of the Bible The ancient Heathens reproaching the Primitive Christians that they grounded all their Doâ—â—rine upon meer Belief that their Religion consisted In sola ratione credendi and that their simple Faith was all they had to trust to The Christians complained of the Charge as a gross and impudent Calumny appealed to Reason for Proof of their Belief and offered to joyn Issue with them upon that Title And as they that owe their Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God to Report Principles of Education or the Felicity of their Birth and the Clime where they were born receive the Scripture upon no better Motives than the Turks do the Alcoran So if pretended Inspiration may pass for a Demonstration of the Truth of what every bold Pretender will obtrude upon us We expose our selves not only to the Belief of every Groundless Imagination but of innumerable Contradictions For not only the grossest Follies but Doctrines palpably repugnant both to Reason and one another have been delivered by Enthusiasts and pretended Inspirato's I readily grant that the Testimony of the Holy Ghost in the Souls and Consciences of men to the Truth of the Scripture is the most convincing Evidence that such Persons can have of it's Divinity But 1 st The Holy Ghost convinceth no man as to the Belief of the Scripture without Enlightning his mind in the Grounds and Reasons upon which it's proceeding from God is evidenced and established There is no Conviction begot by the Holy Ghost in the Hearts of men otherwise than by rational Evidence satisfying our Understandings through a discovery of the Motives and Inducements that ascertain the Truth of what he would convince us of 2. No mans particular Assurance obtained thus in way of Illumination by the Holy Ghost is to be otherwise urged as an Argument of Conviction to another than by proposing the Reasons which our Faith is erected on The way of such Mens Evidence is communicable to none unless they could kindle the same Rayes in the Breasts of others that have Irradiated their own and therefore they must deal with others by producing the grounds of their Conviction not pleading the manner of it And that an other is convinced or persuaded by them depends wholly upon the weight and Momentousness of the Reasons themselves not on the manner that such a person came to discover them For should he have arrived at the discerning them by any other Mean they had been of the same Significancy to the Conviction of an Adversary 3. The Holy Ghost as a distinct Person in the Deity is not a Principle demonstrable by Reason Seeing then it is by the Scripture alone that we are assured of the Existence of the Divine Spirit as a distinct Person in the Godhead therefore his Testimony in the Hearts and Consciences of men to the Scripture cannot be allowed as a previous Evidence of it's Divinity To prove the Divine Authority of the Scripture by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost when we cannot otherwise prove that there is a Holy Ghost but by the Testimony of the Scripture is to argue Circularly and absurdly I know the Papists to be even with the Protestants for the Circle we charge on them in their proving the Church by the Scriptures and the Scripture by the Church do pretend to fasten the same way of Circular Argumentation upon us in that we prove the Spirit by the Scripture and the Scripture by the Spirit Whereas even those Protestants who contend that the Spirit and Scripture do mutually prove one another may easily acquit themselves from a Circle Seeing whatever Proof the Scripture and Spirit mutually Minister to one another it is in Diverso genere The Scripture proves the Spirit either in way of Witness by plainly testifying that there is such a Being as the Divine Spirit or Objectively and by way of Argument bringing into Light such Truths as can be conceived to proceed from none other save 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the Holy Ghost But then the Spirit proves the Scripture not in way of a naked Witness nor in way of Argument but under the notion of an Efficient Cause Elevating and preparing our Understandings to discern the Lineaments Characters and Signatures of Divinity which God hath impressed upon the Scriptures which through that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is upon our Minds we many times do not at all discern much less do we at any time discern 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without it Or else by giving Efficacy to Scripture Truths in and upon our Hearts and Consciences so that the Word arriving with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Demonstration of the Spirit and Power we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the effectual Working of his Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual Sense and Taste of the things themselves And this Spiritual Gust that I may use Origen's Phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Diviner thing and more Convincing than any Demonstration For the Word of God as well as God himself is best known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an Intellectual Touch as the Philosopher sayes But as I have said already this is no convincing Proof to an Adversary nor doth the evidence of it reach further than the party immediately concerned And therefore our Recourse must be to Arguments of another Nature In brief when we have to do with such as either Question or Deny the Divine Authority of the Scripture we are to prove it by Ratiocination from common Principles received amongst Mankind and by Topicks that lye even and proportionated to Intellectual Nature And here Reason is justly magnified as hugely Subservient to Religion in that it demonstrates the Divine Authority of the Scripture upon which our Faith as to all particular Articles and Duties of Religion is grounded Not do I doubt but that Reason can acquit it self in this Undertaking to the Conviction of all that are not wilfully obstinate and for such I know no means either sufficient or intended by God to satisfie them Many great Men both Ancient and Modern as well at Home as Abroad have already laboured and to good purpose in this Theme Nor can there be much added by any to what is already said much less am I likely to do it Neither is it my Intention to treat this Subject at large but rather to touch at the Heads of Arguments than handle them And I suppose this will sufficiently answer my Designe which is to vindicate the Non-Conformists from the Aspersions lately cast upon them as if they were Defamers of Reason disclayming it from all Concern in Religion and deserving to be charged with the Reproach which Julian slanderously fastned upon the Primitive Christians that they had no Ground for their Faith but that their Wisdom was only to Believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Method I shall here confine my self to shall be First To justifie the Necessity of some Supernatural Revelation in order to
explain things which lye at a vaster distance from it and to which it bears less proportion If neither the Nature of God or of our Souls or of Matter of whose Existence we have the most scientifick evidence are to be comprehended by our narrow and shallow Intellects why may we not justifie the belief of such things of whose Truth and reality the Scripture instructs us though we cannot conceive the manner how they are or indeed how they can be And if men will not be talk'd and huff'd out of the persuasion of those things of whose Existence their Senses and Reasons ascertain them though they cannot answer all the difficulties they are accosted with in their enquiries about them much less will Christians be Hector'd out of the belief of the Doctrines of Faith because of the Entanglements which attend the conception of them 'T is the Nature of Faith to embrace things upon the alone Testimony of God though it understand nothing of the Mode and Manner how they are The highest assurance of the reality of any thing is Gods affirming it and what he asserts we are with all reverence to assent to its Truth though we can frame no adequate Idea of it nor fathom it in our conceptions To bring down the Doctrines of Religion to the Model of Reason is wholly to overthrow belief and to pay no more respect to the Authority and Testimony of God than we would to that of a Worm like our selves If there were no obscurity and difficulties in the Notions of Gospel-Truths where would our submission and Humility be which are the qualifications that do most recommend us to God and upon this account especially because they prepare the Mind for Faith and give check to all bold and curious enquiries 'T is enough that we can by rational proofs demonstrate the Bible to be the Word of that God whose Veracity is proportionate to his Sapience and both of them infinite nor is it needful that its Doctrines should further adjust themselves to our Understandings And indeed as to the Doctrine we have been discoursing not only the Apostle styles it a great Mystery but Christ himself seems to adjâ—rn the perfect knowledg of it till the glorified state At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and you in in me and I in you Joh. 14.20 Yet seeing the Holy Ghost hath been pleased not only to assert an Intimate Union between Christ and Believers but hath condescended to illustrate it by so many similitudes and seeing many things that are Mysterious and unsearchable till God reveal them are afterwards of no difficult conception providing we regulate our apprehensions of them by the Word I shall therefore having arraign'd and overthrown the false Notions of this Spiritual Union venture to assign a true and I hope also an Intelligible Notion of it Now this I shall attempt by these several steps and degrees 1st The highest and closest Union is between those things that are actuated by one Spirit dwelling and moving in them Adhesion of parts is not so noble an Union as information by one and the same Spirit If the vegetative juice be precluded admission into any branch it is no longer in a proper sense United to the Root notwithstanding its Physical continuity to the other Branches When the Animal spirits forsake any Member in the Organick Body it is immediately as if it were not knit to the Head though it remain not only connected to the adjoyning parts by Muscles and Sinews but ligu'd to the Acropolis by Nerves and Arteries The strictest and most proper Union is that which emergeth from actuation by the same spirit 'T is this that renders the inferior Members as much coherent with the Head as the superior are because they are all acted by the same Animal spirits which as they are prepared in the Brain so they have their flux thence to all the Regions of the Body and their reflux back thither again Thus the soul though she keep her residence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is really joyned to all the Body because of the commerce that is between the Head where her Imperial Court is and the rest of the Members through the ministry of the Animal spirits 2dly Things at the greatest distance and between which there is no physical continuity may be acted by the same Spirit providing he be immense and infinite That Spirit who through the Infinite perfection of his Essence is every where may both inhabite and produce similar operations in those subjects that are locally distant the one from the other Though a Finite spirit cannot at the same time influence and act distinct and distant Subjects if there be not either a continuity or a contiguousness between them yet an Infinite Spirit may 3dly 'T is Christ as Mediator that Believers are United to The Mystical Union is between Him and Believers as he is a Middle Person between Them and his Father Our Moral Union with the Father in way of complacential love is through our Spiritual Union with the Son by the renovation of the Holy Ghost 4. The Holy Ghost did in a singular manner operate upon and reside in the Humane Nature of Christ. Though Christ was Holy by Essence in respect of his Divine Nature yet he was Holy by Consecration and Unction with the Spirit in respect of his Humane Though it was only the Son that did assume our Nature into subsistence with himself yet it was the Spirit that positively adorned and furnished that Nature with Grace 'T is true it is not of easie apprehension how the operation of the Holy Ghost should interpose in the same person between the one Nature and the other but it is as true that we have it plainly affirmed in the Scripture which is the highest assurance we can have of any thing 'T is one of the deep things of God which we ought to submit to with an humble Faith and not to enquire after it with a presumptuous boldness The Testimonies to this purpose are many but I shall only refer the Reader to two or three viz. Isa. 11.1 3. Joh. 3.34 Luk. 4.1 5thly The Holy Ghost is the Immediate Renewer and Sanctifier of the Elect. All the saving Illumination all the Gospel conviction all the Vital quickening all the Regenerating Virtue that we come under at any time have or are made the Subjects of they are from the Spirit of God and the Efficacious subjective operation of the Holy Ghost in and upon us Our birth and progress in Holiness are to be ascribed to Him as the Efficient Cause and Immediate Worker 'T is for this Reason that the Third Person in the Trinity is so frequently styled the Holy Spirit For that Title doth not so much refer to the Essential Purity of his Nature as to the sanctifying operations which are assigned to him in the Oeconomy of Mans Redemption This I shall not now divert to the proof of 't is enough that the
the cause ground motive with relation to which the things interceded for are procured Christs interposure as Mediator between God and Man took its rise from and bore upon a compact between the Father and Him that he should be Incarnate and give his Life a Ransom for many This the Holy Ghost doth most emphatically instruct us in 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 8.6.9.15 12.24 which are all the places where he is in express Terms so styled Now had not the susception of our sins preceded as the Antecedent impulsive cause of Christs sufferings he could neither be said to be made Sin for us nor to bear them nor to have them laid upon him nor to dye for our Offences nor to be our Ransom Nor could the inflicting of sufferings upon him have been either good in it self or an act of Rectoral Justice in God or have had any tendency to his glory or to the honour of his Law or to deterr Sinners from offending yea preclude once the consideration of sin as the meritorious cause of the Agonies which Christ underwent and the Love Wisedom Justice and Rectorship of God are obnoxious to reflexions and stand lyable to be impeached And if it be once obtain'd that our sins are the Meritorious impulsive cause of Christs Death his susception of our Guilt will necessarily follow For Guilt being nothing but an Obligation to punishment it being impossible to conceive such a habitude betwixt a person and sin that it should be the meritorious impulsive cause of his punishment and yet he not be under an obligation to punishment it plainly follows that guilt must be supposed antecedent to a demerit of punishment Guilt and punishment being Relates he that is obnoxious to the latter must be previously under the imputation of the former as Bishop Andrews expresseth it Christ was first made sin in respect of the Guilt and then a Curse in respect of the punishment Serm. of Justification on Jer. 23.6 Where Sin is so charged as to expose a person to a demerit of punishment there is an obligation to it where there is such an obligation to it there is in some sense or other Guilt Those very arguments whereby we overthrow the Popish Dogm of Believers being discharged from the Guilt of Sin but not the punishment do equally disprove Christs undergoing the punishment of Sin without susception of the Guilt In brief 1. Through a convention betwixt the Father and Son our sins are so charged upon and transfered to Christ as to be exacted of him and he hath submitted to the Demerit of them so as to undergoe the penalty in the substance and kind of it though not in the Adjuncts and Consequential accidents which would have accompanied it upon such weak finite depraved subjects as we are that we should have undergone 2. Through Christs interposing as Surety and Mediator by suffering in our stead God hath so vindicated his own Honour asserted the Authority of his Commands and satisfied the ends of Law and Government that he accepts of what Christ hath done and suffered as full satisfaction to his Law and in consideration thereof without any reflexion upon his Attributes or subversion of his Rectorship he makes a tender of pardon to us 3. God having admitted the interposure of Christ on our behalf having inflicted sufferings upon him as a punishment for our sins and having accepted those sufferings as a Sacrifice of Atonement for the expiation of our Guilt and having also agreed with his Son and declared in the Covenant of Grace the Terms on which we are made partakers of the benefits thereof we upon a performance of these conditions come to have all that Christ did and suffered as our Mediator imputed to us in a Law-sence That is the Law owns that Christ intervening in our room hath answered all its demands so that God in consistency with its exactions may be both just in himself and yet be our Justifier And this being all that we intend by a Legal Union with Christ namely that by the Covenant of Redemption Christ so becomes our Surrogate as to have our sins in a Law-sence imputed to Him and that we through fulfilling the Terms of the Covenant of Grace have all that which He as substituted in our place and stead did and suffered imputed in a Law-sense to us He must not only disclaim Christs being Mediator in any proper sense but renounce the whole Gospel that denys it Having not only declared but justified that there is a Legal Union between Christ and Believers and having also stated and defined what it is and wherein it consists all that remains incumbent upon me relating to this Head is to shew that the whole of a Christians Union with the Lord Jesus is not comprehended in this nor hereby expressed And 1st There are many Scripture Texts manifestative of an Oneness that the Saints have with Christ which a Legal Union doth not come up to the heighth and grandeur of As there is not any one thing in the Gospel which the Holy Ghost hath judged meet to express in greater variety of phrase than the mystery of our cohesion with Jesus Christ so this Legal Union can no ways sustain the weight of most of them 'T is not consistent with the Wisdom and Goodness of God to entertain us with pompous words or to treat us with Hyperbolical expressions when he is declaring to us the Mysteries of Faith to which he not only requires our assent but hath made much of our comfort and duty dependent upon them Who can think that a Legal Union is all that the Holy Ghost intends by our being one Spirit with the Lord and being ingraffed into Him as Branches are into a stock or root cemented to Him as the building is to the Foundation incorporated with him as our Aliment and Food is with our fleshly substance ligu'd and connected to him as the Bodily Members are to their Natural and Vital Head I know all these expressions are Metaphorical yet I also know that they must be declarative of something that is not only real but whose greatness it is not easy to conceive As the variety of Metaphors which the Spirit makes use of to decipher it by declare its importance so the quality of them serves to intimate that it is not meerly a Legal Union If there be no other Oneness between Christ and sincere Christians but that which we have been discoursing of there could not be a Symbole worse chosen to express it by there being no Analogy between what the phrases originally signifie and that which they are designed and brought to illustrate 2dly Those things being distinct and different whose ideas are so the formal Conception of our Legal Union with Christ being hugely different from the Notion which we have of our Spiritual Union with Him it plainly follows that our Mystical coherence to Him imports some thing besides a Legal Oneness Now that the Idea which we have
sense and the Mystical that they do both together make up one entire compleat sense of the place Yea it may be said that in all propositions which admit a Literal and a Mystical sense though there be but one Explicite Enunciation yet there are two implicitely And if any have a mind upon this account to distinguish betwixt the Literal sense and the Mystical they may for me nor will I quarrel with them But to assign a plurality of coordinate or Ambiguous senses to one and the same text is the height of Madness invented only to reproach the Scripture and to make way for the Authority of the Church in the expounding of it and is indeed repugnant not only to the perspicuity of the Scripture but to the unity of Truth and the end of Gods revealing the Word which is to instruct us in Faith and Obedience for wheresoever there is a Multiplicity of Disparate Senses we can never be sure that we have attained to the true meaning of any one proposition Now when we enquire into the Sense of Scripture and asseâ—t its being Intelligible we always distinguish betwixt the perspicuity of the Object and the capacity of the Subject actually to understand it The easiness of the Scripture to be understood in respect of it self and our disposedness to understand it right are things vastly distant The Sense of the Word may be in it self facile and plain though in the mean time it remain dark and obscure to those who have shut their eyes or that have their understanding defiled tinctur'd and darkned by fuliginous vapours The Bible is only plain to such who apply themselves to the study of it without prepossessions prejudice and forestalled judgments are withall humble and diligent in the use of means to find out the meaning of it Though the Ethereal Regions be replenished with rayes of light emitted from the great Luminary yet it is both necessary that men have eyes and that they open them in order to their discovering and receiving the benefit of it If our understandings either from that darkness and ignorance which they are enveloped and muffled with through the Fall or from malignant Habits occasioned either by unhappy education or sensual lusts do not discern the sense and meaning of Scripture it is no impeachment of its perspicuity but a manifestation of our weakness corruption and folly Besides when we speak of the plainness of the Scripture its easiness to be understood we always put a difference betwixt Scripture Texts relating to Doctrines of Faith manners which are absolutely necessary to be known and such of whose Sense we may be safely ignorant the Doctrines they refer to having no indispensable connexion with Salvation The whole Will and Mind of God as to all that is needfull to be known in order to our duty and Happiness is revealed in the Scripture without any such ambiguity or obscurity as should hinder it from being understood though God in his Soveraign Wisdome hath in many things whose simple Ignorance doth not interpose with Salvation left many hard and difficult Texts partly to make us sensible of the weakness of our Understandings partly to imploy our minds unto diligence partly to induce us to implore Divine instruction and to make us depend upon God for illumination and partly to exercise our Souls unto reverence But in Fundamental Truths the Case is otherwise for the end giving measure and fixing bounds unto means it is not consistent with the Wisdom and Goodness yea nor Justice of God to leave that hard to be understood which upon no less peril than the hazard of Salvation he hath required the indispensable knowledg of As first principles of Reason need no proof of their Truth being self-evident to every one that understands the Import of Terms So Fundamental Doctrines of Religion carry an Evidence in the plainness and perspicuity of their Revelation that every one who reads the Bible without prejudice and a perverse mind may be satisfied that such Doctrines are there proposed Nor is it any Argument that those Texts of Scripture where such Articles are revealed are not easy to be understood because some out of prejudice or perversness have wrested them to a Corrupt sence seeing God did not endite the Bible for the froward and Captious but for such who will read it with a free and unprejudiced mind and are willing to come to the knowledge of the Truth For as Aristotle says in the Case of the first principles of Reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A self Evident Principle is not Evident to all men but only to such who have found and undepraved Understandings Topic. 6. Cap. 4. So it is no impeachment of the perspicuity of the Revelation of Fundamental Truths of Religion that men who have their minds defiled and darkned by Lusts infected with evil Opinions and filled with prejudices do not believe and acknowledg them And by the way while all Truths absolutely necessary to be known are easy and plain and while we are indispensably obliged to believe and receive whatsoever is so an Enumeration of Fundamental Truths is neither necessary nor useful and possibly not safe Now as all Doctrines necessary to be Understood are so revealed in the scripture that they are easy enough to be so so being understood they are as well the Standard and Measure by which dark and obscure Texts are to be interpreted as the Key to the opening of them As Curve lines are best discerned when applied to straight so are Heterodox senses imposed on Obscure Texts of Scripture best perceived when examined by their Habitudes to necessary and plain Truths Whatsoever bears not a Symmetry with the Foundation can be no Superstruction of God And whatsoever Notion either Formally or Virtually directly or consequentially interfere's with a fundamental Truth though never so many Texts be pressed in the proof of it we maybe sure both of its falsity and that they are all wrested and mistaken But though the Scripture be most plain in points necessary to Salvation yet no one Text of the Bible is in it self unintelligible for as Dr. More say's to affirm that the Holy Writ is in it elf unintelligible is aequivalent to the pronouncing it nonsense or to averr that such and such Books or Passages of it were never to be understood by men is to insinuate as if the Wisedome of God did not only play with the Children of men but even fool with them Mons. Wolzogen therefore in his late Book de Interprete Scripturarum hath not only in this matter shamefully betrayed the Protestant cause but reflected reproach upon the Spirit of God There are somthings says he in the Scripture which we cannot understand not through any defect or fault of our Minds or through the Sublimity Majesty of the Doctrines themselves but through the Frame of the Scripture it self and the manner in which they are revealed If there be but one
together Animation by one Spirit is both a nobler and firmer way of Union than adhesion even by continuity of parts is Now by one Spirit we are all Baptized into one Body 1 Cor. 12.13 And hereby we know that we dwell in Him and He in us namely by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 Joh. 4 13. Hence as upon the one hand If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 So upon the other hand He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 I know that Mr. Sherlock glosseth both these Texts of our having the same temper and disposition of mind which Christ had but most ignorantly as well as falsly 'T is true such a temper and disposition of Mind as Christ had is the fruit and effect of the Spirit of Christ but it is no more the Spirit of Christ it self than an effect is its own cause Our having the Spirit of Christ is assigned as the cause of our having a Spiritual temper of mind and I hope our Author will admit a cause and its effect to be distinct and different things The Spirit which we are said to have is the very same Spirit by which Christ will at last quicken our Mortal Bodies and I suppose this will not be the produce of any temper or disposition of mind of ours In a word the whole context lyes in a direct repugnancy to our Authors paraphrase of Rom. 8.9 For that Hypothetical proposition If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his is an inference from the fore-going words if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you And this Spirit of Christ is said to be the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the Dead v. 11. And to have the Spirit of Christ is the same with being led with the Spirit of God v. 14. This Spirit of Christ which Believers are said to have is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Spirit it self that beareth witness with our Spirits that we are the Children of God v. 16. and the Spirit that helpeth our Infirmities the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that maketh intercession for us v. 26. All which lyes in a direct contradiction to Mr. Sherlocks Gloss. And whereas our Author objects that what the Apostle calls the having the Spirit of Christ v. 9. he expresseth by if Christ be in you v. 10. and that this is no more than our being possest with the same love of Virtue and Goodness which appeared so eminently in Christ I reply that though the having the Spirit of Christ and Christs being in a Person be coincident yet 't is most false that we are to understand no more by Christ in you v. 10. but a being possest with the same love of Virtue and Goodness which appeared so eminently in Him And my reason is because the Apostle makes Christs being in them the ground principle and cause of their minds being connaturalized to Virtue and Goodness for that is the import of those words but the Spirit is Life i. e. the inward man is quickened and renewed and surely to establish an Identity betwixt Causes and their Effects is to impeach the first Principles of Science And as for our Authors exposition of 1 Cor. 6.17 namely That He who is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit signifies no more but our having the same temper of mind which Christ had it is not only too dimininutive and scanty a sense to bear a proportion to the words but it is plainly contradictory to the scope of the Text. For not to insist upon the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render joyned though it be a very emphatical Term importing no less than such a near and close conjunction between Christ and Christians as is between things which are strongly cemented and glewed together Nor yet to dwell upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one Spirit though it be the highest phrase in the stores and treasuries of language to express an intimous conjunction by I shall only take notice that the Apostle having asserted v. 15. That our Bodies are the Members of Christ and having subjoyned by way of inference from thence that we ought therefore by no means to take the Members of Christ and to make them the Members of an Harlot He gives this reason for it v. 16. because whosoever doth so becomes One Body with her and so cannot be One with Christ those two lying in a direct repugnancy the one to the other So that now I argue if the Union betwixt a Man and an Harlot in the virtue of which they are One Body import more then meerly a likeness of Temper and Moral Dispositions as surely it doth forasmuch as there may be a similitude in sensual propensions and inclinations where the becoming One Flesh through Carnal Conjunction interposeth not Much more doth a Believers being One Spirit with the Lord imply a higher kind of Union than an affinity of Dispositions For this being it which the Apostle setteth in opposition to the former it must at least bear a proportion to it in respect of neerness of cohesion although through being compared to it as an oppositum it can have no agreement with it in its Principles Bonds and Media I shall only add that the Affinity between our Authors paraphrase and that of a certain Socinian upon the place gives me some ground to suspect whence our Author imbib'd the Gloss which he would obtrude upon us But to resume what I was upon namely that the Spirit being the Vinculum and Ligament by which we are united to Christ our cohesion therefore to Him must be somthing more than a Political Relation That Believers are inhabited and actuated by the Spirit is a Truth which the Scripture gives Testimony to in an hundred places Nor is he only present in the Hearts of Believers in respect of that New Creature Divine Nature and Spiritual Being which he hath wrought in them but even immediately also Thus the Ancients in a manner unanimously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit is not only in Believers now as heretofore meerly by his operations but he exists and dwells in them as it were after a substantial manner saith Nazianzen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He knits us to himself by a kind of Immediate contact while he maketh us partakers of the Divine Nature saith Cyrillus Alexandrinus Non per gratiam visitationis operationis sed per ipsam praesentiam majestatis atque in vasa non jam odor balsami sed ipsa substantia sacri defluxit unguenti saith Austin He who desires to know the Harmony and agreement as well as the sense of the Fathers in this matter may consult Petavius who treats it at large And if any have a mind to understand the Opinion of the Schoolmen concerning it they may advise with Ruiz de Trinitate d. 109. Sect. 7. Vasq. 1.2 d. 205. Valentia 1.2 d. 8.
Scripture bears witness to it in a thousand places nor can the contrary Opinion be espoused and asserted without a Virtual renouncing the Gospel 6thly 'T is from by and through Jesus Christ as Mediator that the Spirit whether it be with respect to his Immediate seisure of us and dwelling in us or with reference to any of his saving operations is given to and bestowed upon us As God never dispensed any Grace to the Sons of Adam but in and by the person of Jesus Christ as the Mediator and Head of the Church so the Communion of the Spirit who is our Immediate Sanctifier is from and through Christ. His Spirit he is by Him he is promised His bodily absence He supplies and of His fulness He takes and communicates to us Ye have received an Unction from the Holy One saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 2.20 Though the giving the Spirit be ascribed to the Father as He with whom the Authoritative disposure and appointment of all Divine extrinsick operations lodg yet with respect to Immediate Mission his sending is attributed to Christ whose Spirit upon this account as well as others He is called Hence the Ancients style him Vicarium Christi the Vicar of Christ and Vis Vicaria the power by which he is present to our souls Spiritus nos Christo confibulat the Spirit buttons us to Christ that I may use Tertullian's phrase The Holy Ghost supplies Christ's place here in the World and through him the Lord Jesus Christ is present with his Church till the consummation of all things and by Him he dwells and walks in his People The Spirit is Christs purchase for his People and his Donative to them The Holy Spirit was given to Christ as a reward of his Obedience and Death to be by him communicated to men Jesus Christ as Mediator is Authorised by the Father to dispense Grace to whom he will 7ly Through the communication of the Spirit from Christ to us and immediately upon his taking the possession of us the Nature of Christ the Seed of God and a vital living principle comes to be formed in us For though the Donation of the Spirit to us and his possessing of us precede the Geniture of the New Man in priority of Nature forasmuch as the Cause must be conceived before the Effect yet the inhabitation of the Spirit and the production of a New Creature and spiritual Being in us are perfectly simultaneous as to time Now through the formation of this Seed of God in us we become partakers of the same spiritual Nature that Christ was We do hereby not only beat the Image of the Heavenly but are changed into the same Image This is Christ formed in us And this New Spiritual Being and Internal power becoming incorporated and made One with our souls it is as a Vital Form in us And as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth by transforming the soul attemper it to universal Obedience so one of its first operations is an exercise of Faith upon Jesus Christ. And this being that which entitles us in a peculiar manner to fresh communications of Grace and supplies of the Spirit of Jesus as well as that which interests us in his meritorious Righteousness we are therefore not only said to live by Faith but Christ is said to dwell in our hearts by it Thus by the guidance and conduct of Scripture we are by short steps and Regular Ratiocinations arrived at such an Idea and Notion of Believers Union with Christ as is both plain in it self and easie to be understood providing that men be not obstinate against Evidence Nor have I wrested or suborned any Sacred passage to give Testimony in this cause all I have made use of being such as voluntarily offer themselves without any force or distortion put upon them And for such as are mustred against us I have either gain'd them back to our side or shewed that their Testimony doth no ways oppose what we plead for Were I now sure that my Reader would not tire I might draw out this discourse to a greater length but as I have not the confidence to entertain Guests longer than I can afford them entertainment worthy of them so I am not so disingenuous as to treat men with words when thoughts and material remarques fail If after all this which I have said any shall still be found quarrelling at the Unintelligibleness of Believers Union with Christ I think we may justly either complain of their perverseness or blame their Hebetude To such as are not refractory to Scripture-Light and to the easie deductions which our Intellectual Faculties in their Rational exercise do draw from Revelation there is enough said to make it understood as for others I leave them to the punishment of their own obstinacy Instead therefore of filling up pages by producing Testimonies of Ancient Modern Divines or of calling in the Authority of the Church of England I shall shut up all with a few passages out of Dr. Patrick's Mensa Mystica And this I the rather do being inform'd that the Opinion of this Dr. weighs more with Mr. Sherlock than either the Canon of a Convocation or the Decree of a General Council The Passages with which much of what I have delivered is not only coincident in sense but in words are these As the highest and closest Union is that which is made by one Spirit and Life moving in the whole so the Union between Christ and his Members is by one Life As things at the greatest distance may be United by one Spirit of Life actuating them both so may Christ and we though we enjoy not his bodily presence Although Christ in regard of his corporal presence be in the Heavens which must receive him untill the time of the restitution of all things Act. 3.21 Yet he is here with us always even to the end of the World Math. 28.20 in regard of his holy Spirit working in us By this he is sensible of all our needs and by the Vital Influences of it in every part he joynes the whole Body fitly together so that he and it make one Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 And that this Union is wrought by the Spirit which every true Christian hath dwelling in him 1 Cor. 6.17 Rom. 8.9 the next v. 13. will tell you we are Baptised into one Body by one Spirit This Spirit is always needful being that which maintains our life It is the very bond and ligament that tyes us to Christ. For our Union is not only such a Moral Union as is between Husband and Wife which is made by love or between King and Subjects which is made by Laws but such a Natural Union as is between Head and Members the Vine and Branches which is made by One Spirit or Life dwelling in the whole FINIS ERRATA I find upon a Review of these Sheets that several Errors and mistakes and those of divers kinds have crept into them Some