A Lesson

of the Incarnation of

Christe, that he toke his

humanite in and of the

Blessyd Virgine: made

the twentithe daye

of June by John

Poper.

1549.

Roma ix.

Christe is of the fathers

concernynge the fleshe.

[This treatise was written against the anabaptists, whose opinions occasioned much trouble at the time. Hooper was frequently engaged in opposing them. See Epist. XIII. and XIX.]

Π A DAILY PRAYER TO BE SAID BEFORE

THE LESSON.

O eternal and most merciful God, whose word is the light unto our steps, and the lantern unto our feet, we most humbly beseech thee to illuminate our minds, that we may understand the mysteries contained in thy holy law; and into the same self thing that we godly understand, we may be virtuously transformed, so that of no part we offend thy high majesty, through our Saviour Jesus Christ. So be it.

A PREFACE.

SEEING we be even so appointed by the ordinance of God to live and take the experience and danger of the last time, in the which (as the scripture saith) iniquity shall abound, and the true knowledge of God so obscured, that scarce the Son of man, when he cometh, shall find any faith upon the earth; it is the office of all Christians, and especially of such as teach the word of God, not only to remove and take away false and pernicious doctrine, and then to plant the truth; but also in time to crop and cut off the springing and towardly evils, before they be full ripe, lest they should oppress and keep under the doctrine of truth.

Among all other pernicious doctrine contrary unto the truth, there is one most pestilent and dangerous, which denieth Jesus of Nazareth, our Saviour, to have received his

humanity and manhood of the blessed and holy Virgin Mary; and supposeth, either he brought his humanity with him from heaven, or else took it of some other than of her. Forasmuch, therefore, as this ungodly opinion crept not only into the church immediately after the apostles, but also the same (being buried and condemned by the scripture) in our miserable and most perilous time is gotten into the hearts of many, for whom Christ in his humanity shed his precious blood, and some it holdeth in trouble and perplexity of conscience; to confirm and help the well-persuaded in the christian and catholic faith, and also to call again (if God will) such as be gone, I purpose to entreat and reason this matter of Christ's incarnation at large, that the truth may, as right is in this case, take here place.

Nothing else in this preface I demand but that the christian reader tarry with the truth, and not to be offended, though in this time many errors (upon the beginning of the reformation of true religion in this realm) daily be brought in; seeing it was so in the apostles' time by the craft of the devil, that men by the diversity of opinions troubled the truth of the gospel; which was and is done to prove the faithful. Now therefore to the matter, in the which I will observe this order: first, I will shew out of the old testament and the

new, that Christ took his humanity

of the blessed Virgin : after

wards, I will answer

to the objections

of the con

traries.

+

A LESSON

OF THE

INCARNATION OF CHRIST.

REASONS OUT of the OLD TESTAMENT.

THE first is the promise of God unto Adam and Eve, Gen. iii., that the seed of a woman should break the serpent's head. This promise was spoken of Christ; for he solely and only brake the serpent's head, that is to say, destroyed the works of the devil, satisfied for sin, and overcame it, and also the world, hell, and the devil, and set God and man at one, removing the occasion of enmity and the enmity itself in his precious blood; breaking the writings of our condemnation upon the cross, Ephes. ii.; and this our Saviour and peacemaker is called the seed of a woman. The which word alone were sufficient to confound the contrary part, that saith Christ took not the substance of his humanity of the blessed Virgin. Wheresoever ye find this word, "the seed of a woman," in the holy scripture, ye shall see always it is taken for the child and birth that hath of the substance of his mother, and not for anything that passeth through the mother, as the water passeth through a pipe; but that part of the mother's substance doth concur, and necessarily is required to the procreation of the child, as all physic holdeth.

And this way wrought God Almighty the humanity of his only Son, our Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth, without the knowledge of man, using the blessed Virgin by the operation of the Holy Ghost to conceive and bring forth this blessed seed, which was made of her, and took the original of his humanity of and in her, by the operation of the Holy Ghost; and neither nourished in her womb, neither brought forth she the humanity of Christ, as a thing that God had given Christ from heaven, or else from some other where; but nourished in her, and brought forth the blessed seed that God had made by his holy power of her own substance: other1 else were this [ Other: either.]

promise false, The seed of a woman shall break the serpent's head. It is no seed of a woman, nor hath any thing to do to be called the seed of a woman, that never taketh ought of a woman. But God doth warrant that he, that shall break the serpent's head, shall be the seed of a woman. If it be true (as it cannot be false), that the serpent's head is broken, who can deny but that it is broken by the seed of a woman, that is, by him that took his humanity of the woman's substance? Men must beware they be not deceived in this case with allegories and wrong interpretation of the word; but plainly make answer, Christ is the seed of a woman, and not a thing that passed through her, nor was partitaker' of her nature. For then should she not have brought forth her son, but such a son as she knew neither father neither mother of.

Other promises made God unto Abraham and unto Jacob of the same seed. To Abraham, Gen. xxii., "In thy seed shall they say all the nations of the earth to be blessed." Unto Jacob, Gen. xxvi.2, God saith thus, "In thy seed shall all the people of the world be blessed." Here again see we Christ called "the seed;" for none other purpose doubtless, but only to take away all suspicion and doubt that the world might have of his humanity; and lest the world might have said, as now-a-day (the more pity). many doth say, we believe that Christ is of the seed of the fathers, but he brought that seed with him from heaven, or else wrought the same seed, and made it not out of the sinful nature of the fathers, but some other ways unknown unto man. The scripture in these promises, and in other that shall follow, putteth expressly this pronoun, thine, saying, "thy seed." In thy seed, not in the seed that Christ shall bring from heaven, shall be the blessing of all people. How can that be Abraham's or Jacob's seed, that never took any of their substance, but came from heaven, and was made of another kind of nature than Abraham and Jacob was of? Who is able by good authority of the scripture to warrant Christ's humanity, in case it be unknown of whom he should take it; as these men knoweth not, that denieth Christ to take the nature of man of the blessed Virgin? Unto David God made the like promise of [1 Partitaker: partaker.]

[2 In chapter xxvi. the promise is made to Isaac. It is renewed to Jacob in chap. xxviii.]