Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

And likeas, if there were a tree, having its root in the earth, and its branches reaching to heaven; the vast distance betwixt the root and the branches would not interrupt the communication betwixt the root and the top branch: even so, the distance betwixt the man Christ, who is in heaven, and his members, who are on earth, cannot hinder the communication betwixt them. What though the parts of mystical Christ (viz. the head and the members) are not contiguous, as joined together in the way of a corporal union? The union is not therefore the less real and effectual. Yea, our Lord himself shows us, that albeit we should eat his flesh, in a corporal and carnal manner, yet, it would profit nothing, John vi. 63. we would not be one whit holier thereby. But the members of Christ on earth, are united to their head in heaven, by the invisible bond of the self-same Spirit dwelling in both: in him as the head, and in them as the members, even, as the wheels, in Ezekiel's vision, were not contiguous to the living creatures, yet were united to them, by an invisible bond of one spirit in both; so that when the living creatures went, the wheels went by that,; and when the living creatures were lift up from the earth, the wheels were lift up, Ezek. i. 19. For, says the Prophet, the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels, ver. 20.

And likeas, if there were a tree, having its root in the earth, and its branches reaching to heaven; the vast distance betwixt the root and the branches would not interrupt the communication betwixt the root and the top branch: even so, the distance betwixt the man Christ, who is in heaven, and his members, who are on earth, cannot hinder the communication betwixt them. What though the parts of mystical Christ (viz. the head and the members) are not contigu•us, as joined together in the way of a corporal union? The union is not therefore the less real and effectual. Yea, our Lord himself shews us, that albeit we should eat his flesh, in a corporal and carnal manner, yet, it would profit nothing, John vi. 63. we would not be one whit holier thereby. But the members of Christ on earth, are united to their head in heaven, by the invisible bond of the self-same Spirit dwelling in both: in him as the head, and in them as the members, even, as the wheels, in Ezeckiel's vision, were not contiguous to the living creatures, yet were united to them, by an invisible bond of one spirit in both; so that when the living creatures went, the wheels went by that,; and when the living creatures were lift up from the earth, the wheels were lift up,