It is an INDISSOLUBLE union. Once in Christ, ever in him. Having taken up his habitation in the heart, he never leaves. None can untie this happy knot.

True sanctification is the result of the soul's union with the holy Jesus, the first and immediate receptacle of the sanctifying Spirit; out of whose fullness, his members do, by virtue of their union with him, receive sanctifying influences. The other is the mere product of the man's own spirit, which, whatever it has, or seems to have, of the matter of true holiness—yet does not arise from the supernatural principles, nor to the high aims and ends thereof: for, as it comes from self, so it runs out into the dead sea of self again; and lies as wide of true holiness, as nature does of grace. They who have this species of holiness, are like common boatmen, who serve themselves with their own oars: whereas the ship bound for Immanuel's land, sails by the blowings of the divine Spirit.

Christ your Head is risen, therefore you cannot be lost: nay, he is not only risen from the dead himself, but is also "become the first-fruits of them that slept," 1 Cor. 15: 20. Believers are his members, his fulness, he cannot therefore be complete without you: a part of Christ cannot perish in the grave, much less burn in hell. Remember, when you feel the natural union dissolving, that this mystical union can never be dissolved: the pangs of death cannot break this tye.

And, as our natural corruption was produced originally in the first Adam, and propagated from him to us, so our new nature and holiness is first produced in Christ, and derived from Him to us, or as it were propagated. So that we are not at all to work together with Christ, in making or producing that holy frame in us, but only to take it to ourselves, and use it in our holy practice, as made ready to our hands.

The end of Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection was to prepare and form a holy nature and frame for us in Himself, to be communicated to us by union and fellowship with Him; and not to enable us to produce in ourselves the first original of such a holy nature by our own endeavours.