4. If this must be supposed to be without any mention, 3'et why is it said always, that Christ came from heaven to the earth ? If he was first on the earth, and was taken into heaven, and came again to the earth, he had spoken to the understanding of men if he had said, " I am returned from heaven;" and not, as he doth, " I am come from heaven." This in lesser matters is observed. Having gone out of Galilee to Jordan, and come again, it is said he "returned from Jordan," Luke iv. 1;^ and having been with the Gadarenes, upon his coming to the other side, from whence he went, it is said he returned from the Gadarenes back again, Luke viii. 40.' But where is it said that he returned from heaven, which, on the suppo- sition that is made, had alone in this case been proper ? which pro- priety of speech is in all other cases everywhere observed by the holy writers.
5. It is said that Christ " entered once into the holy place," and that " having obtained eternal redemption," Heb. ix. 12; yea, and
OF Christ's prophetical office. 357
expressly that he ought to suffer before he so entered, Luke xxiv. 26. But, according to these men, he went twice into heaven, — once before he suffered and had obtained eternal redemption, and once afterward. It may also be observed, that when they are pressed to tell us some of the circumstances of this great matter, being silent to all others, they only tell us that they conjecture the time to be in the space of that forty days wherein he was in the wilderness;^ — on purpose, through the righteous judgment of God, to entangle them- selves in their own imaginations, the Holy Ghost affirming expressly that he was the whole " forty days in the Avilderness, with the wild beasts," Mark i. 18.^
Enough being said to the disprovement of this fiction, I shall very briefly touch upon the sense of the places that are produced to give countenance thereunto.
1. In most of the places insisted on there is this expression, " He that came down from heaven," or, "I came down from heaven:" so John vi. 32, 33, 38, 41, 42, 51, 57, 58, iii. 30-32. Hence this is the conclusion, " If our Saviour came down from heaven, then, after he had lived some time in the world, he was taken up into heaven, there to be taught the mind of God." He that hath a mind to grant this consequence is willing to be these men's disciple. The Scripture gives us another account of the intendment of this phrase, — namely, " Tliat the Word was with God, and the Word Avas God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and his glory was seen, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Fa- ther," John i. 1, 2, 14; so that it is not a local descension^ but a gracious condescension, that is intimated, with his voluntary hu- mihation, when he who was " in the form of God humbled himself to take upon him the form of a servant," therein to learn obedi- ence. So that these expressions yield very little relief to our ad- versary.
2. The second sort are those wherein he is said to " come forth from God," or " from the Father," — this is expressed, John viii. 42, xiii. 1, 3, xvi. 27-30, xvii. 8, — from whence an argument of the same importance with the former doth arise : " If Christ came from God, from the Father, then, after he had been many years in the world, he was taken into heaven, and there taught the gospel, and sent again into the world." With such invincible demonstra- tions do these men contend ! That Christ came from God, from tl>e Father, — that is, had his mission and commission from God, as he was mediator, the great prophet, priest, and king of his church, — none denies, and this is all that in these places is expressed ; of which afterward.
' Smalc. de Divin. Christ, cap. iv.
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S. Some particular places are yet remaining. The first is John iii. 13, " No man hath ascended into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, the Son of man, which is in heaven." That " which is" Mr B. renders rather " which was," whether with greater prejudice to his cause or conscience I know not ; — to his cause, in that he manifests that it cannot be defended without corrupting the word of God ; to his conscience, by corrupting it to serve his own end and turn accordingly. The words are, 6 uv Iv rSj olpavw, which will by no means admit of his corrupting gloss.
I say, then, let the words speak [for] themselves, and you need no other [sword] to cut the throat of the whole cause that this man hath undertaken to manage. He that speaks is the Son of man, and all the time of his speaking he was in heaven. " He," saith he, " is in heaven." In his human nature he was then on the earth, not in heaven ; therefore he had another nature, wherein at that time he was in heaven also, he who was so being the Son of man. And what, then, becomes of Mr B.'s Christ ? and what need of the rap- ture whereof he speaks ?