280 THE ARIAN INVITEa TO ORTHOaoX rAITH. cious command, then it denotes a medium of divine operation. Therefore when the term word is taken personallyas well as divinely, it must denote some glorious person, by whom God reveals himself, his mind and will to creatures, and by whom he operates. In short, it is a personal representation of some glo- riot'smedium of God's manifestationsand operations. Now this character eminently agrees to our blessed Savi- our : And it is reasonably supposed, that it is upon these accounts chiefly hé is so often called the Logos, as it signifies Word. I. As he wasthe medium of divine manifestation. So Ire- wens speaks, libro ii. capite 56. " The Father of our Lord Je- sus Christ is revealed and manifested to angels and arch-angels, to principalities and powers, and to men by his Word, who is his Son : 'l'he Son reveals the Father to all to whom the Father is revealed." So John i. 18. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hatlz declared. him. H. As he was a medium of divine operation. So Irenteus expresses himself, " The Word ministers to the Father in all things: He made all things by his Word ;" libro iv. capite 17, 37. So St. Paul and St. John explain each other, when they describe God the Father as creating all things by his Word, and by Jesus Christ ; John i. 3. Eph. iii. 9. Upon a review of the Whole we find, that the logos is the divine wisdom itself, a re- vealer of the divine wisdom, a medium of divine manifestations and divine transactions: And on these accounts it is proba- ble, that our blessed Saviour first obtained, and still keeps the nave of Logos, or Word, since his incarnation, as well as 'before. Christ is called the Logos in his incarnate state; 1 John i. 1, 2. The Logos, or Wordof 'life, which we have seen withour eyes, which we have 'looked upon, and our hands have handled; Rev. xix. 13. he is represented as cloathed in. a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Logos, òr the Word of God." Nor does the apostle John only use this language, but the evan- gelist Luke seems to speak the same dialect, in the second verse of his gospel, when he calls the apostles eye-witnesses, and mi- nisters of the Logos or Word : For if the term Logos be not taken in its personal sense, it is an improper way of speaking, to 'call them .eye-witnesses insteadof ear -witnesses. It it manifest also, that the term Logos has sometimes a peculiar reference to our blessed Saviour, considered as distinct from flesh and blood, and is so used in those scriptures which speak of him in his pre-existent state. Thebeginning of St. John's gospel puts this beyond all doubt, if there were no other testimony. In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was withGod, and the Word was God. By him wereall thingsmade, and without him was nothingmade that was made: And this
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