Isa. xli. 4, "I, Jehovah, the first, and with the last; I am he." Chap. xliv. 6, "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." So chap, xlviii. 12. That this is spoken of Christ we have his own testimony, Rev. i. 1 7, " Fear not ; I am the first and the last." He who is the first and the last, he is God, and there is none besides him.
Zech. xii. 10, "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." He that speaks is unquestionably Jehovah, the Lord of hosts. So the whole context, so the promising of the Spirit in this verse, evinces. But that Jesus Christ is here intended, that it is he who is spoken of, is evi- dent, Rev. i. 7, " Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him." He, then, is Jehovah, the Lord of hosts. " These thino-g were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced," John xix. 36, 37. It is, as I .-^aid, beyond disjDute that it is Jehovah, the only true God, that spake ; and what he spoke of himself is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Ps. Ixviii. 17, 18, " The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels : the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; that the Lord God mioht dwell among them." This also is a glorious description of the tri-
SoO VINDICIiE EVANGELICiE.
umpliant majesty of God ; and yet the God here intended is Jesus Christ: Eph. iv. 8-10, " Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth ? He that descended is the same also that ascended/'
Grotius on both these places says that what is properly spoken of God is by Paul mystically applied to Christ ; to the same purpose with what our catechists afterward insist on. That it is the same person who is intended in both places, and not that applied to one which was spoken of another (which is most evident in the context), he takes no notice. There being nothing of plea or argument in his annotations against our testimonies from hence, but only an endea- vour to divert the meaning of the places to another sense, I shall not insist longer on them.
But what say our catechists to all these, — which are but some of the instances of this kind that might be given? Say they: —
To all these it may be so answered as that it may appear that a divine nature in Christ cannot from them be proved: for those things which are spoken of God under the law may be spoken of Christ under the gospel, as also they are spoken, for another cause, — namely, because of that eminent conjunction that is be- tween God and Christ, on the account of dominion, power, and office ; all which the scriptures of the New Testament do frequently witness that he received by gift from God. And if the Scripture delivers this of Moses, that he brought Israel out of Egypt, Exod. xxxii. 7, and that he was the redeemer of the people, Acts vii. 35, and of others the same things, that were evidently written of God, when neither Moses nor others had so near a conjunction with God as was be- tween God and Christ, much more justly may those things which in the first respect are spoken of God be accommodated to Christ, because of the eminent and near conjunction that was between them.'
And this is their defence, the answer they fix upon to all the tes- timonies recited ; wherein how little truth or strength there is will quickly appear. 1. These scriptures perhaps may be answered thus or thus, as what will not the serpentine wits of men find out to wrest the word withal to their own destruction ? but the question is. How ought they to be interjareted, and what is their sense and in- tendment? 2. We do not say that what is spoken of God under the law is accommodated to Christ under the gospel, but that the things instanced in, that were spoken of God, were then spoken of Christ
' " Ad omnia ita responderi potest, ut appareat nuUo mode ex lis eiEci divinam in Christo esse naturam ; etenim aliam ob causam ea quae de Deo dicta sunt sub lege, dici potucrunt de Christo sub evaugelio, queniadmodum et dicta sunt, iiimirum propter illam sunimam qure inter Dcum et Christum est, ratione imperii, j)otestatis, atque muneris, conjuuctiouem, quae omnia ilium Dei done consecutum esse scrijiturce Novi Testament! passim testantur. Quod si Scriptura ca tradit de Mose, eum Israclem ex JEgypto eduxisse, Exod. xxxii. 7, et quod redemptor illius populi fuerit, Act. vii. 35, et de aliis idem quod de ipso Deo apertissime scriptum erat, cum uec IMoses nequc alii tantam cum Deo conjunctionem haberent, quanta inter Deum et Christum iutercessit, multojustius b£ec quae de Deoprimo respectu dicta simt, Christo accommo- dari possunt, propter summam illam et arctissimam inter Deum et Chi'istum conjunc- tionem."