of the dispensation wherein he undertakes to be a mediator, in his 14th verse enters particularly upon a description of his entrance upon his employment, and his carrying it on, by the revelation of the will of God; so that without either difficulty or straining, the sense and intendment of the Holy Ghost falls in clearly in the words.

3. It is evident that the word neither may nor ought to be translated according to their desire; for,—

(1.) It being so often said before that the Word was, the word is still, and not syvero. "In the beginning was the Word, and the ἐγένετο. Word was with God, and the Word was God;"-the same was. "He was in the world, he was the light;"-still the same word. So that if no more were intended but what was before expressed, the terms would not be changed without exceedingly obscuring the sense; and therefore iyivro must signify somewhat more than v.

(2.) The word yévero, applied to other things in this very place, denotes their making or their original; which our catechists did not question in the consideration of the places where it is so used: as verse 3, All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made;" and verse 10, "The world was made by him."

(3.) This phrase is expounded accordingly in other places: as Rom. i. 3, Τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαβὶδ κατὰ σάρκα,— Made of the seed of David according to the flesh;" and Gal. iv. 4, revóμevov èx yuvaixós, "Made of a woman." But they think to salve all by the ensuing exposition of these words:

Q. How is that to be understood, "The Word was flesh ?”

A. That he by whom God perfectly revealed all his will, who is therefore called "Sermo" by John, was a man, subject to all miseries and afflictions, and lastly to death itself: for the Scripture useth the word "flesh" in that sense, as is clear from those places where God speaks, "My Spirit shall not always contend with man, seeing he is flesh,” Gen. vi. 3; and Peter, "All flesh is grass," 1 Pet. i. 24.1

This is the upshot of our catechists' exposition of this first chapter of John, as to the person of Christ; which is,

1. Absurd, upon their own suppositions; for the testimonies produced affirm every man to be flesh, so that to say he is a man is to say he is flesh, and to say that man was flesh is to say that a man was a man, inasmuch as every man is flesh.

2. False, and no way fitted to the intendment of the Holy Ghost; for he was made flesh antecedently to his dwelling amongst us; which immediately follows in the text. Nor is his being made flesh

1 "Qua ratione illud intelligendum est, Sermonem carnem fuisse ?—Quod is per quem Deus voluntatem suam omnem perfecte exposuisset, et propterea a Johanne Sermo appellatus fuisset, homo fuerit, omnibus miseriis et afflictionibus, ac morti denique subjectus: etenim vocem caro eo sensu Scriptura usurpat, ut ex iis locis perspicuum est, ubi Deus loquitur, Non contendet Spiritus meus cum homine in æternum, quia caro est, Gen. vi. 3; et Petrus, Omnis caro ut fænum, 1 Pet. i. 24."

suited to any thing in this place but his conversation with meu; which answers his incarnation, not his mediation; neither is this exposition confirmed by any instance from the Scriptures of the like expression used concerning Jesus Christ, as that we urge is, Rom. i. 3, Gal. iv. 4, and other places. The place evidently affirms the Word to be made something that he was not before, when he was the Word only, and cannot be affirmed of him as he was man, in which sense he was always obnoxious to miseries and death.

And this is all which our catechists, in several places, have thought meet to insist on, by way of exception or opposition to our undeniable and manifest testimonies from this first chapter of John unto the great and sacred truth contended for; which I have at large insisted on, that the reader from this one instance may take a taste of their dealing in the rest, and of the desperateness of the cause which they have undertaken, driving them to such desperate shifts for the maintenance and protection of it. In the residue I shall be more brief. John vi. 62 is in the next place taken into consideration. The words are, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" What we intend from hence, and the force of the argument from this testimony insisted on, will the better appear if we add unto it those other places of Scripture wherein the same thing is more expressly and emphatically affirmed; which our catechists cast (or some of them) quite into another place, on pretence of the method wherein they proceed, but indeed to take off from the evidence of the testimony, as they deal with what we plead from John i. The places I intend are:

John iii. 13, "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Verse 31, "He that cometh from above is above all he that cometh from heaven is above all." Chap. viii. 23, "Ye are from beneath; I am from above." Chap. xvi. 28, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father."

Hence we thus argue:-He that was in heaven before he was on the earth, and who was also in heaven whilst he was on the earth, is the eternal God; but this doth Jesus Christ abundantly confirm concerning himself: therefore he is the eternal God, blessed for ever. In answer to the first place our catechists thus proceed :—

Q. What answerest thou to the second testimony, John vi. 62?

A. Neither is here any mention made expressly of pre-eternity; for in this place the Scripture witnesseth that the Son of man, that is a man, was in heaven, who without all controversy was not eternally pre-existent. 1

"Ad secundum autem quid respondes ?-Neque hic ullam præ-æternitatis mentionem factam expresse; nam hoc in loco Filium hominis, id est, hominem in cœlis fuisse testatur Scriptura, quem citra ullam controversiam præ-æternum non extitisse certum est."

So they. 1. It is expressly affirmed that Christ was in heaven before his coming into the world. And if we evince his pre-existence to his incarnation against the Socinians, the task will not be difficult to prove that pre-existence to be in an eternal divine nature against the Arians. It is sufficient, as to our intendment in producing this testimony, that it is affirmed that Christ v pórspov in heaven before his coming forth into the world; in what nature we elsewhere prove.

2. It is said, indeed, that the Son of man was in heaven; which makes it evident that he who is the Son of man hath another nature besides that wherein he is the Son of man, wherein he is the Son of God. And by affirming that the Son of man was in heaven before, it doth no more assert that he was eternal and in heaven in that nature wherein he is the Son of man, than the affirmation that God redeemed his church with his own blood doth prove that the blood shed was the blood of the divine nature. Both the affirmations are concerning the person of Christ. of Christ. As he who was God shed his blood as he was man, so he who was man was eternal and in heaven as he was God. So that the answer doth merely beg the thing in question, namely, that Christ is not God and man in one person.

3. The insinuation here of Christ's being in heaven as man before his ascension mentioned in Scripture, shall be considered when we come to the proposal made of that figment by Mr. B., in his chapter of the prophetical office of Christ. In answer to the other testimonies cited, they thus proceed, towards the latter end of their chapter concerning the person of Christ :

Q. What answerest thou to John iii. 13, x. 36, xvi. 28, xvii. 18?

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A. That a divine nature is not here proved appeareth, because the words of the first testimony," He came down from heaven," may be received figuratively: as James i. 17, Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights;" and Rev. xxi. 2, 10, " I saw the holy city Jerusalem coming down from God." But if the words be taken properly, which we willingly admit, it appears that they are not spoken of any other than the Son of man, who, seeing he hath necessarily a human person, cannot by nature be God. Moreover, for what the Scripture witnesseth of Christ, that the Father sent him into the world, the same we read of the apostles of Christ in the same words above alleged; as John xvii. 18, “As thou hast sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." And these words, "Christ came forth from the Father," are of the same import with " He descended from heaven." "To come into the world" is of that sort as the Scripture manifests to have been after the nativity of Christ, John xviii. 37, where the Lord himself says, "For this I am born, and come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth;" and 1 John iv. 1, it is written," Many false prophets are gone forth into the world." Wherefore from this kind of speaking a divine nature in Christ cannot be proved; but in all these speeches only what was the divine original of the office of Christ is described.'

1 "Ubi vero Scriptura de Christo ait, quod de cœlo descendit, a Patre exivit, et in mundum venit, Joh. iii. 13, x. 36, xvi. 28, xvii. 18, quid ad hæc respondes ?-Ex iis non probari divinam naturam hinc apparere, quod primi testimonii verba, Descendit de cœlo, possint figurate accipi; quemadmodum, Jac. i. 17, Omne datum bonum et donum

1. That these expressions are merely figuratively to be expounded they dare not assert; nor is there any colour given that they may be so received from the instances produced from James i. 17 and Rev. xxi. 2, 10; for there is only mention made of descending or coming down, which word we insist not on by itself, but as it is conjoined with the testimony of his being in heaven before his descending, which takes off all pretence of a parity of reason in the places compared.

2. All that follows is a perfect begging of the thing in question. Because Christ is the Son of man, it follows that he is a true man, but not that he hath the personality of a man, or a human personality. Personality belongs not to the essence but to the existence of a man. So that here they do but repeat their own hypothesis in answer to an express testimony of Scripture against it. Their confession of the proper use of the word is but to give colour to the figment formerly intimated; which shall be in due place (God assisting) discovered.

3. They utterly omit and take no notice of that place where Christ says he so came from heaven as that he was still in heaven; nor do they mention any thing of that which we lay greatest weight on,-of his affirming that he was in heaven before, but merely insist on the word "descending" or "coming down;" and yet they can no other deal with that neither but by begging the thing in question.

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4. We do not argue merely from the words of Christ's being sent into the world, but in this conjunct consideration that he was so sent into the world as that he was in heaven before, and so came forth from the Father, and was with him in heaven before his coming forth; and this our catechists thought good to oversee.

5. The difference of Christ's being sent into the world, and the apostles by him, which they parallel as to the purpose in hand, lies in this, that Christ was so sent of the Father that he came forth from the Father, and was with him in heaven before his sending; which proves him to have another nature than that wherein he was sent. The similitude alleged consists quite in other things. Neither,

6. Doth the scripture in John xviii. 37 testify that Christ's send

perfectum desursum est, descendens a Patre luminum; et Apoc. xxi. 2, 10, Vidi civitatem sanctam, Hierusalem novam, descendentem de cœlo a Deo, etc. Quod si proprie accipi de beant, quod nos perlibenter admittimus, apparet non de alio illa dicta quam de Filio hominis, qui cum personam humanam necessario habeat, Deus natura esse non potest. Porro, quod Scriptura testatur de Christo, quod Pater eum miserit in mundum, idem de apostolis Christi legimus in iisdem verbis citatis superius: Quemadmodum me misisti in mundum, et ego misi eos in mundum, Joh. xvii. 18. Ea vero verba, quod Christus a Patre exierit, idem valent, quod de cœlo descendit. Venire vero in mundum, id ejusmodi est, quod Scriptura post nativitatem Christi extitisse ostendit, Joh. xviii. 37, ubi ipse Dominus ait, Ego in hoc natus sum, et in mundum veni, ut testimonium perhibeam veritati; et 1 Joh. iv. 1, scriptum est, Multos falsos prophetas exiisse in mundum. Quare ex ejusmodi loquendi modis natura divina in Christo probari non potest. In omnibus vero his locutionibus, quam divinum muneris Christi principium fuerit, duntaxat describitur.”

ing into the world was after his nativity, but only that the end of them both was to "bear witness to the truth." And, indeed, "I was born," and "came into the world," are but the same, the one being exegetical of the other. But his being born and his coming into the world are, in the testimonies cited, plainly asserted in reference to an existence that he had in heaven before. And thus as our argument is not at all touched in this answer, so is their answer closed as it began, with the begging of that which is not only questioned but sufficiently disproved,—namely, that Christ was, in his human nature, taken up into heaven and instructed in the will of God before his entrance upon his prophetical office.

And this is the whole of what they have to except against this evident testimony of the divine nature of Christ. He was in heaven with the Father before he came forth from the Father, or was sent into the world, and κατὰ ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο, was in heaven when he was on the earth, and at his ascension returned thither where he was before. And so much for the vindication of this second testimony. John vi. 62 is the second place I can meet with, in all the annotations of Grotius, wherein he seems to assert the union of the human nature of Christ with the eternal Word,-if he do so. It is not with the man that I have any difference, nor do I impose any thing on him for his judgment; I only take liberty, having so great cause given, to discuss his Annotations.

There remains one more of the first rank, as they are sorted by our catechists, for the proof of the eternity of Christ, which is also from John, chap. viii. 58, "Before Abraham was, I am," that they insist on:

In this place the pre-eternity of Christ is not only not expressed, seeing it is one thing to be before Abraham, and another to be eternal, but also, it is not so much as expressed that he was before the Virgin Mary. For these words may otherwise be read, namely, “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was made, I am;" as it appears from those places in the same evangelist where the like Greek phrase is used, chap. xiii. 19, xiv. 29.

Q. What then would be the sense of this reading?

A. Very eminent. For Christ admonisheth the Jews, who would have ensnared him in his speech, that whilst they had time, they should believe in him as the light of the world, before the divine grace which Christ offered to them should be taken from them and be carried to the Gentiles. But that these words, "I am," are to be supplied in that manner as if himself had added to them," I am the light of the world," appears, because that in the beginning of his speech, verse 12, he had twice in these words, "I am," called himself the light of the world, verses 24, 28. And that these words, " Before Abraham be," do signify that which we have said, may be perceived from the notation of that word" Abraham;" for it is evident that "Abraham" denotes "the father of many nations." Seeing, then, that Abram was not made Abraham before the grace of God manifested in Christ redounded to many nations, for Abraham before was the father of one nation only, it appears that that is the very sense of the words which we have given.'

1 แ In hoc loco non solum non exprimitur præ-æternitas Christi, cum aliud sit, ante Abrahamum fuisse, aliud, præ-æternum; verum ne hoc quidem expressum est, ipsum