DISSERTATION IV. 301 Whether the angel mentioned in Ec. v. 6. be not the same glo- rious archangel, that is, Christ. The words are these, Say not before the face of the angel, it was an error: Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice ? Solomon is here advising us against rash vows. And he supposes some eminent angel, "in whom is the name of God :" as Ex. xxiii. 23. or who is called God, being present to hear the vow, especially in the house of God, as verse 1. It is certain the Jews had a common notion of some extraordinary angel in whom God dwelt, and the scripture often intimates it. IV. The " Logos," or word, sometimes signifies the wis- domof the Father, or some special power, or divine sufficiency; of the godhead, whereby all things were contrived and created,, and which is represented sometimes in a personal manner by these Jewish writers ; Ps. xxxiii. 6. By the word if the Lord were the heavens created. 2 Pet. Hi.. 5, 7: By the word of God were, the heavensof old, that is, were created, and by the same word they are preserved, and reserved for the fire. And whether pnµa, used on the same occasion; bywhich " the worldwas made, and is upheld ; Heb. i. 3. and xi. 3. may not be the same with this divine Aóya,, is matter of 'enquiry, and in my maturest thoughts,_ it is notimprobable. In this sense Christ is also the Logos or Word of God, for. God created all things by that Logos, who " was with God, who was God, who was made flesh, and dwelt among us;'' John 1. I, 14. " He created the worlds by this his Son ; Heb. i. 2. Ile created all things by Jesus Christ; Eph. iii. 9. He is that divine wisdom which was with God before the foundations of the world were laid, as Solomon describes in Prov. viii. 22-31. And if we can suppose this wisdom, or Word, assuming into union with itself the soul of the Messiah, or that great arch- angel, when he was first created, or generated, and using his ministration in its ancient divine operations and transactions, then ìi11 those superior and inferior expressions whichareused in John i. 1 -14. and in Col. i. 15-19. and in Hob. i. 2-11. and in Prov. viii. 22-31. and in John v. 19, 20, 26, 27, &c. may be applied to Christ as a complex person. Then it may be said concerning this person, he wits brought forth before the hills, the Lord possessed him in the beginning of his way before his works of old, he was set up frosts everlasting, that is, from the begin- bing, or ever the earth was, BCc. On this text, in Prov. viii. 22. TheLordpossessed me in the beginning of his way, it may be farther observed, that the Sep- tuagint renders the Hebrew word 'llp expo, µe, that is, created nie, which the primitive christian writers often cite, but are at a great loss how to explain it. Sometimes they apply it to the Father's constituting Christ Lord of the creation ; which does
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