It belongs unto this great mystery, and is a fruit of divine wisdom, that our deliverance should be wrought in and by the same nature wherein and whereby we were ruined. The reasons hereof, and the glory of God therein, are at large discoursed in the ensuing treatise. To the same purpose speaks the same holy writer: (lib. v. cap. 14:) " Non in semetipso recapitulasset hsec Dominus, nisi ipse caro et san- guis secundum principalem plasmationem factus fuisset ; salvans in semetipso in fine illud quod perierat in principio in Adam. Si autem ob aliam quandam dispositionem Dominus incarnatus est, et ex altera substantia carnem attulit, non ergo in semetipso recapitulatus est hom-
inem, adhuc etiam nee caro quidem dici potest Habuit ergo et ipse
carnem et sanguinem, non alteram quandam, sed ipsam principaleir Patris plasmationem in se recapitulans, exquirens id quod perierat. And to the same purpose : (lib. v. cap. 1 :) "Neque enim vere esse sanguinem et carnem habens, per quam nos redemit, nisi antiquair plasmationem Adse m seipsum recapitulasset." That which these passages give testimony unto, is what we have discoursed concerning
THE PREFACE. 2,«
the necessity of our redemption in and by tlie nature that sinned . and yet withal, that it should be free from all that contagion which invaded our nature by the fall. And these things are divinely ex* pressed. " Our Lord," saith he, " had not gathered up these thing* in himself, had not he been made flesh and blood, according unto it^ original creation." (The reader may obsei-ve, that none of the ancient ■writers do so frequently express the fall of Adam by our apostasy from God, and our recovery by a recapitulation in Christ, as Irenaaus — his recapitulation being nothing but the ava-/.i(paXaiu6ig mentioned by the apostle, Eph. i. 10 — and he here affirms, that, xmto tins end, the Lord was made flesh ; " secundum principalem plasmationem," as his words are rendered ; that is plainly, the original creation of our nature in innocency, uprightness, purity, and righteousness.) "So he saved in himself in the end, what peiished in Adam at the beginning." (The same nature, in and by the same nature.) " For if the Lord had been incarnate for any other disposition," {i. e., cause, reason, or end,) " and had brought flesh from any other substance," (i. e., celestial or ethereal, as the Gnostics imagined,) "he had not recovered men, brought our nature unto a head in himself, nor could he have been said to be flesh. He therefore himself had flesh and blood not of any other kind ; but he took to himself that which was originally created of the Father, seeking that which was lost." The same is observed by Augiistine: (Lib. de Fide, ad Petruin Diaconum:) "Sic igitur Chris- tum Dei Filium, id est, unam ex Trinitate personam, Deum verum crede, ut divinitatem ejus de natura Patris natam esse non dubites; et sic eum verum hominem crede, et ejus carnem, non coelestis, non aerise, non alterius cujusquam putes esse naturae, sed ejus cujus est omnium caro; id est, c[uam ipse Deus, homini primo de terra plas- mavit, et cseteris hominibus plasmat." — " So believe Christ the Son of God, that is, one person of the Trinity, to be the tnie God, that you doubt not but that his divinity was bom" (by eternal generation) "of the nature of the Father; and so believe him to be a true man, that you suppose not his flesh to be aerial, or heavenly, or of any other nature, but of that which is the flesh of men ; that is, which God himself fonned in the first man of the earth, and which he forms in all other men." That which he speaks of one person of the Trinity, hath respect unto the heretical opinion of Homiisdas, the bishop of Rome, who contended that it was unlawful to say that one person of the Trinity was incarnate, and persecuted some Scythian monks, men not unlearned about it, who were strenuously defended by Maxentius, one of them.
It carrieth iu it a great condecency unto divine wisdom, that man should be restored unto the image of God by him who was the essential image of the Father; (as is declared in our discourse;) and
26 THE PEEFACE.
that he was made like unto us, that we might be made Hke unto him, and unto God through him. So speaks the same Irenseus : (lib. v. Prffifat. :) " Verbum Dei Jesus Christus, qui propter immensam suam dilectionem, factus est quod sumus nos, ut nos perficeret quod est ipse." — "Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who, from his own infinite love, was made what we are, that he might make us what he is;" that is, by the restoration of the image of God in us. And again : (lib. iii. cap. 20:) "Filius Dei existens semper apud Patrem, et homo factus, longam hominum expositionem in seipso recapitulavit ; in compendio nobis salutem prsestans, ut quod perdideramus in Adam, id est, secun- dum imaginem et similitudinem esse Dei, hoc in Christo Jesu recipe- remus. Quia enim non erat possibile, eum hominem, qui semel victus fuerat et elisus per inobedientiam, replasmare et obtinere brabium (jSpaQsibv) victorise; iterum autem impossibile erat ut salutem percip- eret, qui sub peccato ceciderat. Utraque operatus est filius Verbum Dei existens, a Patre descendens et incavnatus, et usque ad mortem descendens, et dispensationem consummans salutis nostra?." — "Being the Son of God always with the Father, and being made man, he reconciled or gathered up in himself the long-continued exposing of men," (unto sin and judgment,) "bringing in salvation in this com- pendious way, (in this summary of it,) that what we had lost in Adam — that is, our being in the image and likeness of God — we should recover in Christ. For it was not possible that man that had been once conquered and broken by disobedience, should by himself be reformed, and obtain the croAvn of victory ; nor, again, was it pos- sible that he should recover salvation who had fallen under sin. Both were wrought by the Son, the Word of God, who, descending from the Father, and being incarnate, submitted himself to death, perfecting the dispensation of our salvation."