Of the Word of God, and of Prophets
When there is mention of the “word of God,” or of “man,” it doth not signify a part of speech, such as grammarians call a noun or a verb, or any simple voice, without a contexture with other words to make it significative; but a perfect speech or discourse, whereby the speaker “affirmeth,” “denieth,” “commandeth,” “promiseth,” “threateneth,” “wisheth,” or “interrogateth.” In which sense it is not vocabulum , that signifies a “word”; but sermo (in Greek λόγος ), that is, some “speech,” “discourse,” or “saying.”
Again, if we say the “word of God,” or of “man,” it may be understood sometimes of the speaker; as the words that God hath spoken, or that a man hath spoken; in which sense, when we say the Gospel of St. Matthew, we understand St. Matthew to be the writer of it, and sometimes of the subject; in which sense when we read in the Bible, “the words of the days of the kings of Israel, or Judah,” it is meant that the acts that were done in those days were the subject of those words; and in the Greek which, in the Scripture, retaineth many Hebraisms, by the word of God is oftentimes meant, not that which is spoken by God, but concerning God, and His government; that is to say, the doctrine of religion: insomuch as it is all one, to say λόγος Θεοῦ , and theologia ; which is, that doctrine which we usually call “divinity,” as is manifest by the places following (Acts 13:46), “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, but seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” That which is here called the 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