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

A mere Political union is made and continued by some outward Law. Policy is the Eutaxy or good order of a common society. Multitudes in government conspire into unity; the bond of conjunction is Law: Hence the Law is called [Greek or Hebrew], the soul of a City; without it all the parts and members of the body-politic sink and dissolve into mere confusion; but to the making and continuance of our union with Christ, internal influences are requisite. Faith, the great unitive grace, is not produced by a mere proposal of the object, but by a Divine efficacy; there must be inward teachings and tractions to make men come and close with Christ; in like manner other graces, which make the believer bear the ⟨p. 121⟩image and resemblance of Christ, are by the Spirit drawn and engraven in the heart: Hence they are called the fruits of the Spirit. When these graces are produced, they are still but creatures, and depend upon their original; the continual spirations of the Spirit bear them up in being: in all respects there is a necessity of internal influences. Hence it appears that our union with Christ is more than a Political one; were it no more than so, the outward Law might have sufficed; that first and rudest draught of Pelagianism (which made grace to consist only in libero arbitrio & lege, in free-will, which is a thing natural, and in the Law which is a thing Political) might have been a truth: St. Austin at large disputes against it, and tells us, that God operates in the hearts of men,¹ Non lege atque doctrinâ insonante foria secùs; sed internâ atque occultâ mirabili ac ineffabili potestate; not only by Law and Doctrine sounding without, but by an internal and occult wonderful and ineffable power; yet if the mere Law might have sufficed, there had been no necessity of internal operations, the Pelagian heresy might have passed for a very truth. As therefore we would avoid this great error, we must confess that our union with Christ is more than a Political one.

A meer Political union is made and continued by some outward Law. Policy is the Eutaxy or good order of a common society. Multitudes in government conspire into unity; the bond of conjunction is Law: Hence the Law is called 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, the soul of a City; without it all the parts and members of the body-politick sink and dissolve into meer confusion; but to the making and continuance of our union with Christ, internal influences are requisite. Faith, the great unitive grace, is not produced by a meer proposal of the object, but by a Divine efficacy; there must be inward teachings and tractions to make men come and close with Christ; in like manner other graces, which make the believer bear the