Owen - BT795 O84 1800Z

REGENERATION. 341 In a word, the due performance of all mutual gospel- duties, to the glory of God and our own edification, de- pends on this supposition. 2. For the grounds of this judgment I shall mention one only, which all others do lean upon. This is pressed, 1 Cor. 12 : 12, 13. "As the body is one, and bath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." They are all united to one Head; for as are the members of the body natural under one head ; so is Christ mystical, that is, all believers, under Christ their Head. And this union they have by the indwelling of the same quickening Spirit which is in Christ their Head, and by him they are brought all into the same spiritual state and frame : they are made to drink into one and the same Spirit ; for this same Spirit produceth the same effects in them all, the same in kind, though differing in degrees, as the apostle fully declares, Eph. 4 : 3-6. This Spirit is in them, and not in the world. John, 16. And as this gives them an affection in their duties one to- wards another, or in mutual caring for, rejoicing and sorrowing for one another, as members one of another, 1 Cor. 12 : 25, 26, so it reveals and discovers them to each other, so far as is necessary for the performance of the duties mentioned, in such a manner as becomes members of the same body. There is thus spiritually an answering of one to another, as face answereth face in water. They see and discern that in others which they experience in themselves ; they taste and

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