The branches of the wild olive are cut off, and grafted with choice scions of the good olive. By this incision they are no less embodied in the stock, than if they had sprouted out by a natural propagation; neither can they be any more separated from it, than the strongest bough that nature puts forth. In the mean time the scion alters the nature of the stock; and while the root gives fatness. to the stock, and the stock yields juice to the scion, the scion gives goodness to the plant, and a specification to the fruit so that while the graft is now the same thing with the stock, the tree is different from what it was.

Thus it is between Christ and the believing soul. Old Adam is our wild stock: and what could that have yielded but sour fruit? We are grafted with the new man, Christ, who is now incorporated into us. We are become one with him.

by grace.

Our nature is not more ours, than he is ours Now we bear his fruit, and not our own; our old stock is forgotten, all things are become new. Our natural life we receive from Adam, our spiritual life and growth from Christ: from whom, after the improvement of this blessed incision, we can be no more severed than he can be severed from himself.

SECTION 5.

The union compared to the Foundation and the Building.

Look but upon thy house: if that be uniform, the foundation is not of a different matter from the walls; both are but one piece, and the superstructure is so raised upon the foundation as if all were but one stone.

Behold, Christ is the chief corner-stone, elect and precious. Neither can there be any other foundation laid, than that which is laid in him. 1 Cor. iii. 11. We are lively stones, built up a spiritual house, on that sure and firm foundation. 1 Pet. ii. 5, 6.

Some loose stones perhaps, that lie unmortered upon the battlements, may be easily shaken down; but who ever saw a squared marble, laid by line and level in a

strong wall upon a wellgrounded base, fly out of his place by whatsoever violence; since both the strength of the foundation below, and the weight of the fabric above, have settled it in a posture utterly immoveable. Such is our spiritual condition. Oh Saviour, thou art our foundation; we are laid upon thee, and are therein one with thee. We can no more be disjoined from thy foundation, than 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 become part of ourselves, as the tree and its branches are but one plant, as the foundation and walls are but one fabric; so Christ and the believing soul are indivisibly one with each other.

CHAP. IV.

THE CERTAINTY AND INDISSOLUBLENESS OF THIS

UNION.

WHERE are those then that go about to divide Christ from himself; Christ real, from Christ mystical? They allow Christ to be one with himself, but not one with his church; making the true believer no less separable from his Saviour than from his own obedience, dreaming of the uncomfortable and self-contradicting paradoxes of the total and final apostasy of saints.

Can they hold the believing soul to be a member of that body, whereof Christ is the head, and yet imagine a possibility of dissolution? Can they assign to the Son of God a body that is imperfect; or think that body perfect which hath lost its limbs? Even in this mystical body the best joints may be subject to strains, such perhaps, as are painful and perilous; but as it was in the natural body of Christ, when in death it was most exposed to the cruelty of its enemies, that by an overruling providence not a bone of it could be broken; so it is still and ever will be with the spiritual body. Some scourg

How cheerfully

manifest in our body. 2 Cor. iv. 10. have the noble and conquering armies of holy martyrs given away these momentary lives, that they might hold fast their Saviour, the life of their souls! And who can be otherwise affected, that knows and feels the infinite happiness to be enjoyed 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 thyself wholly to his will and directions. Thou canst not so much as eat or drink but with respect to him. 1 Cor. x. 31. Oh the gracious resolution of him that was rapt into the third heaven, worthy to be the pattern of all faithful hearts: According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed; but that with all boldness, as always, so now 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 die is gain. Phil. i. 20, 21. Our natural life is not worthy to be its own scope: we do not live merely that we may live: our spiritual life, Christ, is the utmost and most perfect end of all our living. Without him, we should not live; or if we did, our natural life were no other than a spiritual death. Oh my Saviour, let me not live longer than I shall be enlivened by thee, or than thou shalt be glorified by me.

What rule should I follow in all the conduct of my life but thine; thy precepts, thine examples; that so I may live thee, as well as preach thee; and in both may find thee as thou truly art, The way, the truth, and the life. The way wherein I shall walk, the truth which I shall believe and profess, and the life which I shall enjoy. In all my moral actions therefore, teach me to square myself by thee. Whatever I am about to do, or speak, or effect, let me think, If my Saviour were now on earth, would he do what I am now putting my hand unto? Would he speak these words that I am now uttering; would he be thus disposed, as I now feel myself?' Let me not yield to any thought, word or action, which my Saviour would be ashamed to own. Let him be pleased so to manage his own life in me, that all the interest he hath given me

in myself may be wholly surrendered to him; that I may be as it were dead in myself, while he lives and moves in me.

4. By virtue of this blessed union, Christ is become our life; and, what is the highest improvement, not only of the rational but the supernatural and spiritual life, he is also made of God unto us, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. 1 Cor. i. 30. Not that he only works these great things in and for us; this were too cold a construction of the divine bounty; but that he really becomes all these to us, who are true partakers of him.

(1) Of the wisest men that nature could ever boast of, it is said, that their foolish heart was darkened; and professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Rom. i. 21, 22. And still the best of us, if we be but ourselves, may take up the complaint of Asaph; So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Psal. Ixxiii. 22. And of Agur, the son of Jakeh; Surely, I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy. Prov. xxx. 2, 3. And if any man will take more to himself, he must at last say with Solomon, I said I will be wise, but it was far from me. Eccles. vii. 23.

But how defective soever we are in ourselves, there is wisdom enough in Christ to supply all our wants. He that is the wisdom of the Father, is by the Father made our wisdom. In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; so hid that they are both revealed and communicated to his own. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. iv. 6. In and by him hath it pleased the Father to impart himself to us. He is the image of the invisible God, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person. Heb. i. 3. It was a just check that he gave to Philip in the gospel: Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. John xiv. 9.

This point of wisdom is so high and excellent, that all human skill, and all the admired depths of philosophy, are but mere ignorance and foolishness in comparison of it. Alas, what can these profound wits reach to, but the very outside of these visible and transitory things. As for the inward forms of the meanest creatures, they are as completely hid from them as if they had no being: and as for spiritual and divine things, the most knowing naturalists are either stone-blind, that they cannot see them, or grope after them in Egyptian darkness. The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. ii. 14. How much less can they know the God of spirits, who, besides his invisibility, is infinite and incomprehensible. Only He who is made our wisdom, enlightens our eyes with this divine knowledge. No man knoweth the Father, but the Son; and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Matt. xi. 27.

Neither is Christ made our wisdom only in respect of that which is imparted to us, but in respect of his perfect wisdom imputed to us. Our ignorance and sinful misapprehensions are many and great: where should we appear, if our faith did not fetch succour from our alwise and alsufficient Mediator? Oh Saviour, we are wise in thee our head, how weak soever we are of ourselves. infinite wisdom and goodness, both cover and make up all our defects. The wife cannot be poor, while the husband is rich. Thou hast vouchsafed to give us a right to thy store: we have no reason to be disheartened with our own spiritual wants, while thou art made our wisdom.

Thine

(2) It is not mere wisdom that can make us acceptable to God. If the serpents were not in their nature wiser than we, we should not have been advised to be wise as serpents. That God who is essential justice as well as wisdom, requires all his to be not more wise than exquisitely righteous. Such in themselves they cannot be; for in many things we sin all. Such therefore they are and must be in Christ their head; who is made unto us of God, both wisdom and righteousness. Incompre