We must understand this, to give Christ his due honour and respect, and to know whence we have all we have. Therefore the Spirit is said here, first, to be ' put upon Christ.' We have not the Holy Ghost immediately from God, but we have, him as sanctifying Christ first, and then us ; and whatsoever the Holy Ghost doth in us, he doth the same in Christ first, and he doth it in us because in Christ. Therefore, in John xvi. 14, 15, Christ saith, He shall take of mine. Whatsoever the Holy Ghost works in us, he takes of Christ first. How is that ?
Thus : the Holy Ghost comforts us with reasons from Christ. He died, and hath reconciled us to God ; therefore, now God is at peace with thee. Here the Holy Ghost takes a ground of comfort from the death of Christ. When the Holy Ghost would raise a man up to holiness of life, he tells him, Christ thy Saviour and head is quickened, and is now in heaven, therefore we ought to rise to holiness of life. If the Holy Ghost be to work either comfort or grace, or anything, he not only doth the same thing that he did first in Christ, but he doth it in us by reasons from Christ, by grounds fetched from Christ. The Holy Ghost tells our souls that God loves Christ first, and he loves us in Christ, and that we are those that God gave Christ for, that we are those that Christ makes intercession for in heaven. The Holy Ghost witnesseth to us the love of the Father and the Son, and so he fetcheth from Christ whatsoever he works.
And hence the work of the Holy Ghost is distinguished from illusions and delusions, that are nothing but frantic conceits of comfort that are groundless. The Holy Ghost fetcheth all from Christ in his working and comfort, and he makes Christ the pattern of all ; for whatsoever is in Christ, the Holy Ghost, which is the Spirit of Christ, works in us as it is in Christ. Therefore, in John i. 13, it is said, ' of his fulness we receive grace for grace ' — that is, grace answerable to his grace. There are three things that we receive answerable to Christ by the Spirit.
We receive grace — that is, the favour of God answerable to the favour
A DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST. 19
God sliews his Son. He loves liis Son, he is graciously disposed to him, and he loves us.
So gi'ace habitual. We have gi'ace in us answerable to the grace in Christ. AVe have love answerable to his love, patience answerable to his patience, obedience and humility answerable to that in Chiist. The Spirit works a conformity to Christ in all things.
Likewise, in the third place, the Spirit assures us of the same privileges that issue from grace. Christ is a Son ; the Spirit tells us we are sons. Christ is an heir ; the Spirit tells us we are heirs with Christ. Christ is the king of heaven and earth ; the Spirit tells us that we are kings, that his riches are ours. Thus we have ' grace for grace,' both favour and grace in us, and privileges issuing from grace, we have all as they are in Christ. Even as in the first Adam we receive of his emptiness, curse for curse, ill for ill ; for his blindness and rebellion we are answerable ; we are born as he was after his fall : so in the second Adam, by his Spirit, we receive grace for grace.
Hence issues this, that our state now in Chiist is far more excellent than our state in Adam was.
How doth it spring hence ?
Thus, Christ is God-man. His nature was sanctified by the Spirit ; he was a more excellent person, he gives and sends the Spirit. Adam was only a mere man, and therefore his goodness could not be so derived to his posterity ; for, however the Holy Ghost was in Adam, yet the Holy Ghost did not so fill him, he was not so in him as in Christ. The Holy Ghost is in Christ in a more excellent manner ; for Christ being equal with God, he gave the Holy Ghost ; the Holy Ghost comes from Christ as God. Now the second Adam being a more excellent pei'son, we being in Chiist the second Adam, we are in a more excellent, and in a more safe estate ; we have a better keeper of our happiness than Adam. He being a mere man, he could not keep his own happiness, but lost himself and all his posterity. Though he were created after the image of God, yet being but a mere man, he shewed himself to be a man — that is, a changeable creatm-e ; but Christ being God and man, having his nature sanctified by the Spirit, now om* happiness is in a better keeping, for our grace hath a better spring. The grace and sanctification we have, it is not in our own keeping, it distils into us answerable to om- necessities ; but the spring is indeficient, it never fails, the spring is in Christ. So the favour that God bears us, it is not first in us, but it is first in Christ ; God loves him, and then he loves us ; he gives him the Spirit, and us in him. Now, Christ is the keeper both of the love of God towards us and the grace of God ; and whatsoever is good he keeps all for us, he receives all for himself and for us ; he receives not only the Spirit for himself, but he receives it as Mediator, as head : for ' we all of his fulness receive grace for grace.' He receives it as a fountain to diffuse it, I say. This shews us our happy and blessed condition in Jesus Christ, that now the grace and love of God and our happiness, and the grace whereby we are sanctified and fitted for it, it is not in our own keeping originally, but in our head Christ Jesus.