and actually incarnate; So that our Saviour is there called “the Word,” not because he was the promise, but the thing promised.  They that taking occasion from this place, doe commonly call him the Verbe of God, do but render the text more obscure.  They might as well term him the Nown of God:  for as by Nown, so also by Verbe, men understand nothing but a part of speech, a voice, a sound, that neither affirms, nor denies, nor commands, nor promiseth, nor is any substance corporeall, or spirituall; and therefore it cannot be said to bee either God, or Man; whereas our Saviour is both.  And this Word which St. John in his Gospel saith was with God, is (in his 1 Epistle, verse 1.) called “the Word of Life;” and (verse 2.) “The eternall life, which was with the Father:”  so that he can be in no other sense called the Word, then in that, wherein he is called Eternall life; that is, “he that hath procured us Eternall life,” by his comming in the flesh.  So also (Apocalypse 19.13.) the Apostle speaking of Christ, clothed in a garment dipt in bloud, saith; his name is “the Word of God;” which is to be understood, as if he had said his name had been, “He that was come according to the purpose of God from the beginning, and according to his Word and promises delivered by the Prophets.”  So that there is nothing here of the Incarnation of a Word, but of the Incarnation of God the Son, therefore called the Word, because his Incarnation was the Performance of the Promise; In like manner as the Holy Ghost is called The Promise. (Acts 1.4.  Luke 24.49.)

Thirdly, For The Words Of Reason And Equity There are also places of the Scripture, where, by the Word of God, is signified such Words as are consonant to reason, and equity, though spoken sometimes neither by prophet, nor by a holy man.  For Pharaoh Necho was an Idolator; yet his Words to the good King Josiah, in which he advised him by Messengers, not to oppose him in his march against Carchemish, are said to have proceeded from the mouth of God; and that Josiah not hearkning to them, was slain in the battle; as is to be read 2 Chron. 35. vers. 21,22,23.  It is true, that as the same History is related in the first book of Esdras, not Pharaoh, but Jeremiah spake these words to Josiah, from the mouth of the Lord.  But wee are to give credit to the Canonicall Scripture, whatsoever be written in the Apocrypha.

The Word of God, is then also to be taken for the Dictates of reason, and equity, when the same is said in the Scriptures to bee written in mans heart; as Psalm 36.31.  Jerem. 31.33.  Deut.30.11, 14. and many other like places.