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15. The like testimony of God's ultimate purpose to be found in the Books of the Psalms and of the Prophets.

a. In the Psalms: all prayer is declaring the will of God, all praise declaring the glory of God; and the declaration of the glory of God is a setting forth of that which God essentially is.

b. In the Prophets: as the means of the end are set forth, so will be the purpose of the end.

In Ezekiel a constant declaration follows the events set forth: "Ye shall know that I am the Lord."

The proof from the Prophets cannot be opened until its plain and minute interpretation is entered on. 16. A still more full testimony of God's ultimate purpose from the New Testament, though this is after another method. a. In the Jewish Church, Christ, as the beginning and the end, was not so clearly revealed.

b. In the Gentile Church, Christ is specially set forth as the creation and fulness of all things.

c. The constant reference of all things, under the Jewish, to the ultimate purpose, will, in the Gentile, be supplanted by a like reference to Christ as the end.

d. The proof of the ultimate purpose will be found in the clear declaration that Christ, as the fulness of all things, is manifested to this intent.

e. This intent is specially declared to be self-manifestation. 17. This sums up the former proof, and shews the antitype to have the same purpose which is ascribed to the type. 18. A consideration of the glory ascribed to God will lead to the same conclusion.

19. As will the consideration of the covenant to believe in Christ, and denunciations against unbelievers.

20. This manifestation is in the second Person of the Trinity. a. Of the essential Being of God, by means of created things.

21. The relations assumed by the God-man to created things, and by the other God-persons towards him thus related, are distinct from the essential relations, and only a manifestation of them.

22. The precise nature of the headship and mystical body of the Lord Jesus cannot be understood, until the literal and figurative language of Scripture is examined.

23. It will, however, be the perfected form of created things, and the perfected manifestation of the assumed relations, as these manifest the essential relations of God.

24. It is thus seen that all creation serveth but to new creation; new creation to the manifestation of Christ's headship; and this headship to the shewing forth the glorious and ineffable Being of God.

(To be continued.)

240

ON THE HUMAN NATURE OF CHRIST.

NOTWITHSTANDING the mass of authorities brought forward in our first Number in defence of the orthodox doctrine of the human nature in Christ, we deem it good still to go on confirming the same doctrine, that our readers may find in every Number some antidote to the heresy now so prevalent, which denies that the Son of GOD was also Son of Man. The first extract is from the Notes to the Bishops' Bible, also reprinted in the folio edition of our authorized version of 1683. These notes are compiled from Beza, Camerarius, and Villerius; sanctioned by the archbishops and bishops who superintended Parker's, or the Bishops', Bible; and confirmed by the authorities under whom the edition of 1683 was published. The other extract is from Heylyn, 1654.

1

From the Bishops' Bible.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

h

"For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for i sin condemned sin in the flesh.

k

"A conclusion of all the former disputation, from ch. i. 16 even to this place. Seeing that we, being justified by faith in Christ, do obtain remission of sins, and imputation of righteousness, and are also sanctified; it followeth thereof, that they who are grafted into Christ by faith, are out of all fear of condemnation. 2 The fruits of the Spirit, or effects of sanctification which is begun in us, do not ingraft us into Christ, but do declare that we are grafted into him. a Follow not the flesh for their guide: for he is not said to live after the flesh, that hath the Holy Ghost for his guide, though sometimes he step away. 3 A preventing of an objection: seeing that the virtue of the Spirit which is in us, is so weak, how may we gather thereby, that there is no condemnation to them that have that virtue? Because, saith he, that virtue of-the quickening Spirit which is so weak in us, is most perfect and most mighty in Christ; and being imputed unto us which believe, causeth us to be so accounted of, as though there were no reliques of corruption and death in us; therefore hitherto, Paul disputed of remission of sins, and imputation of fulfilling the law, and also of sanctification which is begun in us; but now he speaketh of the perfect imputation of Christ's manhood, which part was necessarily required to the full appeasing of our consciences: for our síns are defaced by the blood of Christ, and the guiltiness of our corruption is covered with the imputation of Christ's obedience, and the corruption itself (which the Apostle calleth sinful sin) is healed in us by little and little by the gift of sanctification: but yet lacketh beside that another remedy; to wit-The perfect sanctification of Christ's own flesh, which also is to us imputed. The power and authority of the Spirit, against which is set the tyranny of sin. c Which mortifieth the old man, and quickeneth the new man. d To wit, absolutely and perfectly. e For Christ's sanctification being imputed to us, perfecteth our sanctification which is begun in us. 4 He useth no argument here, but expoundeth the mystery of sanctification

which is imputed to us: for because, saith he, that the virtue of the law was not such (and that by reason of the corruption of our nature) that it could make man pure and perfect, and for that it rather kindled the disease of sin, than did put it out to extinguish it, therefore God clothed his Son with flesh like unto our sinful flesh, wherein he utterly abolished our corruption, that, being accounted thoroughly pure and without fault in him, apprehended and laid hold on by faith, we might be found to have fully that singular perfection which the law requireth, and therefore that there might be no condemnation in us. f Which is not proper to the law, but cometh by our fault. g In man not born anew, whose disease the law could point out, but it could not heal it. h Of man's nature which is corrupt through sin, until he sanctified it. To abolish sin in our flesh, Sheweth that sin hath no right in us.

From Heylyn's Theologia Veterum.

"Born of the Virgin Mary.

"Now that which, in this article, is expressed by the present words, Natus ex Virgine Maria, born of the Virgin Mary, in that of Nice is thus delivered, and was made man. Some heretics had formerly called this truth in question, affirming that our Saviour's body was not true and real, but only an airy and imaginary body, as did the Marcionites;-others, that he received not his human being of the Virgin Mary, but brought his body from the heavens, and only passed through her womb, as through a conduit pipe; as Valentinian: as if our blessed Lord and Saviour had only borrowed for a time the shape of man, therein to act his woeful tragedy on the public theatre of the world, and made the Virgin's womb his tyring house. And some, again, there were who did conceive his body to be free from passion, maintaining that it was impassibilis; and that he was not subject to those natural frailties and infirmities, which are incident to the sons of men by the ordinary course of nature. To meet with these and other heretics of the like kind, the fathers, in the Nicene council, expressed our Saviour's being born of the Virgin Mary, which every heretic had wrested to his proper sense, in words which might more fully signify the truth and reality of his taking of our flesh upon him; in words which were not capable of so many evasions, declaring thus, that being incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, factus est homo, he was made man; and, consequently, was made subject unto those infirmities, which are inseparably annexed to our human nature. This, that which is positively affirmed by the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews (iv. 15), where it is said, that we have not such an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. The High Priest which God gave us in the time of the Gospel, was to be such as those he gave unto his people in the time of the Law; one who could have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself is compassed also with infirmities.

(Heb. v. 2.) The difference only stood in this, that our Saviour's passions and infirmities were free from sin, and neither did proceed from sin nor incline him to it, as do the passions and infirmities of men merely natural; which is the meaning of the Apostle Paul in the place aforesaid, where he affirmeth of our High Priest, that he was tempted, that is to say, afflicted, tried, and proved in all things like as we are, save only that it was without sin, or sinful motions. And to this truth the catholic doctors of the church do attest unanimously. St. Ambrose thus: Christ, saith he, took upon him not the shew, but the truth, and reality of the flesh. What then? Debuit ergo et dolorem suscipere ut vinceret tristitiam, non excluderet; he therefore was to have a sense of human sorrows, that he might overcome them, not exclude them only. Fulgentius goes to work more plainly, Nunc ostendendum est, &c. Now must we shew, that the passions of grief, sorrow, fear, &c. do properly pertain unto the soul; and that our Saviour did endure them all in his human soul, ut veram totamque in se cum suis infirmitatibus hominis demonstraret suscepti substantiam, that he might shew in himself the true and whole substance of man accompanied with its infirmities. The fathers of the Greek church do affirm the same. When thou hearest, saith Cyril, that Christ wept, feared, and sorrowed, acknowledge him to be a true man, and ascribe these things to the nature of man; for Christ took a mortal body subject to all the passions of nature, sin always excepted. Which, when he had affirmed in thesi, he doth thus infer, Et ita singulas passiones carnis, &c. Thus shalt thou find all the passions or affections of the flesh to be stirred in Christ, but without sin-that, being so stirred up, they might be repressed, and our nature reformed to the better. But none of all the ancients state the point more clearly than John Damascene, in his book Fide de Orthod. iii. 20, where he tells us this: We confess that Christ did take unto him all natural and blameless passions; for he assumed the whole man, and all that pertained to man, save sin. Natural and blameless passions are those which are not properly in our power, and whatsoever entered into man's life through the occasion of Adam's sin, as hunger, thirst, weakness, labour, weeping, shunning of death, fear, agony, whence came sweat with drops of blood. These things are in all men by nature; and, therefore, Christ took all these to him, that he might sanctify them all. With this agreeth the distinction of the latter schoolmen, who divide the infirmities of the flesh into natural and personal, calling those natural which follow the whole nature of man, as hunger, thirst, labour, weariness, and even death itself; those personal, which arise out of some defect or imperfection in the constitution of the body, or disorder of diet, or from some other

outward cause, as agues, leprosies, and the like. Then they infer, that all the frailties and infirmities (you may call them punishments if you will, as indeed they are) that are from without, and are common to the whole nature of man, were taken with our flesh by Christ, who came to be a Saviour of all men without respect of persons; but such as flow from sin dwelling within, or proceed from particular causes, and are proper only unto some, those he took not on him. And of these passions and infirmities, attendant on Christ's human nature, I have spoken the rather in this place, because it doth so manifestly conduce to the better understanding of the following article, namely, his sufferings of all sorts under Pontius Pilate."

In ipsa item Catholica Ecclesia magnopere curandum est, ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.

REVIEWS AND MISCELLANIES.

ON THE THEOLOGY OF THE PERIODICAL JOURNALS OF THE PRESENT DAY.

SHORTLY after we commenced our labours as journalists, a new "Religious and Family Paper" was set on foot, called "The Ecclesiastic" from its Prospectus the following passages are extracted :-"The first glance which a reflective eye takes of the state of literature and theological learning in this country must satisfy it that there never was a time when truth was so actively but so superficially sought for..... In the heavy rush after science, we miss the true signs of solid improvement. Our rejoicing at the apparent progress of the popular mind is damped by the discovery that excitement, not strength, has been the consequence of diffused knowledge; and that there is an utter want of that deep, quiet tone of serious thought, which invariably characterizes a really improving people. We think we discover the cause of this in the state of learning before it is diffused among the multitude.”

After some remarks, on the state of poetry, tales, romances, &c., the writer proceeds :-"But we have, unfortunately, scarcely a brighter prospect when we proceed to examine the state of theological learning and literature. We should be wanting in the candour which belongs to the duty of our office, did we not confess that we believe there never was a period in which

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