Another instance of the glory of Christ, which we are to behold here by faith, and hope that we shall do so by sight hereafter, consists in the mysterious communication of himself, and all the benefits of his mediation, unto the souls of them that do believe, to their present happiness and future eternal blessedness.
Hereby he becomes theirs as they are his; which is the life, the glory, and consolation of the church, Cant. vi. 3; ii. 16; vii. 10, — he and all that he is being appropriated unto them, by virtue of their mystical union. There is, there must be, some ground, formal reason, and cause of this relation between Christ and the church, whereby he is theirs, and they are his; — he is in them, and they in him, so as it is not between him and other men in the world.
The apostle, speaking of this communication of Christ unto the church, and the union between them which does ensue thereon, affirms that it is “a great mystery;” for “I speak,” saith he, “concerning Christ and the church,” Eph. v. 32.
I shall very briefly inquire into the causes, ways, and means of this mysterious communication, whereby he is made to be ours, to be in us, to dwell with us, and all the benefits of his mediation to belong unto us. For, as was said, it is evident that he does not thus communicate himself unto all by natural necessity, as the sun gives light equally unto the whole world, — nor is he present with all by a ubiquity of his human nature, — nor, as some dream, by a diffusion of his rational soul into all, — nor does he become ours by a carnal eating of him in the sacrament; but this mystery proceeds from, and depends on, other reasons and causes, as we shall briefly declare.
But yet, before I proceed to declare the way and manner whereby Christ communicateth himself unto the church, I must premise something of divine communications in general and their glory. And I shall do this by touching a little on the harmony and correspondence that is between the old creation and the new.
1. All being, power, goodness, and wisdom, were originally essentially, infinitely in God. And in them, with the other perfections of his nature, consisted his essential glory.
2. The old creation was a communication of being and goodness by almighty power, directed by infinite wisdom, unto all things that were created for the manifestation of that glory. This was the first communication of God unto anything without himself; and it was exceeding glorious. See Ps. xix. 1; Rom. i. 20. And it was a curious machine, framed in the subordination and dependency of one thing on another; without which they could not subsist, nor have a continuance of their beings. All creatures below live on the earth and the products of it; the earth, for its whole production, depends on the sun and other heavenly bodies; as God declares, Hos. ii. 21, 22, “I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.” God has given a subordination of things in a concatenation of causes, whereon their subsistence does depend. Yet, —
3. In this mutual dependency on and supplies unto one another, they all depend on and are influenced from God himself, — the eternal fountain of being, power, and goodness. “He hears the heavens;” and in the continuation of this order, by constant divine communication of being, goodness, and power, unto all things, God is no less glorified than in the first creation of them, Acts xiv. 15–17; xvii. 24–29.
4. This glory of God is visible in the matter of it, and is obvious unto the reason of mankind; for from his works of creation and providence they may learn his eternal power and godhead, wherein he is essentially glorious.
5. But by this divine communication, God did not intend only to glorify himself in the essential properties of his nature, but his existence also in three persons, of Father, Son, and Spirit. For although the whole creation in its first framing, and in its perfection, was, and is, by an emanation of power and goodness from the divine nature, in the person of the Father, as he is the fountain of the Trinity, whence he is said peculiarly to be the Creator of all things; yet the immediate operation in the creation was from the Son, the power and wisdom of the Father, John i. 1–3; Col. i. 16; Heb. i. 2. And as upon the first production of the mass of the creation, it was under the especial care of the Spirit of God, to preserve and cherish it unto the production of all distinct sorts of creatures, Gen. i. 2, — so in the continuance of the whole, there is an especial operation of the same Spirit in all things. Nothing can subsist one moment by virtue of the dependence which all things have on one another, without a continual emanation of power from him. See Ps. civ. 29, 30.
By these divine communications, in the production and preservation of the creature, does God manifest his glory, and by them alone in the way of nature he does so; and without them, although he would have been for ever essentially glorious, yet was it impossible that his glory should be known unto any but himself. Wherefore, on these divine communications does depend the whole manifestation of the glory of God. But this is far more eminent, though not in the outward effects of it so visible, in the new creation; as we shall see.