606 ME GLARY OF CITafST A5 GOD-MA`x. 'stars, high- priest in this temple of God, the world; who stands in the limits between the creature and the Creator, the eldest, she first-begotten of the sons of God, who under God governs the world, and who both humbly mediate for us mortals with hiin that is immortal." The seventy Jewish interpreters seem to have had some notion that this archangel was the Messiah, when they call the child born, the Son given, in Is. ix. 6. MEya?ns CEe?e; AyyEXa., the angel of the great counsel, even as Christ is called an angel Is. lxiii. 9. Mal. iii. I. Exod. xxiii. 20; And it was a general opinion of the ancient Jews that there was one glorious angel superior to all the rest, by whom God made his visits to the patriarchs, and declared his will to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, &c. I confess these ancient Jews speak variously and with some darkness and confusion on these subjects, that we cannot gather any steady or certain inferences that they generally believed either of these two Logoses to be the very person of their expected Messiah : Yet a christian, who has the clearer light of the New Testament, may from their writings easily and naturally trace and infer the doctrine of the uncreated Logos, that is, thegreat archangel, because these ancient Jews ascribe to the Logos sa many things which are truly divine, and so many thingsinferior to divinity. But they speak in some confusion, because they seem not to bave had a clear idea of this personal union between God and a creature. Whereas christians being instructed in this doctrine by the New Testament, may clearly understand how by this .glori- ó fs-being, this complex person, viz. our Lord Jesus Christ, God created the world, and God governed the affairs of his ancient church : and that standing in the limits betwixt God and the creature, both by his nature as well as his office he becomes the high - priest, and mediates between mortal men and God who is immortal, according to the language of the ancient Jews. What I have cited already, discovers the acknowledged sense and opinion of the ancient Jews both philosophers and commentators on this subject. See much more to this purpose in my dissertation on the Logos or word of God, If we search among other of the Jewish writers, we may fiusl moreintimations of this doctrine. Bishop Fowler cites some notable traditions of the Jewish rabbies to this purpose ; one in an ancient book amongst the Jews called Pesikta, viz. That " after God had created the world, he put his hand under the throne of his glory, and brought out the soul of the Messiah, with all his attendants, and said unto him, Wilt thou heal and redeem my sons after six thousand
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