1850.
Defense of an Essay, &c.
641
therefore is more intolerable than to fancy a beginning to that Word, which was always God, and afterwards was the Creator of the world." Christian Institutes, Book I. Ch. 13. § 8.
"Theodoret disputeth with great earnestness that God can not be said to suffer. But he thereby meaneth Christ's Divine nature against Apollonarius, which held even Deity itself passible. Cyril on the other side against Nestorius as much contendeth, that whosoever will deny very God to have suffered death, doth forsake the faith. Which notwithstanding to hold were heresy, if the name of God in this assertion did not import as it doth the person of Christ, who being verily God suffered death, but in the flesh, and not in that substance for which the name of God is given him." Hooker, Book V. Ch. liii. § 4.
"In N. T. clariùs adhuc Deus vocatur (Io. i. 1.) Sermo erat Deus, quod de Deo secundario et factitio, ratione muneris intelligi nequit ut vellent Adver- sarii, sed de vero Deo ratione nature; quia non dicit syévelo, ut v. 14. quando loquitur de incarnatione, quod priùs notasset; sed v erat ad ejus existentiam æternam designandam. Deinde eo modo debet esse Deus, quo potuit esse in principio ante rerum omnium creationem, v. 1. tanquam ejus author, v. 3, hic autem nemini nisi Deo summo competit." Turrettin, Vol. I. p.
312.
"The Father is called God, so is the Son, John i. 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. With God as to his person, God himself as to his essence. Bishop Beveridge's Works," Vol VII. p. 83.
"No epithet or attribute is more proper to God, than that alúvios Meis, God eternal. Hence is our Lord said by St. Paul, before he did assume the form of a servant, and became like unto men, to have subsisted in the form of God, not deeming it robbery to be equal to God (or to have a subsistence in duration and perfection equal to God); so that as he was after his incarnation truly man, partaker of human nature, affections, and properties; so before it he was truly God, partaking the Divine essence and attributes. Thence he is often in the Scriptures absolutely and directly named God; God in the most proper and most high sense: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, saith St. John in the beginning of his Gospel (the place where he is most likely to speak with the least ambiguity or darkness); the same Word, which was in time made flesh and dwelt among us, did before all time exist with God, and was God." Barrow's Works, Vol. II. p. 281.
"Præterea vero et illud est in promptu, eandem notionem subesse vocabulo ɛou in hac enunciatione, quam in proxime antecedente et sequente, atque adeo Servatorem eodem sensu, et dici et esse Grov, ac Osòs is dicitur, apud quem fuit, eique DIVINITATEM et tribui hoc loco et tribuendam esse, non aliam et diversam ab ea, quæ summi Dei est, sed plane eandem." Tittman, Comment in loc.
Doddridge paraphrases the sentence as follows: "The Word was God him- self, i. e. possessed a nature truly and properly Divine."
Whitby, "And the Word was God. He was, so say the Socinians, by office, not by nature, as being the Legate and Ambassador of God;" and then contests this point at much length.
VOL. XIX. NO. XII.
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