dignity might claim, such as the infinite affection of the Father would bestow, and such as none besides in heaven or earth could possess. Nor is it even sufficient that the glory of the incarnate Word should be described as that of the Only Begotten. The Evangelist elevates the thoughts of his readers to the august temple from which he came forth on his illustrious errand of mercy,-" from the presence of the Father."* As the High Priest came from the innermost sanctuary fragrant with incense, and filled with blessings for a pardoned people; or, more in point, as Moses descended from the mount of God with radiance on his face too bright to be gazed upon :-yet even more illustrious, spiritually, were the manifestations of the Word in flesh. His was the glory of the Only Begotten, coming fresh from the splendour of uncreated light. Every idea but that of pure sovereign Deity in this part of the sublime argument is trifling and profane. We see "the glory of the God of Israel."† *παρà Пaтρòç. So Psalm cxxi. 2 :-"My help is from the presence of the Lord,” πaρà кvρíov. Thus Homer uses the preposition : "Iris came from the presence of Jupiter," πapà Aiós. (Il., B. 787.) Пapa signifies from the presence of, from beside, or as Damm, in his Homeric Lexicon, expresses it, from close by. It usually governs a genitive of an animated subject, while άrò is connected with nouns expressing something inanimate, or mere locality. A good example of this distinction occurs Mark viii. 11 :-" Seeking from him (παρ' αὐτοῦ) a sign from heaven.” (ἀπὸ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.) + Neque Personam Secundam tantum vocat Filium, sed, ne crederemus ipsum Filium esse et non esse genitum, vocat illum genitum ; ne vero crederemus, quando genitus dicitur, illum non alio modo genitum esse ac angelos et homines, vocat UNIGENITUM: significando, nullum ita esse genitum, ac ipse genitus est. Sed neque in eo sibi satisfacit Spiritus. Vocat eum μονογενῆ παρὰ Πατρὸς, Unigenitum A Patre. Beza habet, Unigenitum egressum a Patre. Nihil certius, quam eo efficacissimè et potentissimè adstrui, Filium esse a Patre singulari prorsus modo, quo præter ipsum a Patre nullus est."VITRINGA, De Generat. Fil., p. 17. Upon the whole, it may be safely affirmed that we have no warrant for the application of this epithet, except to our Lord's divine nature. As God, he is the Only Begotten; a truth of common and express recognition in the primitive church.* Be it noted also, that though the employment of this phrase greatly increases the emphasis of the passages where it occurs, yet its influence is not restricted to them. "The Son,-The Son of God,-The only begotten Son of God," though varying in the degree of their impressiveness, and though embodying the idea in different stages of complication and perfectness, describe one and the same relation, and present our Redeemer under one and the same aspect. In the epithet before us is indicated the precise nature of that relation. The Son is the Monogenes, the ONLY GENERATED; and hence his relation to the Father is a Genesis, a GENERATION, univocal and exclusive. Whenever, therefore, our Lord is called "The Son," it is in reference to this relation. Where the epithet is omitted, he is to be regarded as the only generated, just as truly as where it is retained. The difference is rhetorical, not dogmatical; in impression, not in fact. * Vide infra, CHAP. VII., sect. ii., iii., iv., Nos. 13, 37, 59, 64, &c. †The term generation is only putting the abstract for the concrete, and is no further variation even from the letter of Scripture than it is to ascribe omnipotence to God on account of his being styled "The Almighty." (Omnipotens.) NOTE (J), p. 244. "Only Begotten" applicable to the Divine Nature of Christ alone. THERE is a third view which, though not thought of sufficient importance to require notice in the text, must not be wholly passed over. Upon the primary and literal meaning of the epithet before us there can be but one opinion. As, however, an only begotten Son is inferentially one peculiary beloved, it has been contended by Grotius, Wetstein, and the Socinian commentators, that μονογενής here is merely a synonyme of ἀγαπητὸς. But, were this admitted, it is not easy to perceive what real difference it could make in the argument. For, suppose our Lord to be the subject of that high and singular complacency of the Father which is analogous to the love of a human parent for an only son; and, on that supposition, the moral proof of a participation of nature seems not less conclusive than with the primary rendering of the word would be the hyperphysical evidence. Such a criticism may indeed exalt and certify the sense of the appellation "beloved Son," elsewhere applied to Christ, but it does not sensibly detract from the weight of the epithet under consideration. Yet in fact there is no reason to abandon the literal rendering. Not one example has been produced in proof of the identity of signification for which these critics contend, and with their acknowledged learning and acuteness it may fairly be presumed that no such example can be produced. It is alleged, however, that by the LXX. the words are indifferently used. But this is not correct; for, in one case, if not in more, where povoyevǹs occurs in the sense of póvos, the term ȧyarηròs would be perfectly absurd. (Psalm xxv. 16.) While in every instance in which it is employed throughout the Apocrypha the literal meaning is incontestable. (Tob. iii. 15 ; vi. 10; viii. 17; Wisd. vii. 22. See also the version of Aquila, in Psalm lxviii. 6, where the substitution of άyañŋròç is absolutely inadmissible.) Were it indeed conceded that, the Hebrew word alleged to be thus indifferently rendered, meant both only begotten and beloved, it would by no means follow ONLY BEGOTTEN that the sense of the two was identical. The passage from Plutarch, upon which some reliance seems to be placed by Grotius and Wetstein, and, which is more surprising, even by Bloomfield in his Recens. Synopt., casts no light whatever upon the sense of μονογενὴς. Once more, it is asserted that as Isaac is called the only begotten son of Abraham, (Heb. xi. 17,) and as Abraham had other sons, only begotten can only mean beloved. But Isaac was literally and truly the only begotten of the Patriarch by his wife, his other children being expressly termed, "sons of the concubines;" (Gen. xxv. 6;) and the epithet in question is as applicable to the sole offspring of a mother as of a father, Hence the interpreters, Aquila and Symmachus, who, as far as my observation extends, never employ it in the sense of άуаπητòs, apply it without hesitation to Isaac. That St. John uses the word μovoyεvns, where the other Evangelists would employ άɣañηròs, is an assumption of the Editors of the Improved Version, which, like many other of their positions, is wholly untenable. Had the other Evangelists narrated the conversation of our Lord with Nicodemus, they could not correctly have declined the former word; or had St. John recorded the annunciations at the baptism and the transfiguration, which are the only cases in which the latter epithet is applied to Christ, he, as a faithful historian, must have employed it also. Whether the Socinian critics suppose that the Evangelists, like Xenophon and Josephus, invented speeches for the subjects of their narratives, I do not take upon me to conjecture. But upon no other ground can it be satisfactorily maintained that the terms before us are, in New Testament history, to be regarded as interchangeable. As St. John, however, repeatedly applies the epithet beloved to believers, there is no reason, had it accorded with his design and with the fact, that he should not have described our Lord in a similar way. And, lastly, that the title only begotten shocked the delicacy of Mr. Lindsay's taste, can scarcely be allowed to have much weight in the controversy. We return at length, therefore, to the original position; that the question to be decided in the present discussion simply is, whether, in the epithet "only begotten," St. John indicated the miraculous production of our Lord's humanity, or the relation which from eternity he sustained to the Father. The alternative, in this instance, from the very nature of the term, is unusually precise and definite. The appellations of Christ in general apply to his complex nature. This, on the contrary, with respect at least to the former exposition, has no such license. If it describe his humanity at all, to that it must be restricted. Let the impartial reader, then, take the passages where it occurs, and from their obvious scope alone let him decide whether they could have been intended to refer solely to the miraculous conception. In some, such an allusion is absolutely inconceivable. In the conversation with Nicodemus, for example, one of the doctrines was, that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" to redeem it. Another, that unbelief was a sin of the utmost heinousness, because its object was "the only begotten Son of God." Leaving out of the question the exposition in both cases demanded by the argument, is it not plainly impossible that in his instruction of one who was a comparative stranger to his person, and certainly an entire stranger to this circumstance in his history, our Lord could have referred to the miraculous production of his human nature? The same reasoning which proves the inadequacy of the miraculous conception to account in general for the title "Son of God," is of yet greater force in the present case. (See above, CHAP. II., sect. iv., p. 127.) But without recapitulating arguments already employed, we may rest the proof of the incorrectness of such an exposition on internal evidence alone. In two of the passages where the epithet is employed, our Lord's pre-existent state is plainly referred to; the Only Begotten being represented as sent and given. In another example, he is said to be the Only Begotten from the presence of the Father; while in a fourth instance, the Only Begotten is exhibited as existing (ŵv) in the bosom of the Father; a mode of expression accurately descriptive of a divine subsistence. The glory of the Only Begotten is spoken of as altogether peculiar and transcendent. But the humanity of Christ, however produced, was a form of the deepest humiliation, "the likeness of sinful flesh," and the great impediment to the manifestations of his glory. Even in his mediatorial character, his loftiest elevation is to the throne of God. But this falls far |