In like manner do we confess in article 19 of our Confession: “We believe that by this
conception the person of the Son is inseparably united and connected with the human
nature; so that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons, but two natures united in
one single person; yet each nature retains its own distinct properties. As then the divine
nature has always remained uncreated, without beginning of days or end of life, filling
heaven and earth; so also hath the human nature not lost its properties, but remained a
creature, having beginning of days, being a finitenature, and retaining all the properties of
a real body. And tho He hath by His Resurrection given immortality to the same, nevertheless
He hath not changed the reality of His human nature; forasmuch as our salvation and resur-
rection also depend on the reality of His body. But these two natures were so closely united
in one person that they were not separated even by His death:”
330This clear confession, which the orthodox Church has always defended against the
Eutychians and Monothelites, and which our Reformed churches in particular have main-
tained in opposition to the Lutherans and Mystics, is opposed by the Ethical view all along
the line. The late Prof. Chantepie de la Saussaye said distinctly in his Inaugural that it was
impossible to maintain the old representation on this point, which was also upheld by our
Confession: and that his confession of the Mediator was another. Hence the Ethical wing
deviates from the old paths not only in the matter of the Scripture, but also in the confession
of the person of the Redeemer. It teaches what the Reformed churches have always denied,
and denies what the Reformed churches have always maintained in opposition to churches
less correct in their views.
Under the influence which Schleiermacher’s training among the Moravian brethren,
and his pantheistic development and Lutheran dogmatics, have exerted upon the Ethicals,
a Christ is preached by them who is not the Christ to whom the orthodox Church of all ages
has bowed the knee; and whose confession has always been preserved incorrupt by the Re-
formed, and especially by our national, theologians. For their conclusions are as follows:
1st. That the Incarnation of the Son of God would have taken place even if Adam had
not sinned.
2d. That He is Mediator not only between the sinner and the holy God, but also between
the finite and the infinite.
3d. That the two natures mix together, and communicate their attributes to each other
in such a measure that from Him, who is both God and man, there proceeds that which is
divine-human.
4th. That this divine-human nature is communicated to believers also.
This error is immediately recognized by the use of the word divine-human. Not that we
condemn its use in every instance. On the contrary, when it refers not to the natures, but
to the person, its use is legitimate, for in the one person the two natures are inseparably
united. Still it is better in our days to be chary of the word. Divine-human has in the present
XXV. Not a Divine-Human Nature