.922 THE ARIAN INVITED TO ORTHODOX FAITH. sustain the divine and creatural characters atttributed to him, why may we not suppose the primitive fathers, under the influ- ence of these scriptural representations, might be led to attri- buteboth divine and creatural characters to Christ, the Logos, the Son of God, in his pre- existent state, though they do not evidently keep up the just and distinct ideas of two beings, united in one complex person. III. Perhaps this construction of the ancient christian wri- ters, may be the easiest and happiest method of reconciling their strange and jarring expressions, both to one another, and to scripture ; and perhaps, it may be the only, or, at least, the best way, whereby we can affix clear, distinct, and intelligible ideas to them. Let us make a few experiments. When Theophilus says, the Logos, or eternal word, which was always in the heart of God, was afterwards produced, ge- nerated, and became a son ; this may be explained, by God's producing a human spirit, or angelic Logos, a first-born Son, by voluntary act of his will, and then assuming this first-born Son into a personal union with his divine word, or wisdom : And thus he made this divine Word become his Son. The di- vine word which had an existence before, was then made his Son, by union with his Son. And this is very agreeable to scripture language ; for when in John i. 14. The word is said to be made flesh, all christians agree, that it signifies only, that flesh was assumed into a personal union with the Word. If Justin Martyr, who in the judgment of the learned speaks the sense of the other ante- nicene fathers, assert the Logos " always to bave co-existed with the Father, and that he was then be% gotten, when God by him created the world :" this may be exactly explained in the same manner as Theophilus. And all the rest of the fathers, before and after the council of Nice, who speak of the Logos existing eternally with God, before he was generated and became a Son, may be interpreted in the same manner. When they speak of the generation of the Son, by the will and power of God the Father; when they assert the Father to be the cause, fountain, spring `of his existence, and of all his powers ; when they call him condlti , ás¡swepnµa, x?wµx ; a crea- ture, and the first-born work of. the Spirit, &c. Here is an an- gelic Logos, or human soul, aproper subject for these inferior ascriptions. And when the Father is said to be the author ofhis godhead, or to communicate godhead to him, this is done by the Father's voluntary act of uniting the divine Logos, that is, his own eternal word or wisdom to this angelic spirit, and by this union the angelic Logos becomes true God, and the more express image of the Father. If the ancients speakof the divinewisdom, as being created,
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