fection of the Godhead is incapable. The divine nature is of infinite and eternal happiness, never to be disturbed by the least degree of infelicity, and therefore subject to no sense of misery. Wherefore while we profess that the Son of God did suffer for us, we must so far explain our assertion, as to deny that the divine nature of our Saviour suffered. For being the divine nature of the Son is common to the Father and the Spirit, if that had been the subject of his passion, then must the Father and the Spirit have suffered. Wherefore as we ascribe the passion to the Son alone, so must we attribute it to that nature which is his alone, that is, the human. And then neither the Father nor the Spirit will appear to suffer, because neither the Father nor the Spirit, but the Son alone, is man, and so capable of suffering. Whereas then the humanity of Christ consisteth of a soul and body, these were the proper subject of his passion; nor could he suffer any thing but in both or either of these two. For as "the Word was made flesh," (John i. 14.) though the Word was never made* (as being in the beginning God), but the flesh, that is, the humanity, was made, and the Word assuming it became flesh: so saith St. Peter, "Christ suffered for us in the flesh," (1 Pet. iv. 1.) in that nature of man which he took upon him: and so God the Son did suffer, not in that nature in which he was begotten of the Father before all worlds, but in that flesh which by his incarnation he became. For he was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit;" (1 Pet. iii. 18.)† suffered in the weakness of his humanity, but rose by the power of his Divinity. As he " was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh," (Rom. i. 3.) in the language of St. Paul; so was he " put to death in the flesh," in the language of St. Peter: and as he was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness;" (Rom. i. 4.) so was he "quickened by the Spirit." Thus the proper subject and recipient of our Saviour's passion, which he underwent for us, was that nature which he took from us. Far be it therefore from us to think, that the Deity, which is immutable, could suffer; which only hath immortality, could die. The conjunction with humanity could put no imperfec tion upon the Divinity; nor can that infinite nature by any external acquisition be any way changed in its intrinsical and essential perfections. If the bright rays of the sun are thought to insinuate into the most noisome bodies without any pollution of themselves, how can that spiritual essence contract the least infirmity by any union with humanity? We must neither harbour so low an estimation of the divine nature, as to conceive it capable of any diminution; nor so mean esteem of the essence of the Word, as to imagine it subject to the sufferings of the flesh he took; nor yet so groundless an estimation of the great mystery of the incarnation, as to make the properties of one nature mix in confusion with another. These were the wild collections of the Arian and Apollinarian heretics,† whom the Church hath long since silenced by a sound and sober assertion, That all the sufferings of our Mediator were subjected in his human nature. And now the only difficulty will consist in this, how we can reconcile the person suffering, with the subject of his passion; how we can say that God did suffer, when we profess the Godhead suffered not. But this seeming difficulty will admit an easy solution, if we consider the intimate conjunction of the divine and human nature, and their union in the person of the Son. For thereby those attributes which properly belong unto the one, are given to the other; and that upon good reason. For being the same individual person is, by the conjunction of the nature of God and the nature of man, really and truly both God and man; it necessarily followeth, that it is true to say, God Ως οὐδ ̓ ἡλιακοῦ φωτὸς πάθοιέν τι ἀκ τίνες τὰ πάντα πληροῦσαι, καὶ σωμάτων νεκρῶν καὶ οὐ καθαρῶν ἐφαπτόμεναι· πολύ πλέον ἡ ἀσώματος τοῦ Θεοῦ δύναμις οὔτ ̓ ἂν πάθει τὴν οὐσίαν, οὔτ ̓ ἂν βλαβείη σώματος ἀσωμάτως ἐπαφαμένη. Euseb. Demon. Evang. I. iv. c. 13. + This danger is the rather to be unfolded, because it is not generally understood. The beresy of Arius, as it was condemned by the Council of Nice, is known to all. But that he made the nature of the Word to suffer in the flesh, is not so frequently or plainly delivered. This Phœbadius (the first of the Latin Church who wrote against the Arians) charged them with: Duplicem hunc statum, non conjunctum sed confusum, vultis videri; ut etiam unius vestrum, id est Epistola Potami, quæ ad Orientem et Occidentein transmissa est, qua asserit, carne et spiritu Christi coagulatis per sanguinem Mariæ, et in unum corpus redactis, passibilem Deum factum. Hoc ideo, ne quis illum ex eo crederet, quem impassibilem satis constat.' Lib. adv. Arianos, c. 7. And again: 'Non ergo est spiritus caro, nec caro spiritus, quod isti volunt egregii Doctores, ut factus sit scilicet Dominus et Deus noster ex hac substantiarum permixtione passibilis. Ideo autem passibilem volunt dici, ne ex impassibili credatur.' cap. 8. Márny ov Et ̓Αρειανοί φαντάζονται, σάρκα μόνην ὑποτιθέ 3. c. 17. nature may is man, and as true, A man is God; because in this particular he which is man is God, and he which is God is man Again being by reason of the incarnation it is proper to say, God is man, it followeth unavoidably, that whatsoever necessarily belongeth to the human nature, may be spoken of God; otherwise there would be a man to whom the nature of man did not belong, which were a contradiction. And being by virtue of the same incarnation it is also proper to say, A man is God, by the same necessity of consequence we must acknowledge, that all the essential attributes of the divine nature nay truly be spoken of that man; otherwise there would be one truly and properly God, to whom the nature of God did not belong, which is a clear repugnancy. Again, if the properties of the divine nature may be truly attributed to that man which is God, then may those actions which flow from those properties, be attributed to the same. And being the properties of the human be also attributed to the eternal Son of God, those actions or passions which did proceed from those properties, may be attributed to the same Son of God, or God the Son. Wherefore as God the Son is truly man, and as man truly passible and mortal; so God the Son did truly suffer, and did truly die. And this is the only true communication of properties.* Not that the essential properties of one nature are really communicated to the other nature, as if the Divinity of Christ were passible and mortal, or his humanity of original omnipo tence and omnipresence; but because the same God the Son was also the Son of man, he was at the same time both mortal and eternal mortal as the Son of man, in respect of his humanity; eternal, as the Son of God, in respect of his Divinity. The sufferings, therefore, of the Messias were the sufferings of God the Son: not that they were the sufferings of his Deity, as of which that was incapable; but the sufferings of his humanity, as unto which that was inclinable. For although the human nature was conjoined to the divine, yet it suffered as much as if it had been alone; and the divine as little suffered, as if it had not been conjoined: because each kept their respective properties distinct, without the least confusion in their most intimate conjunction. From whence at last the person suffering is reconciled to the subject of his passion for God the Son being not only God, but also man, suffered, though not in his Deity, by reason of which he is truly God; yet in his humanity, by which he who is truly God, is as truly man. And thus we conclude our two first disquisitions: Who it was that suffered; in respect of his office, the Messias, in respect of his person, God the Son: How it was he suffered; not in his Deity, which is impassible, but in his humanity, which he assumed, clothed with our infirmities. Called by the Schools ordinarily communicatio idiomatum, by the ancient Our next inquiry is, What this God the Son did suffer, as the Son of man; not in the latitude of all his sufferings, but so far as they are comprehended in this Article: which first prescindeth all the antecedent part, by the expression of time under Pontius Pilate, who was not governor of Judea long before our Saviour's baptism; and then takes off his concluding passion, by adding his crucifixion and his death. Looking then upon. the sufferings of our Saviour in the time of his preaching the Gospel, and especially before his death, we shall best understand them, by considering them in relation to the subject or recipient of them. And being we have already shewed his passion was wholly subjected in his human nature, being that nature consisteth of two parts, the soul and body; it will be necessary to declare what he suffered in the body, what in the soul. For the first, As we believe the Son of God took upon him the nature of man, of which the body is a part; so we acknowledge that he took a true and real body, so as to become flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone. This body of Christ, really and truly human, was also frail and mortal, as being accompanied with all those natural properties which necessarily flow from the condition of a frail and mortal body: and though now the same body, exalted above the highest heavens, by virtue of its glorification, be put beyond all possibility of passion; yet in the time of his humiliation, it was clothed with no such glorious perfection; but as it was subject unto, so it felt, weariness, hunger, and thirst. Nor was it only liable to those internal weaknesses and natural infirmities, but to all outward injuries and violent impressions. As all our corporal pain consists in that sense which ariseth from the solution of that continuity which is connatural to the parts of our body; so no parts of his sacred body were injuriously violated by any outward impression, but he was truly and fully sensible of the pain arising from that violation. Deep was that sense, and grievous was that pain which those scourges produced, when "the ploughers ploughed upon his back, and made long their furrows" (Psalm cxxix. 3.) the dilaceration of those nervous parts created a most sharp and dolorous sensation. The coronary thorns did not only express the scorn of the imposers, by that figure into which they were contrived, but did also pierce his tender and sacred temples to a multiplicity of pains, by their numerous acuminations. That spear directed by an impertinent malice, which opened his side, though it brought forth water and blood, caused no dolorous sensation, because the body was then dead; but the nails which pierced his ads and feet, made another kind of impression, while it was yet alive and highly sensible. Thus did the body of the Son of man truly suffer the bitterness of corporal pains and torments inflicted by violent external impressions. As our Saviour took upon him both parts of the nature of man, so he suffered in them both, that he might be a Saviour of the whole.* In what sense the soul is capable of suffering, in that he was subject to animal passion. Evil apprehended to come tormented his soul with fear, which was as truly in him in respect of what he was to suffer, as hope in reference to the recompense of a reward to come after and for his sufferings. Evil apprehended at present tormented the same with sadness. sorrow, and anguish of mind. So that he was truly represented to us by the prophet, as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" (Isa. liii. 3.) and the proper subject of that grief he hath fully expressed, who alone felt it, saying unto his disciples, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." (Matt. xxvi. 38.) We ought not, therefore, to question whether he suffered in his soul or no; but rather to endeavour to reach, if it were possible, the knowledge how far, and in what degree, he suffered; how bitter that grief, how great that sorrow and that anguish was. Which though we can never fully and exactly measure; yet we may infallibly know thus much, both from the expressions of the Spirit of God, and from the occasion of his sufferings, that the griefs and sorrows which he felt, and the anguish which he underwent, were most incomparably far beyond all sorrows of which any person here was sensible or capable. The evangelists have in such language expressed his agony, as cannot but raise in us the highest admiration at the bitterness of that passion. "He began to be sorrowful," saith St. Matthew (xxvi. 37.) "He began to be sore amazed," saith St. Mark (xiv. 33.)" and to be very heavy," say both: (Ibid.) and yet these words in our translation come far short of the original expression,† which render him suddenly, upon a pre ↑ The words in the original are three, λυπεῖσθαι, ἐκθαμβεῖσθαι, and ἀδημονεῖν. Αυ Sa the first is of a known and ordinary signification, but in this case it is to be raised to the highest degree of its possible significancy, as appears by the words which follow, περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου. For, as the ancient grammarians observe, ή περὶ πρόθεσις ἐπίτασιν δηλοῖ, and again, ή περί πρόθεσις λαμβάνεται ἀντὶ τῆς ὑπὲρ κατὰ λόγον ὑπερθέσεως καὶ περιττότητος : and therefore περίλυπος of itself must signify a man possessed with an excessive grief; as in Eschylus Eumenid. 161. mepikagu nguoc, that is, according to the scholiast, περισσῶς βαρύ. But beside this Greek notation, here is to be observed a reference to the words of David, Psal.xlii.5. 'Irati wegiλυπος εἴ ἡ ψυχή μου ; πωπω. So thatit doth not only signify an excess of sorrow surrounding and encompassing the soul; but also such as brings a consternation and dejection of mind, bowing the soul under the pressure and burden of it. And if neither the notation of the word, nor the relation to that place in the Psalms, did express that sorrow, yet the following part of our Saviour's words would sufficiently evidence it, ἕως θανάτου, it was a sorrow which like "the pangs of death compassed" him, and like the pains of hell got hold upon" him, Psalm exvi. 3. The second word used by St. Mark alone is infaub Sai, which with the vulgar Latin is pa vere, but in the language of the Greeks bears a higher sense. Θάμβος σημαίνει τὴν ITAE, says Etymologus: and Hesychius. Θάμβος· θαῦμα, έκπληξις. Glass. Vet. Dáμbos, stupor. Philoponus, preserved by Eustathius Ιλ. Μ. Θάμβος μὲν ἡ ἔκπλη ξις θαμβὸς δὲ κατ ̓ ἐξεῖαν τάσιν ὁ ἐκπλαγείς. From whence the verb dapur, in termi nation active, in signification passi |