(4.) Another reason hereof they take from his ascension into heaven, or being glorified, at which time they suppose that he was made an High Priest, and had, in an eminent degree, the name and character of God put upon him, for which they refer to Heb. v. 3. in which it is said, Christ glorified not himself to be made an High Priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
But they plainly pervert the sense of these respective texts but now mentioned, inasmuch as they suppose that his mission, incarnation, resurrection, and ascension, are the principal reasons of his being called God; and that his deity is founded not in the excellency of his nature, but in these relative circumstances, in which, as an act of grace, this honour was conferred upon him, which God, had he pleased, might have conferred on any other creature, capable of yielding obedience to him, or receiving such a commission from him: whereas, in reality, these scriptures refer to that glory which he had as Mediator, as a demonstration of his Deity, and these honours were agreeable to his character, as a divine Person, but did not constitute him God, as they suppose.
But these things are not so particularly insisted on by some late Anti-trinitarians, though they all agree in this, that his right to divine honour is the result of that authority which he has received from God, to perform the works which are ascribed to him, relating to the good of mankind; whereas we cannot but conclude, from the scriptures before brought to prove his proper Deity, in which he is called Lord and God, in as strong a sense, as when those words are applied to the Father, that he is therefore God equal with the Father.
Thus having considered our Saviour’s proper Deity, as evinced from his being called Lord and God; and also, that these names are given to him in such a sense, as that hereby the Godhead is intended, as much as when it is applied to the Father; we shall close this head, by considering two scriptures, in which the divine nature is ascribed to him; and the first of them is in Coloss. ii. 9. In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; in which we may observe, that it is not barely said, that God dwelleth in him, which would not so evidently have proved his deity, because God is elsewhere said to dwell in others: thus, in 1 John iv. 12. it is said, God dwelleth in us; but here it is said, the Godhead dwelleth in him, which is never applied to any creature; and the expression is very emphatical, the fulness, yea, all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him; what can we understand thereby, but that all the perfections of the divine nature belong to him? The apostle had been speaking, in ver. 2. of the mystery of Christ, as what the church was to know, and acknowledge, as well as that of the Father; and he also considers him as the Fountain of wisdom, ver. 3. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; and what is here spoken concerning him, very well corresponds therewith, as being expressive of his divine glory; the fulness of the Godhead is said, indeed, to dwell in him bodily, by which we are to understand his human nature, as the body is, in some other scriptures taken for the man; thus, in Rom. xii. 1. we are exhorted to present our bodies, i. e. ourselves, a living sacrifice to God; so here the divine nature, as subsisting in him, is said to dwell in, that is, to have the human nature united to it, which is meant by its dwelling in him bodily.
The account which some give of the sense of this text, to evade the force of the argument, taken from thence, to prove our Saviour’s Deity, does little more than shew how hard the Anti-trinitarians are put to it to maintain their ground, when they say that the word Θεοτης, which we render Godhead, signifies some extraordinary gifts conferred upon him, especially such as tended to qualify him to discover the mind and will of God; or, at least, that nothing else is intended thereby, but that authority which he had from God, to perform the work which he came into the world about; since it is certain, that this falls infinitely short of what is intended by the word Godhead, which must signify the divine nature, subsisting in him, who assumed, or was made flesh, and so dwelt therein, as in a temple.
There is another scripture, which seems to attribute to him the divine nature, viz. Phil. ii. 6. where it is said, that he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God; by the form of God, I humbly conceive, we are to understand the divine nature which he had, and therefore it was no instance of robbery in him to assert, that he was equal with God. If this sense of the text can be defended, it will evidently prove his proper Deity, since it is never said, concerning any creature, that he is in the form of God, or, as the words may be rendered, that he subsisted in the form of God; now it is well known, that the word which we render form, is not only used by the schoolmen, but by others, before their time, to signify the nature, or essential properties, of that to which it is applied; so that this sense thereof was well known in the apostle’s days. Therefore, why may we not suppose, that the Holy Ghost, in scripture, may once, at least, use a word which would be so understood by them? And it will farther appear, that Christ’s Deity is signified thereby, if the following words are to be understood in the sense contained in our translation, that he thought it not robbery to be equal with God; now this seems very plain, for the same word ἡγησατο, he thought, is taken in the same sense in the third verse of this chapter; Let every man esteem, or think, others better than themselves; and it is used about twenty times in the New Testament, five times in this epistle, besides in this text, and never understood otherwise than as signifying to think, esteem, or account; and it would destroy the sense of the respective texts, where it is used, to take it otherwise. This the Anti-trinitarians themselves will not deny, inasmuch as it does not affect their cause; notwithstanding they determine that it must be otherwise translated in this text; and so they render the words, ουχ ἁρπαγμον ἡγησατο το ειναι ισα Θεω, he did not covet to be honoured, or was not greedy, or in haste of being honoured as God[[130]], that is, he did not affect to appear like a divine Person, or catch at those divine honours that did not belong to him. Could this sense of the text be made out to be just, it would effectually overthrow our argument, taken from thence, to prove Christ’s proper Deity: but this is as foreign from the sense of the words, as any sense that could be put upon them; and all that is pretended to justify it, is a reference which they make to a phrase, or two, used in a Greek writer, which is not at all to their purpose[[131]]. Moreover the sense of this text, as agreeable to the words of our translation, will farther appear to be just, if we consider, that our Saviour’s being in the form of God, is there opposed to his having afterwards been in the form of a servant, or the fashion of a man; now if the latter be to be understood of his being truly and properly man, and not to be taken barely for something in him which resembled the human nature; or if his taking on him the form of a servant, imports, his being in a capacity to perform that obedience which was due from him, as man to God, in a proper, and not a theatrical sense; then it will follow, that his being in the form of God, as opposed hereunto, must be taken for his being truly and properly God, or for his having the divine nature, as before mentioned; which was the thing to be proved.
I might here consider the sense which Dr. Whitby, in his annotations, gives of our Saviour’s being in the form of God, as opposed to that of a servant, (after he had given up the sense of the words, as in our translation, to the adversary) which is, that his being in the form of God, implies, his appearing, before his incarnation, in a bright shining cloud, or light, or in a flame of fire, or with the attendance of an host of angels, as he is sometimes said to have done, which the Jews call Shechinah, or the divine Majesty, as being a visible emblem of his presence; this he calls the form of God, and his not appearing so, when incarnate in this lower world, the form of a servant, as opposed to it; and adds, that when he ascended into heaven, he assumed the form of God; and therefore whenever he has occasionally appeared, as to the martyr Stephen at his death, or to the apostle Paul at his first conversion, it has been in that form, or with like emblems of majesty and divinity, as before his incarnation,
Here I would observe concerning this, that what he says of Christ’s appearing with emblems of majesty and glory before his incarnation, and the glory that was put upon his human nature after his ascension into heaven, is a great truth; but as this is never styled, in scripture, the form of God, nor was the symbol of the divine glory ever called therein the divine majesty, however it might be called by Jewish writers; therefore this has no reference to the sense of this text, nor does it, in the least, enervate the force of the argument, taken from it, to prove our Saviour’s proper Deity, any more than this critical remark on the words thereof does, the sense of our translation, whereby it evidently appears. I might also observe the sense which another learned[[132]] writer gives of the form of God in this text, which is the same that is given by several of the Socinians; namely, that it has a relation to his working miracles while here upon earth, which is certainly very disagreeable to the scope and design of the text, since he is said to be in the form of God, before he took upon him the form of a servant, that is, before his incarnation: and besides, the working miracles, never was deemed sufficient to denominate a person to be in the form of God, for if it had, many others, both before and after him, might have had this applied to them; whereas it is a glory appropriate to him, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
I would not wholly pass over that which some call a controverted text of scripture, in 1 John v. 7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one, lest it should be thought that I conclude the arguments, brought by the Anti-trinitarians, sufficiently conclusive to prove it spurious,[[133]] but I shall say the less on this subject, because it is a very hard matter to advance any thing that has not been very largely insisted on, by various writers; among whom I cannot but mention, with great esteem; one who has defended the scripture-doctrine of the Trinity with a great deal of learning and judgment, who has given a particular account of several that have written on either side of the question[[134]]. No one pretends to deny, that this text is not to be found in a great number of manuscripts, among which some are generally allowed to be of great antiquity; therefore it is less to be wondered at, that it is left out in some ancient versions thereof, which were taken from copies that were destitute of it; all which only proves, that the text has been corrupted: but the main question is, which of those copies are to be reckoned genuine, those which have it, or others which have it not? It must be allowed, that there are a considerable number, in which the text is inserted, as Beza and others observe; and it will be a hard matter to prove that these are all spurious, which must be done, before we shall be obliged to expunge it out of scripture.
If it be objected, that the manuscripts, which have the text, are not so ancient as those that are without it, it will be a difficult matter for them to determine the antiquity thereof, with such exactness, as, by comparing one with the other, it may be certainly known, with respect to all of them, which has the preference, and by what a number of years: besides, since it is certain, that more manuscripts of scripture are lost by far, than are now known to be in the world; unless we suppose that religion, in ancient times, was contracted into a very narrow compass, or that very few, in the first ages of the church, had copies of scripture by them, which is not to be supposed; and, if so, then it will be hard to prove that those manuscripts, which have the text inserted, did not take it from some others, that were in being before them; so that the genuineness, or spuriousness of the text, is not to be determined only or principally by inspection into ancient manuscripts.