makes thee ours and us thine our materiall food in these corruptible bodies runs into corruption thy spirituall food nourisheth purely and strengthens us to a blessed immortality As for this materiall food many a one longs for it that cannot get it many a one hath it that cannot eat it many eat it that cannot digest it many digest it into noxious and corrupt humours all that receive it do but maintain a perishing life if not a languishing death but this flesh of thine as it was never withheld from any true apperite so it never yeelds but wholesome and comfortable sustenance to the soul never hath any other issue then an everlasting life and happinesse O Saviour whensoever I sit at mine own Table let me think of thine whensoever I feed on the bread and meat that is set before me and feel my self nourished by that repast let me minde that better sustenance which my soul receives from thee and finde thee more one with me then that bodily food SECT 7. This union resembled by the branch and the stock the foundation and the building LOok but into thy Garden or Orchard and see the Vine or any other fruit-bearing tree how it growes and fructifies The branches are loaden with increase whence is this but that they are one with the stock and the stock one with the root were either of these severed the plant were barren and dead The branch hath not sap enough to maintain life in it self unlesse it receive it from the body of the tree nor that unlesse it derived it from the root nor that unlesse it were cherished by the earth Lo Joh. 15. 5 6. I am the Vine saith our Saviour Ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered were the branch and the body of the tree of different substances and only closed together in some artificiall contiguity no fruit could be expected from it it is only the abiding in the tree as a living lim of that plant which yeelds it the benefit and issue of vegetation No otherwise is it betwixt Christ and his Church the bow and the tree are not more of one piece then we are of one substance with our Saviour and branching out from him and receiving the sap of heavenly vertue from his precious root we cannot but be acceptably fruitfull But if the Analogie seem not to be so full for that the branch issues naturally from the tree and the fruit from the branch whereas we by nature have no part in the Son of God take that clearer resemblance which the Apostle fetches from the stock and the griffe or cion The branches of the wilde olive Rom. 11. are cut off and are graffed with choice cions of the good olive those imps grow and are now by this insition no lesse embodyed in that stock then if they had sprouted out by a naturall propagation neither can be any more separated from it then the strongest bough that nature puts forth In the mean time that cion alters the nature of that stock and whiles the root gives fatnesse to the stock and the stock yeelds juice to the cion the cion gives goodnesse to the plant and a specification to the fruit so as whiles the impe is now the same thing with the stock the tree is different from what it was so it is betwixt Christ and the beleeving soul Old Adam is our wilde stock what could that have yeelded but either none or sowre fruit we are imped with the new man Christ that is now incorporated into us we are become one with him our nature is not more ours then he is ours by grace now we bear his fruit and not our own our old stock is forgotten all things are become new our naturall life we receive from Adam our spirituall life and growth from Christ from whom after the improvement of this blessed incision we can be no more severed then he can be severed from himself Look but upon thy house that from vegetative creatures thou maist turn thine eyes to those things which have no life if that be uniform the foundation is not of a different matter from the wals both those are but one piece the superstructure is so raised upon the foundation as if all were but one stone Behold Christ is the chief corner stone 1 Pet. 2. 6. elect and precious neither can there be any other foundation laid then that which is laid on him 1 Cor. 3. 11. 2 Pet. 2. 5. we are lively stones built up to a spiritual house on that sure and firm foundation some loose stones perhaps that lye unmortered upon the battlements may be easily shaken down but whoever saw a squared marble laid by line and levell in a strong wall upon a well-grounded base flye out of his place by whatsoever violence since both the strength of the foundation below and the weight of the fabrick above have setled it in a posture utterly unmovable Such is our spirituall condition O Saviour thou art our foundation we are laid upon thee and are therein one with thee we can no more be disjoyned from thy foundation then the stones of thy foundation can be disunited from themselves So then to sum up all as the head and members are but one body as the husband and wife are but one flesh as our meat and drink becomes part of our selves as the tree and branches are but one plant as the foundation and wals are but one fabrick so Christ and the beleeving soul are indivisibly one with each other SECT 8. The certainty and indissolublenesse of this union WHere are those then that goe about to divide Christ from himself Christ reall from Christ mysticall yeelding Christ one with himself but not one with his Church making the true beleever no lesse separable from his Saviour then from the entirenesse of his own obedience dreaming of the uncomfortable and self-contradicting paradoxes of the totall and finall Apostasie of Saints Certainly these men have never thorowly digested the meditation of this blessed union whereof we treat Can they hold the beleeving soul a lim of that body whereof Christ is the head and yet imagine a possibility of dissolution Can they affain to the Son of God a body that is unperfect Can they think that body perfect that hath lost his lims Even in this mysticall body the best joynts may be subject to strains yea perhaps to some painfull and perillous luxation but as it was in the naturall body of Christ when it was in death most exposed to the cruelty of all enemies that upon an over-ruling providence not a bone of it could be broken so it is still and ever with the spirituall some scourgings and blowes it may suffer yea perhaps some bruises and gashes but no bone can be shattered in pieces much lesse dissevered from the rest of the body
life to maintain this Fort of our joy against all the powers of darkness and if at any time we finde our selves beaten off through the violence of temptation we must chide our selves into our renued valour and expostulate the matter with our shrinking courage with the man after Gods own heart Why art thou cast down O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God Psal 42. 11. 43. 5. SECT 11. An incitement to joy and thankfulnesse for Christ our life NEither is here more place for an heavenly joy then for height of spirit and raptures of admiration at that infinite goodnes mercy of our God who hath vouchsafed so far to grace his elect as to honour them with a speciall inhabitation of his ever-blessed Deity Yea to live in them and to make them live mutually in and to himself What capacity is there in the narrow heart of man to conceive of this incomprehensible favour to his poor creature Oh Saviour this is no small part of that great mystery wherinto the Angels desire to look 1 Pet. 1. 12. can never look to the bottome of it how shall the weak eyes of sinfull flesh ever be able to reach unto it When thou in the estate of thine humane infirmity offeredst to go down to the Centurions house that humble commander could say Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof What shall we then say that thou in the state of thine heavenly glory shouldst vouchsafe to come down and dwell with us in these houses of clay and to make our breasts the Temples of thy holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. When thine holy mother came to visit the partner of her joy thy fore-runner then in the womb of his mother sprang for the joy of thy presence Luk. 1. 44. though distermined by a second womb how should we be affected with a ravishment of spirit whom thou hast pleased to visit in so much mercy as to come down into us and to be spiritually conceived in the womb of our hearts and thereby to give a new and spirituall life to our poor souls a life of thine own yet made ours a life begun in grace and ending in eternall glory SECT 12. The duties we owe to God for his mercy to us in this life which we have from Christ NEver did the holy God give a priviledge where he did not expect a duty he hath more respect to his glory then to throw away his favours The life that ariseth from this blessed union of our souls with Christ as it is the height of all his mercies so it cals for our most zealous affections and most effectuall improvement Art thou then thus happily united to Christ and thus enlived by Christ how entire must thou needs be with him how dear must thy valuations be of him how heartily must thou be devoted to him The spirit of man saith wise Solomon Prov. 20. 27. is the candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly and therefore cannot but be acquainted with his own inmates and finding so heavenly a guest as the Spirit of Christ in the secret lodgings of his soul applies it self to him in all things so as these two spirits agree in all their spirituall concernments The spirit it self saith the holy Apostle Rom. 8. 16. beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God and not in this case only but upon whatsoever occasion the faithfull man hath this Urim in his breast and may consult with this inward Oracle of his God for direction and resolution in all his doubts neither can he according to the counsell of the Psalmist Psal 4. 4. commune with his own heart but that Christ who lives there is ready to give him an answer Shortly our souls and we are one and the soul and life are so near one that the one is commonly taken for the other Christ therefore who is the life and soul of our souls is and needs must be so intrinsecall to us that we cannot so much as conceive of our spirituall being without him Thou needest not be told my son how much thou valuest life Besides thiâ—e own sense Satan himself can tell thee and in this case thou maist beleeve him Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life Job 2. 4. What ransome can be set upon it that a man would stick to give though mountains of gold Psal 49. 7. though thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oyle Micah 6. 7. Yea how readily do we expose our dear lims not to hazard only but to losse for the preservation of it Now alas what is our life It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away Jam. 4. 14. And if we do thus value a perishing life that is going out every moment what pâ—ice shall we set upon eternity If Christ be our life how precious is that life which neither inward distempers nor outward violences can bereave us of which neither can be decayed by time nor altered with crosse events Hear the chosen Vessell Phil. 3. 7 8. What things were gain to me those I counted losse for Christ Yea doubtlesse I count all things but losse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the losse of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and as one that did not esteem his own life dear to him in respect of that better alwayes saith he Act. 20. 24 bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4. 10. How chearfully have the noble and conquering armies of holy Martyrs given away these momentany lives that they might hold fast their Jesus the life of their souls and who can be otherwise affected that knowes and feels the infinite happinesse that offers it self to be enjoyed by him in the Lord Jesus Lastly if Christ be thy life then thou art so devoted to him that thou livest as in him and by him so to him also aiming only at his service and glory and framing thy self wholly to his will and directions Thou canst not so much as eat or drink but with respect to him 1. Cor. 10. 31. Oh the gracious resolution of him that was rapt into the third heaven worthy to be the pattern of all faithfull hearts According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shal be ashamed but that with all boldnesse as alwayes so new also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain Phil. 1. 20 21. Our naturall life is not worthy to be its own scope we do not live meerly that we may live
his spirit cannot be lockt in God and his Angels cannot be lockt out Is he dying To him to live is Christ and to dye is gain Is he dead He rests from his labours and is crowned with glory Shortly he is perfect gold that comes more pure out of the fire then it went in neither had ever been so great a Saint in heaven if he had not passed through the flames of his tryall here upon earth SECT 11. His conflicts HE knows himself never out of danger and therefore stands ever upon his guard neither of his hands are empty the one holds out the shield of faith the other manageth the sword of the spirit both of them are employed in his perpetual conflict He cannot be weary of resisting but resolves to dye fighting He hath a ward for every blow and as his eye is quick to discern temptations so is his hand and foot nimble to avoid them He cannot be discouraged with either the number or power of his enemies knowing that his strength is out of himself in him in whom he can do all things and that there can be no match to the Almighty He is carefull not to give advantage to his vigilant adversary and therefore warily avoids the occasions of sinne and if at any time he be overtaken with the suddainnesse or subtilty of a temptation he speedily recovers himself by a serious repentance and fights so much the harder because of his foil He hates to take quarter of the spirituall powers nothing lesse then death can put an and to to this quarrell nor nothing below victory SECT 12. His death HE is not so careful to keep his soul within his teeth as to send it forth well addressed for happinesse as knowing therefore the last brunt to be most violent he rouzeth up his holy fortitude to encounter that King of fear his last enemy Death And now after a painfull sicknesse and a resolute expectation of the fiercest assault it fals out with him as in the meeting of the two hostile brothers Jacob and Esau in stead of grapling he finds a courteous salutation for stabs kisses for height of enmity offices of love Life could never befriend him so much as Death offers to do That tenders him perhaps a rough but a sure hand to lead him to glory and receives a welcome accordingly Neither is there any cause to marvell at the change The Lord of life hath wrought it he having by dying subdued death hath reconciled it to his own and hath as it were beaten it into these fair tearms with all the members of his mysticall body so as whiles unto the enemies of God Death is still no other then a terrible executioner of divine vengeance he is to all that are in Christ a plausible and sure convoy unto blessednesse The Christian therefore now laid upon his last bed when this grim messenger comes to fetch him to heaven looks not so much at his dreadfull visage as at his happy errand and is willing not to remember what death is in it self but what it is to us in Christ by whom it is made so usefull and beneficiall that we could not be happy without it Here then comes in the last act and employment of faith for after this brunt passed there is no more use of faith but of vision that heartens the soul in a lively apprehension of that blessed Saviour who both led him the way of suffering and is making way for him to everlasting glory That shews him Jesus the Authour and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God That clings close unto him and lays unremoveable hold upon his person his merits his blessednesse upon the wings of this faith is the soul ready to mount up toward that heaven which is open to receive it and in that act of evolation puts it self into the hands of those blessed Angels who are ready to carry it up to the throne of Glory Sic O sic juvat vivere sic perire FINIS Luther in Gal. Hier. Zanch. loc com 8. de Symbolo Apost
and must shew us how highly we are descended how royally we are allied how gloriously estated that only is it that must advance us to heaven and bring heaven down to us Through the want of the exercise whereof it comes to passe that to the great prejudice of our souls we are ready to think of Christ Jesus as a stranger to us as one aloof off in another world apprehended only by fits in a kinde of ineffectuall speculation without any lively feeling of our own interesse in him whereas we ought by the powerfull operation of this grace in our hearts to fidne so heavenly an appropriation of Christ to our souls as that every beleever may truly say I am one with Christ Christ is one with me Had we not good warrant for so high a challenge it could be no lesse then a blasphemous arrogance to lay claim to the royall bloud of heaven but since it hath pleased the God of heaven so far to dignifie our unworthinesse as in the multitudes of his mercies to admit and allow us to be partakers of the dâ—vine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. it were no other then an unthankfull stupidity not to lay hold on so glorious a priviledge and to go for lesse then God hath made us SECT 3. The kinde and manner of this union with Christ KNow now my son that thou art upon the ground of all consolation to thy soul which consists in this beatificall union with thy God and Saviour think not therefore to passe over this important mystery with some transient and perfunctory glances but let thy heart dwell upon it as that which must stick by thee in all extremities and chear thee up when thou art forsaken of all worldly comforts Do not then conceive of this union as some imaginary thing that hath no other being but in the brain whose faculties have power to apprehend and bring home to it self far remote substances possessing it self in a sort of whatsoever it conceives Do not think it an union meerly virtuall by the participation of those spirituall gifts and graces which God worketh in the soul as the comfortable effects of our happy conjunction with Christ Doe not think it an accidentall union in respect of some circumstances and qualities wherein we communicate with him who is God and man nor yet a metaphoricall union by way of figurative resemblance but know that this is a true reall essentiall substantiall union whereby the person of the beleever is indissolubly united to the glorious person of the Son of God know that this union is not more mysticall then certain that in naturall unions there may be more evidence there cannot be more truth neither is there so firm and close an union betwixt the soul and body as there is betwixt Christ and the beleeving soul for as much as that may be severed by death but this never Away yet with all gross carnality of conceit this union is true and really existent but yet spirituall if some of the Ancients have tearm'd it naturall and bodily it hath been in respect of the subject united our humanity to the two blessed natures of the Son of God met in one most glorious person not in respect of the manner of the uniting Neither is it the lesse reall because spirituall Spirituall agents neither have nor put forth any whit lesse vertue because sense cannot discern their manner of working Even the Loadstone though an earthen substance yet when it is out of sight whether under the Table or behinde a solid partition stirreth the needle as effectually as if it were within view shall not he contradict his senses that will say it cannot work because I see it not Oh Saviour thou art more mine then my body is mine my sense feels that present but so as that I must lose it my faith sees and feels thee so present with me that I shall never be parted from thee SECT 4. The resemblance of this union by the head and body THere is no resemblance whereby the Spirit of God more delights to set forth the heavenly union betwixt Christ and the beleever then that of the head and the body The head gives sense and motion to all the members of the body And the body is one not only by the continuity of all the parts held together with the same naturall ligaments and covered with one and the same skin but much more by the animation of the same soul quickning that whole frame in the acting whereof it is not the large extent of the stature and distance of the lims from each other that can make any difference The body of a childe that is but a span long cannot be said to be more united then the vast body of a giantly son of Anak whose height is as the Cedars and if we could suppose such a body as high as heaven it self that one soul which dwels in it and is diffused through all the parts of it would make it but one intire body Right so it is with Christ and his Church That one Spirit of his which dwels in and enlives every beleever unites all those far-distant members both to each other and to their head and makes them up into one true mystical body so as now every true beleever may without presumption but with all holy reverence and all humble thankfulnesse say to his God and Saviour Behold Lord I am how unworthy soever one of the lims of thy body and therefore have a right to all that thou hast to all that thou doest Thine eye sees for me thine ear hears for me thine hand acts for me Thy life thy grace thy happinesse is mine Oh the wonder of the two blessed unions In the personall union it pleased God to assume and unite our humane nature to the Deity In the spiritual and mysticall it pleases God to unite the person of every beleever to the person of the Son of God our souls are too narrow to blesse God enough for these incomprehensible mercies Mercies wherein he hath preferred us be it spoken with all godly lowliness to the blessed Angels of heaven Forverily he took not upon him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham Heb. 2. 16. Neither hath he made those glorious spirits members of his mystical body but his Saints whom he hath as it were so incorporated that they are become his body and he theirs according to that of the divine Apostle For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ 1 Cor. 12. 12. SECT 5. This union set forth by the resemblance of the husband and wife NExt hereunto there is no resemblance of this mystery either more frequent or more full of lively expression then that of the conjugall union betwixt the husband and wife Christ is as the head so the husband of the Church The Church and every beleeving soul is
Were we left to our selves or could we be so much as in conceit sundred from the body whereof we are alas we are but as other men subject to the same sinfull infirmities to the same dangerous and deadly miscarriages but since it hath pleased the God of heaven to unite us to himself now it concerns him to maintain the honour of his own body by preserving us entire Can they acknowledge the faithfull soul marryed in truth and righteousnesse to that celestiall husband and made up into one flesh withthe Lord of glory and can they think of any Bils of divorce written in heaven can they suppose that which by way of type was done in the earthly Paradise to be really undone in the heavenly What an infinite power hath put together can they imagine that a limited power can disjoyn Can they think sin can be of more prevalence then mercy Can they think the unchangeable God subject to after thoughts Even the Jewish repudiations never found favour in heaven They were permitted as a lesser evill to avoid a greater never allowed as good neither had so much as that toleration ever been if the hard-heartednesse and cruelty of that people had not enforced it upon Moses in a prevention of further mischief what place can this finde with a God in whom there is an infinite tendernesse of love and mercy No time can be any check to his gracious choice the inconstant minds of us men may alter upon sleight dislikes our God is ever himself Jesus Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever Heb. 13. 8. with him there is no variablenesse nor shadow of turning Jam. 1. 17. Divorces were ever grounded upon hatred Mal. 2. 16. No man saith the Apostle Eph. 5. 29. ever yet hated his own flesh much lesse shal God do so who is love it self 1 Joh. 3. 16. His love and our union is like himself everlasting Having loved his own saith the Disciple of Love Joh. 13. 1. which were in the world he loved them to the end He that hates putting away Mal. 2. 16. can never act it so as in this relation we are indissoluble Can they have received that bread which came down from heaven and flesh which is meat indeed and that bloud which is drink indeed can their souls have digested it by a lively faith and converted themselves into it and it into themselves and can they now think it can be severed from their own substance Can they finde themselves truly ingraffed in the tree of life and grown into one body with that heavenly plant and as a living branch of that tree bearing pleasant and wholesome fruit acceptable to God Rev. 22. 2. and beneficiall to men and can they look upon themselves as some withered bough fit only for the fire Can they finde themselves living stones surely laid upon the foundation Jesus Christ to the making up of an heavenly Temple for the eternall inhabitation of God and can they think they can be shaken out with every storm of Temptation Have these men ever taken into their serious thoughts that divine prayer and meditation which our blessed Redeemer now at the point of his death left for an happy farewell to his Church in every word whereof there is an heaven of comfort Joh. 17. 20 21 22. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall beleeve in me through their word That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one with us And the glory that thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me Oh heavenly consolation oh indefeasible assurance what room can there be now here for onr diffidence Can the Son of God pray and not be heard For himself he needs not pray as being eternally one with the Father God blessed for ever he prayes for his and his prayer is That they may be one with the Father and him even as they are one They cannot therefore but be partakers of this blessed union and being partakers of it they cannot be dissevered And to make sure work that glory which the Father gave to the Son of his Love they are already through his gracious participation prepossessed of here they have begun to enter upon that heaven from which none of the powers of hell can possibly eject them Oh the unspeakably happy condition of beleevers Oh that all the Saints of God in a comfortable sense of their inchoate blessednesse could sing for joy and here beforehand begin to take up those Hallelujahs which they shall ere long continue and never end in the Chore of the highest Heaven SECT 9. The priviledges and benefits of this union The first of them Life HAving now taken a view of this blessed union in the nature and resemblances of it it will be time to bend thine eyes upon those most advantageous consequents and high priviledges which do necessarily follow upon and attend this heavenly conjunction Whereof the first is that which we are wont to account sweetest Life Not this naturall life which is maintained by the breath of our nostrils Alas what is that but a bubble a vapour a shadow a dream nothing as it is the gift of a good God worthy to be esteemed precious but as it is considered in its own transitorynesse and appendent miseries and in comparison of a better life not worthy to take up our hearts This life of nature is that which ariseth from the union of the body with the soul many times enjoyed upon hard termes the spirituall life which we now speak of arising from the union betwixt God and the soul is that wherein there can be nothing but perfect contentment and joy unspeakable and full of glory Yea this is that life which Christ not only gives but is he that gave himself for us gives himself to us and is that life that he gives us When Christ which is our life shall appear saith the Apostle Col. 3. 4. And Christ is to me to live Phil. 2. 21. and most emphatically Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ Neverthelesse I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Lo it is a common favour that in him we live but it is an especiall favour to his own that he lives in us Know you your own selves saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 13. 5. how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates and wheresoever he is there he lives we have not a dead Saviour but a living and where he lives he animates It is not therefore Saint Pauls case alone it is every beleevers who may truly say I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me now how these lives and the authors of them are distinguished is worth thy carefullest consideration Know then my son that every faithfull mans bosome is a Rebeceaes womb Gen 25. 22. wherein there are twins a rough Esau