Some, then, take the meaning of this expression to be, that the Lord Christ, by his participation of flesh and blood, brought help and relief, not unto angels, but unto men, the seed of Abraham. And they suppose to this purpose, that ériAuuCdveras is put for carnapedvercs,—“ to help, to succour, to relieve, to vindicate into liberty.” Of this mind are Castalio and all the Socinians: among those of the Roman church, Ribera; Estius also and 4 Lapide speak doubtfully in the case: of Protestants, Cameron and Grotius, who
456 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [cHAP. I.
affirms, moreover, that Chrysostom and the Greek scholiasts so inter- pret the place and words; which I should have marvelled at, had I not long before observed him greatly to fail or mistake in many of his quotations. Chrysostom, whom he names in particular, ex- pressly referreth this whole verse unto the Lord Christ’s assump- tion of the nature of man, and not of the nature of angels. The same also is insisted on by Theophylact and Cicumenius, without any intimation of the sense that Grotius would impose upon them. The Socinians embrace and endeavour to confirm this second exposition of the words: and it is their concernment so to do; for if the words express that the Lord Christ assumed human nature, which necessarily infers his pre-existence in another nature, their per- suasion about the person of Christ is utterly overthrown. Their ex- ceptions in their controversial writings unto this place have been elsewhere considered. Those of Enjedinus on this text are answered by Parzeus, those of Castalio by Beza, and the objections of some others by Gomarus. We shall, in the first place, consider what is pro- posed for the confirmation of their sense by Schlichtingius or Crellius; and then the exceptions of a very learned expositor unto the sense be- fore laid down and confirmed. And Schlichtingius first argues from the context :—“ Preeter ipsa verba,” saith he, “quee hunc sensum nullo modo patiuntur ut postea dicemus, contextus et ratiocinatio auctoris id repudiat; qui pro ratione et argumento id sumere non potuit debuitve, quod sibi hoc ipso argumento et ratione probandum sum- sisset. De eo enim erat queestio, cur Christus qui nunc ad tantam majestatem et gloriam est evectus, non angelicam sed humanam, morti et variis calamitatibus obnoxiam habuerit naturam? hujus vero rei, quo pacto ratio redderetur, per id quod non angelicam sed humanam naturam assumpserit; cum istius ipsius rei, que in hae queestione continetur, nempe quod Christus homo fuit natus, nune causa ratioque queratur. At vero si hee verba, de juvandis non angelis, sed hominibus, deque ope-iis ferenda intelligamus, pulcher- rime omnia coherent; nempe Christum hominem mortalem fuisse, non angelum aliquem, quod non angelis sed hominibus juvandis, servandisque fuerit destinatus.” But the foundation of this exposi- tion of the context is a mistake, which his own preceding discourse might have relieved him from; for there is no such question pro- posed as here is imagined, nor doth he in his following exposition suppose it. The apostle doth not once propose this unto confirma- tion, that it behoved the Lord Christ to be a man, and not an angel. But having proved at large before, that in nature and authority he was above the angels, he grants, verse 7, that he was for a little while made lower than they, and gives at large the reason of the necessity of that dispensation, taken from the work which God had designed him unto: which being to “bring many sons unto glory,” he
VER. 16.] ° EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 457
shows, and proves by sundry reasons, that it could not be accom- plished without his death and suffering; for which end it was indis- pensably necessary that he should be made partaker of “flesh and blood.” And this he confirms further by referring the Hebrews unto the Scripture, and in especial unto the great promise of the Messiah made unto Abraham, that the Messiah was to be his seed; the love and grace whereof he amplifies by an intimation that he was not to partake of the angelical nature. That supposition, there- fore, which is the foundation of this exposition,—namely, that the apostle had before designed to prove that the Messiah ought to par- take of human nature, and not of angelical, which is nothing to his purpose,—is a surmise suited only to the present occasion. Where- fore Felbinger, in his Demonstrationes Evangelice, takes another course, and affirms that these words contain the end of what was before asserted, verses 14, 15,—namely, about Christ’s participation of flesh and blood,—which was, not to help angels, but the seed of Abraham, and to take them into grace and favour. But these things are both of them expressly declared in those verses, especially verse 15, where it is directly affirmed that his design in his incar- nation and death was to destroy the devil, and to free and save the children. And to what end should these things be here again re- peated, and that in words and terms far more obscure and ambi- guous than those wherein it was before taught and declared? for by “angels” they understand evil angels; and there could be no cause why the apostle should say in this verse that he did not assist or relieve them, when he had declared in the words immediately fore- going that he was born and died that he might destroy them. Neither is it comely to say, that the end why Christ destroyed the devil was that he might not help him; or the end why he saved the children was that he might assist them. Besides, the introduction of this assertion, od yap djzov, will not allow that here any end is intimated of what was before expressed, there being no insinuation of any final cause in them.