The Doctrine of Justification by Faith

This then I say is the Foundation of the Imputation of the ⟨p. 250⟩sins of the Church unto Christ, namely, that he and it are one Person, the Grounds whereof we must enquire into.

But hereon sundry Discourses do ensue, and various Enquiries are made. What a Person is, in what sense, and how many senses that word may be used; what is the true notion of it, what is a natural Person, what a legal, civil, or political Person; in the Explication whereof some have fallen into mistakes. And if we should enter into this Field, we need not fear matter enough of debate and altercation. But I must needs say, that these things belong not unto our present occasion; nor is the Union of Christ and the Church illustrated, but obscured by them. For Christ and Believers are neither one natural Person, nor a legal or political Person, nor any such Person as the Laws, Customs, or Usages of men do know or allow of. They are one mystical Person, whereof although there may be some imperfect Resemblances found in natural or political Unions, yet the Union from whence that Denomination is taken between him and us, is of that nature, and ariseth from such Reasons and Causes, as no Personal Union among men, (or the Union of many persons) hath any concernment in. And therefore as to the Representation of it unto our weak understandings unable to comprehend the depth of Heavenly mysteries, it is compared unto Unions of divers kinds and natures. So is it represented by that of Man and Wife; not unto those mutual affections which give them only a moral Union, but from the extraction of the first Woman, from the flesh and bone of the first man, and the Institution of God for the Individual Society of Life thereon. This the Apostle at large declares, Ephes. 5.25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Whence he concludes, that from the Union thus represented, we are members of his Body, of his flesh and of his bone, ver. 30. or have such a Relation unto him, as Eve had to Adam, when she was made of his flesh and bone; and so was one flesh with him. So also it is compared ⟨p. 251⟩