7. The Spirit anoints believers. We are “anointed” by the Spirit, 2 Cor. i. 21. We have “an unction from the Holy One, and we know all things,” 1 John ii. 20, 27. I cannot intend to run this expression up into its rise and original; also, I have done it elsewhere. The use of unctions in the Judaical church, the meaning and intendment of the types attended therewith, the offices that men were consecrated unto thereby, are at the bottom of this expression; nearer the unction of Jesus Christ (from whence he is called Messiah, and the Christ, the whole performance of his office of mediatorship being called also his anointing, Dan. ix. 24, as to his furnishment for it), concurs hereunto. Christ is said to be “anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows,” Heb. i. 9; which is the same with that of John iii. 34, “God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” We, who have the Spirit by measure, are anointed with the “oil of gladness;” Christ hath the fulness of the Spirit, whence our measure is communicated: so he is anointed above us, “that in all things he may have the pre-eminence.” How Christ was anointed with the Spirit to his threefold office of king, priest, and prophet; how, by virtue of an unction, with the same Spirit dwelling in him and us, we become to be interested in these offices of his, and are made also kings, priests, and prophets to God, is known, and would be matter of a long discourse to handle; and my design is only to communicate the things treated of: