CHRIST MYSTICAL,

OR

THE BLESSED UNION

OF

CHRIST AND HIS MEMBERS.

CHAP. I.

INTRODUCTORY.

SECTION 1.

Right apprehensions of Christ.

THERE is not so much need of learning as of grace, to apprehend those things which concern our everlasting peace. Neither is it our brain that must be set to work here, but our heart: for true happiness does not consist in a mere speculation, but in the actual enjoyment of good. However excellent may be the use of learning in all the sacred employments of divinity; yet in the main act which brings salvation, knowledge must give place to love. Happy is the soul that is possessed of Christ, how poor soever in all inferior endowments.

Ye are wide of the mark, oh ye men of learning, while you spend yourselves in curious questions, and learned extravagancies. One touch of Christ is of more worth, than all your deep and laboured disquisitions: one dram of faith is more precious than a pound of knowledge. In vain shall ye seek for this in your books, if you miss it in your bosoms. bosoms. If If you know all things, and cannot truly

say, I know whom I have believed,' you have only knowledge enough to know yourselves to be truly mise

rable.

Wouldst thou, therefore, my son, find true and solid comfort in the hour of temptation, in the agony of death; make sure work for thy soul in the days of thy peace. Find Christ to be thine; and in spite of hell, thou art both safe and blessed.

Look not so much to an Absolute Deity, infinitely and incomprehensibly glorious: alas, that Majesty, because perfectly and essentially good, is, out of Christ, no other than an enemy to thee. Thy sin hath offended his justice, which is himself; and what hast thou to do with that dreadful power which thou hast provoked? Look to that merciful and alsufficient Mediator betwixt God and man, who is both God and man, even Jesus Christ the righteous; and who has said to all his followers, 'Ye believe in God, believe also in me.' John xiv. 1.

Yet look not merely to the Lord Jesus, considered as the Son of God, co-equal and co-essential with God the Father; but look upon him as he stands in reference to the sons of men. And here you are not to consider him so much as a Lawgiver and a Judge, for there is terror in such apprehensions; but look upon him as a gracious Saviour and an Advocate. Neither consider him in the generality of his mercy, as the common Saviour of mankind; for what comfort were it to thee, that all the world except thyself were saved? Look upon him rather as the dear Redeemer of thy soul; as thine Advocate at the right hand of Majesty; as one with whom thou art, through his wonderful mercy, inseparably united. Thus view him with fixed attention and regard, that he may never be out of thine eyes; and whatever secular objects interpose themselves betwixt thee and him, look through them, as some slight mists; and terminate thy sight still in this blessed prospect. Let neither earth nor heaven hide him from thee, in whatsoever condition.

SECTION 2.

The honour and happiness of being united to Christ.

WHILE thou art thus taken up, see if thou canst, without wonder and amazement, the infinite goodness of thy God, who hath exalted thy wretchedness to no less than a blessed and indivisible union with the Lord of glory. Thou who, under a sense of thy miserable mortality, mayest say to corruption, thou art my father; and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister; canst now by faith hear the Son of God say to thee, Thou art. bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Ephes. v. 30.

Surely, as we are too much subject to pride ourselves, in these earthly glories; so we are too apt, through ignorance or pusillanimity, to undervalue ourselves in respect of our spiritual condition: for we are far more noble and excellent than we account ourselves to be. It is faith that must raise our thoughts to a due estimation of our greatness, and must show us how highly we are descended, how royally we are allied, how gloriously privileged. Faith only can advance us to heaven, and bring heaven down to us. Through the want of exercising more faith, we greatly injure our own souls, and are ready to think of Christ Jesus as a stranger to us; as one afar off in another world, apprehended only by fits in a kind of ineffectual speculation, without any lively feeling of our own interest in him; whereas we ought, by the powerful operation of this grace in our hearts, to find such a heavenly appropriation of Christ to our souls, as that every believer may truly say, I am one with Christ and Christ is one with me.

Had we not good warrant for so high a challenge, it would be no less than a blasphemous arrogance, to lay claim to the royal blood of heaven: but since it hath pleased the God of heaven so far to dignify our unworthiness, as in the multitude of his mercies, to admit and allow us to be partakers of the divine nature,' it were no other than an unthankful stupidity, not to lay hold on so glorious a privilege, and to go for less than God hath made us.

CHAP. II.

THE NATURE OF UNION WITH CHRIST.

KNOW my son, that thou art upon the ground of all consolation to thy soul; which consists in this beatific union with thy God and Saviour. Think not therefore to pass over this important mystery with some transient glances; but let thy heart dwell upon it, as that which must stick by thee in all extremities, and cheer thee up when thou art forsaken of all worldly comforts.

Do not then conceive of this union as some imaginary thing, that hath no existence but in the brain, or as if it were merely an accidental or metaphorical union, by way of figurative resemblance: but know that this is a real and substantial union, whereby the believer is indissolubly united to the glorious person of the Son of God. Know that this union is not more mystical than certain; that in natural unions there may be more evidence, but cannot be more truth. Neither is there so firm and close a union betwixt the soul and body, as there is betwixt Christ and the believing soul; forasmuch as that may be `severed by death, but this cannot.

This union however, though real, is nevertheless spiritual; nor is it the less real, because spiritual. Spiritual agents do not put forth less virtue, 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 behind a solid partition, stirs the needle as effectually as if it were actually in view. Will not he therefore contradict his senses who should say, It cannot work because I see it not?

Oh Saviour, thou art more mine, than my body is mine. My sense feels that to be present; but so that I must lose it. My faith sees and feels thee to be so present with me, that I shall never be parted from thee.

CHAP. III.

THE RESEMBLANCES OF THIS UNION.

SECTION 1.

It is like the union between the head and the body.

THERE is no resemblance, by which the Spirit of God more delights to set forth the heavenly union betwixt Christ and the believer, than that of the head and the body. The head gives sense and motion to all the members and the body is one, not only by the continuity of all its parts, but much more by the animation of the same soul quickening the whole frame. The large extent of the stature, or the distance of the limbs from each other, makes no difference with regard to its movements. The body of a child cannot be said to be more united, than the vast body of a gigantic son of Anak, whose height is as the cedars; and, if we could suppose such a body as high as heaven itself, that one soul which dwells in it and is diffused through all its parts, would make it but one entire body.

So it is with Christ and his church. That one Spirit of his, which dwells in and enlivens every believer, unites all those far distant members, both to each other and to their head; and makes them up into one true mystical body. So that every true believer may without presumption, and with all holy reverence and humble thankfulness, say to his God and Saviour, Behold, Lord I am, how unworthy soever, one of the members of thy body; and therefore have an interest in all that thou hast, in all that thou doest. Thine eyes see for me, thine ears hear for me, thy hand acts for me; thy life, thy grace, thy happiness is mine.

Oh, the wonder of the two blessed unions! In the personal union, it pleased God to assume and unite our nature to the Deity. In the spiritual and mystical union