1. Is there the same reason of these two expressions, " Do not tempt Christ, as some of them tempted," and, " Be not refractory against the magistrates, as some of them were " ? " Christ " is the name of one singular individual person, wherein none shareth at any tiine, it being proper only to him. "Magistrate" is a term of office, as it was to him that went before him, and will be to him that shall follow after hira.
2. They need not to have puzzled their catechumens with their long rule, which I shall as little need to examine, for none can be understood here but Christ. That the word " God" should be here understood they do not plead, nor if they had had a mind thereunto is there any place for that plea ; for if the apostle had intended God in distinction from Christ, it was of absolute necessity that he should
1 " Ex lis verbis doceri non potest, apostolum afiirmare, Christum in deserto revera tentatum fuissc ; ut e simili oratione, siquis ita diceret, deprehendi potest. ' Ne sitis refractarii magistratui, quemadmodum quidam majorum nostroruin fuerunt;' non illico concluderes eundem numero magistratum utrobique designari. Quod si reperiuntur in Scripturis ejusmodi loquendi modi, in quibus similis oratio ad eum cujus nomen paulo ante expressum est, sine ulla illius ejusdcra rcpetitione referatur, turn hoc ibi sit, ubi ulhis alius prseter eum cujus expressum est nomen, subintelligi possit : ut ex- cniplum ejus rei habes in illo testimonio, Deut. vi. 16, Non tentahis Dominmn Dcum tmtni, quemadmodum tentasti in loco fe?itatioms. Verum in ea oratione apostoli, de qua agimus, potest subintelligi alius prteter Christum, ut Moses, Aaron, etc.; de quo vide Num. xxi. 5."
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have expressed it; nor, if it had been expressed, would the apostle's argument have been of any force unless Christ had been God, equal to him who was so tempted.
o. It is false that the Israelites tempted Moses or Aaron, or that it can be said they tempted them. It is God they are everywhere said to tempt, Ps. Ixxviii. 18, 56, cvi. 14; Heb. iii. 9. It is said, in- deed, " that they murmured against Moses, that they provoked him, that they chode with him;" but to tempt him, — which is to require a sign and manifestation of his divine power, — that they did not, nor could be said to do. Num. xxi, 5.
Grotius tries his last shift in this place, and tells us, from I know not what ancient manuscript, that it is not, "Let us not tempt Christ," but, "Let us not tempt God:" "Error commissus ex notis ©i;. et Xv." That neither the Syriac, nor the Vulgar Latin translation, nor any copy that either Stephanus in his edition of the New Testa- ment or in his various lections had seen, nor any of Beza's, nor Eras- mus' (who would have been ready enough to have laid hold of the advantage), should in the least give occasion of any such conjecture of an alteration, doth wholly take off, with me, all the authority either of the manuscript or of him that affirms it from thence.^
As they please to proceed, the next place to be considered is John xii. 41, " These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and sjDake of him."
The words in the foregoing verses, repeated by the apostle, mani- fest that it is the vision mentioned Isa. vi. that the apostle relates unto. Whence we thus argue : He whose glory Isaiah saw, chap, vi., was " the Holy, holy, holy, LoED of hosts," verse 3, " the King, the Lord of hosts," verse 5 ; but this was Jesus Christ whose glory Isaiah then saw, as the Holy Ghost witnesses in these words of John xii. 41. What say our catechists?
First, it appears that these words are not necessarily referred to Christ, be- cause they may be understood of God the Father ; for the words a little before are spoken of him, " He hath blinded, hardened, healed." Then, the glory that Isaiah saw might be, nay was, not present, but future ; for it is proper to pro- phets to see things future, whence they are called '"' seers," 1 Sam. ix. 9. Lastly, although these words should be understood of that glory which was then present and seen to Isaiah, yet to see the glory of one and to see himself are far ditferent things. And in the glory of that one God Isaiah saw also the glory of the Lord Christ ; for the prophet says there, " The whole earth is full of the glory of God," verse 3. But then this was accomplished in reality when Jesus appeared to that people, and was afterward preached to the whole world. ^
1 It is now well known that there are manuscripts which give Kufiov instead of XpifTov, and one or two which sanction Siiv as the reading. Xpia-riv is retained by Tiscbendorf, as having a great preponderance of evidence in its favour. — Ed.
2 " Primum, ca verba ad Christum non nccessario referri hinc apparet, quod de Deo Patre accipi possint ; etenim verba paulo superiora de codem dicuntur, czccccavit, induravit, sanavit. Deinde, gloriam quam Esaias vidit poterat esse, imo erat, non pricsens, sed futura ; etenim proprium est vatibus futura videre, unde etiam videntes