Wherefore against these numerous blas phemers, this peculiar and extraordinary way of our Saviour's conception and nativity, was inserted in the creed, as is apparent from sun dry places in Irenæus; and amongst them more especially, from his opposing the creed, wherein our Saviour is said to be born of a virgin," unto these and such like heresies; which is likewise done by Tertullian, who re peats a creed, wherein both our Saviour's conception by the Holy Ghost, and his being born of the Virgin Mary, are distinctly mentioned in contradiction to the Cerinthians and Carpocratians: Unto which may be added, that Gennadius Massiliensis in his declaration of the Catholic faith, expounds this article in opposition to the Ebionites, after this man ner," that although the son of God was born of a woman, yet it was not by the conjunction of a man as Ebion affirms;" but as the creed directs us to believe, by the almighty operation of the Holy Ghost, who in an invi sible and unknown way supplied the place of a father, and begat the holy child Jesus, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of whom he was really born, and from whom he received the true and real substance of his body.

Which latter clause directs us to another end, for which our Saviour's being " born of

the Virgin Mary," was inserted in the creed, viz. to declare the place from whence he fetched the flesh and matter of his body, even from the substance of the Virgin Mary; for, from the most early days of Chris tianity, the Devil excited a great number to blaspheme the manner of Christ's incarnation in this respect.

Several of them were constrained to ac knowledge, that our Saviour had a body, but they would not grant it to be a material fleshly body, formed of the substance of his mother, but they imagined it to be a kind of celestial, supernatural, or heavenly body, as the Valentinians, who held, " that his body was framed in heaven, and passed through the Virgin Mary, as water through a pipe:" which notion was also espoused both by Basilides and Mar çion, as Athanasius assures us; concerning the latter of which the said father writes, “that he believed, that God came down from heav en, and dwelled or sojourned in the Virgin, without participating of her substance, being incapable to receive any thing from the nature of man, that was fallen under sin, and subjected to the ruler of wickedness:" which words afford us some light into the cause and reason of this blasphemy of the Marcionites, which seems to be this; these heretics imagining in

the first place all beings to be originally either substantially good or evil, could not in consequence thereunto, as the said father continues to write," conceive how a good and holy Christ should partake of our natures, which are substantially evil, and yet preserve himself free from sin and evil." Wherefore, to untie, or rather cut this knot, they fancied," that Christ brought with him a body from heaven, which returned to heaven again, from whence it came, whilst his divinity remained whole and entire." And from the sante occasion also, it is more than probable, that the Bardesianists fell into the same heresy, as Marinus, one of that sect, endeavors to demonstrate, "from the absurdity," as he terms it, "of join ing our flesh to his pure essence; that Christ received none of his material substance from the flesh of the Virgin, but that he assumed unto himself an heavenly body, which passed through the Virgin Mary, as water through a pipe, without receiving any thing from her; wherefore saith he we confess that he is born by Mary, but not of Mary:" From which lat ter words, it doth not only appear, that the birth of Christ of the Virgin Mary was intended against the forementioned heretics, but that also there was a peculiar emphasis designed by this expression, ek Marias, or, of Mary, to obviate and exclude their heretical sense,

who would own that Christ was born dia Marias, or by Mary, that is, that she was the ofgan or instrument that he made use of for the exhibition of his heavenly body to this inferior world, causing it to pass through her, as through a channel or pipe, without receiving any thing from her whilst they disowned that he was born ek Marias, or of Mary; that is, that he received his body from her flesh and substance, deriving the matter thereof from her, in the same way and manner, as all other children do.

But, besides the forenamed heretics, there was another strange kind of sect called Apelleians, so styled from their master Apelles, a scholar of Marcion's who owned, that Christ had a real and material body, but denied it to have been formed in the Virgin's womb, or to have participated of any part of her substance, inventing this new and unheard-of way for its composition: "that when our Saviour came down from heaven unto earth," as Epiphanius relates it, "he framed unto himself a body of the four elements," in the which he truly suffered and died; although Tertullian reports it somewhat otherwise of these Apel leians," that they asserted the body of Christ to be made of the stars, and of the substance of the superior world." But, whether the first

or the last was the real opinion, I shall not here enquire, seeing by either of them, they denied, that our Saviour assumed his body from the nature and flesh of his Virgin mother.

Now against all these heretics, was our Saviour's being born of the Virgin Mary, designedly mentioned in the creed, as is apparent from that Tertullian opposes his nativity to the forementioned heresy of the Apelleians: and the same is to be observed throughout the whole five books of Irenæus, that hammer and scourge of all those primitive heresiarchs, and particularly throughout several chapters of his third book, where he excellently well proves the verity and necessity of Christ's assuming his bodily substance from the flesh of the Virgin; and then in the fortieth chapter of the said book, he concludes with an elegant Epiphonema," that all the various blasphemies of those diverse heretics were rejected and condemned by the church, and declared a gainst by her, and the contrary truth preserved by all her children, as a precious depositum and most sacred treasury. Unto which may be added the exposition of this article by Gennadius Massiliensis, who applies it not only against the Ebionites, but that also " contrary