QUESTION V. 463 the vicegerent of the Father, though these are great truths : but hegives this reason, that thereis amost intimate union or oneness between the Father and him. I am in the Father and the Father inme : and so near and so intimate is this union, that he attri- butes the words which he speaks and the works which he does to the Father, verse 10. that is, to the godhead of the Father dwelling in him. Thus " Christ andhis Father areone ;" John x.30. One godhead belongto both. From all this we may reasonably infer, that whenthe names, titles and works of the true and eternal Godare propheticallyat- tributed to Jesus Christ under the Old Testament, or historically in the New, it is not so much because his human soul is the image, representative or deputy of the Father, as the Arianssay ; but because the very godhead of the Father dwells personally in the man Jesus : the fulness of the godhead dwells in hint bodily ; Col. ii. 9. so as on some occasions to give a sufficient ground for the representation of Christ as God-man, or one complex person including a divine and human nature ; though on other occasions Christ is represented as a man, and is called the man Christ Jesus the Mediator ; as in 1 Tim. ii. 5. And as we find divine names and characters are given to Christ at and after his incarnation, because thefulness of the godhead dwelt bodily in the man Jesus ; Col. ii. 9. and thereby he became God manifest in theflesh; 1 'l'im. iii. 16. so before his incarnation, when the angel of the Lordwho appeared to the patriarchs calls himself the Lord, God, Jehovah, God Almighty, and the God of Abraham, we very reasonably account for it in the same manner , viz. That the fulness of the godhead dwelt in him spiritually, that there was the humanSpirit of our blessed Saviour in his pre- existent or angelic state, inhabited by the great and almighty God, and composing as it were one complex person, one complex intelligent agent in those appearances. Objection. But does not this represent Christ as being the Father ? Both not this suppose God the Father to be incarnate, which is contrary to thecommon expressions of scripture, and sense of the primitive church? Answer I. Almost all the protestant writers that have been counted most orthodox for some hundreds of years past, both in foreign countries and at home, have universally supposed the very same numerical godhead of the;'ather to be the godhead of the Son, and that itis'the same infinite Spirit; the same under- standing and the same will, which exists in the Father withone relative property, that is also incarnate in the Son with another relative property : Only they suppose the superadded idea orre- lative property of fatherhood is not incarnate, but the superadded relativeproperty ofsonship. Now 1 cannot reasonably fear anyjust censures from those who follow this doctrine of all our reformed
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=