QUZESTION VI. 405 able to the whole tenor of scripture, and best maintains the unity . of the godhead, which is the foundation of all religion both na- tural and revealed ; nor is it liable to those cavils, objections . and inconveniencies with which other expositionsare attended. This exposition is free from those obscurities which attend the mutual inbeing and indwelling of the Father and the Son considered purely in their divine natures, which the learned have called zpreptXs wss and circum-incession. Wecan hardly suppose our Saviour intended that notion in John xiv. 7, &c. because it is a notion so mysterious and sublime beyond all the ideas that Philip and Thomas could frame at that season : And therefore we cannot imagine that Christ would go to amuse them with these unsearchables, when they desired some instruction from him in the knowledge of God the Father. This account of things plainly, intelligibly, and effectually secures true, proper, and eternal deity to God the Father, and to our blessed Saviour, and that in two distinct persons, without introducing any other godhead besides the godhead of the Fa- ther. Thus God the Father is the only true God originally, and yet Jesus the Son of God, by union to, and communion in the godheadof the Father, is also " the true God and the eternal life ;" 1 John v. 20. And this is eternal life to know the Father the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent ; John xvii. 3. QUEST. VI. Is Christ the express Image of God the Father in the human Nature, or in the divine; ANSWER. In the human Nature. IN several places of scripture our Saviour is represented as the image of God : 2Cor. iv. 4. Christ who is the imageof God. Col. i. 15. The image ofthe invisible God, thefirst-born. of every creature. Heb. i. 3. The brightness of his Father's glory, andthe express image of his person, whom he bath ap- pointed heir of all things. Now it is an important enquiry what is the scripture sense in which Jesus Christ is the image of God the Father. It has been the custom of many theological writers to suppose Christ in his pure divine natura to be this image of the Father to which the scripture refers : but there are somerea- sons which seem to oppose this opinion, and incline me to with- hold my assent from it at present. 1, That our protestant divines have almost universally sup- posed the godhead or divine nature of Christ to be the self:same, entire, numerical godhead, 'nature or essence which the Father has, and differing only in his personality, or manner of subsist* Vox.. rt. G e I.
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