An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ,…

Nothing more easy to be understood than our Union with Christ; ¹and it had certainly continued so, had not ⟨p. 227⟩some men undertook to explain it, who have made it more than mystical, that is, an unintelligible Union: When we enquire what this Union is, they answer in general, that it is a mystical Union through the Spirit and Faith: This, Mystical, is a hard word, and therefore to explain it, they tell us, that it is an Union of Persons, but no Personal Union: ²The Person of Christ is united to the Person of the Believer, and the Person of the Believer is united to the Person of Christ (as it must needs be, where the Person of Christ is united to the Person of the Believer:) Which Union is made by Faith, which receives the Person of Christ, and therefore must unite to the Person of Christ: (I doubt that consequence is not good, for men are not united to every thing they receive; but yet what follows may help it out:) As it is in the Marriage-union which joins person to person: This is not very clear yet, and therefore the same Author describes it thus: This Mystical Union is that supernatural, spiritual, intimous Oneness and Conjunction, which is between the Person of Christ and the Person of Believers, through the Bonds of the Spirit and Faith; upon which follows mutual and reciprocal Communion with ⟨p. 228⟩each other: This Oneness and Conjunction are hard words still; and therefore to explain them, you must observe, that Christ and Saints are united; how? Why, in respect of that Oneness and Conjunction which is between them: This is as plain, as one could wish; they are one by their Oneness: Union is Union, and Christ is Christ, and Believers are Believers, and Oneness is Oneness; and thus Christ and Believers are united by their Oneness: But what are the Bonds of this Union? (though it had been convenient first to have understood the Union better:) Why, they are the Spirit and Faith; the Spirit unites Christ to us, and Faith unites us to Christ: And who can deny this to be a very Mystical Union. But besides this mystical Union, there is a Legal or Law-union between Christ and Believers, as he is their Surety; a Moral Union, the foundation of which is Love: And thus Christ and Believers are united mystically, legally, morally. The design of these distinctions is to prove the Union of persons between Christ and Believers: