DEITY OF CHRIST PROVED, ETC. 2oo
withal I believe it to be as violent a perverting of tlie Scripture and corrupting of the word of God as the world can bear witness to.
Let the Christian I'eader, without the least prejudicial thought from the interpretation of this or that man, consult the text and con- text. The head of the discourse which gives occasion to these words of Christ concerning himself lies evidently and undeniably in verse 51, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." Upon this the Jews rise up against him, as one that boasted of himself above measure, and preferred himself before his betters: Verse 52, "Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the pro- phets; and thou say est. If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death;" and, verse 53, " Art thou greater than our father Abra- ham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?" Two things are here charged on him by the Jews : First, in general. That he preferred, exalted, and honoured himself. Secondly, in particular, That he made himself better than Abraham their father. To both which charges Christ answers in order in the fol- lowing words. 1. To the first or general charge of honouring himself: Verses 54, 55, " Jesus answered. If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is 3'our God. Ye have not known him ; but I know him : and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like imto you: but I know him, and keep his saying." His honour he had from God, whom they professed [to know,] but knew not. 2. To that of Abraham he replies, verse 56, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad;" — " Though Abraham was so truly great, and the friend of God, yet his great joy was from his belief in me, where- by he saw my day." To this the Jews reply, labouring to convince him of a falsehood, from the impossibility of the thing that he had asserted, verse 57, " Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" — " Abraham was dead so many hundi e 1 years before thou wast born, how couldst thou see him, or he thee?" To this, in the last place, our Saviour rej)lies, verse 58, "Veril}^, verily, I say unto you. Before Abraham was, I am." The Jews knowing that by these words he asserted his deity, and that it was impossible on any other account to make good that he, who in their esteem was not fifty years old (indeed but a little above thirty), should be before Abraham, as in a case of blasphemy, they take up stones to stone him, verse 59, as was their perpetual manner, to attempt to kill him imder pretence of blasphemy, when he asserted his deity; as John V. 18, " Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God."
This naked and unprejudicate view of the text is sufficient to ob- viate all the operose and sophistical exceptions of our catechists, so
234< VINDICIvE EVANGELICiE.
that I shall not need long to insist upon them. That which we have asserted may be thus proposed: He who in respect of his human nature was many hundred years after Abraham, yet was in another respect existing before him; he had an existence before his birth, as to his divine nature. Now this doth Christ expressly affirm con- cerning himself; and nothing else is pretended but only his divine nature wherein he should so exist. They say, then, —
1. That these words do not signify pre-eternity, but only some- thing before Abraham. It is enough that his existence so many hundred years before his nativity is evidently asserted; his eternity from thence will evidently be concluded; and they will not deny that he may as well be eternal as be before Abraham. But, —
2. The words may be rendered, " Priusquam Abraham fiat, ego sum," " Before Aljraham be made." But that they may be so ren- dered is no proof at all that they ought to be so; and, as was be- fore observed, if this be sufficient to evade the sense of a place, that any word in it may be otherwise rendered, because it is or may be so in some other place, nothing certain can be concluded from any testimony of the Scriptures whatever. But that they may not be so rendered is evident, — (1.) From the context, as before declared; (2.) From the opposition between syw u/m, " I am," and " Abraham was," which evidently denotes a time past, as it stands in comparison with what Christ says of himself; and, (3.) The words in such a con- struction as this require an interpretation as to the time past; and, (4.) Because this interpretation of the words corrupts the whole sense of the place, and wrests it contrary to the design and intendment of our Saviour. But then they say, —