386 THE ARIAN INVITED TO ORTHODOX FAITH. has laboured hard to find out such a difficulty ; my will is reso- lutelybent to pursue such a course ?" And many other common expressions there are of the same nature, wherein the mind and will are still more evidently and plainly represented as persons. And since human powers are thus represented as persons, whymay not the Word and the Spirit, which are divine powers, be thus represented also ?,and why may not God be represented as a person ti'ansàcting his own divine affairs with his Word and his Spirit under personal characters, since a man is often repre- sented as transacting human affairswithhis understanding, mind, will, reason, fancy, or conscience, in a personal manner? See this treated of more at large in the considerations contained in the " dissertation on the use of the word person." VI. Have not the greatest part of the writers on t s sub- jeót applied the word person to such sort of ideas, or distinctions in the divine nature, as would not bear the proper and literal ap- plication of that word, which properly and literally signifies a distinctconscious mind ? And therefore they have been constrained touse the word in an analogical and figurative sense. The reve- rend Doctor Wallis, in his letters on the " Doctrine of the Trinity," illustrates this doctrine of the Father, Son, and Spi- rit, by the essence, the wisdom, and the force, or executive power of a human soul, letter I. page 16. and freely acknow- ledges, that the name of person, when it is applied to this divine subject, is metaphorical, or figurative. And indeed, thoses.wbo make the greatest distinction between the sacred three, viz. the true Athanàsians do still suppose, that the word person is not taken in the most complete sense of three separate or separable spirits, as three inch, or three angels, ;'when it is applied to .th doctrine of the Trinity. VII. Since the mind and will make up the soul, and the soul acts by them in all things that it doth, may not each of these powers be called the soul ? May we not say, the mind is the soul, or the will is the soul ? So if the Word and Spirit are those divine powers by which God Both every thing, may not each of them be called God ? May we not say, the Word is God, and the Spirit is God ? May not what each of them doessbe appro- priated to God, since they are the potiers by which God ope- rates ? And does not this bid fair for the true meaning of scrip- ture, wheresuch sort of language appears: And especially when we consider that this is the language of the ancient Jews, and the primitive christians, who called the Logos God, and attribute to God what is done by his divine Word or his Spirit. VIII. Dods not this representation of things shev how, the sacred three, that is, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, have sufficient unity, or oneness of nature, to be exhibited to us in scripture as ohe God, and yet how they may have a sufficient
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