is not concerned who by the power of the most High understands here the very person of God the Son and by this over-shadowing of the blessed Virgin his voluntary Incarnation in her sanctified womb His words are these Per virtutem Altissimi intelligi ipsum Dei Filium qui est virtus brachium potentia Patris quique obumbraturus significatur Virginem illapsu suo in uterum Virginis per occultum Incarnationis mysterium But by his leave I cannot herein yeild unto his opinion though Chrysostom and Gregory for the antient Writers Beda and Damascene for the Authors of the middle times do seem to contenance it For not St. Augustine only as himself confesseth and Euthymius a good writer also are against him in it but the plain text and context of the holy Scripture which makes the quickning of the womb of this blessed Virgin to be the work only of one Agent though it be expressed by different titles Nor are such repetitions strange or extraordinary in the Book of God nor can it give any colour to distinguish the power of the most High from the holy Ghost as if they were two different Agents unless we can distinguish the Lord our God from him that dweleth in the Heavens because we finde them both together in the 2. Psalm He that dwelleth in the Heavens shall laugh them to scorn the Lord shall have them in derision And though it cannot be denyed but that the Son of God is the very power and strength of his Father yet himself doth give this very name of power to the holy Ghost For when he commanded the Apostles to abide in the City of Hierusalem donec induantur virtute ex alto i. e. until they were â—ndued with power from on high what else did he intend thereby but that they should continue there until they were endued with the holy Ghost Of which see Act. 2.4 Besides if this opinion should be once admitted we must exclude the holy Ghâ—st from having any thing to do in so great a mysterie and so not only bring the Creed under an Expurgatorius Index but the Scripture too Letting this therefore stand for a truth undeniable that the over-shadowing as the Text calleth it of the blessed Virgin was the proper and peculiar work of the holy Ghost let us next see whether the nature of the miracle be not agreeable to the operatioâ—s of the holy Spirit or such as may not be admitted for a truth undoubted by equal and indifferent men though they be not Christians nor take it up upon the credit of the Word of God And first that of it self it is agreeable to the operations of the Spirit the course of his Divine power in the works of nature doth expresly manifest For as in the spiritual regeneration though it be Paul that planteth and Apollo that watereth yet it is God who gives the increase without whose blessing on their labours their labours will prove fruitless and ineffectual so also in the act of carnal generation though the man and woman do their parts for the pro creation of children yet if the quickning Spirit of God do not bless them in it and stir up the emplastick virtue of the natural seed they may go childless to their graves It is the Spirit which quickneth what the womb doth breed And therefore in my minde Lactantius noted very well Hominem non Patrem esse sed generandi Ministrum that man was nothing but the instrument which the Lord did use for the effecting of his purpose to raise that goodly edifice of flesh and bloud which he contemplates in his children It is the Spirit of God as the Scripture tels us which first gave form unto the world from whence that known passage of the Poet Spiritus intus alit had its first Original of which we have made use in our former book And if the chief work or rather the principal part in the work of nature in the ordinary course of Generation and first production of the Word may be ascribed as most undoubtedly it must unto the powerful influence of this quickning Spirit with how much more assurance may he be entituled to the Incarnation of the Word to which one sex only did contribute and that the weakest without the mutual help and co-operation of the seed of man Nor is the greatness of the Miracle so beyond belief but that there is sufficient in the holy Scripture to convince the Iew and in the writings of the Poets to perswade the Gentiles to the admission of this truth and consequently to confirm all good Christians in it Out of the Virgin-Earth did God first make Adam and out of Virgin Adam he created Eve Adam first made without the help of man or woman and Eve made after out of Adam who had no wife but this which was made out of him Why might not then the blessed Virgin be as capable of conceiving a Son by the sole power and influence of the holy Ghost without help of man as Adam was of being Father unto Eve by the self same power without the use of a woman Without a Mother Eve without Father CHRIST Adam without both Father and Mother but all the handy-work of God by the holy Spirit Equivalent in effect to the creation of Adam and the production of Eve was the birth of Isaac conceived by Sarah when it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women by consequence as indisposed to the act of conception as if she had been still a Virgin or which is more then that under years of marriage The strength that Sarah had to bring forth that Son was not natural to her for she was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 past the age of childe-bearing as the Text informs us but a strength supernatural given from God on high and therefore called a received strength she received strength to conceive seed Heb. 11.11 because not naturally her own but received extraordinarily from God As Isaac was in many things a Type of CHRIST so in no one thing more exactly then that he was the only Son or the dearly beloved Son of his Father begotten on a woman past the time of her age whose dead womb could not but by such a miracle be revived again To this the Iews most cheerfully do give assent boasting themselves to be the children of Abraham by this very venter What reason have they then not to yeild to this but that they resolved not to yeild to reason Next for the Gentiles do we not finde it in their Poets that Venus was ingendred of the froth of the Sea animated by the warmth and influence of the Sun that Pallas issued from Ioves brain and Bacchus from the thigh of Iupiter Do we not read that most of their Heroes so much famed of old were begotten by their Gods upon mortal creatures as Hercules on Alcmena by Iupiter Phaeton on Clymene by Phoebus and Paâ—
In which estate he cast his eyes opon the Gentiles who either knew him not at all or knew no more of him then they could discern through the false lights as it were of depraved nature or the dull spectacles of Philosophie Thus witnesseth St. Paul in the 4. to the Galatians saying that when the fulness of time was come God sent his Son made of a woman made under the law to redeem those which were under the law that they might receive the Adoption of sons vers 5. And in the 8. unto the Romans We have saith he received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry unto him Abba Father the Spirit of God bearing witness with our spirit that we are the heirs of God and coheirs with CHRIST vers 15. Other particulars there are wherein the Adoption of us sinners to the Kingdome of Heaven holds good proportion with Adoptions made upon the earth some of which I shall briefly touch at to make the mysterie of our Adoption the more clear and signal First then Adoption by the Civil or Imperial Laws which is jus Gentium or the Law of Nations as they use to call it however privately agreed upon between the parties was never counted valid of good authority till it was verified by the Magistrates before all the people in the Town-Hall or Common Forum and under such a form of words which either law or custome had prescribed unto them Which form of words too long to be repeated here are extant still in Gellius and Barnabas Brissonius a late French Writer So our adoption unto life is ratified and confirmed unto us by the publick Minister openly in the Church in the Congregation if it may conveniently and under such a Form of words which we may not alter We have not only custom for it but a strict command that we baptize all those which are presented to the Church as the children of God In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost We finde it also in the practise though the law required it not that they who were adopted into any family used presently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to take unto themselves the name of that house o◠family into the which they were assumed Examples of this truth are infinite almost and obvious in the Roman stories So we being adopted into the kingdom and inheritance of our Saviour CHRIST have took unto our selves Christs name or the name of Christians And the Disciples were first called Christians at Antiochia Act. 11. Suppose we now that our adoption is confirmed ratified by the Magistrate and good in law are we hereby exempted from the power of our Natural Parents Not so the Law is otherwise and resolves it clearly Quod jura Patris naturalis minime solvuntur that the authority of our Natural Parents is the same as formerly Too many of us think not so but being once possessed with a conceit of our adoption to the kingdome of God we cast off all obedience and regard of man Neither our Natural nor our Civil Parents are to be obeyed if once the Son of God hath but made us free Thus did the Anabaptists preach in some parts of Germanie and we have had too many followers of their Doctrines here And last of all it is a Rule or Maxime in the Laws Imperial that children once adopted are to be used and disposed of in all respects ac si justis nuptiis quaesiti as if they were our own by the law of Nature And it doth follow thereupon Haeredes vel instituendi vel exhaeredandi that as we think it fit and as they deserve we may assign them portions out of our estates or exclude them utterly Whether it be thus also in adoptions unto life eternal whether it may not be revoked at the pleasure of GOD if we behave our selves unworthily need not be made a question amongst rational men Or if it be I have no list nor leisure to dispute it here Only I cannot choose but note it as an error in Monsieur de Moulin to ground the irreversible Decree of our Adoption to the Kingdom of Heaven on the like irreversibleness of adoptions here upon the Earth Ex eo quod absoluta sit inter homines adoptio as his own words are But Absque hoc The law we see is otherwise and resolves the contrary And for the error of du Moulin being it is ignorantia juris an error in point of law and not of fact whether and if at all it may be excused I leave to be resolved upon grave advice by some such learned Casuist as his friend Amesius GOD is a Father then by all ways and means by which a name of Father may be gained by any And if a Father as he is no doubt but we shall finde in him the same affections which are in Parents towards their children the same but not with all or any of those imperfections which we observe to be too often intermingled in humane affections Do Parents naturally love their children We finde the love of GOD to his not only to be equal unto that of an earthly father but to surpass the love of women Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb yes saith the Lord they may forget but I will not forget my people Do Parents out of the affection which they bear their children provide them of all necessaries for this present life Do any of them if their children ask for bread give them a stone or if they ask for a fish present him a Serpent Our Saviour thereupon inferreth that if they being evil know how to give good gifts unto their children how much more should our Father which is in Heaven give good things unto them that ask him Assuredly the love of GOD to all his children especially to those which walk after his commandements is infinitely greater then the love of our natural parents to those which are the children after the flesh Out of this love of GOD it is that he giveth us both the former and the latter rain that he makes his Sun to shine on the good and bad that their Oxen are alike strong to labour that their sheep bring forth thousands yea and ten thousands in their streets and finally that their fields do laugh and their medows sing with fruitful plenty Are parents naturally compassionate towards their children when they fall into misery and distress and pity them at least if they cannot help them Behold saith God like as a Father pitieth his own children so the Lord pitieth them that fear him for he knoweth whereof we are made he remembreth that we are but dust Are parents patient and long-suffering towards their children when they do amiss Alas what is this patience of theirs compared to that of GOD towards sinful man The Lord is full of compassion and mercy long-suffering and
very month and day of our Saviours birth transmitted to us from the best and purest times of the Christian Church though not recorded in the Scriptures Theophilus Caesariensis who lived about the latter end of the second Century doth place it on the eight of the Calends of Ianuary which is the 25. of December as we now observe it and reckoneth it as a festival of the Christian Church long before his time Natalem Domini quocunque die VIII Calend. Januar. venerit celebrare debemus as his own words are And Nyssen though he name not the day precisely yet cals it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the famous day of Christian solemnity and placeth it in that point of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he telleth us there in which the dayes wax longer and the nights grow shorter which is we know about the time of the Winter Solstice In an old Arabick copy of Apostolick Canons it is especially appointed that the Anniversary feast of the Lords Nativity be kept upon the 25. day of the first Canun which is the same with our December on which day he was born A Persian Calender or Ephemeris doth place it on the same day also The Syriack Churches do the like and so do the Aegyptian or Coptick Churches as Mr. Gregory hath observed out of their Records not to say any thing of Iohannes Antiochenus the Author of an old MS. Cosmography who doth affirme as much for the East parts of the Roman Empire A day so highly esteemed in the former times that the Greeks called it generally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the feast of Gods manifestation in the flesh Chrysostom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother or Metropolis of all other festivals another of the Eastern Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the festival of the worlds salvation A day of such a solemn concourse in the Christian Church that the Tyrants in the 10. Persecution made choise thereof as an especial opportunity for committing the greater slaughter of poor innocent souls and therefore on that day in ipso natalis Dominici die as my Author hath it burnt down the Church of Nicomedia the then Regal City of the East with all that were assembled in it for Gods publick service I know great pains have been unprofitably took to no other purpose but to prove that Christ was born at some other time of the year at least not on the day which is now pretended But the Arguments on which the disproof is founded are so slight and trivial that it were losse of labour to insist upon them Suffice it that the Church had far better reason to celebrate the birth-day of the Son of God then any of the sons of men to suppresse the same And this I call the birth-day of the Son of God because from this day forwards he was so indeed though not publickly proclaimed or avowed for such till the day of his Baptisme when it was solemnly made known by a voice from heaven The Word before In the beginning was the Word Ioh. 1.1 The Word made flesh and born of the Virgin Mary and by that birth the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth said the same Evangelist v. 14. For though we did not look upon him as the word made flesh his being born in such a miraculous manner of an untouched Virgin would of it self assert him for the Son of God So said the Angel Gabriel the first Evangelist Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God The Son of God as soon as born of the Virgin Mary because conceived and born in so strange a manner so far above the course of nature that none but God the God of nature could lay claim unto him For here the great miracle of the incarnation doth receive improvement in that the WORD was not only made flesh and born of a woman but born of such a woman as was a Virgin That so it was we have the warrant of the Scripture In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a City of Galilee named Nazareth to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the Virgins name was MARY So far the Text informes us in the present business giving her in one verse twice the name of Virgin the better to imprint the same in our hearts and memories And certainly it stood with reason that it should be so For although Miracles in themselves are above our reason because beyond the reach of all natural causes yet doth it stand with very good reason that since the WORD vouchsafed to descend so low as to be born of a woman he should receive that birth from the purest Virgin and be fashioned in a womb which was unpolluted The pious care of his Disciples did conceive it fitting that his dead body should be laid in a Tomb or Sepulchre where never man was laid before And was it not as fit or fitter that his living body great with Divinity and a soul for in him dwelt the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily should be conceived in such a womb which had not been defiled with the seed of man in whose most chast embraces and unblamable dalliances there is a mixture of Concupiscence and carnal lusts Most fit it was his Mother should be like his Spouse of whom we finde it written in the Song of Solomon that she is as a Garden inclosed a spring shut up a fountain â—ealed Besides the meanes and method of mans redemption was to hold some proportion with the meanes of his fall that so that Sex might have the honour of our restauration which had been the unhappy Author of our first calamity that as by woman the Devil took his opportunity to introduce death into the world for the woman being deceived was in the transgression saith St. Paul to Timothy so by a woman and a Virgin such as Eve was then did Gods foreknowing will determine that life even life eternall should be born into it Eve the first woman out of an ambitious desire to be like to God coveted after the forbidden tree of good and evill The second Eve if I may so call her as Christ is called the second Adam 1 Cor. 15.45 out of an obedient desire that God might be as one of us did gladly bear in her womb the tree of life of which whosoever eateth he shall live for ever Eve as her name importeth was the Mother of all living of all that live this temporal and mortal life the life of nature and MARY in due time became the mother of that living Spirit by whom we are begotten to the life of grace So true is that of Gregory surnamed Thaumaturgus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that from the same Sex came our weal and wo. To drive this Parallel further yet Eve at the time of the
whom with thee and the holy Ghost be praise for ever But leaving these more intricate speculations to more subtill heads The name of Father in this sense is ascribed to God by two severall titles First Iure Creationis by the right of Creation by which he is the Father of all mankinde And secondly Iure Adoptionis by the right and title of Adoption by which he hath anew begotten us in St. Peters language to an inheritance immortall undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved for us in the Heavens First GOD is said to be our Father in the right of Creation by which as all the World and all things in the same contained may be called the workmanship of his hands so may all mankinde be called his children not only those which trust and believe in him but also those which know him not nor ever read so much of him as the Book of nature those which yet live as out-lawes from the rule of reason and barbarous and savage people of both the Indies Thus Malachi the last Prophet of the Iewes Have we not all one Father hath not God created us Thus the Apostle of the Gentiles doth affirme of GOD that out of one bloud he hath made all kindreds of men And CHRIST himself who brake down the partition wall between Iew and Gentile Call no man Father on Earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven Not that the Lord would have us disobedient to our naturall Parents or ashamed to own them for this is plainly contrary both to Law and Gospeâ—t but that we should refer our being unto him alone which is the fountain of all beeing Solus vocandus est Pater qui creavit said Lactantius truly Now God is said to be our Father by the right of Creation for these following reasons as first because he was the Father of the first man Adam out of whose loyns we are descended or of whose likeness since the fall we are all begotten Therefore St. Luke when he had made the Genealogie of our Saviour CHRIST in the way of ascent doth conclude it thus which was the son of Seth which was the son of Adam which was the Son of God the son of God but not by generation for so our Saviour only was the Son of God and therefore it must be by Creation only Secondly GOD is called our Father because he hath implanted in our Parents the vertue Generative moulded and fashioned us in the secret closets of the Womb. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me Thine eyes did see my substance being yet imperfect and in thy book were all my members written saith the Royal Psalmist The bodies of us men are too brave a building for man and Nature to erect And therefore said Lactantius truly Hominem non patrem esse sed generandi ministrum Man only is the instrument which the Lord doth use for the effecting of his purpose to raise that godly edifice of flesh and bloud which he contemplates in his children Last of all for our souls which are the better part of us by which we live and move and have our beeing they are infused by GOD alone man hath no hand in it God breathes into our nosthrils the breath of life and by his mighty power doth animate and inform that matter which of it self is meerly passive in so great a wonder In each of these respects and in all together we may conclude with that of Aratus an old Greek Poet as he is cited by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for we are all his off-spring all of us his children The second Interest which GOD hath in us as a Father in the way of adoption by which we are regenerate or anew begotten to a lively hope of being heirs unto the promises and in the end partakers of eternal glories by which we are transplanted from our Fathers house and out of the Wilderness and unprofitable Thickets of this present world and graffed or inoculated on the Tree of life Adoptare enim est juxta delectum sibi quos quisque velit in filios eligere Adoption is the taking of a childe from another family to plant and cherish in our own say the Civil Lawyers and he that so adopteth may be called our Father by approbation of the laws though not by nature Examples of this case have been very ordinary from Moses who was adopted for her son by the daughter of Pharaoh though he refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter as St. Paul said of him down through all the stories both of Greece and Rome And if it may be lawful to make such resemblances the motives which induced GOD to proceed this way and other the particulars of most moment in it do seem to carry a fair proportion or correspondency with such inducements and particulars as hath been used by men on the same occasions For in the Laws adoption was to be allowed but in these four cases First Quod quidam Matrimonii onera detrectarent because some men could not away with the cares of Wedlock Secondly Quod conjugium esset sterile because God had not blessed the marriage with a fruitful issue Thirdly Quod liberi ipsorum morerentur because their own children by untimely death or the unluckie chance of War had been taken from them in which last case adoption by especial dispensation was allowed to women Fourthy Quod liberi ipsorum improbi essent degeneres because their own children were debauched and shameless likely to ruine that estate and disgrace that family into which they were born And upon such grounds as these is GOD in Scripture said to adopt the Gentiles to make them who by nature were the sons of wrath and seemed to be excluded from the Covenant which he made with Abraham to be the heirs of God and Coheirs with Christ. God looked upon the Iews as his natural children And at the first one might have known them easily for the sons of God by the exemplarie piety of their lives and actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as men know commonly their neighbour children by a resemblance to their Fathers St. Paul hath made a muster of some chiefs amongst them in the 11. chap. to the Heb. But they being took away by the hand of death there next succeeded in their room a gâ—neration little like them in the course of their lives and therefore little to the comfort of their heavenly Father For his part he was never wanting unto his Vineyard nor could there any thing be done to it which he did not do yet when he looked for grapes in their proper season it brought forth nothing but wilde grapes sit only for the wine-press of his indignation So that the Lord was either childless or else the Father of a stubborn and perverse generation of whose reclaim there was no hopes or but small if any
on Penelope by Mercury And is it not recorded in their most authentick Histories that Romulus the first King and founder of Rome was begotten by Mars upon the body of Rhea a Vestal Virgin Romulus a Marte genttus Rhea Silvia as Florus summarily reports it Had not the Lusitanians a race of Horses which they believed to be engendred by the winde the fancy growing from the knowledge of their excellent swiftness At this Lactantius toucheth in his Book of Institutes and makes it a convincing Argument in this case against the Gentiles who might as easily believe the miracle of the incarnation as give faith to that Quod si animalia quaedam vento aura concipere solere omnibus notum est cur quisquam mirum putet cum Spiritu Dei cui est facile quicquid velit gravatam Virginem esse dicimus No question but the Spirit of God might be conceived as operative as the winde or ayr But leaving these Romances of the antient Heathens though arguments good enough ad homines and beyond that they are not meant let us next look a while on the blessed Virgin who questionless did somewhat to advance the work and left it not wholly to the managing of the holy Ghost But what she did was rather from the strength of faith then nature For had she not believed she had never conceived And thereupon it is resolved by St. Augustine rightly Feliciorem Mariam esse percipiendo fidem Christi quam concipiendo carnem Christi that she was happier by believing then she was by conceiving though in that too pronounced the most blessed amongst women Now in the strengthning of this faith many things concurred as the authority of the Messenger who coming from the God of truth could not tell a lye the general expectation which the Iews had about this time of the Messiahs near approach the argument used by the Angel touching Gods Omnipotence with whom nothing was said to be impossible and so not this the instance of a like miracle wrought upon Elizabeth the wife of Zachary almost as old but altogether in the same case with Sarah who had conceived a son in her old age beyond the ordinary course of nature And to say truth these arguments were but necessary to beget belief to so great a miracle to which no former age could afford a parallel though that of Sarah came most nigh it And if that Sarah thought it such a matter of impossibility then to conceive and bear a son when it only ceased to be with her after the manner of women as the Text tels us that she did how much more justly might the Virgin think it an impossible thing for her to be conceived with childe and bring forth a Son and yet continue still a Virgin But at the last the strength of faith overcame all difficulties and by the chearfulness of her obedience she made a way for this great blessing which was coming towards her Behold the handmaid of the Lord Be it to me according unto thy word Which whether they were words of wishing that so it might be as St. Ambrose Venerable Beda and Euthymius think or of consent that so it should be as Ireneus and Damascen are of opinion certain it is that on the speaking of those words she did conceive Coelestial seed and in due time brought forth her Saviour As is affirmed by Irenaeus l. 1. c. 33. Tertullian in his book De Carne Christi Athanasius in his Oration De Sancta Deipara and divers others A work as of great efficacy unto our Salvation so of especial esteem in the Christian Church the day whereof called usually the Feast of the Annuntiation hath anciently been observed as an holy Festival as appears by several Homilies made upon this subject by Gregory surnamed Thaumaturgus who lived in the year 230. and that of Athanasius in the time of Constantine A day of such high esteem amongst us in England that we begin our year from thence both in the vulgar estimate and all publick Instruments though in our Kalenders we begin with the first of Ianuary according to the custome of the antient Romans But here it may be asked why CHRIST should not be called the Son of the holy Ghost according to his humane nature considering that not St. Luke only ascribeth unto him the work of the Incarnation under the title of an overshadowing but that it is affirmed by St. Matthew in tearms more express that she the blessed Virgin Mother was found to be with child of the holy Ghost And he by whom a woman is conceived with childe is properly and naturally though not always legally for Pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant as the Lawyers tell us the right Father of it A consideration which prevailed so far with some of St. Hieromes time that they began to stumble upon this opinion but with no better reason in true Divinity then Christ may be affirmed to be the Father Almighty intended in the former Articles because creation is the work of the Father Almighty and it is written by St. Iohn that by him that is to say the Son all things were made For all things were so made by the Word as the Word was made flesh or incarnate by the holy Ghost God I mean God the first Person here as generally the Scripture doth where it speaks of God without limitation or restrictions acting by them those two great works which in the holy Text are to them ascribed yet by them not as Ministers subservient to him but co-working with him God saith St. Paul hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son whom he appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the Worlds God made the world though he made it by his Son to the end that all things being created by him might be also for him And so 't is also in the work of the incarnation God by his Spirit fructifying the Virgins womb and sanctifying the materials with which the Word which in the beginning was with God was to be invested to the intent that the Spirit might bear witness to us that he was the beloved Son of God in whom his Father was well pleased And yet there is another reason why he should rather be called the Son of God then of the holy Ghost because he had a pre-existence before he was incarnate in the Virgins womb as he was the Word the Word which in the beginning was not only with God but was also God by an unspeakable way of emanation from the Father only as the Word is first conceived in the minde of man before it be uttered by the voyce For as the Son is to the Father so is the Word to the Minde The Son proles parentis the Word proles mentis saith the learned Andrews God therefore being an eternal everlasting Minde did before all beginnings of time produce the Word
by which in the beginning of time all things were created By consequence when the Word was pleased to be incarnate or to be made flesh in St. Iohns own language the person thus made Christ of the Word and flesh though he was incorporated into this flesh by the powerful influence and operation of the holy Ghost was properly to be called the Son of God in whom and of whom only he before existed the holy Ghost not being the Author of any new Person but only betroathing to the Word the humane nature of CHRIST which had no actual existence before those Espousals I know I cannot speak too reverently of so great a mysterie or think too worthily of that wonderful and miraculous Act of the Incarnation or Conception of our blessed Saviour And yet I doubt that some by thinking that he was not formed and fashioned in his Mothers womb by those gradations to perfection which are necessary to all natural births but make his body to be perfected all at once in the very moment of his Conception and at that instant the reasonable soul to be actually infused into it do unawares deprive him of a great deal of honour which his humiliation to our nature did confer upon him Of this minde is Maldonate for one whose words take here together for our more assurance Alios paulatim sensimque in utero formari antequam Corpusculâ—m animetur Christi vero corpus eodem momento quo conceptum est formari animatum fuisse Which were it so our Saviour CHRIST had not in all things been made like unto us contrary to the express words of holy Scripture nor needed to have lien so long time in his Mothers womb his body being compleatly formed and animated in the first conception But I believe the Iesuite had a further aim in it then he pleased to discover And possibly it might be an ingenuous fear of arrogating or ascribing more to a common Priest then had been granted to be done by the holy Ghost For needs it must seem harsh to most Popish ears that the Body of CHRIST should be nine moneths in forming in his mothers womb though supernaturally conceived by the Divine power and influence of the holy Ghost and yet upon the Priests saying Hoc est Corpus meum the self same body and soul with his Divinity and all into the bargain should instantly be made of a piece of bread without expecting nine minutes for so great a miracle Most happy men who come so nere the power and Majesty of Almighty God and the prerogatives of CHRIST that as the one could have raised children out of stones to Abraham and the other command stones to be made bread so they can out of bread raise a Son to God and not a son to God only but even God the Son which is more then was I dare not say or could be done by the holy Ghost whose part in this great work we have spoke of hitherto ARTICVLI 4. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Natus ex Virgine Maria. i. e. Born of the Virgin Mary CHAP. IV. Of the birth of CHRIST The feast of his Nativity Why born of a Virgin The Prophecie of Isaiah The Parentage and priviledge of the Blessed Virgin PRoceed we to the second branch of this present Article from the Conception to the Birth of our Lord and Saviour the most materiall part to us of the whole mysterie It had been little to our comfort though much unto the honour of our humane nature had the WORD been only made flesh and with that flesh ascended presently into heaven and had not dwelt amongst us and shewn forth his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth It was not Gods being in the flesh but his being manifested in the flesh which St. Paul cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great mysterie of Godlinesse For without that although he might have been seen of Angels yet had he not been preached unto the Gentiles nor been believed on in the world as the Saviour of it The end of his taking on himself our flesh was to save poor man For this is an acceptable saying as St. Paul hath told us that JESUS CHRIST came into the world to save sinners and come into the world he could not in the sense he speaks of but by being born I know some thinke that though ADAM had never sinned yet it had been necessary for the exaltation of humane nature that the WORD should have been made man and Bonaventure doth approve it as a Catholick opinion and consonant to natural reason But howsoever it may seem in his judgment to agree with reason assuredly it is more agreeable to the piety and analogie of faith that the Son of God had never appeared in our flesh but for the delivery of mankinde from sin and misery neither the Scripture nor the Fathers speaking of the incarnation but with reference to mans redemption To this effect St. Augustine speaketh most divinely Si homo non periisset filius hominis non venisset nulla causa fuit Christi veniendi nisi peccatores salvos facere Tolle morbos tolle vulnera et nulla est medicinae causa That is to say If man had not perished the son of man had not come for therefore came the son of man to save that which was lost there being no other cause of Christs coming but the salvation of sinners Take away diseases and wounds from man and what need is there of a Physitian So that resolving with the Scriptures and Fathers that there was no cause for the incarnation of the WORD but that he should be born for our redemption let us proceed therein with that fear and reverence which justly doth belong to so great a mysterie as the manifestation of God in the flesh is said to be by the Apostle A mysterie in which there is not any thing beneath a miracle Nor can it easily be resolved whether of the two be more full of wonder either that God the WORD should be born of Woman or born of such a woman as was a Virgin The first and greatest of the two that which indeed is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a miracle of miracles as man is somewhere called by Plato was that the word was made flesh and did receive that flesh from a mortall womb A wonder it seemed to Nicodemus that a man should be born when he was old or enter a second time into his mothers womb and be born again A greater wonder must it be for him to enter into the womb and thence to finde a passage into the world who was far older then all time and had his being when the world but began to be A greater wonder must it seem for him to take a being from a mortal creature by whom all creatures had their being and did himself create the same womb which bare him
body which yet is neither high nor low nor thick nor thin nor broad nor narrow not visible unto the eye nor perceptible unto any other of the senses which is to faign a body without all dimensions which never any body was supposed to be and make it neither subject unto sight nor touch though Christ was subject unto both and evidenced to be so in St. Thomas his case Add next that this most glorious body made of flesh and bloud endued with a reasonable soul and having a Divinity superadded to it must be devoured and eaten and perhaps worse used which is to make all Christians to be Anthropophagi yea and worse then so not to be man-eaters only but God-eaters too And last of all for this conversion of the bread into the very body of Christ the same which was once born of the Virgin Mary they know not what to call it nor on what to ground it A totall conversion they would have it and yet the tast and colour of the bread doth remain as formerly a substantial conversion it must also be and yet it is sine sui mutatione without a change at all saith Bonaventure Such a conversion t is that they know no name for it for it is neither productiva nor conservativa as Bellarmine himselfe confesseth And therefore he is fain to devise a name and call it conversio adductiva a notion which neither Divinity nor Philosophy ever knew before and hath been quarrelled since by the Pontificians as himself confesseth in the book of his Recognitions And as they knew not how to call it so neither can they tell upon what to ground it Suares affirmeth as before that it depends ex Mathematicis Philosophicis Principiis on Philosophical and Mathematical principles and then as the Archb. of Spalato said in defence thereof it may be an errour in Philosophy but not in Divinity The most part ground it only on the Churches authority by which it was determined in the Councell of Lateran and yet both Scotus and Durandus two learned Papists condemn the Church of unadvisednesse for so defining it by reason of those inextricable plunges and perplexities which it puts them to Some would fain â—ound it in the Scriptures and have tugged hard for it but after all their pains they are told by Cajetan that there is nothing in the Gospell to make good the matter Their best way were to let our Saviour be in heaven at the right hand of God and not to bring him down by their new devices Of which his sitting at the right hand of God I am next to speak having thus cleared my way unto it by this Dissertation ARTICVLI 7. Pars 2da 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Sedet ad dextram Dei Patris Omnipotentis i. e. And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty CHAP. XII Of sitting at the right hand of God the proper meaning of the phrase and of the Priviledges which accrew thereby to our Lord and Saviour THey which consider our Redeemer in his several Offices do look upon him as a King a Priest and a Prophet A Priest to offer prayers and sacrifices for the sins of his people a Prophet to instruct them in the ways of righteousness a King to govern and direct them by the rules of justice And unto every one of these they do design some branch or Article of the Creed in which it either is expressed or else may easily be fitted and reduced unto it That of his Priesthood they refer wholly to this last branch of the present Article the sitting of our Saviour at the right hand of God where he maketh intercession for us which is the most proper duty of the Priestly function That of the Kingly Office they refer partly unto this but chiefly to the Article following where he is represented as the Judge both of quick and dead But first before we come to that we must enquire into the meaning of the phrase or form of speech Sedere ad dextram Dei this sitting at the right hand of God then shew how this is verified in Christ our Saviour Which done we will consider the effects and benefits which do redound unto us men by that great advancement which Christ hath merited or acquired in our humane nature And first this phrase or form of speech viz. the sitting on the right hand of God the Father Almighty is borrowed from the guise of great Kings and Potentates amongst whom it is an usual thing to place the man whom they intend to honour in the sight of the people at their own right hand So did King Solomon with his Mother in the Book of the Kings when she came to him as a suiter in behalf of Adonijah Whom when the King saw he rose up to meet her saith the Text and bowed himself unto her sate down on his Throne and caused a seat to be set for the Kings Mother and she sate at his right hand A greater honour to a subject for a Queen Mother is no more by the law of Nations the King could not do her and he made known by this unto all his people that he would have his Mother honoured in the next place to himself So read we in the Book of Psalms upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in gold of Ophir Which whether it were meant of Davids own or Solomons wiâ—e shews plainly that she was to be accounted of as the second person in the Kingdome next in degree and honour to the King himself Of which St. Hierom giveth this reason Est enim Regina regnatque cum eo because she was the Queen and in her conjugal right reigned together with him And this appears yet further by the suit or motion which the mother of Zebedees children made in behalf of her sons when she came unto him saying Grant me that these my two sons might sit the one on thy right hand and the other on thy left in thy Kingdome The good woman as it seems conceived as generally the Apostles and Disciples did that Christ should be invested one day with the Crown of Israel and she desired to have her sons advanced to the highest places of trust and reputation about their Master She did not doubt but they should be of good esteem with him upon all occasions Our Saviour Christ had as it were assured them of that before when he took them and Peter out of all the rest to be present at the miracle of his Transfiguration and the raysing of the Rulers daughter That which she aimed at was of an higher nature ut ipsi primi essent caeteros omnes praeirent in regno ipsius to have them made the chief above all the rest the one to hold the first and the other the second place about him That was her meaning in the placing of them the one at his right hand and the
Translation it is called a washing yet in the Greek and Latine both it is a baptization Next to these positive and practical Proofs we will add some natural and experimental Evidences which conclude the same and are more within the compass of the observation of the meanest capacities We see the Sun withdraweth from us every evening the comfort both of light and heat and yet we doubt not of his rising on the morrow morning We go to bed as to our grave yeelding our selves to sleep-which is the image of death with prayers and supplications to Almighty God in hope to be restored unto sense and action on the day insuing We note it in the common course of the works of Nature that Herbs and Plants and all the Flowers of the field do in the time of Winter seem to lose that life which made them flourish with more lustre than the Court of Solomon but we observe withall as a thing of course that the next Spring returns them to their perfect beauties Expectandum nobis etiam corporis ver est we have a Spring to come said the Christian Advocate The Husbandman commits his seed unto the ground in expectation of a plentiful and joyful Harvest his hope deceiveth him not at last though that which he buried in the womb of the Earth must die before it quicken unto life again This is another of St. Pauls Arguments to our present purpose Thou fool saith he that which thou sowest is not quicked except it die upon which words of the Apostle take this gloss or descant out of an old Greek M. S. in Bodleys Liberarie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Earth laboureth not after the ordinarie manner of a woman in travel Her Infant Corn is not quickned except it die Should it live still it could not be formed in that womb The earth receiveth the bare corn onely and by corrupting it restoreth it in a better fashion than she took it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And can we have saith he a more forcible impression or representation of our own restitution than by this example Observing these things as we do in the works of Nature how can we think so poorly of the Lord our God as if it were not in his power with the like facility to re-give to us our former beauties as either to the Plants or Planets Should we make search into the secret and more wonderful works of prudent nature we may be told by Plinie That dead Bees are restored both to life and motion onely by sprinkling them with Nepenthe young Pellicans by the blood of the old ones and Eels with vinegar and blood The raising of the new Phenix out of the ashes of the old one hath been a thing so generally received over all the world that for my part I dare not question it though I know some do And of the Swallows it is said that at the beginning of Winter they use to fall down together in heaps into the dust or water and there sleep in their Chaos till hearing the voyce of returning Nature at the Spring they awaken out of this dead sleep and live amongst the fowls of the Air again And more than so it is affirmed by George Maior a German writer that he found a company of Swallows lying dead under an old Table in the Church of Witteberge which by an artificial heat he restored to life the ordinary time of nature being then not come in which they should revive of course This makes it plain that nature is no Enemy to a Resurrection by consequent our Faith in this agreeable to the course of Nature and not to be denyed by a natural man though no one Point or Article of the Christian Faith hath been more eagerly opposed by the ancient Gentiles nor more pertinaciously decried by Heretical Christians And howsoever men of inferior parts might make scruple of it yet can I not but wonder at those great Philosophers that they should plead so earnestly against a Tenet so consonant to the waies and works of Nature and otherwise not much a stranger to their own opinions Themselves both Platonists and Pythagoreans acknowledge an eternal being of the soul and though the man did dye and his corps was buried yet the Soul lived again in another Body And so the antient Druides were perswaded also Regit idem spiritus artus Orbe aâ—io as the Poet hath informed us of them The truth of this opinion I dispute not here I know it to be vain and foolish Onely I shall conclude from their own Position and think the Argument will be good ad homines That the same Soul may be as easily beleeved to live again in its own body as in the body of another made of purpose for it And this Tertullian doth retort against those Philosophers who did admit of this Pythagorean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this transmigration of the soul from body to body and yet deny the Resurrection of that body to which the Soul more naturally ought to be united Si quaecunque ratio praeest animarum humanarum reciprocandarum in corpora cur non in eandem substantiam redeant cum hoc sit restitui id esse quod fuerat as his words there are That which most stumbled both these Philosophical and our Christian Hereticks was That the faithful of the Primitive times did not onely stand for the Assumption of a new Body which perhaps the others would have granted with no great difficulty but the Resurrection of the old The restitution of a body which had either been consumed to ashes eaten by Worms devoured by Fishes and wilde Beasts and finally incorporated into the substance of those Beasts and Fishes which had so devoured it Which being thought impossible by some old Philosophers and not well understood by some poor weak Christians occasioned it on both sides to be called in question and by some Christian Hereticks to be more decried than ever it had been by the Gentiles formerly The Marcionites of old denied it so did Marcus too and so did Basilides Cerdo and the rest of that wicked brood The Anabaptists and Socinians of these times do deny it also although not on the same grounds as the former Hereticks by those it was denied because thought impossible in which they and the Gentiles did agree together by these because they do not think it consonant to the Word of God That flesh and blood should inherit the Kingdom of Heaven as if there were no difference between the substance of flesh and the infirmities and frailties which attend upon it between a natural body and a body glorified Of which more anon In the mean time to satisfie the doubts of those of what sort soever which charge this Article of our Faith with impossibilities we may demand of them these particulars besides what hath been said to the point already viz. Whether it be not equally as possible to Almighty