Q. Forasmuch as Christ ivas to be a prophet like unto 3fose$, and Moses had the privilege above other prophets that God made not himself known to him in a vision, nor spake to him in a dream, but face to face, as a man speakeih to his friend, and showed to him the similitude of the Lord, Exod. xxxiii. 11, Ntim.
350 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC^.
xii. 6-8, can you tell any passage of Scripture which intimateth that Christ did see God before the discharge of his prophetical office ?
A. John vi. 45, 46, " Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is from God, he hath seen the Father."
1. This passage is indeed very pretty, whether the principles or the inferences of it are considered.
The principles of it are sundry: — (1.) That God hath a bodily shape and snnilitude, face and hands, and the like corporeal properties;^ (2.) That Moses saw the face of God as the face of a man f (3.) That Christ was in all things like Moses, so that what Moses did he must do also. Therefore, (1.) Christ did see the face of God as a man; (2.) He did it before he entered on his prophetical office ; whereunto add, (3.) The proof of all, " No man hath seen the Father, save he which is from God." That is, Christ only saw the face of God, and no man else, when the ground of the whole fiction is that Moses saw it before him!
2. Of the bodily shape of God, and of Moses seeing his face, I have already spoken that which Mr B. will not take out of his way. Of Christ's being like Moses something: also hath now been delivered.
That which, Exod. xxxiii. 11, in the Hebrew is Ci"'pSi"PX D^?, panim el panim, the LXX. have rendered svuTiog svu-zlw, — that is, "prse- sens prsesenti," '"'as one present with him;" and the Chaldee para- phrast, " verbum ad verbum," — that is, God dealt with him kindly and familiarly, not with astonishing terror, and gave him an intimate acquaintance with his mind and will. And the same expression is used concerning God's speaking to all the people, Deut. v. 4 ; of whom yet it is expressly said that they saw no likeness at all, chap. iv. 12.^
If from the likeness mentioned there must be a sameness asserted unto the particular attendancies of the discharge of that office, then Christ must divide the sea, lift up a brazen serpent, and die in a mountain, and be buried by God where no man could ever know. Moses, indeed, enjoyed an eminency of revelation above other pro- phets, which is called his conversing with God as a friend, and be- holding him face to face, but even in that wherein he is exalted above all others, he is infinitely short of the great Prophet of his church : for Moses, indeed, as a servant was faithful in all the house of God, but this man is over his own house ; whose house Ave are, Heb. iii. 5, 6.
3. This figment is for ever and utterly everted by the Holy Ghost, John i. 17, 18, where he expressly urges a dissimilitude between Moses and the only-begotten Son in that particular wherein this gentleman would have the likeness to consist. "Herein," says Mr B.,
' See chap. iii.
*Aa-o I'lKovas oh yvai/i^iTcci, ip^aX/^v; oh^ oparai, ouSjv; £«<»£. — AntiphaneS. de Deo.
' "Facie in faciem, ita ut homines cum hominibus colloquentes solent : quod refer ad vocum perceptionem distinctam ; non ad conspicuum aliquod. Nihil enim viderunt." — Grot. Annot. in loc.
OF Christ's prophetical office. 351
" is Christ like to Moses, that as Moses saw God face to face, so he saw God face to face." " No," saith the Holy Ghost; "the law, indeed, was given by Moses, but no man hath seen God at any time; the only- begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." It is true that it is said of Moses that " God spake to him face to face," — that is, in a more clear and familiar manner than he did to other prophets, — though he told him plainly that he should not, or could not, see his face, Exod. xxxiii. 18-23, though he gave him some lower manifestations of his glory : so that notwith- standing the revelations made to him, " no man hath seen God at any time, but the only-begotten Son." He who is of the same nature and essence with the Father, and is in his bosom love, he hath seen him, John vi. 46; and in this doth Moses, being a man only, come infinitely short of the only-begotten Son, in that he could never see God, which He did : which is also asserted in the place of Scripture cited by Mr B.
4. To lay this axe, then, also to the root of Mr B.'s tree, to cut it down for the fire: The foundation of Christ's prophetical ofiice, as to his knowledge of the will of his Father, which he was to reveal, doth not consist in his being " taken up into heaven," and there being taught the will of God in his human nature, but in that he was the " only-begotten Son of the Father," who eternally knew. him and his whole will and mind, and, in the dispensation which he un- dertook, revealed him and his mind, according as it was appointed to him. In respect, indeed, of his human nature, wherein he declared and preached the will of God, he was taught of God, being filled with wisdom and understanding by the Spirit, whereby he was anointed for that purpose; but as the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, he always saw him, knew him, and revealed him, Luke iv. 18; Isa. Ixi. 1; Heb. i. 9.