QUESTION L 409 It may be observed also, that the name son of man or sons of men is given sometimes to any of the children of Adam or the race of mankind, and at other times to some eminent person among men, as Ezekiel the prophet is often spoken to, Thou son of' man; but the name is mud' more abundantly attributed to our blessed Saviour, as he is the most eminent of all that ever had that appellation given them. T acknowledge it is a great truth, that this glorious person the Messiah hath two distinct natures united in him, even the natureof God and the nature of man ; and that Christ is true God and true man. But when he calls himself Son of God and Son of man, surely an eternal and consubstantial sonship of Christ, or even his eternal deity united to man, seems more than could be certainly collected from these names in that day and more than Christ himself directly designed by the use of those words. The last argument that I shall mention to prove that the name Son of God denotes the character of the Messiah, indu.. dingalso his divine, original and sublime relation to God which renders him an all-sufficient Saviour, is this, thatt salvation is an- nexed to the belief of Jesus being the Son of God, in several texts which I have cited at the beginning of this discourse : This sonship therefore must necessarily signify and carry with it some ideas, or characters that are directly suited to the sinful and miserable stateof mankind, and that render him a proper object for their desire, dependence and hope. Now it is not the mere belief of his having a divine nature, nor of an eternal generation by God the Father, nor of his having a most glorious human soul, nor a miraculous birth, nor a resurrection from the dead, that renders him so directly suitable to the state and case of convinced sinners, and fit for the proper exercises of their hope and dependence, as the various offices and characters which he sustains as the Messiah, the Saviour of mankind, together with his all- sufficient capacity to fulfil those offices. A poor convinced perishing sinner beholds him as a glorious person near to God, appointed to be a prophet to enlighten his darkness, a priest to atone for his sins and intercede for him, a king to rule and influence and defend him against all the powers of sin and hell, and all-sufficient for these sacred purposes And thence I infer, that a divine person who is the promised Messiah, the all-sufficient Saviour, is the most natural and pro- bable sense of this title, the Son of God, in all those places of __scripture where Christ is proposed to our faith under this naine; however some of the other senses may be more remotely and indeterminately included therein. And though the deity of Christ is not directly signified by this name, yet by a comparison of it with other places of scripture, I think it may certainly be
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