VERS. XXXV.
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.
If he called them Gods, &c.
THE Jews interpret those words of the Psalmist, I have said ye are Gods, to a most ridiculous sense.
m 1.1 unless our Fathers had sinned we had never come into the world: as it is written, I have said ye are Gods, and the Children of the most high; But ye have corrupted your doings therefore ye shall dye like men. And a little after, Israel had not received the Law, only that the Angel of death might not rule over them; as it is said, I have said ye are Gods, but ye have corrupted your doings, therefore ye shall dye like men.
The sense is, if those who stood before Mount Sinai had not sinned in the matter of the Golden Calf, they had not begot Children, nor had been subject to death, but had been like the Angels. So the Gloss. If our Fathers had not sinned by the Golden Calf, we had never come into the world, for they would have been like the Angels, and had never begot Children.
The Psalmist indeed speaks of the Magistracy, to whom the word of God hath arrived, by an express dispensation and diploma ordaining and deputing them to the Government, as the whole web and contexture of the Psalm doth abundantly shew. But if we apply the words, as if they were spoken by our Saviour, according to the common Interpre∣tation received amongst them, they fitly argue thus:
If he said they were Angels or Gods to whom the Law and word of God came, on Mount Sinai, as you conceive: is it any Blasphemy in me then, whom God in a peculiar manner hath sanctified and sent into the world, that I might declare his word and will, if I say that I am the Son of God?