230 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC.^.
1. That these expressions are vaerely 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 con- joined with the testimony of his being in heaven before his descend- ing, which takes off all pretence of a joarity 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 jJerson- ality. 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 con- fession of the proper use of the word is but to give colour to the fig- ment 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 way deal with that neither but by begging the thing in question.
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, Yidi civitatem sanctam, Ilkrusalem novani, dcscendentem de ccelo a Deo, etc. Quod si proprie accipi de- beant, quod nos perlibenter admittimus, apparet non de alio ilia dicta quam de Filio honiinis, qui cum personam humanam necessario habeat, Dcus natura esse non potest. Porro, quod Scriptura testatur de Cliristo, quod Pater eum miserit in mundum, idem de apostolis Cliristi legimus in iisdem verbis citatis superius : Quemadmodum me misisti in mundum, et ego misi cos in jnundiim, Joh. xvii. 18. Ea vero verba, quod Christus a Patre cxierit, idem valeut, quod de coclo descendit. Venire vero in mundum, id ejusmodi est, quod Scriptura post nativitatem Cliristi extitisse ostendit, Joh. xviii. 37, ubi ipse Dominus ait, Eyo in hoc natus sum, et in mundum vent, ut testimonium perhiheam veritati; et 1 Joh. iv. 1, scriptum est, M ultos falsos prophetas exiisse in mundum,. Quare ex ejus- modi loqucndi modis natui-a divina in Christo probari non potest. In omnibus vero his locutionibus, quam diviuum muneris Christi principium fuerit, duutaxat describitur. "
DEITY OF CHRIST PROVED, ETC. 231
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 xard aXko xccl ciXXo, was in heaven when he was on the earth, and at his ascension returned thither where he was be- fore. And so much for the vindication of this second testimony.
John vi. 62 is the second place I can meet with, in all the annota- tions 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.