The Blessed Birth-day celebrated in some religious meditations on the Angels Anthem. Lvc. 2. 14. Also holy transportations, in contemplating some of the most obserueable adiuncts about our Saviours Nativity. Extracted for the most part out of the Sacred Scriptures, Ancient Fathers, Christian Poets. And some moderne Approved Authors. By Charles Fitz-Geffry. The second Edition with Additions |
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 | The Blessed Birth-day |  |
Behold the Lamb of God, the Lamb and God,
Who maketh these things even which erst were odde:
Three Substances, two Natures, Person one,
The sacred God-heads chiefe expression.
As in that ever blessed Trinity
One holy nature is in Persons three:
So in the Sonne who flesh for vs did take
Two Natures, Gods and ours, one Person make.
Three Persons there one substance doe possesse,
One Person here enioyes three substances.
Who maketh these things even which erst were odde:
Three Substances, two Natures, Person one,
The sacred God-heads chiefe expression.
As in that ever blessed Trinity
One holy nature is in Persons three:
So in the Sonne who flesh for vs did take
Two Natures, Gods and ours, one Person make.
Three Persons there one substance doe possesse,
One Person here enioyes three substances.
O blessed bloud! ô sacred Vnion,
That joyneth three in two, and two in one!
Three substances in natures two agree,
These two in one, this One, one, two, and three:
By vertue of an Vnion personall,
Though not of Persons, neither naturall,
Although of natures, but substantiall,
Because of substances, vnited so
That neither their owne properties forgoe:
But such a friendly enterchange they make,
That each with other doth in speech partake:
And what is said of God the same of Man
(Sith God and Man are one) affirme we can:
And what of man said properly may be,
The same likewise of God affirme may we.
Thus doe we say, and what we say is true,
That God did dye, and Man did death subdue.
God died because the Person who did dye
Was not meere man, but God eternally:
And man subdued death, because the same
Christ, God and Man, both died and overcame.
So sins of men the sonne of man forgiues,
Which none can doe but he who sin-lesse liues.
So by his bloud a Church God purchased
Vnto himselfe: What bloud hath God to shed?
So was the Lord of glory crucifide
When Christ, the Lord of glory for vs dy'de.
Thus God to be an infant; and a maid,
Of God to be the Mother, may be said.
These speeches in the Abstract disagree,
In sence compounded well accorded be.
Lord, what is man, that only for his sake,
Th'Almighty should such strange exchanges make?
That joyneth three in two, and two in one!
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These two in one, this One, one, two, and three:
By vertue of an Vnion personall,
Though not of Persons, neither naturall,
Although of natures, but substantiall,
Because of substances, vnited so
That neither their owne properties forgoe:
But such a friendly enterchange they make,
That each with other doth in speech partake:
And what is said of God the same of Man
(Sith God and Man are one) affirme we can:
And what of man said properly may be,
The same likewise of God affirme may we.
Thus doe we say, and what we say is true,
That God did dye, and Man did death subdue.
God died because the Person who did dye
Was not meere man, but God eternally:
And man subdued death, because the same
Christ, God and Man, both died and overcame.
So sins of men the sonne of man forgiues,
Which none can doe but he who sin-lesse liues.
So by his bloud a Church God purchased
Vnto himselfe: What bloud hath God to shed?
So was the Lord of glory crucifide
When Christ, the Lord of glory for vs dy'de.
21
Of God to be the Mother, may be said.
These speeches in the Abstract disagree,
In sence compounded well accorded be.
Lord, what is man, that only for his sake,
Th'Almighty should such strange exchanges make?
| The Blessed Birth-day | |