[115] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 24, 25; Laing's Knox, ii. 98. It has been questioned if this description of faith is one which Calvin and his stricter followers would have used. But nothing is more common, even in the earliest edition of his Institutes, than to find him describing faith as the apprehension of Christ with His gifts, or graces, as well as with His righteousness: "Apprehendimus ac obtinemus et ... Christi _dona_ amplectimur, quod ipsum est habere veram, ut decet fidem." "Haec omnia nobis a Deo offeruntur ac dantur in Christo Domino nostro nempe remissio peccatorum gratuita, ... _dona et gratiae_ Spiritus Sancti si certâ fide ea amplectimur." In one of these chapters [of the Scottish Confession] relating to the incarnation of Christ Jesus, He is spoken of not only, as in most of the Protestant Confessions, as the promised Messiah, the just seed of David, the Immanuel, or God in our nature--God and man in one person--but also as the _Angel of the great counsel of God_ [Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 31; Laing's Knox, ii. 99]. This expression is no doubt a translation of the μεγαλης βουλης αγγελος of the Septuagint, and is the more remarkable, not only as showing familiarity on the part of some of the framers of the Confession with a somewhat unusual rendering of one of the most explicit Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, but also as showing that they had perceived the true significance of an expression which last century gave rise to no little discussion and misconception. So far as I can remember, this remarkable expression does not appear in any other of the Protestant Confessions of that age. [116] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 32; Laing's Knox, ii. 100. [117] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 60, 61; Laing's Knox, ii. 108. [118] The following are a few specimens of close verbal coincidence between the Scottish Confession and the first edition of Calvin's Institutes:-- 1. "It behooved that the Filii Dei sumus quod naturalis Sonne of God suld descend unto Dei Filius sibi corpus ex corpore us, and tak himself a bodie of nostro, carnem ex carne nostra our bodie, flesh of our flesh, and ossa ex ossibus nostris composuit bone of our bones, and so become ut idem nobiscum esset. the Mediator betwixt God and man, giving power to so many as beleeve in Him to be the sonnes of God."--Dunlop, ii. 33, 34. 2. "Quhatsaever wee have Ut quod in Adamo perdidimus tynt in Adam is restored unto us Christus restitueret. agayne."--Dunlop, ii. 34.