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

The one is this; No mere outward privilege can amount to a mark: It was the ancient humour of the Jews to rest upon external privileges; they gloried in this, that they were Jews, the seed of that great Saint, Abraham, who (as they say) performed every jot and tittle of the Law; they cried up their circumcision as a very great thing; it was (say they) equal to all Precepts, nay, Heaven and Earth could not stand without it; they magnified the Temple, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these: that was the perfection of Beauty, made such by the special Presence of God in it.¹ These Privileges lifted them up to such an height, that they looked upon all the nations of the world but as so many Dogs in comparison of themselves. But all those, who had these Privileges, ⟨p. 270⟩had not an interest in Christ; the true Jew is not merely an outward one, but an inward; the right seed are not the children of Abraham's flesh, but the children of the promise; the great circumcision is not in the flesh, but the heart; it was not the outward Temple, but the inward Sanctity which God looked at. Hence the Apostle returns upon the Jews, which were void of Christ, the name of Dogs, and calls them in an holy mockery, the Concision; and asserts, that Christians (who rejoice in Christ, and have no confidence in the flesh, of outward privileges) are the true circumcision, Phil. 3.2, 3. In like manner Christians are very apt to rest upon outward Privileges; they are in the bosom of the Church; they are baptized in the name of the Sacred Trinity; they hear the sound of the glorious Gospel; they receive the Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper. These great Privileges make them imagine themselves to be Christians indeed; but all those who have these Privileges, are not in union with Christ; all are not in his mystical body; all have not the inward washing of Regeneration; all do not hear and learn of the Father; all do not eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ; in the midst of their outward Privileges, there is nothing within to prove ⟨p. 271⟩them real Christians; though they be in the Church visible, yet, as St. Austin saith,²