irei IIL' Of San jcatiof. 5S not be taken for Chrift himfelf, but for Tome other thing wrought in them by Chrifl.. When Chrift and believers are faid to be one fpirit, and one flefh, they underítand it of the agreement of their minds and of ea:ions; as if the greatnefs of the myftery of this union, mentioned, Eph.. v. 32. confifted rather in a harsh trope, or a dark improper exprefa Trion, than in the depth and obftrufenefs of the thing itfelf; and as if Chrift and his apoftles had affefted obfcure intricate expreflions, when they fpeak to the church of things very plain, and eafy to be un- derftood. Thus that great myftery, the union of believers with Chrift himfelf, which is the glory of the church, and hath been highly owned formerly, both by the ancient fathers, and many eminent Proteftant divines, particularly writers concerning the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and by a very general confent of the church in many ages, is now exploded out of the new model of divinity. The reafon of exploding it, as I judge in charity, is not, becaufe our learned refiners of divinity think them- felves lefs be to defend it, than the other two myfterious unions, and to filence the objections of thofe proud fophid.ers that will not believe what they cannot comprehend ; but rather, because they account it to be one of the finews of Antinomian4 ifm, that lay unobferved in the former ufuaI doc- trine ; that it tendeth to puff up men with a per- fuafion, that they are juftified, and have eternal life in them already, and that they need not depend any longer upon their uncertain performances of the condition of fincere obedience for falvatiori : whereby they account the very foundation of a holy praflice to be fubverted. But the wifdom of God hath laid another manner of foundation for an holy practice than they imagine, of which this union (which the builders refute is a principal (tone, next to the head of the corner. And, in oppofition to their corrupt gloflès upon the Scriptures that
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