difference between moral good and evil, that is, in two or three years time, _The land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings_; or those two kings, which thou dreadest, shall be driven, by the king of Assyria, out of their own land. And inasmuch as my people may be afraid, that, before these two years are expired, they shall be brought into such straights, through famine, or scarcity of provisions, which generally attend sieges, that they shall want the necessaries of life; let them know that this child, meaning Shear-jashub, shall not want _butter and honey_, that is, the best and most proper food for it, _that he may know_, or rather, _until_[128] _he know to refuse the evil, and chuse the good_, that is, till these two kings, Rezin and Pekah, be utterly destroyed.” Thus having considered our Saviour’s being born of a Virgin, there is one thing more that is to be observed under this head, namely, that he was of her substance, which is particularly mentioned in this answer, with a design to fence against an ancient heresy, maintained by the Gnostics in the second century, and hath been defended by others, in later ages, who supposed, that our Saviour did not derive his human nature from the Virgin Mary, but that it was formed in heaven, and sent down from thence; and that the Virgin’s womb is only to be considered as the first seat of its residence in this lower world, which they found on those scriptures which speak of _his coming down from heaven_, John iii. 13, 14. which they understand concerning his human nature; whereas, nothing is intended thereby but the manifestative presence of his divine nature, in which respect God is, in other scriptures, said to _come down_ into this lower world, Gen. xi. 5, 7. And another scripture, which they bring to the same purpose, is that, in which, they suppose, he denies his relation to his mother, when he says, _Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother_, Mat. xi. 48, 50. in which he does not deny his natural relation to them, but designs to shew, that his regard to persons in the exercise of his public ministry, was principally founded on their doing the will of his Father. And whereas they farther suppose, that if his human nature had, in any respect, been derived from the substance of the Virgin, either she must be concluded immaculate, as the Papists do, or else he must have been born a sinner; this hath been already proved to be no just consequence, inasmuch as the formation of his human nature, though it were of the substance of the Virgin, was in an extraordinary and miraculous way, whereby he was exempted from the guilt of original sin.