QUESTION I. 397 this belief roundly, that he was the Son of God. Therefore this name does not certainly declare his divine nature. Objection II. It will be said then, how comes it to pass, that when the high-priest asked our Saviour, " Art thou the Christ, The Son of theblessed ? And Jesus answered, I am ;" Mark xiv. 61,62, in verse 64. be charges our Saviour with blasphemy, if his calling himself the Son of God did not imply his true god- 'head ? Answer. It is evident that the design of the wicked Jews wash) fix the highest and most criminal charge they could against 'him : But there was no sufficient foundation for this charge, which our Saviour in another place fullyproves ; John x.33, 34. as I have shewn elsewhere, in what follows. Thus it appears, that though it be fully agreed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, `has true godhead belonging to him, because divine names and titles are givenliiin,yet this nameSon of God does not necessari- ly and certainly discover or implyit. Thusmuch for the first sup- posed senseof thisname. II. Somemay suppose the name Son of God relates to his human soul, and signifies the glorious peculiar derivation of it fromGod theFather before the creation of the world, and that in this sense he is called the first-born of every creature, and the beginning of the creation of God ; Col. i. 15. and Rev, iii. 14. Answer. Though I am very much inclined to believe.that Christ is in this sense the Son of God, and that his human soul had such a glorious derivation from the Father before the creation of the world, and that he is the first-born of every creature and the beginning of the creation of. God, as in Col. i. 15. and that his human soul had as noble a pre-eminence above other souls in its origin, as his human body had a pre-eminence above other 'bodies, that so in all things he mighthave the pre- eminence,; °Col. i. 18. Yet I cannot think this preciseidea is the very thing designed in those texts of scripture, wherein our salvation is made to depend on the belief of Christ'beiog the Son of God ; for, 1. 'Though the apostlesPaul and John, and perhaps the rest of them, arrived at this complete idea of his gloriouspre-existent human soul in due time, yet it doth not appear evidently that the disciples had all attained such an idea so soon as they believed 'that he was the Son of Gód, in a sufficient manner for theirat. taming the favour of God and a state of salvation.* . * I will not deny but that one considerableground on which Christ was cal. led the Soo of God, at Best, and for whichhe eminently merited that name, was the dignity- Of his human soul both in the native excellencies of it, and in the original-and early generation,or' peculiar way of creation of it beforeall other creatures : But as the belief of his being the Son of Clod, is made a requisite to
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