t346 3'HE GLORY ei el{ltIST AS GOD -MAN. Loges united to the human spirit, to operate in creating and adorning the world, the human spirit having a subserviency herein to the divine principle, so far as it was possible for any thing beneath God to be employed in an inferior or ministerial manner in such sublime and divine work. Does not this give a fair, a natural and easy explication of these glorious expressions of scripture concerningour Lord .Jesus Christ, that by him God made the worlds, and created all things by him, and without him was nothing made that was made? For the name Jesus Christ seems to imply something more than the mere divine power or principle called the Word. But I retreat, and mention no more of any attempt to give a particular idea of the divine nature of Christ, since this doc- trine of his human soul's early existence is consistent with any known scheme of explaining his true and real deity. Origen seems to be a believer of the pre-existent soul of Christ, when he says, " Perhaps the soul of the Son in its per- fection was in God and his fulness, and coming out thence when lie was sent by the Father, took a body of Mary ;" and again, upon these words of John the baptist, after nie cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me; John i. 30. He says thus, that it is spoken of Christ, " that we may learn that theman (or manhood) also of the Son of God, mixed with Isis divinity, had a prior subsistence to his birth of the virgin." Origen also seems to allow this human soul to be the first- created ; for speaking of the formation of wisdom before the world, he says, God created Epl.uXn, &o¢sys, " An animated wisdom, or wisdom with a soul." And this opinion appeared so very rea- sonable, that we find some marks of it in the later centuries. For the author of the " Meditations, called St. Austin's," dis- tinguishes between eternal wisdom the Son of God, and the first -created wisdom ; which he makes to be a rational and intel- leetuàl mind. See more of this kindin the learned Dr. Knight's " Primitive Christianity Vindicated," in answer to Mr. Whis- ton, page 45. But after all, though it be a doctrine, that has so many happy advantages attending it, yet it is not necessary in order to make a man a christian, and therefore many primitive christians might not believe it. It casts a beauty indeed upon the whole christian faith, but it does net make a part of the essence of it. Now there are many such beautiful doctrines which might have a veil of darkness or confusion thrown upon them very early in the clirìstián church, especially amidst the reign of antichrist, and again after some ages may emerge into light and entertain the christians of such a later age with the brightises,s and pleasure of them : Iiowwas the doctrine óf the millennium long obscured, that is, " the happy state of the church before the end of the world ?" It was known and believed in the first centuries, but !After the third it was counted a Sort of heresy for several ages;
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