FOR the further clearing of this subject, I proposed, in the second place, to speak of the glorious person of our Immanuel God man, and the mysterious constitution thereof; so as it may appear that the humanity therein now subsisting can be the object of faith only, not of fancy, or an imaginary idea.
Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh; so great, that not only natural sense and imagination, but natural reason and philosophy, are quite vain and insufficient for helping us rightly to conceive any part of this mystery. Philosophy is to be heard and regarded, when it declares the dictates of right reason concerning things that are subject to it: But, when it begins to judge about the mystery of the incarnation of Christ, or any other thing that belongs to faith, it is to be exploded; because, in the things that are above the reach of reason, and depend only upon divine revelation, it brings in nothing solid or true, but discovers itself to be vain or deceitful, Col. ii. 8. And that because, as the same apostle says, 1 Cor. ii. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; they are only known to the Spirit of God. The apostle, in that forecited text, does not indeed condemn philosophy, but only the vanity and errors of philosophers; (for, as the errors of divines do not belong to divinity, as parts, but as pests of it, so neither do the errors and vanities of philosophers belong to philosophy): But yet a philosopher, as such, is nothing else but animalis homo, a natural man* [* See Davenant on Col. p. 237.]: and reason itself , not enlightened by faith, belongs to that animality: therefore it is not possible it can reach towards saving knowledge; or, if he attempts to do so, it evanishes into bubbles or trifles. Nor need this seem strange: for, if brute animals, which judge exceeding well concerning things that belong to sense, as of meat and drink, yet cannot judge of human affairs; then, by the same parity of reason, men, though they can determine what is right and good about human affairs, by the benefit of natural reason, or the light of nature; yet they cannot thereby judge of things divine or supernatural. There is a manifest abuse of natural reason and philosophy; as, (1.) When men attempt to deduce the very foundations of religion from rational principles. For, though the principles of right reason true in themselves, yet thence it cannot be drawn, what we shall judge concerning the incarnation of Christ, the Trinity, &c. which are to be deduced from higher principles, namely, from the revealed will of God in the word. Reason is a power discursive from principles to conclusions; but it hath not itself the principles of these things which are apprehended by faith. Therefore, for men to build here upon the sand of their own natural principles, is both impudence and imprudence. (2.) It is also an abuse of natural reason and philosophy, when it opposes its principles, which are true in the order of nature, to the principles of theology, which are far above nature. For example, it is true, That nothing can be produced out of nothing: That quite different and divers species cannot be united in the same subject, and the like: But these are to be understood according to the course of nature, and the power of a finite agent. These philosophers therefore err, who would thence conclude against the creation of the world, or the incarnation of God; which the scriptures declare are done, not by the power of natural causes, but by the omnipotent power of God. Hence, it is a good rule* [Thomæ quest. Disp. De fide, a[?]. 10[?]. See Davenant in Col. p. 239.], theology never contradicted right natural reason, but ofttimes exceeds it; and so seems to oppose it: For right reason says not absolutely, that these things cannot be, but that they cannot be by finite power; which theology also declares. In things therefore of that nature† [† Clem. [?]], let reason submit to revelation, as Hagar to Sarai. Let it suffer itself to be admonished and corrected: But, if he will not obey, then cast away the maid servant, the bond woman, Gal. iv. 30. Now, all this must be said even of natural reason and human understanding: How much more must sense and natural imagination be rejected and cast out, when it is brought in, under the strange term of an imaginary idea of Christ as man, to be helpful to the right knowledge and understanding of this great mystery of godliness, an incarnate God. But again, (3.) Reason and philosophy turn useless and hurtful to religion, when men obtrude their errors, sometimes deduced by false consequences from true principles; as if these errors were lawful or native conclusions. Thus many, under the name of philosophers, have taught the dreams and visions of their own head. On this account some of the fathers bitterly reproved the ancient heretics, and cried out both against philosophy and philosophers, particularly Tertullian‡ [‡ See Davenant in Col. p. 239.]; who says, “They affect the truth, but in affecting they corrupt it; that, by the wit of philosophers, all heresy is animated and enlivened; and that all the dictates of heretics, when they freeze and cannot fly, they find to themselves a seat and rest in the thickets of Aristotle.” But this is to be said, not of true and sober philosophy, remaining within its own sphere, but of that wanton and deceitful learning, under the name of philosophy, which vents the opinions of private men for the dictates of truth itself, and ventures to mix itself with things above its reach.
The caution the apostle Paul gives against vain philosophy, Col. ii. 8. is premised to the most notable account he gives of the person of Christ in the following verse. And this is the occasion of my having premised these things on that subject before I come to speak of the glorious person of Christ: For, if vain philosophy and carnal reasonings must be excluded, not only as useless, but hurtful, in contemplating this wonderful object, much more must vain fancy and carnal imagination be so. If this mystery exceeds the rational and intellectual powers of nature, much more must every part of it exceed the sensitive and corporeal powers of men; which relate only to things outwardly visible and corporeal, but to nothing intelligible and spiritual.
The glory of Christ’s person is described, Col. ii. 9. In these words, In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; that is, the whole Deity, and all the attributes of God, dwelleth in Christ personally, by virtue of the hypostatical or personal union of the divine with the human nature of Christ. Here, to follow the learned Davenant, he shows how the word bodily is to be understood personally; because as souls are sometimes put for persons, as in these words, The soul that sinneth shall die, that is, the person; and we read of Jacobs kindred, three score and fifteen souls, that is, persons; so bodies are sometimes put for persons; as when it is said, Some body hath touched me, that is, some person; so here bodily, that is, personally. The eternal Son of God did so join the human nature to himself, as that the person of the λόγος, the Word, which subsisted before only in the divine nature, now subsists also in the human; which never had a distinct personality of its own, but was assumed or taken into the divine person of the Son, of Christ. Therefore, there are not two persons, one of the man, the other of the Son of God; But the divine nature is so unite to the human, that therein it subsists bodily, that is, hypostatically. Hence the son of David is called JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. and, God blessed for ever, Rom. ix. 5. The eternal Son of God became man, not by assuming the person, but the nature of man. Man is said to be assumed, because the human soul and body was assumed. The person of man is not said to be assumed, because that soul and body was not united to one another in a person, before they were united to the person of the Son of God. The human nature of Christ, then hath no personality in itself: The person of our Immanuel is no other than the second person of the glorious Trinity: the Word that was made flesh. Hence, it is argued among schoolmen, whether the person of Christ, after his incarnation, is compounded. But this they assert, not in respect of parts, as if the person of Christ was not composed of a divine and human nature, as of parts; but in respect of number, because now it subsists of two natures, which, before the incarnation, subsisted only in the divine. Nor does this militate against the immutability of Christ’s divine nature and person: For there was here no real change in him, but a relative one. As God, who from all eternity was not the creator, yet in time became a creator; this new relation of God to the creature, which he brought from thing to being, made no change in God but the creature: So the Son of God, who was not man, nor incarnate from all eternity, being made man and incarnate in time, this made no change in him; because the change is made in the human nature, which was assumed, not in the divine, that did assume. The Son of God was not man, nor incarnate, while he did not yet actually assume the human nature: But he is aid to be man and incarnate, in so far as he gave that nature a subsistence in his own divine person. But this he did, not by changing his divine nature, but by uniting to himself that human nature. To become man absolutely, imports a real change in the subject acquiring the human nature, as when man was made of the dust; because the subject that was made man, lost its former nature. But, when the person of the Son of God became man, and was incarnate, this is not understood to be by any new transmutation or change of the divine nature; but the Word was made flesh by uniting to himself the human nature, not by changing the divine nature.
It hath been objected, That, if the human nature of Christ subsists in the person of the Son of God, and not in its own proper personality, then the man Christ is more imperfect than all other men; because all other men are human persons, or have a human personality, and are (supposita, or) subjects subsisting in that nature: And only Christ, as he is man, hath not this personality, but subsists in a divine person, the λόγος, by hypostatical union. Answer, That the proper personality of the human nature is not wanting on account of the defect of some things requisite to its perfection; but on account of the addition of some things which far excels its nature; namely, on account of its union to the divine person. Christ, therefore, is not more imperfect, but more perfect, excellent, and eminent than other men; because, whereas, in us, our human nature subsists in its own proper personality, in Christ it subsists in a divine: And to subsist in God by a hypostatical union, is much more noble and eminent than to subsist in itself. Now, a man that is not a human person, having no personality, but that of the eternal Son of God, or a human nature subsisting in that manner, is such a mysterious object as transcends the most capacious understanding of men or angels. By faith only we believe the mystery; by reason we cannot comprehend it. Intellectual powers of human nature cannot conceive of a human nature thus subsisting; what then can corporeal powers, or imaginary ideas do? To conceive of human nature otherwise than thus subsisting in the divine person of the Son of God, and to think it the human nature of Christ, is to conceive a falsehood, a lie. Of which more afterwards.
The human nature of Christ consists of a true body and a reasonable soul; and yet as man he is not a person. The reason is, because the same moment wherein his soul was created, and his body conceived, they were unite to the Divinity. If they had existed separately from the λόγος, the Word, they would have had their own human personality; but, because they at once began to be, and to be united to the eternal Word, this humanity necessarily behoved to subsist in the person of the Word that was made flesh, or that assumed the human; and the divinity being incomparably more excellent than the humanity, therefore it is the human nature assumed into personality with it. Two objections of heretics may here be touch at, for farther illustration of the mystery.
1. If in Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, then the Samosatenians, and other that deny the Trinity of the persons in the Godhead, allege, that we will be obliged to admit, that all the three persons of the Trinity were incarnate; because the plenitude of the Deity dwells in Christ incarnate, the whole and perfect divine essence dwells in him. Answer, The whole divine nature was incarnate, not because incarnate in all the persons; but because in the person of the Son there is nothing wanting of the perfection of the divine nature: For, seeing the divine nature or essence is spiritual, there cannot be, nor can it be supposed, that there are parts thereof; but, wherever the divine nature is, there it is wholly and perfectly: Therefore the whole divine nature was incarnate; but not in so far as it is considered absolutely, and in itself, as common to all the persons; but in so far as it is limited by personal property, or in the person of the Son. Una persona est totus Deus, Luth. Tom. 2. But it is urged, The works of the glorious Trinity are undivided; and therefore, if the second person assumed the human nature, the Father and the Spirit did the same; and, consequently, not the Son only, but the three persons were incarnate. To which it is answered, To assume flesh imports two things, namely, the action itself, or unition of that flesh, and the term or limit of this action, namely, the person to which this flesh is unite or adapted. The former, namely, the action, is common to the three persons; for the Father and the Holy Ghost did jointly work and operate the incarnation of Christ: But the latter, namely, the term and limit of that action, belongs only to the Son; for the whole Trinity adapted that flesh to him alone. If a father give a wife to his son, and the son joins her in marriage to himself, both are rightly said to have made the marriage; but with this difference, that the father coupled the bride to the son, but the son took her to himself. Even so, in the incarnation of Christ, each person wrought out this connection of the human nature with the divine; but so as the Father married the Son to our nature, and the Son betrothed it to himself. As, therefore, in the foresaid example, it is not the father, but the son that is said to be married, though the will and work of both the father and the son concurs in the contriving and making that marriage; so here, it is not the Father, but the Son that is incarnate; though both concur in the making and uniting that flesh to the person of the Son. And what is said of the Father is also understood of the Holy Spirit. Hence in scripture it is said only of the Word that he was made flesh, John i. 14 yet the work of the incarnation is ascribed to the whole Trinity: Of the Father it is said, he prepared his salvation, Luke ii. 31. Heb. x. 5. Christ says, a body hast thou prepared me: of the Son it is said, that he took on him the seed of Abraham, Heb. ii. 16. and of the Holy Ghost it is said, that he over shadowed the virgin. Luke i. 35. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Here is room and ground for faith; but no footing for fancy and imagination.
2. It is objected, If the human nature of Christ be hypostatically united to the divine, then the whole human nature is unite to the whole divine nature; which, being spiritual, is not divisible into parts; and, if so, then wherever the divine nature is, there is the human, and, consequently, we pass into the camp of the Ubiquitarians. Answer, The consequence is denied: because the personal union is constitute, so as the properties of both natures are preserved. It is the property of the human nature to be circumscribed within certain limits; and it does not lose this property by union to a nature that is infinite: For, when the natures unite are not proportionable, they are not made so by the personal union; because the union only joins, but does not change the natures: Since, therefore, a finite nature and an infinite are not proportionable; neither is the divine nature circumscribed, nor the human infinitely extended, by that personal union. The human nature is indeed inseparably unite to the divine and the divine nature is no where separate from the human; not that the humanity is in every place, where the divinity is, by local position, but that, by a real and hypostatical union, it is joined to that divinity which exists every where. The union or conjunction is circumscribed by no space of places: because it consists in this, that the Deity sustains its humanity as its own, and gives subsistence thereunto. And so the eternal Word, existing in heaven, in the earth, and every where, sustains the humanity existing only in heaven; but the actual position of Christ’s body is included within a certain space, because the nature of a body requires that. Some illustrate this by the example of the sun and the solar sphere: For, as the sun is inseparably unite to its orb, yet not withstanding it agrees not with the globe of the sun to be at the same time in the east and in the west; so the humanity of Christ is inseparably unite to the divinity, yet it follows not thence that it is wherever the divinity is. But it may be alleged, that the sun is not unite to its orb in whole, but in part only; but the humanity is unite to the whole Word, that was made flesh. It is acknowledged, that in this the example is not similar; but ye this makes for the greater confirmation of this truth. For every spiritual nature, wherever it is, it wholly is; because it is indivisible, and its totality is considered in respect of perfect essence, not in respect of extended quantity.
The eternal Word, therefore, in regard of its spirituality, is whole and wholly in the human nature, which is united thereunto; nor can this attribute of spirituality be divided or parted. The same Word, in regard of its infinity, is alike, without the human nature, whole and wholly; nor can his immensity be included within such narrow bounds and limits. But, whether the Word that was made flesh be considered in or without the human nature joined together with it, it no where exists ununited to the human nature; because it every where sustains it, as its own.
Christ, as to his human nature thus subsisting in his divine person, is said now to be sitting at the right hand of God, Col. iii. 2. and at the right hand of the Majesty on high, Heb. i. 3. Hence some modern divines, particularly Lutherans, in support of consubstantiation, have greatly erred, by supposing there is a real communication of the divine majesty, ubiquity, and all other idioms and attributes of the Deity, to the human nature of Christ; because the right hand of God and his divine majesty is every where. But this may be soon refuted; because if these divine perfections were really communicate to the human nature, then the human nature would be really God. But, though the Word made flesh be equal in glory and majesty with God the Father, yet the flesh or human nature of Christ cannot have these divine properties, because it is not consubstantial with God, though hypostatically united to God. The man Christ sitting at the right hand of God is a step of the exaltation of Christ’s human nature, which followed in order of time after his passion, resurrection, and ascension to heaven; and believers are called to follow him thither, and set their affections on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God, and not upon things on earth, which Christ, as to his bodily presence, hath lost; though, as to his spiritual presence and divine majesty, he hath said, Lo, I am with you always. Therefore, though the right hand of God is every where, if by it we understand the divine majesty and power, because God is every where, yet Christ, as to his body and human nature, is placed at the right hand of God, not as he is every where, but as he is in heaven. “The hearts of kings are in the hand of God; are the hearts of kings ever where, because God’s hand is every where? The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God; are their souls therefore every where? The right hand of God is from eternity; is the humanity of Christ therefore from eternity? The right hand of God made the world; did the humanity of Christ therefore make heaven and earth? The humanity of Christ must not then be confounded with the divinity, be the same with it, not unite to it.” Charnock, vol. i. p. 250, 251. The ubiquitarian doctrine is sufficiently refuted, by what the angel said to the women at the sepulcher, when they were seeking the body of Christ, Matth. Xxviii. 6. He is not here; for he is risen: come, see the place where the Lord lay. If it had been true that his body was every where, it could not be truly said, He is not here. But here, by the bye, it may be enquired, What is all this to the story of Mr. Robe’s imaginary ideas? Ans. Though I may afterwards show, how his making Christ’s human body the proper object of faith, (as well as of a sensitive idea) borders upon the ubiquitarian doctrine consequentially; since Christ as a proper object of faith is every where: Yet, at present, I shall in this digression, so far anticipate what I may further illustrate, as to notice the inconsistency of his imaginary doctrine with that forecited scripture, Matth. xxviii. 6. Where, though the angel speaks of Christ’s body, yet not as it is the object of an imaginary idea; for he speaks of the person of Christ denominate by his body, saying, HE is not here; HE is risen: come see the place where the LORD lay. Three times with one breath his personality is mentioned; as if it were of purpose to lead them off from all vain imaginary ideas about his body, and from what was the proper object of sense, to the proper object of faith, the person of Christ. No figure is more ordinary than that whereby a person is denominate from that which cannot be supposed to be a person, but a body, or a part of the body, as I shewed above. Thus, a person may be denominated from the very dust of his body in the grave; as, when it is said, Here lies such a man, such a woman, such a person; and yet the dust is no person. But, when a person is denominate by it, then that person thus denominated is the object of the understanding or intellect, while the dust is but the object of sense or imagination. Now, Mr. Robe’s doctrine says, none can believe what the angel here said, without an imaginary idea of a body, a grave, a place where that body lay. Well, but what is that to the purpose of faith or spiritual understanding? These are not the objects of faith, but of sense; and sense must indeed perceive what belongs to sense. But these ideas of sensation belong no more to faith than earth does to heaven. The angel here directs them to truths that are the objects of faith, viz. (1.) That Christ was not there, viz. bodily. (2.) That he is risen. (3.) That there was the place where the Lord lay. None of these, as they are truths, can be the objects of sense and imagination; but only of knowledge and faith, as may be cleared hereafter. But to return to my discourse about the person of Christ:
When Christ became man, he did not become another person than he was before, but assumed our nature into his former personality. O mysterious! When it is said Christ became like unto us in all things, sin only excepted; if it be said, Christ did not become a human person as we are, therefore he did not become like unto us in all things. Ans. The word must be understood of his becoming like unto us in all things relating to the human nature and the whole substance thereof, soul and body; but personality is the manner of the subsistence of that nature in itself, or in another. And in this God was pleased mercifully to alter the course of nature with reference to Christ’s humanity. Lest it should be surprising to the inconsiderate readers, to hear that Christ as man is no person, and that they who saw Christ on the earth only with the eye of flesh, and not with the eye of faith, they saw not the person of Christ, they only saw a body which was not the object of faith, but of sense, in the propriety of speech; it will perhaps be requisite that I explain this matter a little more, before I go further. Therefore,
That Christ assumed not the person of man, but man’s nature only, is evident. Christ did not assume a nature personated, but one individuated, as the learned express it, and which never had an existence in itself, but in another subject, namely, his own divine person. If Christ had assumed man’s person, then either he assumed a pre-existent person, which in the assumption remained a person, or a pre-existent person, which in the assumption ceased to be a person.
But, as to the first, That Christ assumed a human person, which in the assumption ceased not to be a person, but remained so, is both false and impossible. That it is false, appears from this that the human nature of Christ is not a person, otherwise there would be in Christ two persons; which is false and erroneous; for in him, the same which is the person of God is the person of man; otherwise, what is said of the Son of God, could not be said of the Son of man, nor what is said of the Son of man, could be said of the Son of God; and, consequently, it would also follow that the virgin Mary did not conceive and bear a son, whose name was Immanuel, God with us, or a child, whose name was the mighty God. (2.) But, as it is false, so it is impossible, that Christ assumed a human person, which, notwithstanding the assumption, ceased not to be a person; because it is impossible that a human nature can be a person, and yet not exist in itself at once, but only in another subject: For hence, if the human nature of Christ were a person, or a nature existing in a created person, then the person of the Son of God could not be the subject or person thereof; for it is impossible for the same while created nature to be at once immediately in more subjects than one, in the same mode or manner wherein a nature is in a subject; more especially, if one of these subjects be uncreated, and another created. It is evident then, that Christ assumed not a pre-existent person, which, notwithstanding the assumption, remained a person.
Secondly, Nor did Christ assume a pre-existent person, which, in the assumption thereof, ceased to be a person: For anent this we may say, that it is not impossible, but that it is false. (1.) I say, it is not impossible; because we may well suppose, that it is possible for God to make a nature that subsisted in itself as a subject to subsist in another subject than itself, without destroying the nature; because a created essence existing in itself, or in another, depends not upon that essence, but upon the divine will: He can make that created substance which he willed to exist in itself as its subject, to exist in a divine subject, and not in itself. Therefore, suppose the human nature of Christ, before it was assumed, had actually existed in itself; yet, by the divine will, it could have been made to exist actually in a divine subject, as it now does. Some have objected, That no creature can exist but in itself, as its subject, because its existing thus in itself, imports no more but its relation to its efficient cause, by which it formally exists in itself: Therefore, while that creature remains, it cannot possibly be separated from that relation it hath to its efficient, and so, without the destruction of the creature’s subsistence, cannot but exist in itself. To which it is answered, That though the created substance remaining, there cannot be removed from it, by any power whatsoever, all the relation it hath to its efficient cause, seeing a creature existing in itself as its subject, is only God’s causing it to exist so; yet it is possible, by a divine power, that what relates necessarily to the efficient cause one way, may relate to the same another way. One relation to its efficient cause may be separated from it, and another relation given. Hence, if God should make a created substance existing in itself as its subject, to exist in Himself as its subject, in the way wherein the human nature of Christ exists, then, after the assumption, it would only be otherwise related to the efficient cause than before; the same cause making that which it before made to exist in itself, to exist in another. But, though thus it may be supposed to be not impossible for Christ to have assumed a pre-existent person, which in the assumption thereof would cease to be a person, so as no more to subsist in itself; yet, (2.) it is false, that he assumed a pre-existent person, which upon its assumption ceased to be a person. Some have attempted to prove the falsehood of this, by saying, that this would not have been an assumption of our nature, but a consumption of it. But this reason is not valid; because the Son of God might have assumed (say some) one man actually pre-existing without ruining his nature, though that nature had ceased to exist in a created person, for hence there had been no consumption of that nature, but a sublimation or exalting of it. But the true reason why the human nature of Christ was never a person, is, because it never existed in itself. Christ assumed man’s nature, not man’s person. A person is something existing in itself: Persona est per se una, or per se sonans. But the human nature assumed by the eternal Word never existed in itself, because it was formed and assumed at once. As divines speak of the soul’s creation, and infusion into the body, that in its creation it is infused, and in its infusion it is created; so it may be said of our human nature, when assumed by the Son of God, that in the assumption it was made or formed, and in the formation it was assumed: Insomuch as if it were to be supposed, that the Son of God, the second person of the glorious Trinity, should lay aside his human nature; then that human nature would neither be a person, nor could subsist in itself, unless there was a present divine influence for the preservation of it, that it might subsist in itself otherwise it would wholly cease to be* [* De Vries determ. ontol. p. 57. [?]]. But now that divine influence is not given to it for that end, that it may subsist in itself, but for this end, that is may exist in an infinitely more worthy and glorious subject than itself; that is, in the eternal Word: And therefore, on a double account, it is not a person; because a person both exists by itself, and is not unite to a higher than itself; but Christ’s human nature does not exist by itself, although it be unite to a higher than itself by a personal union. Therefore this human nature of Christ is no person. Though the human nature assumed by the eternal Word had all the essentials of human nature as other men have, and, by the essential principles of human nature, that nature in every other man is a person; yet it does not follow, that therefore the human nature of Christ is a person; because in him there is no divine influence present for making that human nature exist in itself, but in himself: But, in other men, this influence is always present for making them exist in themselves. If the human nature assumed had pre-existed before the hypostatical union, it would have been a person, and the Son of God would have assumed it into personal union: But then, by that assumption he would have removed from it the ground and reason of created personality, by removing from it the first influence necessary for its existing in itself, and making it to exist in an uncreated person. But, because that human nature which the Son of God assumed, was at once made and assumed; therefore it was never a person. For, in the fulness of time God sent forth his Son, made of a woman. The Word was made flesh, Gal. iv. 4. John i. 14.
The Son of God did not assume a nature personated, as was said, having any being or existence in or by itself, as the subject thereof, but only a nature individuated, which never existed in itself, but exists in the divine person of the Son of God. Upon this assumption, which, with relation to the person assuming, is active, and with relation to the nature assuming, passive; upon this, I say, follows the everlasting marriage union between the nature of God and the nature of man, in the person of the eternal Son. This union is such, that the two natures though still distinct, yet are so inseparable, that they cannot be lawfully sundered in the mind of any who contemplate this wonder, as if they were any different subsistences; for both the divine and human nature subsists in one and the same divine subject or person. It is true the two nature of Christ may be separately considered in the understanding, philosophically by an intellectual idea or a mental speculation, which is not saving faith; for it is peculiar to saving faith, to see and behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, or to see the man Christ, as he is Immanuel God man in one person. This faith differs as much from, and is as far above mere intellectual ideas, as intellectual ideas are above corporeal and imaginary ideas; yea much farther than reason is above sense; even as far as what is divine is above human, and supernatural is above merely natural.
Concerning this wonderful marriage union between the divine and human nature in one person, it may be said, as above, that though it was the whole glorious Trinity that made the marriage, yet it was not the whole Trinity that was married to our nature. Of this union it can be said that the human nature is unite to the divine person, and the divine person is unite to the human nature. But the assumption, as it imports an action, cannot be spoke of in human nature, and as it is passively considered, it cannot be spoke of the divine nature; for the divine person of the Son united himself to our nature. It is not in this as in human nature, soul and body makes up one nature and one person, but here the divine and human nature are not one, but two natures and one person: for, in human nature, neither the body by itself, nor the soul by itself, have their complete mode of existing; therefore the union of soul and body makes but one nature. But the divine nature of Christ hath by itself the most complete mode of existing without any possibility of a change thereof; and therefore, the human nature existing not properly in the divine nature, but in the divine person of Christ, the natures are distinct, and the person is one. As Christ assumed not a human person, but a human nature, so the human nature of Christ is not one nature with the divine, but one person; the human nature being assumed by Christ without a human personality: therefore, without any change of the divine nature*[* Maccovii regulæ theol. & phil. p. 124, 125.], the human subsists in the divine personality. Hence we can truly say, the man Christ is God, because we speak of the person which includes the human nature; but none can say that Christ as man is God, because we then speak of the human nature, which includes not the divine person. Hence also, though this be a truth, That Christ is a man, yet it is not truth that the human nature of Christ is a man; for a man is a person, but the human nature of Christ is no person.
That the human nature of Christ is not the man who is Christ, I prove thus:—The Son of God is the man who is Christ. The man who is Christ did not assume himself, but the human nature: Therefore the human nature is not the man who is Christ.
Again, the Son of God did not assume the person of a man. But the man who is Christ is a person: Therefore he did not assume that man who is Christ. That man who is Christ was not assumed by the person of the Son of God; because that man who is Christ is the person of the Son of God in two natures. The divine person is the subject wherein both natures, divine and human do subsist. And here, lest any mistake the word as improper, to call the divine person the subject of the human nature, it is to be considered, that the word subject here does not import any thing like inferiority, but, on the contrary, a kind of superiority, as being that which supports and sustains any thing, so as it may be said to subsist in it. Hence there seems to be little difference between a person and a subject, except in the different consideration of it. Thus the human nature of Christ is not a subject, because it does not subsist in and by itself; whereas a subject signifies what exists in itself. Nor is the human nature of Christ a person because every person is a subject existing in itself. Only the difference between a person and a subject (or suppositum) may be this, that they are not convertible terms; for though every person be a subject: yet every subject is not a person. Where there is but one person, there cannot be two subjects wherein that person exists. But Christ is one person: Therefore there cannot be two subjects, but one, which is the subject of both natures, the divine from eternity, and the human in time. Now from what is said, it appears that:
The human nature of Christ cannot be the object of an imaginary idea, nay, nor of an intellectual one, so as we can think upon him as man, the same way, and with the same powers and faculties as we think of other men: And that because, (1.) The human nature of Christ is a nature unite to a higher than itself; and therefore a nature that hath not its subject of existence in itself, like the human nature in other men, but exists in the subject or person of the higher nature to which it is unite. (2.) Other men are persons, but Christ as man is no person: Therefore we cannot think of Christ as man, nor of his human nature, as we do of other men. (3.) The human nature of Christ is no subsistence; because in itself it does not exist, as God makes other men to do. Nothing is a subsistence which does not exist in and by itself, by divine appointment. (4.) The human nature of Christ is not, as schoolmen say, res nature, a natural thing; because a natural thing is a thing existing, having in itself a nature:—but Christ’s human nature hath not a nature in itself; but other men have a nature in themselves, and so a personal subsistence, but Christ’s humanity hath not that in itself. Dr. Arrowsmith on John 1. p. 207. says, “If Christ had only assumed the person of a man, then there must have been two persons in Christ, a person assuming, and a person assumed; yea then that only person which Christ assumed, should have been advanced and saved.—With us the soul and body being united, make a person. But, in Christ, the soul and body were so united, as to have their subsistence, not in themselves, (as in us), but in the Godhead. No sooner was the soul united to the body, but soul and body had subsistence in the second person of the Trinity; so, not the assuming of a person, but the nature of a man, common to all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Therefore, he took not on him the nature of angels, but of the seed of Abraham, Heb. ii. 16. Seed, the first element of our nature, before our persons come to have any subsistence.”
Again, that Christ, as he is man, is not a person, may be cleared further thus. If the human nature were a person, it behooved either to be an incarnate person, or a created person. It cannot be an incarnate person; because a temporal cannot be the reason of an eternal personality. It was the Son of God that was incarnate. To say the human nature was incarnate, is absurd. It cannot be a created person; because Christ is not more persons than one. And besides, whatever was fit or suitable to Christ as man, that was assumed; but Christ did not assume the person; because neither nature in general, nor human nature in particular, is the reason of personality in Christ, but the divine nature itself, with the property constituting a person. Hence, (1.) It cannot be said of Christ, as of other men, that because he is a man, he is a person; for their single human nature, soul and body unite, constitutes their personal being. Persona est per se una; but it is not so with Christ. (2. The dignity of human nature in another man, is, that as he is a man, he is a person; but the dignity of Christ’s human nature lies not at all in this, that it is a person; but the dignity thereof is incomparably and infinitely greater, when it subsists in the second person of the Godhead, by its mysterious hypostatical union with the eternal divine nature of the Son of God. Hence, (3.) Natural imagination cannot conceive a human nature that is not a person, no more than it can conceive a predicate without a subject, a mountain without a valley, or a property, such as white or black, without conceiving something or other as the subject wherein these properties are to be seen: Consequently, even the human nature of Christ, which is not a person, cannot be the object of an imaginary idea, but only of faith upon a divine testimony. True, I have read among the arguments of such as would make Christ as man to be a person, this among the rest, viz Actions or deeds (say they) are of subjects; that is, there cannot be an action or deed without a subject, who is the agent or doer of that deed: But Christ as man did many actions. Therefore Christ as man is a subject. But now the subject or a rational and intellectual nature is a person: Therefore Christ as man is a person. But the answer is, That though actions are the actions of subjects, yet the subject acts by nature. Hence, though Christ as man did many things, it will not follow that Christ as man is a subject, (or suppositum), but that Christ is the subject of the human nature. The human nature was not the subject, or the person acting, but Christ. Thus Christ as man was born of a virgin; yet the person born was Christ, who is God-man. Christ as man was crucified; yet the person crucified was Christ. As man he arose and ascended; but the person rising and ascending was Christ. Of which more afterwards.
Christ being made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted, it might here be alleged further, that the human nature of Christ hath whatsoever human nature hath in a created subject; but the human nature of every other man is a human nature existing in a created subject, that is, existing in itself: Therefore, if Christ be made like unto us in all things, he behooved to be like unto us in this, which is the essential property of human nature, to exist in a created subject. If this were the case then we might think of Christ as man, in the way we think of other men, namely, of a human nature, as a human nature existing in itself. But it is otherwise in Christ; his human nature is a human nature indeed existing; and in this he is like unto us in all things relative to a human nature, abstract from a person, or a subject wherein it exists: It exists, as divines express it, in actu, sed non in actu in se ipso; it actually exists, but not actually in itself: For so it never existed. To conceive of other men is possible; because we conceive of their human nature in a human subject or person called man: But the human nature of Christ, as it is his human nature, is inconceivable; because the divine subject out of which it does not exist, is inconceivable. The manner of that existence is unfathomable by our finite understanding, and altogether supernatural. Therefore Mr. Robe can no more conceive of Christ as he does of other men, than he can conceive what is inconceivable, by both men and angels: For great is the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh. Or, if he conceives of him, as of other men, he conceives nothing but vanity. Why to conceive of other men, is to conceive of human nature in itself, that is, existing in a subject called man. But human nature in itself is not the human nature of Christ, nor the object of faith. To speak of the human nature of Christ in itself as if that could be any part of the object of faith, is to speak without knowledge; where there is no possibility of parting this object of it, that we now speak of, without the greatest absurdity: For, to conceive of a nature without a subject, or abstracting from the subject wherein it exists, is the same with conceiving a nature without an existence; which is a destroying the very existence of that nature. And thus the absurd notion of an imaginary idea of Christ as man, lands in making Christ’s human nature neither the object of faith, nor sense, nor any thing at all, but a mere nothing. I had therefore more than reason to pray, as in my former letter, that all the Lord’s people may be saved from such imaginary religion. In opposition to which, I assert, That the human nature of Christ, as it exists and subsists in the divine person of the Son of God which is the only way wherein it doth subsist, though it can be in no sort the object of any imaginary idea; yet it is the greatest truth and reality, and the object only of spiritual knowledge and of saving faith. This I shall afterwards further demonstrate from scripture and reason. Further,
Other men are so called, and so to be thought of, as having a created human nature in a created human subject. Here a mere creature is the object of the idea. But the human nature of Christ is to be thought of as a created human nature in an uncreated divine subject. This exceeds all created thoughts, and is only the object of faith, or of a believing thought. I can truly say, the man Christ, as the object of faith, is every where; because I speak of the person, the divine subject, wherein the human nature does subsist: But, none can say, with truth, that Christ as man is every where: because they then exclude the divine nature, and the divine person of Christ; and so exclude the object of faith. It is equally impossible then to have an imaginary idea of Christ’s manhood or humanity subsisting in the Godhead of the Son, as it is impossible to have an imaginary idea of the Godhead, or Deity itself. Therefore the manhood and the humanity of Christ, as it is the object of an imaginary idea, is no part of the object of faith; because under that consideration, it is no divine object, no divine subject, no divine nature, no divine person, an object not of divine faith, but of human fancy.
If Satan and all his hellish angels had plotted a new scheme of divinity, for filling the thoughts of people with doctrine opposite to faith and destructive of the deity of our Redeemer, he could not, I think, have fallen upon a better method than to publish to the world, under the notion of true and sound divinity, the necessity of an imaginary idea of Christ as man: because as man he is not God. And so long as the devil can get this imagination fixed, never, never, never will they believe that his is God, or God man in one person. I am loth to suppose that this hath been the strain of Mr. Robe’s doctrine hitherto, but I fear the defense of a delusive and imaginary work (as to the body of the subjects of it) under the notion of its being divine, hath led them into a snare of delusive and imaginary doctrine; which, even in the very way wherein he expresses it, is wholly irreconcilable with orthodoxy. And in this I make an appeal to all the unbiased sound divines in the Christian world; not excepting Popish authors themselves, who are generally sound in the doctrine of the Trinity. Yea, I would appeal to all Christian churches upon earth, if Mr. Robe’s accusing me of blasphemy in denying the human nature of Christ to be the object of faith, be not a charge without any foundation, except that of gross ignorance? And if this doctrine of imaginary ideas of Christ as man, be consistent either with philosophy or divinity?
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