manuscripts, and is at least of doubtful authenticity. See Griesbach ; and the Improved Version.

Of those who receive it as genuine, the believers in the deity of Christ understand it as expressing his omnipresence 34.

Arians and Socinians translate the words, "who was in heaven." So John ix. 25, "Whereas I was blind, now I see 35." The Arians understand the clause of the pre-existence of Christ; the Socinians, of his translation to heaven after his baptism.

The Unitarians in general consider it as a continuation of the figure or allegory in the first and second clauses:

heaven' may signify not knowing them. But the figure is preserved if the person spoken of ascends to learn heavenly truths, and descends to communicate them. And this sense is confirmed by the language of Jesus concerning John's baptism: Matt. xxi. 25.

34 Who is in heaven,] as "be is now present there by his divine nature, which fills both heaven and earth." Doddridge. See Whitby. 350 wv ev Tw aparw, who was in heaven. Compare chap. ix. 25, τυφλος ων, αρτι βλεπω and chap. i. 18, The only begotten Son, ἱ ων EIS TOV HORTOV, who is or was in the bosom of the Father. "This," says Dr. Harwood. (Soc. Scheme, p. 32,)" is so direct, positive, and solemn an assertion of the pre-existence of our Saviour from the mouth of our blessed Lord himself, that I see not what criticism can evade it. The ancient Socinians indeed framed a hypothesis that our Lord after his baptism was caught up into heaven. But this journey to paradise, which has so much the air of a Mahometan tale, has no existence in the sacred page."-" Nothing can be more unreasonable and groundless," says Dr. Clarke, (Script. Doct. p. 84, No. 574,)" than the Socinians' interpretation of this passage, who feign that Christ was taken up into heaven, as Moses of old into the mount, to receive his instructions, and then came down again to preach. Perhaps a Socinian might justly retort upon these learned divines, that his fiction is at least as probable as the Arian fiction of a created Logos, who, being invested with such stupendous powers as to supersede the Deity himself in the creation, support, and government of the universe, reduced himself afterwards, by a metamorphosis more wonderful than any recorded by the Roman poet, to the condition of a senseless and helpless infant. But it is time to abstain from harsh language and injurious reflections. These are not the weapons by which this important contest is to be decided, and the battle won.

"The

"The Son of Man, who is in heaven, who is instructed in the gracious purposes of God to man36"

The true sense of the whole text may therefore be expressed thus:

No one has ever been admitted to a participation of the divine counsels, except the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth, who has been commissioned to reveal the will of God to men, and who is perfectly instructed and qualified for this office.

This text seems to be exactly parallel to John i. 18, "No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of his Father, he hath declared him."

q. d. No one knows the purposes of God, but his faithful servant and messenger Jesus Christ, who is instructed in his counsels, and has revealed his will.

To the same purpose, Matt. xi. 27, "All things are delivered to me by my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."

q. d. The Father has communicated to the Son his whole will; and no one knoweth the extent of the Son's commission but the Father. Nor is any one instructed in the mind and will of God but the Son, and those who are taught by him37.

96 This interpretation of the text is not peculiar to the Unitarians. Le Clerc says, 66 Il faut expliquer ceci comme l'expression monter au ciel: c'est à dire, de la connoissance que Notre Seigneur avoit reçue des secrets du ciel. Voyez ch. i. 18. Dr. Campbell also refers to the same text, which he explains in a similar way: "By the expression Ó WY BIG TOY HOλTOV, who is in the bosom of the Father,' is meant not only who is the special object of the Father's love, but who is admitted to his most secret counsels. By sy tw spary, who is in heaven,' is meant whose abode, whose residence, whose home is there."

57 See Improved Version. "Monstrat orationis series agi de mysteriis ad salutem humanam pertinentibus, quorum revelatio Filio est credita," Grotius. See likewise Le Clerc in loc.

From this illustration of the text the following conclusions are deducible:

1. That the phrase to descend from heaven' does not necessarily and universally signify a local descent.

2.] That this phrase, according to our Lord's own interpretation and use of it, Matt. xxi. 25, sometimes expresses nothing more than coming with a divine commission and authority.

3.] It is therefore no perversion of plain language to understand and explain these words in this sense; the sense in which our Lord himself explained them.

4.] That from the phrase 'he came down from heaven,' no argument can be derived in favour of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ, unless these words occur in a connexion which makes it absolutely necessary to understand them in a literal and local sense88.

IV.

John iii. 31. "He that cometh from above is above all: He that is of the earth is earthy, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all."

• He that cometh from above,' or 'from heaven,' is he who cometh with a divine commission and authority. "He that is of the earth' is a teacher who has no pretensions to such authority,-the priests and Levites who instructed the people and expounded the law. Their instructions were fallible and imperfect: those of Jesus, the prophet of the Most High, were infallible and divine.

98 No stress is laid (though possibly it might bear an argument) upon the absurdity of the Jewish notion of a local heaven above the firmament, where God and angels reside, and where Jesus is supposed to have existed previously to his incarnation. Modern discoveries in astronomy amply refute this puerile hypothesis. God is at all times equally and every where present. And heaven is a state, and not a place. To be perfectly virtuous and perfectly happy is to be in heaven, whatever be the local situation of the being in question.

Or,

Or, as Mr. Lindsey supposes, perhaps the Baptist may refer to himself and to former prophets and messengers of God, and may mean to speak modestly and disparagingly of his own authority and commission from God, in comparison with that of Jesus, which was indeed far more illustrious and divine. See Mr. Lindsey's Sequel, p. 217; and Grotius in loc.

V.

John vi. 33. "The bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world."

Ver. 35. "I am that bread of life."

Ver. 58. "For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me."

Ver. 42. "They said, Is not this Jesus the son of Jo. seph, whose father and mother we know; how is it then that he saith, I come down from heaven ?"

Ver. 62. "What and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before ?"

As the greatest possible stress is laid by the advocates for the pre-existence of Christ upon the expressions which our Lord uses in this discourse, it is necessary to consider them in their connexion.

It has been already proved that to come down from heaven' is a phrase not unfrequently used to express coming with divine authority. The only question therefore is, whether there is any thing in the connexion in which the words occur in this discourse which limits their signification to a local descent.

After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus crossed the sea of Galilee; and the next day the multitude followed him, with a determination to compel him to assume the title of king. The miracle he had wrought convinced them that he was the Messiah, and that he was able to deliver their country from the tyranny of the Ro

man

man government. Jesus, knowing their mean and secular views, resolved to release himself from these selfish and unworthy attendants; and for this purpose he delivers a discourse which they could not comprehend, and the design of which was to shock their prejudices, to disgust their feelings, and to alienate them from his society.

Ver. 25. The multitude, having found him, begin the conversation with the question, "Rabbi, when camest thou hither ?"

Ver. 26, 27. Jesus declines giving a direct answer, and reproves their selfish and secular motives:

"Verily, ye seek me not because ye saw miracles, but because ye ate of the loaves. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life, which the Son of Man shali give you, for to him the Father, that is God, hath given his attestation 39,"

Ver. 28. They then asked him, "What are the works which God requireth us to do?"

Ver. 29. "Jesus answered, That ye believe on him whom God hath commissioned."

Ver. 30, 31. "They replied, What miracle doest thou, that seeing it we may believe thee? Our fathers ate manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' 999

The Jews expected that when the Messiah came, he would be made known by some public visible sign from heaven. See Matt. xvi. 1; xxiv. 3. 1 Cor. i. 22. This is what the multitude now ask for. Notwithstanding the great miracle of the loaves, they are not perfectly satisfied till they obtain this visible sign; which they are the more encouraged to expect, as Moses actually exhibited a sign of this description, viz. the manna which descended from heaven.

39 See Dr. Campbell's Translation.