[2.] The order of the words is most proper. John having asserted the deity of Christ, with some general concomitants and consequences
Inimanam, — postquam ca jam de illo Scrmone exposuisset, qase nativitatem hominis Jcsu Cliristi siibsecuta sunt : ut sunt licec, Johannem Baptistam de illo testatum esse; ilium in mundo ftdsse ; a suis non fuisse receptum; quod lis, a quibus recepius fuisset, potestalcm dederit, utfilii Dcifierent.
DEITY OF CHEIST PROVED, ETC. 227
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 Avill of God ; so that without either difficulty or straining, the sense and intendment of the Holy Ghost falls in clearly in the words.
8. It is evident that the word neither may nor ought to be trans- lated according to their desire ; for, — •
(1.) It being so often said before that the Word luas, the word is still riv, and not sysvsTo. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word tuas with God, and the Word was God;" — the same was. " He ^uas in th(^ 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 syivBro must signify somewhat more than ^v.
(2.) The word syevero, applied to other things in this very place, de- notes 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 Kom. 1. 3, Toy ysvofMzvou ix ff-77spjUbarog Aa£/^ xara adpTio,, — " Made of the seed of David according to the flesh ;'' and Gal. iv. 4, Tsvo/aevov sx ywaixog, " 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 icasjlesh?"
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."
This is the upshot of our catechists' exposition of this first chapter of John, as to the person of Christ ; which is, — •
1. Absurd, iipon their own suppositions; for the testimonies pro- duced 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, Scrmonem camemfuisse? — Quod is per quern Deus voluntatcm suam omnem perfccte exposuissot, ct propteroa a Johannc Scrmo appellatus fuisset, homo fuorit, omnibus miseriis et affiictionibus, ac morti deiiique subjectus : etenim vocem caro eo sensu Scriptura usurpat, ut ex lis locis perspicuum est, ubi Deus loquitur, Non contendet Spiritus mcus cum homine in wtenuim, quia caro est, Gen. vi. 3; et Fetrus, Omnis caro utfcenum, 1 Pet. i. 24."
228 VINDICIJ2 evangp:ltc^.
suited to any thing in this place but his conversation with men; which answers his incarnation, not his mediation ; neither is this ex- position confirmed by any instance from the Scriptures of the like expression used concerning Jesus Chi'ist, 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 main- tenance 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 Avhere 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 pre- tence 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 : —