with him; and if he were of another nature, he would be without doubt a creature. But if he were a creature, the authority of the holy Scriptures would not command, but rather forbid him to be served. The holy Scriptures, which truly and heavenly teach that there is one Lord God, proclaim that the Father is true God, and that the Son is also true God. Of the Father, St. Paul saith 1 Thess. I, 9. You have turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised up from the dead, Jesus, who bath delivered us from the wrath to come. This Jesus Christ is not Son of God the Father in the manner that we are sons; he is the proper son, we are redeemed sons; he is a begotten son, we are made; he is the true, we are adopted sons. He who is the the true son, is also the true God, not generated by adoption, but naturally begotten of the Father. In whom, true God and true Son, is the true divinity, for this reason, that he has the natural nativity from the Father. Wherefore, St. John saith: 1 John V, 20. We know that the Son of God is come; and he hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and life eternal. To worship, therefore, the true God, and to serve the true God, certainly is not to change the truth into a lie.

Now hear a few words concerning the mystery of the Lord's incarnation. Christ the Son of God, who truly calls himself the truth, is true God as well as true man. In him is the plenitude of the divine nature, and also the plenitude of the human substance. For in him is the natural verity of the divinity, the natural verity of the rational soul, and the natural verity of the flesh. Wherefore, he has the natural divinity in common with the Father, and he has the natural humanity in common with the virgin mother. Therefore, if any man so predicates the true divinity in Christ, as to venture to deny his true flesh, he is not a Catholic Christian, but a manichean heretic; whereas,

Christ himself saith to the doubting disciples: Feel, and see that a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me having.

Again, if any person so proclaim the verity of the soul and flesh in Christ, as to deny in him the verity of the Deity, that is, if he so says that Christ is man, as to deny him to be God, he is not a Catholic Christian but a photinian heretic. For Christ as he is, according to the true divinity of God, the creator of men, so is he according to the true flesh, the mediator of God and man: for he would not at all be a mediator, either, if he would not have in common with the Father the nature of the Divinity, or, in common with men the substance of the flesh and soul. In so much is the man, Christ Jesus, the mediator of men, in as much as he has naturally received from the Father the form of God, and from the virgin mother the nature of the servant, which he would save in us. Man would never receive from God the grace of salvation, if in the one person of Christ, would not remain the community of the divine and human na

tures.

Therefore, as the verity of Christ has the natural verity of the divinity from the Father, so has it the natural verity of the humanity from the virgin, that it might be the Saviour of the human soul and flesh. He is one in whom the twofold nature is inseparable and indivisible, and the one person of both natures. On this subject are other heretics conflicting and directly opposite to one another, Nestorius and Eutyches.Nestorius admits two natures, and strives to maintain two persons in Christ, whose mind is so involved in the clouds of falsehood, that he would engraft upon the Christian faith his perfidious lie. For the Christian faith truly predicates two natures, and positively denies two persons in him. But Eutyches truly holds one person and falsely preaches his one nature; whilst the true faith knows the propriety of both natures in Christ so as to admit the one person of the divine and human

nature.

There is certainly one Christ, who in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. Which Word was also made flesh and dwelt amongst us.— Hence is Sabellius refuted; for as the Word was with God, it is evident that the person of the Father is one, and that of the Son another. Hence, also, is Arius defeated for as the Word was God, it follows that the nature of the Father and of the Son is one. For showing the reality of person, it is enough that the Son alone is called the Word; and in proof of the community of nature, the Father is called God, and the Son is also styled God. Both Manicheus and Photinus are together confounded by the saying: And the Word was made flesh.— Certainly, by the name Word is the true divinity known, and from the name flesh is the true humanity certainly inferred; so that Christ the Son, both true God and true man, may be known in the natural verity of each name, and so neither Manicheus dare to preach in him a false flesh, nor Photinus can deprive him of the natural Deity.

Nestorius, likewise, and Eutyches, are confounded by the Apostolical sayings; the one is compelled to acknowledge that the person of Christ cannot be doubled; the other is forced to declare that the doubled nature of Christ cannot be confounded. He is certainly one Christ, of whom the said Apostle, Rom. IX, 5, saith: Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever. Wherein, he being full of the Holy Ghost has demonstrated both the one person and the two-fold nature of Christ, that is, saying: From whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over allthings, God blessed for ever. As he undoubtedly shows by the name of God and the flesh, the truth of each nature, so by the name of Christ, he teaches the one person of the divinity, and of the humanity: For Christ, who is from the Father, according to the divinity, is over all things, God blessed for ever. The nature which the Son of God has from the

Father, is not confounded with that nature which the same God has assumed of the virgin. Neither had Christ at any time two persons, because the same one begotten God is both, according to the divinity, born of the Father, and according to the flesh, descended from the virgin. And because the word made flesh proceeded as a spouse from his bed chamber. He is one, who, whilst the propriety of each nature is preserved, is both crucified in infirmity, and lives by the power of God."

GREGORIUS MAGNUS, A. D. 590.

Lib. 17, Moralium, Cap. 18. "That there be a rational victim, man was to be offered up; and that he might cleanse man from sins, he should be a man and without a sin. But what man would be without sin if he descended from the mixture of sin? Wherefore, the Son of God came, for our sake, into the womb of the Virgin, and was there made man for us. Human nature, not sin, is assumed by him. He was made a sacrifice for us: he offered his body for sinners, a victim without sin, which might die in the humanity, and cleanse by the justice.

SYNODUS LATERANENSIS SUB MARTINO PAPA, A. D. 650.

In Consultatione 5, Cap. 2. "If any person confess not, according to the holy Fathers, that one of the blessed and consubstantial and adorable Trinity, God the Word, properly and truly descended from heaven, and was incarnated by the Holy Ghost and ever blessed Virgin Mary, and was made man, crucified in the flesh, suffered of his own accord for us, and was buried; ascended into heaven, and is sitting at the right hand of his Father; and that he will come again with paternal glory, with the same flesh assumed by him, being intellectually animated, to judge the living and the dead, let him be anathema.

Cap. 3. If any man confess not that the mother of God, the blessed and ever immaculate Virgin Mary, had properly and

truly, in the latter days of the world, conceived of the Holy Ghost, and that she was inviolably delivered, her virginity remaining inviolate before and subsequent to the birth, let him be anathema.

Cap. 4. If any man confess not, that there are properly and truly two natures of one and the same our Lord, and God, Jesus Christ, one born incorporally and eternally before all eternity, of God the Father, and the other in the latter days carnally, of the Virgin Mary; and that the same Lord and God, Jesus Christ, is consubstantial to God the Father, according to the Deity, and consubstantial to the Virgin, according to the humanity, and that the same is passible in the flesh, impassible in the Deity, let him be anathema."

CHAPTER IX.

CHRIST JESUS, GOD MADE MAN, IS THE OMNIPOTENT LORD AND PROPRIETOR OF ALL THINGS, VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE.

The serpent tempted, under the garb of friendship, our first mother in paradise to break the commandment of God, and continues still to tempt, under the same guise, her descendants. He said to her, Gen. II. 4. No, you shall not die the death by eating the apple for God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be