66 exhibited in the Son, as the effulgence of his glory. He maintained an eternal generation of the Son, but rejected every mode of expression, and every illustration borrowed from material objects, as utterly inconsistent with the spirituality of the Supreme Being. He objected to the expres sion, "generation from the divine essence," (yandis èx sys ούσιας του Θεού,) as implying that God was capable of division. Tertullian's mode of thinking, was far less refined. could," as Neander (Kirchengeschichte, p. 1035,) says, "very well conceive, according to his emanation theory, how a being could emanate from the Godhead, possessed of the same substance, though in a less degree; just as a ray emanates from the Sun. He maintained, therefore, one divine essence in three intimately united persons." Una substantia in tribus cohaerentibus. And says of the Son, Deus de Deo, modulo alter, non numero. The mode of explaining this doctrine, adopted by the Nicene Fathers is familiar to every one. "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made, &c." Since this period, this has been the general, though by no means, the universal, method of speaking on this subject. Amongst Protestant divines, there is a general coincidence as to the manner of explaining the generation of the Son of God. It is commonly defined to be, "an eternal and incomprehensible communication of the same numerical essence, from the Father to the Son." Not that the divine essence produces another divine essence, but the Father, as a Person, communicates the same divine essence to the * Eterna et incomprehensibilis, ejusdem numero divinae essentiae communicatio a Patre facta Filio. De Moor Com. in Markii Comp. Tom. I. p. 742. Son.* It will be seen at once, that this is not a simple statement of a Bible-fact, but a philosophical explanation of what the Scriptures are supposed to teach, viz. that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. This definition is founded almost exclusively on the idea of generation itself, and has arisen from urging unduly the analogy of the relation between Father and Son, among men, when applied to God. De Moor expressly says, we must consider the generation of Christ, as including all that is essential to the idea of generation; and as among men, generation is the communication of life, therefore, there must be a like communication in the case of the Son of God. See De Moor Tom. I. p. 736. This analogy, and the passage in John v. 26, in which the Father is said to have given the Son to have life in himself,(which some of the advocates of this doctrine explain as referring to Christ in his divine nature,) are almost the only grounds, as far as we know, for this particular view of the subject. It should be remarked, however, that the venerable men, who felt themselves constrained to present the doctrine in question, in this light, were very far from attaching any of those gross ideas, to the phrase "communication of the divine essence," which have been supposed to be necessarily included in it. They expressly state, in what sense they use the expression; that all ideas, inconsistent with the spirituality and infinite perfection of God, are to be excluded from it; and consequently, all idea of posteriority, dedependence, or change. Generatio, non nisi summa üregox Deo tribuitur, ita omnes imperfectiones, quae finitam creaturarum generationem sequi solent a generatione hac divina. longissime sunt removendae, nimirum dependentia, successio mutatio, divisio, multiplicatio, &c., De Moor, p. 736. If it be said, that the ideas of posteriority, dependence, and mu * Generatio inquam Filii à Patre, non enim essentia gignit essentian sed Persona generat personam. De Moor Commentarius in Joh. Markii Compendium, Theol. Christ. Caput V. § 8. tability are necessarily included in this phrase, and that is these be denied, the very thing asserted is denied; the friends of this definition would say, that all such objections arise from transferring the gross ideas which we derive from sensible objects, to an infinite spirit. That it is just as impossible to conceive how the Father and Son should have the same divine essence, and yet remained distinct persons, as that this essence should be communicated from one to the other. And we are free to confess that if the à priori objections urged against this doctrine, are to be considered valid, we cannot see how we can consistently remain believers in God's omnipresence, eternity, or any other doctrine which is confessedly incomprehensible. We are not, however, the advocates of this definition, nor do we consider it, as at all essential to the doctrine of Christ's divine and eternal Sonship. It has never secured the favor of many who are firm believers in this doctrine. Lampe, in his Commentary on John v. 26, expressly rejects the interpretation of the passage, which is considered as the chief ground of this particular view of the Sonship of Christ. The life there said to be given to the Son, cannot, he maintains, be referred to his divine nature; because such a gift would be inconsistent with his independence and necessary existence. He opposes strenuously, the idea of any communication of essence, and yet declares, se Generationem Filii Dei naturalem, ad ipsam divinam essentiam pertinentem, unicam, aeternam absolute necessariam, sancto agnoscere, libere confiteri masculeque asserere. See Preface to Vol. III. of his Commentary. It is true that Lampe, by many of his Brethren, was blamed for taking this course, and they accused him of thus committing an "atrocious injury," on the cause of orthodoxy. This, however, does not alter the case, nor affect the correctness of our position, that the doctrine of Christ's divine Sonship does not consist in this idea of the communication of essence. The same view of John v. 26. as that presented by Lampe, had been given before, by Calvin, Beza, and many others. Morus, in his Commentarius Exegeticus in suam Theol. Christ. Epitomen Tom. I. p. 256, would explain the doctrine thus Filius per Patrem est, et talis, qualis est, per Patrem est; which in the language of the church, would be, Filius natus est ex Patre, and in philosophical language, Pater cum Filio essentiam communicavit. On page 249, and seq. when speaking of the appellation vios TOU esou as applied to Christ, he says, Significatus dogmaticus nominis vios TOU EU huc redit: aequalis Deo, qui habet eandem naturam; eadem attributa, eadem opera, quae Puter. Such passages as John v. 26; Matthew xxviii. 18, and John xvii. 2, in which life, power, and ability to save, are said to be given to the Son, he understands, not as referring to Christ as mediator but as God, and consequently as affording ground for the statement, that the Son has what he has, and is what he is, through the Father. He appears to lay no stress upon the philosophical definition of the Sonship, so often mentioned; but says that we should tell the people, that when they hear the word generation used in reference to Christ, they should think that the Son is even as the Father, has the same essence and the same attributes; that he can and does do whatever the Father does. Only the Son is through the Father. Knapp, in his Vorlesungen über die Christliche Glaubenslehre Erster Theil, p. 214, in speaking of the sense in which God is called the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, after stating that the expression sometimes refers to the relation which Jesus, as the Saviour of men, sustains to the Father, says that "it undeniably refers in several passages, to a certain internal relation in the Godhead, of the Godhead of Jesus to the Godhead of the Father; the real nature of which, however, the Bible has nowhere clearly explained, and which indeed must be incomprehensible to men. Only the Son, says he, has all from the Father, although he makes himself equal with God." In like manner he maintains that the name vios TOU EOU in Rom. i. 3-4; John v. 17; John i. and Heb. i., unquestionably refers to the divine nature of Christ. The name Son of God, he says, should only awaken in us the idea of the participation of Christ in the divine essence-that he is of the same nature with the Father, even as among men, a son is of the same nature with his parent. Zacharia, in his Biblische Theologie, Göttingen, 1775, vol. I. p. 503, gives, as the result of his examination of the Scriptural doctrine of the Sonship of Christ, in substance the following statement. There is in God himself, that is, in the divine essence, an internal relation which has some similarity to the relation between Father and Son among men. This follows from the names Father and Son, if these names refer, as in his opinion they do, to the first and second persons in the Trinity as such, and are founded on their rela tion the one to the other. This relation includes the idea of the sameness of nature, and this is the only idea essential to it. Every thing else included in it, being merely human, cannot be transferred to God. The Son, therefore, must have the divine nature because the Father has it, or in other words, there must be a certain relation, in virtue of which, the Son is a partaker of the divine nature or essence. A nearer or more definite explanation of the nature of this relation between the Father and the Son, cannot be given, on account of our limited knowledge of the divine Being; or because there is nothing analogous to it among men. And at best our analogical knowledge of God extends but a little way. This relation must have existed from eternity, and is therefore a necessary and unchanging relation. The idea of generation, strictly speaking, considered as an internal act of the Father, by which he confers the distinct character of Son to the second person in the Trinity, is |