The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as…

1 They are confuted that say, He took not his Body of the Virgin, but brought it from Heaven. They object, that in John 3. 13. it is said, that Christ descended from Heaven, and that verse 23. and 31. He said, he was from above, and that 1 Cor. 15. 47. He is said to be the Lord from Heaven. Answ. None of these places say, That he brought his body from Heaven. The words are true of the person of Christ, that he descended from Heaven when he abased himself to take upon him the form of a servant: and if they were true of his humane nature, yet could signify no more but that he was conceived after a heavenly manner, and not by carnal generation, by the working of the Holy Ghost who came down from Heaven upon the Virgin. If they reply it must needs be true, that he descended in the same nature he ascended, as the Apostle saith, Ephes. 4. 9, 10. Answ. The Apostle only shows that he was abased, to show himself in the form of a servant, and to suffer extreme things, and therefore was exalted to be ⟨p. 268⟩Lord of all. And besides, these heretics they are hence confuted, that said Christ had not a true body, but only a body in appearance. These object that Christ appeared in the old Testament in a fantastical body, and not in a body indeed. Answ. That is false too: for it was a true substantial body he assumed and created for the time: but were that granted, yet the body he showed in the New Testament, hath abundant testimony that it was a true natural body, Joh. 1. 14. 1. Joh. 1. 1. 2. Again, they say out of the Philip. 2. 7. and Rom. 8.3. and Dan. 7. 13. that he was only in the likeness of a man. I answer, these places are not all of one sense: for in Daniel he was said to be like the Son of Man, because he was not yet incarnate: and