(3.) There are other unions in things natural, which are by mix- ture of composition. Hereon something is produced composed of various parts, which is not what any of them are. And there is a conversion of things, when one thing is substantially changed into another, — as the water in the miracle that Christ wrought was turned into wine; but this union hath no resemblance unto any of them. There is not a xpaaig, " a mixture," a contemperation of the divine and human natures into one third nature, or the conversion of one into another. Such notions of these things some fancied of old. Eutyches ^ supposed such a composition and mixture of the two na-
' Eutyches was a presbyter and abbot at ConstaTitinojile, and distinji^uished him- self by his opposition to the Nestorians, a.d. 448, asserting that in Clirist there is but one nature, and was condemned by the General Council at Cluilcedon, a.d. 451. In the ])reface to this work, p." 11, he is called "The Archimandrite." Mandrite is a Syriac word for " monk." Archimandrite corresponds with the term " abbot " in Europe. — Ed.
230 THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
tures in the person of Christ, as that the human nature at least should lose all its essential properties, and have neither understanding nor will of its own. And some of the Arians fancied a substantial change of that created divine nature which the}^ acknowledged, into the hu- man. But these imagmations, instead of professing Christ to be God and man, would leave him indeed neither God nor man ; and have been sufficiently confuted. Wherefore the union we treat of hath no similitude unto any such natural union as is the effect of compo- sition or mutation.
(4.) There is an artificial wiion wherewith some have illustrated this mystery; as that of fire and iron in the same sword. The sword is one; the nature of fire and that of iron different; — and the acts of them distinct ; the iron cuts, the fire bums ; — and the effects distinct ; cutting and burning ; yet is the agent or instrument but one sword. Something of this nature may be allowed to be spoken in way of allusion ; but it is a weak and imperfect representation of this mystery, on many accounts. For the heat in iron is rather an accident than a substance, is'separable from it, and in sundry other things diverts the mind from due apprehensions of this mystery.
(5.) There is a spiritual imion, — namely, of Christ and believers; or of God in Christ and believers, which is excellent and mysterious, — such as all other unions in nature are made use of in the Scripture to illustrate and represent. This some among us do judge to be of the same kind with that of the Son of God and the man Christ Jesus. Only they say they differ in degrees. The eternal Word was so united unto the man Christ Jesus, as that thereby he was exalted inconceivably above all other men, though ever so holy, and had gi-eater communications from God than any of them. Wherefore he was on many accounts the Son of God in a peculiar manner ; and, by a communication of names, is called God also. This being the opinion of Nestorius,^ revived again in the days wherein we live, I shall de- clare wherein he placed the conjunction or union of the two natures of Christ, — whereby he constituted two distinct persons of the Son of God and the Son of man, as these now do, — and briefly detect the vanity of it. For the whole of it consisted in the concession of sundry things that were true in particular, making use of the pretence of them unto the denial of that wherein alone the true union of the person of Christ did consist.
' Born at Germanicia, in the north of Syri.x — ordained a presbyter at An- tioch — appointed patriarch of Constantinople a.d. 428— objected to the epithet QioToxo;, as applied to the Virgin Mary, because " that God should be born of a luinian being is impossible "—charged in consequence with maintaining that Christ was a mere man — held in reality the distinct separation of the divine and human natures of Clirist, insisting on a connection between them by ffuvupua (junction), or Ivoixviris (indwelling), in opposition to 'ivuiris (union) — deposed by the Third General Council of Ephesus, a.d. 431, and died inobably before a.d. 450.— Ed.
THE HYPOSTATICAL UNION. 231
Nestorius allowed the presence of the Son of God with the man Christ Jesus to consist in five things.
[1.] He said he was so present with him xard -Trapderaaiv, or by inhabitation, as a man dwells in a house or a ship to rule it. He dwelt in him as his temple. So he dwells in all that believe, but in him in a more especial manner. And this is true with respect unto that fulness of the Spirit whereby God was with him and in him ; as he is with and in all believers, according unto the measures wherein they are made partakers of him. But this answers not that divine testimony, that in him dwelt " all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," Col. ii. 9. The fulness of the Godhead is the entire divine nature. This nature is considered in the person of the Son, or eter- nal Word ; for it was the Word that was made flesh. And this could no otherwise dwell in him bodily, really, substantially, but in the assumption of that nature to be his own. And no sense can be given unto this assertion to preserve it from blasphemy, — that the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in any of the saints bodily.