Can they find 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. xxii. 2.) and beneficial to men; and can they look upon themselves, as some withered bough, fit only for the fire?

Can they lay themselves living stones, surely laid upon the Foundation, Jesus Christ, to the making up of a heavenly temple for the eternal 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 a happy farewell to his Church, in every word whereof there is a heaven of comfort? Neither pray I for these alone; but for them also, which shall believe 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; John xvii. 20, 21, 22. O heavenly consolation! O indefeasible assurance! what room can there be now here, for our 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 prays 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 believers! Oh, that all the Saints of God, in a comfortable sense of their inchoate blessedness, could sing for joy; and here, beforehand, begin to take up those Hallelujahs, which they shall, ere long, continue, and never end, in the Choir of the Highest Heaven!

CHAP. V.

THE PRIVILEGES AND BENEFITS OF THIS UNION.

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 Privileges, which do necessarily follow upon and attend this heavenly conjunction.

SECT. 1.

The first of these benefits-Life: wherein, (1.) A complaint of our Insensibleness of this mercy; and an excitation to a cheerful Recognition of it;-(2.) An incitement to Joy and Thankfulness for Christ our Life;-(3.) The Duties we owe to God for his mercy to us, in this Life which we have from Christ;-(4.) The Improvement of this Life; in that Christ is made, [1.] Our Wisdom; [2.] Our Righteousness; [3.] Our Sanctification; [4.] Our Redemption.

WHEREOF the first is that, which we are wont to account sweetest, LIFE.

Not this natural 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 transitoriness 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 terms; the spiritual 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, and is that life that he gives us : When Christ, which is our life, shall appear, saith the Apostle; Col. iii. 4: and, Christ is to me, to live; Phil. i. 21: and, most emphatically, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me; Gal. ii. 20. Lo, it is a common favour, that in him we live; but it is an especial favour, to his own, that he lives in us: Know you not your ownselves, saith the Apostle, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 2 Cor. xiii. 5: 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, St. Paul's case alone: it is every believer's; 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 faithful man's bosom is a Rebekah's womb, (Gen. xxv. 22.) wherein there are twins: a rough Esau, and the seed of promise; the old man, and the new; the flesh and the spirit.

And these have their lives distinct from each other: the new man lives not the life of the old; neither can the old man live

the life of the new: it is not one life, that could maintain the opposite strugglings of both these: corrupt nature is it, that gives and continues the life of the old man; it is Christ, that gives life to the new.

We cannot say, but the old man or flesh is the man too; for, I know, saith the Chosen Vessel, that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; Rom. vii. 18: but the spiritual part may yet better challenge the title; for, I delight in the Law of God, after the inward man; v. 22.

That old man of ours is derived from the First Adam: as we sinned in him, so he liveth in us. The Second Adam both gives and is the life of our regeneration, like as he is also the life of our glory; the life, that follows our second resurrection: I am, saith he, the resurrection and the life.

What is it then, whereby the new creature lives? surely no other, than the Spirit of Christ; that alone is it, that gives being and life to the renewed soul.

Life is no stranger to us: there is nothing, wherewith we are so well acquainted; yea, we feel continually what it is, and what it produceth. It is that, from whence all sense, action, motion floweth: it is that, which gives us to be what

we are.

All this is Christ to the regenerate man. It is one thing, what he is or doth, as a Man; another thing, what he is or doth, as a Christian: as a Man, he hath eyes, ears, motions affections, understanding, naturally as his own; as a Christian, he hath all these from him, with whom he is spiritually one, the Lord Jesus.

And the objects of all these vary accordingly. His natural eyes behold bodily and material things: his spiritual eyes see things invisible. His outward ears hear the sound of the voice: his inward ears hear the voice of God's Spirit speaking to his soul. His bodily feet move in his own secular ways: his spiritual walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. His natural affections are set upon those things which are agreeable thereunto; he loves beauty, fears pain and loss, rejoices in outward prosperity, hates an enemy: his renewed affections are otherwise and more happily bestowed; now he loves goodness for its own sake, hates nothing but sin, fears only the displeasure of a good God, rejoices in God's favour which is better than life. His former thoughts were altogether taken up with vanity, and earthed in the world: now, he seeks the things above, where Christ sitteth at the right-hand of God; Col. iii. 1.

Finally, he is such, as that a beholder sees nothing but man in him: but God and his soul find Christ in him; both in his renewed person and actions; in all the degrees, both of his life and growth, of his sufferings and glory: My little children,

saith St Paul, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you; Gal. iv. 19.

Lo here Christ both conceived and born in the faithful heart. Formation follows conception, and travail implies a birth. Now the believer is a new-born babe in Christ; 1 Cor. iii. 1. 1 Pet. ii. 2. and so, mutually, Christ in him. From thence he grows up to strength of youth; 1 John ii. 14: and, at last, to perfection; even towards the measure of the stature. of the fulness of Christ; Eph. iv. 13. 2 Cor. xiii. 9. Heb. vi. 1. And, in this condition, he is dead with Christ; Rom. vi. 8: he is buried with Christ; v. 4: he is alive again unto God through Christ; v. 11: he is risen with Christ; Col. iii. 1: and, with Christ, he is glorified; Rom. viii. 17: yea, yet more than so, his sufferings are his; Col. i. 24: he is, in Christ, an heir of glory; Rom. viii. 17: and Christ is, in him, the hope of glory; Col. i. 27.

(1.) Dost thou not now find cause, my son, to complain of thyself; as I confess, I daily do: that thou art so miserably apt to forget these intimate respects between thy Christ and thee? Art thou not ashamed to think, how little sense thou hast had of thy great happiness?

Lo, Christ is in thy bosom; and thou feelest him not! It is not thy soul, that animates thee in thy renewed estate it is thy God and Saviour; and thou hast not hitherto perceived it. It is no otherwise with thee in this case, than with the members of thine own body. There is the same life in thy fingers and toes, that there is in the head or heart; yea, in the whole man and yet those limbs know not, that they have such a life. Had those members reason as well as sense, they would perceive that, wherewith they are enlivened: thou hast, more than reason, faith; and, therefore, mayest well know whence thou hast this spiritual life; and, thereupon, art much wanting to thyself, if thou dost not enjoy so useful and comfortable an apprehension.

Resolve, therefore, with thyself, that no secular occasion shall ever set off thy heart from this blessed object; and that thou wilt as soon forget thy natural life, as this spiritual: and raise up thy thoughts from this dust, to the heaven of heavens. Shake off this natural pusillanimity; and mean conceit of thyself, as if thou wert all earth: and know thyself advanced to a celestial condition; that thou art united to the Son of God, and animated by the Holy Spirit of God: so as the life, which thou now livest in the flesh, thou livest by the faith of the Son of God, who loved thee and gave himself for thee; Gal. ii. 20.

See then and confess, how just cause we have to condemn the dead-heartedness, wherewith we are subject to be possessed: and how many worthy Christians are there in the world, who bear a part with us in this just blame; who have yielded over

themselves to a disconsolate heartlessness and a sad dejection of spirit, partly through a natural disposition inclining to dumpishness, and partly through the prevalence of temptation: for Satan, well knowing how much it makes for our happiness cheerfully to reflect upon our interest in Christ and to live in the joyful sense of it, labours, by all means, to withdraw our hearts from this so comfortable object, and to clog us with a pensive kind of spiritual sullenness; accounting it no small mastery, if he can prevail with us so far as to bereave us of this habitual joy in the Holy Ghost, arising from the inanimation of Christ living and breathing within us.

So much the more, therefore, must we bend all the powers of our souls, against this dangerous and deadly machination of our spiritual enemy; labour, as for life, to maintain this fort of our joy, against all the powers of darkness; and if, at any time, we find ourselves beaten off, through the violence of temptation, we must chide ourselves into our renewed valour, and expostulate the matter with our shrinking courage, with the man after God's 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; Ps. xlii. 11. xliii. 5.

(2.) Neither is here more place for a heavenly joy, than for height of spirit, and raptures of admiration at that infinite goodness and mercy of our God; who hath vouchsafed so far to grace his elect as to honour them with a special 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? O Saviour, this is no small part of that great mystery, whereinto the angels desire to look (1 Pet. i. 12.), and can never look to the bottom of it: how shall the weak eyes of sinful flesh ever be able to reach unto it?

When thou, in the estate of thy human infirmity, offeredst to go down to the centurion's house, that humble commander could say, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: what shall we then say, that thou, in the state of thy heavenly glory, shouldest 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. vi. 19.

When thy Holy Mother came to visit the partner of her joy, thy forerunner, then in the womb of his mother, sprang for the joy of thy presence, though distermined by a second womb; Luke i. 44: 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