QUESTION L 405 unto you from the beginning ;" that is, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. Nor is the absence of the word HE in the Greek any bar to this interpretation, for the expression is the same ; John iv. 29. E a u, and John ix. 37. Este , eri, where we were sure that Christ means that he is the Messiah. It is well known that the Jews generally, and very justly, believed the person whowas to be their Messiah and Saviour was to bear some very, extraordinary relation to God, and to be his Son in a sublime and uncommon way and manner, though what particular sort of sonship it was, they could have but very dark and confused ideas ; yet they used the word Son of God emphatically to denote this glorious person : And the common purpose for which they used it, was to signify this great promised deliverer. Now it is very easy to account for this, viz. that the Son of God, which originally signifies a glorious person near a-kin to God, might in common use come to signify his office, or the ap- pointed Kingand Saviour ofhis people, just as the name Cassar was originally the surname of a family, but afterwards came to signify an office, and to denote the Emperor : and perhaps the same might be said of the name Abimelech king of Philistia, or Pharaoh king of Egypt. So the word Israel at first was a name given to Jacob, thence it was derived to signify all the Jewish familyor nation, and afterwards it came to signify the character of that family, viz. the Church of God ; and so it is used in Gal. vi. 10. Peace be on the Israel of God. Thus I have gone over the several senses of the name Son of God, and there is the greatest reason to believe that it most usuallyand directly signifies that person who has in general some peculiar and sublime relation and likeness to God, and is ap- pointed to be the Messiah or Saviour of. men. SECTION II. Other Arguments to confirm this Sense of the Name SON or Goo. The next argument I shall produce for this sense of the name, is this : It is most reasonable to suppose that Son of God signifies the office of the Messiah, together with a connotation of his peculiar relation to God, or his being born of God in some eminent and transcendent manner, because the other name of Christ Son of man signifies the same officeof the Messiah, together with a connotation of his being born of man- kind, or his relation to man in some way of eminence. That the name Son of man, may properly denote the Messiah, there'are some hints given in the Old Testament. I will mention four places. I. The-very first promise of the Messiah calls him the seed e
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