1.—THESE
words, as they now stand, clearly distinguish the conception of Jesus
from his nativity, attributing the first to the Holy Ghost, the second to
the blessed Virgin: whereas the ancient Creeds make no such distinction,
but, without any particular express mention of the conception, had it only
in this manner, who was born by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; or
of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary; understanding by the word born
not only the nativity, but also the conception and generation. This is very
necessary to be observed, because otherwise the addition of a word will
prove the diminution of the sense of the article. For they which speak only
of the operation of the Holy Ghost in Christ's conception, and of the manner
of his birth, leave out most part of that which was anciently understood
under that one term of being born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin
Mary.
2.—That therefore nothing may be omitted which is pertinent to express the
full intent and to comprehend the utmost signification of this article, we
shall consider three persons mentioned, so far as they are concerned in it.
The first is he who was conceived and born; the second, he by whose energy
or operation he was conceived; the third, she who did conceive and bear him.
3.—For the first, the relative in the front of this carries us clearly back
unto the former article, and tells us that he which was thus conceived and
born was Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. And being we have
already demonstrated that this only Son is therefore called so, because he
was begotten by the Father from all eternity, and so of the same substance
with him, it followeth that this article at the first beginning, or by
virtue of its connexion, can import no less than this most certain but
miraculous truth, that he which was begotten by the Father before all worlds
was now in the fulness of time conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of
the Virgin Mary. Again, being by the conception and birth is to be
understood whatsoever was done toward the production of the human nature of
our Saviour, therefore the same relative considered with the words which
follow it can speak no less than the incarnation of that person. And thus
even in the entry of the article we meet with the incarnation of the Son of
God,—that great mystery wrapt up in that short sentence of St. John, The
word was made flesh. [John i. 14.]
4.—Indeed the pronoun hath relation not only unto this but to the following
articles, which have their necessary connexion with and foundation in this
third: for he who was conceived and born, and so made man, did in that human
nature suffer, die, and rise again. Now when we say this was the Word, and
that Word was God, being whosoever is God cannot cease to be so, it must
necessarily follow that he was made man by joining the human nature with the
divine. But then we must take heed lest we conceive, because the divine
nature belongeth to the Father, to which the human is conjoined, that
therefore the Father should be incarnate, or conceived and born. For as
certainly as the Son was crucified, and the Son alone, so certainly the same
Son was incarnate, and that Son alone. Although the human nature was
conjoined with the divinity, which is the nature common to the Father and
the Son; yet was that union made only in the person of the Son. Which
doctrine is to be observed against the heresy of the Patripassians,
which was both very ancient and far diffused, making the Father to be
incarnate, and becoming man to be crucified. But this very Creed was always
thought to be a sufficient confutation of that fond opinion, in that the
incarnation is not subjoined to the first but to the second article: we do
not say I believe in God the Father Almighty, which was conceived,
but in his only Son our Lord, which was conceived by the Holy Ghost.
5.—First, then, we believe that he which was made flesh was the Word, that
he which took upon him the nature of man was not the Father, nor the Holy
Ghost, nor any other person but the only-begotten Son. And when we say that
person was conceived and born, we declare he was made really and truly man,
of the same human nature which is in all other men who by the ordinary way
of generation are conceived and born. For the Mediator between God and
man is the man Christ Jesus: [1 Tim. Ii. 5] That since by man came
death, by man also should come the resurrection of the dead. [1 Cor. xv.
21] As sure then as the first Adam, and we who are redeemed are men,
so certainly is the second Adam and our Mediator man. He is
therefore frequently called the Son of man, and in that nature he was
always promised. First to Eve, as her seed, and consequently
her son. [Gen. iii. 15] Then to Abraham, In thy seed shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed; [Gen. xxii. 18] and that seed is
Christ, [Gal. iii. 16] and so the son of Abraham. Next to
David, as his son to sit upon his throne; [2 Sam. vii. 12, 16]
and so he is made of the seed of David according to the flesh, Rom. i.
3] the son of David, the son of Abraham, [Matt. i. 1] and
consequently of the same nature with David and with Abraham.
And as he was their son, so are we his brethren, as descending from the same
Father Adam; and therefore it behoved him to be made like unto his
brethren. For he laid not hold on the angels, but on the seed of
Abraham, [Heb. ii. 16, 17] and so became not an angel, but a man.
6.—As
then man consisteth of two different parts, body and soul, so doth Christ:
he assumed a body, at his conception, of the blessed Virgin. Forasmuch
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise
took part of the same. [Heb. ii. 14] The verity of his body stands upon
the truth of his nativity, [Tertullianus] and the actions and passions of
his life show the nature of his flesh.
7.—He was first born with a body which was prepared for him, [Heb.
x. 5] of the same appearance with those of other infants; he grew up by
degrees, and was so far from being sustained without the accustomed
nutrition of our bodies, that he was observed even by his enemies to come
eating and drinking, [Matt. xi. 19] and when he did not so he suffered
hunger and thirst, Those ploughers never doubted of the true nature of his
flesh, who ploughed upon his back and made long furrows. [Psalm cxxix.
3] The thorns which pricked his sacred temples, the nails which penetrated
through his hands and feet, the spear which pierced his sacred side, give
sufficient testimony of the natural tenderness and frailty of his flesh.
And lest his fasting forty days together; lest his walking on the waters and
traversing the seas; lest his sudden standing in the midst of his disciples
when the doors were shut, should raise an opinion that his body was not true
and proper flesh, he confirmed first his own disciples, Feel and see,
that a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me to have. [Luke
xxiv. 39] As therefore, we believe the coming of Christ, so must we
confess him to have come in the verity of our human nature, even in true and
proper flesh. With this determinate expression was it always necessary to
acknowledge him: For every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in
the flesh, is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come
in the flesh, is not of God. [1 John iv. 2, 3] This spirit appeared
early in opposition to the apostolical doctrine; and Christ, who is both God
and man, was as soon denied to be man as God. Simon Magnus, the
arch-heretic, first began, and many after followed him.
8.—And certainly, if the Son of God would vouchsafe to take the frailty of
our flesh, he would not omit the nobler part, our soul, without which he
could not be man. For Jesus increased in wisdom and stature; [Luke
ii. 52] one in respect of his body, the other of his soul. Wisdom belongeth
not to the flesh, nor can the knowledge of God, which is infinite, increase:
he then whose knowledge did improve together with his years must have a
subject proper for it, which was no other than a human soul. This was the
seat of his finite understanding and directed will, distinct from the will
of his Father, and consequently of his divine nature, as appeareth by that
known submission, Not my will, but thine, be done. [Luke xxii. 42]
This was the subject of those affections and passions which so manifestly
appeared in him; nor spake he any other than a proper language when, before
his suffering, he said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.
[Matt. xxvi. 83] This was it which on the cross, before the departure from
the body, he recommended to the Father, teaching us in whose hands the souls
of the departed are: For when Jesus cried with a loud voice, he said,
Father into thy hands I commend my spirit; and having said thus, he gave up
the ghost. [Luke xxiii. 46] And as his death was nothing else but the
separation of the soul from his body, so the life of Christ as man did
consist in the conjunction and vital union of that soul with the body: so
that he which was perfect God, was also perfect man, of a reasonable soul
and human flesh subsisting. Which is to be observed and asserted
against the ancient heretics, [esp. Arians and Apollinarians] who taught
that Christ assumed human flesh, but that the Word or his divinity was unto
that body in the place of an informing soul.
9.-Thus the whole perfect and complete nature of man was assumed by the
Word, by him who was conceived and born of a woman, and was made a
man. And being the divine nature which he had before could never cease to
be what before it was, nor ever become what before it was not; therefore he
who was God before by the divine nature which he had, was in this
incarnation made man by that human nature which he then assumed, and so
really and truly was both God and man. And thus this third article, from
the conjunction with the second, teacheth us no less than the two natures
really distinct in Christ incarnate.
10.—For if both natures were not preserved complete and distinct in Christ,
it must be either by the conversion and transubstantiation of one into the
other, or by commixtion and confusion of both into one. But neither of
these ways can consist with the person of our Saviour, or the office of our
Mediator. For if we should conceive such a mixtion and confusion of
substances all to make an union of natures, we should be so far from
acknowledging him to be both God and man, that thereby we should profess him
to be neither God nor man, but a person of a nature as different from both,
as all mixed bodies are distinct from each element which concurs unto their
composition. Besides, we know there were in Christ the affections proper to
the nature of man, and all those infirmities which belong to us, and cannot
be conceived to belong to that nature of which the divine was but a part.
Nor could our humanity be so commixed or confounded with the divinity of our
Saviour, but that the Father had been made man as much as the Son, because
the divine nature is the same both of the Father and the Son. Nor ought we
to have so low an esteem of that infinite and independent being as to think
it so commixed with, or immersed in, the creature. [Leporius]
11.—Again, as the confusion so the conversion of natures is impossible.
For, first, we cannot with the least show of probability conceive the divine
nature of Christ to be transubstantiated into the human nature, all those
whom they call Flandrian Anabaptists in the Low-Countries at this day
maintain. There is a plain repugnancy even in the supposition; for the
nature of man must be made, the nature of God cannot be made, and
consequently cannot become the nature of man. The immaterial, indivisible,
and immortal Godhead cannot be divided into a spiritual and incorruptible
soul, and a carnal and corruptible body, of which two humanity consisteth.
There is no other deity of the Father than of the Son, and therefore if
this was converted into that humanity, then was the Father also that man,
and grew in knowledge, suffered, and died. We must not, therefore, so far
stand upon the propriety of speech, when it is, written, The Word was
made flesh, as to destroy the propriety both of the Word and of
the flesh.
Secondly, we must not, on the contrary, invent a conversion of the human
nature into the divine, as the Eutychians of old did fancy. For sure
the incarnation could not at first consist in such conversion, it being
unimaginable how that which had no being should be made by being turned into
something else. Therefore the humanity of Christ could not at the first be
made by being the divinity of the Word, Nor is the incarnation so
preposterously expressed, as if the flesh were made the Word, but that the
Word was made flesh. And if the manhood were not in the first act of
incarnation converted into the divine nature, as we see it could not be,
then is there no pretence of any time or manner in or by which it was
afterward so transubstantiated. Vain, therefore, was that old conceit of
Eutyches, who thought the union to be made so in the natures, that the
humanity was absorbed and wholly turned into the divinity, so that by that
transubstantiation the human nature had no longer being. And well did the
ancient Fathers, who opposed this heresy, make use of the sacramental union
between the bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ, and thereby
showed that the human nature of Christ is no more really converted into the
divinity, and so ceaseth to be the human nature, than the substance of the
bread and wine is really converted into the substance of the body and blood,
and thereby ceaseth to be both bread and wine. From whence it is by the way
observable that the church in those days understood no such doctrine as that
of transubstantiation.
12.—Being then he which is conceived was the only Son of God, and that only
Son begotten of the substance of the Father, and so always subsisted in the
divine nature; being by the same conception he was made truly man, and
consequently assumed an human nature; being these two natures cannot be made
one either by commixtion or conversion, and yet there can be but one Christ
subsisting in them both, because that; only Son was he which is conceived
and born; it followeth that the union which was not made in the nature was
made in the person of the Word; that is, it was not so made, that out of
both natures one only should result, but only so that to one person no other
should be added.
13.—Nor is this union only a scholastic speculation, but a certain and
necessary truth, without which we cannot have one Christ, but two
Christs, one Mediator, but two Mediators; without which we cannot join
the second article of our Creed with the third, making them equally belong
to the same person; without which we cannot interpret the sacred scriptures,
or understand the history of our Saviour. For certainly he which was before
Abraham, was in the days of Herod born of a woman; he which
preached in the days of Noah began to preach in the reign of
Tiberius, being at that time about thirty years of age; he was
demonstrated the Son of God with power who was the seed of David
according to the flesh; he who died on the cross raised him from the dead
who died so, being put to death through the flesh, and quickened by the
Spirit; [I Peter iii. 18] he was of the fathers according to the
flesh who was God over all blessed for ever. [Rom. ix. 5] Being these
and the like actions and affections cannot come from the same nature, and
yet must be attributed to the same person; as we must acknowledge a
diversity of natures united, so must we confess the identity of the person
in whom they are conjoined, against the ancient heresy of the Nestorians,
condemned in the council of Ephesus.
