2. In nearly every mention of the Second Person, as the "Son of God," he is spoken of as inferior to the Father, dependent on him, or subordinate to him. In this same first mention of him, under this title, he is represented under all these aspects. The Father has set him where he is, implying his inferiority. He is encouraged to ask a boon, by the promise that it shall be granted him, implying his dependence; and, in the proclamation that the Son has been placed as his King, by the Father, in the holy hill of Zion, his subordination to the Father is clearly intimated. He, himself, says, "I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me"-"The Son can do nothing of himself""The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son""As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." No Trinitarian believes, or can believe, that the Second Person in the Godhead is or can be, by original relation or from nature, inferior to the First, dependent on, or subordinate to him; and yet, as Son, this is not only indicated, but clearly affirmed of him. Could this be the case, if the title were original and expressive of the natural relation between those Persons? I think not.

3. Once more. Were Son the proper, the natural designation of the Second Person, is it not natural to suppose that, when the great work for the accomplishment of which that Person condescended to an inferior, dependent, and subordinate position, was performed, he should, under that title, reassert his proper equality with the First Person? But is this the view which the sacred writers afford us of the closing scene of that great achievement? The apostle Paul, 1st Cor. xv, 24-28, thus represents the matter; Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." That the Second Person of the Divine Trinity is, in the redemption of man, by voluntary condescension, inferior to, dependent on, and subordinate to the First, is clear-

ly apparent throughout the sacred volume; and that he is so under the appellation of "the Son of God," has been sufficiently shown; and yet, in the above passage, St. Paul represents, as the final act in the administration of the mediatorial government, the subjection of the Son, with the express view that, thenceforth, "God might be all in all." How can any one fail to perceive that, as soon as the great work of man's redemption shall have been completed, the relation of Son (and the cognate relation of Father too) is to be suppressed, as having relation only to that work'; and that God will be thenceforth known only in the attributes of his own infinite nature, and in the unspeakable mystery of his triune existence! If Son were the proper title of the Second Person-if that title were expressive of his natural relation to the First-there is no conceivable sense, I apprehend, in which, at the close of the mediatorial reign, "The Son himself should be subject," and I therefore conclude that such is not the fact. In other words, I conclude that he is not the eternal Son of God, though the Son of God, and eternal in his being and his godhead.

II. The second opinion, concerning the Sonship of Christ, is that he is the Son of God only as regards his human nature. This is the opinion of Dr. A. Clarke. In his note on Luke i, 35, he says, "We may plainly perceive here that the angel does not give the appellation of Son of Godto the divine nature of Christ, but to the holy person or thing, which was to be born of the Virgin, by the energy of the Holy Spirit. The divine nature could not be born of the Virgin; the human nature was born of her." On these dogmata of the Doctor, I must be allowed to remark, 1st, that, though the divine nature, simply considered, could not be born of the Virgin, it could, in union with the human nature, in which it was manifested, as easily be born of the Virgin as it could dwell among men, or perform the thousand functions of God incarnate. Indeed, if there be truth in scripture representations, the divine was united to the human nature in the womb of the Virgin; which union existed through all the vicissitudes of life, death, and the resurrection, and was perpetuated in that glory to which he ascended, when the divinity of his nature returned to the bosom of his Father. The God-man, then, was born of the Virgin, as surely as he lived, and spake, and acted, and suffered, and died, and rose, and ascended. And to say that the

I

divinity, in this union with humanity, could not be born of the Virgin, is, by a parity of reason, to deny that God, the Godhead, could be manifested in the flesh, in any of these important relations of Messiah to his work of redeeming and saving mankind. 2nd. It does not appear, therefore, "that the angel does not give the appellation of the Son of God to the divine nature of Christ, but to that holy person or thing" which the Doctor afterwards affirms to be exclusively the human nature. That, separate from humanity, and prior to the incarnation, the divinity, which was afterwards manifested in the flesh in the person of Christ, was denominated the Son of God, is, I think, as clear as any other point of revelation. Indeed, he is called the Son of God in plain contradistinction of his divine nature to the humanity assumed in his incarnation: "God, sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh," &c. Rom. viii. 3, compared with John iii. 17, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world," &c., and with John i. 14, "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," &c. I have said that, separate from humanity, and prior to the incarnation, the divinity which was afterwards manifested in the flesh in the person of Christ, was denominated the Son of God. This is seen in the 2d Psalm, where God is represented as saying, "Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." Again: in Psa. xlv. 6, God, addressing the Messiah, says, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre." And in Heb. i. 8, we are distinctly informed that this address is to the Son.

From all this it appears clearly, to my mind, that the Sonship is not peculiar to the human nature of Christ, nor even to the incarnate Word: but that it belongs originally to the divinity, who, "because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, likewise also himself took part of the same, and, after the incarnation, to the God-man, Christ Jesus. I have already endeavored to show that Son of God is not expressive of the natural relation of the Second Divine Person to the First; and I have now attempted to make it appear that this appellation is not given to the human nature of Christ, nor given because of the union of the divine and human natures in his person, as it had been applied to the divinity of the Christ before the incarnation. It now remains to attempt,

III. To ascertain, if possible, the grounds on which this title is given. Be it noted, in the outset, that Israel is called theson, even the first-born son" of God, in Exodus iv. 22. Solomon, it is affirmed, is chosen to be the son of God, 1st Chron. xxvii. 6. Neither Israel nor Solomon was the son of God by generation, or natural procession; nor, it is believed, is their sonship predicated of such an adoption as that with which the New Testament scriptures are familiar, nor, yet, of that change of nature by which men are rendered the sons of God by regeneration and the new-birth: but Israel was the son of God, as the chosen depository of the covenants and the promises; and Solomon, as the builder of the Temple. They both had the denomination from their selection to fill important official situations under the divine administ ation. Ineffably the highest and most important official srtuation, under that administration, of which man has any kniowledge, is the mediatorial regality of the Messiah, by which the human race were to be retrieved from the ruins of the fall; the insulted law of the Supreme Ruler to be magnified and made honorable, and the glory of the Creator and Moral Sovereign of man to be illustrated and declared, before an intelligent universe. To this great work the Second Divine Person voluntarily offered himself. In this offer were implied humiliation, dependence, and subordination. "Though he was rich, for our sakes he became poor." "Though he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet made he himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant." "He was made under the law, toredeem them that were under the law." All these, and numerous other scriptures, represent the Messiah as taking a position not natural to him, inferior to that which was proper to him-a situation of subordination to authority, not originally existing over him; and as doing all this freely and voluntarily. The offer, we are distinctly informed, was accepted by the First Divine Person. And in this acceptance, I humbly suppose, is found that transaction mentioned in Psa. ii. 7, "This day have I begotten thee." By the selection of the Second Divine Person to the office of King Messiah, the First Divine Person recognized him in the relation of Son; and, having placed him in the holy hill of Zion, proclaimed the decree of his affiliation and installation. In no other way can I reconcile the numerous instances in which the Son is spoken of as in

ferior and subordinate to the Father, with his indubitable claim to proper and intrinsic equality. This renders unnecessary the unmeaning jargon of eternal generation-the absurdity of supposing a filial relationship, having no one coincidence with what we know of the relation of a son to his father. This, moreover, renders needless a resort to the supposition that the Messiah is the Son of God only in his human nature. Consider him as the Son of God, by selection to the mediatorial regality, and all is easy, and easily reconcilable with his intrinsic equality with the other divine persons in the Godhead, with his denomination of Son before the incarnation, and with St. Paul's account of filial subjection as the final act in the mediatorial reign. The great work for which he took the inferior, subordinate and dependent relation of Son, having been accomplished, the relation itself is subjected or suppressed, and matters, so to speak, in relation to the Sacred Trinity, return to their primeval state, and "God is all in all."

W.

ART. IV.-OUTLINES OF A SYSTEM OF GEOLOGY.

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE EARTH.

(Continued from January No.)

I have now developed my views of the natural history of the coal formations, and entertaining, as I do, the conviction that they constitute a satisfactory or conclusive illustration of all the other rock formations, I will here present a tabular view of them, that the analogy between them, with reference to their mechanical arrangement and order of super-position, may be perceived, and also between each of them and a coal formation.

Granite.

Mica slate,

FIRST SERIES, OR PRIMITIVE ROCKS.

Superiorly-gneiss, fissile, shelly.

Inferiorly-compact, crystallized.

Superiorly-fissile,

Inferiorly-compact, Hornblende, Talc, quartz, and limestone.