Emmanuel, or, God-man a treatise wherein the doctrine of the first Nicene and Chalcedon councels, concerning the two natures in Christ, is asserted against the lately vented Socinian doctrine / by John Tombes ...

SECT. 16. (Book 16)

The Exception against the Argument from Acts 2. 30. Rom. 1. 3, 4. Rom. 9. 5. is set down.

AGainst this it is thus excepted: When the Apostle saith, that Christ came of the Fathers according to the flesh, who is o∣ver all a God blessed for ever; the opposition is not entire and exact as wanting the other Member: What that Member is, another passage of the Apostle, wherein you have the same opposition in describing Christ, will in∣form you; It is Rom. 1. 3, 4. concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made (or rather born) of the seed of Da∣vid according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with Power (Gr. deter∣mined, or ordained Son of God in Power) according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the Resurrection from the dead: Here you see that to those words, according to the flesh, are opposed these, according to the Spirit of Holiness: Again, What this Spirit of Ho∣liness is, will be no hard matter to find out,

if we consider that as the flesh signifyeth a constituting part of Christ, namely his flesh∣ly body; so also must the Spirit of holiness, opposed thereunto, signifie a constituting part: If so, then it is not the holy Spirit, as every one will confesse, nor the reasonable soul of Christ, because he is intimated to have had this Spirit by means of the resurrection from the dead, whereas he had a reasonable Soul before his death: Nor the Divine Nature, for that is no where in Scripture designed by the name of Spirit, or Spirit of holiness: Besides, the adversaries hold, that Christ had the Divine▪ Nature, whilst he was yet cloath∣ed with flesh. It remains therefore that by the Spirit of holiness, which Christ had by means of the resurrection of the dead, and is a constituting part of him, is to be understood his Holy, Spiritual Body, where∣by he is excepted from other men, being the first-born from the dead, or the first that so rose from the dead, as that he never dyed a∣gain, but was cloathed with a Spiritual body, and made like to God, who is a Spirit. And now the sense of that passage beginneth to ap∣pear, Heb. 9. 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spi∣rit (Gr. through an eternal Spirit, for no

Article is prefixed) offered himself without spot to God; Purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God? By eternal Spirit is here meant the spiritual bo∣dy of Christ, which lasteth to all eternity; and this expression is opposed to what the same Divine Authour speaketh of Christ, Heb. 5. 7. who in the daies of his flesh, &c. For eternal is contrary to dayes, and spirit to flesh: Neither will that which we have here spoken seem strange to him, who having pe∣netrated into that profound Epistle to the Hebrews, knoweth (what is there frequent∣ly intimated) that Christ then made his of∣fering for our sins; when, after his Resur∣rection, he entered into Heaven, and be∣ing endued with a spiritual and immortal Bo∣dy, presented himself before God: For so the Type of the Levitical High-Priest mak∣ing the yearly Atonement for the si••s of the People (Levit. 16.) did require: For as the Atonement was not then made, when he slew the Beasts, but when having put on his linnen Robes, he brought their blood in∣to the Sanctuary before the Mercy-Seat: So neither did Christ offer his sacrifice for our sins upon the Cross, but when after his Re∣surrection, being cloathed with Robes of Im∣mortality

and Glory, he entered into Heaven, the true Sanctuary, and presented himself to God. (Wherefore to return to the foresaid passage, Rom. 9. 5.) When it is there said, of whom according to the flesh (for so the Greek hath it) Christ came, who is over all a God to be blessed for ever; we ought (by the authority of the Apostle himself) to supply in our mind the other member of the opposition, and to understand the place, as if it had been said; who according to the Spi∣rit of holiness by the Resurrection from the dead, is over all a God blessed for ever: But if Christ be according to the Spirit of Holiness by the Resurrection from the dead (that is) according to his spiritual Body, which he received by means of the Resurre∣ction from the dead the Son of God in Power, and accordingly a God over all; he is not the Son of God in Power, and accordingly a God over all, by having the Divine Nature per∣sonally united to his Humane Nature, but by the Glorification and Exaltation of his v••∣ry Humane Nature.