He proceeds on this foundation : Ou;^ apirctyiih riyriaaTo to sTmi 7<sa QiOj. '^ ' Aprayp.hv r,yi7c!dai est locutio Syriaca. In Liturgia Syriaca, Johannes Baptista Christo baptismum ab ipso expetenti, dicit, ' non assumam ra^inam.' Solent qui ahquid bellica virtute peperere, id omnibus ostentare, ut Romani in triumpho facere solebant. Non multb aliter PJutarchus in Timoleonte : Ou;:^ apiraynv Tiy^garo. Sensus est: No7i venditavit Christus, non jactavit istam jiotestatem; quin s£epe etiam imperavit ne quod fecerat vulgaretur. '^laa hie est ad- verbium ; sic Odyss. O : Tov vuv ha ©sp, etc. 'isoha. <ppovi7v, dixit scriptor, 2 Mace. ix. 12. E^va/ ha 0£w est spectari tanquam Deum." The sum of all is, " He thought it no robbery," that is, he boasted not of his power, "to be equal to God, so to be looked on as a God."
The words, I confess, are not without their difficulty. Many in- terpretations are given of them; and I may say, that of the very many which I have considered, this of all others, as being wrested to countenance a false hypothesis, is the worst. To insist particularly on the opening of the words is not my present task. That Grotius is beside the sense of them may be easily manifested ; for, — 1. He brings nothing to enforce this interpretation. That the expression is Syriac in the idiom of it he abides not by, giving us an instance of the same phrase or expression out of Plutarch, who knew the propriety of the Greek tongue very well, but of the Sp'iac not at all. Others also give a parallel expression out of Thucydides, lib. viii., Sxsu?) aprray^v
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'iroiriediiivoQ. 2. I grant ha may be used adverbially, and be rendered "ffiqualiter ;" but now the wor3s are to be interpreted "pro subjecta materia/' He who was in the form of God, and counted it no robbery (that is, did not esteem it to be any wrong, on that account of his being in the form of God) to be equal to his Father, did yet so sub- mit himself as is described. This being " equal with God" is spoken of Christ accidentally to his " taking on him the form of a servant," which he did in his incarnation, and must relate to his being " in the form of God ; " and if thereunto it be added that the intendment reaches to the declaration he made of himself, when he declared himself to be equal to God the Father, and one with him as to nature and essence, it may complete the sense of this place.
' AXK" hauTov sxsvudi he renders " libenter duxit vitam inopem," re- ferring it to the poverty of Christ whilst he conversed here in the world. But whatever be intended by this expression, 1. It is not the same with iMopcpn'J BouXo-j XaZuiv, which Grotius afterward interprets to the same purpose with what he says here of these words. 2. It must be something antecedent to his " taking the form of a servant;" or rather, something that he did, or became exceptively to what he was before, in becoming a servant. He was " in the form of God," dXX' kau-h sx'svojffi, but " he humbled," or " bowed down himself," in " taking the form of a servant;" that is, he condescended thereunto, in his great love that he bare to us, the demonstration whereof the apostle insists expressly upon. And what greater demonstration of love, or condescension upon the account of love, could possibly be given, than for him who was God, equal to his Father, in the same Deity, to lay aside the manifestation of his glory, and to take upon liim our nature, therein to be a servant unto death ?
He proceeds: Mop(p'^v BouXov XaZuv. " Similis f actus servis, qui nihil proprium possident;" — "He was made like unto servants, who possess nothing of their own." Our catechists, with their great master, refer this, his being like servants, to the usage he submitted to at his death ; this man, to his poverty in his life. And to this sense of these words is that place of Matt. viii. 20 better accommodated than to the clause foregoing, for whose exposition it is produced by our annotator.
But, — 1. It is most certain that the exposition of Grotius will not, being laid together, be at any tolerable agreement with itself, if we allow any order of process to be in these words of the apostle. His aim is acknowledged to be an exhortation to brotherly love, and mutual condescension in the same, from the example of Jesus Christ; for he tells you that " he, being in the form of God, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant." Now, if this be not the gradation of the apostle, that being " in the form of God," free from any thing of that which follows, he then debased
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and humbled himself, and " took upon him the form of a servant," there is not any form of plea left from this example here proposed to the end aimed at. But now, says Grotius, " his being in the form of God was his working of miracles; his debasing himself, his being poor, his taking the form of a servant, possessing nothing of his own." But it is evident that there was a coincidence of time as to these things, and so no gradation in the words at all ; for then when Christ wrought miracles, he was so poor and possessed nothing of his own, that there was no condescension nor relinquishment of one con-. dition for another discernible therein. 2. The "form of a servant" that Christ took was that wherein he was like man, as it is ex- pounded in the words next following : he was " made in the likeness of men." And what that is the same apostle informs us, Heb. ii. 17, "O^sf u(piiXs xara Toivra roTg ahiXfoTg o/x^oiajd^vat, — " Wherefore he ought in all things to be made like his brethren :" that is, ev 6/j,oiu/MaTi dvOpuToov ysvofj.svog, he was "made in the likeness of men;'' or, as it is expressed Rom. viii. 3, h 6fioioj/m,aTi ffapxoc, " in the likeness of flesh;" which also is expounded. Gal. iv. 4, ysvo/j^svog sx yvmixog, "made of a woman ;" — which gives us the manner of the accomplishment of that, John i. 14, 'O Aoyog sap^ syhsro, "The Word was made flesh." 3. The employment of Christ in that likeness of man is confessedly expressed in these words ; not his condition, that he had nothing, but his employment, that he was the servant of the Father, accord- ing as it was foretold that he should be, Isa. xlii. 1, 19, and which he everywhere professed himself to be. He goes on, —