540 APPENDIX. III. Whether the different expressions of the fathers in different parts of their writings can be reconciled or no, yet this is plain, that in some places they do in the most evident and obvious manner interpret and ascribe the supreme scriptural titles of Jehovah, Lord of hosts, and the God of Israel, &c. to the Logos, or to the Son of God ; and this is all that I insist upon here. Observation III. The ancient Jews in their interpretations of scripture practised the same thing as the apostles and the christian fathers; sand where God is represented in a visible manner conversingwith men, or coming to save them, they make no'manner of scruple to ascribe these expressions of scripture to the Word'of God, the Memra or Logos, and sometimes to the Messiah. This may be seen abundantly in several parts of Dr. Allix's Judgment of the Jewish Church against the Uni- tarians, chapters xiii, xiv, xv, xvii, xix, xxvi. And in Dr. Owen's Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews, numbers Ix, x, xi. Now amongst the ancient Jews theMemra or Logos, that is, the Word of God, often signifies God himself, or something in and of God, some divine principle belonging to the essence of God, whereby he transacts his affairs with creatures ; and it also signifies sometimes in their writings a very glorious arch- angel, or aspirit siperior toall angels, in whom God put his name, and in whom the true God resided in a peculiar manner, asin his house or his habitation, which they called the shekinah. This I have shewn at large in my dissertation concerning the Logos ; and I have there made it appear how both those ideas may be united in one Messiah. But however that matter stands, yet thusmuch is evident, that those scriptures where God is re- presented in a visible manner, or where lie is represented eminently as a Saviour, or bringing salvation to his people both Jews and Gentiles, have been interpreted concerning Christ or the Wordby the ancient Jewish church, by the apostles, and by the primitive christian writers ; whence I think we may infer these three things : 1. That Jesus Christ in the sense of all these writers has true and eternal godhead belonging to him, as part of his ,com- plex person ; for the ancient Jews and the primitive christians, and especially the sacred writers, had such an awful sense of the "transcendent excellency of the great God, and of his jealousy for his own name and honour, that they would not dare to attri- bute his most sublime titles, characters and glories to a mere creature, or to any thing which had not true godhead. 2. That the godhead of Christ is the very same with the godhead of the Father ; and that his divine nature is the same infinite and eternal being, the same Jehovah or God of Israel
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