412 THE MATCHLESS LOVE AND INBEING.
their iuvinciblc spirit ; but in all these things they were more than con- querors, through him that loved them. A sweet state it is.
I beseech you, therefore, every day examine whether Christ be in you, and in what measure he is in you ; and labour to give him more room in your hearts. Will not the contrary daunt us ? else we are reprobates, refuse creatures, and the devil is in us. But contrariwise, if he be in us, he will fit us to bo with him. He comes to us, that we may come to be with him ; for why doth he dwell in us ? One main reason is, to fit us for heaven. Let us labour, then, that he may be in us, that he may lit us for himself, to dwell with him in heaven. Labour that none may rule us but his Spirit. In death, what a comfort will it be, that Christ is in us. The Spirit of Christ, that hath ruled me all my life, shall carry my soul to heaven, and shall raise my dead body. If Christ be in us, what need we fear judg- ment ? Will the head condemn the members ? Christ is in us while we live, and therefore joyfully we may expect judgment. Why ? Our Redeemer, our Saviour, our Head, our Husband, will be our Judge. Therefore, of all estates in the world, get into Christ, and labour by all means to get Christ into us, by prayer, by getting grace, &c., that he may delight and solace himself in us. It is the best estate in the world.
Out of Christ, a man is as a branch cut from the vine, subject to the fire. Out of him, a man is as a member cut from the head, cut from the body, good for nothing, neither lively nor fruitful. Get into Christ : it is a state of all grace, for all grace is derived to us from him. It is a state of com- fort in life and death, and for ever. He is the ' second Adam ;' and as all our misery is derived and communicated by being born of the first, from whom sin and corruption is derived, and misery with sin, mortal diseases, and all other misery, so, as soon as the ' second Adam,' Christ, is got into us, his Spirit reigns to glory with us : he never leaves us till he have made us as himself. It should be our main endeavour in this world, therefore, to get out of the cursed estate we are in by nature, and to get into Christ, the ' second Adam,' and then we are safe. For there is more comfort in him than there was sin and misery in the first.
A HEAYENLY CONFERENCE.
A HEAVENLY CONFERENCE.
NOTE.
The ' Heavenly Conference between Christ and Mary' appeared originally in a small 18rao volume in 1G54. A second edition in 4to appeared in 1656. The title- page of the latter will be found below.* It is usually appended to the Commentary upon 2 Corinthians Chap. IV., 4to, 1656. Cf. Note, Vol. IV. page 308. G.
*A HEAVENLY CONFERENCE
BETWEEN
CHEI ST
AND
MARY
Aftek His
RESURRECTION
wnEREm,
The intimate familiarity, and near relation between
Christ and a Beleever is discovered.
By the Reverend Richard Sibbs, D.D.
LONDON,
Printed by S. G. for John Rothwell, and are to be sold at the
Fountain and Bear in Cheapside,
16 56.
TO .THEREADEE.
The scope and business of this epistle is not so much to commend tlie workman — whose name is a sweet savour in the church — as to give thee a short summarj' -view of the generals handled in this treatise. Though much might be said of this eminent saint, if either detraction had fastened her venomous nails in his precious name, or the testimony of the subscribers of this epistle might give the book a freer admission into thy hands. This only we shall crave leave to mind the reader of, that this bright star, who sometimes with his light refreshed the souls of God's people while he shone in the horizon of our church, set, as we may say, between the even- ing of many shadows and the morning of a bright hoped-for Reformation ; which, though it be for the present overcast, yet being so agreeable to the mind of Jesus Christ, and ushered in with the groans and prayers of so many of his saints, we doubt not but will in God's own time break forth gloriously, to the dissipating of those clouds and fogs which at the present do eclipse and darken it.
Now, as it is the wisdom of God, in bringing about his own designs, to raise up fit and suitable instruments for the work of every' generation, so it is also the gracious dispensation of God to put seasonable words into the mouths of those his servants, who by faith do fix their eyes on him for the guidance of his blessed Spirit ; as every judicious reader may observe in the works of this reverend divine, who foreseeing, as it were, what a degeneracy of spirit professors in his time were falling apace into, that itch of questions and disputings, like a noxious humour, beginning then to break forth among professors,* like a skilful physician, applied himself to preserve the vitals and essentials of religion, that the souls of his hearers, being captivated with the inward beauty and glory of Christ, and being led into an experimental knowledge of heavenly truths, their spirits might not evaporate and discharge themselves in endless, gainless, soul-unedifying, and conscience-perplexing questions. For as it is in nature, a man that hath tasted the sweetness of honey will not easily be persuaded that honey is bitter, but he that hath only taken it up upon credit may soon be bafiled out of it, because no act can go higher than its principles ; and so it is in religion. For those good souls that have embraced the truths of Jesus Christ upon a supernatural principle, and experimented not only the truth, but the goodness of them in their own souls, they are the clinched Christians, the good hold-fast men, as Mr Fox styles some Christians in his * In margin here, Pruritus diaputnndi ecabies ecclesicB. — Sir H. Wotton. — G.