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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27499	The still-borne nativitie, or, A copy of an incarnation sermon that should have been delivered at St. Margarets-Westminster, on Saturday, December the five and twenty, 1647, in the afternoone, by N.B., but prevented by the committee for plunder'd ministers, who sent and seized the preacher, carried him from the vestry of the said church, and committed him to the fleet, for his undertaking to preach without the license of Parliament ...	Bernard, Nicholas, d. 1661.	1648 (1648)	Wing B2018; ESTC R18366	26,917	36

Incarnation of Christ Jesus And therein consider First the Vnion of the two Natures God and Man in this mystery Secondly the Conception of Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost The Nativity or Birth of Christ of the most blessed Virgin Mary In speaking to the Vnion I have foure things to go through withall first to shew the severall unions in Christ Secondly the signification of this word person Thirdlly the manner of the Union and Lastly the Reasons of the Union And of the first thus much There are in the person of Christ three unions and ale-immediate first the union of the Deity to the soul Secondly the union of the Deity to the body And Thirdly the Union of body soul together the two first werenot of nature nor of merit but wholly supernaturall And so not subject to separation by force of any natur al action or passion But the third being natural did leave a place for suffering and separation So that when Christ suffered death the Deity forsook neither soule nor body only the body was forsaken by the soule The plurality of which substances and Vnions notwithstanding Christ must be considered but as one that is in person Which word that you may understand aright know that it is derived a personando which is distinct sounding And is nothing else in Logick but what a Noune Substantive proper of the singular Number is in Grammer that is one particular compleate subsistence which Logicians call an Individuum but with this differenc That Person is a particular reasonable creature whereas a particular thing if it be unreasonable as a tree or horse c is not called a person but by the Schooles a Suppositum And in this sence Christ is said to be one Not in nature for so is no man in a strict sence for the soule and the body of men are of two different natures as well as fountaines or beginnings But in person wherein though there may be aliud et aliud one and another thing yet there cannot be alius and alius one and another person And so much for the meaning of the word person Now for the manner of this union we must know that things are united or made on many wayes As 1 Faedere by a covenant as Christ the faithfull And this may make one body but not one person 2. By transmutation as Snow and Water but this makes one substance as well as suppositum but so is not Christ 3. By aggregation as many materialls united make an house but this is violent and not voluntary as was Christ 4. By composition as body and soule make one man being united but this is natural and so is not the union of the Deity to the Humanity in Christ Lastly therefore by Assumption and this is singular proper to Christ alone For the cleare avoiding of old and dangerous heresies and errours which have risen about this Article of our Faith we conceive it not unnecessary to deale warily with those terms and words which we borrow from the Latines in expressing our mind in this matter such as are Vnion Assumption c. As in this nice and narrow sence To Assume and to Vnite do equally belong to the same Agents But to be Vnited and to be Assumed cannot be praedicated equally by the same Subjects Concerning the former it will appeare plainely by and by For the latter the difference is thus To be united may not unproperly be attributed to God and Man in thus speaking God was united to Man and man was united to God and with this not a Caviller will find fault But to say as on the one side truely Man was assumed to and by God so on the other God was assumed to or by Man were erroneous in it selfe and dangerous in the consequents For Relation we must allow to be in God if we acknowledge a Trinity of persons but suffering we dare not impute least with it we make him also changeable Now to be Vnited here is only a terme of Relation but to be Assumed is alway a terme of Passion To assume and to be assumed are words expressing doing and suffering and in the present matter divide unto us God and man God the Agent whose part therefore is to Assume Man the Patient or sufferer whose it is therefore to be Assumed To Assume as it is a compounded word so it doth signifie a double action the first is taking the second is application taking to The first is caled principium the second is called terminus assumptionis The first belongeth to all the three persons in the Trinity As the father did take and give the humane nature to his Son as he saith Lo a body hast thou given me So the Son did take not the nature of Angels saith the same Apostle but the seed of Abraham so likewise the Holy Ghost did whose it was to sanctifie the nature assumed and by whom also we believe it was conceived take our nature in the first act It was taken not to the father nor to the holy-Holy-Ghost but to the second person which is Iesus Christ In the thing assumed it is worth our consideration 1. Negatively to observe that when God took our nature he separated it from sinne and personality he took not our sin for that was contrary to his nature He took not any person of man at all for that was contrary to his Vnity for so there should have been Two Persons in the second person of the Trinity As therefore our nature that was assumed received fulnesse of grace from that most holy nature which assumed it So it owes its personal existence to the second person in the Trinity having none of its owne to which it was united 2. Positively learn what we meane by our nature for Nature in Scripture is sometimes put for the corruption of our nature as Ephes. 2. 3. but so Christ tooke not our nature unlesse it were by way of imputation For this is the Nature which by the Schooles is alwayes opposed to Grace Sometime in Scripture it is taken for some part of nature as for Reason only Rom 2 14 Or for sence only 2. Pet 2 12 Iude. 10. but so Christ took not our nature that is some part of our nature For that were to fal into the errour of the Appollinarians and Monothelites By Nature therefore we understand not one or some but all the partt of nature whether essentiall as soule and body or integrall as the soules faculties and the bodies Members united as also whatever flowes from the Principles of nature as Growth from Vegetation Eatting Drinking c from Sence Discourse and speech from reason not refusing the very infirmities of nature as in the Soule Sorrow Greife Anger Pity Vexation in the will the contradiction of the naturall and Physicall part though with subjection too to the moral and deliberative in the understanding Negative Ignorance And in the Body Hunger and Thirst Wearines and Weeping Sense of

of it And that most justly for Death entring upon Christ to whom he had no title by reason of the righteousnes that was in Christ considering he was flesh not knowing that he was also the Lord of life made a breach upon the flesh of Christ and at last death dyed as all things do in their contraries in the life of Christ Having first forfeited his owne tenement by a forcible entry upon another mans possession which gives a good title among Kings and Souldiers to all things gotten by conquest Lastly his power which is breifly more manifest in uniting the divine nature to the humane then it is in creating Because there is a more reall and infinite distance betweene God and Man then between Man and Nothing between Heaven and Hell then betwixt Heaven and the first Chaos betweene sin and Grace then Emptines and Grace As also more difficulties in redemption then in creation more corruptions to hinder more Enemies to oppose the very work and office of a Redeemer and this is the first reason given by Damascene lib. 3. cap. 1. de orthodoxa fide Secondly That there in some manner might be a proportionablnesse analogy in the Mediatour to the Trinity which if I forget not is by St. Austin called a responsary Trinity for as in the Trinity there are three persons in one essence So in Christ there are three essences in one person In the first the persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are but one essence i God So in the latter three essences the word the Soule and flesh are but one person Christ and this is Saint Augustines lib. 13. de crtniate cap. 1. The reasons of the Incarnation that concerne as are two First the removing of Evil from us Secondly the promoting of our good To the effecting of both these it was necessary that the word should be made Flesh and the Sonne of God should become the Sonne of Man For although I confesse with Saint Austin that God in his absolute power could have framed another possible meane for the salvation of mankind yet by that power which is ordinate to and equall with his will there could be No other name given under Heaven whereby we should be saved but only this For if we consider Sathans power who now Lords it over seduced and enthralled mankind And by a wofull CATACHRESIS is become the God of this World his power and strength I say not to be overcome no not by the contention of an Arch angel without a Mittimus to God The Lord rebuke thee Or secondly sinnes most intimate adhearence to the sonnes of Adam whose vitious habits in us that they might appear as it were more then accidentall to us have by the best speaker Gods word the denomination of our very parts and substance given to them Being called the body of Sinnes and of death our Members yea our very Flesh too whose crucifying vicinity and tormenting closenesse made a miserable Apostle make a more miserable ' EPIPHONEMA crying out {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} who shal deliver me Or thirdly the more then necessary Fluxe of sinfull acts and transgressions from those vitious habits and corruptions whose violent torrent like a breach of the Sea or the Cataracts of Nilus though caused by nature cannot by the Lawes of nature or rules of Physick though with the poore Woman in the Gospel wee spend our whole time and substance upon the Physitians be stopped no nor with reverence be it spoken by Christ himselfe without the Fountaine be dryed up by a vertue proceeding from him Or lastly the strong Sequence of Gods law following sinne inevitably with Death malediction and curse Charging upon transgressours invincibly That vengeance and those intolerable plagues which Gods word can be understood to denounce or Gods wrath to inflict So that to the removing of these malignities there is required the interposition of a God It must be more then an Angel that must disenthrone the Divell He must be God that must tread Sathan under our feet Secondly it must be some thing more subtill and spirituall then any creature whatsoever that must get between us and our luste even the God in whom we live move and have our being that must seperate our sinnes from us Thirdly it must be somewhat above nature that must hinder sinnes actions and cause the naturall and most fruitefull wombe of concupiscence to miscary It must be the God of nature that can make the fire not burne the Sea not drown the Lions not devour the Sun to go backward He alone it is that can give sinne a miscarying wombe and dry breasts Lastly it must be the Law-giver himselfe that must make the Fire no burne the Sea not drown and lions of his law not devoure guilty mankind And all this yet not to be done in a direct judiciary way without an union for although Christ as God be stronger then the strong man Sathan Yet the stronger dispossesses not the lesse strong but by an entry into his house Christ must be incarnate , that man may not be a Divell incarnate Christs incarnation was an Ejectione firme against Sathan Againe this only way was it whereby Christ had fairer evidence for his title to man then Sathan had for the Divell got in Man from Gods Regiment notwithstanding the right of Creation by getting Man to be of one way and one work with him man having as little communion in essence and substance with God as with the Serpent but now Christ comes with this plea and defeats him For though Man and Sathan are of one work yet are they not of one nature though they be one way yet they are not one flesh though in this they be one both lyars both deceitfull both sinfull Yet in this Christ and Man agree better that they be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh And as the Serpent for this very reason when he separated God and Man in the first fall yet could not nullifie the Marriage of or divorce Adam and Eve Nor Sin nor Sathan could separate them whom God hath put together So Christ and his Church standing upon the same termes are so united that I am perswaded that neither life nor death life will not death cannot nor Angels nor principalities c. shall be able to separate from the love of God in Christ Iesus Rom. 8. 38. 39. And so what hath bin said of Sathan is likewise to be said of the goods which he is possessed of I meane sins and plagues though I confesse in some sence even Man may be accounted part of his chatrel goods For sinne like the Darkenesse of night is chased about the earth by the Sunne of Righteousnesse stil and only giving place to Christ whose advancing into our Horizon is the bringing in of the day of Salvation and the driving away of the Darknesse of transgression For al other meanes whether the Light of

dust preserve each atom and by a most inscrutable providence keep every more of that dust to the glorious resurrection And this although not comparable in it selfe to the glory of the soule yet hath in it an unspeakeable weight of comfort And therefore O My soul though I desire thee not to be so unnatural to cast of the body Yet learne to know a truer freind then my flesh Let thy care be to gain and keep Christ thy study to please him thy labour to serve him thy joy to know him thy greife to offend him thy suffering for him rather yea more then ever it hath been for this body of mine who will stay longer by thee prove kinder to thee then e're that hath been or is like to be And O My flesh though I would not have thee unreasonable yet begin to be sensible of a truer Guide a constanter keeper and a blesseder governour then ever my owne soule hath or will be to thee Let thy feet stand in the Gates of Sion or be running towards the house of God Let thy hands be working the thing that is good Let thine eyes be lifted up to the place where Christs honor dwells And let this be thy Covenant with them and make thy tongue to tell of his praise and speake good of his name that will restore all these left to corruption by the soul to become vessels of glory in the resurection of the just And in the meane time keepeth them that that not a haire of thy head shal be lost And O thou very God of peace who when thou beginnest to take into favour lovest with an everlasting love for such is thy Covenant into protection never leavest nor forsakest such is thy unchangeable nature so take my soule into favour my flesh into tuition that both being sanctified throughout My soule may long for thee my flesh may cry out for the living God! My Soule love thee as it is beloved of thee and my body serve thee as it is and shall be preserved by thee for ever Secondly when I contemplate the unity of Christ's person therein consider how near Man is brought to God I am enforced to acknowledge all promised Vnions of God to man possible all commanded Vnions of man againe to God reasonable The promised Vnions of God to Man are 1. Pastorall He our shepheard we his Flock 2. Oeconomicall he our Master wee his servants 3. Consanguineal He our Father we his Sonnes and Daughters 4. Conjugall he our Husband we his Spouse here his hride in the resurrection his Wife for ever and the like In the first his call and our following declares us one way In the second his command and our obedience one Worke In the third his tender care our dutifull honour one Generation or Kindred In the Last his holy desire and our chast submission one love And all these unions made easie even to faith by the Vnity of Christ's person He that gave us his sonne how shall he not with him freely give us all things The commanded Vnions of man to God are 1. Of Judgement that wee as he doth approve the things that are more excellent 2 Of Will for election that we as he doth desire truth in the inward parts and this is to chuse the better part 3. Of Affection that we as he doth hate the evill and love the good being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful 4. Of Conversation that we be holie as he is holie perfect as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect that we purifie our selves as he is pure And all this is but to be one spirit as the Apostle saith He that is joyned to the Eord is one Spirit And good reason For God requires no more of us then St Paul did of the Galatians and upon the same ground Be ye as I am for I am as ye are O yee Sonnes of Men be ye as Gods And the Children of the most high for the sonne God is God yet for your sakes became the sonne of Man And O my Soule since thou hast no reason to doubt have faith to pray Philosophie ●ath taught thee That every Essence is an Vnity not only in number as opposed to multitude but even in nature as an undivided being the desire of which last Vnity is the cause of sorrow in the sense of division Thy sinfull and therefore wofull experience hath taught thee to feele thy selfe involved in the curse of Simeon and Levi to be divided and scattered But this Mystery is that which teaches thee by the Gospell to expect Vnitie as a gift to desire it as a benefit On therefore my soule take with thee words and say O Lord I am by sinne either a solitary wild Wolfe or at best a strayed sheep from the sold of peace but by this I know thou canst I hope thou wilt make the Wolf lye downe with the Lamb or cause thine owne immaculate Lamb the Lamb of God to take away that sinne which makes me a Wolfe in thy sight Or if a strayed sheep seeke O seek according to thy promise that which was lost and bring againe that which was driven away bind up that which was broken strengthen that which was sick feed me upon a good Pasture and on the high Mountaines of Israel fold me O my God I am by nature a fugitive or a Captive a Rogue or a slave without Master or under a cruell Master where my work is sin my wages death I sow the wind and reap the Whirlewind but O thou great Commander of all hearts who rulest by love and so makest thy service to be perfect freedome I want a service do thou entertaine me I am weary of my Old Master do thou redeeme me I yeild to thy Yoke accept thy condition embrace thy Covenant and for reward build upon thy courtesie Thy Gospel shall be my Indenture thy Sacraments the Seales thy sonne the Vndertaker of my truth thy Holy Spirit and my owne Conscience the Inward thy holy Angels and the World the Eye-witnesses of my fidelity Thy secrets I will keep Thy commands I will religiously obey Thy talents improve Thy goods not wast No contract will I make prejudicial to thy service For this purpose I yeild my Eare to the awle and doore of thy house bore it for I will not go from thee for ever O Lord my God my poore soule is by sin become either an Orphant to my sorrow or a Bastard to my shame either fatherlesse without God or of a faulty Father Iohn 8. 48. The first is the object of pity but the last of reproach Thou hast promised to succour the first but hast commanded thy doores to be shut against the last Thou wilt be a Father to the Fatherlesse but a Bastard shall not enter into thy Congregation to the tenth Generation O my God my soules substance is true borne as in thy Creation only since sinne an Orphan of grace the Child of wrath by nature

Conscience Law of Nature Counsailes of Men Rules of Philosophie Ingenuity of Education yea and the very Law of God it selfe that is it's Letter are nothing else but Stars and Candlelight not to drive away the night But as it were so many arguments to prove that there is a night Things that serve rather to shew that there is a Heaven and an Earth then to inable us to enjoy either And therefore they that doe charitably acknowledg a possibility of salvation to the Heathen which never heard of the Gospel say that this salvation doth accrue unto them from God for Christ sake Man could let in sinne but it is Christ that must expel it Man could embrace wickednesse but God must send his Sonne to blesse us by turning us away from our iniquities Israell could destroy himselfe But it is God must helpe David needed no guide to goe astray like a lost sheepe But it is Davids Lord must seek and save him And lastly concerning the Lawes rigour it fully appeares by that which hath been spoken already that it must be an Immanuell that must exonerate the burthen satisfie the court of justice arrest judgment and take of the seargeant with a supersedeas for an Execution taken out and not served And all this is don by Christ as our Praes and Sponsor Surety and Advocate for the removing of evil from us And this is the first reason The other reason concerning man is the promoting of his good which is done so many wayes so plentifully that St. Bernard after his manner calls Christ incarnate Manna from Heaven the joy of the hungry A cluster of grapes sweete grapes from Gods vineyard the refreshment of the thirsty soule O yle of gladness The health of the sickly and a stone cut out of the mountaine without hands that the negligent may feare In a word For the general let that goe for al which Fulgentius with fifteene other Bishops more have subscribed concerning this parti●ar except the Worde which is God by uniting in a singular way mans nature unto himselfe had been borne of a virgin a true and perfect man there should never have been bestowed upon us that are borne fleshly an Arise of a spiritual birth c. But now what sweet enterchanges do there passe betweene the Lords Anointed and mankind He borrowes our Flesh and gives us his Spirit takes Earth returns Heaven Exchanges his Peace for our chastisement his sonship for our servitude his grace for our sinne his crown for our curse his life for our death his joyes for our sorrowes In sum of God he became Man That wee by communion with him of men might be made partakers of the divine nature And because mans felicity stands in enjoying God Thus familiarly hath the Sonne of God bartered Natures states and goods with man His first nativity from God the Second from Man making him whose First Birth is from Man to have a Second from God And secondly in seeing God whose brightnesse dazling al sinfull sight with the beauty of holinesse Therefore hath the Lord Iesus Christ like unto another meek Moses put on the vaile of the flesh that by it boldly we might enter and have accesse to the Holy of Holies to see as we are seene And thirdly if there be any inhaerent happinesse I understand the cause of it in man aswell as sorrow it is but like the axe among the Prophets a tool not fit for their coat borrowed and that from Christ For there are three several Gifts which are all of them comprehended in or subordinate to the Incarnation of Iesus Christ concurring to the happines of man in the Scripture called by the name of Grace And distinguished by the immediate extrinsecal Giver As first the grace of God which is the Father by which grace I conceive Christ himselfe is specified To which sence I am enduced by comparing that of Saint Paul Tit. 2. 11. to that of St. Iohn c. 3. v. 16. Secondly the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ Which grace must needes be the Spirit if we consider the promise Iohn 15. 26. Which is somewhere also called the Grace of God and of our Lord Iesus Christ Lastly the Grace of the Spirit which is well known to be that frame of holynesse in the Saincts which being diversified is called the fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5 22 To the introducing of which last it was necessary that the two former should precede The Spirit as the proper fountaine of holinesse and comfort The incarnation as the Mediam and Motive of the Spirits mission to and acceptance with man But of this parhaps fully and more clearely hereafter when if ever we come to write of Christ's Egresse from the world Lastly if in Mans felicity we may any way attend to mans actions Or if there be any such thing beside the name of it as moral felicity Christ as incarnate must be the procurer of it which is done by him As an Object of our Faith A Ground of Hope A cause of Love and a Rule of Operation Two things are required in the object of faith without either of which Faith failes Affability the Party we beleeve must be apt to be spoken with Rom. 10. 15. And Veracitie The first is denyed to God though with imputation of fault herein to Mans sinne only according to that Let not God speake least we die The other to man God is not a Man that he should lie Let God be true and every man a Lyer God cannot be beleeved though true because man cannot abide before his voice Man cannot be trusted when he speaks for untruths Now in Christ these two are united The affability of Man Here is our accesse The truth of God Here the object of our faith Secondly the ground of hope as the most plentifull expression of Gods love ●t quid non speremus amati being so loved what may we not hope for He that gave us his Sonne how shal he not with him freely give us all things The cause of love thirdly he is in God to each of us personaly in us to God dutifully We love him because he loved us first Lastly the rule of Operation In a Rule that men work by Two things are necessary Rectitude and Visibilicie The first is in God without the second The second in man without the first That Christ therefore might be a most perfect rule for man to work by To the righteousnesse of God he assumed the visibilitie of Man c. Thirdly the reasons of the Incarnation that respect sinne is without the limitation of the power of God that it might be a remedy to sinne Tolle morbos tolle vulnera et nulla est medicinae causa If there had been no sinne there had been no need of a Saviour and therefore the glosse upon 1. Tim. 1. Christ came into the World to save sinners is not amisse Nulla causa veniendi fuit Christo Domino nisi peceatores salvos facere and