11. In the general, Christ being in his people is after a spiritual, invisible, and mystical manner; It is in an invisible manner, yea, in no ways corporally sensible; We cannot with the eye see him, the ear hear him, or the hand feel him, but all is invisible; And this is the reason, why natural men who are carried away only as brute beasts by sensible Objects are not affected with Christs being in his Children, for they say as the disciple in another case, unless we may put our fingers in Christs wounds, and feel his bones, we will not believe he is in us, but as God though he is omnipresent and filleth all places, yet is not seen by the bodily eye, No man hath seen God at any time, Joh. 1.18. So though Christ fill his whole Church, and the Apostle expresseth it, Col. 3.11. he is all in all, yet this is after an invisible and corporally indiscernible mans, so that though the Apostle who lived with Christ in a bodily manner, and was eye-witness of all that he did and suffered, could say, 1 Joh. 1.1. That which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, yet believers cannot now say so; As it is invisible so it is spiritual, and therefore above a carnal apprehension; This is one of those things of God a natural man cannot perceive because spiritually discerned; Go to any natural man though never so cultivated and adorned with rationality, yet can he no more understand or conceive of Christs being in the soul, then a worm can reach to the understanding and discourse of Angels with one another, and the reason is because there is no habitude or suitable proportion between this truth and their capacities, So that as the Eye cannot see a Spirit because of the disso•ancy between that Object and the visive faculty, So neither can a natural man though walking in the high stilts of all moral endowments ever reach unto any satisfactory knowledge in this Point, for this Truth cannot be found in Aristotle's or Plat••s works, neither can flesh and blood reveal it, but by the Scripture as a ⟨p. 625⟩guide, and the spirit of God as an efficient, we come to know what it is:
11. In the general, Christ being in his people is after a spirituall, invisible, and mystical manner; It is in an invisible manner, yea, in no waies corporally sensible; We cannot with the eye see him, the ear hear him, or the hand feel him, but all is invisible; And this is the reason, why natural men who are carried away only as brute beasts by sensible Objects are not affected with Christs being in his Children, for they say as the disciple in another case, unlesse we may put our fingers in Christs wounds, and feel his bones, we will not believe he is in us, but as God though he is omnipresent and filleth all places, yet is not seen by the bodily eye, No man hath seen God at any time, Joh. 1.18. So though Christ fill his whole Church, and the Apostle expresseth it, Col. 3.11. he is all in all, yet this is after an invisible and corporally indiscernable mannes, so that though the Apostle who lived with Christ in a bodily manner, and was eye-witnesse of all that he did and suffered, could say, 1 Joh. 1.1. That which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, yet beleevers cannot now say so; As it is invisible so it is spirituall, and therefore above a carnal apprehension; This is one of those things of God a natural man cannot perceive because spiritually discerned; Go to any natural man though never so cultivated and adorned with rationality, yet can he no more understand or conceive of Christs being in the soul, then a worm can reach to the understanding and discourse of Angels with one another, and the reason is because there is no habitude or sutable proportion between this truth and their capacities, So that as the Eye cannot see a Spirit because of the disso•ancy between that Object and the visive faculty, So neither can a naturall man though walking in the high stilts of all moral endowments ever reach unto any satisfactory knowledge in this Point, for this Truth cannot be found in Aristotles or Plat••s works, neither can flesh and bloud reveal it, but by the Scripture as a ⟨p. 625⟩guide, and the spirit of God as an efficient, we come to know what it is:
- 1How or in what manner Christ is in his people.
