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with the Father. It was also shown that the mode of communicating the divine essence from the Father is such as to make the Second Person of the Trinity properly the Son of God. 'For,' says Pearson, 'the most proper generation which we know is nothing else but a vital production of another in the same nature, with a full representation of him from whom he is produced. But God the Father hath communicated to the Word the same divine essence by which He is God; and consequently He is of the same nature with Him, and thereby the same image and similitude of Him, and therefore His proper Son.'

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The Arians of old, though they allowed the ineffable dignity of the Son of God, yet allowed not this communication of the divine essence which makes the Son properly oμoovσios, of the same substance, with the Father. They maintained that He is avóμolos, unlike in substance; while the semi-Arians were willing to go a step further, and to acknowledge that He is oμolovios, similar in substance to the Father. The Arians also asserted the formula v TÓTε ÖTE OVK йy, there was a time when He was not. We maintain, therefore, the true and proper communication of the divine nature to the Son, and we now further assert that He was begotten from everlasting of the Father. Upon this we again quote Pearson (Art II. § 3): 'In human generation the son is begotten in the same nature with the father, which is performed by derivation or decision of part of the substance of the parent. But this decision includeth imperfection, because it supposeth a substance divisible, and consequently corporeal. Whereas the essence of God is incorporeal, spiritual, and indivisible; and therefore His nature is really communicated, not by derivation or decision, but by a total and plenary communication. In natural conceptions the father necessarily precedeth the son, and begetteth one younger than himself. It is sufficient if the

parent can produce another to live after him, and continue the existence of his nature when his person is dissolved. But this presupposeth the imperfection of mortality wholly to be removed, when we speak of Him who inhabiteth eternity; the essence which God always had without beginning, without

beginning he did communicate, being always Father, as always God. Animals, when they come to the perfection of nature, then become prolifical; in God, eternal perfection showeth His eternal fecundity. And that which is most remarkable, in human generations the son is of the same nature with the father, and yet is not the same man, because, though he hath an essence of the same kind, yet he hath not the same essence: the power of generation depending on the first prolifical benediction, Increase and multiply,' it must be made by way of multiplication, and thus every son becomes another man. But the divine essence being, by reason of its simplicity, not subject to division, and, in respect of its infinity, incapable of multiplication, is communicated so as not to be multiplied; insomuch that He which proceedeth by that communication hath not only the same nature, but is also the same God.'

Nothing need be added to this clear and masterly theological statement of the proper divinity and eternal generation of the Son of God.

II. The Incarnation.

This portion of the doctrine before us corresponds to the third Article of the Apostles' Creed: 'Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.' In the second section of that Article Pearson considers the action of the Holy Ghost in the conception, and lays down these positions :

1. The action of the Spirit excludes all human agency, even that of the Virgin herself, as the cause of the conception. This appears from passages in the gospels, describing what took place previously to the birth.

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2. What this action of the Spirit includes cannot further be defined from the words of Scripture than to say, whatever was necessary to cause the Virgin to perform the actions of a mother' must be attributed to the Holy Spirit. But this did not involve any communication of the substance of the Holy Ghost, which is uncreated. The flesh of Christ was not formed of any substance but that of the Virgin,

Further, under the third section of the same Article, it is

shown, from the testimony of Scripture, that, in accordance with prophecy, Mary was a virgin at the time of the birth of our Lord, and that her maternity involves of necessity these three things:

1. The reality of the conception of the real substance of our Saviour in her womb and of her substance.

2. The reality of the growth from her substance in her womb of that which was so conceived.

3. That what was so conceived and grew was brought forth by her with a true and proper nativity.

III. The Nature of the Person of the Incarnate Son.

The consideration of this in Pearson falls chiefly under Art. III. § 1, 'Who was conceived.' In this part of Pearson's treatise we find statements to the following effect: He who was conceived and born partook of the same human nature which is in all men. He is often called man. A parallel is drawn between Him and Adam. He is the seed of Eve, of Abraham, of David. Being thus truly man, His manhood consisted of body and soul. The body was real, for Scripture speaks of its growth, nutrition, and sufferings. The soul was a rational human soul, for He increased in wisdom, as well as in stature, which is impossible for the Godhead. Moreover, He experienced the various human affections and sorrows whose seat is in the soul. And He commended this human spirit to His Father at the moment of death.

This opposes the heresy of the Apollinarians, who held that though Jesus had a human body and animal soul, yet in Him the divine Logos was a substitute for the spiritual part of man (the νοῦς οι ψυχή λογική).

Next, it is maintained that in this incarnation there is no conversion of one nature into the other, nor any confusion between them. There is no confusion or mixture of the two natures, for otherwise a third something would result, which would be neither God nor man. The affections and infirmities of our nature could not belong to such a being. More1 Neander, 'Hist.' vol. iv. p. 119.

over, the Godhead being indivisible in substance, a confusion of substance must intermix the Father also.

Further, the divine cannot be converted into the human nature, for the uncreated Godhead cannot be created or made. Nor can the human nature be converted into the divine, as the Eutychians and other monophysites taught.

Finally, it is concluded that, though different actions and qualities are attributed in Holy Scripture to Christ, some of which belong to the divine and some to the human nature, yet they must all be attributed to one and the same Person. Otherwise there would be two Christs, two Mediators, contrary to the spirit, as well as the language, of all Scripture.

Hence we confess in this present Article of our Church (against the Nestorians of old), that the two natures were joined together in one Person.

One more topic falls under this head. The Article further asserts that the two natures in Christ are 'never to be divided.' In the first place, Pearson1 argues that they were not divided when the Lord Jesus died, because God 'doth never subtract His grace from any without their abuse of it, and a sinful demerit in themselves; we cannot imagine the grace of union should be taken from Christ, who never offended, and that in the highest act of obedience and the greatest satisfaction to the will of God.' And further,2 while it is granted, from 1 Cor. xv. 24, 28, that the mediatorial kingdom shall cease when its work shall be finally completed, ' yet we must not think that Christ shall cease to be a king or lose any of the power and honour which before He had. . . The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever' (Rev. xi. 15); not only to the modificated eternity of His mediatorship, so long as there shall be need of regal power to subdue the enemies of God's elect, but also to the complete eternity of the duration of His humanity, which for the future is coeternal with His divinity.'

1 Creed,' Art. IV. § 4.

2 Ibid. Art. VI. § 2.

IV. The Sufferings of Christ.

These we find summed up by our Article in these words of the Creed, 'Who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried.' A slight abstract of some portions of the fourth Article of 'Pearson on the Creed' will bring out the principal theological points belonging to this section. The Person who suffered is distinctly one, the Son of God. But the nature in which He suffered is as distinctly the human and not the divine. For the two natures are united 'not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.' The nature of the Deity is in itself 'impassibilis' (Art. I.), incapable of suffering. It follows, therefore, that the union of the divine nature with the human nature in Christ does not modify the divine nature so as to make it capable of suffering.

Or, vice versâ, we Yet he is so as God, not as

The intimate conjunction of the two natures in Christ has led divines to the use of language which attributes to that one Person the attributes which properly belong to one only of the two united natures. Such a transfer of language is called in theological language 'communicatio idiomatum.' Thus it is said that the Son of God suffered. Yet He suffered in that He was man, not in that He was God. say that Christ is omnipresent. man. Still, properly speaking, the one Person, the Son of God, is omnipresent. But if we permit this mode of speech to confuse our thoughts, we shall fall into some shape of monophysite error. Some such error pervades all systems of consubstantiation and transubstantiation. For they not only claim that the Person, the Son of God, is present, but that His human nature has acquired (in some sense) the omnipresence of the divine nature.

The sufferings of the human nature of Christ consist in the bodily sufferings before the crucifixion which are spoken of in so many parts of the gospels; and in the anguish of soul, including emotions of fear, sorrow, and other pains, endured during His whole life, and more especially in Gethsemane; and, finally, in the acerbity and ignominy of the cross itself.

With regard to the death of Christ, the chief theological