CHAP. III.

Relating to the ignorance, error, unbelief, atheism, and idolatry imported in the doctrine anent the imaginary idea of Christ as man.

AN imaginary idea of Christ as man which Mr. Robe speaks of so much, is neither good sense in philosophy nor divinity. In philosophy, it is gross nonsense; and in divinity it is gross ignorance. (1.) In philosophy it is gross nonsense. If by man is understood both body and soul unite in one person, or a rational creature of the human kind, the imaginary idea can only be about the body; but it requires an intellectual idea to think of a rational soul. So that, to speak of a reasonable creature, and make it conceivable by a faculty which only reaches to mere corporeal things, is an intolerable imposition upon the common sense of mankind. (2.) In divinity it is gross ignorance, to speak of an imaginary idea of Christ as man: For, since this idea can only respect corporeity, to conceive of Christ as man by such an idea, is to conceive, I may suppose, either of a human person, or of a human nature without a human personality. To conceive of Christ as a human person is abominable; for his human nature is not a person, far less his human body, which can only be the object of an imaginary idea. Again, to conceive of a human nature without a human person, is impossible; for none can form the idea of a nature without a subject in which that nature exists, suitable to its nature: So that a human nature without a human person, or subject in which it exists, cannot be imagined. But the human nature of Christ hath no human person, nor human subject in which it exists; but only the person of the eternal Son of God, who is infinitely above all imaginary or corporeal ideas. Therefore, the human nature of Christ cannot be the object of an imaginary idea without the greatest absurdity, and the greatest contradiction, both to common sense, and the doctrine of faith.

We can no more conceive of Christ’s human nature without conceiving of a human person, than we can conceive of a predicate without a subject. It is as impossible in nature to think, as I said above, of a mountain without a valley, as to think of a human nature without a subject, in which it exists. And yet the human nature of Christ never existed in itself, or in a human subject, but in the person of the Son of God. Therefore to speak of conceiving of the human nature of Christ by an imaginary idea, or any other way than by the faith of God’s operation, leaning upon the testimony of God, is to grasp at a mere shadow, and bring down the mysteries of our holy religion, to be obvious to any notional fool in the world, that can form the image of a man in his head. O! how is image worship and idolatry thus subtly preached up, and a vain imaginary religion brought in, instead of gospel doctrine, and spiritual truth, the truth as it is in Jesus. May the Lord pity a generation given up to gross delusions and ignorant dreams.

Since Mr. Robe owns that nothing but what is corporeal can be the object of an imaginary idea, it is strange that he should make any nature whatsoever the object of it; nature, in the abstract, being not only an incorporeal thing, but a nothing; I know not if the schools would call it ens rationis: But much more that he should make a rational nature the object of such an irrational idea. If ever an intellectual idea was necessary for conceiving of human nature, it seems necessary for conceiving of that nature, as it subsists in the person of the Son of God. Yet Mr. Robe makes that nature in him to be only the object of an imaginary idea, as if it were only a corporeal, not a rational nature. But, as the learned Charnock says, vol. ii. P. 506. “The divine and human natures are united in one person; the highest intellectual nature, with the lowest rational nature—Christ casts himself the Son of man, to shew that he was really man in qualities, John iii. 13. yet, saith he, which is in heaven, to manifest that he is God;—God in heaven manifested in flesh upon the earth; each preserving their entire properties—The two natures are distinct, yet united in one subsistence, and make but one person, as soul and body make one man.”

An imaginary idea of Christ as man, is an expression of Mr. Robe’s, which I defy any rational man to consider, and yet free it from being the grossest absurdity. Why, a corporeal idea of Christ as man, is an idea of a body and soul unite in one human nature. Let all the philosophers on earth try their skill, if they can conceive of such an union, by a mere sensitive, corporeal, or imaginative idea. Nay, according to the nature of things, it is a mere impossibility; for a corporeal idea can conceive of no other union, but of corporeal things, such as two bodies knit together. But, to conceive of a body and a spirit unite in one human nature, requires at least the concurrence of an intellectual idea, and the exercise, not of mere sensation, but of reflection or of common judgment and understanding. Such is the close connection between sense and reason in man, or between the imagination and understanding, that, when by a sensitive or imaginative idea we see or view the body of a man, we at the same moment of time, by an intellectual idea, see, or know, that he is a man; because body and soul make but one composition, one human nature, one man, one person. Now, it is not sense alone without reason, that can think of this composition: for from the view that sense has of the body, reason instantly, which only can deduce inferences, concludes it is a man it sees. So that, to make the knowing of one to be a man, to be only the object of sense, or of an imaginary idea, and not also of the intellect or understanding, is very absurd; much more to make Christ’s human nature the object thereof, as Mr. Robe so frequently doth. But, if we conceive of that, as we do of other men, and, from the view or notion of his body, infer that he is a man, as other men are, that is, a human person, as we must conceive all other men to be, when soul and body are unite; then we conceive a falsehood: Because, though his soul and body unite make a human nature, yet they make not a human person; and therefore that human nature cannot be conceived the same way, as we conceive of other men. But, when by faith, (and not at all by fancy), we conceive of the human nature of Christ, we conceive also of his divine personality, and see God in him; for faith’s view of his human nature implies it; because, as soul and body in other men make one person, so the human nature, and the divine nature of Christ make but one person. So that, as when we see a human body living, sense and reason sees it is a human person; even so, when we see the human nature of Christ believingly, faith sees his divine person; because his divine and human nature is one person. Hence, to speak of an imaginary or corporeal idea of Christ as man, or in his human nature, so oft uttered by Mr. Robe, is the most ignorant phrase that can be uttered. As long as man signifies a soul and body unite, constituting a human nature and person, a corporeal idea of it is but a thinking on a body without a soul; and to call that a man, and make this image in the mind a part of the object of faith, be astonished, O heavens! At this distracted divinity.

If Mr. Robe had spoke of the imaginary idea of Christ as a human body, instead of saying as man, it would have been more tolerable philosophy: because the corporeal idea and the corporeal object would agree. But still it would have been intolerable divinity: because, to convey to any man’s mind the abstract idea of Christ’s human body, would be to obscure the glorious object of faith with the thick fumes and dark smoke of sense. It is true in the human nature of Christ, though the soul and body are distinct, so far as to require an intellectual, as well as a corporeal idea, to conceive of them jointly; yet they are not distinct natures, but one and the same human nature, consisting of soul and body. But I say, the human nature of Christ may be conceived abstractly from the divine by the understanding; because these are two distinct nature in one person. Yet this metaphysical distinction, however necessary in the divinity of the schools, for refuting the subtle errors of heretics on this point, and so belongs not to any vain, but necessary and useful philosophy; yet this separate consideration of Christ’s natures human and divine, and abstract notion of one from the other, however it belongs to philosophical speculations, yet it is not the object of saving faith; which terminates only upon the person of Christ Immanuel God-man. The divine nature is not the object of saving faith separate from the human, nor the human separate from the divine; but the glorious person himself, in whom alone God is to be seen by faith as a reconciled God, 2 Cor. v. 19. And in whom, as God man, God and man can meet together.

As the scripture is no system of philosophical notions, so there is not such word therein as that of Christ as man, in Mr. Robe’s style. And no wonder; for the scripture leads us to God only as the object of fatih and worship: But Christ as man is not God, nor a person, but a nature. Christ is the name of a person, clothed with, and anointed to saving offices, but not Christ as man.

The scripture, though it never speaks of Christ as man, yet frequently he is therein called by the name of a man, thus: A man of sorrows: after me cometh a man; the man of God’s right hand; the man Jesus Christ. But then, by a [? p. 61] figure of a part of the whole, the person is understood. But, because as man, he is no person, nor as man is he God; therefore, when we speak of Christ as man, his personality is excluded from the consideration, and only his manhood considered. Whereas, to speak of Christ as a man, in the scripture sense, is only to denominate the person by the nature he assumed. Thus Christ is frequently in scripture called the Son of man, that is, the person who is the Son of God, denominated by his human nature, as I have shewn above.

It is impossible (as I said) to form an imaginary idea of a created nature in an uncreated subject; for that is the human nature of Christ. Let Mr. Robe try his hand, if he can get a limner to paint the likeness of a man, without painting the likeness of a person, or the figure of a human nature, without painting a human subject, in which it is supposed to exist. Even as little can he paint the figure of Christ as man in his mind, or form in his brain the idea of his human nature, without the idea of a human person: So that the idea he here contends for must of necessity make him, whether he will or not, to be a rank Nestorian; that is, of a principle, maintaining Christ to be a human person, as well as a divine one, and as having two persons, as well as two natures; a principle condemned by all the christian  churches ever since the day of Nestorius. It is true, Mr. Robe asserts, that Christ hath two distinct natures, and one person. But, if he maintains this as his principle, then he must renounce this principle anent the imaginary idea of Christ as man, as a principle hurtful, instead of being helpful to faith; otherwise he maintains direct contradictions; since there is no conceiving of Christ as man, or as to his human nature subsisting in the person of the Son of God, but only by faith of the operation of God; which will be a mystery imperceptible by human fancy, whether Mr. Robe will or not. This wisdom of God in a mystery is above reason itself; and much more above all the imaginary ideas of men.

To see Christ as man by an imaginary idea is a sight that will do no man any good; for God is not to be seen in Christ as man. God is indeed to be seen in the man Christ, that is, in the person Christ; but he cannot be seen in Christ as man, because, as man, he is not God. Yea, as man, in Mr. Robe’s sense, God is not in him; for God dwells only in the person Christ, who is God man; but Christ, as man, is not the person in whom God dwells. Never one beheld God in Christ as man. But glory to God, that thousands have seen God in the man Jesus Christ, who is Immanuel, God with us.

O the sinfulness of an imaginary idea of Christ as man! It is directly opposite to faith, and contradictory to it. The language of faith is, I see as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and am changed into the same image: I see the man Christ in the glass of the word of grace, the glorious gospel; and there I see the truth of his manhood and Godhead both in one person; and am charmed, enamored, changed and transformed with the sight into his image, the image of God. But the language of the imaginary idea of Christ as man, is, I see Christ as man in the image that I frame his human body in the glass of my own brain; and I am changed into the same image; that is, to the image of an idol, or to an idolater of whose images it is said, Their maker is like unto them. They are changed into the image of a man, or rather the image of an image; that is, to enthusiasts and imaginationists.

TO have an imaginary idea of Christ as man is a consideration of part of Christ’s humanity, separately from his person, a consideration of that part of his human nature which is called the human body; and is a viewing of that, and not of him; for, as man, he is not a him, or a person: And therefore, we do not think of him, but of it. For example, if I consider a blackamore to be white, as to the white of his eye, then I am considering it, not him: So it is here; when we think of Christ as to his human body, we are not thinking of him, but of it; for his human body is not himself, that is, it is not his person, it is not he. Nay, the thinking on it, leads us off from thinking on him, as long as our imagination or fancy leads us to think of it, so long we are led off from thinking on him. Every imaginary idea, therefore, of Christ as man, instead of being necessary to faith, is sinful and hurtful, and directly opposite to faith; which leads to think upon the person of Christ the God man, and so to think upon Christ himself. Whereas the foresaid idea of him as man necessarily carries away our thoughts from him to a vain unprofitable notion.

Mr. Robe grants what is true, that nothing but what is merely corporeal can be the object of an imaginary idea. But, though a person may be denominated by his body figuratively, yet no mere corporeal thing or body can be a person really: Therefore no real person, even human, can be the object of a mere imaginary idea.

As there is adultery in the heart and theft in the heart, so there is idolatry in the heart, and false worship: As, when we worship not the person of Christ, but the image of his humanity, which the imaginary idea of it makes upon the imagination, or that we form to ourselves in our head. And this is a sin, I suppose, more rife and frequent among God’s people than we are aware of; and has little need to be encouraged by the doctrine of imaginary ideas relating to Christ’s humanity, the most subtle image worship that can be thought of.

Mr. Robe, by his doctrine, denies that one can have the faith of Christ’s being man, or the faith of his human nature, unless he have the imaginary idea of his human body. But how widely do these two differ? They that look to Christ by faith, cannot but believe his humanity; because they see his person God-man. But they that look to him by fancy, or an imaginary idea, cannot see his person, because they look only to his human body. Faith apprehends the person, and so takes in a whole Christ, his personality. Fancy apprehends nothing but the corporeity in itself; which yet in itself is no more the object of faith, than any other human or natural body: which, to make it a proper object of faith, is horrible idolatry. God only is the proper object of faith and worship. The human nature of Christ is not God. Therefore, the human nature of Christ, in itself, is not the proper object faith and worship. How then can it be so, as it is the object of an imaginary idea which looks to nothing but what is corporeal. That God only is the object of faith and worship, cannot be denied; for it is said, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. That the human nature of Christ is God, cannot be asserted without absurd nonsense and blasphemy. Therefore the above conclusion must hold, That the human nature of Christ in itself is not the object of faith; and how can his human body be so? How can that idea that takes up Christ’s human body by itself, be helpful to that faith that views it, not by itself, but subsisting in the divine person of the Son of God? Indeed the natural idea cannot conceive otherwise, than Mr. Robe supposes. Therefore I say of a natural idea, as the apostle says of the natural man, it receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can it do so, for they are spiritually discerned. The corporeal substance of Christ’s human body is only the object of sense. Faith believes the truth of his corporeity, or that he hath a true body, as well as a reasonable soul; but faith cannot make that natural body of his, absent or present, its object of trust, or believe in it. This is idolatry.

Our Lord charges them with mental adultery, that look on a woman to lust after her, Matth. v. 28. This sin may be as really committed, though a woman be not present to be looked at with the bodily eye. If a man shall frame an imaginary idea of a woman in his mind, to lust after her, it is mental adultery. Even so it is mental idolatry to form a picture of Christ’s human nature in our mind, by an imaginary idea of it; and so to make that the object of faith or worship. To form that picture of his humanity in the mind, is a mental looking to it: And to make that the object of faith and worship is a falling down to that image; and committing mental idolatry with it. Indeed I know not who can justify themselves, and say, they are free of this sin in some measure. It is too natural, and, I believe to every saint, as long as he is in the flesh, and hath a body of sin and death carrying about with him. But I think it is possible for true believers, to take up a vast difference between that fancy or imagination of Christ as man, which can lead a person no farther, and that faith that apprehends him as God-man, and sees the glory of God in his person. The former is nothing but a shadow, and a misshapen apprehension, a notion of something in the head; and yet put in the room of Christ. But here, to anticipate what will further occur: “Can you think of God-man,” says Mr. Robe, “without thinking on him as man? Is it not necessary in the nature of the thing, that you have an imaginary idea or conception of his being man; otherwise you can not conceive of his being God-man?” Ans. I think, neither the Godhead nor the manhood of Christ can be rightly conceived, but by faith. It is strange to allege, as if by one means we conceive believingly of his manhood, and by another of his Godhead; as if the one were by an imaginary idea, and the other by faith and spiritual illumination; or as if the imaginary idea, which is a natural act, was helpful to spiritual actings of the soul, when it is rather the quite reverse. The spiritual believing view of Christ as God-man, through the illumination of the Spirit, is the only means for enabling the natural faculties to any right though or conception of Christ, and without which even his humanity is quite imperceptible, as it is the object of faith. This is one of the things of Christ, which flesh and blood cannot, but our heavenly Father can reveal, and which the Spirit of Christ only can shew unto us, John xvi. 14. The natural man receiveth them not.

The fight of what is corporeal, as the object of the imaginary idea is, can never in itself fit and prepare us for seeing what is spiritual; but rather darkens the understanding, and makes it [unst p. 65]; even as the god of this world does thereby blind the minds of them that believe not. The image of Christ's natural body in the fancy darkens the view of Christ, as the image of God, by faith. These two images cannot stand together, no more than Dagon and the ark. Dagon must fall, if the ark come into the heart.
Pectora nostra, duas non admittentia curas.

Again, let a man have an imaginary idea of Christ’s human nature, now exalted to heaven, and sitting at the right hand of God, and on the throne of God; he forms the idea of a man, and the idea of a throne on which he sits. I would ask, whether the idea he hath of a man, be any better than the idea he hath of a throne; or if any of these ideas give the least help or assistance to his faith; or rather, if they do not cloud his mind, and contribute to make him have a gross, carnal, and unworthy notion of Christ? Can he in that glass see any thing of the invisible glory of God in Christ, as the image of the invisible God?

Peter Martyr, loc. com. p. 155, speaking of images of Christ, says, “If the bodily presence of Christ was a hindrance to the apostles, and the sight of his human nature an impediment, unfitting them for receiving the Spirit, till once he went away in that respect from them, John xvi. 7. how much more will image of Christ prove impediments?

We have no other glass to see Christ in, but the gospel; No other eye to see him savingly by, but faith. If the eye of sense and imagination come between, there is no seeing of Christ by faith, till that eye of sense be shut.

Again, to conceive of Christ as man, is carnal worship and idolatry, when this imaginary idea of him as man is brought in, as helpful and necessary to faith of worship. Which two I mention together, because faith is a special leading part of divine worship. Dr. Ridgley, speaking against images and idolatry, (Body of Divinity, vol. ii. p. 257) hath these words: “That whatever of Christ comes within the reach of the art of man, is only his human nature, which is not the object of divine adoration: And therefore this rather tends to debase, than to give us raised and becoming conceptions of him as such.” Even so say I, whatever of Christ comes within the reach of any man’s imaginary idea, is only his human body; or, at most, I shall suppose, his human nature; which yet is not the object of divine adoration or faith: And therefore, this rather tends to debase, than give us raised and becoming conceptions of him; and thus, instead of being helpful, it is hurtful to our faith and worship. In the above words of Dr. Ridgley, Mr. Robe may find this truth asserted indeed in terminis, That the human nature of Christ, (as there spoke of) is not the object of divine worship: And yet, if he should pretend to find a charge of blasphemy against the doctor, he would but mire himself more and more.

In a word, how idolatrous this ideal and imaginary doctrine is, might be further evidenced from the opposite doctrine of the ancient fathers. Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom 6. Says, Assentiam divinam colere in materia, est campor sensum dedecorare: That is, To worship the divine essence in any thing material or corporeal, is to disgrace it and deface it by sense. Even so I may say, to worship the person of our Immanuel God-man, in an imaginary idea of him as man, which can apprehend no more but what is corporeal, is to disgrace and deface that person by sense and fancy. Augustine also, epistle 119. Speaking of the divine essence, says, Nulla imago ejus coli debet, nisi illa quæ hoc est quod ipse: That is, No image of God ought to be worshipped, but that which is what he is. Thus indeed Christ could not be lawfully worshipped, if he were not essentially what the Father is. But the human nature is not that which he is: and therefore his human nature cannot be lawfully worshipped, but in his divine person, which is what he is. And hence, that which is the object of an imaginary idea must be excluded from the object of faith and worship, otherwise we believe in and worship an image of our own brain, which instead of being divine worship, is gross idolatry.

Again, this ideal doctrine is atheistical: For thus I may argue, to conceive of God as man is atheism. But to have an imaginary idea of Christ as man, is a conceiving of God as man, and therefore the imaginary idea of Christ as man is atheism. The first is evident, because to conceive of God as man, is to make him not God, but man in our minds. The second proposition is what I prove thus: To have an imaginary idea of Christ as man, is a conceiving of God as man; because it is a conceiving of the man Christ, who is God, not as the person God-man, but as man: which is a way of conceiving of him, that excludes both his Godhead and personality. But does not Mr. Robe again and again assert, That, together with the imaginary idea of Christ as man, we must have an idea of him as God, and then as God-man in one person? Yea, he doth: But therein he says palpable contradictions. For the first of these assertions destroys the two following; which are not in common sense reconcilable with it, as long as common sense and Christian doctrine can assert for a truth, That the man Christ is God, and God-man in one person; but that Christ as man is not God; nor a divine person. Therefore the conclusion is plain, that an imaginary idea of Christ as man is in itself atheism; because it is a conceiving of him, not by faith, but by fancy: Hence not as God-man in the light of the word, but as man in the light of natural imagination.

That an imaginary idea of Christ as man, does in itself lead to gross atheism, and is direct atheism, I prove further by the following argument: That which tends to divide, destroy, and annihilate the person of Christ as God-man in one person, leads to, and implies direct atheism. But an imaginary idea of Christ as man, tends to divide, destroy, and annihilate the person of Christ as God-man in one person: Therefore, that imaginary idea of Christ as man, leads to, and implies direct atheism—The major or first proposition in this argument, cannot well be denied; unless it be denied, that Christ, as God-man is truly God, and the same one God essentially with the Father, and Holy Ghost, though personally distinct from them; and unless it be denied, that it is not atheism, to attempt the dividing, destroying, and annihilating of God; which I suppose none will deny. Therefore it remains only that I prove the second, or minor proposition, namely, That an imaginary idea of Christ as man tends to divide, destroy, and annihilate the person of Christ as God-man in one person. This I shall prove in the three several heads of dividing, destroying, and annihilating.

(1.) An imaginary idea of Christ as man necessarily divides the person of Christ; because it divides the soul from the body of Christ, and also the human nature from the divine. That it divides the soul from the body of Christ, is plain from Mr. Robe’s own frequent concession, That imaginary ideas can have only corporeal objects, but it cannot think of souls, or spiritual things. This requires ideas of another kind; without which we cannot think in a rational way of any man as he is a rational creature, nor have an idea of the whole human nature. But, suppose an imaginary idea could reach the human nature of man, yea, though it had an intellectual idea to assist it; yet it would divide the human nature from the divine, or the manhood from the Godhead. Because Christ as man is not God: therefore, to conceive of Christ as man, cannot be to conceive of him as God. Indeed any other consideration of Christ is reconcilable with conceiving of him as God, and with the conceiving of his person. To conceive of him as the man Christ Jesus, or to conceive of him as the prophet, priest, and king of Zion, or by whatever other name or office, imports and includes a conceiving of the person God-man, thus named, and of such a function. But, to conceive of him as man is, to exclude the person, and exclude the thoughts of his being God: for as man he is not God, nor a person either. Thus the imaginary idea of Christ as man divides both his humanity and personality; that is, his body from his soul, and his nature from his person: and so leaves nothing of the true object of saving faith to the fore; nothing but the picture of a human body, an object of mere sense. Further, as it divides the humanity, and divides personality, so, of consequence, it divides the unity of the person; in so far as the conceiving of him as man, does not include the conceiving of him as God. The conceiving of him as man, cannot include, but must exclude the conceiving of him as God man in one person. Therefore,

(2.) As it divides, so it destroys the consideration of Christ as God-man in one person: For here to divide, is to destroy. It destroys the object of faith altogether: For the human nature of Christ cannot be the object of faith, when the true body is divided from the reasonable soul; for it is not the human body, but the human nature of Christ as joined in one person with the divine, that is the object of faith. And when the personality is divided, that is, the human nature from the divine, and, consequently, the unity of these two natures in one person, the object of faith is destroyed. We may conceive by faith of the human nature of Christ as personally unite to the person of the Son of God. But, to conceive of his human nature as such, is to conceive of it by itself. This may be thought metaphysically possible; but it is morally and, I may say, almost physically impossible; because the human nature of Christ is not, nor ever was a human nature  by itself; For it never had, nor hath any being by itself, otherwise it would be a human person; which is absurd, as I have shewed. Now, that which hath no natural being by itself, and hath no being but in the Son of God, cannot be conceived by itself, without destroying the very being of it by that conception. So that, to conceive of Christ as man, or of his human nature as such, abstractly, which is to conceive of his human nature by itself, so as not to include the conception of his divine nature and person, in which alone that nature exists, is to destroy the person of Christ as God-man in one person: and so to destroy the object of faith. And, of consequence,

(3.) This imaginary idea of Christ as man, tends to annihilate the person of Christ as God-man in one person; and does actually annihilate, or turn it to nothing, as far as that idea can. For as there can be no faith or conception of Christ’s human nature where there is only the idea of a human body, nor any faith of his divine person where there is only an imaginary idea of him as man, or of his human nature, as such, or by itself; so the imaginary conceit, dividing and destroying the humanity and personality, destroys and annihilates the unity of the divine and human nature in one person; and, consequently annihilates the very being of the person of Christ: For, to destroy the unity thereof, is to destroy the being thereof, according to the known maxim, *[* De Vries determ. ontol. p. 16.] Esse & Unum convertuntur: that is to say, Entity and unity are convertible terms; or, which is the same, To be and to be one is the same thing. That which is not one thing can be nothing. E.G. (1.) The human nature of Christ is one, and cannot be divided into more natures, though it consist of soul and body; yet neither is the body, as such, the human nature, nor the soul, as such, the human nature. To form an idea of Christ’s human body, and call it an idea of his human nature, or of Christ as man, which Mr. Robe so frequently does, is to divide the nature, and make it not one; which is to annihilate it. (2.) The divine nature of Christ is one with that of the Father and the Holy Ghost. To conceive of any, or all the three persons of the glorious Trinity, is not to conceive of three natures; for this were to divide the Deity, which is one, and cannot be divided, without the annihilation of it, or making it no Deity, no God. (3.) Christ’s divine person is one. To conceive of two natures of Christ, is not to conceive of two persons, but of one divine person, subsisting in and of himself. But, to conceive of Christ as man, which is the conceiving of him not as God, or to conceive of his human nature as such, abstractly, which is to conceive of it by itself, though yet it have no being or existence in and of itself; this is the same with conceiving of it as a person, which is to destroy the unity, and so to annihilate the being of the person of Christ. Thus an imaginary idea of Christ as man, does, in effect, turn that which is being itself, into no being, and him that is all, into nothing. It is big bellied with a monster of atheism.

An imaginary idea, according to Mr. Robe’s own concession, can have nothing but what is corporeal for its object; and therefore nothing that is spiritual or divine. An imaginary idea then of Christ as man, can have no respect either to the divine nature of Christ, or the divine person of Christ, or the divine mystery of the union between the divine and the human nature; for none of these are corporeal objects. Why then, the imaginary idea must, according to Mr. Robe, be conversant only about Christ’s corporeal humanity, if I may speak so: which yet it cannot be, without making that humanity like the imaginary idea itself, an imaginary nothing. This I prove further by an induction of particulars.

An imaginary idea of Christ as man, or of Christ’s humanity, must have for its object one or all of these four: either a human soul, or a human body, or a human person in the concrete, or a human nature in the abstract. But none of these can be the object of an imaginary idea, without turning Christ’s humanity to nothing.

(1.) The object of it cannot be the human soul of Christ: For, as his human soul is not his whole human nature, so the soul, being a spirit, cannot be the object of an imaginary idea; which, as Mr. Robe owns, hath no spiritual thing for its object, but only corporeal.

(2.) The object of it must be, and yet cannot be the human body of Christ by itself, without destroying the very notion of the human nature; for human nature consists in the vital union of soul and body. Neither soul nor body makes up human nature unless they be unite. And even this union of soul and body, or any relation whatsoever, can by no means fall within the compass of any mere imaginary idea; but are objects of understanding.

(3.) The object of it cannot be a human person, without destroying both the humanity and the personality of Christ: For the humanity of Christ does not subsist but in his divine person: and his human nature cannot be imagined to be a human person, without supposing, as I said, he hath two persons, a divine and a human as well as two natures: which all sound Christians in the world own to be a gross error. Therefore,

(4.) The object of it must be, and yet cannot be human nature ein the abstract; For, to think of a human nature without a subject, or person in which it exists, is inconsistent with the nature of things; for human nature hath no real being in the abstract: And so to think of it thus, is to think of that which is not. And therefore, the imaginary idea of Christ as man, can come to no other issue, but an imaginary nothing.

But to give Mr. Robe all the justice I can, it will be said, I consider the imaginary idea of Christ as man by itself separately; whereas Mr. Robe considers it as jointly with the idea of Christ as God, and as God-man in one person. I confess, I do consider the object of the imaginary idea separate from the object of faith. And I must do so, because faith and fancy are distinct things; yea, opposites, that will not incorporate or mix together, without destroying one another. Hence when Mr. Robe asserts, That this imaginary idea of Christ as man is necessary to the believing that he is God-man in one person, it appears by the above argument that the amount of this assertion is, That we cannot believe in Christ as God and man in one person, without imagining that he is nothing at all; because the imaginary idea of him as man, or of his humanity, must conceive of him either as a human soul, or a human body, or a human person, or a human nature in the abstract: Which yet, as I have proven, cannot be the object of any imaginary idea, without turning that object, the humanity of Christ, into the image of that act, whereof it is the object: that is, to nothing at all, but an imaginary act upon an imaginary object; which is an imaginary shadow, an imaginary nothing. Now to make this essential to faith, so as none can believe in Christ as God-man without it, I want words to tell what horrible divinity it is; and how much it seems to be a discredit to reason itself as well as religion, a dishonor to Christ, and disgrace to Christianity.