lasting Father;" Isai. ix. 6; Yet not so in the economy of grace. In the Hebrew it is, "The Father of eternity;" which shows that he is the infinite God indeed!

In the forenoted text, 2 Sam. vii. 14; we have no intimation, (as has been remarked,) that God was then actually Father to the Logos, or Messiah, in heaven. But that this relation should be manifested, in due time. In the other text, Psalm ii. 7, it has been shown that the relation of Father and Son was not revealed as existing at that time, only in the divine purpose. And that this divine purpose was primarily fulfilled when Christ's humanity was divinely begotten.

In the prediction noted, Psalm lxxxix. 27, Christ's Sonship was a relation then future. "I will make him first-born." "He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father." By many titles the Mediator was known in the Old Testament: But never by the title of Son, as being then actually the Son of God. Christ was known as "the Seed of the woman (who was to come) the Seed of Abraham, Shiloh, the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel, the Star to arise, the Prophet to be rais

ed up, the Lord's Anointed, Emmanuel, or God with us, the Messiah, the Messenger of the covenant, the Angel, the Angel of God's presence, the Ancient of days, the Branch, the Sun of righteousness, the Desire of all nations, the chief corner Stone, Elect, Preci ous, God's Servant, Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the

Prince of Peace, a Leader and Commander of his people, a Covenant, Michael, the Lord, Jehovah, the Jehovah of hosts, the Redeemer, the Holy One, a Refuge, a Rod from the stem of Jesse, I Am, I Am that I Am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of your fathers."These last mentioned titles of God, the Angel of the Lord, in the burning bush, assumed, as will be noted in a future section. Some of these titles indicated what the Mediator then was;—the infinite, eternal God: And others, what he should be demonstrated to be, when he should be manifest in the flesh, and known as the Son of God. But among all his many titles, he was never represented, as then actually the Son of God in heaven. Christ was then no more actually the Son of God, than he was actually the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, the Branch, or any other name, fulfilled only when he appeared in the flesh.

Two texts, which have been supposed by some, to speak of Christ, as being then the Son of God, I think have been misapplied. Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, relative to the persons, whom he beheld in his fiery furnace, that the form of the fourth was like unto the Son of God. But who could this heathen idolater mean, by the Son of God? He must have meant, some son of some god. What did he know of the God of Israel? or of the expected Messiah? He believed in. heathen gods and goddesses; and in their

propagation of their offspring. And his guil ty conscience and frightened imagination suggested to him, that this miraculous deliverer of the victims of his impious rage, must be a son of a god; probably of the God of Israel. But we cannot learn from this confession of a heathen, who then had his vassal subjects convened before him to worship a golden god ;-and had just tauntingly said to them, Who is that god, that shall deliver you out of my hands? that the Messiah of the Jews was known, as being then actually the Son of God; and so familiarly known too, as that this idolater in a heathen land, would recognize him at first sight, and so readily speak of him under this title. To me this is utterly incredible.

In Prov. xxx. 4, we read, "Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name? Or what is his son's name, if thou canst tell ?" Some may imagine the son here means the Son of God? But I think this is not the case. The subject of the inquiry, in this text, is not God, but man. What man can you imagine has done these things? This appears evident from the words of Christ, John iii. 13, where, in allusion to this text, he says, "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he, that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven." And as the subject of inquiry, in

that text, is a man; so-the son spoken of must be the son of the same man. Accord ingly, an eminent expositor gives this paraphrase upon the passage: "If thou think there be any such man, who can do these things, I challenge thee to produce his name: Or if he be long since dead, and gone out of the world, produce the name of any of his posterity, who can assure us that their progenitor was such a person." But if the Son in this passage mean Christ, he was then a Son only by prolepsis, as he was the son of David; because he was to appear in this character.

In Hosea xi. 1, we read "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." So far as this relates to Christ, and is applied to him by the evangelist, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son," it is a prolepsis; or a previous calling of Christ, God's Son, because he was to be known as the Son of God, when the passage, as it related to Christ, should be fulfilled, by his actually coming from Egypt. But the text in Hosea, to which the evangelist alludes, conveys no idea, that the Messiah in heaven, when the words were spoken, was God's Son. And the allusion of the evangelist to the words, above noted, does not convey such an idea. The word son there literally relates to Israel, who was God's son, his first-born; see Exodus iv. 22, 23.

The above remark may suggest the true exposition of the only three remaining texts,

in the Old Testament, in which the Mediator may by any be supposed to be spoken of, as the Son of God. These three relate immediately to Gospel times, when Christ was to be known as the Son of God. Isai. ix. 6, "For unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder."-Surely this related to the time when Christ should be manifested in the flesh. And if the Son, in this text, mean Son of God, it seems to me so far from indicating, that he, in his divine nature then in heaven, was literally the Son of God, that it clearly indicates, that he was not to be known as really the Son of God, till he was the "Child born." "Unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given." Ezek. xxi. 10, predicting the destruction of the Jews first by the king of Babylon, but ultimately by God's great and sharp sword, the Romans, it is said, "It contemneth the rod of my son as every tree." I apprehend the term son here has no relation to Christ, but to the Jews. Israel was called God's son; Exodus iv. 22, 23; "Thus shalt thou say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my first-born. And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me. And if thou refuse to let him go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy first-born." It is in immediate allusion to this passage, that we read in the forecited passage in Hosea, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." And