An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

In the words therefore we have the Description of Christ,¹

1. 1Christ to be prayed to for grace and peace,

1. By his Name, Jesus. 2. By his Office, Christ.

Both which we have already considered in the former verse. There remaineth therefore the Relation by which he is represented to us, and that is [Greek or Hebrew], Lord. Paul here prayeth for Grace and Peace from Christ our Lord, as well as from the Father, which is a sure and strong argument of the Divine Nature of Christ; for it is God alone that can give these spiritual mercies, if Christ were not truly God, he could not give these divine privileges. And hence also it followeth, That it's our duty to pray to Christ, seeing he is the Author of such mercies. The blasphemous Heretics of late have differed among themselves, Socinus and Franciscus Davidis about praying to Christ. The later denying it lawful to call upon Christ in prayer. The other granting in the New Testament examples of it; as when Stephen said, Lord Jesus receive my Spirit, &c. So that it is lawful; but yet he saith, There is no precept to command it. But no wonder at this, seeing he holdeth, That prayer in the general was never a duty commanded in the Old Testament. We see by this Text, that if Christ be the fountain of grace and peace, as God the Father is, then are we to pray to one, as well as the other, or to the Father in the Name of Christ. The heretical exception against this place is, That because the preposition [Greek or Hebrew] is not in the original, therefore he would have the word Father relate to Christ, as well as to [Greek or Hebrew] Our; as if the sense were, From God our Father, and the Father of Jesus Christ. Indeed our Saviour doth say, I go to my Father, and your Father,