522 THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS COD -MAN. Testament, but it was only for a season ; and these were only so many different prreludiums to his future incarnation or dwelling in flesh : So that the angel of God'spresence or human soul of Christ in his angelic state, who was the constant shekinah or ha- bitation of the godhead, was one with God, and might be much better called God than the cloud or fire which were but occasional habitations. 10. When this glorious angel, the human spirit or soul of Christ, together with his divine inhabitant the indwelling god- head, descended from his angelic state, and was made actual partaker offlesh and blood; he was then made a little lower than the angels; Heb. ii. 9. He took human flesh into a constant part- nership of his person, and became a man. The Word, who was God, was made flesh; John i. 1, 14. This never was said, nor could it over properly be said concerning the cloud or the fire. When God was manifest in the flesh, this flesh was united into one personwith theangel, and became the humanorbodily sheki- nah, or constant habitation of God. In him dwelt all the fulness of the godhead bodily ; Col. ii. Then Jesus Christ who was in all former ages the God angel in a proper and complete sense, became God-man. Though the cloud or the fire could not pro- perly be called God because they were not thus united into one person with God, nor in the angel in whom God dwelt, yet the man Jesus as united in a personal manner to the divine nature, might properly be called the true God. It could not be said con- cerning the cloud or fire, that they were assumed to be parts of the person of Christ, but it might be said concerning this angel, that is, the soul of Christ, and concerning his body, they were parts of his complex person ; and thus Christ in his complex person bath the names of deity and humanity given him, he that is of the seed of David after the flesh, is God over all, blessed for evermore. tlmen. Rom. ix. 3, 4, 5. Objection II. Doth not the appstle to the Hebrews, chapter i. verses 1, 2. sufficiently intimate, that this angel by whom God conversed with men was not his own Son Jesus, *hen he says,. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the Fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son ? Does not this imply that God did notspeak by his Son under theOld Testament? Answer I. We may answer this difficulty thus: Though the angel who revealed the will of God to the patriarchs and prophets was really Jesus Christ the Son of God, yet he then spake by a corporeal medium and organs, which he assumed for that occasion to form a voice, which medium was not part of his person, or personally united to him ; therefore the Sonof God did not 'speak immediately to men by himself, that is, by his own person, but spoke by the prophets, and by corporeal shapes, Rte.
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