310 THE ARIAN INVITED TO ORTHODOX FAITH. by the prophets as the living God, is the God of the living; Mat. xxii. 32. and his Wordwho spake to Moses, and refuted the Sadducees. Therefore Christ, withthe Father, is the God of the living." Again, he begins; libro iii. capite 6. in this man- ner, viz. " Neither the Lord, nor the holy Spirit, nor the apos- tles, would have definitively and absolutely called himGod, who was not God, nor any one unless he were the true God." Then he goes on to shew, howChrist is called God; Ps. xlv. 6. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. Ps. 1 1. The Godofgods, the Lordhath spoken ; on which he comments thus, " What God is this of whom it is said, God shall come, even our God, and shall not keep silence ? This is the Son, who says openly, I am found of them who seek me not, tic. If we consult the ancients, with one mouth they all declare, that God alone is to be worshipped ; and yet they declare also for the worship of the Son, or the divine Word : And when I read these expressions, I cannot suffer myself to believe, that while they wrote those things, they could deny Christ to be the true God. It is evident to me, they believed his godhead. But I forbid myself to proceed in this work : It seems to be a need- less and useless thing, to prove that the fathers, in a multitude of their expressions, asserted the true deity of the Logos, after those great and learned authors, Bishop Pearson, Bishop Bull, Dr. Waterland, and Dr. Knight, have done it so effectually, in their large and labohred writings. , V. The remaining sense inwhich theancient Jewish writers used the term Logos, is that of a gloriousangel, or archangel, formed before the creation of the world ; called the first-born Son of God ; the man after the image of God ; the one man who is the Father of all others; the beginning ; the name of God ;" and who was employed as a messenger to the ancient patriarchs, and an instrument, or medium, by which God trans- acted many other important affairs, with regard to this lower world. Now the great enquiry is, Whether the primitive chris- tian fathers ever used the word " Logos" in this sense. Here I must acknowledge, that they speak with much confusion, and Ai-tingle the ideas of the increated or eternal Logos together with some inferior and creatural ideas, which they attribute also to the Logos. This would make one think, that some of them might have some obscurç notices, intimations, and conceptions of this angelic Logos, as personally joined, and made one with the divine eternal Logos : Though neither the primitive christians, nor the ancient Jews, keep the ideasof these two beings distinct; for, sométitnes they seem to attribute different; and seemingly inconsistent properties and actions to one and the same single 6' Logos." But an enquiry into this matter is the business of . the next section.
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