IMMANVEL OR THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD Unfolded by JAMES ARCHBISHOP of ARMAGH IOHN 1. 14. The Word was made flesh OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD Printer to the Vniversity 1643. THE MYSTERIE OF THE INCARNATION of the SON of GOD THe holy Prophet in the Book of the a Proverbs poseth all such as have not learned wisedome nor known the knowledge of the holy with this question Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended who hath gathered the wind in his fists who hath bound the waters in a garment who hath established all the ends of the earth What is his Name and what is his SONS name if thou canst tell To help us herein the SON Himselfe did tell us when he was here upon earth that b None hath ascended up to heaven but he that descended from heaven even the Son of man which is in heaven And that we might not be ignorant of his name the prophet Esay did not long before foretell that c Vnto us a child is borne and unto us a Son is given whose name should be called Wonderfull Counsellour The mighty God The Everlasting Father The Prince of peace Where if it be demanded how these things can stand together that the Son of man speaking upon earth should yet at the same instant be in heaven that the Father of Eternity should be born in time and that the mighty God should become a Childe which is the weakest state of Man himselfe we must call to minde that the first letter of this great Name is WONDERFUL When he appeared of old to Manoah his name was Wonderfull and he did wonderously Judge 13. 18 19. But that and all the wonders that ever were must give place to the great mystery of his Jncarnation and in respect thereof cease to be wonderfull For of this work that may be verified which is spoken of those wonderfull judgements that God brought upon Egypt when he would d shew his power and have his name declared throughout all the earth e Before them were no such neither after them shall be the like Neither the creation of all things out of nothing which was the beginning of the works of God those six working dayes putting as it were an end to that long Sabbath that never had beginning wherein the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost did infinitely f glorifie themselves and g rejoyce in the fruition one of another without communicating the notice thereof unto any creature nor the resurrection from the dead and the restauration of all things the last workes that shall goe before that everlasting Sabbath which shall have a beginning but never shall have end neither that first I say nor these last though most admirable peeces of worke may be compared with this wherein the Lord was pleased to shew the highest pitch if any thing may be said to bee highest in that which is infinite and exempt from all measure and dimensions of his Wisedome Goodnesse Power and glory The Heathen Chaldeans to a question propounded by the King of Babel make answer h that it was a rare thing which hee required and that none other could shew it except the Gods whose dwelling is not with flesh But the raritie of this lyeth in the contrary to that which they imagined to be so plaine that hee i who is over all God blessed for ever should take our flesh and dwell or * pitch his Tabernacle with us That as k the glory of God filled the Tabernacle which was l a figure of the humane nature of the Lord with such a kinde of fullnesse that Moses himselfe was not able to aproach unto it therein comming short m as in all things of the Lord of the house and filled the Temple of Salomon a Type likewise n of the body of our Prince of Peace in o such sort that the Priests could not enter therein so p in him all the fulnesse of the Godhead should dwell bodily And therefore if of that temple built with hands Salomon could say with admiration q But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth Behold heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot containe thee how much lesse this house which I have built of the true temple that is not of this building we may with greater wonderment say with the Apostle r Without controversie great is the mystery of Religion God was manifested in the flesh Yea was made of a Woman and borne of a Virgine A thing so s wonderfull that it was given for a signe unto unbeleevers 740. yeeres before it was accomplished even a signe of God's own chusing among all the wonders in the depth or in the height above Therefore the Lord himselfe shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel Esai 7. 14. A notable wonder indeed and great beyond all comparison That the Son of God should be t made of a Woman even made of that Woman which was u made by himselfe That her Wombe then and the x heavens now should contain him whom y the Heaven of Heavens cannot containe Than he who had both Father and Mother whose pedigree is upon record even up unto Adam who in the fulnesse of time was brought forth in Bethlehem and when he had finished his course was cut off out of the land of the living at Jerusalem should yet notwithstanding be in truth that which his shadow Melchisedek was onely in the conceit of the men of his time z without Father without Mother without Pedigree having neither beginning of dayes nor end of life That his Father should be a greater than he and yet he his Fathers b equall That he c is before Abraham was and yet Abrahams birth preceded his well nigh the space of two thousand yeares And finally that he who was Davids Sonne should yet be Davids Lord d a case which plunged the greatest Rabbies among the Pharesies who had not yet learned this Wisedome nor known this knowledge of the holy The untying of this knot dependeth upon the right understanding of the wonderfull conjunction of the Divine and humane Nature in the unity of the Person of our Redeemer For by reason of the strictnesse of this Personall union whatsoever may be verified of either of those Natures the same may be truely spoken of the Whole Person from whether soever of the Natures it be denominated For the clearer conceiving whereof we may call to minde that which the Apostle hath taught us touching our Saviour e In him dwelleth all the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily that is to say by such a personall and reall union as doth unseparably everlastingly conjoyn that infinite Godhead with his finite Manhood in the unity of the selfe-same individuall Person He in whom that fulnesse dwelleth is the PERSON that
our humane nature and his Deity the Son of God assuming into the unity of his Person that which before he was not and yet without change for so must God still be remaining that which he was Whereby it came to passe that c this holy thing which was borne of her was indeed and in truth to be called the SONNE of GOD Which wonderfull connexion of two so infinitely differing natures in the unity of one person how it was there effected is an inquisition fitter for an Angelical inteliigence than for our shallow capacity to look after To which purpose also we may observe that in the fabrick of the Arke of the Covenant d the posture of the faces of the Cherubims toward the Mercy-seat the type of our Saviour was such as would poynt unto us that these are the things which the Angells desire to * stoop and look into And therefore let that satisfaction which the Angell gave unto the Mother Virgin whom it did more specially concerne to move the question e How may this be content us f The power of the highest shall over-shadow thee For as the former part of that speech may informe us that g with God nothing is unpossible so the latter may put us in minde that the same God having over-shadowed this mystery with his own veile we should not presume with the men of h Bethshemesh to looke into this Arke of his least for our curiosity we be smitten as they were Only this we may safely say and must firmly hold that as the distinction of the Persons in the holy Trinity hindreth not the Unity of the Nature of the God-head although every person entirely holdeth his own incommunicable property so neither doth the distinction of the two Natures in our Mediatour any way crosse the unity of his Person although each nature remaineth intire in it selfe and retaineth the properties agreeing thereunto * without any conversion composition commixtion or confusion When i Moses beheld the bush burning with fire and yet no whit consumed he wondred at the sight and said I will now turne aside and see this great sight why the bush is not burnt But when God thereupon called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said Draw not nigh hither and told him who he was Moses trembled hid his face and durst not behold God Yet although being thus warned we dare not draw so nigh what doth hinder but we may stand aloofe off and wonder at this great sight k Our God is a consuming fire saith the Apostle and a question wee finde propounded in the prophet l Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire who amongst us shall dwell with the everlasting burnings Moses was not like other Prophets but m God spake unto him face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend and yet for all that when hee besought the Lord that he would shew him his glory he received this answer n Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see mee and live Abraham before him though a speciall o friend of God and the p Father of the faithfull the Children of God yet held it a great matter that he should take upon him so much as to q speak unto God being but dust and ashes Yea the very Angells themselves r which are greater in power and might are fain to s cover their faces when they stand before him as not being able to behold the brightnesse of his glory With what astonishment then may we behold our dust and ashes assumed into the undivided unitie of Gods owne person and admitted to dwell here as an inmate under the same roofe and yet in the midst of those everlasting burnings the bush to remain unconsumed and to continue fresh and green for evermore Yea how should not we with Abraham rejoyce to see this day wherein not only our nature in the person of our Lord Jesus is found to dwell for ever in those everlasting burnings but in and by him our owne persons also are brought so nigh thereunto that t God doth set his Sanctuarie and Tabernacle among us and dwell with us and which is much more maketh us our selves to be the u house and the x habitation wherein he is pleased to dwell by his Spirit according to that of the Apostle y Yee are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walke in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people and that most admirable Prayer which our Saviour himselfe made unto his father in our behalfe z I pray not for these alone but for them also which shall beleeve on me through their Word that they all may be one as thou Father art in mee and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may beleeve that thou hast sent me I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me To compasse this conjunction betwixt God and us he that was to bee our a Jesus or Saviour must of necessity also bee Immanuel which being interpreted is GOD with us and therefore in his Person to bee Immanuel that is God dwelling with our flesh because he was by his Office to be Immanuel that is he who must make God to be at one with us For this being his proper office to be b Mediatour between God and Men he must partake with both and being before all eternity consubstantiall with his Father he must at the appoynted time become likewise consubstantiall with his children c For asmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himselfe likewise tooke part of the same saith the Apostle We read in the Romane history that the Sabines and the Romans joyning battell together upon such an occasion as is mentioned in the last Chapter of the booke of Iudges of the children of Benjamin catching every man a wife of the daughters of Shilo the women being daughters to the one side and Wives to the other interposed themselves and tooke up the quarrell so that by the mediation of these who had a peculiar interest in either side and by whose meanes this new alliance was contracted betwixt the two adverse parties they who before stood upon highest termes of hostility * did not only entertaine Peace but also joyned themselves together into one body and one state God and we were d enemies before wee were reconciled to him by his Sonne He that is to be e our Peace and to reconcile us unto God and to slay this enmity must have an interest in both the parties that are at variance and have such a reference unto either of them that he may be able to send this
fulnesse which so doth dwell in him is the NATURE Now there dwelleth in him not onely the fulnesse of the Godhead but the fulnesse of the Manhood also for we beleeve him to be both perfect God begotten of the substance of his Father before all worlds and perfect Man made of the substance of his Mother in the fullnesse of time And therefore we must hold that there are two distinct Natures in him and two so distinct that they doe not make one compounded nature but still remaine uncompounded and unconfounded together But Hee in whom the fulnesse of the Manhood dwelleth is not one and hee in whom the fulnesse of the Godhead another but he in whom the fulnesse of both those natures dwelleth is one and the same Immauel and consequently it must be beleeved as firmly that he is but one Person And here wee must consider that the Divine Nature did not assume an humane Person but the divine Person did assume an humane Nature and that of the three Divine Persons it was neither the first nor the third that did assume this Nature but it was the middle Person who was to bee the middle one that must undertake this mediation betwixt God and us which was otherwise also most requisite aswell for the better preservation of the integrity of the blessed Trinity in the Godhead as for the higher advancement of Mand-kinde by meanes of that relation which the second Person the Mediatour did beare unto his Father For if the fulnesse of the Godhead should have thus dwelt in any humane person there should then a fourth Person necessarily have been added unto the Godhead And if any of the three Persons beside the second had been borne of a Woman there should have been two Sonnes in the Trinity whereas now the Sonne of God and the Sonne of the blessed Virgin being but one Person is consequently but one Sonne and so no alteration at all made in the relations of the Persons of the Trinitie Againe in respect of us the Apostle sheweth that for this very end f God sent his owne SON made of a woman that WE might receive the Adoption of SONS and thereupon maketh this inference Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a SON and if a SON then an HEIRE of God through Christ intimating thereby that what relation Christ hath unto God by Nature we being found in him have the same by Grace By Nature hee is g The only begotten Sonne of the Father but this is the high Grace he hath purchased for us that h as many as received him to them he gave power or priviledge to become the Sonnes of God even to them that beleeve on his Name For although he reserve to himselfe the preeminence which is due unto him in a * peculiar manner of being i the first borne among many brethren yet in him and for him the rest likewise by the grace of adoption are all of them accounted as first-bornes So God biddeth Moses to say unto Pharaoh k Israel is my Sonne even my first-borne And I say vnto thee Let my sonne goe that he may serve me and if thou refuse to let him goe behold I will slay thy sonne even thy first borne And the whole Israell of God consisting of Jew and Gentile is in the same sort described by the Apostle to be l the generall assembly and Church of the first borne inrolled in Heaven For the same reason that maketh them to be Sons to wit their incorporation into Christ the selfe-same also maketh them to be first-bornes so as how ever it fall out by the grounds of our common Law by the rule of the Gospell this consequence will still hold true m If children then heires heires of God and joynt-heires with Christ And so much for the SON the Person assuming The Nature assumed is the seed of Abraham Hebr. 2. 16. The seed of David Rom. 1. 3. The seed of the Woman Gen. 3. 15. The WORD n the second Person of the Trinity being o made FLESH that is to say p Gods own Sonne being made of a Woman and so becomming truly and really q The fruit of her wombe Neither did he take the substance of our nature only but all the properties also and the qualities thereof so as it might be said of him as it was of r Elias and the s Apostles that he was a man subject to like passions as we are Yea he subjected himselfe t in the dayes of his flesh to the same u weaknesse which we finde in our own fraile nature and was compassed with like infirmities and in a word in all things was made like unto his brethren sinne only excepted Wherein yet we must consider that as he took upon him not an humane Person but an humane Nature so it was not requisite he should take upon him any Personall infirmities such as are madnesse blindnesse lamenesse and particular kinds of diseases which are incident to some only and not to all men in generall but those alone which do accompany the whole Nature of mankinde such as are hungring thirsting wearinesse griefe paine and mortality We are further here also to observe in this our x Melchisedeck that as he had no Mother in regard of one of his natures so he was to have no Father in regard of the other but must be borne of a pure and immaculate Virgin without the helpe of any man And this also was most requisite as for other respects so for the exemption of the assumed nature from the imputation and pollution of Adams sinne For y sinne having by that one man entred into the world every Father becommeth an Adam unto his child and conveyeth the corruption of his Nature unto all those whom hee doth beget Therefore our Saviour assuming the substance of our Nature but not by the ordinary way of naturall generation is thereby freed from all the touch and taint of the corruption of our flesh which by that meanes only is propâ—gated from the first man unto his posterity Whereupon he being made of man but not by man and so becomming the immediate fruit of the wbome and not of the Loynes must of necessity be acknowledged to be z that HOLY THING which so was borne of so blessed a Mother who although shee were but the passive and materiall principle of which that precious flesh was made and the holy Ghost the agent and efficient yet cannot the man Christ Jesus thereby be made the Son of his a owne Spirit Because Fathers do beget their children out of their owne substance the holy Ghost did not so but framed the flesh of him from whom himself proceeded out of the creature of them both b the hand-maid of the Lord whom from thence all generations shall call blessed That blessed wombe of hers was the bride-chamber wherein the Holy Ghost did knit that indissoluble knot betwixt
this wicked world he should be subject to fall as they were or if he should hold out as l the elect Angels did that must have been ascribed to the grace and favour of another whereas the giving of strict satisfaction to Gods justice was the thing required in this behalfe But now being God as well as Man he by his owne m eternall Spirit preserved himselfe without spot presenting a farre more satisfactory obedience unto God than could have possibly been performed by Adam in his integrity For beside the infinite difference that was betwixt both their Persons which maketh the actions of the one beyond all comparison to exceed the worth and value of the other we know that Adam was not able to make himselfe holy but what holinesse he had he received from him who created him according to his owne Image so that whatsoever obedience Adam had performed God should have n eaten but of the fruit of the Vineyard which himselfe had planted and o of his owne would all that have been which could be given unto him But Christ did himselfe sanctifie that humane nature which he assumed according to his owne saying John 17. 19. For their sakes I sanctifie my selfe and so out of his owne peculiar store did he bring forth those precious treasures of holy obedience which for the satisfaction of our debt he was pleased to tender unto his Father Again if Adam had p done all things which were commanded him he must for all that have said I am an unprofitable servant I have done that which was my duty to doe Whereas in the voluntary obedience which Christ subjected himselfe unto the case stood farre otherwise True it is that if we respect him in his humane nature q his Father is greater than he and he is his Fathers r servant yet in that he said and most truly said that God was his Father s the Jewes did rightly inferre from thence that he thereby made himselfe equall with God and t the Lord of hosts himselfe hath proclaimed him to be the man that is his fellow Being such a man therefore and so highly borne by the priviledge of his birth-right he might have claimed an exemption from the ordinary service whereunto all other men are tied and by being u the Kings Sonne have freed himselfe from the payment of that tribute which was to be exacted at the hands of Strangers When x the Father brought this his first-begotten into the world he said Let all the Angells of God worship him and at the very instant wherein the Sonne advanced our nature into the highest pitch of dignity by admitting it into the unity of his sacred person that nature so assumed was worthy to be crowned with all glory and honour and he in that nature might then have set himselfe downe y at the right hand of the throne of God tyed to no other subjection than now he is or hereafter shall be when after the end of this world he shall have delivered up the kingdome to God the Father For then also in regard of his assumed nature he z shall be subject unto him that put all other things under him Thus the Sonne of God if he had minded only his owne things might at the very first have attained unto the joy that was set before him but a looking on the things of others he chose rather to come by a tedious way and wearisome journey unto it not challenging the priviledge of a Sonne but taking upon him the forme of a meane servant Whereupon in the dayes of his flesh he did not serve as an honourable Commander in the Lords host but as an ordinary souldier he made himselfe of no reputation for the time as it were * emptying himselfe of his high state and dignity he humbled himselfe and became obedient untill his death being content all his life long to be b made under the Law yea so farre that as he was sent c in the likenesse of sinfull flesh so he disdained not to subject himselfe unto that Law which properly did concerne sinfull flesh And therefore howsoever Circumcision was by right appliable only unto such as were d dead in their sinnes and the uncircumcision of their flesh yet he in whom there was no body of the sinnes of the flesh to be put off submitted himselfe notwithstanding thereunto not only to testifie his communion with the Fathers of the old Testament but also by this meanes to tender unto his Father a bond signed with his owne bloud whereby he made himselfe in our behalfe a debtour unto the whole Law For I testifie saith e the Apostle to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtour to the whole Law In like manner Baptisme appertained properly unto such as were defiled and had need to have their f sinnes washed away and therefore when all the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem went out unto John they g were all baptized of him in the river Jordan confessing their sinnes Among the rest came our Saviour also but the Baptist considering that he had need to be baptized by Christ and Christ no need at all to be baptized by him refused to give way unto that action as altogether unbefitting the state of that immaculat Lamb of God who was to take away the sinne of the World Yet did our Mediatour submit himselfe to that ordinance of God also not only to testifie his communion with the Christians of the new Testament but especially which is the reason yeelded by himselfe because h it became him thus to fulfill all righteousnesse And so having fulfilled all righteousnesse whereunto the meanest man was tied in the dayes of his pilgrimage which was more than he needed to have undergone if he had respected only himselfe the workes which he performed were truly works of supererogation which might be put upon the account of them whose debt he undertook to discharge and being performed by the person of the Sonne of God must in that respect not only be equivalent but infinitely overvalue the obedience of Adam and all his posterity although they had remained in their integrity continued untill this houre instantly serving God day night And thus for our maine and principall debt of Obedience hath our Mediator given satisfaction unto the Iustice of his Father with i good measure pressed down shaken together running over But beside this we were liable unto another debt which we have incurred by our default and drawn upon our selves by way of forfeiture and nomine poenae For as k Obedience is a due debt and Gods servants in regard thereof are truly debters so likewise is sinne a l debt and sinners m debters in regard of the penalty due for the default And as the payment of the debt which commeth nomine poenae dischargeth not the tenant afterwards from paying