(áλýdela) every Divine prediction, and human anticipation or wish. 'Eyévero is in the singular, to show the distinctness of these traits of Christianity from each other; its import shows that they existed intrinsically in no other scheme of religion, being emphatically "brought to light in the Gospel." They were procured (dá) by the personal agency of the Redeemer, whose two-fold nature is adumbrated in his full name.

Verse 18. Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακε πώποτε. ] θεός is placed first because of its importance in the sentence, the Divine character being that in reference to which the subsequent statements are all made; it has no article, since the Deity in his essence is meant as being invisible, and the statement is designed to apply to every theosophy. Oudeis obviously means any mere mortal, such as Moses; and this reference shows that this verse is added (without the usual yáo) as the reason of the defective character of ó Nóuoç, and to explain the necessity of Christ's new dispensation. Πώποτε increases the force of the perfect ἑώρακε, as exclusive up to this time, and makes the declaration still more general. 'Opáw need not be understood here of physical vision, as that is utterly excluded by the spiritual nature of the Deity; it more particularly denotes that acquaintance which is the result of the earnest scrutiny properly signified by this verb. The vision of Moses on the mount was but a glance, and that merely caught through the fissure of a rock at the Almighty's shadow; and neither he nor any other prophet (save Christ) ever presumed to speak from personal knowledge.

Ο μονογενὴς Υἱός,] This phrase has been explained under verse 14; it is here peculiarly forcible, inasmuch as a son, especially the first-born, who is here the only heir, knows his father more intimately than any one else, since he is himself a reflection of his nature. 'Allá is again omitted, as in the preceding verse.

Ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός,—] This is a figure borrowed from the ancient manner of reclining at meals, in which one guest leaned his head toward the breast of the next one higher up. This of course was a great opportunity for private conversation between the two persons thus situated, and the position was itself an evidence of personal familiarity and mutual partiality: all this is clearly illustrated in the tête-à-tête that occurred between the beloved disciple and his Master at the Last Supper, John xiii, 23-26. The doctrine taught by the figure is the same as that contained in the direct йv πρÒÇ TÒν →εÓν of verses 1 and 2; some peculiarities of the phraseology, however, deserve attention. "v is in the present, indicative of a permanent and rightful relation. Eiç is here used instead of

πρóç, because, as the preceding clause had expressed a part of the meaning of ρóç, (namely, the residence of the Logos at or with the Godhead, Taρá,) it only remained to declare the active consociation going on between these persons reciprocally, by virtue of which the Logos enters within the sphere of Divinity, and learns the otherwise incommunicable truths of his mission. The present clause is therefore added to show that his privilege of knowledge by intuitive nature as μovoyεvns viós was well improved for full qualification by learning the Divine will in personal communications.

Ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο.] Ἐκεῖνος is needed to recall attention to riós, and fill up the rotundity of the period; it also serves to bring out the antithesis in the absence of ἀλλά. After ἐξηγήσατο is evidently to be supplied avróv referring to Oeós. The meaning of Θεός. ¿šnynoατo may be summed up in one word, the Gospel, to which this whole passage forms the Introduction, closing appropriately with this connective word.

We cannot dismiss this discussion without adverting more particularly to certain views, which have been broached of late with great assurance, respecting the tenet of "three Persons and one God." These views, it is true, are not of modern origin; for Dr. Schleiermacher has at least shown, in his separate comparison of the Sabellian and Athanasian Creeds, (translated by Professor Stuart in the April and July Numbers of the Biblical Repository for 1835,) that the peculiar notions of Sabellius can be traced more or less distinctly in the doctrines of several earlier teachers, and that it was against them as well as against Arianism that the Nicene Creed was formed. The speculative German theologian there (as well as in his more systematic work on Divinity) boldly advances the idea that the distinction does not affect the interior of the Godhead, but is only predicated upon the triple manifestation of himself to created beings. The learned translator of the above treatise has partly sympathized with this view, and here we are doubtless to find the origin of much in his mode of interpreting the introduction to John's Gospel. More recently, Dr. Bushnell has echoed these speculations to the world—with a great deal of dogmatism against dogmas, and with a mysticism of style which even his pure and nervous diction cannot render distinct-in his published volume of discourses, entitled, "God in Christ." In all these disquisitions, we find that the sum total of the argument on the Trinity, is simply this: Sonship indicates derivation, this implies inferiority, and so the equality of the members of the Godhead is destroyed by the common creed; the same argument is applied to the Spirit as "proceed

'

ing from the Father and the Son." Now, here it would be no difficult task to turn the table upon these theorizers, and hamper them with their own reasoning: for instance, let us change the word Son for the Logos; now this indicates derivation fully as much as the other term, for there can be no word independently of a speaker, and so the difficulty is only shifted, not removed. Will they say that even Logos" is not applicable to the Divine nature of Christ, but only to his revealed form in humanity? then let them explain how this incarnate form of Deity existed "with God," and this "in the beginning" of time, that is, antecedently to all revelation by creation. Indeed, their controversy lies not at all with the advocates of the Nicene creed, but with the language of inspiration itself; and here we might safely leave them. The Scriptures distinctly predicate derivation of the second person in the Trinity from the first; for what else can possibly be meant by such expressions as "the onlybegotten Son, who IS IN THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER?" Surely it is no revealed form that thus dwells with Deity; the statement on this supposition would be unmeaning and self-contradictory.

The whole question in dispute turns fundamentally upon the above argument of inferiority as arising from derivation. This these disputants assume to be a necessary deduction, and they are bound to prove it; this they have not done, and here we might fairly rest the matter.* But let us take on ourselves the onus probandi which properly belongs to them, and meet the question at this very point, where at last it must be decided. Now for ourselves, (and this must be the stand of every believer in the common doctrine of the Trinity,) we utterly deny the legitimateness of any such inference of inferiority from the premise of derivation, as respects the second and third persons of the Trinity. The apologists for Sabellianism complain of our taking refuge behind the want of analogy between human and Divine generation; we will wave such a distinction for the sake of argument, and meet them on the broad field of physical origin, where they claim that the Nicene creed places the question. Now, in what respects does the simple fact of personal generation prove

* A feint of this kind is made by Professor Stuart in some remarks prefixed to the dissertation above referred to; (Biblical Repository, April, 1835, p. 307;) but after joining issue, (by stating the objection that Divine derivation has no analogy to human,) he veers off into a charge of inconsistency on the part of Nicenians in their cautions against irreverence in such inquiries into the mode of the Divine generation, without at all returning to the actual field of contest. We suspect that the deduction in question is one of those self-evidenț axioms that are not susceptible of proof. But unfortunately, the common sense of the great mass of Christians has pretty uniformly stood stiffly on precisely the opposite ground.

that a human son is inferior to his father? Certainly not as to nature, for the son is thereby constituted as perfectly man as his parent; nor necessarily as to talents, character, influence, or acquirements, for in all these the son frequently excels his father. Wherein, then, can inferiority be predicated of the filial relation? Plainly, in two circumstances, and in these alone, for every other token of disparity appertaining to the relation, will be found to flow from these. These circumstances are: first, POSTERIORITY in coming on the stage of action, which gives the father the advantage of superior strength, skill, experience, means, and especially authority and discipline over the son as a minor; and, secondly, the fact that the son's existence results from an act of the procreator's will, but is involuntary on his own part. This latter circumstance, strictly considered, is but a consequence from the former, since it is the child's posteriority in birth that prevents all option with him whether he will exist or not; but as this is a marked feature, let it stand separately. These, so far as we can see, are the only constant peculiarities that imply inferiority in the child; for as to his dependence upon his parent for food, clothing, protection, and counsel, these are but accidents arising from the helplessness and imbecility of infancy, and may be supplied by any other person nearly as well as by the parent, whilst many animals can take care of themselves at birth.

Now, each of the above inherent peculiarities of filiation, none will doubt, are expressly excluded in the case of the Son of God, (applying this title to the Divine Being,) both by the qualifications of Scripture, and the terms of the Nicene creed, as also indeed by the very nature of the case. As to any priority of existence, “the Logos was in the beginning with God," says the Apostle John; "those who say that there was a time when Christ was not, that before he was born he was not, and that he came into existence out of nothing, . . . . them the whole Church anathematizes," says Athanasius in the Nicene creed; and enlightened reason claims absolute eternity equally for each truly Divine Person. The Divine filiation is readily divested of the second peculiarity of human sonship—namely, its involuntary imposition-by considering that this is a ground of disparity which relates only to the act of origination or the inchoation of the state; when the son is once actually begotten, his existence is just as much beyond the will and agency of the parent as of the embryo. Since therefore the Sonship of Christ is shown to have had no beginning, it was never affected by such an inchoative act of will on the part of the Father. But we may go farther in this argument: we may say without presumption that the

triple relation in the bosom of the Godhead is so intimate and fundamental, that the three Persons could not but be developed; and thus the paternity of the first Person, the filiation of the second, and the procession of the third, are equally necessary, and neither of them dependent upon the will of any of the rest, otherwise than it is God's will to be what he is in any other respect. That such is the case, is shown not only by the immutable nature of God in general, but especially by the eternity of this distinction of Persons, which can only be predicated, logically at least, on the ground that it is an essential attribute of Deity, and therefore could never have been absent.* In short, viewed in this light, it is no more proper to say that the filiation of the Son is dependent upon the will of the Father, than that the paternity of the Father is dependent upon the will of the Son; the logical causality of the derivation lies back of eithernamely, in the same necessity by which God subsists at all; in other words, in the mutual self-existence of the Persons. This last expression may seem somewhat paradoxical, but it is not more so than the correlative necessity of infinite space and absolute time. We arrive, therefore, at the conclusion that inasmuch as the very features attendant upon human generation, by virtue of which it involves inferiority, are absent with reference to the Divine filiation, the title Son of God does not imply any inequality in the Persons of the Godhead.

But it will perhaps be said that we have silently shifted the ground of the argument; setting out with an agreement to abide by a comparison with human generation, we have ended by discarding all analogy as to the point in dispute. This objection would be true, if, under cover of dissipating certain associated ingredients from the term filiation, we have extracted the essence of the idea. It therefore remains to inquire, what notion lies at the bottom of this language or relation, so as to be certain whether, if the above concomitants implying disparity be eliminated, the very basis of the thing itself be not taken away. This our opponents charge us with doing, but unjustly; for after these non-essentials are abstracted, we just begin to apprehend distinctly what is fundamental to this kinship. This residuum, we think, may be expressed by two terms ;

* It is but justice to Professor Stuart, to say, that in his remarks upon Dr. Schleiermacher's views, he holds that there must have been some ground originally existing within the Godhead, on which this outward development in time was based. This is certainly necessary; for as God alone originally existed, everything, especially what so nearly affected Himself, could only have proceeded from Him. Pity it is that Professor Stuart did not perceive that this original ground in the Deity is the essential point in the distinction of the Trinity, and that the outward development derives its whole significance from it.