532 TAE GLORY OF cnntsT AS GOD -MAN. 'Complex person, made up of soul and body, for the same reason we may suppose that the great God and this angel of his pre- setteesnake up a complex person also ; and this is properly called a personal union. Objection VI. Ifit was Christ himselfwho spoke to Moses ; Deut. xviii. 18. when " the Lord said, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee ' If it was Christ himself said in Exod. xxiii. N. Behold, I send an an- gel before thee, beware of hint, provoke him not, for my name zs in him: If it was Christ who spake to the prophets, Behold, saith the Lord, I will raise up to David a righteous branch : Jer. xiii. 5. And if Christ be this very prophet, this angel, this righteous branch, then it most be interpreted that Christ says, " I will raise up myself a prophet, &c. I will send my- self an angel before thee, and I will raise up myself a righteous branch to David ;" which seem to be strange sort of interpre- tations. Answer. If we consider that throughout all the Old Tea. tament our blessed Saviour is supposed to, be a complex person, and if we conceive of him as the soul of Christ in its angelic state united to and inhabited by God himself, it is very easy to suppose this glorious person speaking in the name of the in- dwelling godhead, which is his superior nature, and foretelling futurities concerning himself in his inferior nature, and declaring what he should be in his inferior economical characters. Or we may suppose the angel in whom godhead dwelt, speaks in the name of God the Father, as the great fountain and author of all ; and yet this angel may foretel his own future appearances and transactions as an angel, as a prophet, as a branch of righte- ousness, as the servant and messenger of God the Father, and the appointed_Mediator between God and man. Here is no manner of darkness nor difficulty in these ideas, nor has this in- terpretation any thing strange or harsh in it. Objection VII. If this angel who appeared and assumed divine names and titles, were so really and intimately united to the true God, as to become one complex person, and all this were so plain and so evident as you represent it to be, then the Jewish church couldnot but have as clear a knowledge as we have of this doctrine, that the two persons, viz. the Father and the Son, were the one true God ; and then the knowledge of this article is not the peculiar privilege of christians. Answer. I am persuaded that some of the ancient Jews and the patriarchs did believe that this was an angel in whom the great God or Jehovah resided or inhabited in apeculiar manner ; particularlywhen Jacob said, I have seen God, When Moses was afraid to look upon God, when Abraham spoke to him as to the great God ; but there were several things wherein their light was deficient and very imperfect if compared with ours.
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