ncomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him,
and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a
wonder to the wisest of angels. And what is it, think you, the angels
desire to look into, but this incomprehensible mystery of the descent of
the Most High to dwell among the lowest and vilest of the creatures? But
as Solomon's temple, and these visible symbols of God's presence, were but
shadows of things to come, the substance whereof is exhibited under the
gospel, so that wonder was but a shadow or type of a greater and more real
wonder, or God's dwelling on the earth now. It was the wonder, shall God
dwell with man, among the rebellious sons of Adam? But behold a greater
wonder since Christ came, God dwelling in man, first personally in the man
Christ, in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, then graciously
in the seed of Christ, in man by his Spirit, and this makes men spiritual,
if so be the Spirit of Christ dwell in you. You heard of the first
indwelling, ver. 3. "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh," the inhabitation of the divine nature in our flesh, which had the
likeness of sinful flesh, but without sin, for he sanctified himself for
our cause. And truly, this mysterious and wonderful inhabitation is not
only a pledge of the other, that God shall dwell in sinful men by his
Spirit, but, in order of nature, it hath some influence upon the other,
without which God could not have dwelt in us. There is so much distance
and disproportion between his Majesty and us, that we could not be well
united, but by this intervening, God coming down first a step into the
holy nature of the man Christ, that from thence he might go into the
sinful nature of other men. Our sinful and rebellious nature behoved to be
first sanctified this way, by the personal indwelling of God in our flesh,
and this had made an easy passage into sinful us, for his Spirit to dwell
in us powerfully and graciously, therefore the Spirit of Christ is said to
dwell in us. Christ's Spirit, not only because proceeding from him as from
the Father, but particularly, because the inhabitation or operation of the
Spirit in us, is the proper result and fruit of that glorious union of our
nature with him. He took our flesh, that he might send us his Spirit. And,
O what a blessed exchange was this! He came and dwelt in our nature, that
so he might dwell in us: he took up a shop, as it were, in