104 in the appellation'; nor can we be honoured by that title, 2. 27. the precious ointment upon the head ran down upon the beard, Psal. cxxxiii. Thus having run through all the particulars at first designed for the explication of the title Christ, we may at last clearly express, and every Christian easily understand, what it is we say, when we make our confession in these words, I believe in Jesus Christ. I do assent unto this as a certain truth, that there was a man promised by God, foretold by the prophets, to be the Messias, the Redeemer of Israel, and the Expectation of the nations. I am fully assured by all those predictions, that the Messias so promised, is already come. I am as certainly persuaded that the man born in the days of Herod of the Virgin Mary, by an angel from heaven called Jesus, is that true Messias, so long, so often promised: that, as the Messias, he was anointed to three special offices, belonging to him as the Mediator between God nomen emendationi imputatur.' Tertull. Apol. c. 3. 1 Totum in id revolvitur, ut qui Christiani nominis opus non agit, Christianus non esse videatur. Nomen enim sine actu atque officio suo nihil est.' Salvian. de Gubern. Dei, 1. iv. c. 1. Εάν τις τὸ ὄνομα λαβὼν τοῦ χριστ τιανισμοῦ ἐνυβρίζῃ τὸν Χριστόν, οὐδὲν ὄφελος αὐτῷ ἀπὸ τῆς προσηγορίας. δ. Basil. ad Amphiloch. Epist. 199. can. 45. [Vol. I. p. 296 c.] * 'Christianus vero, quantum in and man; that he was a Prophet, revealing unto us the John L 49. Matt. xxvi. 63. HIS ONLY SON. AFTER our Saviour's nomination immediately followeth 105 his filiation: and justly, after we have acknowledged him to be the Christ, do we confess him to be the Son of God: because these two were ever inseparable, and even by the Jews themselves accounted equivalent. Thus Nathanael, that true Israelite, maketh his confession of the Messias: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. Thus Martha John xi. 27. makes expression of her faith: I believe that thou art the Christ the Son of God, which should come into the world. Thus the high-priest maketh his inquisition: I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. This was the famous confession of St Peter: We believe and are sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Gospel of St John was therefore John xx. 31. written, that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Certain then it is, that all the Jews, as they looked for a Messias to come, so they believed that Messias to be the Son of God (although since the coming of our Saviour they have denied it)': and that by reason of a constant interpretation of the second Psalm, as appropriated unto him. And the John vi. 69. 1 For when Celsus, in the person of a Jew, had spoken these words: ̓Αλλ' εἶπεν ὁ ἐμὸς προφήτης ἐν Ἱεροσο λύμοις ποτέ, ὅτι ήξει Θεοῦ υἱός, τῶν ὁσίων κριτής, καὶ τῶν ἀδίκων κολαστής, Origen says they were most improperly attributed to a Jew, who did look indeed for a Messias, but not for the Son of God, i. e. not under the notion of a Son. Ἰουδαῖος δὲ οὐκ primitive Christians did at the very beginning include this filial title of our Saviour, together with his names, into the compass of one word'. Well therefore, after we have expressed our faith in Jesus Christ, is added that, which always had so great affinity with it, the only Son of God. In these words there is little variety to be observed, except that what we translate the only Son, that in the phrase of the Scripture and the Greek Church is, the onlybegotten. It is then sufficient for the explication of these words, to shew how Christ is the Son of God, and what is the peculiarity of his generation; that when others are also the sons of God, he alone should so be his Son, as no other is or can be so; and therefore he alone should have the name of the only-begotten. First, then, It cannot be denied that Christ is the Son of God, for that reason, because he was by the Spirit of God 1 That is, ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ). 'Nos pisciculi secundum ixiv nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur.' Tertull. de Bapt. c. 1. which is thus interpreted by Optatus: 'Cujus piscis nomen secundum appellationem Græcam in uno nomine per singulas literas turbam sanctorum nominum continet, ixtús, quod est Latinum, Jesus Christus Dei Filius Salvator.' lib. iii. c. 2. 2 The Latins indeed generally use the word unicum. So Ruffinus: 'Et in unico Filio ejus:' § 7, which is so far from being in his apprehension the same with unigenitus, that he refers it as well to Lord as Son: 'Hic ergo Christus Jesus, Filius unicus Dei, qui est et Dominus noster. Unicus et ad Filium referri et ad Dominum potest.' [p. 71.] So St Augustine in Enchiridio c. 34. [Vol. vi. p. 209 E.] and Leo Epist. 10. [Ep. 28. § 2. Vol. 1. p. 803.] Which is therefore to be observed, because in the ancient copies of those epistles the word unicum was not to be found; as appeareth by the discourse of Vigilius, who, in the fourth book against Eutyches, hath these words: 'Illa primitus uno diluens volumine quæ Leonis objiciuntur Epistolæ, cujus hoc sibi primo capitulum, iste nescio quis proposuit; Fidelium universitas profitetur credere se in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, et in Jesum Christum, Filium ejus*, Dominum nostrum,' 1. iv. § 1. That which he aims at, is the tenth epistle of Leo, in which those words are found, but with the addition of unicum, which, as it seems, then was not there; as appears yet farther by the words which follow, § 2. 'Miror tamen quomodo hunc locum iste notavit, et illum prætermisit, ubi unici filii commemorationem idem beatus Leo facit, dicens, Idem vero sempiterni Genitoris unigenitus sempiternus, natus est de Spiritu Sancto et Maria Virgine:' which words are not to be found in the same epistle. Howsoever it was in the first copies of Leo: both Ruffinus and St Augustine, who were before him, and Maximus Taurinensis, Chrysologus, Etherius and Beatus, who were later, read it, 'et in Jesum Christum Filium ejus unicum.' But the word used in the Scriptures, and kept constantly by the Greeks, is μovoyevýs, the only-begotten. *The word unicum occurs here in Chifflet's text. Matt. L. 20. Luke 1. 35. born of the Virgin Mary; for that which is conceived (or Secondly, It is as undoubtedly true, that the same Christ, For 1 For the original is τὸ ἐν αὐτῇ But begotten or conceived at Bethlehem. * This homily is rejected as spurious by the Benedictine editor. 6. 35, 36. that by virtue thereof he must be acknowledged the Son of God. He urgeth this argument himself against the Jews: Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? Are not John x. 34. these the very words of the eighty-second Psalm? If he Psal. lxxxii. called them gods, if God himself so spake, or the Psalmist from him, if this be the language of the Scripture, if they be called gods unto whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken, nor the authority thereof in any particular denied), say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, whom he hath consecrated and commissioned to the most eminent and extraordinary office, say ye John x. 34, of him, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? Thirdly, Christ must therefore be acknowledged the Son of God, because he is raised immediately by God, out of the earth unto immortal life. For God hath fulfilled the promise Acts xiii. 93. unto us, 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. The grave is as the womb of the earth; Christ, who is raised from thence, is as it were begotten to another life: and God who raised him, is his Father. So true it must needs be of him, which is spoken of others, who are the chil- Luke xx. 36. dren of God, being the children of the resurrection. Thus was he defined, or constituted, and appointed the Son of God with Rom. 1. 4. power, by the resurrection from the dead: neither is he called simply the first that rose, but with a note of generation, the col. i 18. first-born from the dead. Fourthly, Christ, after his resurrection from the dead, is made actually heir of all things in his Father's house, and Lord of all the spirits which minister unto him, from whence he also hath the title of the Son of God. He is set down on IIeb. i 3—5 the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? From all which testimonies of the Scriptures it is evident, that Christ hath this fourfold right unto the title of the Son of God: by generation, as begotten of God; by commission, as sent by him; by resurrection, as the first-born; by actual possession, as heir of all. But beside these four, we must find yet a more peculiar ground of our Saviour's filiation, totally distinct from any |