DISSERTATIONVI. 367 note personal ideas. It is no wonder then if in scripture the powers of the divine nature as described are persons. III. I add further, that the Jews were wont to distinguish thepowers of a spirit personally from that spirit : And this comes close and home to our present case. When they represent aman as purposing and resolving any thing in his own heart, they say he speaks to his memra, that is, his word, his understanding, his soul, his will, or any of his powers. So the great God is often- times distinguished from his memra, or word, or will, or powers, or affections, in thesame Jewishwritings. Thus the term tnemra, when put for God or man is often put for himself under a distinct personal character. There are some few places wherein this veryword memra is evidently attributed td the Messiah, or Christ who was to come. See Mr. Robert Fleming's "Christology, vol. I. pages 137-142." where are many citations of this kind from theJewish writings. Philo theJew, who wrote about the time our Saviour was upon earth, and has left his writings as one of the noblest monu- ments we have of the ancient Jewish sentiments, speaks fre- quently of distinct powers in the divine nature ; and represents them in a personal manner. Heacknowledges that God has two chiefsupreme powers, oneof which is called God, and the other Lord, and supposes these two powersto be uncreated, eternal, in- finite, immense, incomprehensible, and speaks of them upon very many occasions. And though he does not directly give these two powers the name of mind andwill, for he calls them sometimes dominion and goodness, yet he speaks of them as divine powers, by which all things are created and governed. He makes the Logos, or wisdom, another divine power, or God himself. 4' These things, saith he, being considered, as it appears how God is three, and yet but one ;" which in his allegorizingway he represents by the vision of Abraham ; when Jehovah appeared to him ; Gen. xviii.. i. "And Abraham looked, and behold three men stood by him :" This vision, in a literal sense he expounds of the Logos, and two angels : By the mystical sense, he saith, here was denoted o nv, the great Jehovah with his two powers ; and he repeats this in another place : " In the middle is the Fa- ther of all things ; on each side ofhim are the two powers, the oldest and the nearest to the ô nv." See Dr. Allix's Judgment of the Jewish.Church, page 147. Thus we see there was some shadowof the Doctrine of the Trinity, among the Jews of the ancient synagogue ; though they wereas zealous asserters of the unity of the godhead, as either the Socinians or the Arians can pretend to be : And it appears also by this sort of discourse, that they conceived of the sacred Trinity as God with his two powers, which I have takenmore notice of in another place. W. Tomake this the more evident, I add also, that most
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