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relation. There is one degree of sonship founded on creation, and that is the lowest, as belonging unto all, both good and bad; another degree above that there is grounded upon regeneration or adoption, belonging only to the truly faithful in this life and a third above the rest founded on the resurrection, or collation of the eternal inheritance, and the similitude of God, appertaining to the saints alone in the world to come: for "we are now the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him," 1 John iii. 2. And there is yet another degree of filiation, of a greater eminency and a different nature, appertaining properly to none of these, but to the true Son of God alone, who amongst all his brethren hath only received the title of "his own Son," and a singular testimony from heaven, "This is my beloved Son," even in the presence of John the Baptist, even in the midst of Moses and Elias, (who are certainly the sons of God by all the other three degrees of filiation) and therefore he hath called God after a peculiar way his own father. And so at last we come unto the most singular and eminent paternal relation, " unto the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore;" the Father of him, and of us, but not the Father of us as of him. Christ hath taught us to say, "Our Father;" a form of speech which he never used himself; sometimes he calls him "The Father;" sometimes " My Father," sometimes "Your," but never "Our Father;" he makes no such conjunction of us to himself, as to make no distinction between us and himself; so conjoining us as to distinguish, though so distinguishing as not to separate us.

Indeed I conceive this, as the most eminent notion of God's paternity, so the original and proper explication of this Article of the Creed: and that not only because the ancient fathers deliver no other exposition of it; but also because that which I conceive to be the first occasion, rise, and original of the Creed itself, requireth this as the proper interpretation. Immediately before the ascension of our Saviour, he said unto his apostles, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye

therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Mat. xxviii. 18. From this sacred form of baptism did the Church derive the rule of faith, requiring the profession of belief in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, before they could be baptized in their name. When the eunuch asked Philip, "What doth hinder me to be baptized?" Philip said, "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest:" and when the eunuch replied, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God;" he baptized him; Acts viii. 36. And before that, the Samaritans, "when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, were baptized, both men and women." For as in the Acts of the Apostles there is no more expressed than that they baptized" in the name of Jesus Christ;" so is no more expressed of the faith required in them who were to be baptized, than to believe in the same name. But seeing the Father and the Holy Ghost were likewise mentioned in the first institution, seeing the expressing of one doth not exclude the other, seeing it is certain that from the apostles' times the names of all three were used; hence upon the same ground was required faith, and a profession of belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Again, as the eunuch said not simply, "I believe in the Son," but "I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God," as a brief explication of that part of the institution which he had learned before of Philip: so they who were converted unto Christianity were first taught, not the bare names, but the explications and descriptions of them in a brief, easy, and familiar way; which when they had rendered, acknowledged, and professed, they were baptized in them. And these being regularly and constantly used, made up the rule of faith, that is, the Creed. The truth of which may sufficiently be made apparent to any who shall seriously consider the constant practice of the church, from the first age unto this present, of delivering the rule of faith to those who were to be baptized, and so requiring of themselves or their sureties, an express recitation, profession, or acknowledgment of the Creed. From whence this Div. No. XIII.

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observation is properly deducible-that in what sense the name of Father is taken in the form of baptism, in the same it also ought to be taken in this article. And seeing nothing can be more clear than that, when it is said, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son," the notion of Father hath in this particular no other relation but to that Son whose name is joined with his; and as we are baptized into no other Son of that Father, but that only-begotten Christ Jesus, so into no other Father, but the Father of that only-begotten; it followeth, that the proper explication of the first words of the Creed is this-I believe in God the Father of Christ Jesus.

In vain then is that vulgar distinction applied unto the explication of the Creed, whereby the Father is considered both personally and essentially; personally, as the first in the glorious Trinity, with relation and opposition to the Son; essentially, as comprehending the whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For that the Son is not here comprehended in the Father is evident, not only out of the original or occasion, but also from the very letter of the Creed, which teacheth us to believe in God the Father, and in his Son; for if the Son were included in the Father, then were the Son the Father of himself. As therefore when I say, I believe in Jesus Christ his Son, I must necessarily understand the Son of that Father whom I mentioned in the first article; so when I said, I believe in God the Father, I must as necessarily be understood of the Father of him whom I call his Son in the second article.

Now as it cannot be denied that God may several ways be said to be the Father of Christ; first, as he was begotten by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary; secondly, as he was sent by him with special authority, as the King of Israel; thirdly, as he was raised from the dead out of the womb of the earth unto immortal life, and made heir of all things in his Father's house; so must we not doubt but, beside all these, God is the Father of that Son in a more eminent and peculiar manner, as he is and ever was with God and God: which shall be demonstrated fully in the second article, when we come to show how Christ is the only-begotten Son. And according unto this paternity

by way of generation totally divine, in which he who begetteth is God, and he which is begotten the same God, do we believe in God, as the eternal Father of an eternal Son; which relation is coeval with his essence; so that we are not to imagine one without the other; but as we profess him always God, so must we acknowledge him always Father, and that in a far more proper manner than the same title can be given to any creature. Such is the fluctuant condition of human generation, and of those relations which arise from thence, that he who is this day a son, the next may prove a father, and within the space of one day more, without any real alteration in himself, become neither son nor father, losing one relation by the death of him that begot him, and the other by the departure of him that was begotten by him. But in the Godhead these relations are more proper, because fixed, the Father having never been a Son, the Son never becoming Father, in reference to the same kind of generation.

A farther reason of the propriety of God's paternity appears from this, that he hath begotten a Son of the same nature and essence with himself, not only specifically, but individually, as I shall also demonstrate in the exposition of the second article; for generation being the production of the like, and that likeness being the similitude of substance, where there is the nearest identity of nature, there must be also the most proper generation, and consequently he who generateth, the most proper Father. If therefore man, who by the benediction of God given unto him at his first creation in these words, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth," begetteth a son in his own likeness, after his image, that is, of the same human nature, of the same substance with him, (which if he did not, he should not according to the benediction multiply himself or man at all,) with which similitude of nature many accidental disparities may consist-if by this act of generation he obtaineth the name of father, because, and in regard, of the similitude of his nature in the son, how much more properly must that name belong unto God himself, who hath begotten a Son of a nature and essence, so totally like, so totally the same, that no accidental disparity can imaginably consist with that identity?

That God is the proper and eternal Father of his own eternal Son is now declared: what is the eminency or excellency of this relation followeth to be considered. In general then we may safely observe, that in the very name of father there is something of eminence which is not in that of Son; and some kind of priority we must ascribe unto him whom we call the first, in respect of him whom we term the second Person; and as we cannot but ascribe it, so must we endeavour to preserve it.

Now that privilege or priority consisteth not in this, that the essence or attributes of the one are greater than the essence or attributes of the other, for we shall hereafter demonstrate them to be the same in both; but only in this, that the Father hath that essence of himself, the Son by communication from the Father. From whence he acknowledgeth that he is "from him," that he "liveth by him," that the "Father gave him to have life in himself," and generally referreth all things to him, as received from him. Wherefore in this sense some of the ancients have not stuck to interpret those words, "The Father is greater than I," of Christ as the Son of God, as the second Person in the blessed Trinity; but still with reference not unto his essence, but his generation, by which he is understood to have his being from the Father, who only hath it of himself, and is the original of all power and essence in the Son. "I can of mine own self do nothing," saith our Saviour, because he is not of himself; and whosoever receives his being, must receive his power from another, especially where the essence and the power are undeniably the same, as in God they are. "The Son then can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do," because he hath no power of himself, but what the Father gave: and seeing he gave him all the power, as communicating his entire and undivided essence, therefore "what things soever he doth, these also doth the Son likewise," by the same power by which the Father worketh, because he had received the same Godhead in which the Father subsisteth. There is nothing more intimate and essential to any thing than the life thereof, and that in nothing so conspicuous as in the Godhead, where life and truth are so insepa

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