Grotius abides by his friends in the interpretation of this place, wresting it to the new creature and the dominion of Christ over all, against all the reasons formerly insisted on, and with no other argu-
1 " Ea quffi in coelis sunt personce (quoo subjectas sunt Christo), sunt angeli, iique tarn boni quam mali : quoe in coelis sunt, et personte non sunt, omnia ilia continent quajcunque extra angelos vel sunt, vel etiam esse possunt." — Smalc. de Divin. Cliristi, cap. xvi. de regno Christi super angelos.
DEITY OF CHRIST PROVED, ETC. 269
nient than what he was from the Socinians supplied withal. His words on the place are : — " It is certain that all things were created by the Word ; but those things that go before show that Christ is here treated of, which is the name of a man, as Chrysostom also understood this place. But he would have it that the world was made for Christ, in a sense not corrupt; but on the account of that which went before, sKrisdr} is better interpreted ' were ordained,' or ' obtained a certain new state." "^ So he, in almost the very words of Socinus. But, —
1. In what sense " all things were created by the Word," and what Grotius intends by the "Word," I shall speak elsewhere. 2. Is Christ the name of a man only ? or of him who is only a man? Or is he a man only as he is Christ? If he would have spoken out to this, we might have had some light into his meaning in many other places of his Annotations. The apostle tells us that Christ is " over all, God blessed for ever," Rom. ix. 5 ; and that Jesus Christ was " declared to be the Son of God, by the resurrection from the dead," chap. i. 4. If " Christ" denote the person of our mediator, Christ is God, and what is spoken of Christ is spoken of him who is God. But this is that which is aimed at : The Word, or Wisdom of God, bears eminent favour towards that man Jesus Christ; but that he was any more than a man, that is, the union of the natures of God and man in one person, is denied. 8. The words before are so spoken of Christ as that they call him the Son of God, and the image of the invisible God, and the first-born of the creation ; which though he was who was a man, yet he was not as he was a man. 4. All the arguments we have insisted on, and farther shall insist on (by God's assistance), to prove the deity of Christ, with all the texts of Scripture wherein it is plainly affirmed, do evince the vanity of this exception, " Christ is the name of a man; therefore the things spoken of him are not proper and peculiar to God." 5. Into Chrysostom's exposition of this jilace I shall not at present inquire, though I am not without reason to think he is wronged ; but that the word here translated " created" may not, cannot be rendered ordained, or placed in a new state and condition, I have before sufficiently evinced, neither doth Grotius add any thing to evince his interpretation of the place, or to remove what is objected against it.
1 . He tells us that of that sense of the word -/.rll^stv he hath spoken in his Prolegomena to the Gospels ; and urges Eph. ii. 10, 13, iii. 9, iv. 24, to prove the sense proposed. (1.) It is confessed that God doth some- times express the exceeding greatness of his power and efficacy of his
' " Certum est j!3«r Verhum creata omnia; scd qure praeceduut, ostendunt hie de Christo agi, quod hominis est nomeii; quoraodo etiam Chrysostomus liunc acccpit locum. Sed ille intelligit mundum creatum propter Christum, sensu non malo : sed propter id quod prrecessit, rectius est Ur/V^*) hie interpretari, ordinata sunt, — novum quendam statum sunt conseci/ta." — Grot, in Col. i. 16.
270 VINDICI.E EVANGELIC^,
grace in the regeneration of a sinner, and enabling him to live to God, by the word "ci'eate," — whence such a person is sometimes called the " new creature/' — according to the many promises of the Old Testa- ment, of creating a new heart in the elect, whom he would take into covenant with himself, — a truth which wraps that in its bowels whereunto Grotius was no friend ; but that this new creation can be accommodated to the things here spoken of is such a figment as so learned a man might have been ashamed of. The constant use of the word in the New Testament is that which is proper, and that which in this place we insist on: as Rom. i. 25 ; 1 Tim. iv. 3; Rev. iv. 11. (2.) Eph. ii. 10 speaks of the "new creature" in the sense declared; which is not illustrated by verse 13, which is quite of an- other import. Chap. iv. 24 is to the same purpose. Chap. iii. 9, the creation of all things, simply and absolutely, is ascribed to God ; which to wrest to a new creation there is no reason, but what arises from opposition to Jesus Christ, because it is ascribed also to him.