so we also should walk in newness of life:  For—­we shall be also planted in the likeness of his resurrection; and if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:—­therefore reckon ye also yourselves to be—­alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”  The right improving of this ground would be of noble advantage to the student of holiness:  for then he might with strong confidence conclude, that the work of sanctification should prosper in his hand; for he may now look upon himself as “quickened together with Christ,” Eph. ii. 5.  Christ dying and rising, as a public person, and he by faith being now joined with him, and united to him.

12.  Moreover this resurrection of Christ may yield us another ground of hope and confidence in this work; for there is mention made of the power of his resurrection, Phil. iii. 10.  So that by faith we may draw strength and virtue from Christ, as an arisen and quickened head, whereby we also may live unto God, and bring forth fruit unto him, and serve no more in the oldness of the letter, “but in the newness of the Spirit,” Rom. vii. 4, 6.  He was quickened as a head, and when the head is quickened, the members cannot but look for some communication of life therefrom, and to live in the strength of the life of the head:  see Col. iii. 1, 2.

13.  Faith may and should also look to Christ, as an intercessor with the Father.  For this particular, John xvii. 17, “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy Word is truth:”  and this will add to their confidence, that the work shall go on; for Christ was always heard of the Father, John xi. 41, 42, and so will be in his prayer, which was not put up for the few disciples alone.

The believer then would eye Christ as engaging to the Father to begin and perfect this work; as dying to purchase the good things promised, and to confirm the same; as quickened, and rising as head and public person, to ensure this work, and to bestow and actually confer the graces requisite; and as praying also for the Father’s concurrence, and cast the burden of the work on him by faith, knowing that he standeth obliged, by his place and relation to his people, to bear all their burthens, to work all their works in them, to perfect his own work that he hath begun in them, to present them to himself at last a holy bride, to give them the Spirit “to dwell in them,” Rom. viii. 9, 11 “and to quicken their mortal bodies,” ver. 11, “and to lead them,” ver. 14; “till at length they be crowned, and brought forward to glory.”  This is to live by faith, when Christ liveth, acteth, and worketh in us by his Spirit, Gal. ii. 20.  Thus Christ dwelleth in the heart by faith; and by this his people become rooted and grounded in love, which is a cardinal grace; and knowing the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, they become filled with all the fulness of God, Eph.