St. Augustine, Of the citie of God vvith the learned comments of Io. Lod. Viues. Englished by I.H.

Of the Incarnation of our Lord Iesus Christ, which the impious Platonists shame to acknowledge. CHAP. 29.

THou teachest the Father and his Sonne, calling him his intellect, and their meane (by which wee thinke thou meanest the holy spirit) calling them af∣ter your manner, three Gods. Wherein though your words bee extrauagant, yet you haue a little glympse of that we must all relye vpon. But the incarnation of the vnchangeable Sonne, that saueth vs all, and bringeth vs all to that other which we beleeue and relie vpon, that you shame to confesse. You see your true country (though a long, long way off) and yet you will not see which way to get thether. Thou confessest that the grace to vnderstand the deity, is giuen to a very few. Thou saiest not, few like it, or few desire it; but, is giuen to a few, fully con∣fessing the guift of it to lye in Gods bountie, and not in mans sufficiencie. Now thou playest the true (a) Platonist and speakest plainer, saying, That no man in this life can come to perfection of Wisdome: yet that Gods grace and prouidence doth fulfill all that the vnderstanding lacketh, in the life to come. O hadst thou knowne Gods grace resident in Iesus Christ our Lord! O that thou couldst haue discer∣ned his assuming of body and soule to bee the greatest example of grace that euer was! But what? in vaine doe I speake to the dead: But as for those that esteeme thee for that wisdome or curiositie in artes, vnlawfull for thee to learne•…•… perhaps this shall not be in vaine. Gods grace could neuer bee more grace•…•…y extolled, then when the eternall sonne of God, came to put on man, and made man the meane to deriue his loue to all men: whereby all men might come to him, who was so farre aboue all men, beeing compared to them, immortall to mortall, vnchangeable to changeable, iust to vniust, and blessed to wretched. And because hee hath giuen vs a naturall desire to bee eternally blessed, hee re∣maining blessed, and putting on our nature, to giue vs what wee desired, taught vs by suffering to contemne what wee feared. But humility, humilitie a but∣then vnacquainted with your stiffe neckes, must bee the meane to bring you to credence of this truth. For what, can it seeme incredible to you (that knowe such things, and ought to inioyne your selues to beleeue it) can i•…•… seeme incredible to you, that GOD should assume mans nature and bo∣dye? you giue so much to the intellectuall part of the soule (beeing b•…•… humaine) that you make it consubstantiall with the Fathers intellect, which you confesse is his Sonne. How then is it incredible for that Son•…•… to assume one intellectuall soule to saue a many of the rest by? Now nature teacheth vs the cohaerence of the body and the soule to the making of a f•…•…

man. Which if it were not ordinary were more incredible then the other. For wee may the more easily beleeue that a spirit may cohere with a spirit (beeing both incorporcall, though the one humaine, and the other diuine) then a corpo∣rall body with an incorporeall spirit. But are you offended at the strange child∣birth of a Virgin? This ought not to procure offence, but rather pious admira∣tion, that he was so wonderfully borne. Or dislike you that hee changed his body after death and resurrection into a better, and so carried it vp into heauen being made incorruptible, and immortall? This perphappes you will not beleeue, because Porphyry saith so often in his worke De regressu aniae, (whence I haue cited much) that the soule must leaue the body intirely, ere it can bee ioyned with God. But that opinion of his ought to be retracted, seeing that both hee and you doe hold such incredible things of the worlds soule animating the huge masse of the bodily vniuerse. For Plato (b) teacheth you to call the world a crea∣ture, a blessed one, and you would haue it an eternall one. Well then how shall it be eternally happy, and yet neuer put off the body, if your former rule be true? Besides, the Sunne, Moone, and Starres, you all say, are creatures, which all men both see, and say also. But your skill (you thinke) goeth farther: calleth them blessed creatures, and eternally with their bodies. Why doe you then for∣get or dissemble this, when you are inuited to Christianity, which you other∣wise teach and professe so openly? why will you not leaue your contradictory opinions (subuerting them-selues) for christianitie, but because Christ came humbly, and you are all pride? Of what qualitie the Saints bodyes shall be after resurrection, may well bee a question amongst our greatest christian doctors, but wee all hold they shall be eternall, (c) and such as Christ shewed in his resurrecti∣on. But how-so-euer seeing they are taught to bee incorruptible, immortall, and no impediment to the soules contemplation of God, and you your selues say that they are celestiall bodies immortally blessed with their soules; why should you thinke that wee cannot bee happy without leauing of our bodies, (to pretend a reason for auoyding christianitie) but onely as I said, because Christ was hum∣ble, and you are proud? Are you ashamed to bee corrected in your faults? a true character of a proud man. You that were Plato's (d) learned schollers, shame to become Christs, who by his spirit taught a fisher wisdome to say, In the beginning 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the worde, and the word was with God and GOD was the word. The same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by it, and without it was made nothing (e) that was made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkenesse, and the darknesse comprehended it not. (f) Which beginning of Saint Iohns Gospell, a certaine Platonist (as olde holy (g) Simplictanus after∣wards Bishop of Millaine tolde mee) sayd was fitte to bee written in letters of golde, and set vp to bee read in the highest places of all Churches. But those proud fellowes scorne to haue GGD their Maister, because the word became 〈◊〉〈◊〉, and dwelt in vs. Such a thing of nothing it is for the wretched to be sicke and weake, but they must axalt them-selues in their sickest weaknesse, and shame to take the onely medicine that must cure them: nor doe they this to rise, but to 〈◊〉〈◊〉 a more wretched fall.

L. VIVES.

TRue (a) •…•…latonist Plato in Phaed. & Epinon, hereof already, booke the 8. (b) Teacheth in his

Timaeus. (c) And such.] Sound, incorruptible, immortall, pertaking with the soule in happinesse. Phillip. 3. We looke for the sauiour, euen the Lord Iesus Christ who shall change our vile body that 〈◊〉〈◊〉 may be fashioned like vnto his glorious body. &c. ver. 21. (d) Learned.] What an insolent thing is it to boast of wisdome? As if Plato were ashamed of his Maister Socrates that said, hee knew no∣thing? and did not glory in all his life that he was scholler to that stone cutters sonne, and that all his wisdome whatsoeuer was his Maisters? And as if Socrates him-selfe (in Plato and Xeno∣phon chiefe founders of that discipline) did not referre, much of his knowledge to Aspasia and Diotima his two women instructers, (e) That was made.] The point is so in the greeke as we haue lest it: as if the world should become nothing but for the care of the creator, as the Phi∣losophers held. The Coleyn copy also pointeth it so, but wee must let this alone, as now. (f) Which beginning.] Augustine Confess. lib. 8. saith that hee had read the beginning of Saint Iohns Gospell. In the beginning was the word, In Plato, but not in the same words. Amelius the Pla∣tonist saith. And this was that word, by which all things were made, that were made, yet being eter∣nall (as Heraclitus saith) and disposed in their order and dignity with god (as the other Bar∣barian held) that word was God, and with God, and by it was all things made, and it was the life and being of all things that were made, thus farre Amelius, calling Saint Iohn a barbarian. But we teach it out of Plato, that by the word of God were althings made, and out of Plotine that the Sonne of God is the creator: Numerius will not haue the first; God to be the creator, but the second. (g) Simplicianus.] Bishop of Millaine, a friend of Augustines, betweene whome many let∣ters were written. He being but as yet a Priest, exhorted, Augustine, to vse his wit in the study of holy writ. Gennad. Catolog. viror▪ illustr.