ARTICLE II.

Of the Word or Son of God, which was made
very Man.

The Son which is the Word of the Father, begotten from Everlasting of the Father; the very and Eternal God, of one Substance with the Father, took Man's Nature in the Womb of the Blessed Wirgin of her Substance; so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is, the Godhead and Hanhood, were joined together in one Person; never to be divided : whereof is one Christ, verp God and verp Man: who truly suffered, was dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a Sacrifice not only for Driginal Guilt, but also for actual Sing of Den.

THERE

HERE are in this Article five heads to be explained.

I. That the Son or Word is of the same substance with the Father, begotten of him from all eternity.

II. That he took man's nature upon him in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and of her substance.

III. That the two natures of the Godhead and Manhood, both still perfect, were in him joined in one person never to be divided.

IV. That Christ truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried.

V. That he was our sacrifice to reconcile the Father to us, and that not only for original guilt, but for actual sins.

The first of these leads me to prosecute what was begun in the former Article: and to prove, that the Son, or Word, was from all eternity begotten of the same substance with the Father. It is here to be noted, that Christ is in two respects the Son, and the only begotten Son of God. The one is, as he was man; the miraculous overshadowing of the blessed Virgin by the Holy Ghost, having, without the ordinary course of nature, formed the first beginnings of Christ's human body in the womb of the

Virgin. Thus that miracle being instead of a natural begetting, he may in that respect be called the begotten, and the only begotten Son of God. The other sense is, that the Word, or the divine Person, was in and of the substance of the Father, and so was truly God. It is also to be considered, that by the word one Substance, is to be understood that this second Person is not a creature of a pure and excellent nature, like God, holy and perfect, as we are called to be; but is truly God as the Father is. Begetting is a term that naturally signifies the relation between the Father and the Son; but what it strictly signifies here is not possible for us to understand till we comprehend this whole matter: nor can we be able to assign a reason why the emanation of the Son, and not that of the Holy Ghost likewise, is called begetting. In this we use the Scripture terms, but must confess we cannot frame a distinct apprehension of that which is so far above us. This begetting was from all eternity: if it had been in time, the Son and Holy Ghost must have been creatures; but if they are truly God, they must be eternal, and not produced by having a being given them, but educed of a substance that was eternal, and from which they did eternally spring. All these are the natural consequences of the main Article that is now to be proved; and when it is once proved clearly from Scripture, these do follow by a natural and necessary deduction.

ART.

II.

The first and great proof of this is taken from the words with which St. John begins his Gospel. In the beginning John i. 1, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 2, 3. was God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. Here it is to be observed, that these words are set down here, before St. John comes to speak of Christ's being made in our nature: this passage belongs to another precedent being that he had. The beginning also here is set to import, that it was before creation or time now a duration before time is eternal. So this beginning can be no other than that duration which was before all things that were made. It is also plainly said over and over again, that all things were made by this Word. A power to create must be infinite; for it is certain, that a power which can give being is without bounds. And although the word make may seem capable of a larger sense, yet, as in other places of the New Testament, the stricter word create is used and applied to Christ, as the Maker of all things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible; so the word make is used through the Old Testament for

create; so that God's making the heaven and the earth is the character frequently given of him to distinguish him from idols and false Gods. And of this Word it is likewise said, that he was with God, and was God. These words seem very plain, and the place where they are put by St. John, in the front of his Gospel, as it were an inscription upon it, or an introduction to it, makes it very evident, that he, who of all the writers of the New Testament has the greatest plainness and simplicity of style, would not have put words here, such as were not to be understood in a plain and literal signification, without any key to lead us to any other sense of them. This had been to lay a stone of stumbling in the very threshold; particularly to the Jews, who were apt to cavil at Christianity; and were particularly jealous of every thing that savoured of idolatry, or of the plurality of Gods. And upon this occasion I desire one thing to be observed, with relation to all those subtile expositions which those who oppose this doctrine put upon many of those places by which we prove it: that they represent the Apostles as magnifying Christ, in words that at first sound seem to import his being the true God; and yet they hold that in all these they had another sense, and a reserve of some other interpretation, of which their words were capable. But can this be thought fair dealing? Does it look like honest men to write thus; not to say, men inspired in what they preached and writ? and not rather like impostors, to use so many sublime and lofty expressions concerning Christ as God, if all these must be taken down to so low a sense, as to signify only that he was miraculously formed, and endued with an extraordinary power of miracles, and an authority to deliver a new religion to the world; and that he was, in consideration of his exemplary death which he underwent so patiently, raised up from the grave, and had divine honours conferred upon him. In such an hypothesis as this, the world going in so naturally to the excessive magnifying, and even the deifying of wonderful men, it had been necessary to have prevented any such mistakes, and to have guarded against the belief of them; rather than to have used a continued strain of expressions, that seem to carry men violently into them, and that can hardly, nay very hardly, be softened by all the skill of critics, to bear any other sense. It is to be considered further, that when St. John writ his Gospel, there were three sorts of men particularly to be considered. The Jews, who could bear nothing that savoured of idolatry; so no stumbling-block was to be laid in their way, to

give them deeper prejudices against Christianity. Next to these were the Gentiles; who, having worshipped a variety of Gods, were not to be indulged in any thing that might seem to favour their polytheism. In fact, we find particular caution used in the New Testament, against the worshipping angels or saints. How can it therefore be imagined, that words would have been used, that in the plain signification that did arise out of the first hearing of them, imported that a man was God, if this had not been strictly true? The Apostles ought, and must have used a particular care to have avoided all such expressions, if they had not been literally true. The third sort of men in St. John's time were those of whom intimation is frequently given through all the Epistles, who were then endeavouring to corrupt the purity of the Christian doctrine, and to accommodate it so, both to the Jew and to the Gentile, as to avoid the cross and persecution upon the account of it. Church-history, and the earliest writers after St. John, assure us, that Ebion and Cerinthus denied the divinity of Christ, and asserted that he was a mere man. Controversy naturally carries men to speak exactly; and among human writers those who let things fall more carelessly from their pens, when they apprehend no danger or difficulty, are more correct both in their thoughts and in their expressions, when things are disputed; therefore, if we should have no other regard to St. John, but as an ordinary, cautious, and careful man, we must believe that he weighed all his words in that point, which was then the matter in question; and to clear which, we have good ground to believe, both from the testimony of ancient writers, and from the method that he pursues quite through it all, that he writ his Gospel; and that therefore every part of it, but this beginning of it more signally, was writ, and is to be understood in the sense which the words naturally import: that the Word which took flesh, and assumed the human nature, had a being before the worlds were made, and that this Word was God, and made the world.

11.

ART.

II.

Another eminent proof of this is in St. Paul's Epistle Phil. ii. 6, to the Philippians; in which, when he is exhorting 7, 8, 9, 10, Christians to humility, he gives an argument for it from our Saviour's example. He begins with the dignity of his Person, expressed thus; that he was in the form of God, and that he thought it no robbery to be equal with God: then his humiliation comes, that he made himself of no reputation, but took on him the form of a servant, (the same word with that used in the former verse :) after which follows

ART.

II.

his exaltation, and a name or authority above every name or authority is said to be given him; so that all in heaven, earth, and under the earth, (which seems to import angels, men, and devils,) should bow at his name, and confess that he is the Lord. Now in this progress that is made in these words, it is plain, that the dignity of Christ's Person is represented as antecedent both to his humiliation and to his exaltation. It was that which put the value on his humiliation, as his humiliation was rewarded by his exaltation. This dignity is expressed first, that he was in the form of God, before he humbled himself: he was certainly in the form of a servant, that is, really a servant, as other servants are: he was obedient to his parents, he was under the authority both of the Romans, of Herod, and of the Sanhedrim: therefore since his being really a servant is expressed by his being in the form of a servant, his being in the form of God, must also import that he was truly God. But the following words, that he thought it not robbery to be equal, or be held equal, (for so the word may be rendered,) with God, carry such a natural signification of his being neither a made nor subordinate God, and that his divinity is neither precarious, nor by concession, that fuller words cannot be devised for expressing an entire equality. Those who deny this are aware of it, and therefore they have put another sense on the words, in the form of God. They think, that they signify his appearing in the world, as one sent in the name of God, representing him, working miracles, and delivering a law in his name: and the words rendered, he thought it no robbery, they render, he did not catch at, or vehemently desire to be held in equal honour with God. And some authorities are found in eloquent Greek authors, who use the words rendered, he thought it not robbery, in a figurative sense, for the earnestness of desire, or the pursuing after a thing greedily, as robbers do for their prey. This rendering represents St. Paul, as treating so sacred a point in the figures of a high and seldom used rhetoric, which one would think ought to have been expressed more exactly. But if even this sense is allowed, it will make a strange period, and a very odd sort of an argument, to enforce humility upon us, because Christ, though working miracles, did not desire, or snatch at divine adorations, in an equality with God. The sin of Lucifer, and the cause of his fall, is commonly believed to be his desire to be equal to God; and yet this seems to be such an extravagant piece of pride, that it is scarce possible to think, that even the sublimest of created beings should be capable of it.