DISSERTATION II. 233 one being, or to attribute tinily to each of them, if one thing is frequently predicated or affirmed concerning eachof these ex- nipples as a complex idea. Nor can I see any thing so terrible or heretical in it, if we should suppose the human nature and divine nature of Christ, to be in some sense two distinct persons, as God and man, being each of them a single intelligent,agent. I confess the frightful sound of Nestorianism may reasonably forbid aman to indulge this language, because it will not be counted orthodox : But I know, of no manner of injury doneto the scripture, to the sacred truths of the gospel,. nor to the common schemes.of explaining the trinity, by such an allowance as this is. The reverend 111r. Robert Fleming is positive in this point. See Christology, hook DIl. chapter 3. page 279. And the scripture sometimes seems to speak of Christ as a distinct person in one of his natures, and as abstracted from the other, though it be not really separated. II. But yet I may add, that the common way of speaking to which our (livings have accustomed themselves, denies the human nature of Jesus Christ tobe so properly called a distinct person by itself, because it was never ordained to exist one mo- ment separate from the godhead : And therefore the complex idea,of God-man, may with greater propriety be called á per- son, than the human nature alone. If I were engaged to sup- port this notion, I might propose a parallel case to give some Light to it, viz. an angel is called a person, because though it be but a single spirit, yet it was never ordained to exist in union with an animal body : And yet a human soul, which is one single spirit, is not so usually called a person in the separate state because it is ordained to dwell in a human body ; and upon this account the addition of a human body is many tibies reckoned necessary to complete the personality, orto make a human soul, a complete person. III. If this difficulty could besolved no otherway, we might correct the account which I have given of the word person, and includein it all the ideas which the learned Doctor %Vaterland has expressed in his definition, viz. " a single person is an intelligent agent, having the distinctive characters of I, thou, and he ; and not divided Or distinguished into more intelligent agents capable of the saine characters." See " Second Vindication ofChrist's Divinity," query fifteenth, wherehe has set this definition of the word in a clear and easy light. Let it be noted here, that the Doctor accurately and judiciously usesthe words divided and dis- tinguished, not divisibleand distinguishable; for thehmnan and divine constituents of the person of Christ are really divisible into two such persons, but since their union they never were, or shall be really separated and divided. If after all it should be found, that the scripture, on some
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