Christus in corde, or, The mystical union between Christ and believers considered in its…

Christ is head of every man, 1 Cor. 11.3. Not to straiten the words, but to take them in their full latitude, he is head, not of Believers only, but of all men; he is an head of eminency to them; never was the humane nature so exalted and lifted up as in him, in whom it is united to the Deity, and filled with all grace; he is an head of authority over them; he is Law-giver and Judge of the world; nay, in some sort he is an head of influence to them; he is that light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, that is, with the light of Reason, which is the Candle of the Lord; in the first lighting of it up, it was a piece of nature coming from Christ as God; in ⟨p. 90⟩the continuance of it in fallen man, it is a reprieved thing, owing to the sweet smelling sacrifice of Christ as God-man and Mediator; sin being an universal forfeiture, not only of the outward blessings in the world, but of the inward furniture in the soul; it is through the Mediator, that the world stands unturned into a Chaos, and that reason continues not extinct and utterly gone out; we are bound to thank Christ, that our forfeited Reason is not taken away from us. In this sense Christ is an head of influence to every man; but unto Believers he is an head in a more excellent way, influencing unto them, not nature or reason only, but his own Spirit and Grace, to raise them up above nature, and mould them into his own likeness.

Christ is head of the Heathen, Psal. 18.43. That is, he reigns as a King over the Church of the Gentiles; his kingdom is a spiritual one: he doth not, as other Princes, rule merely by outward Laws, but he inspires obedience into his Subjects, and by a vital influence inclines them to do his will; yet the mystical union is not so clearly expressed, when in the Psalm he is called the head of the Heathen, as when in the Apostle he is called the head of the body; there he is called an head, ex analogiâ regis ⟨p. 91⟩