Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

The fourth is of one man having two qualities, or accidental natures: as a man that is ⟨p. 139⟩both a Physician and a Divine; he is but one person, and yet there are two natures concurring and meeting in that same one Person; so we may rightly say of such a one, this Physician is a Divine, and this Divine is a Physician; this Physician is happy in saving souls, and this Divine is careful in curing bodies: even so is Christ both God and Man, and yet but one Christ; and in that one Christ, according to the several natures, are denominations of either part; as that this man is God, and this God is man; or that this man made the world: and this God died upon the Cross: but in this similitude is this defect, in that the different natures are accidental, and not essential or substantial.

The fourth is of one man having two qualities, or accidental natures: as a man that is ⟨p. 139⟩both a Physitian and a Divine; he is but one person, and yet there are two natures concurring and meeting in that same one Person; so we may rightly say of such a one, this Physitian is a Divine, and this Divine is a Physitian; this Physitian is happy in saving souls, and this Divine is careful in curing bodies: even so is Christ both God and Man, and yet but one Christ; and in that one Christ, according to the several natures, are denominations of either part; as that this man is God, and this God is man; or that this man made the world: and this God died upon the Cross: but in this similitude is this deffect, in that the different natures are accidental, and not essential or substantial.

The fifth and last, is of the Branch and Tree into which it is engrafted; as suppose a Vine-branch and an Olive-tree: now as this Olive-tree is but one, but hath two different natures in it, and so it beareth two kinds of fruit: and yet between the Tree and the Branch there is a composition, not hujus ex his, but hujus ad hoc (i.e.) not of a third thing out of the two things united, but of one of the two things united or adjoined to the other: even so Christ is one, but he hath two different natures, and in them he performs the different actions pertaining to either of them: and yet between the different natures (the Divine and Humane nature) there is a composition, not hujus ex his but hujus ad hoc, not of a third nature arising out of these but of the humane nature added or united to the Divine, in unity of the same person: so that now we may say, as this Vine is an Olive-tree, and this Olive-tree is a Vine: or as this Vine bears Olives, and this Olive-tree bears Grapes, so the Son of man is the Son of God, and the Son of God is the Son of Man: or this Son of Man laid the Foundation of the Earth, and this Son of God was born of Mary, and crucified by the Jews. This similitude (I take it) is the aptest and fullest of all the other, though in some things also it doth fail; for the branch hath first a separate subsistence in it self, and losing it after, then it is drawn into the unity of the subsistence of that Tree into which it is implanted; but it is otherwise with the humane nature of Christ; it never had any subsistence of its own, until it was united to the person or subsistence of the Son of God.