4. I shall, then, insist upon the wliole of this testimony as the words are placed in the contexture by the Holy Ghost, and vindicate them from what, in several places, they have excepted against several parcels of them. Thus, then, from these words (these divine words, whose very reading reclaimed as eminent a scholar as the world en- joyed in his days from atheism^) we proceed.
He that was in the beginning before the creation of the world, before any thing of all things that are made was made, who was then with God, and was God, who made all things, and without whom nothing was made, in whom was life, — he is God by nature, blessed for ever; nor is there, in the whole Scriptiire, a more glorious and eminent description of God, by his attributes, names, and works, than here is given of him concerning whom all these things are spoken. But now all this is expressly affirmed of the " Word that was made flesh ; " that is, confessedly, of Jesus Christ : therefore he is God by nature, blessed for ever. Unto the several parts of this plain and evident testimony, in several places they except several things; thinking thereby to evade that strength and light which each part yields to other as they lie, and all of them to the whole. I shall consider them in order as they come to hand.
Against that expression, " In the beginning," they except, in the place mentioned above, that it doth not signify pre-eternity, which hath no beginning. But, —
1. This impedes not at all the existence of Jesus Christ before
the creation, although it denies that his eternity is expressly asserted.
Now, to affirm that Christ did exist before the whole creation, and
made all things, doth no less prove him to be no more a creature,
1 " Novum Tcstamcntum divinitus oblatum apcrio. Aliiid agenti exhibet se milii aspectu primo augustissinium illud caput Johannis evangelistsc ct apostoli, In prin- cipio erat Verhuin. Lego partem capitis, et ita commoveor legens, ut vepente diviiiita- tem argument!, et scripti majestatem, auctoritatemquc senserim, longo interval'.o omni- bus eloquentiae liumanoe viribus pnTiCuntcm. Horrebat corpus, stupebat animus, ct totum ilium diem sic afficiebar, ut qui esscm, ipsi mihi inccrtus vidcrcr esse." — Frau- cisc. Junius.
218 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC-ffi.
but the eternal God, than the most express testimony of his eternity doth or can do. 2. Though eternity has no beginning, and the sense of these words cannot be, " In the beginning of eternity," yet eternity is before all things, and "In the beginning" may be the de- scription of eternity, as it is plainly, Prov. viii. 23. " From everlast- ing," and " In the beginning, before the earth was," are of the same import. And the Scripture saying that " In the beginning the Word was," not " was made," doth as evidently express eternity as it doth in these other phrases of, " Before the world was," or " Before the foundation of the world," which more than once it insists on, John xvii. 5. 3. By " In the beginning" is intended before the creation of all things. What will it avail our catechists if it do not expressly denote eternity? Why, the word "beginning" is to be interpreted variously, according to the subject-matter spoken of, as Gen. i. 1 ; which being here the gospel, it is the beginning of the gospel that is intended ! But, —
Be it agreed that the word "beginning" is to be understood accord- ing to the subject-matter whereunto it is applied, yet that the apostle doth firstly and nextly treat of the gospel, as to the season of its preaching, is most absurd. He treats evidently and professedly of the person of the author of the gospel, of the Word that was God and was made flesh. And that this cannot be wrested to the sense intended is clear; for,' — 1. The apostle evidently alludes to the first words of Genesis, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth ;" and the Syriac translation from the Hebrew here places n''K'"!3. So here, " In the beginning the Word made all things." 2. The following words, " The Word was with God, and the Word was God," manifest the intendment of the Holy Ghost to be, to declare what and where the Word was before the creation of the world, even with God. 3. The testimony that he was God in the beginning will no way agree with this gloss. Take his being God in their sense, yet they deny that he was God in the beginning of the gospel or before his suffering, as hath been showed. 4. The sense given by the Socinians to this place is indeed senseless. " I71 the beginning," say they, " that is, when the gospel began to be preached by John Baptist" (which is plainly said to be before the world was made), "the Word, or the man Jesus Christ" (the Word being afterward said to be made flesh, after this whole description of him as the Word), "was luith God, so hidden as that he was known only to God" (which is false, for he Avas known to his mother, to Joseph, to John Baptist, to Simeon, Anna, and to others), "and the Word luas God; that is, God appointed that he should be so afterward, or made God" (though it be said he was God then when he was with God). " And all things were made by him; the new creature was made by him ; or the world by his preaching, and teaching, and working miracles, was made, or reformed" (that is,