“Quod ad primum attinet, ne illud quidem indubitatum est, verba preescripta a sapientia dici. Si enim versio Pagnini, Merceri, et textus Hebraicus consulatur, apparebit verba illa proferri ab in- telligentia vel prudentia, que in hoc capite tum conjuncte, tum separatim, cum sapientia ponitur, ut apparet ex ver. 1 et 14, in cujus posteriori parte incipit intelligentia de se loqui. Nam, ver. 14, secundum Pagninum hee est interpretatio, ‘Penes me est consi- lium et sapientia;’ et hucusque loquitur de se sapientia. Postea sequitur, ‘Ego sum intelligentia, mea est fortitudo, etc. Ita ut sequentia omnia ad finem capitis ab intelligentia proferantur. Cum ergo Paulus Christum non intelligentiam sed sapientiam vocet, et verba preescripta ab intelligentia proferantur, sequitur locum hune ad Christum non pertinere.”
What those names of Pagnin, Mercer, and the Hebrew text, are produced for, I cannot well conjecture. Both in the original and in the versions of those learned men the context is as clear unto our purpose as in any other translation whatever. And the view of the text will ease us of this forlorn exception. The comparing of the first verse with the fourteenth gives no countenance unto it; for,— (1.) In verse 1, the mention of 72355 is not the introduction of a new person or thing, but another name of the same person or thing, as all expositors agree, whatever they apply the words unto. (2.) The words 239, verse 1, and 72", verse 14, both rendered “ understand- ing,” and both from the same root, are yet not absolutely the same, so that ‘several things may be intended by them. (38.) The whole context makes it plain that it is Wisdom which speaks those words, verse 14, 7733 ° 722 WN MVAN) nyy~?. The preceding words are, “JT wisdom dwell with prudence, ..... and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate,” verses 12, 13; whereon it follows, “Coun- sel is mine, and sound wisdom” (or “substance”): “I am understand- ing; I have strength.” As in the beginning Wisdom says, 7$27?, so
SECT. 12.] IN THE COUNSEL OF GOD. 63
in the close, by a continuation of the same form of speech, ™23 °?: NPI 38 is a defective expression, and there is no verb following to be regulated by 723. Wherefore, according to the perpetual use of that language, the verb substantive is to be supplied, as it is in our translation, “1 am understanding.” Understanding, therefore, can- not be the person speaking, but a descriptive adjunct of him that speaks. There is the same expression concerning Wisdom, verse 12, ND3n IS, “I wisdom;” but it is not defective because of the verb following, *F23¥, “have dwelt,” or “do dwell.” Supply the verb substantive here, where there is no defect, and the whole sense will be corrupted; but in this place, if it be omitted, there will be no sense remaining. Neither is 732 28 of any other signification than TP 2, “T have” (or “am”) “understanding,” and “I have strength.” This plea, therefore, evinceth nothing but the boldness of them that use it. He proceeds to another:—
“ Deinde hic sapientiam pro substantiva et persona esse accipien- dam, non aliunde probari potest aut solet, quam quod hic loqui et clamare dicitur, atque actiones quedam ei attribuuntur. At id usitatissimum in sacris est, ut etiam accidentibus actiones adscriban- tur per prosopopeeiam. Sic misericordia et pax de ccelo prospicere, se mutuo osculari dicuntur. Et ne longe abeamus; hic prudentia seu intelligentia vociferare, stare in semitis, clamare ad portas urbium dicitur. Neque tamen quisquam ita stolidus est ut non intelligat, misericordiam, pacem, et prudentiam esse accidentia et in his lo- quendi formulis prosopopceiam non agnoscat.”
How we prove a person to be here intended, that is, the eternal Word of God, hath been declared. There are other considerations which evince it besides that here mentioned. But this prosopopceia, or fiction of a person, is of great use to the Antitrinitarians. By this ore engine they presume they can despoil the Holy Ghost of his deity and personality. Whatever is spoken of him in the Scripture, they say it is by a prosopopeeia, or the fiction of a person, those things being assigned unto a quality or an accident which really belong unto a person only. But as to what concerns the Holy Spirit, I have elsewhere taken this engine out of their hands, and cast it to the ground, so that none of them alive will erect it again. Here they make use of it against the deity of Christ, as they do also on other occasions. I do acknowledge there is such a scheme of speech used by rhetoricians and orators, whereof some examples occur in the Scripture. Unto a thing which is not a person, that is sometimes ascribed which is indeed proper only to a person; or a person who is dead or absent may be introduced as present and speaking. But yet Quintilian, the great master of the art of oratory, denies that by this figure speech can he ascribed unto that which never had it.
64 ORIGINAL OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST [EXERC. XXVIL.
“Nam certe,” saith he, “sermo fingi non potest, ut non persons sermo fingatur.” If you feign speech, you must feign it to be the speech of a person, or one endowed with a power of speaking, And it is hard to find an instance of such an attribution of speech unto things inanimate in good authors, unless it be where, by another figure, they introduce countries or cities speaking or pleading for themselves; wherein, by a metonymy, the inhabitants of them are in- tended. But such an ascription is not to be found in the Scripture at all; for a prosopopceia, or fiction of a person, is a figure quite dis- tinct from all sorts of allegories, pure or mixed, apologues, fables, par- ables, wherein, when the scheme is evident, any thing may be intro- duced speaking,—like the trees in the discourse of Jotham, Judges ix. The instance of mercy and peace looking down from heaven and kissing each other, is mixedly figurative. The foundation is a me- tonymy of the cause for the effect, or rather of the adjunct for the cause, and the prosopopeeia is evident. But that a person should be introduced speaking in a continued discourse, ascribing to himself all personal properties, absolute and relative, all sorts of personal actions, and those the -very same which in sundry other places are ascribed unto one certain person, as all the things here mentioned are unto the Son of God, who yet is no person, never was a person, nor representeth any person, without the least intimation of any figure therein, or any thing inconsistent with the nature of things and persons treated of, and that in a discourse didactical and pro- phetical, is such an enormous, monstrous fiction, as nothing in any author, much less in the Old or New Testament, will give the least countenance unto.