of the one is distinct from that which we have of the other appears 1 in that our Legal Union implyes a Relation to Christ as our High Priest and Sponsor interposing and acting in our behalf towards God whereas our Mystical Union respecteth Him as acting to us in the quality of a Vital Head 2 Because the vinculum of that is Christs susception of our sins upon him and the Fathers imputing them to him but the nexus of this is the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us and principles of Grace infused into us 3 Because the result of our Legal Union is the imputation of what Christ in our stead did and suffered for Righteousness to us and discharge from Wrath but the effect of our Spiritual Union is further communication of Grace together with quickning Influences whereby we grow up into a higher conformity with our Head and are more and more adapted to live to God 3dly Those things are different whereof the one is the meritorious fruit as well as the Consequent of the other and that this is the habitude which the things before us stand in might be easily demonstrated For though many of the formal benefits of a Legal Union such as Actual discharge from Wrath and Justification to Life do not arrive to us but through the intervention of a Spiritual conglutination to our Mediator it being not only in the power of the Father and Son to appoint in what order and upon what Terms we should have an Interest in the purchased Redemption but the very Nature of our deliverance which was not only a ransoming us from Wrath but a restoring us to the favour of God and an exalting us to a superadded blessedness required that it should be in such a Method and upon those conditions as that God might both exercise forgiveness in consistency with His Holiness and we be adapted for that to which we were advanced yet even our spiritual Union in the very vinculum bond of it is a purchased fruit of what Christ as substituted in our room and so one with us in conspectu curiae did and suffered Yea the Honour of being Heir of all things and Head of Influence to the Redeemed is a reward of what Christ underwent and performed as our Surety in the relation of which he stood Legally United to us § 11. I now proceed to the consideration of Moral Union which is all that some and those very considerable Persons will admit to intercede betwixt Christ and Believers By Moral Union we understand a Harmony of Wills an agreement in designs a confederation in affections in a word an Union by way of mutual and reciprocal love 'T is styled Moral from its band or ligature which is Love Love is not only â—he principal and chiefest but the source and fountain of all humane Affections All the Affections are but the several forms and shapes of Love Desire Fear Anger Hope Sorrow Delight c. are but the various Forms and Aspects of Love according as its Object is circumstantiated under the consideration of absent present easie or difficult to be enjoyed c. As the Object Beloved is affected with this or that Circumstance so Love receives a new Modification and becomes clothed with this or that Form And indeed Love is of a very Unitive Nature 't is the Marriage of one Intellectual Being to another 'T is the strongest bond of Alliance the most connexive cement All Love tends to Union to have the heart implanted and incorporated with the Object beloved It both unites the Lover to the Object which he loves and transform's him into it What and where our Love is that and there we are There is an assimilating efficacy in Love whereby it casts the mind into the Mould of the thing Beloved which made Austin say si terram amas terra es If thou lovest the Earth thou art Earth And the Philosopher to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Friend is only another Self Friendship which is nothing but mutual endearedness or a confederacy in sincere affections save that it superadds conversation and society to Love is not only styled by Hierocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the noblest efflorescence perfection of Virtue but Aristotle defines it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one Soul in two Bodies Or as Horace calls Virgil whom he entirely loved dimidium animae the half of his Soul Now a Love-Union we readily acknowledg between Christ and Believers As it was infinite compassion which influenced Him not only without Motives but in despite of obstacles in us to become our Ransom so having Redeemed us by his Blood and engraven his Image upon us by his Spirit he doth with superlative delight behold his purchase and embrace his likeness 'T is in pursuance of his complacency in them that he Espouseth their concerns resents their troubles and ministreth opportune relief to them under their several exigencies Nor is his Love greater than it is lasting being as Unchangeable as it is free and superlative Upon the same Motives that he works such dispositions and qualifications in us as may render us fit objects of his Delight he takes care to prevent their being totally lost that so we may not cease to have a share in his complacency Admit that Christs complacential Love stands determined to Holiness and that he delights in none till they be good yet the Immutability of the Divine Counsels the Convention between the Father and Son in the Covenant of Redemption Gods Veracity in reference to the promises which he hath made in the Covenant of Grace the absolute compleatness of Christs Sacrifice for all those in whose behalf he gave himself a propitiation together with the prevalency of his Intercession and his design in purchasing and bestowing the Holy Ghost to reside in and watch over Believers may assure us that he will preserve those as meet objects of his Love upon whom he hath once engraven his Image to make them so And by the way this may serve as a reply to that of Mr. Sherlock p. 211. where he tells us that the Unchangeableness of Gods Love doth not consist in being always determined to the same Object but in that he always Loves for the same reason that is that he always loves true Virtue and Goodness where-ever he sees it and never ceaseth to love any Person till he ceaseth to be Good and then the Immutability of his love is the reason why he loves no longer For besides that our Author doth hereby preclude all Gods love of Benevolence and Compassion of which Persons abstracted from qualifications are the Objects Which as the Scripture doth every where celebrate as the highest love so there was nothing in us that could attract it but on the contrary there was every thing in us which might have rendred us the Objects of everlasting Indignation See Rom. 15.8 Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 4.9 10. I say besides this the whole passage even taking it as refering
to Gods love of complacency is fram'd to overthrow Election Efficacious Grace the perseverance of Believers and to render the New Covenant no better than the Old and our standing in Christ as lubricous as our standing in Adam was And therefore I hope Mr. Sherlock will pardon me if I do not readily subscribe to him in this forasmuch as I know it repugnant to the Articles of the Church of England not to mention what else it is The unchangeableness of his Love of Benevolence which took its Motives from himself and can no more be inconstant than the Divine Nature is doth strongly infer the preserving those qualifications in us which are the immediate foundations of his love of complacency supposing that he hath once wrought them For the bestowing of those upon us in order to this that he might delight in us being the aim and design of his Eternal Love of Good Will it naturally follows that the Immutability of his kindness ensures his watching over and maintaining them when once he hath wrought them in and communicated them to us In brief Christs heart is wonderfully knit in love to the renewed and sanctified soul Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse says he Cant. 4.9 The word there used occurrs no where else in the Scripture and signifies to have won engaged seized upon or rob'd one of his heart 'T is a term borrowed from a passionate Lover who is not Master of his own heart another having gotten the possession of it He that loved us at no less rate than dying for us when we were Enemies cannot but be affectionately linkt to us having once washen us in his Blood and renewed us to his likeness by his Grace On the other hand though the love of a gracious Soul to Christ can neither equal his in its degrees nor any way rival it in the freeness earlyness or instances of discovery yet it is so far reciprocal that upon conviction of Reason conduct of Judgment and the propension of the New Nature it cleaves to and embraceth him The sincere Christian not only reckons Christ an object chiefly worthy of his love but by exiliency egress and expansion of Soul after him he endeavours a Conjunction and Union with him From hence comes that liquefaction and languor of heart to enjoy him and to receive his impressions hence proceeds that consignment of our Wills to his from hence also there springs a concernment for his interest more than for our own All the reciprocal love and friendship of the World are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idols and Images of Love and Friendship being compared with what intercedes between Christ and Christians Now this Love-Union we not only own but plead for and do state our happiness in the perfection of it Nor is there any thing that recommends Heaven more to us than that our souls shall be there enflamed with and united by holy ardors to One so infinitely amiable in his own perfections and so unspeakably deserving our purest flames for his free and preventing as well as his exuberant and superlative love to us This Conjunction through a ligature and bond of love manifested in imitation and uniform obedience betwixt Christians the Lord Jesus Christ is often mentioned in the holy leaves But yet I cannot assent to those who state the whole of Believers Union to the person of the Mediator meerly in a reciprocalness of affections 1. Because one Christian should at this rate be as much One with another as he is with Christ which the Scripture will not allow us to submit our assent to as not being reconcileable to those grand lofty and emphatical expressions which the Holy Ghost peculiarly appropriates to declare the Unity which intervenes between Christ and Christians That there is an Union of Affections between one Christian and another I suppose will not be denyed nor is he indeed a Christian who hath not a witness of it in himself and who doth not in the several ways wherein it is displayable endeavour to give evidence of it to the world 'T is this Love Union amongst Christians which our Lord Jesus so solemnly prayed for Joh. 17.21 'T is this which he hath enjoyned his Disciples as his New Commandment and which he hath appointed to be the bond of perfection unto them Joh. 13.34 Col. 3.14 'T is this which is represented as an evidence both of our Love-Union with God 1 Joh. 4.12 and of our implantation into Christ by Regeneration 1 Joh. 3.14 'T is this that was the glory of the Primitive Saints Acts 4.32 and for which the very Heathen both admired them and payed them an Internal veneration In a word 't is this whereby all the Members of Christ being first copulated to Him as to a Vital living Head and being Harmonious in the belief of all the Essential Fundamental Doctrines of the Gospel come to be principally knit together among themselves And where this is not a politick confederacy and a wicked conspiration there may be but such an Union as ought to be amongst Christians there is not But how high noble and necessary soever this Union is which intervenes betwixt one Christian and another yet it is not equipollent to the Union which occurrs between Christ and Believers Nor do I hereby only mean that they differ gradually in some accident or other for so even the Moral Union betwixt Christ and Christians differs from the Moral Union of Christians among themselves the source and spring the Motives and Arguments the degrees dimensions acts and instances of Manifestation being not universally the same either in the love that Christ beareth to Believers or in the flames which they cherish and maintain towards him with those that obtain in the love of one Child of God to another but my meaning is that they differ specifically and in kind And in proof of this I desire no more but that Persons would without prepossession prejudice examine such Texts as Joh. 15.1 2 3 4 5. 1 Cor. 12.27 Rom. 8.1.9 10. Gal. 2.20 Joh. 6.5 6. not to mention more where the Union betwixt Christ and Believers is represented illustrated and if he can find any thing in the Love-Union of one Christian with another that beareth a proportion and Analogy with what is there declared concerning the Union of the Lord Jesus with Believers I am mistaken 2. Because the Holy Angels would be every way as much connected and ligu'd to Christ as Believers are were no more to be understood by this coherence but a conjunction by way of Affection or did this adequately express the Notion of it For besides the subjection that the Angels are in to Christ as their Lord and Governour 1 Pet. 3.22 and the attendance which in pursuance thereof they give at his Throne Isa. 6.1 2. together with that adoration and worship which they pay him Heb. 1.6 and their readiness to minister in whatsoever services he enjoyns them about his Church
God and those Notions which we have engraven in our Consciences of it Nor can I imagine how the Covenant of Grace can be so much as necessary to the promising Remission of Sins much less that the Death of Christ was needful to procure it to that End providing what our Author sayes in another place do obtain The passage I referr to is this The whole Mystery of the recovery of mankind consists only in the repairing the Divine I-age which was defaced by sin that is in making all men truly good and virtuous· Sin is our Apostasie from God and doth as naturally make us miserable as it makes us unlike the most happy Being But Holiness restores us to our Primitive state to the perfect Constitution of our Natures and makes us Good and therefore happy as God is Now if this be true although the Covenant of Grace might be necessary upon other accounts namely to mold and frame our souls to the Love of God and practice of obedience to ingenerate piety in us to make us inherently Righteous yet I do not see how it was needful to the promising remission of sin Neither can I satisfie my self how forgiveness of Sin is at all necessary if the whole mystery of our Recovery consists only in the repairing the Divine Image which was defaced by sin I have observed of the Arminians that however somtimes they acknowledg the New Covenant to be gratuitous and fâ—ee yet by some principle or other which they have imbib'd they do in effect make it an Act of necessity in God and not of favour Thus that I may give one instance upon Corvinus's admitting all mankind by the fall of Adam to be discharged from that Obedience which the Original Law required it necessarily follows either that Gods soveraignty and Rectorship over man had been supplanted Mankind had been under no law at all and consequently no wayes capable of offending or else God behoved to enact the new Covenant This being suggested which I leave Mr. Sherlock at his leasure to think of I now address to enforcing the Charge I have loaded his Opinion about Justification with namely that as it imports our absolution by and before God from the accusation of the Law it occurrs not in a proper sense in the whole Scripture but must every where be susceptive of a Metaphorick one if his Notion of it be admitted I do not here dispute whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Justify and to be Justified be not sometimes taken in a Moral Sense for justifacere that I may use Davenants phrase the making an inherent Change in our Persons as well as at other times in a forensick Sense for the making a Change in our state by absolving and acquitting us when accused Though I must say that I know not one place in the whole New Testament where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are of necessity to be interpreted as expressive of Sanctification and purgation from Vice though Rom. 8.30 1 Cor. 7.11 Tit. 3.7 be produced to that purpose unless it be Rev. 22.11 and it is certain that some ancient Copies instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there Let him be further justified still have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him do Righteousness still Nor will I here discourse how inconsistent it seem's with the Wisedom and Sapience of God to introduce a perfect Righteousness such as that of his Son was meerly to make way for his justifying us upon an imperfect Righteousness such as that of our Obedience is Nor shall I argue how that the Righteousness of Christs Life and Sacrifice of His Death must be imputed to us for Justification in a proportionableness to our Sins having been imputed to Him in order to his expiatory Suffering To attribute Christs Sufferings meerly to Gods Dominion without any respect to sin is the grossest of Socinianism and repugnant to the Scripture in a hundred places To say that our sins were imputed to Christ in the effects of them but not in the guilt is to contradict all Principles of Reason For Guilt and Obnoxiousness to punishment being Equipollent phrases he cannot be supposed to have been made liable to the last upon the account of our Sins without haveing been brought under the first Nor is it imaginable how without submitting to the guilt of our sins he could have been punished should it be granted that without respect to them he might have suffered Though without any habitude to sin his sufferings might have been Dolorous yet they could never have been Penal 'T is a thing utterly unintelligible how Christ could be made sin for us and have our punishment transferred to him without a previous imputation of Sin and the derivation of its Guilt upon him Now by proportion if our Sins were imputed to Christ otherwise than meerly in the Effects of them so must likewise the Righteousness of his Life and the Sacrifice of his Death be otherwise imputed to us than meerly in the benefits of them Nor will I press how that secluding not only the Righteousness of Christ's Life but the satisfaction of his Death as the matter and the imputation of it as the Formal Cause of Justification it seem's repugnant to the immutability and Essential Holiness of God to justify us upon an imperfect Obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing Wrath in case of every failure Neither shall I here urge how there can have been no surrogation of Christ in our room nor can we properly be said to be Redeemed by him as our substitute if all redounding to us by his Death be only the procurement of the Gospel-Covenant in which God upon such Conditions as he there requires undertakes to pardon our Iniquities and Sins A surrogation in our room and stead to Acts and Sufferings which are not in a Law-sense accounted ours I am so far from Understanding that without admitting injustice in the Rector who allowe's the substitution it seem's to me a thwacking Contradiction especially if we consider that Christ was our substitute to make satisfaction to the Demands of the Law and not of the Gospel and that by his Obedience and Death He hath only freed us from what we were obnoxious to upon failure of perfect Obedience but not at all from what we are liable to in case of Unbelief and want of sincere Obedience That the Righteousness of Christ is some way or other ours yea that it is in a certain sense the very cause of our Justification the Socinians themselves do not deny Nec enim ut per Christi justitia justificemur opus est ut illius justitia nostra fiat justitia sed sufficit ut Christi justitiam Causa sit nostra justificationis hactenus possumus tibi Concedere Christi Justitiam esse nostram Justitiam quatenus nostrum in bonum justificationemque redundat says Schlich tingius
common Root or Stock though not in the same manner that we are Christ and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Alliance and Consanguinity together which as it speaks infinite condescension love and Grace in him seeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 se exinanivit he emptied himself which respects the Essential condition of the Humane Nature assumed by the Son of God and not meerly the poverty which in that Nature he submitted to so it declares the Dignity that our Nature is exalted to being in the Person of the Redeemer taken into association with the Divine Nature And as from the Conjunction of the two Natures together in the Person of Christ there ariseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a communication of properties between them which is real as to the ascription of the affections of each Nature to the Person though it be but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verbal as to the predication of the properties of one Nature concerning the other so through the advancement of our Nature into Union with the Son of God there are some rays of Honour reflected upon and some priviledges that may be affirmed of us that the Angels themselves are not susceptive of Yet this is not the Union we are enquiring after for 1 in this respect all Mankind can plead the same propinquity to Christ. The worst as well as the best of men may enter their claim to this Relation of Oneness with him For though the Apostle affirm that he took on him the Seed of Abraham yet the meaning is not that some are precluded affinity with him in the Humane Nature while others are Dignified with that Alliance but the sense of the place is only this that according to the Flesh he came of the Lineage of Abraham the promise having been made to him that in his seed should all the Nations of the Earth be blessed Gen. 12.3 2 Were this the whole import of the Union of Believers with Christ that he and they partake of one common Nature the Oneness betwixt one Man another were greater than the Oneness betwixt Christ and the Faithful which directly opposeth the account the Scripture gives of it the intendment of the many Metaphors by which it is represented Now that it should be so is plain Because the resemblance betwixt one Man and another obtains not only in the essentials of Humane Nature but in the defilements and sinful infirmities of it nor is there any thing in the person of this or that man whereof something parallel is not in the Person of every one else but to imagine such an Universal resemblance between Christ and us is both to overthrow the Divinity of his Person and to supplant the purity of his Humane Nature Though our Blessed Saviour hath assumed our Nature in its essential constituent parts together with all the Natural sinless infirmities that accompany it yet besides His being infinitely distant from all likeness to us upon the account of the Divinity of his Person there is a vast dissimilitude even with respect to the Humane Nature as it is in Him free from all tincture of impurity and concomitancy of culpable imperfections and as it is in us defiled with and debased by sin § 8. As our Union with Christ is of a sublimer importance than meerly to denote that the same Humane Nature was in Him which is in us so what that is which over and above our participating of one common specifical Nature it doth imply is a Theme worthy of our further search And the Popish Notion concerning it is that which presents first to our examen Though the Romanists do not wholly disclaim a spiritual Union betwixt Christ and sincere Believers yet they principally insist on a Mixture of his Bodily substance with ours They will have our Union with Him to consist in our partaking of the Animated and Living Body of Christ by manducation or Carnal and Corporeal feeding on him And this Union they will have obtain'd by means of the Eucharist wherein instead of feeding at all on Bread and Wine they contend that in a Carnal manner we eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ. That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is an eminent Symbol of our Union and Communion with Christ yea that hereby our Union and Communion with Him are in a special though Spiritual manner promoted and maintained we readily grant And accordingly we with all chearfulness acknowledge a Real presence of Christ in the Sacrament The Truth of the Real Presence hath been always believed and is so still though as to the manner of it there have been for many Conturies and yet are fierce digladiations in the World The Lutherans will have Christ present one way namely that though there be not a destruction of the Elements and a substitution of the Body and Blood of Christ in their room yet they will have Christ Bodily present with the Elements though hid and concealed under them and this they express by Consubstantiation The Papists plead for a presence of another kind viz. that the Elements being wholly destroyed either by Annihilation or Transmutation into the Body and Blood of Christ he alone is Corporeally Locally and Physically present and this they style Transubstantiation There have been others who have also asserted Bodily Presence but after a manner different from both the former for holding the Elements to continue undestroyed or unchanged they fancied them to become united to the Body and Blood of Christ and to make one and the same Body and Blood by a kind of Hypostatical Union and this may be called Impanation And although there be at this day and always hath been a great number of Christians to whose Reason none of these ways can adjust themselves yet they all confess a presence that is Real though they will have it to be after a spiritual kind and manner All these four ways of presence are Real each in its kind and order Nor do I know any save the Socinians and some Arminians but that in some sense or other allow a Real presence Indeed Socinus and the Men of that Tribe will admit the Lord's Supper to be only a Commemoration of Christ's Death but will by no means have it either to seal or exhibit any thing to the Believing Receiver That it is Commemorative and Symbolical of the Body of Christ as Broken and of his Blood as shed they have our astipulation but that it is besides both an Instituted seal of the Conditional Covenant ascertaining all the mercies of it to such as faithfully Communicate and in whom the Gospel Conditions are found and also truly exhibiting of Christ and his Grace to the Believing soul we strenuously affirm This the Apostle declares by calling the Cup of Blessing the Communion of the Blood of Christ and the Bread the Communion of the Body of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 This the very Nature of the Ordinance doth likewise confirm for in every Sacrament there must be not
Heb. 1.14 I say besides all this they are in a special manner cemented to him by pure flames and holy ardors Those blessed Spirits through that more perfect knowledg which they have of the attractive beauties and excellent perfections of Christ partly by the means of their more illuminated intellects partly through their immediate attendance upon his glorious person especially from their being above all temptations that may divert their minds from so amiable an object and being free from all impure Lusts that may damp their flames do cleave to him with a Love more defecated and pure as well as more intense elevated than we can who are so far beneath them in the quality of our Nature and whose Understandings are still so much benighted with ignorance and obnubilated with the vapours of Lust and whose residence is so remote from the place of perfection as well as happiness I do not determine whether their happiness be improved and their perseverance in holiness secured by Jesus Christ though if so there is a field of occasion and Motives to promote and exalt their love to him ariseth thence But declining to define any thing in that matter there are enforcements enough besides by which their sallies of Love to the Lord Jesus are allured charmed forth For 1st Whatsoever they do or have received from the exuberant goodness and pregnant fecundity of their Creator they have it all by from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Person of the Son as the immediate Operator and Dispenser of it For the order of operation in the blessed Trinity as to external works corresponds unto and followeth the order of subsistence Hence though the Fabrick and Creation of all things be ascribed to the Father as to Authority and Order Heb. 1.1 and to the Spirit as to disposition and ornament Joh. 26.13 yet they are peculiarly attributed to the Son as to immediate operation Col. 1.15 16 17. 2dly The Glory of God being the alone object of the desires of the Heavenly Host it cannot otherwise be but that the honour which ariseth to God by the restitution of man through the interposure of the Son as Mediator must enflame those pure Spirits with love to him through whose undertaking that Glory is compassed and effected Nor is the Mysterious contrivance of Mans recovery a Theme which with a Religious curiosity they only look into 1 Pet. 1.12 but they both celebrate this plot of Love and Wisedom with Hallelujahs and express their acknowledgments for the Glory which thereby redounds to their blessed Maker in affections resembling the description given us of their Nature Psal. 104.4 to the Person of the Mediator 3dly Man belonging to the same classis of Creatures though of a different species with the Angels the compassion which these Courtiers of the great King bear to the sublunary part of the Rational System whereof we have an evidence and instance in the joy that possesseth them upon the Conversion of a Sinner Luk. 5.10 may be lookt upon as another incentive of their love to Christ. We being separated from the Love of God through the loss of the Divine Image forfeited thereupon the kindness and friendship of the Angels but being restored to conformity and favour with God by Jesus Christ there immediately ensues an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a redintegration of friendship between them and us Nor do I question but that the consideration that it is by Christ that they and we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reconciled and brought into Oneness together doth help to kindle their love to him And as there is an adhesion of the Angels to Christ by love so on the other hand he embraceth them with complacency and delight For as there is nothing to be found in them why he should look upon them with displeasure so the sanctity of their Nature and their ministring with readiness not only about his Throne but in the affairs wherein he employs them abroad in the World lead him to behold them with approbation and love And though none of their Homages equal his perfections whom they address their Services to yet their faileurs being no ways the results of an impotence contracted by sin but the inseparable appendants of the finiteness of their Natures he readily accepts them The covering their faces with their wings being in testimony of their infinite distance is as welcome to him and doth as much oblige his Love as their acclamations and celebration of his praise There being then a Love-Union betwixt Christ and the Holy Angels I hope that I may infer from hence that the Union between Christ and Christians is both something else and more sublime I cannot think that any who have read their Bible and believe it dare affirm but that besides the Oneness which we have with the Lord Jesus through his participating of our Nature which the Angels have no share in but that there is also a further Union between him and us of which as the Angels do no ways partake so neither are they capable 3dly That the Mystical Union between Christ and Christians consisteth not in a reciprocalness of Affections may be yet further demonstrated from this namely because according to that Notion of Union Believers are no less United to the Father than to the Son yea they are United first to the Father ere to the Son And I am apt to think that there needs not any more to be said against an Hypothesis but that t is pregnant with consequences of so mischievous a tendency Admit once Believers to be United after the same manner to the Father as they are to Christ and we immediately justle the Lord Jesus out of the place of Mediator That there is an Union of Love between the Father and Believers the Gospel doth every where display in most amiable and bright colours Hence that of the Apostle He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 As Love is the only Attribute of the Divine Nature which is alone put to give us an Idea and Notion of God so to be Love is represented after a manner peculiar to God as the Father The Love of the Father was the first spring and source of our recovery and of all the means of accomplishing and bringing it about It was the Fathers Love that contrived a way to recover us when we had forfeited all right to Happiness and were neither careful nor in a condition to regain it When there were no Motives in us to invite his Love his Love it self was in their room And how great was his Love when he gave him whom he so dearly loved for a Ransom of those who were guilty of sin which he so greatly hated The transcendency of his Love is the greatest Obstacle to the belief of it After that his Love had travailed with plots of Mercy to poor Sinners in what noble and amusing effects did it exert it self See Joh. 3.16 Rom. 5.8
1 Joh. 4.9 10. In a word it is Love which is eminently ascribed to the Father in the Oeconomy of the Blessed Trinity about the Work of Mans Salvation And this property of his Nature which he chose to display in the work of Redemption he hath acted to the uttermost whereas he did not so by his Power which he manifested in the Works of Creation it being within the compass of his Omnipotence and Exuberant Bounty to produce a World more glorious than this And though all this respects Gods Love of Compassion to the Elect yet we may hereby guess what his Love of Delight in Believers is on whom his Love of Goodness hath compassed its designs When his Love of Benevolence hath attained so much of its End as the renewing us in part to his Image and the recovering us back to our obedience He views over with delight the births that his compassion went with and beholds the effects of his good Will with unspeakable complacence That similitude which his Love in its first consideration designed anâ—â—ntended his Love in the second Notion of it embraceth and settles its delight upon And that Believers do embrace the Father with a Love equal and proportionate to that which they have for Jesus Christ I hope I need not spend time to prove Besides the Allective and attractive perfections which the illuminated Understanding discovers in both as they partake of the same Divine Nature and Essence it meets with enforcing Motives of Love in the Oeconomical actings of each as they are represented in the Scripture operating towards about our Redemption with different peculiarities in the manner of their acting How doth the Father's Love in being the Author and Fountain of our recovery in his contriving the means of it in giving his Son to be our Ransom and Propitiation in order to the effecting it and in pursuance of his accepting the Sacrifice of his Death as an Atonement for sin and a meritorious price of sanctification his being the Original disposer in way of Authority and Order of all that Grace by which we are rendred meet objects of Gods delight inflame the souls of renewed Ones with Love to him 4. This Love-Union as it terminates upon Christ from us or as it implies our Affections being set upon him is so far from being the formal Reason of our Mystical Union that it doth suppose us already cemented to him There can be no true Love to Christ without a previous conformity seeing all love includes a supposition of likeness Now to imagine either a resemblance between us and Christ without a New Nature previously form'd and wrought in us or to conceive that there are any principles communicated to us as the ground and matter of similitude and yet we remain unconnected to Christ are fancies that the Gospel obligeth us to account absurd To apprehend a Person renewed by Grace and not implanted into Christ is to bid defiance to the Gospel and to conceive a soul cleaving to Christ by a Love that is sincere without an Antecedent Principle of Grace adapting and connaturalizing it is not only to contradict the Scripture but to denounce War against Metaphysicks which tell us that every Effect presupposeth a cause proportion'd to it In brief As we are not naturally imbued with a Love to Christ so no man will by a prevalent Love embrace him till he be first connaturalized attempered brought into a suitable habitude of mind to him Every act supposeth a Power nor is there hopes of Fruit where there is not a Root that can communicate sap to the branches that are to bear it Though the soul be the Vital Principle of all actions and Affections yet it is Grace that gives holy actions and affections their constituent form The Union which we have with Christ by love saith the Reverend Bishop Reynolds presupposeth an Unity we have in him by Faith Faith is the immediate tye between Christ and a Christian but Love a secondary Union following upon and grounded on the former By Nature we are all Enemies to Christ and his Kingdom of the Jews mind we will not have this Man to raign over us therefore till by Faith we are throughly perswaded of Christs love to us we can never repay love to him again Herein is love saith the Apostle not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son 1 Joh. 4.10 Now between Gods Love and ours comes Faith to make us one with Christ. § 12. That there ought to be nothing in Religion which is incomprehensible or of which we are not able to form adequate Notions is a fancy espoused by the Socinians Hence it is that though they do not wholly renounce the Gospel yet by designing to accommodate the mysteries of it to the Level of Humane apprehensions they supplant the prime Articles of it That there are Doctrines in the Christian Religion which our Understandings cannot fathom seems to have been the chief thing that influenced Celsus Hierocles Porphyrius Lucian and other Heathen Philosophers of old in their opposition of it This their upbraiding the primitive Believers for receiving things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an Irrational Faith and their styling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persons of easie belief that had no reason for the things which they embraced abundantly declare And truly admitting the Principle which they proceeded upon namely that there ought not to be any thing in Religion but what our Intellects bear a proportion to they seem to me to have acted more rationally in refusing the Gospel altogether than those do who embrace it and yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Model the Oracles of God to their private fancies that so they may level the Mysteries of Christianity to our weak and shallow capacities That there are Mysterious Doctrines in the Gospel and particularly that our Union with Christ is of that Number the Holy Ghost who should best know the complexion of every truth in it hath plainly informed us We are Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones This is a great Mystery says the Apostle Eph. 5.30.32 Mr. Sherlock who seems to judg all such things foolish and fanciful Notions which men cannot fully conceive comprehend is pleased to tell us that there is nothing more easie to be understood than our Union and Communion with Christ but how he can reconcile himself to Paul unless great Mysteries be of easie conception and comprehension I know not 'T is true he hath taken care to present us with such a Notion of Believers Union with Christ as may be understood on this side Heaven and without sending for Elias to unriddle it that I may use his own expression Now what that Notion is and whether it fully answer the account which the Scripture gives us in the Matter of Christians Union with the Lord Jesus is that which we are now addressing to the ventilation of And that neither he