It should shame us therefore when we find dulness and coldness upon us, that we can hear of anything better than of Christ ; and arguments concerning Christ are cold to us, Alas ! where is our love, and joy, and delight ; and when we can make no better but a carnal use of the incarna- tion and other benefits by Christ ! We should therefore desire God to shed the love of Christ into our hearts more and more, that we may feel in our souls the love that he bears to us, and may love God and Christ again, for that that he hath done for us.
Hence we have also a ground of estimation of Christians to be excellent persons. Doth God value poor sinful souls so much as to give Christ for them to become a Saviour ? doth he delight in Christ for giving himself for them ? and shall not we love one another whom God and Christ so loves ?
But if God love and delight in those that are in Christ, with the same love and delight that he hath in him, how shall I know that I am in Christ, and that God thus delights in me ?
Briefly, a man may know that be is in Christ, if he find the Spirit of Christ in bim ; for the same Spirit when Christ took our nature, that sanctified that blessed mass whereof he was made, when there was a union between him and the second person, the same Spu'it sanctifies our souls and bodies. There is one Spirit in the head and in the members. There- fore if we find the Spirit of Christ in us, we are in Christ and he in us. Now this Spirit is rene^^ing, ' Whosoever is in Christ is a new creature,' 2 Cor.v. 17; aU is new, ' old things are done away,' the old manner of language, the old disposition, old affections, old company, all old things are past, all is new ; and if a man be a new creature, he hath right and title to ' the new heaven and new earth,' 2 Pet. iii. 13. Let us examine the work of gi'ace in us. If there be no change in us we have no present interest in Christ. We have to do with bim because he is stiU wooing us to be in him, but as yet we have no title to him.
The very beholding of Christ is a transforming sight. The Spmt that makes us new creatm-es, and stirs us up to behold this servant, it is a trans- forming beholding. If we look upon bim with the eye of faith, it will make us like Christ ; for the gospel is a mirror, and such a mirror, that when we look into it, and see ourselves interested in it, we are changed from glory- to glory, 2 Cor. iii. 18. A man cannot look upon the love of God and of Christ in the gospel, but it will change him to be like God and Christ. For bow can we see Christ, and God in Christ, but we shall see how God hates sin, and this wiU transfonn us to hate it as God doth, who hated it so that it could not be expiated but with the blood of Christ, God-man. So, seeing the holiness of God in it, it will transform us to be holy. When we see the love of God in the gospel, and the love of Cbi'ist giving himself for us, this will transfonn us to love God. When we see the bumihty and obedience of Christ, when we look on Christ as God's chosen servant in aU this, and as our surety and head, it transforms us to the lilvc humility and obedience. Those that find not their dispositions in some comfortable measure wrought to this blessed transformation, they have not yet those eyes that the Holy Ghost rcquireth here. 'Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul delighteth.'
A DESCKIPTION OF CHRIST. 15
I will put my Spirit itpon him. — Now we come to the qualification of Christ foi* his calhng, in these words, I will put my Spirit upon him — that is, I will clothe him with my Spirit, I will put it, as it were, upon him as a garment.
Now there were divers degi-ees of Christ's recei\-ing the Spirit at several times. For he was conceived by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost did sanctify that blessed mass whereof his body was framed in the womb of the virgin, he was quickened in the womb in his conception by the Holy Ghost, and he was graced by the Holy Ghost, and led by the Spirit in all things before his baptism. But afterward, when he came to set upon his office, to be the prophet and priest and king of his chm'ch, that great office of saving mankind, which he did not solemnly set upon till he was thiiiy years old, then God poured upon him a special portion of the Spirit, an- swerable to that great calling, then the Spii'it lighted upon him. Matt. iii. 16. Christ was ordained to his office by the greatest authority that ever any was ordained from the beginning of the world. For at his baptism, when he was ordained and set apart to his office, there was the Father from heaven uttered an audible voice, * This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,' Mat. iii. 17 ; and there was Christ, the party baptized and installed into that great office ; then there was the Holy Ghost, in the form and shape of a dove. It being a matter of the greatest consequence that ever was in the world, greater than the creation, it was fit it should be done with the greatest authority ; and so it VN-as, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost being present at the admission of Christ into his office. This is especially here intended, though the other be included, I will put my Spirit upon him — that is, I will anoint him, as it is in Isa. Ixi. 1, * The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' saith Chi'ist, ' because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to open the prison for them that ai'e bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord' — that is, the year of jubilee, for that was a type of Chi'ist, to preach the gospel deliverance to all that are in captivity, servitude, and thraldom under Satan and sin. This was accomplished when Christ, at his baptism, entered upon his office. God put his Spirit upon him, to set him apart, to ordain him, and to qualify him with abund- ance of grace for the work ; for there are these three things especially meant by putting the Spiiit upon him, separation or setting apart, and ordaining, and enriching with the gifts of the Spirit.