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22. There are many other things also in the incarnation of Christ,
displeasing as it is to the proud, that are to be observed and thought
of advantageously. And one of them is, that it has been demonstrated
to man what place he has in the things which God has created; since
human nature could so be joined to God, that one person could be made
of two substances, and thereby indeed of three God, soul, and
flesh: so that those proud malignant spirits, who interpose themselves
as mediators to deceive, although as if to help, do not therefore dare
to place themselves above man because they have not flesh; and chiefly
because the Son of God deigned to die also in the same flesh, lest
they, because they seem to be immortal, should therefore succeed in
getting themselves worshipped as gods. Further, that the grace of
God might be commended to us in the man Christ without any precedent
merits; because not even He Himself obtained by any precedent merits
that He should be joined in such great unity with the true God, and
should become the Son of God, one Person with Him; but from the
time when He began to be man, from that time He is also God; whence
it is said, "The Word was made flesh." Then, again, there is
this, that the pride of man, which is the chief hindrance against his
cleaving to God, can be confuted and healed through such great
humility of God. Man learns also how far he has gone away from God;
and what it is worth to him as a pain to cure him, when he returns
through such a Mediator, who both as God assists men by His
divinity, and as man agrees with men by His weakness. For what
greater example of obedience could be given to us, who had perished
through disobedience, than God the Son obedient to God the Father,
even to the death of the cross? Nay, wherein could the reward of
obedience itself be better shown, than in the flesh of so great a
Mediator, which rose again to eternal life? It belonged also to the
justice and goodness of the Creator, that the devil should be
conquered by the same rational creature which he rejoiced to have
conquered, and by one that came from that same race which, by the
corruption of its origin through one, he held altogether.
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