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| The Author Prosecutes the Same Argument.
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Chapter XIV. Argument.—The Author Prosecutes
the Same Argument.
And yet the heretic still shrinks from urging that
Christ is God, whom he perceives to be proved God by so many words as
well as facts. If Christ is only man, how, when He came into this
world, did He come unto His own, since a man could have made no
world? If Christ was only man, how is the world said to have been
made by Him, when the world was not by man, but man was ordained after
the world? If Christ was only man, how was it that Christ was not
only of the seed of David; but He was the Word made flesh and dwelt
among us? For although the Protoplast was not born of seed, yet
neither was the Protoplast formed of the conjunction of the Word and
the flesh. For He is not the Word made flesh, nor dwelt in
us. If Christ was only man, how does He “who cometh from
heaven testify what He hath seen and heard,”5109
when it is plain that man cannot come
from heaven, because he cannot be born there? If Christ be only
man, how are “visible things and invisible, thrones, powers, and
dominions,” said to be created by Him and in Him; when the
heavenly powers could not have been made by man, since they must needs
have been prior to man? If Christ is only man, how is He present
wherever He is called upon; when it is not the nature of man, but of
God, that it can be present in every place? If Christ is only
man, why is a man invoked in prayers as a Mediator, when the invocation
of a man to afford salvation is condemned as ineffectual? If
Christ is only man, why is hope rested upon Him, when hope in man is
declared to be accursed? If Christ is only man, why may not
Christ be denied without destruction of the soul, when it is said that
a sin committed against man may be forgiven? If Christ is only
man, how comes John the Baptist to testify and say, “He who
cometh after me has become before me, because He was prior to
me;”5110
when, if Christ
were only man, being born after John, He could not be before John,
unless because He preceded him, in that He is God? If Christ is
only man, how is it that “what things the Father doeth, these
also doeth the Son likewise,”5111
when man cannot do works like to the
heavenly operations of God? If Christ is only man, how is it that
“even as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the
Son to have life in Himself,”5112
when man cannot have life in him after
the example of God the Father, because he is not glorious in eternity,
but made with the materials of mortality? If Christ is only man,
how does He say, “I am the bread of eternal life which came down
from heaven,”5113
when man can neither be the bread of
life, he himself being mortal, nor could he have come down from heaven,
since no perishable material is established in heaven? If Christ
is only man, how does He say that “no man hath seen God at any
time, save He which is of God; He hath seen God?”5114
Because
if Christ is only man, He could not see God, because no man has seen
God; but if, being of God, He has seen God, He wishes it to be
understood that He is more than man, in that He has seen God. If
Christ is only man, why does He say, “What if ye shall see the
Son of man ascending thither where He was before?”5115
But He
ascended into heaven, therefore He was there, in that He returned
thither where He was before. But if He was sent from heaven by
the Father, He certainly is not man only; for man, as we have said,
could not come from heaven. Therefore as man He was not there
before, but ascended thither where He was not. But the Word of
God descended which was there,—the Word of God, I say, and God by
whom all things were made,
and without whom nothing was made. It was not therefore man that
thus came thence from heaven, but the Word of God; that is, God
descended thence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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