Diuells haue a tyrannizing power when God permits But besides this vnion of vniuersall Dependance there is also another kind of Coniunction whereby not onely all Christians but all other men also yea and all the creatures in the world are vnited or ioyned vnto Christ as God For the Deity by reason of the immensitie and subtilty thereof is most fully and most inwardly totally present in and to and throughout all creatures corporall and spirituall comprehending all things but comprehended of nothing piercing all things but pierced of nothing and is farre more thoroughly present and more fully then either light or heate is in the aire or then the soule is in the body So that if that should bee which yet cannot be that is to say if the creature did not depend on Christ yet by reason of the all-piercing subtilnesse and vnmeasureablenesse of his Godhead he should penetrate and fill all things it selfe being fill'd of nothing and be most inwardly and thoroughly present vnto them and so be in some sort conioyned with them But this Coniunction is common that of true dealing Christians and Christ Iesus is speciall and proper to them This Coniunction is of the Creature to Christ as God but the other is of man to Christ God-Man or Man-God Mediator betwixt God man Here Christ is present by a most inward and thorough penetration his very Deity inclosing touching and piercing all things But there hee is present by the presence of supernaturall grace yea and his very flesh is not away or wanting but present as I will declare hereafter The Coniunction which is by penetration and omni-presence makes no man happy as the other doth with the which whosoeuer is vnited vnto Christ he is certainely in the state of grace and liues in sure hope of the state of glory And whereas the vnion of Christ and a Christian is indeed a true and certaine vnion and may properly bee so called this Coniunction by penetration and presence doth not properly conteine any vnion but onely vbiquity indistancy and an insensible but thorough repletion of all things There are not two Christs but one and this one Christ hath two distinct natures in him one Diuine the other Humane and both these names are vnited together in one and the same person by a personall vnion But we are not so vnited to Christ as our nature is to the nature of God in Christ I call Christs humane nature ours because it is indeed ours not in number the same with any mans but in kinde the same with all mens indued with a true humane soule and body not being created a new of nothing or from another peece of clay but made of a woman who came from the loynes of Adam For by the vertue of this vnion which is Hypostaticall God is man man is God But if Christians were vnited personally to Christ then the very name of Christ and God should be giuen to them which were absurd to think And which were very grosse and horrible then also God might bee as truely and as orthodoxally said to sinne when a Christian man sinned as it is said that God died was crucified and rose againe because the man who is true God in one person our Lord Iesus Christ was crucified died rose againe Though it be true that Iesus the Sonne of the blessed Virgin Mary be the true and eternall Son of the eternall and true God yet it were false and impious to say that the Church is the eternall and true naturall Daughter of God or that euery true belieuer were Gods naturall Son or God which yet were so if wee were personally vnited to the Godhead There are many Maries mothers but only the Virgin Mary was the mother of God I doubt not but that Christ is formed and is in forming in many a Ladies heart but yet hee was onely formed in that Ladies wombe as a childe Her childe onely is the naturall Sonne of God he onely is the Word the substantiall the consubstantiall and coeternall Word But if we were personally vnited to the Word or to the God head or to both Godhead Manhead in the Word then might we be called the Word of God and God yea and the Virgin Mary might bee said to be our mother as well as the mother of God yes and wee could not but be full of merits power and vertue euen as Christ But what pious eare can indure to heare such blasphemies Moreouer though it be most true which our Sauiour saith I am in my Father and you in mee and I in you yet wee must not thinke that wee are hypostatically vnited vnto Christ nor that we are so in Christ as Christ is in his Father This speech therefore of Christ must bee taken with a graine of falt For Christ is in his father as being of one and the selfe-same substance and nature with his Father being indeede the brightnesse of his glory and the very character of his Person and his true naturall Sonne and substantiall image but he is in vs as an helper ayder and susteiner by whom we haue our spirituall being life breath sense and motion and who beares vs vp and feeds vs as the roote doth the body and branches of a tree Furthermore there is a certaine vnion of the workeman and his toole of the hand and the instrument in it And thus by way of similitude Christ and all faithfull Christians who are instruments of his praises and whom he holdeth in the right hand of his power and protection bearing them as an Eagle doth her yong ones may be said to be conioyned And as in an instrument of musique tho one winde giue a generall sound yet by the diuersity and disequality of the pipes and organes all which the wind filleth the tones are varied so though one Christ be in all true Christians one spirit be inspired as a celestiall and liuing winde into them all yet they differ in their tunes actions motions and iubilations according to their owne personall and particular capacities and as the Spirit who workes not as a naturall but as a voluntary agent doth impart and diffuse his grace But whereas a sword lute trumpet and other instruments of Art are voide of life Christians are liuing and breathing Organs intellectuall spirituall and voluntary instruments for Christ to worke with and are liker a mans hand or other liue-member of his body then a sword of steele or other senselesse and dead instrument voide of reason sense life and will able to do no more then it is made to do by plaine force And whereas the workeman doth not nor cannot alwaies make or mend his toole Christ doth alwaies both make and mend his tooles For wee are his workemanship Hee hath made vs and not we our selues He that makes himselfe is alwaies marr'd in the making And he that teaches himselfe hath a foole for his master And whereas a workeman and his tooles
faile him Nature springs from Adam as Gods liuing instrument And sin also comes from Adam and from sinne death Euen so also grace is from Christ iustice and holinesse imputatiue and inhesiue true life and liberty victory ouer death at last victory ouer the world in this life and all future felicity proceede from Christ as from their Authour or Spring-head from whence they flow There is much liberty in the world there is a peace of worldlings many honours and outward fauours giuen them by GOD but not through Christ Many men haue had victories from God as Nebuchadnezzar Caesar Pompey Tamerlane the great Turkes and many moe vnbeleeuers but not through Iesus Christ But spirituall peace liberty life health ioy victory and saluation no man hath but by Iesus Christ or Lord. So then if we were not of Adam and had not Adams nature in vs and sinne which doth defile it we should neither be men nor sinnefull men and so not men subiect vnto death Euen so if we were not members of Christ sprung from him as our head and had him not in vs and with vs we could not bee Christian men we could not bee spirituall and holy we could not bee vnder grace but vnder the Law we could not bee free but bond-men wee could not be iustified we could not be saued A man therefore that would haue life light grace and glory and so become a true blessed man must needes haue Christ his head hee must needes be his member he must needs be coupled with him and issue from him as well as sinners to make them men and sinners haue their father Adams nature in them and that which doth infect and poyson it Now Christ is the head of the Church as hee is both God and Man Euen so wee who are his members are vnited to him as hee is both God and Man Christ God and Man dwelleth in vs and we dwell in Christ who is God and man We are partakers of both his natures diuine and humane Christ is in vs as touching both and wee are in him as touching both hee in vs and wee in him and both fast knit together But this must be wisely vnderstood and for the cleering heereof I will speake a little yet more fully and punctually by the helpe of Christ who is abundantly able beyond all to vnfolde and define what this vnion is and to answer all the questions that may bee put about it First it is readily granted that the diuine nature of Christ filleth heauen earth and is essentially all the world ouer present whole in all places and at all times Secondly that very Man Iesus Christ the Virgins Sonne hath the diuine nature by hypostaticall vnion so that in the person of the eternall Sonne of God which is not double but single the two natures diuine and humane are vnited fast together and for euer the humane beeing receiued into God hauing neuer had any personall subsistence out of the person of the Sonne of God A certaine similitude thereof is in the Misselto which as Pliny writeth growes not but in a Plant of another kinde Indeed wheras the Misselto may be pluckt by force or stubbed vp out of the plant it grows in the humane nature of Christ cannot be seuered from the Word Thirdly the Coniunction of the flesh with the Deity is extended as far as the Deity it selfe For the Deity is no where seuered from the Man-head but yet the actuall Position of the flesh is restrained and tied to a certaine place Doubt not sith Saint Austin but that the man Christ Iesus is now in that very place from whence hee shall come in the same for me and substance of flesh which he carried thither and from which he hath not taken nature but giuen thereunto immortality According to this forme hee spreddeth not out himselfe into all places For it behooueth vs to take great heede lest while wee goe about to maintaine the glorious Deity of him which is man wee leaue not the true bodily substance of man So then tho the flesh bee actually seated there or there not euery where yet it is euery where ioyned to the Godhead which filleth the whole world and no place no not hell it selfe doth hinder that Coniunction But though wee cannot say that the Man-head of Christ is euery where present yet we may truely say that the man Christ is euery where present because that person is euery where present from whose God-head the Man-head is no where separated or because this man is very God and so by his Deity he is omni-present tho in his humanity hee bee but in one particular space or place at once So by reason of the hypostaticall vnion wee may say the man Iesus is eternall is omnipotent is God is Mediatour betweene God and Man But wee cannot so speake of his mans nature Fourthly the flesh or humane nature of Christ or Christ as he is a true man consisting of soule and body now knit together may bee rightly sayd to hee euery where present as touching co-operation with the God-head and that in all things For the diuine nature of Christ which before his incarnation wrought all things without the man-head doth now worke nothing wherein the man-head which he hath assumed is either absent from it or idle He which came downe from heauen and descended into hell is ascended into heauen that sitting at the right hand of God inuested with all maiesty might power honour and glory hee might from thence gouerne and dispose all things and fill his Church with the gracious and blessed fruites of his sauing presence His humane nature before his glorious Ascension and Session was not without the possession of this power but the full vse and exercise thereof was suspended till his humiliation which had before vailed Maiesty was ended and laide aside For the Session at the right hand of his Father is the actuall exercise of that power and regency wherein his Man-head was ioyned and matched with his Godhead This regencie and dominion hee now exerciseth both as God and man as God by essentiall presence with all things as Man by cooperation with his Godhead which is essentially all the world ouer I say then that the Manhead of Christ cooperates with his Godhead to which it is personally ioyned For the humane will of Christ assenteth to althings which his diuine will affecteth and willeth what the diuine dislikes And from his humane vnderstanding nothing which his Deity worketh is concealed so that by knowledge and assent the soule of Christ is present with all things which his Deiry worketh And as concerning his very bodie of flesh seeing it is the Body of God and personally vnited to the Godhead of the Sonne of God by whom it was also made a propitiatorie Sacrifice for the sinnes of the whole world it therefore receiueth a Presence of force and efficacie by reason of the said
Emperour Albonius King of Lumbardie Sergus a King of Scotland Arden of Feuersham and many others But the Church of Christ and Christ her head are free from either doing or suffering such barbarous cruelty betwixt themselues The Diuell and the World may preuaile against some married couples and sometimes doe to the destruction of their soules no doubt but hell-gates shall not ouercome the Church the World cannot preuaile against faithfull Christians My sheepe heare my voyce saith Christ and I know them and I giue vnto them euerlasting life and they shall neuer perish neither shall any plucke them out of my hands If Christ himselfe cannot be damned then not they that are ioyned to him who died for them and rose againe for their iustification And therefore wee may boldly say There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus who walke not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit Euery godly Christian is endued is inuested is clad with Christ and weares him as a wedding garment For so many of you saith St. Paul as are baptized into Christ that is as are regenerated and borne a new of water and the Holy Ghost by whom wee are * baptized and incorporated into the body of Christ haue put on Christ as a rich precious and glorious garment whereby their naked filthinesse and filthy nakednesse is couered and are themselues accepted of God as beautifull and gracious in the beauty and grace of Iesus Christ in which they stand and appeare most sweet and amiable Now if such a man can bee damned being lapped and wrapped vp in Christ who couers him from top to toe them must Christ needes bee damned with him which cannot bee as a man that is flung in the fire with his clothes on is burnt together with them Many men in marrying make very dangerous aduentures They venture their name their peace their goods their soundnesse yea and sometimes their soules too for which respect God forbad his people to marry with the Heathen for feare they should turne them from God to Idols And this is the case of many women also who by their marriages doe buy themselues repentance and sorrow that whereas it is sayd of Iepthaes daughter that she went out to bewaile the daies of her virginity they may goe out and bewaile the daies of their mariage and that not for two moneths only but perchance as long as they liue It is good for them therfore to look before they leap and to sound before they saile But men by ioyning themselues to Christ venture nothing lose nothing or if they doe lose they gaine by their losses and are enriched by their calamity Whosoeuer shall forsake houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my name sake saith Christ hee shall receiue an hundred fold more and shall inherit euerlasting life Many sore vnkindnesses heart-burnings and quarrels doe now and then fall out betwixt many men and their wiues that sometimes they euen loth one another and forsake one another But Christ neuer forsakes his Spouse nor shee him Hee is with her to saue protect assist and guide her to day and for euer He loueth all those which are his vnto the end he loueth them His couenant with them is euerlasting He will neuer turne away from them to do them good but he will delight in them to do them good and will put his feare into their hearts that they shall not depart from him Hee will giue them one heart and one way that they may feare him for euer And if at any time they shall fall hee will lift them vp againe as he did Dauid and Peter and though hee doe sometimes chastize them yet hee will not remooue his louing kinduesse from them Men and their wiues are sometimes clouen-hearted hypocrites vnto God and hollow-hearted one towards another inconstant vneuen and like the beast called Onocentaurus whose vpper part resembleth a man and the nether an asse But Christ and his Spouse are true-hearted and holy All the essentiall and true members of the true Church are true Saints iustified and sanctified Euery person married is not a member of the Church hath not the Church for a mother but euery one whether wedded or single that is truely ioyned vnto Christ may iustly call the true Church Mother and the true God Father Euery man and his wife are indeed partakers of the nature of man but euery true Christian who is borne of God and is the Sonne of God and is espoused and vnited vnto Christ is partaker of the Diuine nature which many a man and his wife too are void of being not the children of God but the sonnes of Belial not the members of Christ but the very limmes of the Diuell But yet the Churches true children true Christian belieuers are not so in that manner and measure partakers of the diuine nature with Christ as women are partakers of the humane nature with men as I haue sufficiently before declared And besides the differences of a man and a woman if we regard nature are not specificall and substantiall but numericall and accidentall Homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man is a name as common to women as to men But Deus God is a name proper to Christ who is essentially God and in whom the Diuinitie dwelleth personally and doth not commonly belong to all Christians who are partakers of the diuine nature as concerning consolation assistance and holy happy and sauing operations and are indeed indued with a new nature which may be call'd diuine because it is from Gods speciall grace and is for his honour and glory is according to his will and is opposite to that vicious and sinfull worke of the Deuill which hath corrupted the nature of man deforming the image of God according to which he was created For sure it is if any man be in Christ hee is a new creature a diuine creature the worke of Heauen The diuell who raignes in moe then in vnmarried people is expulsed out of him the spirit of God is inspired into him and a new spirit another heart a better heart is giuen him which spirit a woman hath not because this or that man hath married her but because shee is ioyned vnto Christ who hath giuen himselfe vnto her There are some men that neuer truely loued their wiues but their wiues wealth not Them but Theirs For their riches they tooke them and when once they became Masters of them they cared no longer for them And such vsually proue those young sprigges that are grafted into olde stockes Vnhappy women who loue but are not loued againe But they more vnhappy who in their elder daies when their wombes are dead doe giue the reines to lust dreaming and doting after youthes when they should rather bee preparing and trimming themselues for Christ their thoughts being ascended higher
wee may yet further our knowledge of the Coniunction that is betwixt Christ and vs it will not be amisse to consider of three other similitudes vsed in the holy Scriptures to set it foorth vnto vs. The first is of a Vine the second of a Body the third of a Building And this I will do with the help of Christ I am faith Christ the Vine yee are the Branches Now wee know that the Vine and her Branches are ioyned fast together by nature and not as boards are in a shippe with pinnes and nayles by Arte but a great deale closer For the branches shoot forth of the Vine are animated with the spirit of the vine liue the life of the vine are fed nourished and susteined of the vine and abiding in the vine bring foorth fruits according to the nature of the vine out of which they grow and in which they liue Euen so are we coupled and ioyned vnto Christ and so fast that wee cannot be rent or broken in peeces from him by violence as branches may be from a vine We grow out of Christ as an heauenly root from whom by the fauour of God and influence of his grace we doe all as new creatures or heauenly branches arise and spring foorth Adam is the root of all men as men and when God created Adam he created vs. And as many as are sprung from Adam haue in themselues the root out of which they spring Euen so the children of God haue Christ as a second Adam from heauen for a certaine celestiall and blessed root whose progenie and branches they are by regeneration or heauenly birth And the good Spirit of Christ is from Christ deriued to them all who doth animate consolate and susteine them And from Christ they receiue food and nourishment by the which they are refresht and cheered and preserued from death by the worke of the Spirit True it is that life and all good gifts and graces are from the father as from the originall or beginning of them all but they come not to vs but by the Sonne in whom Life is and in whom are hid all the treasures of wisedome and knowledge who is the Sunne of righteousnesse with healing in his wings and hath gold rayment and eye-salue and all other medicines to enrich vs cloth vs and cure vs of all our soule-diseases But yet none of all these things come vnto any of vs in particular but by the holy Ghost and therefore the Apostle saith The grace of our Lord Iesus Christ and the loue of God and the fellowshippe of the holy Ghost And being now indued with the holy Spirit of Christ they liue a spirituall and Christian life They liue indeed and yet not they but Christ and his Spirit liue within them Christ is in his Spirit and his Spirit is in him And where the Spirit of Christ is there is liberty They liue then and liue free deliuered and out of feare And for because Christ is in them and they in him and for that the spirit of Christ is not idle in them euen as the soule is not idle in the body or as a vigilant Prince is not idle in his kingdome but is busie as a Bee working like a carefull and prudent husbandman his holy workes within them therefore also they are not barren and take vp roome in vaine but beare and bring forth fruite as God by the influence of his grace doth giue increase For neither is he that planteth any thing neither that watereth but God that giueth the increase Whence it is that our Sauiour spaith Abide in me and I in you As the branch cannot beare fruit of it selfe except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth foorth much fruite And the fruits they yeeld are such as become the vine Christ Iesus whose branches they are and whose spirit makes them beare For vine-branches bring foorth vine-fruites vine-berries grapes and not soure slowes crabbes or hawes Euery tree brings foorth fruit according to his owne kind euen as euery man beast bird and fish begetteth and produceth according to his owne species kinde and image But although the faithfull bee in Christ and Christ in them yet they do not all equally draw vertue from Christ but as one branch receiueth more from the vine then another and as some are stronger fairer and fuller of fruits then some others are euen so one Belieuer receiues more grace and vertue from Christ then another and as Christ doth more or lesse impart himselfe vnto vs so we sucke more or lesse vertue from him and so also are more or lesse fruitfull in good workes Sure it is that God doth giue all his children his spirit and that this spirit resideth in them but this spirit worketh not equally in them all nor alike at all seasons but in some more and in some lesse and at one time more sensibly then at an other as the Sun doth in the heauens or a workeman in his shoppe God dwelleth in all his children they in him and they are all truely one as well as another partakers of the diuine nature but yet God doth not manifest and expresse himselfe in the same degree vnto all as neither Parents to their children not that hee could not but because he will not for causes iust but best knowne vnto himselfe and hereupon it comes to passe that one is more vertuous and better then another fuller of good workes and more like vnto himselfe as that childe is vnto his father into whom his father hath more fully and more happily powred foorth of himselfe into him in generation tending him like wife afterwards with a more carefull ingenuous education Whence is it saith S. Austin that some bee holier then others are but because that God doth dwell in some more plenteously then in others Christ is the Sunne the light that giueth light of nature grace and glory vnto the world Euery Christian man is a starre receiuing light from Christ who shineth into his soule now as one starre is brighter then another according as it receiueth more light from the Sunne then another euen so one Christian excells another in the light of grace and good workes according as hee receiues more plentifully from Christ and is more neerely ioyned with him and partaker of his light and spirit And thus of the first similitude I come to the second Christ and the Catholique Church are a certaine Mysticall or spirituall bodie Christ himselfe is the Head of that bodie And euery true Belieuer is a member of it Wee are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones saith S. Paul And this is a great mysterie The Head is not a perfit body of it selfe alone For no mans body is all head Neither is