Q. But is there not a more peculiar ground of our Saviour's filiation?

A. Yes; he had another generation, by which he was begotten, and consequently a son before he was conceived in the virgin's womb.

Q. How do you prove this?

A. 1. By his having had an actual being or existence before his conception in the womb of the virgin. 2. This being was not any created being, but essentially divine. 3. This divine essence was communicated to him by the Father. 4. This communication of the divine nature was a proper generation, by which he which communicateth is a proper Father, and he to whom it is communicated a proper Son. 5. This divine essence was never so communicated to any other; nor was any so begotten besides himself; from which we clearly infer, that he is most properly and perfectly, the only-begotten Son of the Father.

Q. Illustrate your first proposition, that Christ had an actual being or existence, before his conception in the womb of the virgin.

A. Jesus Christ was really in heaven, and truly descended from thence, and came into the world from the Father, before that which was begotten of the virgin ascended into heaven, or went unto the Father. 1. Christ did receive no other being or nature after his conception, before his ascension, than what was begotten of the virgin. 2. What was begotten of the virgin had its first

being here on earth, and therefore could not really be in heaven till it ascended thither. 3. What was really in heaven, really was; because nothing can be present in any place, which is not.

Q. Prove that Jesus Christ was really in heaven before he ascended thither.

A. From his own words, "What and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" (John vi. 62.)

Q. Might he not have ascended up before this? A. If he had ascended into heaven before his death, and descended from thence, it had been the most remarkable action of his life, and the proof of it, of the greatest efficacy in the disseminating of the Gospel; therefore, clearly, would not have been unnoticed by the Evangelists.

Q.

Show that he descended from heaven before he ascended thither.

A. This, he testifies and inculcates, "the bread of God is he, which came down from heaven; and I am the living bread which came down from heaven," (John vi. 33, 51.) Again, he says, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me," (John vi. 38.) St. Paul says, "that he ascended, what is it, but that he also descended first?" (Eph. iv. 9.) Again, Christ says, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father," (John xvi. 27, 28.)

Q Do you fix any certain space of duration to this pre-existence?

A. John the Baptist declares, "This is he of whom I spake, he that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me," (John i. 15.); i. e. he who cometh after me, as to conception, nativity, office, and baptism, is yet before me, i. e. before me, as to duration. Further, he was before Abraham: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was I am," (John viii. 58.); which expression, "I am," must mean a real being and existence, in which he had unceasingly continued. Again, Christ was really before the flood; for he preached to them that lived before it, as we gather from the words of St. Peter, who says, Christ "was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God, waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing," (1 Pet. iii. 18-20.) He preached to these people while they were disobedient, therefore, while they lived; and that St. Peter did not allude to persons in any subsequent age, is plain, from the expression," in the days of Noah." Again, he lived at the creation of the world, for he created it. St. Paul says: the Son, "by whom in these last days God spake unto us, is he, by whom also he made the worlds," (Heb. i. 2.) St. Paul again says, the Scripture spake "unto the Son, thy

"thou

throne, O God, is for ever and ever;" Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands," (Heb. i. 8, 10, &c.) Speaking of Christ, the apostle says, "who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature," (Col. i. 15-17.) That he did not create the world as a mere instrument is plain from the concluding expression, "all things were created by him and for him," and he also not only made, but preserves, for "by him all things consist." St. John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God; all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made," (John i. 1-3.) Hence we conclude, that he who was before John the Baptist, before Abraham, who was at the end of the first world, and at the beginning of the same, had a real being and existence before Christ was conceived by the Virgin Mary.

Q. May not this beginning, be the same with that spoken of in St. John's first epistle," from the beginning?" (ver. 1.)

A. No; the beginning in the epistle is that in which the apostles saw, and heard, and touched the Word; the beginning in the Gospel, that, in which "the Word was with God," and therefore not seen or heard by the apostles, but known as yet to God alone.

Q. May not the creation spoken of by St. Paul, (Col. i. 15-17.) be the metaphorical, or new creation, mentioned in 2 Cor. v. 17. Gal. vi. 15, &c.

A. The new creatures there spoken of are those whose "faith worketh by love;" and yet there are millions who have neither faith nor love, so that the expression, "all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth," cannot be applicable to this spiritual creation.

Q. Illustrate your second proposition, that this being was not any created being, but essentially divine.

A. This follows from the demonstration of the first, the creating all things by the Son of God; from whence was inferred his pre-existence, 66 in the beginning," assuring us as much that he was God, as that he was; "For he that built all things was God," (Heb. iii. 4.) And the same apostle, who assures us that "all things were made, by him," tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," (John i. 3, 1.) Therefore, in "the beginning, or ever the earth was, the Word was God," (Prov. viii. 23.) i. e. the same God with whom the Word was in the beginning. But he could not be the same God with him, unless, by having the same divine essence. Therefore, the being which Christ had before his conception, was the divine nature.

2. Christ "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied