Chapter VIII
That Christ represented as a quickening Spirit is a proper object of our faith.
My next work therefore shall be to shew that Christ, as represented a
quickening Spirit, in that latitude of sense which the Scriptures in tha
CHAP. VIII.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 181
notion of him intended, and revealed by the Father as the truth thereof is
in him, and taken in and understood by us accordingly, doth become and
prove as proper and full an object for our faith to exercise itself upon, as
any other notion whatsoever wherein he is represented.
I have in this large title comprehended the main materials that follow, and in laying open the spiritualness of our Christ (the object, which in
Scripture is expressed by Spirit that quickens), the spiritualness of^ the
faith and heart of a true believer, with difference from common faith in a
carnal heart, will all along appear, and appear by this^ that when the
spiritualness that is in the object is spiritually discovered, if the actings of
the soul be really and in verity conformable, and answerable thereto, then
it is spiritual faith in us also. For it is a certain rule, that the spiritualness of the subject, viz., the soul, lieth in a suitableness unto, and closing with the spirituality of its objects as represented in their bare and naked
true spiritualness, abstracting from other respects, for then they attinge and affect that object as it is in itself. So here in this case, when the
true spiritualness of Christ is presented, and apprehended as the truth is
in Jesus, the spiritualness or fleshliness of the heart will be discovered
thereby, as the heart shall be found to fall in with or bear off from what is
in that object purely spiritual. I shall not then need to discourse any more than to discover to you what a Christ you have, and how spiritual, and then do you lay your hearts to the naked apprehension thereof, and
see how your hearts agree with him, and are affected accordingly towards
him, and what it is in him causeth you to desire him, as the prophet
speaks, as such a Christ, comparing spiritual hearts with spiritual Christ,
see how they agree and like each other.
Other ways and modes out of scriptures are and have been taken by
others unto a great success in their discoveries of Christ, and the truth of
saving faith thereby, and for substance they are the same with this of mine
that follows. But I chose this as that which my Saviour s sermon in this
sixth chapter of John hath led me to, and which hath fallen into my own
heart, and hath animated my pursuances after Christ in a more special manner than any other apprehensions of him whatsoever. I limit myself unto what this notion, viz.,
< a quickening Spirit, will afford herein. For
it is made a kind of definition of him (if I may so
^ speak), or the most
proper description, whether in his person or what he is made to us, in two
words, a quickening Spirit, 1 Cor. xv. 45. Christ s speech, God is a
Spirit, John iv. 24, is as proper a definition of God as can be given (for he passeth our logic), it expressing the kind of his being, as his ^name Jehovah, that he is fulness of being. And this definition of Christ is like
it ; given first by Christ himself in this 6th of John, and then by the apostle
The Lord is that Spirit, 2 Cor. iii. 17; and again, a quickening Spirit,
1 Cor. xv. 45, and I call it a definition of him, or rather the exactest
description of him, because it is used to illustrate both his person and his
* The first man Adam was^made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit. Howbeit that
work as a Saviour : 1 Cor. xv. 45 to 50,
was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterwards
that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy
: the second man is the Lord from heaven. I think I may, without the hazard of being
confuted, undertake to say, that this is a more perfect definition, or at
least an exacter character of Adam the first man, given him by God him
self,yrom and upon his very creation, than ever any philosopher gave of
man* whilst they went about to make a definition of him ; and I may
OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [BOOK II.
answerably affirm the like of this definition of Christ, that he is a quicken ing Spirit. It denotes his person to be God, the Lord from heaven, and withal a man in one person with God,
< the second man. That the word spirit in the New Testament is often set to express his Godhead as his humanity flesh, is so well known (Rom. i. 3, 1 Tim. iii. 16, 1 Peter
iii. 18, 19, Heb. ix. 14), as it needs not be insisted on. The parallel then between our Christ and the first Adam, by way of super-eminent comparative on Christ s part, will run thus : Look, as Adam the first man was in his own person first and originally made a living soul, having that animal rational soul, the breath of lives infused by God into a body organised for that soul to act and enliven, as our souls do our bodies, and so make up one person with it; so the Godhead of the second person, united into one person, was thereby made a quickening Spirit unto that flesh of his assumed. Only we must here abate of the parallel (for it is but a type, and so holds not in all things), that the Godhead in Christ is not the soul of his body, for he hath a soul which makes up with his body an entire human nature ; but his Godhead is that which makes up one person with that human nature, and infinitely enliveneth and spiriteth it above what our souls do, or can do our bodies. And he useth the word quickening to express that super-celestial life by; not that Christ s human nature was dead before, but that it was called up to and raised from* what it was not (and God s calling things that are not as if they were, the apostle parallels with a resurrection, Rom. iv.), nor never would have been, if he had been but a mere man, though made by a new creation, bestowing never so excelling a soul and body, above the soul and body which the first man, Adam, consisted of. But here the Spirit or Godhead elevated that soul and body of Christ s human nature into a state of life, of an higher kind and rank, infinitely surpassing the life which any soul or body, if but mere creatures, could have been capable of, or than even God s power (without making a personal union thereof with the Godhead) could have raised such a mere creature unto. It is a divine and supercelestial life, above all that of angels in heaven, peculiar to him through that union by inheritance, as being now become by inheritance the Lord of heaven, and in taking flesh the Lord from heaven, which to have been was his right at the first instant that he was man. The apostle therefore, being to express that life which by the Godhead the second Adam was raised unto, doth it by a term of superexcellency, in a way of comparison unto the first man s being but a living soul; but calls this and gives it an higher term of
quickening, denoting this high and transcending eleva tion of it above what by mere creation could have been communicated. And he useth the word spirit in the way of super-eminency unto that of soul; that look, as the Godhead in Christ s person excels the soul or spirit in man, so proportionably doth that life, flowing from that spirit or God head in Christ, excel the life that was in Adam by creation, or that could have been in any mere creature. And because it is a raising it up unto a life (that was not, nor never would have been, in any mere creature, but is wholly a super-creation life), he therefore deservedly calls it a quickening even of the human nature of Christ. And whereas it is said, he was made a quickening spirit, the meaning is not, nor can be, that the Spirit or Godhead itself in him was made. No; far be it from me so to interpret it; but the meaning is, that by that union of the Godhead with the human nature, the Godhead was made a quickening Spirit thereunto. And so the *QU. to ? ED.
<
CHAP. VIII.] OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 183
parallel, as to Christ s person, runs no further than to this, that as Adam s
soul breathed into his body, and becoming one person with it, did inspire
and impregnate it, and he became a living soul, so the Godhead inspirited
this his human nature with a divine life, suitable to the glory of that God
head which dwelt in him. And the reason why this parallel, as in respect
to Christ s own person, is intended to extend no further, is, because this
of Adam s state is alleged but as a type and shadow, and therefore not in
^ Thus
all things holding a likeness unto the substance typified out thereby.
it is true first of the person of Christ, that his person as God-man is con
stituted or made up of a quickening spirit ; and certainly as the first man Adam is in his person intended first in this of being a living soul, so Christ s
person in that of a quickening spirit.
But, 2, as Adam is said to be made a living soul also in respect of
conveying a like life and image unto us men his sons, as the next verses
do plainly express the scope to be, so the parallel of Christ s being made a
quickening spirit, aims to signify also what he is made (by virtue of that
his personal union) to be unto us, of which there can be no doubt. From
this notion of his being a quickening spirit (as it hath been explained), the
spiritualness of this our great Christ, as he is made and set forth the spiri
tual object of our faith, and accordingly taught by the Father, as the truth
is in Jesus, to all believers, hath these two branches in it, in the handling
of which distinctly I shall accomplish this task I have undertaken.
1. You have the spiritualness that is in the person, as the Word was
made flesh; or what he is in himself, Son of God, and God dwelling in
our nature personally, and quickening thereof.
2. The spiritualness of him as a Saviour, or in what he is and hath done
for us as sinners, that were dead in sins and trespasses. And although
the particular occasion of the apostle s introducing these words, was what
he is to us in the resurrection of our bodies, yet it in general reacheth to
all that he is to our souls, for our eternal salvation. I divide this argu ment into these two heads ; for these two were the two eminent titles or
descriptions given him, as he was the Christ, by those disciples that first
believed on him from the beginning of his manifestation to Israel. John
the Baptist (from whom Christ s other disciples learned him to be the
Messias or Christ), in a sermon to his disciples, recorded by the evan
gelist John, chap, i., first represents him to their faith as a Saviour for
sinners: Behold, says he, the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins
of the world ! So at the beginning of it, ver. 29 ; but in the close of it,
* And I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of God. And
ver. 34,
the Son of God consisting of two natures : as a man, he was conceived after
the Baptist himself (as by the story, Luke i., appears) ; but he had another
nature, in respect of which he says he was afore him, that is, as God, and
Son of God. Thus verse 30, This is he of whom I said, After me cometh
a man which is preferred before me ; for he was before me. So then Christ
as God-man, the Son of God, and Saviour from sin, is set forth to a believer s
faith, and this from the first, by John.
And sometimes some of those first disciples utter their faith on him as
Son of God, sometimes others speak their faith on him as Saviour of the
world. Some express their faith on him as Son of God. So Nathanael
* Nathanael
upon his very first seeing and hearing of him : John i. 49,
answered and said unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the
King of Israel. The faith of the Samaritan disciples, chap, iv., is thus
: John iv. 42, Now we believe, for we have heard him ourselves,
expressed
OF THE OBJECT AND ACTS [BOOK II.
and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. And Peter, in the name of the disciples, expresseth the same : Mat. xvi. 16, * Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God; just as here in John vi. 69 you find. And the revelation of this, in that spiritual manner that you have heard, was that which caused them to cleave to him and say, Whither shall we go ? &c. And it was from the Father teaching
: Mat. xvi. 17, Blessed art thou, Simon: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. It was the Father had taught him so to believe on his own Son; and upon this rock, saith Christ, ver. 18,
< I will build my church; for all the saints of the New Testament did all
< come to the unity of faith, and knowledge of the Son of God, Eph. iv. 13. And in their so believing he was the Son of God, they believed that he was such a Son of God as was God, or that Son of God who was God, which their confessing him the Son of the living God imported, as was observed. And therefore Christ, in his arguing with the Jews (who quarrelled with him, that he being a man should make himself God), makes the conclusion of an argument, wherein he proves he was God, to run thus: John x. 33-36, The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods ? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God, that is, such a Son as was true God ; for the thing wherein they had said he blasphemed, verse 32, was, that he said he was God, yet he concludes that he was the Son of God ; so that to believe he was the Son of God, was all one as to believe he was God. And hence it also was that in other scriptures to believe on him as God, and on him as Saviour, are also joined in the apostles con fession by the same Peter: 2 Peter i. 1, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. And they are also by Paul joined together
: Titus ii. 13, The great God, and rrnr Sm/irmv Trvonn /^V> ,,-,( our Saviour Jesus Christ.