62t3 THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS GODMAit. surprising and offensive ideas which Doctor Goodwin's ex- pressions may arise on a sudden in the minds of those who are affrighted at every sound they have not been accustomed to hear. Now surely if Christ considered as God-man by way of anticipation, or in the decree of God, be vested with this due dignity, and thus employed in creation, it can never be supposed that the actual existence of his human spirit, at that time in union with his godhead, should impair or diminish the dueness of this privilege: and I am well assured, there is much more evidence in scripture that his soul was actually the first-born of the creation," than there is that it was to have been so, and that this right was suspend.d four thousand years, which is Doctor Goodwin's sense of the matter. Mr. Fleming in his Christelogy, book III. chapter v. page 451. humbly supposes that the second person of. the Trinity was from all eternity pitched upon to be the grand organ of all the divine operations, " ad extra :" But since the second person is equally infinite as the Father and Holy Spirit, it is inconceivable that lie should be the immediate organ of the production of finite beings, any more than the other persona : Therefore a creature was termed that should have as much of divinity as was possible to be imparted to it ; and since the very notion of a creature in- cludes imperfection when compared with the Creator, therefore this creature was personally united to the Son of God, and by virtue of this union and relation it has the name and designation of the Son of God. Hence it comes to pass, that sometimes the person of the Son of God is denoted by these names Logos, she- kinah, memra; at other times this organized creature is repre sentéd as the Son of God : Then he supposes the angels them- selves as well as Adam were created by the second person acting through this glorious creature as an organ, and made after the image of this shekinah, or original man, though with various degrees of perfection and resemblance. Thus God made man in his own likeness. This was that intelligent being that ap- peared to angels, to A<htm, to Moses, to the three martyrs in the fiery furnace, and he appeared in the same bright figure to the three apostles in the mount of transfiguration. But rather than follow these great men all this length, and set my seal to every thing they propose, I chuce at present to say in the words of Mr. Fleming., That " to give a nice or exact adjustment of all these things, may be reserved to Christ, to teach us when we come to heaven." And as I am well assured of the doctrine of the deity of Christ from many scriptures, ao if there be any thing which I have asserted that runs counter to that doctrine, I desire it to be exptmged and forgiven. Thies I have reckoned up two considerable advantages
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