There is yet farther evidence to be given of this love unto the person of Christ, from all those blessed effects of it which are de- clared in the Scripture, and whereof believers have the experience in themselves. But something I have spoken concerning them formerly, in my discourse about communion with God; and the nature of the present design will not admit of enlargement upon them.
CHAPTER XV.
Conformity unto Christ, and Following his Example.
III. The third thing proposed to declare the use of the person of Christ in religion, is that conformity which is required of us unto him. This is the great design and projection of all believers. Every one of them hath the idea or image of Christ in his mind, in the eye of faith, as it is represented unto him in the glass of the Gospel : Triv hot,ay Kvpiou xaro'Trrpit^cfj.svoi x. r. X., 2 Cor. iii. 18. We behold his glory " in a glass," which implants the image of it on our minds. And hereby the mind is transformed into the same image, made like unto Christ so represented unto us — which is the conformity we speak of Hence every true believer hath his heart under the con- duct of an habitual inclination and desire to be like unto Christ. And it were easy to demonstrate, that where this is not, there is neither faith nor love. Faith will cast the soul into the form or frame of the thing believed, Rom. vi. 17. And all sincere love worketh an assimilation. Wherefore the best evidence of a real principle of the life of God in any soul — of the sincerity of faith, love, and obedience — is an internal cordial endeavour, operative on all occasions, after conformity unto Jesus Christ.
There are two parts of the duty proposed. The first respects the internal grace and holiness of the human nature of Christ ; the other, his example in duties of obedience. And both of them — both materially as to the things wherein they consist, and formally as they were his or in him— belong unto the constitution of a true disciple.
In the fii^st place. Internal conformity unto his habitual grace and
170 THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
holiness is the fundamental design of a Christian life. That which is the best without it is a pretended imitation of his example in outward duties of obedience. I call it pretended, because where the first design is wanting, it is no more but so ; nor is it acceptable to Christ nor approved by him. And therefore an attempt unto that end hath often issued in formality, hypocrisy, and superstition. I shall therefore lay down the grounds of this design, the nature of it, and the means of its pursuit.
1. God, in the human nature of Christ, did perfectly renew that blessed image of his on our nature which we lost in Adam, with an addition of many glorious endowments which Adam was not made partaker of God did not renew it in his nature as though that por- tion of it whereof he was paitaker had ever been destitute or deprived of it, as it is with the same nature in all other persons. For he derived not his nature from Adam in the same way that we do; nor was he ever in Adam as the public representative of our nature, as we were. But our nature in him had the image of God implanted in it, which was lost and separated from the same nature in all other in- stances of its subsistence. " It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell," — that he should be " full of grace and truth," and " in all things have the pre-eminence." But of these gracious endoAV- ments of the human nature of Christ I have discoursed elsewhere.
2. One end of God in filling the human nature of Christ with all grace, in implanting his glorious image upon it, was, that he might in him propose an exwmple of what he would by the same grace renew us unto, and what we ought in a way of duty to labour after. The fulness of grace was necessary unto the human nature of Christ, from its hjrpostatical union with the Son of God. For whereas therein the " fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily," it became to aytov, a " holy thing," Luke i. 85. It was also necessary unto him, as unto his own obedience in the flesh, wherein he fulfilled all righteousness, " did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth," 1 Peter ii. 22. And it was so unto the discharge of the office he undertook; for " such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," Heb. vii. 26. Howbeit, the infinite wisdom of God had this farther design in it also, — namely, that he might be the pattern and example of the renovation of the image of God in us, and of the glory that doth ensue thereon. He is in the eye of God as the idea of what he intends in us, in the communica- tion of grace and glory; and he ought to be so in ours, as unto all that we aim at in a way of duty.