3O52' THE ARIAN INVITED TO ORTHODO% FATTR. not seem to he the true meaning of it in this place. Sometimes, they refer it to the production, or generation of the Logos, by the will and power of the Father, which is a superior sort of creation, dnd may be most properly applied to this angelic Logos, or human soul of Christ, which was created or produced" by the will of the Father, and assumed into union with, or pos- sessed by the divine Logos before all worlds, of which we shall say more hereafter. These are only remarks by the way: But it is manifest, that the word of God, or " Logos," in scripture, sometimes signifies an essential, co-eternal, divine power. And imthat famous text; 1 John v, 7. There are three that bearrecord iN heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three' are one; whether the Logos, or Word, signify this divinepower, which is- called the second person inthe Deity, or whether it sig- nify Christ in his whole complete person as God -man, is hard to determine. V. In Iíeb. iv. 12. The Word, the Logos, denotes God actingby his word ; Logos implies God himself, for a divine . power is deity. And Christ is theLogos in this sense also : For the evangelist John says, The Word was God; John i. 1. and. St. Paul calls'Christ God manifest in the flesh ; 1 Tim. iii. 16. Ile is the Lord, and the God of Thomas the apostle ; John xx. 28. In is God over all blessed for ever; Rom. ix. 5. The divine essential power, called the Logos, is the true God, for every thing essential to God, is God. Nor is it strange at all, that Logos should signify God himself since it signifies the wisdom, or reason of God, for the same word " Logos," in its primary, Or most usual sense, denoting the reason of any spirit, is upon that account used sometimes to denote the Spirit itself. Thus the -human mind, and angelic spirits, are called soya, among an- cient Greek writers, particularly Philo and Origen ; but Christ is called o aoy or the Word, emphatically, and the divine word. If there ore Christ be a divine power, called the "Logos," he is God himself. Thus all these five applications of the terms " Logos," or " memra," or word, as used by the ancient .Jews, are happily re- conciled in our blessed Saviour ; and a great part of that con- fusion which seems to be in their expressions is ba nished by this representationof things,: Thus also there seems to beau illustrious light shed upon many dark passages of scripture, and the inferior and superior character&of the Messiah, Christ, or Logos, are na- turally, and easily adjUsted, by supposing his sacred person to be composed of a glorious, created spirit, inhabited by the divine, essential, or personal wisdom, or word. Thus he was the eter- nal Creator, and also the first-born of all the creatures, and in some sense existed as God-man before his incarnation. And this is What I hate endeavouredto evince by the light of scripture, in
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