The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.

§. But he that came down from Heaven.

Here doth Christ speak one of those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 spoken of in the verse preceding, a most heavenly point of the doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, and that is, about his own incarnation: and he doth clearly shew the distinction of his two natures in one person: his humane nature intimated in the title The Son of man: the Divine Nature, in that he saith he came down from Heaven: and the union of these two, when he saith that the Son of man is in Heaven.

Now Christ is said to come down from Heaven, as Joh. 6. 51. first, to intimate his Di∣vine Nature, and to shew that he was more than a meer man: and so the Apostle inter∣prets and applies the phrase, 1 Cor. 15. 47. The first man is of the earth earthly, The second man is the Lord from Heaven: And so likewise, when it is said of Christ that he was the Manna that came down from Heaven, Joh. 6. 58. it sheweth and meaneth that he was a bread of a more high and eminent nature than the Manna that the Israelites eat in the wilder∣ness, and yet that was rained from Heaven too, Neh. 9. 15. but Heaven here and in that place admitteth of a differing construction: Secondly, It is the usual speech of Scripture, when it is relating the appearing of any of the persons in the Trinity in a visible evidence, to say that God came down, Exod. 3. 8. Exod. 19. 18. the Holy Ghost came down, Luke 3. 22. &c. And so may it be used of Christ in humane flesh; when the Son of God appeared so visibly amongst men, as that he conversed with them in their own nature, it may very significantly be said of him that he came down from Heaven: Not that the Godhead can change places, which filleth all things, nor that Christ brought his humane nature locally out of Heaven, as hath been erred by some, nor yet only because he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, as it is construed by others, but because he being the invisible God did ap∣pear visibly and in humane nature among the Sons of men.