chiefly agreeing to his humanity, (what he undertook and underwent, performed and enjoyed, in our nature and in our behalf,) being here orderly fet down; partly for the full and clear description or determination of his perfon; partly upon defign to infinuate thofe principal doctrines, (depending upon or involved in thofe paffages,) wherein the mystery of our religion doth confift; which we are chiefly obliged to believe, and which have great influence upon our practice. In the firft place (as good order did require) is delivered the manner of his nativity, (that is, of his incarnation, or affuming human nature,) which in the ancient creeds (as we fee in the texts of ancient expofitors) was expreffed more fimply thus; Qui natus eft de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine; who was born by the Holy Ghoft of the Virgin Mary. The alteration feems to have been made more diftinctly to exprefs the operation of the Holy Ghoft in the generation of our Saviour, and what the bleffed Virgin his mother did confer thereto. We know in ordinary procreation the influence of the father doth not extend beyond the quickening of the mother's womb, whatever that influence be; (for it is a deep and infcrutable mystery of nature, (exceeding perhaps the reach of all human philofophy,) whether it contain an imparting of fomewhat material, or be only the inferting an active vital principle ;)" the effect of which influence is called conception; the word agreeing in fome propriety both to the mother, which is faid to conceive, and to the child, which is conceived: the farther perfecting the work of generation (by forming the fœtus from its initial rudiments into a due integrity and fit difpofition of parts, nourifhing, increafing, and excluding thereof) no farther immediately depending upon the father, but being carried on by the concurrence of what was firft imparted by him, and what is thenceforth communicated by the mother. In regard to which performances, the mother is faid TixTE; that is, both gignere and parere; to conceive, bear, and to bring forth: (for TixTe doth import as much as yevvav, all that a parent, doth confer to generation; whence both parents are called Toxes; and Téxvov, a child, is used indifferently as relat ing to both.) Now to exprefs that influence or efficacy the divine Spirit had in the generation of our Saviour as man, by which God himself did in a manner fupply the place of a father, it was fet down, conceived by the Holy Ghoft; and when it is faid, born of the Virgin Mary, what the blessed Virgin, as mother, did confer thereto, is to be understood and the occafion perhaps of thus expreffing the thing was that faying of the angel to the Virgin, (in Luke i. 31. the 1ft of St. Luke,) Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy Matt. i. 20. womb, and bring forth (συλλήψῃ ἐν γαστρὶ, καὶ τέξῃ) a fon, To you and shalt call his name Jefus. But whatever was the conceived. reafon or occafion of this expreffion, it is evident that the γεννηθὲν is tranflated propofition and affertion of these truths was intended: 1. That our Saviour was conceived and born; 2. That his conception was effected without any influence of man, only by the power of God and operation of the Holy Ghoft; 3. That the bleffed Virgin Mary did, by the Holy Ghost, conceive, and bear, and bring him forth. Let us reflect and obferve fomewhat upon each of these propofitions, 1. Our Saviour was conceived and born: he, (the Per fon before mentioned,) Jefus Chrift, the only Son of God, our Lord; the fame who was in the beginning, and did from all eternity exist with God, the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were made, was in the fulnefs of time conceived and born; that is, had a production agreeable to the nature of man, and became thereby truly and entirely man; which wonderful mystery is in John i. 14. Scripture variously expreffed or implied by, the Word's 1 Tim. iii. being made, or becoming, flesh; God being manifefted in Phil. ii. 7,8. the flesh; taking the form of a servant, being made in the Heb. ii. 16, likeness of men, and being found in fashion as man; affuming the feed of Abraham; partaking of flesh and blood; 13, 31. vi. defcending from heaven; God fending his Son into the 33, 38, 50, world, in likeness of finful flesh, coming in the flesh. The 17. x. 36. refult of what is fignified by thefe and the like expreffions 1 John iv. being this; that he which before from all eternity did 9. iv. 2,3. fubfift in the form or nature of God, being the Son of 16. 14. Rom. viii.3. John xiii. 51, 58. iii. xvii. 18. 2. 64. 26. God, did by a temporal generation truly become man; affuming human nature into the unity of his Person, by a conjunction and union thereof with the divine nature incomprehenfible and ineffable: he truly became man, I fay, like unto us in all things, fin only excepted; confifting Heb. ii. 17. of body and foul, endued with all faculties, and fubject iv. 15. to all paffions, infirmities, neceffities confequent upon or incident to our nature. He did not only feem in shape and outward appearance, (as a spectre, deluding men's fight and fancy,) but was in perfect truth a man; having Matt.xxvii. a real body; circumfcribed and figured like ours, compacted of flesh and blood; that might be seen and felt; that was nourished and grew; that needed and received fuftenance; that was frail and tender; paffible and fenfible; was bruifed with blows; torn with fcourges; Luke xxii. pricked with thorns; pierced with nails; transfixed with Matt. xxvi. an injurious fpear. He had a foul too, endued with fuit- 67. xxvii. able faculties; an understanding capable of improvement; John xix. 1. (for he grew in wisdom, in ftature;) a will fubject and fubmiffive; he was ignorant (as man) of fomething he might know; to the divine will; (Let this cup pass from Luke xxii. me, if it be thy will: but, however, not my will, but thine John v. 30. be done: and, I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father, which hath fent me.) Appetites of meat, drink, fleep, and reft: several paffions and affections, quoixà xal Mark iii. 5. áðiábaŋta náðŋ, natural, irreprehenfible paffions; and those of the most troublesome and afflictive fort, anger, grief, and pity; and these fometimes expressed by most pathetical fignifications, in groans and tears. Upon occafion of his friend Lazarus's death, it is faid, a He groaned in fpi- 'Huxń rit, and was troubled, and wept: and ye know what heavinefs, agonies, exceffes of forrow, disturbances, amazements, (they are terms used by the Evangelifts,) underwent before his paffion: fo that, as the Apostle the Hebrews fpeaketh, We have not an high-prieft that 37, 38. could not fob compaffionate (or fympathize with) our infir-33. mities, but who was in all points tempted (or proved and bruμ≈adñexercised) as we are; (yet without fin.) 42. a μου τετά ρακται. and John xii. he Luke xxii. 27. xi. 33. to 44. Matt. xxvi. Mark xiv. σαι. Thus did the Son of God (coeternal and coeffential to 28. fit hæc natura hu Verbo, non his Father) become the Son of man, (truly and entirely of the nature and fubftance of man ;) deficient in no effential part; devoid of no human property; exempt from no imperfection or inconvenience confequent upon our nature, (except only fin.) If you demand the manner how and the reason why God thus became man; as to the firft (the manner) we must anfwer, that we can hardly otherwife than by negation determine, not otherwife than by comparison explain Cujufmodi it no words perhaps we ufe, to fignify our conceptions communi- about these lower things, can perfectly and adequately catio, qua fuit to a mystery fo far different from common objects of mana com- our knowledge, fo far transcending our capacity; yet we municatur muft affirm, that whatever manner of conceiving or exeft hominis preffing it doth derogate from the divine perfections, or is repugnant to the nature of things, difagrees from the tenor of divine truths, (connected unto or depending upon this mystery,) or contradicts (directly or obliquely, immediately or by plain confequence) the language and doctrine of the Scriptures, is to be rejected by us: we may therefore fay with the Council of Chalcedon, that in this incarnation of our Lord the divine and human nature were in his Perfon united, ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαι ρέτως, ἀχωρίστως. definire. Alenfis. 'Arvyxuras, without commixtion or confufion, (for that would induce a third nature different from both,) fuch as refults from the compofition or contemperation of the elements into a mixed body; fo that he should be neither God nor man: but I know not what other kind of being, without any ground or authority to be fuppofed, that would destroy, diminish, or alter the properties belonging to each; neither can we conceive the divine nature capable of any fuch diminution or alteration. 'Argentws, without converfion, or tranfmutation of one nature into the other: not of the divinity into humanity: for how could God, as God, be changed or made, become infirm and paffible, confift of body and foul, fuffer and die? Not of the humanity into divinity: for how could that, before it did exist at all, be turned into another thing? why fhould our Saviour be called man, when his humanity was tranfmuted into the divinity? why is it faid, the Word was made flesh, if the flesh was changed into the Word? To omit how unimaginable it is, that one. fubftance should be turned into another, efpecially that a finite fubftance fhould be turned into an infinite one; alfo to omit many dangerous confequences of this opinion, and its inconfistency with many great and plain doctrines of our religion. 'Adiaigéras, undividedly: fo that the two natures have not diftinct fubfiftences, nor do conftitute two perfons; for there is but one Christ, one Perfon, to whom, being God and man, are truly and properly attributed. 'Axwpioras, infeparably; the natures being never feparated; the union never diffolved; the fame Perfon never ceafing to be both God and man; no, not when, as man, John ii. 19. he fuffered and died: for he raised himself from the dead; he reared the temple of his own body, being fallen as continuing God, he was able to raise himself as man: as being man, he was capable of being raised by himself as God; the union between God and man perfifting, when the union between the human body and foul were diffolved. : I might add farther, exclufively; that this union of the two natures was not made xarà wagástari (by affistance or close presence) only; nor xar' évoíxnow, (by way of inhabitation ;) nor xarà exéon, (by relation;) xar' ¿žíav, (by dignity or efteem;) κατὰ ταυτοβουλίαν, or καθ ̓ ἁρμονίαν, (by confent, or conformity of will and counfel;) as Neftorius and fuch ancient heterodox dogmatifts, in oppofition to the Catholic expofitions of this mystery, did conceit: but it is fearce worth mentioning those antiquated opinions: I cannot longer dwell here: I fhall only fubjoin, (omitting. others more wide and improper; as thofe of Bellarmine, Vid. Salthe union of a man's arm to his body; the incifion of a apud Gebough into a tree, and fuch like,) that nature doth afford rard. in us one comparison fit to explain or illuftrate the manner p. 441. of this mysterious union; which is the union of man's foul and body, by which he becomes one perfon. The foul and body are two fubftances, very different in kind, meron. exeg. loc. |