he Word of god, was the Doctrine of Christian
Religion; as it appears evidently by that which goes before. And (Acts
5.20.) where it is said to the Apostles by an Angel, "Go stand and speak
in the Temple, all the Words of this life;" by the Words of this life,
is meant, the Doctrine of the Gospel; as is evident by what they did in
the Temple, and is expressed in the last verse of the same Chap. "Daily
in the Temple, and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach
Christ Jesus:" In which place it is manifest, that Jesus Christ was the
subject of this Word of Life; or (which is all one) the subject of the
Words of this Life Eternall, that our saviour offered them. So (Acts
15.7.) the Word of God, is called the Word of the Gospel, because it
containeth the Doctrine of the Kingdome of Christ; and the same Word
(Rom. 10.8,9.) is called the Word of Faith; that is, as is there
expressed, the Doctrine of Christ come, and raised from the dead. Also
(Mat. 13. 19.) "When any one heareth the Word of the Kingdome;" that is,
the Doctrine of the Kingdome taught by Christ. Again, the same Word, is
said (Acts 12. 24.) "to grow and to be multiplied;" which to understand
of the Evangelicall Doctrine is easie, but of the Voice, or Speech
of God, hard and strange. In the same sense the Doctrine of Devils,
signifieth not the Words of any Devill, but the Doctrine of Heathen men
concerning Daemons, and those Phantasms which they worshipped as Gods.
(1 Tim. 4.1.)

Considering these two significations of the WORD OF GOD, as it is taken
in Scripture, it is manifest in this later sense (where it is taken for
the Doctrine of the Christian Religion,) that the whole scripture is the
Word of God: but in the former sense not so. For example, though these
words, "I am the Lord thy God, &c." to the end of the Ten Commandements,
were spoken by God to Moses; yet the Preface, "God spake these words
and said," is to be understood for the Words of him that wrote the holy
History. The Word of God, as it is taken for that which he hath spoken,
is understood sometimes Properly, sometimes Metaphorically. Properly,
as the words, he hath spoken to his Prophets; Metaphorically, for his
Wisdome, Power, and eternall Decree, in making the world; in which
sense, those Fiats, "Let there be light," "Let there be a firmament,"
"Let us make man," &c. (Gen. 1.) are the Word of God. And in the same
sense it is said (John 1.3.) "All things were made by it, and without it