6. We do not deny that all the sayings which
are preserved of His, refer to His nature. But, if Jesus Christ
be man and God, neither God for the first time, when He became man, nor
then ceasing to be God, nor after He became Man in God less than
perfect man and perfect God, then the mystery of His words must be one
and the same with that of His nature. When according to the time
indicated, we disconnect His divinity from humanity, then let us also
disconnect His language as God from the language of man; when we
confess Him God and man at the same time, let us distinguish at the
same time His words as God and His words as man; when after His manhood
and Godhead, we recognise again the time when His whole manhood is
wholly God, let us refer to that time all that is revealed concerning
it The three periods
referred to in these three sentences are 1) before the
Incarnation: we can assign only to His Godhead the words Christ
uses in reference to this period, because He was not yet man. 2)
The Incarnation: we must distinguish whether He is speaking of
Himself as man or as God. 3) After the Resurrection, when His
manhood remains, but is perfected in the Godhead.. It is one thing, that He was God
before He was man, another, that He was man and God, and another, that
after being man and God, He was perfect man and perfect God. Do
not then confuse the times and natures in the mystery of the
dispensation, for according to the attributes of His different natures,
He must speak of Himself in relation to the mystery of His humanity, in
one way before His birth, in another while He was yet to die, and in
another as eternal.