SECT. III.

SON OF GOD.

The title SON OF GOD, a known designation of the Messiah.-Not a synonym-Understood to imply a superior and even Divine nature.

"The beginning of the glad tidings concerning Jesus the Christ, the SON OF GOD." Mark i. 1. "This is my BELOVED SON, in whom I am well pleased." Matt. iii. 17. "I have seen and borne witness, that this is the Son of God. John i. 34. "Thou

art the Christ, the SON OF THe living God ?” ib. xvi. 16. “Art thou the Christ the SON OF GOD?" ib. xxvi. 63. 66 SON OF THE BLESSED?" Mark xiv. 61.

the

THESE passages, and some others parallel or similar in the four Gospels, furnish the following results:

1. The title, Son of God, was recognized by Jesus himself, by his friends and followers, by his enemies, and by the Jewish nation at large, as a designation of the Messiah. This acceptation seems to have been universally known and indisputably held. It must, therefore, have had a satisfactory and authoritative origin; or it could not have been so received and established. Such an origin is most naturally to be sought in the Prophetic Scriptures. No where else could an authority be found to which the whole Jewish

nation would bow, and to which it would, at the same time, be congruous for the Divine Majesty itself to conform. This title we have already found among the prophetic descriptions of the Messiah, and we have seen that it was recognized in the Jewish theology of the period intermediate between the Old and the New Testament.*

2. Though it be undoubtedly an appropriated appellation of the Messiah, it is not a mere synonym of that word. Many respectable writers + have fallen into this inaccuracy. Two or more terms may be generally, or even with an exclusive uniformity, applied to the same object, and yet be respectively of very different import. Christ is called Lord, Mediator, Saviour, Prince of Life, Captain of Salvation, King of Kings: but it would betray great ignorance or rashness to say, that these were synonymous expressions. The term Messiah designates a person divinely appointed and consecrated to one or more of the offices of a king, a priest, or a prophet. The other term, unless it be taken in a sense wholly figurative, is manifestly expressive of the nature of the being to whom it is applied, and of a natural relationship to another.

3. It becomes, therefore, important for us to

* Vol. i. p. 213, 439, 464.

The author of the Calm Inquiry, p. 261. Also J. D. Michaelis, Rosenmüller, sen. &c. Grotius says with more discrimination, "Apparet hoc cognomen vulgò Messiæ datum." Annot. in Matt.xiv. 33.

ascertain whether this epithet be given to Christ, in one of its figurative meanings stated above, or in a strict and proper sense. Now, if, the former were the fact, if the Messiah were styled the Son of God merely as an expression of his royal dignity, or pre-eminent sanctity, or prophetic mission, how could we conceive that his claiming this appellation, or his admitting, on the interrogation of an enemy, that it belonged to him, could be made the ground of a charge of blasphemy? A proof so broad and palpable, in the opinion of the Jewish lawyers, as to render further inquiry needless, and to be decisive of the alleged guilt ?* The law of Israel against blasphemy was expressed with the utmost precision. "Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin and he who blasphemeth the name of Jehovah shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall surely stone him as well the foreigner as the native; for his blaspheming THE NAME he shall be put to death."t The cases of real or imputed blasphemy which occur in the Old Testament, and in the Apocrypha, all

* "The high-priest said to him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ the Son of the living God! Jesus saith to him, Thou hast said," [the Hebrew idiom for, I am; as it is given in Mark xiv. 62.]— "Then the high-priest rent his garments, saying, He has blasphemed! What further need have we of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard his blasphemy!" Matt. xxvi. 63, 65, "We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he hath made himself the Son of God."

John xix. 7.

+ Lev. xxiv. 15, 16.

wear this distinctive character;* they are a reproaching, a contempt, a designed insult, upon the name and attributes of the living God, or of some supposed deity. He would be guilty of blaspheming the NAME," who should apply. "that fearful and glorious name" to an idol, inanimate or animate: and, most evidently, he would not be less chargeable with the same crime, who could have the boldness to apply it unwarrantably to himself! Of this latter form of blasphemy Sennacherib was, guilty, in ascribing to himself powers and a command over success and victory, such as can belong to none but an omnipotent being.t The Mishna enumerates blasphemy among the crimes to be punished with the highest kind of capital punishment, that of being stoned to death; and adds, "No one is to be esteemed a blasphemer unless he has expressly uttered THE NAME ;" that is, the revered

* In the instances of Naboth, Rabshakeh, Sennacherib, Antiochus, Nicanor, &c. See 1 Kings xxi. 10. 2 Kings xix. 22. Isaiah lii. 5. Dan. iii. 29 in LXX. Bel and the dragon, v. 10.

2 Maccab. ix. 28.-xv. 3, 5, 24.

† See 2 Kings xix. 22—24.

Tract. de Sanhedrin, in Mischna Surenhusii, vol. iv. p. 238— 242. The Mishna is a body of Rabbinical interpretations of the written law, pretended to have been revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, and to have been handed down by tradition to the Prophets, the Great Sanhedrim, &c. and finally to have been committed to writing by Rabbi Judah the holy. Dr. Lardner assigns A. D. 180 or 190 as the probable period of its compilation. Jewish Testim. chap. v. The work contains internal evidence of being a collection of traditions really very ancient, far beyond the time of the compiler. See Prideaux's Connection, i. 326, &c.

word JEHOVAH. Blasphemy, therefore, in the Jewish sense, is justly defined by Schleusner to be, "the saying or doing any thing by which the majesty of God is insulted, uttering curses or reproaches against God, speaking impiously, arrogating and taking to one's self that which belongs to God."* In this latter sense the Jews manifestly understood it, when they said, "We stone thee for blasphemy, and that thou, being a man, makest thyself God."+

This was the crime, which Caiaphas and the Sanhedrim affirmed that Jesus had in very fact committed in their presence, and for which they instantly passed judgment of death. Let it be observed that, according to the hypothesis of the Unitarians, Jesus in admitting that he was the Messiah, claimed nothing above the rank and functions of a human being, nothing beyond an office, august indeed and venerable, but which every Jew. believed would be executed by a mere man. To those who rejected his claim, he might have appeared chargeable with fanaticism, imposture, or even constructive treason; but where was the colourable pretext for the charge of blasphemy, a crime so closely defined by the original law, and the limits of which were so anxiously fixed by the tradition which had all the force of law? Let it also be

* Dicere et facere quibus majestas Dei violatur, maledicum in Deum esse, impiè loqui, arrogare sibi et sumere quæ sunt Dei. Schleusn. Lex. voce Braonμéw. ↑ John x 33.