LV. Having thus far proceeded in speech concerning the person of Jesus Christ, his two natures, their conjunction, that which he either is or doth in respect of both, and that which the one receiveth from the other; sith God in Christ is generally the medicine which doth cure the world, and Christ in us is that receipt of the same medicine, whereby we are every one particularly cured, inasmuch as Christ’s incarnation and passion can be available to no man’s good which is not made partaker of Christ, neither can we participate him without his presence, we are briefly to consider how Christ is present, to the end it may thereby better appear how we are made partakers of Christ both otherwise and in the Sacraments themselves.
All things are in such sort divided into finite and infinite, that no one substance, nature, or quality, can be possibly capable of both. The world and all things in the world are stinted, all effects that proceed from them, all the powers and abilities whereby they work, whatsoever they do, whatsoever they may, and whatsoever they are, is limited. Which limitation of each creature is both the perfection and also the preservation thereof. Measure is that which perfecteth all things, because every thing is for some end, neither can that thing be available to any end which is not proportionable thereunto, and to proportion as well excesses as defects are opposite. Again, forasmuch as nothing doth perish but only through excess or defect of that, the due proportioned measure whereof doth give perfection, it followeth that measure is likewise the preservation of all things. Out of which premises we may conclude not only that nothing created can possibly be unlimited, or can receive any such accident, quality, or property, as may really make it infinite, (for then should it cease to be a creature,) but also that every creature’s limitation is according to his own kind, and, therefore as oft as we note in them any thing above their kind, it argueth that the same is not properly theirs, but groweth in them from a cause more powerful than they are.
Such as the substance of each thing is, such is also the presence thereof. Impossible it is that God should withdraw his presence from any thing1, because the very substance of God is infinite. He filleth heaven and earth2, although he take up no room in either, because his substance is immaterial, pure, and of us in this world so incomprehensible, that albeit no part of us be ever absent from him who is present3 whole unto every particular thing, yet his presence with us we no way discern farther than only that God is present, which partly by reason and more perfectly by faith we know to be firm and certain.
Seeing therefore that presence every where is the sequel of an infinite and incomprehensible substance, (for what can be every where but that which can no where be comprehended?) to inquire whether Christ be every where is to inquire of a natural property, a property that cleaveth to the Deity of Christ. Which Deity being common unto him with none but only the Father and the Holy Ghost, it followeth that nothing of Christ which is limited, that nothing created, that neither the soul nor the body of Christ, and consequently not Christ as man or Christ according to his human nature can possibly be every where present, because those phrases of limitation and restraint do either point out the principal subject whereunto every such attribute adhereth, or else they intimate the radical cause out of which it groweth. For example, when we say that Christ as man or according to his human nature suffered death, we shew what nature was the proper subject of mortality; when we say that as God or according to his Deity he conquered death, we declare his Deity to have been the cause, by force and virtue whereof he raised himself from the grave. But neither is the manhood of Christ that subject whereunto universal presence agreeth, neither is it the cause original by force whereof his Person is enabled to be every where present. Wherefore Christ is essentially present with all things, in that he is very God, but not present with all things as man, because manhood and the parts thereof can neither be the cause nor the true subject of such presence.
Notwithstanding, somewhat more plainly to shew a true immediate reason wherefore the manhood of Christ can neither be every where present, nor cause the person of Christ so to be; we acknowledge that of St. Augustine concerning Christ most true, “In that he is personally the Word he created all things, in that he is naturally man he himself is created of God4,” and it doth not appear that any one creature hath power to be present with all creatures. Whereupon, nevertheless it will not follow that Christ cannot therefore be thus present, because he is himself a creature, forasmuch as only infinite presence is that which cannot possibly stand with the essence or being of any creature: as for presence with all things that are, sith the whole race, mass, and body of them is finite, Christ by being a creature is not in that respect excluded from possibility of presence with them. That which excludeth him therefore as man from so great largeness of presence, is only his being man, a creature of this particular kind, whereunto the God of nature hath set those bounds of restraint and limitation, beyond which to attribute unto it any thing more than a creature of that sort can admit, were to give it another nature, to make it a creature of some other kind than in truth it is.