coerce
its meaning by the rule and rod of our assumed first and in-
fallible principles. It is true, Dr. Clarke denies, in his note
on Luke i. 35, the eternal sonship of Christ to be the doc-
trine of revelation; but goes immediately to prove that it
is not so, by alleging its absurdity, its contradiction to all
just notions of the deity of Christ. If he meant to rest the
proof on Scripture, why did he resort to the argumentum ea.
absurdo 2 If he did not mean to make our reason the judge
of the case, why did he not merely adduce passages of holy
writ, used in support of the commonly received opinion,
and show that the doctrine is not contained in them 2
His practice, in this instance, shews that I have not mis-
taken his views in the application of reason to matters of
revelation.
Let us, however, attend to Dr. Clarke's argument on this
subject. The doctrines of scripture are doctrines of
“eternal reason.” This is his position; and his inference
is, that they are therefore proper subjects of rational inves-
tigation; and that human reason is an adequate judge of
them, when once revealed. With him we acknowledge
that the doctrines of scripture are doctrines of eternal reason.
Eternal reason, is truth, and the word of God must in all
2
*r ( 53 )
its parts be true; but it is remarkable that Dr. Clarke did
not detect himself in a fallacy which vitiates his whole ar-
gument. With him human reason and eternal reason, are
assumed to be the same; in other words, that human reason
is divine reason; and therefore infallible. Now it may be
the reverse of eternal reason; or it may be a very faintra-
diation of eternal reason; (5) but in no case can it be full
and perfect eternal reason, for then would the reason of
man be equalled to the reason of God. These principles
are of easy application. A revelation from God cannot
contain all the truths apprehended by eternal reason. This
would be profusion, a hopeless attempt at instruction; for
the mind of man can only receive a very small part of the
truths known to the divine mind; or what is the same thing,
of the truths established on the eternal reason of things. All
beyond what can be made known in any mode to the mind,
is not capable of revelation; all that is revealed as truth,
but of which the reasons, the processes of proof are not
given, is apprehended but not comprehended by the mind;
and is no revelation to reason as such ; but rather to faith:
the human faculty of comparing and determining, not being
furnished with so clear a view of the nature and relations
of the subjects in question, as to conclude or judge any
thing concerning them by the light of their own evidence.
Certainly, then, it is possible that there may be truths,
the evidence of which can only be known to the eternal
reason of the divine nature; and which cannot possibly be
the subjects of the reasoning of any inferior mind, and
therefore not of human reasoning. I will go farther and say,
that there must of necessity be such truths in a revelation;
(5) “The ratiocinations of men are vastly imperfect. Do we not every
day see wise men falling into dangerous errors and mistakes; and when their
arguments come to be examined, are found to proceed on loose and uncertain
principles, to use fallacious incoherent ideas, or draw weak and false conclu-
sions. If this be not so, whence comes so much controversy, opposition, and
litigation, among the learned of the world, in all parts of knowledge ; So
that care must be taken not to admit every thing for reasoning that pretends
to be so; but rather to suspect what is subject to so much abuse, especially
when we find it striving against God.” Ellis,
( 54 ) º
if it be a revelation of God, his mode of existence, and his
counsels, which, from their nature, can only be fully known
to God himself. The only question which arises out of
these premises is, whether the conclusions of eternal reason
may not be subjects of revelation, whilst the process of their
proof remains unknown, either because it transcends our
faculties, or that it is purposely hidden, in cases where it
might be understood; because it is necessary to put us under
a state of discipline, and teach us implicit submission to the
dicta of the unerring God.
This, surely, is conceivable, for what is similar occurs among
men themselves. The conclusions of Sir Isaac Newton's
philosophy have been understood and admitted by thou-
sands, whose minds were utterly incapable of pursuing the
processes of calculation and reasoning by which they were
reached, and who have never, in fact, become acquainted
with them. They have been received upon the authority
of a superior mind; and, If he were right, his followers
are right, though their reason, properly speaking, has had
no share in illuminating them. In like manner, there are
truths in the revelation of God, the evidence of which is
withheld, but may be received under his authority: and,
as the eternal reason of God is absolutely perfect, the doc-
trines we thus receive are true, though neither in this now.
in another world should we be able, for want of evidence,
to make them subjects of rational investigation, and our-
selves work out the proof. Dr. Clarke cannot mean to
assert, that all the truths comprehended by eternal reason,
with their evidence, and all the processes of the operation of
the divine mind upon such truths, are contained in the Bible,
and lie level to our reason, and are within its reach ; in other
words, that eternal reason and human reason are the same,
for then it would follow, that we have no more to learn; “that
we are as gods, knowing good and evil.” If, then, we must
acknowledge that there are truths in the divine revelation,
which are but the conclusions and results of eternal reason;
while the rational evidence of them is inscrutable to us,
then are there truths which cannot be made the subjects of
( 55 )
human rational investigation in any mode; truths which
are to be admitted upon authority; something to be received
on the evidence that it is a part of a revelation from God,
and not on its own evidence; something, in a word, to be
believed, as well as something to be admitted because it is
agreeable to reason.
Dr. Clarke, however, says, that if a doctrine will not
bear the test of rational investigation, it cannot be true;
but there is a previous inquiry, whether we can subject every
doctrine to such a test; nor is it an inquiry to be hastily
despatched, for the most serious consequences are involved
in it.
All the doctrines which churches of every age, and of
every description, have crowded into their “creeds,” or
sung in their “hymns,” are to be put in question; the
whole is to be brought, not, as one might have expected
to hear from such a divine as is Dr. Clarke, to the test of
Scripture alone, but reason also, the great “commentator”
on Scripture itself; or, in his former words, subjected to
the “test of rational investigation;” and if any doctrine,
whether found in creeds or sung in hymns, will not bear
this test, it must be instantly and fearlessly rejected; “Fiat
justitia, ruat calum.” Of what kind, then, is the test of
rational investigation, by which the doctrines of the uni-
versal church are to be determined? I can attach no other
meaning to the phrase, than that it is a process by which
we inquire the truth and falsehood of any thing by com-
paring it with what we already know, and what we have
already determined to be true. We are led by reason,
as Cicero has observed, “from things apprehended and
understood, to things not apprehended.” Now, to the
reason and fitness of how many of the doctrines of reve-
lation shall we be conducted by this process? To how
many of the truths concerning the divine nature which the
sacred record has exhibited to us can any previous know-
ledge we have be thus applied ? for previous knowledge it
must be, or the investigation is not rational. If it be con-
ducted on principles which we have received on the authority
( 56 )
of Scripture, then it is scriptural investigation; we cease then
to walk by our own torch, and walk in the light of the
Lord. All the doctrines in human creeds are to be put in
question; and, as the Scriptures are by this principle ex-
cluded, or this boasted process of “rational investigation”
means nothing; formularies, which, whatever mistakes or
additions they may be charged with, do contain all the
great doctrines of revelation, are to be tried by principles
previously obtained by the exercise of our reason, or, in
other words, subjected to rational investigation. Now, I
will not say how much of our previous knowledge may be
used as sure data in the conducting of this inquiry;
whether there is not much in the Bible relative to morals,
and duties merely human, of the excellency of which we
might not obtain some very satisfactory demonstration in
this way; though I think these subjects are but very few,
and that the very data themselves are furnished by some
previous traditional declaration of the will of God; but as
to subjects which relate to the divine nature, I cannot con-
ceive of any information existing among men previously to
a revelation, or previously to its being admitted, which can
furnish a rule of judgment at all certain, much less infallible.
For this inquiry to be strictly and severely rational, all the
knowledge of God which has been obtained by tradition or
previous revelation must be put out of the case, and the
whole of what is affirmed of God must be tested solely by
some previous known and established truths. But where,
then, is the inquirer to begin 2 To what will he liken God,
or to whom compare him 2 What is the task we thus assign
him 2 To apply finite measures to an infinite being; corpo-
real ideas to a spiritual essence, or mixed notions of cor-
poriety and spirituality to a being pure and unmixed; a
knowledge arising from acquaintance with perishable objects
to absolute immortality; and the calculations of time to posi-
tive eternity. If an apostle, with all the aids of a plenary
inspiration, could not approach that abyss without exclaim-
ing, O the depth / If deeply as the radiance of divine light
had penetrated it, the profound darkness below was still
( 57 )
sufficient to awe his spirit, and repress the fearful gaze in
which he for a moment indulged, I can scarely think the
plummet, the rod, and the measure, which unassisted reason
furnishes, an apparatus sufficient to mete out this immea-
surable ocean; and it is not indeed further necessary to
prove, how utterly false and delusive all rational investi-
gation must be as to the divine nature, when an authority to
which Dr. Clarke, with every other Christian, must bow,
has declared, that as “No man knoweth the things of a
man save the spirit of a man that is in him, so no man
knows the things of God but the Spirit of God.” If without
a revelation by words or signs, no man can penetrate the
secrets of even a human mind, to him who would approach
the depths of God by his own intelligence, we may justly
say, “Canst thou by searching find out God?” ºr
Though I have here taken Dr. Clarke's principle of sub-
jecting divine doctrines to rational investigation, according
to the strict meaning of that phrase in our common lan-
guage, yet I shall probably be met by another of his ob-
servations, in which the principle before stated has the air
of being modified. Though reason, he admits, could not
have discovered the doctrines of revelation, yet when they
are revealed, reason is able not only “to apprehend but to
comprehend them.” Postponing any consideration of the
comprehending power here ascribed to reason, and which
indeed is given up in the same page; I may ask what
the principle of subjecting doctrines of revelation to “ra-
tional investigation” gains by this apparent modification, if
indeed it were intended as one? So little, that the senti-
ments are fatal to each other. For if reason is to proceed
only by the light of revelation, then any investigation so
conducted is not, as I have already observed, a rational,
but a scriptural investigation; and Dr. Clarke has in vain
attempted to correct the notions of those who exclude
reason as the judge of the doctrines of an acknowledged
revelation. If the investigation is to be conducted by an
appeal to principles which reason did not furnish, but
which have been communicated to the mind by revelation,
( 58 )
Dr. Clarke agrees with his opponents while he strongly
condemns them, for then are the obvious data of that re-
velation made the test of those parts of it which are more
recondite, and human reason is no judge in the case at all.
So contradictory is Dr. Clarke to himself.
But there is still another view of this modification. Dr.
Clarke may be understood to mean, that reason when aided
by a revelation, is raised into so perfect a condition, that
what appears incongruous to it, must of necessity be con-
cluded to be contrary to the revelation itself. This how-
ever proceeds either upon that very false assumption, which
I have already pointed out, that a revelation from God
to man, must not only declare a doctrine, but also dis-
cover its congruity with the reason and truth of things;
or that reason, when put in possession of the doctrine, is
able to complete the process, and to mount up to the dis-
covery of its full evidence. To this notion, however, the
evidence of Scripture is in direct opposition. “No man
knoweth the Son, but the Father,” but a revelation has been
made by the Father of the Son; and yet the reason of
those who have received that revelation, so far from com-
pleting the discovery to the full evolution of the evidence
from the truth and nature of things of all that is affirmed
in the revelation of the Son, is still so uninstructed, that
to this hour it holds good, that “No man knoweth the
Son but the Father. (6) Again, if it be true, that as to
many high mysteries we “see as through a glass darkly,”
and not “face to face,” with clear and distinct knowledge;
something which we now know obscurely shall be hereafter
made plain; and this clear discovery is not of the mere
subject itself, which is seen, though obscurely, but of its
modes and relations, and consequently its absolute cor-
respondence with the truth of things; in other words, the
discovery will be that of its rational evidence. If reason
had the faculty of improving upon the truth of God,
(6) “The full comprehension of the Godhead, and the mystery of the
Trinity, belongs to God alone.” Dr. CLARKE in loc. -
sº
, ( 59 )
making clear what is doubtful, and rendering luminous what
is obscure, the veil which was thrown upon the mysteries
of Christianity, at its first revelation, would since have been
gradually withdrawn, in consequence of the investigations
of learned and pious men; and we had now been, as to the
“deep things of God,” much nearer a demonstration than
formerly. This, however, is not agreeable to fact. I know
of no one doctrine which was formerly allowed to tran-
scend human reason, of which we have received any
stronger demonstration in consequence of the application
of the most profound reasonings. Divines who have con-
fined themselves to demonstrate doctrines by bringing the
collective evidence of the divine word to bear upon them,
are those to whom our faith is most indebted; and we ought
to acknowledge our obligations, and those of the Chris-
tian world to those theologians also, who have met the ob-
jections to Christianity, urged by infidels and others, with
so much triumph. But I appeal to every person who has
made theology his study, whether the great service such
divines have rendered to truth, may not be chiefly com-
prehended under the following heads. Presenting the
question at issue in its true form, and thus detecting the
sophistry of objectors—proving their arguments false, on
principles held by themselves, and acknowledged by man-
kind—demonstrating, that in a choice of difficulties the
greater number, and those of the most formidable kind, lie
against themselves—exhibiting the evidences of the reve-
lation, which on all sides are acknowledged to be proper
subjects of rational investigation—and in showing in how
perfect a manner Christianity meets the wants and miseries
of the human race. On the high and solemn mysteries of
our religion the rational evidence of which has been with-
held in the revelation, what light has been shed by the
most powerful ratiocinations? Do they, like philosophical
truths, gain ground by reasonings abstract or analogic?
What evidence, for instance, has in this way been brought
to the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity? And does it not
to this moment remain a doctrine of pure revelation, stand-
4.
( 60 )
ing, I allow, upon the authority of the rational proof, that
the record which contains it is authentic, but upon no
rational evidence of the doctrine itself? No man of whom
I have heard was ever convinced of this, or any of the ac-
knowledged mysteries of Christianity, by an appeal to his
reason, even when put under the tuition of the most highly
cultivated and powerful reason of others; whilst thousands
have been brought to believe them upon that which is
indeed their proper and exclusive demonstration, the tes-
timony of God; well judging, with a learned divine, “that
no foundation is so immoveable as the word of God; no
demonstration so clear as divine authority; no truth so
evident as what God affirms; nor is it natural reason or
philosophical notions, but faith, which will make us ac-
ceptable to him.”
But this notion of the ability of human reason to acquire
the rational evidence of doctrines which are but nakedly
and authoritatively stated in the divine record; (and this is
all I can understand by the qualification which Dr. Clarke
supposes reason to derive from Scripture to be a judge of
divine things,) proceeds in utter disregard of the difference
between the office and potentiality of reason in divine and
in human things. This is well stated by a writer I have
before quoted. (7) “The great difference between the ob-
jects of human knowledge and divine is, that in the former
there is a spacious field for new acquisitions and improve-
ments; but in divine invisible objects it is far otherwise.
The boundary is fived; our inquiries limited to what is re-
vealed; and all further search vain and unlawful. These
things are above the discovery of reason; it had no prin-
ciples from which it could regularly deduce them, by any
natural use of its faculties; and without supernatural in-
struction, could never have attained the least knowledge or
probability concerning them. It was not possible for any.
idea, notice, or apprehension of them to enter the mind,
but by the mediation of some external agency: so that all
(7) Ellis's Knowledge of Divine Things.
( 61 )
we do, or can hope to know of them in this world is from
revelation.” The substance of which just remarks is, that
where revelation stops we must stop; and that where there
is a revelation of a subject, but none, or an imperfect one,
of its modes and relations, though the reason of man is in
this way enlightened with a new fact, that circumstance
does not in the least empower it to discover, what revela-
tion is still silent upon, its accordance with eternal reason;
and what is affirmed of it cannot therefore be the subject of
rational investigation.
The allusion made above to faith, leads me also to ob-
serve that, on Dr. Clarke's principles, it is scarcely con-
ceivable how faith can exist in the mind of any man who
has the revelation of God in his hand, in the full Christian
sense of that term. We can scarcely be said to believe
the existence of sensible objects, we know them; nor in a
mathematical demonstration; which is also the object of
certain knowledge. Believing has been defined by a great
master, (8) “To be the admitting or receiving any propo-
sition to be true, upon arguments or proofs that persuade
us to receive it as true, without certain knowledge, that
is knowledge derived from the thing itself, that it is
so.” It is true that the moral evidence of the truth of
testimony, is a proper subject of rational investigation;
and therefore the foundation of faith.” As in the reve-
lation of the Bible, which purports to be from God,
“God has made us competent judges,” observes a prelate
of the English Church, “inasmuch as natural reason in-
forms us what are the proper evidences of a divine revela-
tion. When, upon an impartial examination, we find the
evidences to be full and sufficient, our reason pronounces
that the revelation ought to be received; and, as a neces-
sary consequence thereof, directs us to give up ourselves to
the guidance of it: but here reason stops, not thinking
itself at liberty to call in question the wisdom and experience
of any part, after it is satisfied that the whole comes from
(8) Locke.
( 6.2 )
God.” But there is a faith of a higher nature, that faith
which the apostle Paul calls “ the evidence of things not
seen;” by which must be meant also, that so far from
having the evidence of our reason for these “unseen
things,” we have no other evidence than faith in the divine
testimony concerning them. This may be further illus-
trated by our Lord’s words to Thomas: “Because thou
hast seen me thou hast believed, blessed are they that have
not seen, and yet have believed.” From this it follows, that
there may be faith on a lower evidence than was vouch-
Safed to the incredulous disciple for his conviction; and it
as clearly follows, that this evidence may be reduced still
lower on many subjects, and that without any injury to
faith, till the only evidence left is the bare testimony of
God, the fact that God hath spoken. This is faith in its
highest sense; and it is evident that it rests not in the least
on the rational investigation of the doctrine itself, for no
rational evidence is afforded concerning it. What then
becomes of Dr. Clarke's principle, that “the doctrine
which cannot stand the test of rational investigation, cannot
be true.” There are doctrines to which this process cannot
be applied, because no rational evidence of them is given.
This is not less true after the revelation of them is made
than before; for they are authoritatively, not rationally,
stated there. They are objects of faith, not of inquiry,
and therefore not of reason; and he who, led by the au-
thority of Dr. Clarke, subjects them to this test, will very
probably either soon give up the principle, or the doctrine.
On the dark ocean of these mysteries he will either wreck
his bark, or must put the helm into a superior hand. On
this subject the following remarks of Mr. Locke, in his
reply to the Bishop of Worcester, an authority of great
weight with the advocates of reason, are worthy attention.
On the question which gave rise to the controversy I say
nothing. -
“Your accusation of my lessening the credibility of
these articles of faith, as founded on this, that the article
of the immateriality of the soul abates of its credibility, if
( 63 )
. .-he
s
it be allowed, that its immateriality (which is the supposed
proof from reason and philosophy of its immortality)
cannot be demonstrated from natural reason ; which argu-
ment of your Lordship bottoms, as I humbly conceive, on
this, that divine revelation abates of its credibility in all
those articles it proposes, proportionably as human reason
fails to support the testimony of God. And all that your
Lordship in those passages has said, when examined, will,
I suppose, be found to import thus much, viz. “does God
propose any thing to mankind to be believed? It is very
fit and credible to be believed, if reason can demonstrate it
to be true; but if human reason comes short in the case,
and cannot make it out, its credibility is thereby lessened;’
which is in effect to say, that the veracity of God is not a
sure and firm foundation of faith to rely upon, without the
concurrent testimony of reason, i. e. with reverence be it
spoken, God is not to believed on his own word, unless what
he reveals be in itself credible," and might be believed without
him. Your Lordship says, you do not question whether
God can give immortality to a material substance; but you
say it takes off very much from the evidence of immor-
tality, if it depends wholly upon God's giving that which
& of its own nature it is not capable of. To which I reply;
any one's not being able to demonstrate the soul to be
immaterial, takes off not very much, nor at all from the
evidence of its immortality, if God has revealed that it shall
be immortal, because the veracity of God is a demonstra-
tion of the truth of what he has revealed, and the want of
another demonstration of a proposition that is demonstra-
tively true, takes not off from the evidence of it. For where
there is a clear demonstration, there is as much evidence
as any truth can have, that is not self-evident. Can any
one who admits of divine revelation, think this proposition
less credible, the bodies of men after the resurrection shall
live for ever, than this, the souls of men shall, after the
resurrection, live for ever ? For that he must do, if he
think either of them is less credible than the other. If
( 64 )
this be so, reason is to be consulted how far God is to be be-
lieved, and the credit of the divine testimony must receive its
force from the evidence of reason, which is evidently to take
away the credibility of divine revelation in all supernatural
truths wherein the evidence of reason fails.”
Yet though these are principles which I suppose Dr.
Clarke must acknowledge, where other doctrines which he
believes are in question, for what rational evidence, except
that they are doctrines of a revelation from God, is there of
the Trinity, or of the union of two natures in one person in
our Lord; both of which he will admitto be agreeable to eternal
reason, he nevertheless lays it down, as a general principle
too, that when a revelation is made, the reason of man is
not only able “to apprehend but to comprehend” its doc-
trines. This principle, as far as I recollect, was never stated
so broadly, in any Socinian writer, not even by Dr. Priestly
or Mr. Belsham ; though it has been very broadly acted
upon both by them and by their followers. Henceforward
then we are no more to speak of the incomprehensible
God; or the great mystery of godliness; or of any other
mystery. We have reached the old Socinian dilemma,
what is revealed is not a mystery; what is a mystery is not
revealed; and there are, therefore, no mysteries or no reve-
lation. (9) It is not worth while, however, to spend a word
in refutation of a principle which must carry every one
who seriously admits it into the total disbelief of one half of
the Bible because Dr. Clarke, in the same page, has with
very happy disregard of consistency, himself given it up.
In the divine nature he admits there is something “above
reason;” then it follows that reason cannot comprehend it,
even when illuminated by revelation; for what is above
and beyond our reason, cannot be comprehended by it:
and this is acknowledged;—“I cannot comprehend the
divine nature, therefore I adore it; if I could comprehend,
(9) See an excellent chapter on mysteries in Dr. O. Gregory's Letters on
the Evidences of Revelation.
( 65 )
I could not adore.” That passages so contradictory
should appear on the same page, shows either great con-
fusion in the views of Dr. Clarke on the proper office
of human reason, or great unguardedness in replying to
those opponents he had in view when he wrote the obser-
vations with which his commentary concludes. It can
scarcely be supposed that one of these conflicting para-
graphs was intended as a modification of the other, for
what obviously contradicts, cannot modify; and the Dr’s
readers will therefore be left to choose for themselves be-
tween the two. How many will choose the worst, I fear
we are able from our knowledge of human nature to con-
clude with too much certainty not to be deeply grieved,
that a momentary countenance should be given by Dr.
Clarke to principles so dangerous in their operation, so
utterly destructive to faith in all that is peculiar and
special in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This countenance
has been given unguardedly, I doubt not; but it has been
given.
Leaving then the proposition, that when the doctrines
of eternal reason are revealed, human reason is able both
to apprehend and comprehend them, in hope that the
wound inflicted upon it by the author himself may appear
to some of his readers at least, a fatal one, I proceed to
give some consideration to another, which is not peculiar
to Dr. Clarke; but which, stated loosely and generally
as it is, is not less dangerous. “No man,” we are told,
“either can, or should believe a doctrine which contradicts
reason;” and it is of course supposed that there is no doc-
trine in the Bible, which does in fact contradict reason.
If Dr. Clarke means that there is nothing in revelation,
even as it respects the nature of God, which contradicts
eternal reason or truth, then this is a mcre truism; but if he
means, as I suppose, that there are no attributes or modes
of existence ascribed to the divine nature in his word,
which contradict human reason; then I greatly fear, that
he will be understood, for it is indeed a natural, and in my
view a necessary inference, that whatever doctrine of Scrip-
E
( 66 ),
ture contradicts the reason of him who reads it, is not true,
and must be rejected. This is applied by different men
differently. The Theist holds this principle, and finding in
the Bible doctrines which contradict his reason, he rejects
the volume altogether. The old Socinians espoused the
principle, and finding doctrines in the plain and fair con-
struction of Scripture contradictory to their reason, adopted
fanciful and gratuitous methods of interpretation, by which
to resolve the sense of Scripture into some agreement with
their own tenets, which of course they concluded to be ac-
cording to eternal reason, because they were dictated by
their own reason. They preferred to adopt a mode of in-
terpreting Scripture, which took away all certainty from
its meaning, and all meaning from its words, to the giving
up the principle assumed by Dr. Clarke, that there can
be nothing in a revelation from God concerning him-
self which contradicts the reason of man. The modern
Socinians, ashamed of the absurdities of the allegorizing
comments of their elder brethren, which were used to
get rid of the plain sense of inspiration, have preferred a
partial imitation of the example of the Theists. When a
passage in the New Testament stubbornly contradicts their
reason, which they are sufficiently ready to assume is eternal
reason, they expel the chapter or verse from the sacred
record; and often, on very insufficient evidence of its want
of genuineness. They are not however wholly indepen-
dent of the forced and figurative methods of the old Soci-
nians, for sufficient remains in their authenticated text
contradictory to their reason to render this process neces-
sary. They are still obliged not only to excisions, but to
figures and allegories, and in the true Procrustean method,
what is too short they stretch, what is too long they lop
away. -
The error of Dr. Clarke before mentioned,—the as-
sumption that human reason is eternal reason, thus placing
a fallible for an infallible standard, has also crept into this
proposition. Nor does it at all relieve the case to say that
in the argument he supposes human reason to be en-
( 67 )
lightened by divine revelation. Many who reject doc-
trines, which Dr. Clarke considers essential to the Chris-
tian system, profess as well as himself, on these very
subjects to have read and studied the sacred record, and
with equal diligence, and equal means of coming to the
knowledge of its truth; and who is to deny it? Yet to
their reason so enlightened, doctrines which to Dr. Clarke's
reason involve no contradiction, present to their reason
gross contradictions. The same remark we may make as
to the article in question, the eternal sonship of Christ.
Dr. Clarke will not surely pretend that he has brought
more learning, more honesty, more pious desire to know
the mind of God in his word, great as are his faculties in
all these respects, than many of those eminent divines who
have investigated this doctrine, and given to the world the
results of their inquiries; and yet, O ! the fallacy of the
standard of this boasted reason even when enlightened, Dr.
Clarke is confident that the notion of the eternal sonship
contradicts the Deity of Christ; whilst to the reason of
these divines, however the doctrine might transcend their
capacity, it has presented no such contradiction.
In pursuance of the argument, it may also be a subject
of inquiry, whether, though Dr. Clarke supposes the reason
which is to judge to be enlightened by the revelation, in
point of fact, reason is in all cases so enlightened, as to be
qualified for such an arbitration. -
Now as to many doctrines, and doctrines too which Dr.
Clarke admits, this is not the case. I have before stated
that a revelation may contain the conclusions of eternal
reason; whilst the media of proof are utterly hidden. That
it may contain facts respecting the nature of God, without
any other evidence of their truth than the authority of the
revealer; facts respecting his administration of the affairs
of the world, the reasons of which lie in the depths of his
own bosom, “matters of which he gives no account,” and
that it does contain them. Now in none of these cases
does the revelation enlighten reason, farther than by the
naked statement of the doctrine, and the simple annunci-
F: 2
( 68 )
ation of the fact. It is the highest reason to believe them 3
but they are believed on authority, not on their own evi-
dence, and the authority of their reasonableness. It is
stated, for instance, “That the Judge of all the earth will
do right,” and our reason is enlightened by this important
axiom of the divine government; but surely we are not
enlightened to discover the rectitude of every act of God
in the administration of the world; and what then should
we say of the man, who taking up the principle, that to
reason, enlightened by Scripture, there can be nothing con-
trary in its doctrines, should deny the divine commission
of Moses, because he commanded the Israelites to slay the
children of the Canaanites with their parents; inasmuch as
it is contrary to his notions of rectitude to punish the in-
nocent with the guilty. Dr. Clarke, with most divines I
suppose, would say that we are not adequate judges in this
affair, because the bearing, relations, and results of the divine
government have not yet been fully unfolded; which, in
other words, is only to admit that our reason is not fully
enlightened by revelation, even in all those matters of
which that revelation treats; that there are subjects which
are not to be tested by our views of what is reasonable;
and that, as in this case, where all our notions of justice are
violated, human reason may be even contradicted by reve-
lation, and yet, that the doctrine which thus contradicts
our reason, may be nevertheless a doctrine of revelation,
and agreeable to eternal reason. I have no hesitation in
saying, that the doctrines of the Trinity in Unity; of the
union of two natures in one personal Christ; of the resur-
rection of the same body, not only transcend, but contra-
dict human reason, though all are admitted by Dr. Clarke.
For what is the meaning of this formidable term, bran-
dished with so much defiance by the enemies of revelation,
and under which so many Christian divines have cowered;
and to escape whose apprehended edge they have too often
come to disgraceful and compromising terms with the
enemy? The only meaning it can have, is contrariety to
our previous knowledge, to these inferences with which we
( 69 )
have been furnished by the use of our rational faculties,
and which we conclude to be true; a conclusion which
however involves the following uncertainties in a great num-
ber of cases,—whether our conclusions are in fact true-
whether they are universally true, whether they are at all
applicable to the case, or in how many respects they are
applicable. But if this previous knowledge of ours be
assumed as true, I question not but it will meet with
frequent and full contradiction in the sacred record; for
that is contradictory to our reason, which when proposed
to us we pronounce false and impossible. Let then the doc-
trines of the Trinity; the compound nature of Christ; and
the resurrection of the same body, be formed into abstract
propositions, and proposed to us, not under authority and
as doctrines of revelation; let it be asked, can three persons
exist in one undivided essence, and one person in two ma-
tures of a different essence; and the reason of probably
every human mind, not excepting the reason of Dr. Clarke,
would meet them with an instant negation. But what does
revealed truth suffer from this: plainly nothing more than
true philosophy suffers from it. Let the Copernican doc-
trine of the mobility of the earth, and the fixedness of the
sun, be also thrown into abstract propositions. Let a man
unacquainted with philosophy be asked, whether a body
which he daily sees ascend from one side of the earth,
make a circuit in the air, and sink down on the other side,
remains stationary the whole time; and it contradicts his
reason, and he instantly denies it. Let him again be
asked, whether there can be so great a contradiction be-
tween his reason and his senses, that his reason will ever
affirm to the conviction of his mind, what the experience
of his sight has daily for many years determined him to
deny ; and he would not be persuaded that his Maker had
so constructed him, that his reason should in any case con-
tradict the daily evidence, of his senses. And yet let this
man have the Copernican scheme unfolded to him on its
most easy and popular evidences, and he will probably be-
come a convert, and acknowledge that what before con-
f ( 70 )
tradicted his eyes and his reason too, must be unques-
tionably true. The truth is, that what transcends our
reason may be also contradictory of it, that is, contrary to
all that previous knowledge by which its operations are
conducted, and in many cases is so. But this certainly
proves nothing against the truth of things; it proves only
that our reason is not always sufficiently enlightened to
come to certain determinations, that its data are defective,
and that if in such cases men will come to a judgment,
they may contradict the truth, and be contradicted by it;
yet the truth must remain the same; and no exceptions
can be fairly taken against the Trinity; the union of two
natures in Christ; the mysteries of Providence; the resur-
rection of the same body; nor even of the eternal sonship
of Christ, if that also should involve a contradiction to
reason, a question to be hereafter examined. If human
reason were eternal reason, they could not contradict it;
but who shall prove that?
I am aware that it may be said in reply, that the in-
stances I have given do themselves prove that reason may
be so improved by instruction, as that the doctrines which
appear contradictory at one time, shall cease to be so at
another, when it is better instructed. Let this be granted,
my position holds good, that human reason may be con-
tradicted by truth, and therefore the simple circumstance
of a doctrine being agreeable to or contradictory of reason,
is no test of its truth. And if it be meant that human
reason is to be schooled, and instructed, and elevated to
some given standard of attainment before it can be quali-
fied to become a judge in matters of revelation, we gain
nothing as to the certainty of its decisions, unless Dr. Clarke
or some other advocate of the same system, will tell us
how long it is to be thus schooled and kept under tuition,
before its judging faculty can be matured; unless we are
informed how much human knowledge must be attained,
before a man shall be allowed to act on the authority of
his own reasón, in interpreting Scripture, and deem it in-
fallible. Here the world is left in the dark, and as no
, * ( 71 )
such regulations are agreed upon, one of two consequences
will follow—the modest will spend life at school, and never
presume to judge; the bold will break away from it before
their education is completed, and dogmatize in premature
luxuriance. But what are the unlettered and ignorant to
do? Either it must be allowed that every man's reason,
however unschooled, is a standard of revealed doctrine ;
or we must come to the shortest and safest way, both for the
learned and unlearned—to search only for the sense of the
sacred volume as determined by itself, in utter disregard of
a standard which can never be adjusted. Dr. Clarke's
allusion to transubstantiation, will however lead me to
some remarks, which will further show, that though a doc-
trine may contradict the reason of man, it is not on that
account alone to be reputed unworthy of belief.
The Doctor thinks that he has put those who differ from
his views of the office of human reason in deciding on
Scripture doctrine between the horns of a dilemma by
asserting, that unless we are allowed to subject the doctrines
of Scripture to rational investigation, and to reject what is
contradictory to our reason, we must admit the absurdities of
transubstantiation. It will be necessary, therefore, for the
full understanding of the case, to give to the term reason
still greater precision of meaning. It does not mean, as
used by the Dr. the faculty or the operation of judging
and arguing. When it is said that any proposition con-
tradicts our reason, it can only be meant therefore, either
that it contradicts that previous and supposed certain in-
formation respecting the subject of it, which the operation
of reasoning has furnished us with ; or that it contradicts
truths we have obtained by the exercise of reason respect-
ing other subjects, and of which we have such evidence,
that they and the proposition questioned cannot both be
true; that there is not only a contradiction to our reason
involved in it, but a contradiction to the truth of things
themselves. All reasoning is founded upon a comparison
of two or more things together, so as to ascertain an agree-
ment or a disagreement, and to affirm or deny something
º
( 72 )
respccting them. It may be compact or extended, as what
is predicated of each is at once understood, or requires the
introduction of intermediate ideas; but in all cases it is es-
sential to good reasoning, that we should have determinate
ideas of the things themselves which are compared, in the
respects in which a comparison is instituted, or we can
never ascertain their relation to each other, or to any
intermediate idea which may have a common relation to
both. Between what I know and what I know not there
can be no comparison; between what I know and what I
imperfectly know there can be no certain or complete
comparison, and no determinate judgment.
Let me then suppose it affirmed of a person whom I have
never seen, that he has lost the faculty of sight. This, if
credibly stated, and with no apparent intention to deceive me,
I at once assent to, for I know so much of the human eye as
to be certain that it is liable to accidents and diseases fatal
to its faculty of seeing. The comparison here is between
subjects of which I have an adequate knowledge. But let
me suppose it afterwards reported, that the same person,
after having lost the use of his eyes, had acquired so deli-
cate a sense of touch, as, by that sense, to distinguish colours
with great accuracy. (1) There are few persons, I believe,
who would not treat such a report with ridicule, and pro-
nounce it impossible, and contrary to reason; that is, contrary
to all those facts and deductions which have been generally
admitted among men. Had I never heard of such an oc-
currence, attended with evidence sufficient to convince
; very incredulous men, who had attempted to ascertain the
fact, I should probably join in the same issue. And yet,
imperfectly as I am acquainted with the nature of sensation,
it would be somewhat bold in me peremptorily to deny,
that the touch may not become in any circumstances so
exquisite, as to distinguish that different arrangement of
the particles composing the surfaces of bodies, which pro-
(1) There are apparently well established facts of this nature on record.
The most recent is the case of a young lady in Liverpool, lately published
by a physician of that town.
( 73 )
duces those various reflections of the rays of light on which
colours, depend; and what would be contradictory to my
reason might not be contradictory to fact, or to the truth
of things. My error may lie in considering certain truths
to be universal which are not so, or in considering them
as certain tests of a subject to which they do not, or, but
partially, apply. If I fearlessly, therefore, apply my rule
of judging to a subject of which I have only an imperfect
acquaintance, my reason may prove a very erring guide.
The point I would press is, that in judging of things which
are but imperfectly known; in comparing what we know
little of, with what we know, so as to affirm or deny
any thing concerning them, our reason, or what is the
same thing, our present knowledge, may be contradicted,
and yet there may be no contradiction of the truth of things
itself. Such are all the comparisons between what we know
from the deductions of human reason and the observation
of mankind, and the nature and attributes of the ever-
blessed and infinite God. The comparison is between
what is known, and what is, except in very partial and
dim revelation, unknown; between the creature and the
Creator; between man and God. Is it possible that such
a process can be attended with any certainty 2 Is it not
even certain that it must induce infinite mistakes; and who,
that gives these very evident truths the least consideration,
can admit the proposition laid down by Dr. Clarke—“No
man either can or should believe a doctrine which contra-
dicts reason;” no, not, as the sense of the paragraph fixes
it, when that doctrine relates to the nature of God himself.
I shall confirm the contrary view I have taken by a quotation
from another eminent author. “In other sciences, such
as geometry, &c. their foundation, or knowledge of what
relation things bear to each other, is by their agreement
with some third being or proposition, to which their relation
is mutual and equal; but here there is no medium where-
unto we can compare the divine nature; and to imagine
reason could wade through the vast abyss to unknown
regions, and proceed with certainty to the apprehension of it,
( 74 )
is no more than enthusiasm and chimera: a power which God
and nature have denied to it. There are limits given to
every created being, and bounds set that it cannot pass,
beyond which all things are dark and impenetrable. This
is the condition of man. He has faculties to receive what
God vouchsafes to reveal of himself: this is the limit of
human understanding, it can add nothing thereto. To
receive larger emanations is the privilege of the blessed;
to know all of himself the incommunicable prerogative of
God.” - * -
But in cases of comparing things where both are known,
so far known that all men in all ages, and under all circum-
stances, are agreed respecting their nature and qualities,
from constant and universal experience and observation;
it would destroy the certainty of all human knowledge to
apply the same observations. The question of transub-
stantiation is therefore wholly distinct from doctrines re-
lative to the divine nature. It concerns not the divine
nature of Christ, but his human body, which was truly
a body like our own; and we have surely sufficient means
of judging, from experience, whether it be a quality
of the human body to be in two places at the same time,
and that also invisibly, under the forms of bread and wine;
whether it can be divided into innumerable pieces, and yet
be whole. “The question,” says Mr. Fletcher, in his
answer to Dr. Priestly, “between the popes and us, with
respect to transubstantiation, is quite within our reach,
since it is only whether bread be flesh and bones; whether
wine be human blood; whether the same identical body can
be wholly in heaven, and in a million of places on earth at
the same time; and whether a thin round wafer, an inch
in diameter, is the real person of a man six feet high:
here we only decide about things known to us from the
cradle; and, concerning which, our experience and our
five senses help us to form a right judgment, agreeable to the
tenor of the Scriptures: therefore, considering that the two
cases are diametrically contrary, and differ as much as the
depths of the divine nature differ from a piece of bread, as
( is ,
much as the most incomprehensible thing in heaven, differs
from the things we know best upon earth, we are bold to
say, when the learned Doctor involves the Protestant wor-
shippers of the Trinity, and the Popish worshippers of a
bit of bread, in the same charge of absurd idolatry, he
, betrays as great a degree of unphilosophical prejudice, and
illogical reasoning, as ever a learned and wise man was
driven to, in the height of a disputation for a favourite
error.” (2)
It is not however to be concluded, that, though the doc-
trine of transubstantiation contradicts our reason, and that
of all mankind, that we are left to resort at all to this argu-
ment to prove that it is not a doctrine of Scripture. If the
question of the eternal sonship of Christ, the Trinity, or
any other respecting the divine nature, presented to our
inquiries subjects which we had equal means of knowing, as
whether a human body can be in heaven and earth at the
same time; and if, on the other hand, transubstantiation
were affirmed of a subject as little known to us as the divine
nature, and as plainly expressed, or as necessarily implied,
in many passages of Scripture as the doctrines just men-
tioned, the cases would be parallel, and we should equally
disclaim the judgment of reason in both cases; but if even
we were to admit the necessity of an appeal to reason in the
case of transubstantiation, as it in reality stands, we should
neither give up the principles I have been endeavour-
ing to establish, nor in the least sanction that which
Dr. Clarke has assumed and attempted to defend; for the
question would not be, are passages of Scripture containing
declarations respecting a being who is incomprehensible to
us, to be turned out of their plain and obvious meaning,
because my reason determines against the doctrines they
teach : but, whether in a case where the question lies, if
we admit a question at all, chiefly in the literal or figurative
meaning of terms; the knowledge which God himself has
put within our reach as to the essential properties of things
(2) Fletcher's Works, vol. ix. p. 44,
( 76 )
*-
of his creation, and which even a miracle cannot change
without destroying the substance of which they are the es-
sential properties, is to be applied to fix their meaning.
Such an application of our reason to such a subject, and
in a mere question of figurative or literal interpretation, is
perfectly within the scope of my own views; but even
that is not at all necessary. The case does not need
it. Even the papists cannot carry their literal meaning
throughout, and are obliged to give up this mode of inter-
pretation, by considering the cup as a metonomy for the
wine; and the whole doctrine is swept away, by the de-
clarations that Christ was about to leave his disciples;
that his coming to judgment is his coming again the
“second time,” and, that “the heavens are to receive
him until the time of the restitution of all things.” When
we have decisions so clear in Scripture on this subject,
there is not the least necessity for an appeal to reason;
were that necessary, the case would not be parallel to those
which respect any doctrine of the divine nature.
I have before remarked, that the great error from which
the rest of the false principles laid down in that part of
Dr. C.’s Commentary on which I have animadverted are
derived, is the assuming that human reason and eternal
reason are the same. This has been sufficiently exposed;
but it may be allowed, that the notion is not altogether
without foundation; and this, indeed, constitutes its danger.
It requires great art, to present a proposition of unmingled
error in the garb of truth. The most mischievous positions
in theology, are those which have some great and acknow-
ledged truth for their basis; but which carry it to an un-
warranted extent, or give it wholly a wrong direction.
Too many persons receive the whole argument, for the sake
of the truth it contains, not staying to consider with how
much error it may be mixed, or what false conclusions are
hung upon it. To apply these observations to the case
before us, it cannot be doubted, incautiously and erro-
neously as the principle has been applied, that human
reason, when illuminated by revelation, is raised into a
( 77 )
very interesting correspondence with eternal reason: the
mind of God is imparted to man, and the mind of man is
to a certain extent elevated in its thinkings to the wisdom
of God. I am not an advocate for urging the extremes of
the case only, and placing the reason of man unnecessarily
in opposition to the decisions of his Maker. Truth, in the
revelation of Scripture, is not always stated on mere autho-
rity; there is often a condescension to us as rational crea-
tures; and we are permitted to rise a few steps towards that
state, where the reason of things will be more largely un-
folded to our enquiring faculties. The tree of knowledge
is not wholly forbiddden to us; for, though its topmost
branches are under interdict, there are boughs which bend
to our reach beneath the weight of wholesome and exhili-
rating fruit. The great Author of revelation has accom-
panied some of the doctrines of his word with rational evi-
dence; and has appealed to our reason, not, indeed, to
give us the option of choosing or rejecting them; he has,
in no instance, made reason a judge with the right of laying
down the law of the case; but the appeal is made for our
deeper conviction, and to render us the more inexcusable,
if we reject the doctrines thus laid down on the joint autho-
rity of their Author and their own evidence. He declares
his power and majesty, and refers to the magnificence of
universal nature; he directs us for the proof of several of his
moral perfections to his works of providence and judgment;
various duties are enjoined upon us, in terms which indicate,
that principles we have acknowledged bind us to their
observance. “If I be a master, where is my fear? if I be
a father, where is mine honour?” “If ye who are earthly
know how to give good things unto your children, how
much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to
them that ask him.” Some rational evidence is afforded of
the atonement, though not by any means all the reasons
on which that most stupendous of all the acts of God’s
government reposes. It was a scheme of admirable wisdom,
to reconcile opposite attributes rights and claims in mercy
to the penitent guilty; it at once declared the love and
( 78 )
justice of the Sovereign Lord of man: and the scheme is
commended by two most important considerations, which
lie level to every man's understanding, that it is at once the
strongest expression of the love of God, and affords the
firmest hope to guilty man: all these ideas we find in the
New Testament. Other doctrines might be adduced, in
which some rays of rational evidence beam forth from
the depths of those mysteries in which they are still embo-
somed; and I will grant, that it is one of our most de-
lightful employments to collect these rays, and, with them,
at once to illuminate, adorn, and defend our systems; for
this “glory is a defence,” though not their only or chief
one. It may be granted, too, that the pleasure arising from
this discovery of the rational evidence of the truths of our
holy religion, is a powerful motive to such investigations.
There is more virtue in faith; but more pleasure in know-
ledge. There is, in this, a rising from the child to the man;
an approximation to the illuminations of a future state;
and, probably, the minds of the pious are thus previously
disciplined for the more vigorous efforts of the intellect in .
the full vision of God. All this I most readily allow; to
deny it, would be to surround our religion with an exclu-
sive aspect of stern command and authority, and deprive it
of its traits of affecting condescension.
But from all these admissions, the principles laid down
by Dr. Clarke derive not the slightest support. It is very
probable that the satisfaction enquiring men have felt, when
these discoveries have been made; the clearness and con-
viction brought to their reason by them; may have led to
the erroneous idea, that reason itself is an adequate judge of
such doctrines; and from having decided so much to their
own edification on these points, and with so much consistency
with the truth of God, they have had confidence enough
in their reason to approach unexplained mysteries with it,
in hope of similar success; but they have utterly over-
looked the great facts of the case, it was not their reason
that made the discovery of the rational evidence of any of
the lower doctrines we have mentioned; but God who was
( 79 )
pleased to accompany them with some discovery of their
reasonableness: human reason was but the receptive, not
the discursive faculty; and the principles of our former
knowledge appealed to by the word of God, principles
which before were without any authoritative application to
such subjects, became from that moment fixed in an appro-
priate application to them by the authority of God himself.
I may very aptly adduce for an illustration the words of
Christ I have already cited, “If ye who are earthly know
how to give good gifts,” &c. No process of human reason-
ing could have inferred from the tenderness of earthly
parents, the superior compassions of our heavenly Father
towards us. At every stage of such a process we should
have been met by the chilling considerations of the im-
mense difference in these relations; and the majesty of the
sovereign, and the guilt of rebels, would have presented
themselves in company with the relations of father and
children. The comparison is now one on which we may
erect our hope with confidence; because it is authorized,
and the reason of the case is determined by the revelation
of God: and this applies equally to every instance in
which our understandings are not only enriched with doc-
trines, but our judgment instructed by the reasons with
which God has been pleased to accompany them. So far
then are these interesting condescensions to the reason of
man in the revelation of God, from supporting the prin-
ciple that every doctrine which will not bear the test of
rational examination ought to be rejected, that nothing lies
more strongly against it. So far from this circumstance
giving any qualification to reason to judge of doctrines
of which no rational evidence is afforded in revelation; that
even as to those doctrines which have some degree of ac-
companying rational evidence, human reason cannot add
to the evidence. It may place it in different views, pre-
sent it in various arrangements; but it owes all its light to
the revelation, and cannot go beyond it. With even the
clue in its hand it extricates itself no farther from the laby-
rinth, than it is led by the hand of inspiration. Take for
( 80 )
instance the doctrine of atonement. Some illustrations, as
I have observed, of this great display of the wisdom of
God are found in the sacred record; but all that has been
written on the subject in the way of rational defence, from
the commencement of Christianity until now, (and it has
employed the most able pens,) has been no more than an
amplification of the doctrine briefly but fully stated in
Scripture, that it is an efficient scheme for uniting the
rights and character of the moral Governor of the world
with a merciful regard to his guilty creatures and subjects,
with some other collateral representations. What more
than this has been said, has been felt, both by its author
and his readers, as conjecture and theory, which has had no
authority, because it has had no demonstration. If this
then be the fact as to doctrines whose reasons are partly
revealed, how can reason be the judge of those which are
stated on naked authority—all here is darkness, which if
the sun has not dispersed, the light of the glow-worm shall
approach it in vain. Where eternal reason has not beamed,
human reason cannot be enlightened.
The conclusion of these observations on the office of
reason in religion may be thus summed up,-the office of
reason is to judge of the evidences of the record professing
to be a revelation from God; when we are satisfied of the
divine authority of Scripture, our understanding is to be
employed humbly, and with dependance upon God, in as-
certaining its sense; and whatever doctrine is there stated,
or necessarily implied by the harmony of its different parts,
is to be admitted, believed, and held fast, whether it cor-
roborate or contradict the notions which our previous or
collateral reasonings have led us to adopt. e
I know that there is nothing here so dazzling as in the
principles on which I have animadverted; it is more flat-
tering to the human mind to be accounted a judge, than
to be reduced to the rank of a scholar; to be placed in a
condition to summon divine wisdom to its bar, and oblige
it to give account of the reasons of its decisions, than to
receive them upon authority; but this is the safe, because
( 81 )
the humble path; and I greatly mistake if it be not also
the true way to high illumination in the things of God.
“ The meek he will teach in his way.” It is to the patient
prayerful study of divine truth, by its own light, that its
harmonies, and connections, and beauties most freely re-
veal themselves, as the bud discloses to the solar light the
graces it refuses to the hand of violence.
I am not unaware that the learned commentator on whom
I have so freely remarked will, at least partially, demur to
the view I have given of the principles he has laid down in the
conclusion of his valuable work; I have drawn them out
to a length to which he probably did not mean them to ex-
tend. This I am anxious to believe; but my business is
with what he has said, and not with what he might intend;
for it is by what he has said that his opinions will influence
and direct others in their religious inquiries. The prin-
ciples have been taken in their true logical sense, and in
the meaning of the terms in which they are expressed, as
those terms are and must be understood in the conven-
tional language of mankind. There are great errors, in
my view, in the principles themselves after every explanation
which can accord with the meaning of language has been
given; but there are still greater arising out of the loose and
even contradictory manner in which they are expressed. If
followed out as they stand in the commentary, they would
inevitably lead to the greatest errors; and if by some
subtlety Dr. Clarke can himself accommodate them to cor-
rect views on religious subjects, he ought certainly to have
remembered, that his readers have not generally that
adroitness. If he can poise himself in walking the bridge
he has thrown over the gulphs of error, a bridge narrowed
to greater sharpness than that which Mahomet is said to
have laid for the transit of the faithful from earth to heaven,
he would have done well to consider how many, less ex-
perienced than himself, would also venture upon it, and
how many may probably be plunged into a gulph of too
hopeless a depth to admit return. This is a serious Con-
F
( 82 )
sideration, which he has too much regard for the truths he
holds sacred, and too much love for the souls of men, not
to be impressed with. He has authority, but that imposes
the obligation of severe caution upon, the writer who pos-
sesses it; and I do hope, though what I can say on the
subject cannot be supposed to have great weight with him,
that when he reflects upon the number of his readers, and
the extent of influence which his commentary possesses;
that the opinions of so many of our young people will be
formed upon it, and that it is in the nature of man to
overlook the good principles in such a work, and to fix
chiefly on those which are exceptionable; and especially
that the turn of thinking among the young men who are
introduced into the ministry, in that body of which he is
so distinguished an ornament, will probably be greatly de-
termined by their constant recourse to his biblical labours;
that he will feel greatly anxious to remove from a work
which will carry down his name to posterity with honour,
any principle which, however innocently held by himself,
can by probable construction lead to Arian and Socinian
errors, and smooth the path
C &
To that Serbonian bog
Where armies whole have sunk.”
This remark I apply chiefly to his concluding observa-
tions on the subject of reason; a page which, if not entirely
cancelled, can only be rendered harmless by being par-
tially expünged. Surely it must be one of the noblest
objects of the ambition of the author of a work of so much
authority and influence, that, it should not contain an in-
jurious principle, not even a line—
“Which dying, he would wish to blot.”
Before I conclude a letter, which has lengthened under my
hands much beyond my first intention, I shall introduce a few
remarks on the arguments from reason, which Dr. Clarke
has turned against the doctrine of the eternal sonship of our
( 83 )
Lord. From what I have already said, you will perceive
that I cannot attach great importance to this part of the
discussion. If the principles laid down in the preceding
pages be correct, it is of small consideration whether the
doctrine in question be to me reasonable or not, provided
I find it in the sense of Scripture; and I hold it to be a
proper homage to such principles to say, that the truth
itself is not to be prejudiced by the reasonings of men.
The objections of Dr. Clarke on this subject are, however,
by no means inexpugnable, and that they may be before
you I quote them below.(3)
To these objections, which to me appear extremely
futile, as founded upon mere human analogies, and in which
there is substantially nothing beyond a comparison between
nan and man, though the comparison is ostensibly what
indeed it ought in fairness to have been in reality, between
man and God; the following quotation from a note by the
Editor of Doddridge's Lectures, printed in 1804, appears
an ample answer.
“Persons of opposite sentiments in other respects have
objected to the terms eternal generation, and begotten, when
applied to a person properly divine, as implying derivation
and inferiority ; and censures have been liberally (or rather
illiberally) cast on those who hold the sentiment, as if
(3) “If Christ be the Son of God as to his divine nature, then he cannot be
eternal ; for Son implies a Father, and Father implies in reference to Son,
preceding in time, if not in nature too. Father and Son imply the idea of
generation ; and generation implies a time in which it was effected, and time
also antecedent to such generation. If Christ be the Son of God as to his
divine nature, then the Father is of necessity prior, consequently superior to
him. Again, if this divine nature were begotten of the Father, then it must
be in time ; i. e. there was a period in which it did not exist, and a period
when it began to exist. This destroys the etermity of our blessed Lord, and
robs him at once of his Godhead. To say that he was begotten from all
eternity, is in my opinion absurd, and the phrase eternal Son is a positive
contradiction. Eternity is that which has had no beginning, nor stands in any
reference to time. Son supposes time, generation, and father, and time also
antecedent to such generation. Therefore the conjunction of these two terms
Son and eternity is absolutely impossible, as they imply essentially different,
and opposite ideas.” Note on Luke i. 35.
F 2
( 84 )
either destitute of common sense, or disposed to digest con-
tradictions. But may we not suppose, without any forfeiture
of candour, that such a censure may possibly be too preci-
pitate, by assuming that they fully comprehended the sen-
timent expressed by such terms: The following hints, dis-
claiming the tone of a dictator, are submitted to conside-
ration:— - -
“1. The terms generation and begetting do not include
any voluntary act ad extra ; for if so, they who use them
would have no cause of difference with Arians; but rather
denote a necessary act ad intra. They hold that as the
divine existence, life and activity are independent on will;
so is personality.
“2. Another consideration of great moment in this con-
troversy, but often very much out of sight, is the strict
coexistence of Persons. For want of due attention to the
nature of the subject, the mind is deceived by the sound
of words; for no sooner is it said, that the Son is “the
only begotten of the Father,” than we form, if unguarded,
the idea of priority in the Father, and posteriority in the
Son. But even among men, motwithstandiug the infinite
disparity between the first cause and a human being, between
the voluntary acts of a creature and a necessary property of
God, it would be difficult if not impossible to form an idea
of Fatherhood and Sonship, but as correlative and co-
existent. One may indeed exist as a man before his son,
but not as the father of such a son. In the order of exist-
ence, as conceived by a Trinitarian, the notion of essence
is prior to that of personality, as it is prior to that of at-
tributes; but as to personal relations, or positive modes of
subsistence, there is no more reason to suppose priority,
than there is in saying that goodness in God is prior to
wisdom, and power posterior to both.
“ 3. Through carnal associations we find a difficulty in
preserving the subject itself, and that to which it bears a
partial analogy sufficiently distinct. Thus, among men,
a father has a personal subsistence prior to his fatherhood ;
but not so in the present subject. In this doctrine no per-
( 85 )
sonal subsistence is to be conceived prior to fatherhood and
sonship; nay, these relations are supposed to constitute the
personalities. For if there be no Son there can be no per-
sonal Father, and vice versa. The term “Father,” is not
always used in a personal sense, but often answers to the
Creator, because we are his offspring; or Governor, because
we are his family.
“4. The proper use of illustrations by comparison is
not to prove the doctrine, but to shew from analogy the
possibility of what is apprehended to be the collected mean-
ing of revelation on the subject. Suppose then the infinite
mind, as to essence, to be necessarily active, or life itself;
is there any thing unreasonable in the thought of a terminus
a quo, and a terminºus ad quem relative to this essential energy
and life antecedent to will 2 Is it impossible that these ter-
mini should contribute relative properties, which may not
improperly be called subsistences or persons 2 Is it not
possible that this infinite and infinitely active life, should be
denominated, according to the collective sense of revelation,
as a relative property a quo, the Father ; and the same life,
as a relative property ad quem, the Son ; while the essential
energy of this life terminating ad quem is eternal generation,
or begetting? Again, is there any thing absurd in the sup-
position that this infinitely active life proceeding in medio a
duobus terminis should constitute another distinctive rela-
tive property called Spirit”
“ 5. In all works ad eatra, the effects of power and will,
no one person acts exclusively of the other; therefore no
work ad extra, whether Creation, Redemption, or any
other whatever, can be the distinguishing cause of these re-
lative properties. Is it not then a possible and a rational
notion and intelligible language, when it is said, that Father,
Son, and Spirit, (into the name of whom Christians were
to be baptized) are these positive, real, or personal modes
of subsistence in God, or one infinitely active life? and, that
the Son of God, by eternal generation, assumed our nature
into personal union with himself, thus constituting a glorious
( 86 )
Mediator between sinners and the divine nature, which,
though in itself Love, is consuming fire to offenders.
“The sentiment of eternal generation, and that which
represents Father, Son, and Spirit, as terms of distinctive
personal relations, seems much less exceptionable to many
who have long considered both sides, than that which holds
these terms as expressive of works or offices ad extra, while
yet a Trinity of Persons is acknowledged. For it may be
urged, either these divine persons have essential distinctive
characters, or they have not ; if not, with what propriety
can they be called three persons 2 The idea of three distinct
beings is disclaimed, and yet here are supposed three persons
without any difference of distinctive characters; that is, a
diversity without any assignable ground of difference. But
if they have essential distinctive characters, what are they
if not those held by consistent Athanasians, in some respects
corresponding with the terms begetting, begotten, and pro-
ceeding, as before explained 2 If it be said, the works of
redemption; it may be replied, these are works ad extra,
and therefore belong to each person. Is any divine perfec-
tion, as love, goodness, mercy, wisdom, power, or the like,
a sufficient ground of personal distinction ? Surely that
person is not divine that possesses not each alike, and in
an infinite degree.”
The sum of this argument, as to the paternity of the first
person of the Trinity and the eternal sonship of the second,
divested of its scholastic form, may be thus placed against
the objections of Dr. Clarke.
“Son,” says Dr. C. “implies a father, and father im-
plies, in reference to son, precedency in time.” This is,
substantially, all that is said in refutation of the doctrine;
for the rest is this argument put only in different forms.
Now, in “reference to Son,” no priority of the Father is sup-
posed in the doctrine of the divine sonship of Christ: for no
father, as father, is prior to his son; and no son, as son,
is posterior to his father; no one is a father who has not a
SOIle
( 87 )
Nor is it true as to the divine nature, that if Christ be
the begotten of the Father, he must have been produced in
“ time,” and consequently cannot be eternal; for this mode
of existence implies no voluntary act, which is merely assumed
by Dr. Clarke. It neither necessarily implies it, nor is the
term used by divines in this sense. If the whole existence of
God be a necessary existence, them all its essential modes and
relations are necessarily existent too, and therefore eternal;
and if the correlatives, Father and Son, are used to express
essential, necessarily existent, and, consequently, eternal rela-
tions; in this there is nothing contradictory. Derivation may
be an essential attribute, and is often so in fact. It is an es-
sential property of the sun to give light; and the beaming of
the light is therefore co-existent with the sun, because an
essential property. Christ is therefore called, in the Nicene
creed, “light of light,” in perfect accordance with inspired
Scripture, where his designation is “the streaming forth,
the refulgence of his Father's glory;” and is therefore
coeval with him. Again, among men the relation of son,
though it cannot suppose the priority of a father, as a
father, does yet suppose his priority as a man, this arises
out of circumstances utterly incapable of application to God,
though Dr. Clarke has confounded them. Before a man
can be capable of the relation of father, he must himself be
born and come to maturity; but where is the comparison
between such a being and him who is “from everlasting to
everlasting God,” who has ever existed in the potentiality and
energy of his nature. There is and can be no resemblance;
he is essential and perfect life, and was so from everlasting.
Little, therefore, as I think of the argument from reason,
the reason is not on the other side; and no sufficient proofs
have been urged against the doctrine by its opponents.
For any thing that even reason can demonstrate, Christ
may be a Son, and yet eternal; eternally flowing from
the bosom of paternal Deity, who is the first in order,
though not in time. The first person in the adorable
Trinity may be a Father without priority of being; and
we may still, in the sense in which the words have been
2
( 88 )
commonly understood, join together in our worship and
say, “Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.” But a
truce to these reasonings; I willingly give them all up for
a single word of the testimony of God. I affect them not;
they seem to bring me too irreverently near to God; I
would not “break through and gaze;” and I feel, while I
write, how just and yet how reproving are the words of the
Poet of paradise;
“ Dark with earcessive light his skirts appear
Yet dazzle heaven ; that brightest seraphim
•Approach not ; but with both wings veil their eyes.”
I shall conclude, therefore, by only noticing an opinion
which has been given by some, that provided the Deity of
Christ be held, the tenet of his eternal sonship is of trifling
import, whether true or not. From this opinion I dissent
for the following reasons.
1. No man who loves the truth can consent to a doc-
trine, great or small, which has even any show of being
taught in the word of God, being given up, except on
scriptural evidence. The principle of rejecting it, because
it is not a reasonable doctrine, is one which, if the doctrine
itself were of minor importance, is so serious in its conse-
quences, as to unsettle the faith of men in all Christian
mysteries, from the great “mystery of Godliness, God
manifest in the flesh,” to every other.
2. I cannot consider any thing which the Bible has
declared concerning Christ to be unimportant. What God
has determined to be so important as to make the subject
of a revelation, is surely of sufficient importance for man
to consider it with all seriousness.
3. But the subject is in itself of the highest importance,
connected as it is with the personality of our Lord. If
there be not a Trinity of persons in the Godhead, I cannot
conceive of a divine atonement for sin. If God had not
had a Son to send into the world, by whom the world
might be saved, no other being in heaven or earth was
º ( 89 )
adequate to offer a full, perfect, and sufficient oblation and
satisfaction for the sins of the human race. The notions
of a Trinity, and of such an atonement have, as might be
expected from their necessary connexion, in most cases
stood or fallen together. Any doctrine therefore which at all
goes to weaken the evidence of the essential personality of
Christ, ought to be considered a very serious one; and the
denial of the eternal sonship of Christ is unquestionably a
great abatement of this evidence. Besides “Son of God,”
there is, as far as I recollect, no other term applied to
Christ, which simply and in itself, and without recurring
to other evidence, expresses his divine personality. “LoRD”
does not—that may apply to the authority of the Deity
considered as one, or may be an official name of Christ;”
“JESUs” does not—that is a designation of his humanity;
“CHRIST’” does not—that too is an official term; “WoRD”
does not—if it signify discourse, it is a term of office; if
reason or wisdom it is, as far as the mere term goes, no-
thing more than the name of a quality; and has becn con-
sidered by the perverters of God's word, in the first chapter
of St. John's gospel, as no more than an attribute of God
personified; but let the term “Son of God” be established
as the scriptural designation of the divine nature of our
Lord and Saviour; and the idea of divine and proper per-
sonality is eternally preserved in our opinions respecting
him—let us show first, that the Son is divine, and we
escape Socinianism ; and second, that he is divine as a
Son, and we shun the Sabellian heresy; that sliding path
which infallibly, though by easy descent, has conducted
thousands to join the ranks of those who “deny the Lord
that bought them.”
It has, I know, been urged as a reason by some, for
adopting Dr. Clarke's views on the sonship of Christ, that
they remove a difficulty from the doctrine of the Trinity.
This indeed is their most delusive aspect and the more may
cursory readers be influenced by the fallacy, as they feel
that the Deity of Christ is an essential doctrine of Chris-
tianity. But does the difficulty from which they think
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themselves relieved, press upon their faith, or upon their
reason If upon the former, a moral defect is to be sus-
pected; for whoever feels it difficult to admit the testimony
of God in his word, is not brought under the full moral
influence of the gospel. The question still recurs, Is the
eternal sonship of Christ a doctrine of Scripture? If it
be rejected because the Bible is silent on the subject, the
proceeding is legitimate; if, because it is a difficulty, and
the depositions of Scripture are to be disregarded that the
difficulty may not press, the ground is changed; and we
have laid down the principle that we will believe no diffi-
cult doctrine, though the Scriptures declare it. On such
a basis no Christian system can possibly stand; it is a
pyramid on its point nodding to its fall. But if a difficulty
be removed from our reason, our joy in the discovery ought
not to be suffered to take its excursions of airy delight,
until we first interrogate ourselves, whether the doctrine be
one which can in its nature be tested by reason 2 whether
in this process we have proceeded on authority? Sober
theologians would also inquire, whether by freeing our-
selves from one difficulty we do not entangle ourselves in
many others; whether we shall not find, on the newly
adopted scheiße, additional difficulty in establishing the
personalities in the Godhead; whether we shall not find it,
not merely more difficult, but even impossible, to make out
any meaning of half the passages in the sacred volume
which speak of Christ as the Son of God, except by those
lax and paraphrastic interpretations which we so justly
protest against in those whose heresies we condemn, and
which yield a meaning much below our present faith. This
would be to purchase a relief from difficulty at much too
dear a price; but in itself, and separate from consequences,
the relief is worth nothing. It is, to my mind at least, a
very strong argument d priori, against any scheme, that it
renders a doctrine of pure revelâtion less difficult to reason.
I am inclined to say of it as CHILLINGwo R. H of novelties,
“What is new in divinity is false.” All such doctrines, as
to human reason, whether they are contrary to it, or tran-
4.
( 91 )
scend it, are in their nature difficult, and diſficult because they
are true; and (startling as it may appear to those who pay so
much homage to the efficiency of their reason,) difficult in
proportion as they are revealed. “God manifest, revealed
in the flash,” constitutes emphatically the “GREAT mystery
of godliness.” The pretence of relieving the difficulties of
such subjects has, in all ages of the church, smoothed the
path to error. Arianism came in with this promise; So-
cinianism gave further relief to rational difficulties; Deism
cut the knot, and spurned the fragments. “To the law
then and to the testimony.” The outer court is yet our
place; the veil of the holiest is not yet drawn aside except
to faith; and the great virtue of divines, like that of writers,
is to know where to stop. -
I am, dear Sir,
Your's truly,
RICHARD WATSON.
London, Jan. 10, 1818.
-nº-
PRINTED BY T. cord Eux, 14, city RoAD, London.