DISSERTATION IV.. 325 the Son of man, which is, or was, in heaven ; and Phil. ii. 7. That he emptied himself. Origen was no stranger to this opi- nion, when he says, " perhaps the soul of the Son in its per- fection, was in God, and his fulness, and coming out thence when hé was sent by the Father, took a body of,Mary." And again upon these words of John the baptist, llfter me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me; John i. 30. He,says thus, " That it is spoken of Christ, that we may learn that the man, or manhood, also of the Son of God, mixed with his divinity, had a prior subsistence to his birth of the virgin. This man, says the learned author, must be the rational soul ; which is confirmed by the appearances of theMessiah made to the patriarchs and Jewish fathers in the form of a man, the pro- per indication of a human soul. Hence thenwe may justly infer, that the rational soul, united to the Word, was the first created essence, or first fruits of the creation, holy to the Lord, and claimed by the Son as his own right. For if he was to be first, or have the pre-eminence in all things, can that advantage be denied him in relation to his soul ? Origen, who holds its pre- existence, seems to allow it to be first created. For speaking of the formation: of wisdom before the world, he says, God created rùÿvxoç 0.001%, an animated wisdom, or, wisdom with a soul. In another place he call this, aµj,uxp. aoy . And this opinion ap- peared so very reasonable, that we find some marks of it in the later centuries. For the author of the mediations called St. Austin's distinguishes between eternal wisdom, the Son of God, and the first created wisdom ; which he makes to be a rational and intellectual mind. Again, the same learned author, in his Considerations on Mr. IPliiston's historical Preface, pages55, 56. supposes " The Son of God may be called iroinµa, &c. not only in respect of his coming forth to create the world, inwhich sense he is the beginning of all things, but also in respect of a created intel- lectual nature, which hé is supposed, by some, to have assumed at the beginning of the creation, as the first fruits of it." And the same author grants, that " he may, perhaps be mentioned oftener by the ancient fathers in relation to his coming forth, and to his created nature, than his eternal subsistence." And if it should be so in scripture too, which he doth not actually grant, yet he proposes this reason for it, viz. " That it concerns us, móre to know him in this state of humility and condescension, than in that of his natural immensity and exaltation, since it is owing to his humility that we are both made and redeemed." Now the author from whom I cite these passages has testified both his zeal and his learning in several of his works against the Arian cause. The late reverend Bishop Fowler, in his defence of his dis- x3
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=