The History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland

To this same people from time to ⟨p. 259⟩time he sent Prophets to reduce them to the right way of their God, from the which oftentimes they declined by Idolatry. And albeit for their stubborn contempt of Justice, he was compelled to give them into the hands of their enemies,¹ as before he threatened by the mouth of Moses: Insomuch that the holy City was destroyed,² the Temple burnt with fire,³ and the whole land left desolate the space of seventy years; yet of mercy did he reduce them again to Jerusalem, where the City and Temple were reedified, and they against all temptations and assaults of Satan, did abide till the Messiah came, according to the promise. VI. Of the Incarnation of Christ Jesus. When the fullness of time came,⁴ God sent his Son, his eternal Wisdom, the substance of his own Glory into this World, who took the nature of manhood, of the substance of a woman; to wit, of a Virgin, and that by the operation of the holy-Ghost, and so was born, The just seed of David, The Angel of the great counsel of God, The very Messiah promised, whom we acknowledge, and confess, Emanuel, very God and very man, two perfect natures united and joined in one person. By which our Confession, we condemn the damnable and pestilent Heresies of Arrius, Martion, Eutiches, Nestorius, and such others, as either deny the Eternity of his God-head, or the Verity of his humane nature, or confound them, or yet divide them. VII. Why it behoveth the Mediator to be very God and very man. WE acknowledge and confess,⁵ That this most wondrous conjunction betwixt the God-head and Man-hood of Christ Jesus, did proceed from the eternal and immutable Decree of God, whence also our salvation springeth and dependeth. VIII. Of Election. For that same eternal God,⁶ who of mere grace elected us in Christ Jesus his Son, before the foundation of the world was laid, appointed him to be our Head, our Brother, our Pastor, and great Bishop of our souls: But because that the enmity betwixt the justice of God and our sins, was such, That no flesh by it self, could, or might have attained unto God; It behoved that the Son of God should descend unto us,