but the life of the body through its union with the soul, that is the figure of the life of Jesus spoken of in the text. — Ed.
2 COniNTHIANS CHAP. IV, TER. 10. 417
of this world, as plants and the like [grow], yet let the snn withdraw his vigour and efficacy, and they seem to die presently. The light of the air ceaseth when the sun ceaseth to shine. So besides that, in us habitually and continually, there must be influence of Christ into us answerable to the exigencies and occasions a Christian hath, either of peace, cr joy, or com- fort of some portion of spiritual life or other. Now this is called the life of Jesus, because it is radicated in him originally, as the ' second Adam.' We all derive it from him. The grace and quickening power we have con- tinually, it is from him, the glory we look for is from him. lie is the * first-born' to whom we are predestinate to be conformed everyway, in grace here, and glory hereafter ; and therefore it is called the life of Jesus. That is specially herein meant. Both these lives, the inward frame of spiritual life and grace in us, and likewise a perpetual influence specially discovered and manifested then, when there is most need of it, in times of ti'ouble, with the accomplishment of it in heaven. The life of Christ is manifested in his children here when they stand in most need of grace and comfort, and it is manifested continually to the day of judgment, when the life of Jesus shall indeed be manifested to the full, as it is manifested in him in heaven ; for as Christ is glorious himself in heaven, so his mystical body shall be like himself too.
I need speak no more for the unfolding of the meaning of the words. The points considerable are these,
Obs. 1. That Chrid is the foundation of all spiritual life that is in m. He is the ' second Adam' that conveyeth all that is spiritually good. As the first Adam conveyeth all that is spiritually ill, it was his office so to do, to convey life. ' Because I live, you shall live also,' John xiv. 19 ; and he saith, John x. 10, ' I am come that they might have life, and that they might have life abundant.' Christ came that we might have life, and that we might have abundance of life at the length. We have it by degrees here, but there is abundance of life preserved for us, such abundance as he enjoyeth himself in the heavens. So that Christ as the ' second Adam' conveyeth spiritual life to us, as the common root of all believers, as the ' first Adam' was the common root of all mankind, but more peculiarly by virtue of office as an head. As the head conveyeth spirit and life to all parts of the body, so doth Christ convey spiritual life to all his.
It is the end of his coming and incarnation, to procure life of sentence and reconciliation, which is the life- of justification and freedom from con- demnation, and the life of acceptation to life everlasting. He died that he might expiate* God, and get the lives of men by getting them to be acquitted from sin, and entitled to heaven ; and thereupon he came to convey (as head unto all his members) life like his own, that the Spirit that is in him may quicken all his members. Therefore he hath taken upon him the sweet re- lation of an head, of a root, the Sun of righteousness, to shew that he is a powerful head, a powerful root, a powerful husband that can alter and change by virtue of the Spirit of God, that he hath in abundance, all that belong to him, and be knit to him ; and therefore our spiritual life is in Christ.
He first exercised this life on his own body by quickening that. As he was mightily declared to be the Son of God, by raising his own body, Eph. i. 19, 20, so he will be mightily declared to be the head of all his, by raising the bodies of his children out of the grave, and by raising them out of troubles, -which are partial deaths, little deaths. So that all spiritual life comes from Christ, from union and communion with Christ. * That is, = to pacify l>y sacrifice, atonemeut. — G.
VOL. IV. D d
418 COMMENTARY ON
Ike. Thovcforc wc must labour to hare union and cnmmnninn vith Christ strenf/tltcnrd hi/ all means ; by hearing, and by the Racraments, and by all moans. For all our liib is derived and fetched from Christ, as a ' second Adam,' who by virtue of bis office derivcth life to all that be his. The more we know of Christ, the more experimentally we feel the power of Christ, the more we live.
Obs. 2. For the second point : As all life is from Christ, so (which is the main point of the text) this life is most discovered in afflictions and evil times, in the di/infj of the ontirard man.
Beloved, both the spiritual lives I speak of, both the inward frame of gi'ace is made more manifest, and likewise the power of Christ in uphold- ing a weak creature in such a condition ; for all grace shineth most, and appears most in trouble ; as obedience, courage, faith, love to God, love to others, love of the truth. I need not stand to particularise. And there- fore the life of Christ is manifested in the decays of the outward man, whether by outward persecutions, or by sicknesses, and the like, that is the time of the discovery of grace ; and likewise it is the time of the disco- very of the power that Christ exercised and shewed, the divine power that God declared in raising his body, that is, the time wherein he sheweth that power in all his.