Part 466

knowledge which is had of us, and the love which is borne towards us from everlasting; but in God we actually are no longer than only from the time of our actual adoption into the body of his true church, into the fellowship of his children. For his church he knows [Auto-modernized] and loves [Auto-modernized] ; so that they which are in the church are thereby known to be in him. Our being in Christ by eternal foreknowledge saves [Auto-modernized] us not, without our actual and real adoption into the fellowship of his saints in this present world. For in him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that society which has [Auto-modernized] him for their head, and does [Auto-modernized] make together with him one body (he and they in that respect having one name); for which cause, by virtue of this mystical union [Auto-modernized] , we are of him, and in him, even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his. We are in Christ, because he knows [Auto-modernized] and loves [Auto-modernized] us, even as parts of himself. No man is actually in him but they in whom he actually is; for he which has [Auto-modernized] not the Son of God has [Auto-modernized] not life. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abides [Auto-modernized] in me, and I in him, the same brings [Auto-modernized] forth much fruit;' but the branch severed from the vine withers [Auto-modernized] . We are, therefore, adopted sons of God to eternal life by participation of the only begotten Son of God, whose life is the well-spring and cause of ours. It is too cold an interpretation, through which [Auto-modernized] some men expound our being in Christ to import nothing else but only that the self-same nature which makes [Auto-modernized] us to be men is in him, and makes [Auto-modernized] him man as we are. For what man in the world is there which has [Auto-modernized] not so far forth communion