developing the grandeur of this mystery, which the Sacred Scriptures very frequently propose to our consideration as the principal source of our eternal salvation. Its meaning he will teach to be, that we believe and confess that the same Jesus Christ, our only Lord, the Son of God, when he assumed human flesh for us in the womb of the Virgin, was not conceived like other men, from the seed of man, but in a manner transcending the order of nature, that is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; [1] so that the same person, remaining God as he was from eternity, became man, [2] what he was not before. That such is the meaning of these words is clear from the confession of the Holy Council of Constantinople, which says: " who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and became incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and WAS MADE MAN." The same truth we also find unfolded by St. John the Evangelist, who imbibed from the bosom of the Saviour himself, the know ledge of this most profound mystery. When he had thus declared the nature of the divine Word: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," he concludes, " And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us." [3] Thus, " the Word," which is a person of the divine nature, assumed human nature in such a manner that the person of both natures is one and the same: and hence this admirable union preserved the actions and properties of both natures, and, as we read in St. Leo, that great pontiff, "The lowliness of the inferior, was not consumed in the glory of the superior, nor did the assumption of the inferior diminish the glory of the superior." [4]
But as an explanation of the words, in which this Article is expressed, is not to be omitted, the pastor will teach that when we say that the Son of God was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, we do not mean that this Person alone of the Holy Trinity. Trinity accomplished the mystery of the incarnation. Although the Son alone assumed human nature, yet all the Persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were authors of this mystery. It is a principle of Christian faith, that what ever God does extrinsically, is common to the three Persons, and that one neither does more than, nor acts without another. But that one emanates from another cannot be common to all; for the Son is begotten of the Father only, the Holy Ghost, proceeds from the Father and the Son: but whatever proceeds from them extrinsically, is the work of the three Persons without difference of any sort, and of this latter description is the incarnation of the Son of God.
Of those things, notwithstanding, that are common to all, the Sacred Scriptures often attribute some to one person, some to another: thus, to the Father they attribute power over all things: Ghost. to the Son, wisdom; to the Holy Ghost love; and hence, as the mystery of the incarnation manifests the singular and boundless
