Furthermore if Christ in that he is man be every where present, seeing this cometh not by the nature of manhood itself, there is no other way how it should grow but either by the grace of union with Deity, or by the grace of unction received from Deity. It hath been already sufficiently proved that by force of union the properties of both natures are imparted to the person only in whom they are, and not what belongeth to the one nature really conveyed or translated into the other; it hath been likewise proved that natures united in Christ continue the very same which they are where they are not united. And concerning the grace of unction, wherein are contained the gifts and virtues which Christ as man hath above men, they make him really and habitually a man more excellent than we are, they take not from him the nature and substance that we have, they cause not his soul nor body to be of another kind than ours is. Supernatural endowments are an advancement, they are no extinguishment of that nature whereto they are given.

The substance of the body of Christ hath no presence, neither can have, but only local. It was not therefore every where seen, nor did it every where suffer death, every where it could not be entombed, it is not every where now being exalted into heaven. There is no proof in the world strong enough to enforce that Christ had a true body but by the true and natural properties of his body. Amongst which properties, definite or local presence is chief. “How is it true of Christ (saith Tertullian) that he died, was buried, and rose again, if Christ had not that very flesh the nature whereof is capable of these things, flesh mingled with blood, supported with bones, woven with sinews, embroidered with veins⁵?” If his majestical body have now any such new property, by force whereof it may every where really even in substance present itself, or may at once be in many places, then hath the majesty of his estate extinguished the verity of his nature. “Make thou no doubt or question of it” (saith St. Augustine) “but that the man Christ Jesus is now in that very place from whence he shall come in the same form and substance of flesh which he carried thither, and from which he hath not taken nature, but given thereunto immortality. According to this form he spreadeth not out himself into all places. For it behoveth us to take great heed, lest while we go about to maintain the glorious Deity of him which is man, we leave him not the true bodily substance of a man⁶.” According to St. Augustine’s opinion therefore that majestical body which we make to be every where present, doth thereby cease to have the substance of a true body.

To conclude, we hold it in regard of the fore-alleged proofs a most infallible truth that Christ as man is not every where present. There are which think it as infallibly true, that Christ is every where present as man, which peradventure in some sense may be well enough granted. His human substance in itself is naturally absent from the earth, his soul and body not on earth but in heaven only. Yet because the substance is inseparably joined to that personal Word which by his very divine essence is present with all things, the nature which cannot have in itself universal presence hath it after a sort by being nowhere severed from that which every where is present. For inasmuch as that infinite Word is not divisible into parts, it could not in part but must needs be wholly incarnate, and consequently, wheresoever the Word is, it hath with it manhood, else should the Word be in part or somewhere God only and not Man, which is impossible. For the Person of Christ is whole, perfect God and perfect Man wheresoever, although the parts of his Manhood being finite and his Deity infinite, we cannot say that the whole of Christ is simply every where, as we may say that his Deity is, and that his Person is by force of Deity. For somewhat of the Person of Christ is not every where in that sort, namely his manhood, the only conjunction whereof with Deity is extended as far as Deity, the actual position restrained and tied to a certain place; yet presence by way of conjunction is in some sort presence.

Again, as the manhood of Christ may after a sort be every where said to be present, because that Person is every where present, from whose divine substance manhood nowhere is severed: so the same universality of presence may likewise seem in another respect appliable thereunto, namely by co-operation with Deity, and that in all things. The light created of God in the beginning did first by itself illuminate the world; but after that the Sun and Moon were created, the world sithence hath by them always enjoyed the same. And that Deity of Christ which before our Lord’s incarnation wrought all things without man, doth now work nothing wherein the nature which it hath assumed is either absent from it or idle. Christ as man hath⁷ all power both in heaven and earth given him. He hath as Man, not as God only, supreme dominion over quick and dead⁸, for so much his ascension into heaven, and his session at the right hand of God do import. The Son of God which did first humble himself by taking our flesh upon him, descended afterwards much lower, and became according to the flesh obedient so far as to suffer death, even the death of the cross, for all men, because such was his Father’s will. The former was an humiliation of Deity, the later an humiliation of manhood⁹, for which cause there followed upon the later an exaltation of that which was humbled; for with power he created the world, but restored it by obedience. In which obedience as according to his manhood he had glorified God on earth, so God hath glorified in heaven that nature which yielded him obedience, and hath given unto Christ even in that he is man such fulness of power over the whole world¹⁰, that he which before fulfilled in the state of humility and patience whatsoever God did require, doth now reign in glory till the time that all things be restored¹¹. He which came down from heaven and descended into the lowest parts of the earth is ascended far above all heavens¹², that sitting at the right hand of God he might from thence fill all things with the gracious and happy fruits of his saving presence. Ascension into heaven is a plain local translation of Christ according to his manhood from the lower to the higher parts of the world. Session at the right hand of God is the actual exercise of that regency and dominion wherein the manhood of Christ is joined and matched with the Deity of the Son of God. Not that his manhood was before without the possession of the same power, but because the full use thereof was suspended till that humility, which had been before as a veil to hide and conceal majesty, were laid aside. After his rising again from the dead, then did God set him at his right hand in heavenly places¹³ far above all principality, and power, and might, and domination, and every name that is named not in this world only but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under his feet¹⁴, and hath appointed him over all the Head to the Church which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. The sceptre of which spiritual regiment over us in this present world is at the length to be yielded up into the hands of the Father which gave it¹⁵; that is to say the use and exercise thereof shall cease, there being no longer on earth any militant Church to govern. This government therefore he exerciseth both as God and as Man, as God by essential presence with all things, as Man by co-operation with that which essentially is present. Touching the manner how he worketh as man in all things; the principal powers of the soul of man are the will and understanding, the one of which two in Christ assenteth unto all things, and from the other nothing which Deity doth work is hid; so that by knowledge and assent the soul of Christ is present with all things which the Deity of Christ worketh.

And even the body of Christ itself, although the definite limitation thereof be most sensible, doth notwithstanding admit in some sort a kind of infinite and unlimited presence likewise. For his body being a part of that nature which whole nature is presently joined unto Deity wheresoever Deity is, it followeth that his bodily substance hath every where a presence of true conjunction with Deity. And forasmuch as it is by virtue of that conjunction made the body of the Son of God, by whom also it was made a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, this giveth it a presence of force and efficacy throughout all generations of men. Albeit therefore nothing be actually infinite in substance but God only in that he is God, nevertheless as every number is infinite by possibility of addition, and every line by possibility of extension infinite, so there is no stint which can be set to the value or merit of the sacrificed body of Christ, it hath no measured certainty of limits, bounds of efficacy unto life it knoweth none, but is also itself infinite in possibility of application.

Which things indifferently every way considered, that gracious promise of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ concerning presence with his to the very end of the world, I see no cause but that we may well and safely interpret he doth perform both as God by essential presence of Deity, and as Man in that order, sense, and meaning, which hath been shewed.

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Footnotes

1. Psalm cxxxix. 7, 8. ↩

2. Jer. xxiii. 24. ↩

3. “Ideo Deus ubique esse dicitur, quia nulli parti rerum absens est; ideo totus, quia non parti rerum partem sui [suam ed. Bened.] præsentem præbet, et alteri parti alteram partem, … … sed non solum universitati creaturæ verum etiam cuilibet parti ejus totus pariter adest.” Aug. Epist. lvii. [al. 187. c. 5. § 17. t. ii. 683.] ↩

4. “Quod ad Verbum attinet, Creator est; quod ad hominem, creatura [creatus ed. Bened.] est.” Aug. Ep. 57. [al. 187. c. 3. § 8. t. ii. 680.] “Deus qui semper est et semper erat fit creatura.” Leo de Nativ. [This does not appear in so many words in St. Leo’s Homilies on the Nativity. Expressions equivalent to it occur almost in every page. E. g. Hom. i. c. 2. p. 13. E. ii. 2. p. 14. C. iii. 2. p. 15. C. &c. Lugd. 1533.] “Multi timore trepidant ne Christum esse creaturam dicere compellantur; nos proclamamus non esse periculum dicere Christum esse creaturam; [quem vermem et hominem et crucifixum et maledictionem tota spei nostræ fiducia profitemur.”] Hier. in Epist. ad Eph. c. ii. [§ 6. t. ix. 213. B.] ↩

5. Tertull. de Car. Chr. [c. 5. “Natus est Dei Filius; non pudet, quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei Filius; prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile est. Sed hæc quomodo in illo vera erunt, si ipse non fuit verus, si non vere habuit in se quod figeretur, quod moreretur, quod sepeliretur et resuscitaretur: carnem scilicet hanc, sanguine suffusam, ossibus substructam, nervis intextam, venis implexam?”] ↩

6. Aug. Epist. 57. [al. 187. c. 3. § 10. t. ii. 681. “Noli itaque dubitare ibi nunc esse hominem Christum Jesum, unde venturus est; memoriterque recole et fideliter tene Christianam confessionem, quoniam resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit in cœlum, sedet ad dextram Patris, nec aliunde quam inde venturus est ad vivos mortuosque judicandos. Et sic venturus est, illa angelica voce testante, quemadmodum ire visus est in cælum, i. e. in eadem carnis forma atque substantia, cui profecto immortalitatem dedit, naturam non abstulit. Secundum hanc formam non est putandus ubique diffusus. Cavendum est enim, ne ita divinitatem adstruamus hominis, ut veritatem corporis auferamus.”] ↩

7. Matt. xxviii. 18. ↩

8. Rom. xiv. 9. ↩

9. Phil. ii. 8, 9; Heb. ii. 9; Rev. v. 12. ↩

10. Luke xxi. 27. ↩

11. Acts iii. 21. ↩

12. Ephes. iv. 9. ↩

13. Ephes. i. 20-23. ↩

14. Psalm viii. 6; Heb. ii. 8. ↩

15. 1 Cor. xv. 24. [Aug. de Trinitate, i. 16. tom. viii. 759. C. “Quid ergo est, ‘Cum tradiderit regnum Deo et Patri?’ quasi modo non habeat regnum Deus et Pater! Sed quia omnes justos, in quibus nunc regnat ex fide viventibus Mediator Dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus, perducturus est ad speciem, quam visionem dicit idem Apostolus, ‘facie ad faciem;’ ita dictum est, ‘Cum tradiderit regnum Deo et Patri,’ ac si diceretur, ‘Cum perduxerit credentes ad contemplationem Dei et Patris.’ ”] ↩