The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

Some may ask why the Scripture expresses things so unintelligibly. It tells us of Christ living in us, of our being united to him, of being the same spirit, and many other such like expressions. Why doth it not call these things directly by the intelligible names of those things that lie hid under these expressions? I answer, then we should have a hundred pages to express what is implied in these words, "Ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost" [1 Corinthians 6:19]; neither would one word of it all be understood by the one-fortieth part of mankind. Whereas, as it is expressed, it serves as well to practice, if we will but believe what God says: that some way or other we are inhabited by the Holy Ghost as a temple, and therefore we ought to keep holy and pure; and we are united to Christ as much as members are to the head, and therefore ought to rejoice; seeing we know what it proceeds from, even his love to us, and the effects of it, [viz.] joy, happiness, spiritual and eternal life, etc. By such similitudes a vast volume is represented to our minds in three words, and things that we are not able to behold directly are represented before us in lively pictures.