338 THE ARIAN INVITED TO ORTHODOX FAITit. his will, his reaton, his fancy, his conscience, are.often repre- sented as persons; in modern nations and languages; the man himself is sometimes described as conversing with his own spirit, with his soul, with his conscience, with his fancy, or reason, as though they were persotìs ; and employing his reason or conscience, as agents, in any operation, even as God is said to send, or employ his own Spirit in his sacred affairs, as a divine agent: Besides, we may consider, that this personal manner of speaking was very customary among the eastern nations, and the sacred writers. They frequently personalize not only the powers of human nature, but the virtues, vices, dispositions of men, and even things without life are often called sons and daughters, and exhibited to the reader, as though they were persons. But of this subject I have treated more at large in the dissertation on the word person,* and would not repeat it here. See also some further solution of this difficulty under the answer to the first objection. HI. The Spirit of God is represented as so intimate with the divine nature, and so much one with God, that it is sometimes exhibited as God himself, even as the spirit of a man is properly the man himself, or his soul. It was common with Hebrew, Jew- ish writers, to speak of the spirit of a thing to signify the thing itself. See Eph. iv. 23. Be ye renewed in the spirit of your Mind, that is, let your mind itself be renewed : Where we may suppose the saine sort of pleonasm, as when the body, or flesh of Christ, is called the b'ody'of his flesh; Col. i. 22. So the Spirit of God is represented to us as one and the same with God, by analogy to human spirits ; 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11. The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things ofìGod; for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God: that is, as the spirit of a man knows the secret things of his 'own soul by a primary and immediateconsciousness, inherent in himself, and not derived from any other, so the Spirit of God is as much that God whose Spirit he is, as the spirit of a man is the man himself; and therefore he knows the secrets of the godhead by a primary and immediate conscious- ness inherent in himself, and not derived from another. There are other scriptures wherein the Spirit may be taken for'God himself, as, Ps. lxiii. 10. They rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit, therefore he was turned'to be their enemy, and he fought against them. God himself seems to be the proper object, of their rebellion and provocation. So when David says, 2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3. The Spirit of the Lord spoke by nie, the God * See Dissertation 1F.
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