26 MEDITATIONS AND DISCOURSES « is in heaven." Although he was then on earth as the two natures of Christ, the divine and lisonan, worn mix- Son ofman; yet be ceased not to be God thereby; in ed and compounded as it were ioto one: and this could his divine nature he was then also in heaven. not be without an alteration in the divine nature, for it He who is God, can no more be not God, than he would be modem be essentially what it was not; for one who is not God, can be God: and our difference with nature hath but one and the same essence. the Socinians herein is, we believe that Christ being But as we said before; although the Lord Christ him- God, was made man for our sakes; they say, that be- self in his person was made to be what he was not be- ing only a man, he was made a God for his own sake. fore, in that our nature hereby was made to be his, yet This then is the foundation of the glory of Christ in his divine nature was not so: there is in it neither varia- this condescension, the life and soul of all heavenly truth bleness, nor shadow of turning. It abode the same in and mysteries; namely that the Son of God becoming in him in all its essential properties, actings, and blessed- time to be what he was not, the Son of man, ceased not ness, as it was from eternity. It neither did, acted, nor thereby to be what he was, even the eternal Son of God. sufferedany thing, but what is proper unto the Divine Wherefore, Being: the Lord Christ did and suffered many things in 2. Much less did this condescension consist in the life and death, in his own person, by his human nature, conversion of the divine nature into the human, which wherein the Divine neither did, norsuffered any thing was the imagination of some ofthe Arians of old, and we at all; although in the doing of them, his person be de- bave yet (to my own knowledge) some that follow them nominated from that nature; so Godpurchased hischurch in the same dotage. They say that the Word which was with his own blood, Acts.`xx. 28. in the beginning, by which all things were made, being It may then be said, What did the Lord Christ in in itself an effect of the divine will and power, was in this condescension, with respect unto his divine nature? the fulness of time turned into ,flesh; that is, the sub- Theapostle tells us, that he humbled himself and made stance of it was so, as the water in the miracle wrought himself of no reputation, Phil. ii. 7, 3. He veiled the by our Saviour, was turned into wine, for by an act of glory of his divine nature in ours, and what he did the divine power of Christ it ceased to be water sub- therein, so as that there was no outward appearance or stantially, and was wine only; not water mixed with manifestation of it. The world hereon was so far from wine: so these men suppose a substantial change of the looking on him as the true God, that it believed hint one nature into the other, of the divine nature into the not to be a good man. Hence they could never bear human; like what the papists imagine in their transub- the least intimation ofhis divinenature, supposing them- stantiation: so they say God was made man, his essence selves secured from any such thing, because they look- being turned into that of a man. ed on him with their eyes to be a man, as he was in- But this no way belongs unto the condescension of deed, no less truly and really than any one of them- Christ. We may call it Ichabod, it bath no glory in it. selves. Wherefore on -that testimony given of himsel It destroys both his natures, and leaves him a person in Before Abraham teas, Iam, which asserts a pre-existence whom we are not concerned. For according unto this from eternity in another nature than what they saw, imagination, that divine nature wherein he was in the they were filled with rage, and took up stones to cast at form of God, did in its own form cease to be, yea, was him, John viii. 53, 59. And they gave a reason of utterly destroyed, as being substantially changed into their madness, John x. '35. namely, that he being a thenature of man; as the water did cease to be, when man should make himself to be God. This was such a it was.turned into wine; and that human nature which thing, they thought, as could never enter into the heart was made thereof, hath no alliance or kindred unto us, ofa wise and soberman, namely, that being so, owning or our nature; seeing it was not made of a woman, but himself to be such, he should yet say of himself that of the substance of the word. he was God: this is thatwhich no reason can compre- S. There was not in this condescension, the least fiend, which nothing in nature can parallel or illustrate change or alteration in the divine nature. Eutyches that one and the same person shall be both God and and those that followed him of old, conceived that the man. And this is the principal plea of the Socinians
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