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X. ARGUMENT. Drawn from the horrid consequences, which necessarily follow from the denial of the Godhead of Jesus Christ; in that case God would have deceived the world, therefore, there would be no God at all. No. IX,............

Page.

.... 89-91

XI. ARGUMENT. From the constant, uniform, and universal belief, of the primitive ages of the Church. No. IX,.....................................

From the concurrent testimony of the Greek Fathers, down to the Council of Nice, A. D. 325. No. IX,........................................ From the concordance of the Latin Fathers with the Greek, in the same faith during the three first ages of the Church. No. IX,............

XII. ARGUMENT. Drawn from immemorial possession or prescription.

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91-93

93-103

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No. IX, XIII. ARGUMENT. Drawn from a most authentic and illustrious miracle. No. IX,.................

.......109—121

II. PART.

1. A short refutation of the abstract of Unitarian Belief, as laid down in the Unitarian Miscellany, No. I. Vol. I, page 12, and following. No. IX,............

..........121-140 II. Fifth letter of Mr. J. Sparks to the Rev. Wm. Wyatt, D. D. examined. No. X,............

...141-169 III. Continuation of a Review of Mr. J. Sparks's fifth letter. No. XI..169-200 IV. A Review of Mr. J. Sparks's sixth letter. No. XII...............................................201-238 V. Continuation of a Review of Mr. J. S's sixth letter. No. XIII,....238--265

WE do not recollect to have met, in all antiquity, with any document on the exalted mysteries of the Trinity, the Godhead of Jesus Christ, the incarnation and the union of his two natures, that can be compared, either in loftiness of thought, conciseness of sentence, or copiousness and perspicuity of expression, with the incomparable writings of St. Leo the Great on those mysteries. They may justly be styled masterpieces of more divine than human eloquence. The Son of God having chosen, as is the constant opinion of the church, this great man, to vindicate and explain, in a most noble and luminous manner, the divine œconomy of his exalted mysteries, of all sacred monuments, the following extracts from his works have been thought fittest and best adapted to preface the sublime theme of the Godhead of Jesus Christ, which we have undertaken to defend in the present volume.

VII. SERMON OF ST. LEO,

On the solemnity of the birth of Christ, commonly called Christmas, in which the holy Doctor explains the mystery of the two natures in Christ.

"He truly worships and piously celebrates the solemnity of this day, dearly beloved, who neither conceives of the incarnation of the Lord any thing that is erroneous, nor of the Deity any thing that is unworthy of it. For it is an evil of equal danger, either to deny him the truth of our nature, or his equality with the glory of the Father. When, therefore, we set about to understand the mystery of the birth of Christ, by which he was born of a virgin mother, let the darkness of human reasoning be driven far away, and let the smoke of earthly wisdom depart from the eye of enlightened faith. The authority on which we believe is divine, divine is the doctrine which we follow. For whether we give ear to the attestations of the old law, to the oracles of the prophets, or to the evangelical trumpet, that which St. John, filled with the Holy Ghost, thundered out, is true. "In the begin

ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made." And, what the same preacher adds, is likewise true: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father." In both natures, therefore, is one and the same Son of God, who, whilst he assumes our nature, does not lose his own; and who, whilst he renews man in man, perseveres unchangeable in himself. For the Godhead, which he possesses in common with the Father, suffered no disparagement of its omnipotence, nor did the form of a servant alter the form of God. For the supreme and everlasting essence, which has stooped down to the salvation. mankind, has indeed transferred us into his glory, but has not ceased to be what it was. Hence, when the only-begotten of the Father acknowledges himself to be less than the Father, to whom he declares himself to be equal, he shows the truth of both forms in himself; insomuch, that the inequality in him shows his buman, and the equality his divine nature. The corporeal birth, therefore, detracted nothing from the majesty of the Son of God, and added nothing to it, because an incommutable substance can neither be lessened nor increased. For, when we say, that the word was made flesh, we do not mean to signify that the divine nature has been changed into flesh, but that the flesh has been taken up into the unity of person, by which flesh, no doubt, the whole man is understood, with whom, within the womb of a virgin, which was made fruitful by the Holy Ghost, and which was never to be deprived of its virginity, the Son of God is so inseparably united, that he, who was before all times begotten of the essence of the Father, is one and the same, who is begotten in time from the womb of a virgin. For we could not possibly be loosened otherwise from the fetters of eternal death, unless he had debased himself in our nature, who remained omnipotent in his own."

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Extract from the Epistle of St. Leo the Great, to St. Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople, on the Mystery of the Incarnation, against the impiety of Eutyches.

Leo, Bishop, to his most beloved Brother, Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople. * * * * * * * * * * **

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The Son of God, therefore, enters into this low world, coming down from his heavenly throne, but not departing from the glory of the Father, begotten after a new order, a new birth. After a new order, because being invisible in his own essence, he was made visible in our nature. He that cannot be contained, would be contained. He that existed before all times, began to exist in time. The Lord of the Universe, overshadowing the immensity of his majesty, took the form of a servant. The impassible God did not disdain to be a passible man, and the immortal to be subject to the laws of death. But begotten by a new birth, because the undefiled virginity furnished, indeed, the matter for the body, but was an utter stranger to concupiscence. The nature, therefore, was taken from the mother of the Lord, but not the guilt, neither is this nature in the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the womb of a virgin, different from ours, because his birth is wonderful; for he who is true God, the same is true man. And there is no fiction in this unity, since the lowness of man and the sublimity of the Godhead are united together. For, as God is not altered by mercy, so man is not consumed by dignity. For each form acts in communion with the other what is proper to it, that is to say, the word works what belongs to the word, and the flesh executes what belongs to the flesh. One of these natures flashes with miracles, whilst the other is smarting under injuries. And as the word did not recede from an equality with the Father's glory, so neither did the flesh abandon the nature of our race. For one and the same is (what must be often said) truly the Son of God, and truly the Son of man. God, because "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God:" Man, because "the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." God, because "all things were made by him, and without him nothing was made:" Man, because born of a woman, made under the law.

The birth of the flesh is the manifestation of the human nature ; the bringing forth of a virgin, is the indication of divine power. The infancy of a little one is shown by the lowness of the cradle; the greatness of the Most High is declared by the concert of angels. He whom ungodly Herod seeks to kill, is like other men as to his first beginnings, but he is the Lord of all, whom the wise men adore with joy on their knees. When he came to the baptism of John, his precursor, in order that that which was covered under the veil of the flesh, may not be hid den, the voice of the Father, thundering from the heavens, said "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Whom, therefore, the craftiness of the Devil tempted as man, to the same as to God the angels minister. To hunger, to thirst, to be fatigued, manifestly belong to the human nature; but to feed five thousand men with five loaves of bread, to give to the Samaritan woman living water, the effect of which is to cause her who has drunk of it, not to thirst any longer, to walk on the surface of the sea without sinking, and to awe the swelling of the waves in rebuking the tempest, is unquestionably divine. As, therefore, (to pass over in silence many other instances,) it does not belong to the same nature to weep from a feeling of commiseration over a departed friend, and to restore the same to life at the command of his voice, after having been buried for four full days, or to hang on the cross, and, by turning the day into the night, cause all the elements to tremble, or to be pierced with nails, and to open the gates of paradise to the faith of the thief: so likewise does it not belong to the same nature to say, "I and the Father are one," and to say, "The Father is greater than I." For, although in the Lord Jesus Christ there is but one person of both God and man; another, however, is the nature from which contumely is common to both, and another the nature from which glory is common to each. From our nature it comes that his humanity is less than the Father, from the Father he has it that his divinity is equal to the Father.

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