APPENDIX. 639 visibly, even our God, and will not be silent. This is the Son." Ps. lxxvi. 1. " In Judah God is known, and his name'is great in Israel." Is. lxv. 1. " I was made manifest to them that asked not after me," that is, to the Gentiles. Is. xxxv. 4. "Behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompeuce, he will come and save you." All these places Ireumus applies to Jesus Christ, and a great many others may be found in several of the primitive fathers, some of which are cited by the learned Dr. Waterland in his First Defence of the Queries concerning the Divinity of Christ, query ii. page 28, &c. and in Mr. Alexander's Essay on Irenwus, chapter vi. Objection I. One pretence of the Arians against these writers' belief of the divinity of Christ; as expressed in these texts is, that they suppose Christ in these places is introduced only in the person of the Father, and as his messenger, and deputy. Answer. This pretence Dr. Waterland has sufficiently obviated in thé following pages, 33-46. wherein he chews by someexpress citations that the fathers spoke of Christ in his own person, though in some places he may be described as the Fa- ther's messenger, and as coming in his name. Objection II. It may be 'objected further, that however this may be the most plain and most obvious meaning of the primi- tive fathers in most places of their writings, viz. That Christ or the Logos is Jehovah or the true God, the God of Israel, yet in other places they plainly describe the Logos as a derived being, and as having many characters of inferiority, both as to his ori- ginal, his existence, and his actions,¡ and therefore when those divine titles are ascribed to Christ, they must be interpreted into some inferioror diminutive sense, that they may bereconciled to the inferior characters given to that Logos, and so may be attribpted to an inferior being. Answer I. Some great divines have attempted to reconcile these inferior characters of the Logos to true and eternal god- head, by supposing that both a real derivation and some natural as well as economical inferiority may be allowed to belong to the Logos, even in his divine nature. But this I leave to those who tan defend the doctrine of a derived God. II. These inferior characters of the Logos may belong to the human soul of Christ, supposing it to be the first of all crea- tures, and from its earliest existence to be intimately united to eternal godhead : And thus the supreme and divine character may belong to this complex person Jesus Christ, who is both God and a creature; though I cannot say many of the fathers did profess this notion.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=