The Institution of Christian Religion

Christ would not have called his body a Temple,¹ unless the Godhead did distinctly dwell therein. Wherefore as Nestorius was worthily condemned in the synod at Ephesus, so also was Eutiches afterward condemned in the synods of Constantinople & Chalcedon: forasmuch as it is no more lawful to confound the two natures in Christ, than it is to draw them in sunder.

Christ woulde not haue called his bodie a Temple,¹ vnlesse the Godhed did distinctly dwell therein. Wherefore as Nestorius was worthily cō demned in the synode at Ephesus, so also was Eutiches afterwarde condemned in the synodes of Constantinople & Chalcedon: for asmuch as it is no more lawfull to confounde the twoo natures in Christ, than it is to drawe them in sonder.

1. 1Iho. ij.xix.

But in our age also there hath risen up no less pestilent a monster,§5 Michael Seruettus, which did thrust in place of the son of God, a feigned thing made of the essence of God, of spirit, flesh and three elements uncreate. And first he denieth that Christ is by any other way the son of God, but in this that he was begotten of the holy ghost in the womb of the Virgin. But to this end tendeth his subtlety, that the distinction of the two natures being ones overthrown, Christ might be thought to be a certain thing mingled of God and man, and yet neither God nor man. For in his whole process he travaileth toward this point, that before Christ was openly showed in the flesh, there were only certain shadowish figures in God, whereof the trueth or effect then at length was in being, when that word which was ordained to that honore, began truely to be the son of God. And we in deed do confess that the Mediator which is borne of the Virgin, is properly the son of God. For Christ in that he is man, could not be the mirror of the inestimable favour of God, unless this dignity were given him to be, and be called the only begotten son of God. But in the mean season the definition of the Church standeth steadfastly grounded, that he is counted the son of God, because he being the Word begotten of the father before all worlds, did by hypostatical union take upon him the nature of man. Now the hypostatical union is called with the old fathers, that which maketh one person of two natures, which phrase of speech was devised to overthrow the doting error of Nestorius, because he feigned that the son of God did so dwell in flesh, that yet he the same was not man. Seruettus slandereth us, that we make two sons of God, when we say that the eternal Word was already the son of God before that it was clothed with flesh, as if we did say any thing else but that he was manifested in the flesh. Neither doth it follow, that if he were God before that he was man, he began to be a new God. And no more absurdity it is to say, that the son of God appeared in