_To him that overcometh_, saith Christ, _will I grant to sit with me on my throne_, ♦[N. B.] _even as I overcame, and am set down with my Father on his throne_. What becomes now of the vain fiction of an outward imputation? Is Christ’s victory here imputed to us? Is not the contrary as strongly taught us, as words can do it? _To him that overcometh, even as I also overcame._ ♦ N. B. This, with several of the particulars that follow are probable, but not supported by scripture. This is the theory of _Jacob Behme_, ingenious, but quite incapable of proof. (From Volume 6, page 159.) You tell me, my friend, that the seraphic _Aspasio_ is quite transported with the thought of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner, and that it should in the account of God be esteemed as his.――It may be so, transport seems to be as natural to _Aspasio_, as flying is to a bird. But surely, a more transporting, a more glorious thing it is, both to the glory of God, and the good of man, that the sinner is, through the righteous nature of Christ, formed in him, set up again in his first likeness and image of God. For if man’s righteousness is not essentially restored in him, as it was essentially in him at the first, has he not less of God in him, by his redemption, than he had at his creation? Is it to the happiness of man, and the glory of God, that God has not obtained that _dwelling_ in man, for which he alone created him? Is it matter of transport to think, that fallen man will to all eternity live destitute of his first heavenly nature, his first divine life, which he had in, and from God? But this must be the case, if Christ’s righteousness is only outwardly imputed to him, and not essentially wrought in him. Transports, my friend, are but poor proofs of truth, or of the goodness of the heart, from whence they proceed. _Martyrdom_ has had its _fools_, as well as its _saints_, and zealots may live and die in a joy, that has all its strength from delusion. *You may see a man drowned in tears, at beholding a wooden crucifix, and the same man condemning another, as a wicked heretic, who only honours the cross, by being daily baptized into the death of Christ. ――――Nay, so blind is opinion-zeal, that some good Christian pastors will not scruple to tell you, that they could find no joy in their own state, no strength, or comfort in their labours of love towards their flocks, but because they know, and are assured from St. _Paul_, that God never had, nor ever will have, _mercy on all men_, but that an unknown multitude of them, are through all ages of the world, inevitably decreed by God to eternal damnation, and an unknown number of others, to an irresistible salvation.