354 THE ARIAN INVITED TO ORTHODOX FAITH. And as for that text on which this objection is founded ; John xv. 26. " The Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, whom I will send unto you." See a particular para- phrase of it at the end of this discourse. Objection V. You have described the Spirit of God under various ideas ; you make it to signify either a divine power, or God himself acting by his Spirit, or the agency and operation of this divine power, or the gifts and graces of the HolySpirit; thus, according to your account, there is not one single, settled, uniform idea, that belongs to this sacred name, the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, in scripture. Answer. This is freely granted : And it is the Eastern custom, and particularly the Jewish manner of writing, to use the same word in various senses. This sort of writing runs through the scripture, both in the Old and New Testament. Shall I instance in the word law ? Sometimes it signifies the five books of Moses, sometimes the ten commandments, sometimes a doctrine of religion, sometimes the gospel, and sometimes it denotes a principle of sin, or a principle of holiness. The word grace also, in one place, signifies the favour of God, in another a christian virtue, and in a third text it denotes beauty or de- cency ; and the Greek word xapg signifies also thanks. The word faith sometimes means an act of the mind, believing the revelation of Christ, and sometimes the object of that act, that is, the truth, or the gospel. And many otherwords might be produced of the saine kind, such as righteousness, flesh, body, soul, &c. But let me come nearer the point, and give an instance of the naine of the second person in theTrinity, that is, the Logos, or Word, sometimes it signifies a power of the divine nature ; Ps. xxxiii. 6. and 2. Pet. iii. 5. " By theWord of God the hea- vens were of old." Sometimes it denotes God himself actingby bis Word ; Heb. iv. 12. " The Worth of God is living and pow- erful, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Sometimes it intends the complete person of our Lord Jesus Christ incarnate ; Rev. xix. 13. " His name is called the Word of God." And at other times it means the Word of God, either. written or spoken ; as Prov. xxx. 5. " Every. Word of God is pure." And in a multitude of other texts it has the same sense. It is plain that the sacred writers had different ideas under the same word in different places, and if we should confine the terms faith, grace, law, righteousness, word, to one uniform sense and idea, it would be impossible to. explain, or interpret, many texts of`scripture. Now, since Many other words are used in this manner, in scripture, and even that sacred name, theWord of God, which denotes the second person of the blessed Three, why may not
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