o 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 th