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good reafon to lay afide all thoughts of revenge; for their Redeemer is mighty.

(2.) They are the beft beftowed good turns that are done to the godly for Chrift's fake. For as they are done to them, they are done to Christ, since they are one with him. And our Lord will take it fo, and graciously reward it, Matth. xxv. 35.-40. Therefore the apoftle gives that exhortation, Gal, vi, 10. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, eSpecially unto them who are of the household of faith. Have ye any love to Chrift? love is communicative; ye cannot reach the head, but the members ye have always with you. Say not then ye want occafion to teftify your love to him. It is the beft feednefs ye can make, and will bring the most plentiful harvest. (3.) Believers are members one of another, Eph. iv. 25. There is a true and real fibness betwixt all the godly, as there is betwixt the legs and arms of one body, or one leg and another. For fince they are all united to Chrift, it neceffarily follows that they are all united among themfelves, 1 Cor. xii. 12. And therefore they are called one bread, having an union and communion among themselves fealed by the facrament, O, if this great truth were believed, what love, what fympathy, what care for one another's temporal and fpiritual welfare, would there be among the godly! There would not be fuch ftrangenefs, alienation of affections, nor fuch a Cain-like unconcernednefs about one another among them,

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(4.) It is a thanklefs office to rend and divide the church of Chrift, to tear Chrift's feamlefs coat. ny make no bones of feparating from, but place religion in, cafting off communion with thofe, who, their confciences muft acknowledge, do yet remain u nited to Chrift. They fay they can have no communion with them without fin, I grant, that if one leg go into a mire and be defiled, the other ought not to follow, nor one faint communicate with another in fin: ay but no man in his wits would cut off either of the

legs in that cafe. But the body of Chrift is not fo tenderly handled, though we owe more tenderness to it, than to our own natural bodies. Nay but let men abhor communion with such as much as they will, they fhall either have the most close and intimate communion with them, or they fhall have none with Chrift, forafmuch as there are not two Chrifts to head the feparate bodies; and if they be both united to one Chrift, they have the most intimate union and communion one with another.

2. It informs us concerning fome great and weighty principles of our holy religion, clearly deducible from this grand point.

(1.) The faints fhall perfevere in grace, and can never totally nor finally fall away from it. For there is an indiffoluble union betwixt Chrift and them. This fecures the believer's life, that it can never be loft, Col. iii. 3. The Spirit, the bond of this union, never leaves his habitation, John xiv, 16. & iv. 14. This keeps a feed always in him for God, 1 John iii. 9. And Chrift will lofe none of his members, John xvii. 12, It is true, if the firmness of this union depended entirely on the hold the finner has of Chrift by faith, it might be broke; but it depends on the hold that Chrift has of the finner by his Spirit, as the nurse has of the babe in her arms.

(2.) Faith in Chrift is the great comprehenfive gofpel duty. Many have mean thoughts of faith, in compariton of other duties. But the fcripture gives it the preference, John vi. 29. 1 John iii. 23. When we bid you believe, we bid you get all privileges, and do all duties; for believing is the way to both, in fo far as it unites the foul to Chrift, which is the fundamental privilege of the faints. If ye believe, ye do all in. effect, as he who takes hold of the firft link of a chain, has hold of all the links. If ye believe not, ye do nothing; for without faith ye are without Chrift, and without Christ ye can do nothing, John xv. 5. compare Heb. xi. 6.

(3.) There is a folid rational ground for the doctrine of our juftification by the imputed righteousness of 1 Chrift. Let profane men deride it as a putative or imaginary righteousness and juftification, to make way for their own works; and let the corrupters of the Proteftant doctrine fet up faith, repentance, and new obedience as our evangelical righteoufnefs, upon which 03 we are juftified, as the fulfilling of the gofpel-law: we need no other righteoufnefs for juftification but Chrift's, For a believer is by faith united to Chrift. Having this union with him, we have a communion with him in his righteousness, which is ours, fince we are one with him, and being ours must be imputed to us, or reckoned ours on the most folid ground. Chrift is the believer's Surety by his own voluntary act, the debtor's confent by faith, the Judge's approbation in the word. What then is more rational than that this righteoufnefs be imputed to the believer, and he thereupon juftified?.

(4.) The way to obtain true repentance and fanctification, is to believe. For thefe are the benefits of Chrift's redemption, Acts v. 31. Matth. i. 21.; and these are applied by the Spirit working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Chrift in our effectual calling. How can one think to repent truly, or to be holy, when he is not united to Chrift, John xv. 5. or to be united without faith? As foon fhall the falling dew pierce through the rock, as one shall be able to do any of thefe out of Chrift, whom the Father has conftituted the head of influences, and on whom all our fruitfulness depends.

(5.) Lastly, The bodies of believers fhall have a glorious refurrection, Rom. viii. 11. There is an union betwixt Chrift and the bodies of believers, which death does not break off, 1 Theff. iv. 14. and therefore they fhall not always lie in the duft, nor will Chrift lofe any of his members, The Lord fays to a dying faint as to Jacob, Gen. xlvi. 3. 4. I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt [he grave].-I

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go down with thee into Egypt [the grave]; and I will also furely bring thee up again.

3. This doctrine informs us concerning the happiness of the faints. To be united with Chrift is the foundation of all happiness, and the richest privileges.

(1.) Chrift is theirs, Cant. ii. 16. My Beloved is mine, fays the fpoufe. They have an intereft in his perfon." He is their Lord, their elder brother, their Husband, yea their Head. Whatfoever he is, or is in him, they may reckon upon it as theirs, for to make them happy. The fulness of the Godhead dwells in him, and fo God is their God, and their Father, John xx. 17. His mercy is theirs to pity them, his power to protect them, his all-feeing eye to direct them, &c. Thus they have a fountain to go to that never runs dry, a treasure that is never exhaufted, a table that will never be drawn, &c.

(2.) What Chrift has is theirs, and he is the heir of all things, fo all is theirs, 1 Cor. iii. 22. 23. He has all that has him to whom all things belong. Union infers a communion betwixt Chrift and believers. His active and paffive obedience is theirs, for their juftification, as if they had done it themfelves. His Spirit, word, and providences are theirs for their fanctification. His power in heaven is theirs for their glorifi cation. In a word, his broad covenant, with all the precious promifes in it, is theirs to make them happy here and hereafter, 2 Pet. i.

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(3.) They are perfectly fafe from the wrath of God, Rom. viii. 1. There is no condemnation to them which are in Chrift Jefus. Their fins are ftill very difpleafing in the fight of God, and deferve condemnation as well as thofe of others. But being in Chrift, they are beyond the reach of the curfe of the law; they are go into the city of refuge, where the avenger of blood cannot attack them. They are under the mild government of the covenant of grace, which threatens fatherly anger and temporal chattifements in cafe of tranfgreffion, but no more, Pfal. lxxxix. 30.—733,

(4.) The Lord takes pleasure in and accepts their perfons, graces, and duties, though attended with manifold imperfections. Their perfons are accepted, though a body of death hangs about them, Eph. i. 6. Their graces, though there is much drofs in them, yet because the image of Chrift is on them, they are accepted, Cant. v. 1. Their duties, though far from the perfection which the law requires, are accepted, Cant. ii. 14. Their will is accepted for the deed, and their grief for the want of will, for the will itself, 2 Cor. viii. 12.

(5.) All their wants lie upon Chrift, Col. ii. 10. As the union gives them a communion with him in what is his, fo he has a communion with them in what is theirs; fo that Chrift is to answer for all their debt, poverty, and wants, as he that marries the widow in debt, Pfal. lv. 22. So they look and may look to him for all, for wisdom, righteoufnefs, fanctification, and redemption.

USE II. Ye may try by this whether the Spirit has applied to you the redemption purchased by Christ. If fo be, then ye are united to Chrift. If men only apply that redemption to themselves, it will be found prefumption, and not faith, and no union with Chrift; and the plaifter thus applied will not stick. But where the right application is made, there the finner is united to Jefus Chrift. Ye may try whether ye be united to Chrift or not by thefe marks. The general

Mark is, If ye be disjoined from what ye were formerly knit to, and carried to Christ for all. It is with the foul united to Chrift as with an ingrafted branch, which is broken off from the tree it naturally grew in, and is joined to another, from which it draws all its fap. If ye be united to Chrift, ye are disjoined and broken off from the natural ftock, and ingrafted into Chrift. Ye may take up this in these three things.

1. Ye have given up with the law as a covenant of works, and betaken yourfelves wholly to the grace of Chrift in the fecond covenant. That is to be dead to

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