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

The second is this; The marks of this union are cordial; no mere notion, no, not that of divine things, can amount to a mark; a man may have a great stock of notions, yet not be in union with Christ; he may know the literal sense and meaning of divine Truths, yet have nothing of the spiritual effect and power of them upon his heart; a man of mere notions, drudges in the service ⟨p. 273⟩of sin, as if there were no redemption; walks in his corrupt ways, as if there were no better to be found; cleaves to earth, as if there were no Heaven; hangs about time, as if there were no eternity; chooses his lusts, as if there were no God to set his heart upon; and falls in with every vanity, as if there were no Christ to be united unto. His notions all lie dead, there is no impression made upon the will, no vital influence upon the heart, no savouring or spiritual sensation of heavenly things; it is but a form of knowledge, a figure or appearance only without any life in it; he knows holy truths, only to know them; he doth not love, choose, embrace, practise them; he hath them only in notion, not in a practical way; the holy Precepts, as full of rectitude as they are, move him not to obedience; the precious Promises, which flow with admirable grace, attract him not into faith and love; the dreadful threatenings, in which Gods wrath appears like devouring fire, drive him not out of his iniquity; all his knowledge is by a practical error blasted and turned away from its true end; in effect it withers and nomes to nothing. But in a man in Christ, the knowledge is not a mere form or appearance, but the substance or spiritual subsistence of holy things in the heart; the notions ⟨p. 274⟩do not lie dead, but rise up in life and power in the soul; holy truths do not merely float in the brain, or stay in the intellect, but fall down upon the will to make it free in the ways of God, and upon the affections to inflame them towards him; the things of Heaven do now appear in such glory and excellency, that they cast the balance in heart and life the right way; Christ, with whom they are united, makes every truth effectual.

The second is this; The marks of this union are cordial; no meer notion, no, not that of divine things, can amount to a mark; a man may have a great stock of notions, yet not be in union with Christ; he may know the literal sense and meaning of divine Truths, yet have nothing of the spiritual effect and power of them upon his heart; a man of meer notions, druges in the service