does not once occur? Almost the whole of the first century passes away; the sacred canon is nearly completed; yet the Godhead of Christ,-a topic of unspeakable importance, and of perpetual reference,-remains without a distinctive designation. Oversight, inadvertence, or accident, in an inspired volume are, of course, out of the question; and that an omission so remarkable should have been of set purpose seems absolutely incredible.

Once more: whatever exposition we give to the term "Logos," in its application to our Lord's Divinity, it is liable to the exception advanced with so much confidence against the like reference of the title "Son of God." Derivation is as essential to the one as to the other; and, so far as the principle of the argument is concerned, it is of little consequence whether we call it generation, or describe it in some other way. He therefore who, on this ground, denies the doctrine of eternal filiation, is bound in consistency to repudiate the title "Logos" as inapplicable to the Deity of Christ. But this cannot be done without violence to the testimony of the Evangelist. The only alternative is the renunciation of a piece of reasoning so fallacious and delusive.

IN the age of St. John, the doctrine of a divine generation was extensively received. It was common at once to the theology of the Jew, and the orientalized philosophy of the Greek; and so strongly had it laid hold upon the faith of men as eventually to be extended to all intelligent existences. It was this tenet, in an exaggerated and distorted form, which systematized the most pernicious heresies in the primitive church; numerous Æons or emanations being fancied or feigned possessing a divine geniture and a certain sort of consubstantiality. This figment, in all probability, had begun to develope itself during the lifetime of St. John; and, in the following century, as taught by Valentinus and others of less note, assumed a prominent position among dogmas of the age.

Let it, then, be supposed that this opinion is absolutely and altogether without foundation; that divine generation is entirely and with every possible exposition, a mere dream; that in the Deity there neither is, nor can be, an emanative production,-which is, I apprehend, the judgment of such as deny the eternal filiation of Christ;-and let us then inquire, what, under the circumstances just recited, would be the part of a judicious and faithful theological writer? Many things, perfectly allowable in others, in him would certainly be liable to misconstruction. Expressions of doctrine, and modes of general phraseology, which in ordinary cases might pass without concern, would have to be submitted to the most vigilant scrutiny. In particular, all titles of equivocal character, such as might possibly convey the

popular idea of divine generation, it would be necessary cautiously to avoid; or if allowed, occasionally and with special design so to restrict and qualify as to leave no doubt of the writer's sense.

Nor, in the case of St. John, would the duty terminate here. The express purpose of his works was to set men right upon the person of our blessed Redeemer, to suppress whatever was erroneous, and to give the finishing strokes to the portraiture of his Master's glory and greatness. It was the last act of the last of the Apostles, under the influence of the last exhibition of plenary inspiration. Every consideration conspires to assure us, that had the doctrine in question been false, it would not only have been without encouragement, but would have been rejected in terms the most express and positive.

How then stands the fact? In every respect precisely the reverse. Of all the writers of the New Testament, John alone seems studiously to have set himself to give confirmation and sanction to the notion in question, and to assign to it its precise place in the system of evangelical theology. In St. John's Gospel, the title of most frequent occurrence is "Son of God." Beyond the other Evangelists, he delights in its employment; and though in their narratives it might have passed without awakening our surprise, yet by him, in the case supposed, nothing could be more indiscreet, nothing more certain to mislead his readers than such a selec

tion. It occurs, too, without counterpoise or restriction. In a narrative which altogether referred to our Lord's humiliation, which only recorded the incidents illustrative of his humanity, it might possibly have occurred, without demanding a direct reference to divine generation, the lowliness of the narrative proving an antidote to the illusive dignity of the title. But St. John's Gospel treats studiously of Christ's most exalted

ONLY-BEGOTTEN.'

and eternal majesty; and in this connexion it is that the appellation, "Son of God," is continually found.

In the narrative of St. Luke, the term under consideration is supposed to be referred to the miraculous production of the Messiah's manhood; and by some theologians that incident is thought adequate to repress and counteract every more lofty idea which otherwise might possibly be entertained. But to this fact St. John makes no allusion, and from his narrative only, no one would suspect any peculiarity in our Lord's human production. So that the title, "Son of God," standing in connexion with the highest glories of the Mediator's person and work, and without check or counterpoise, was thus presented to minds almost universally imbued with the doctrine of a divine generative production.

ment.

But "Son of God" was a phrase employed by the other Evangelists. It was venerable by prescription; its sense was ascertained: might it not then be tolerated even in this connexion? Be it so, for the sake of the arguOur Evangelist has titles of his own. Of these, one has been considered in the foregoing section, "the Logos." But this has the same association: the Logos of the Jew was begotten of the Father; the Logos of the Platonist and the Gnostic was equally the subject of generation; while in itself the term is inseparably connected with the idea of emanative production. Here also, far from there being anything to qualify its sense or restrict its dignity, it is exalted to the highest possible conception :-"The Logos was God."

But our Apostle is not contented with selecting from the appellations sanctioned by other sacred writers the title which, beyond all others, directly conveys the doctrine of divine generation; nor even with borrowing from the theology of the age a term essentially connected with the same idea. He introduces a new designation of the Messiah, one wholly his own; being found neither

in other parts of Scripture, nor in the theosophy of the times; and one which embodies the notion in question with a fulness and an emphasis altogether without parallel. He calls our Lord, Monogenes, "THE ONLY BEGOTTEN." Be it still borne in mind that the object of the Gospel is to vindicate the Deity of Christ; that this is the scope of the entire argument. And with a purpose so great and momentous, and for the exaltation of the Lord Jesus to the utmost limit of human thought, the Apostle leaves the track of his predecessors, and introduces into the evangelical nomenclature a term altogether novel, styling him, "THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER."

Nor is the use of this epithet a bare recognition of the popular doctrine of divine generation. That doctrine was, in one respect, seriously erroneous; since it assigned to the Logos a generated nature in common with other beings. As far at least as intelligences were concerned, it approached in fact to semi-Pantheism. Hence by Philo the WORD is called the first Begotten, (πрwτóуovos Aóyos.) But the Evangelist declines the employment of this phrase, which indirectly would have sanctioned the absurdities of Gnosticism, and subsequently the more complete emanative system of Valentinus. In its stead, he uses the epithet, only Begotten (uovoyevns). While thus, on the one hand, the fundamental doctrine of a divine generative production is admitted, there is due caution, on the other, to confine it to the Logos. In a sense which none can approach, and which none can in any degree participate, he is divinely begotten, sole and supreme in his generation; being the true God, the Creator of the universe, of (ek) the Father, with (pòs) the Father, from (Tapà) the Father.

*

In harmony with these views, every passage in which

*See Drusius in John i. 14.

M