Eph. i. 18. his own, but for our sakes; nor is the advantage his, but ourse 1 John iii. 1 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; that we, the sons of disobedient and condemned Adam by natural generation, should be translated into the glorious liberty of the sons of God by adoption; that we, who were aliens, strangers, and Eph. iii. 14, 15. enemies, should be assumed unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family' in heaven and earth is named, and be made partakers of the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. For as in the legal adoption, the father hath as full and absolute power over his adopted son as over his own issue; so in the spiritual, the adopted sons have a clear and undoubted right of inheritance. He, 29 then, who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, hath thereby another kind of Rom. viii. 15. paternal relation, and so we receive the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Epli, i. 5. The necessity of this faith in God as in our Father apGoda Jalin peareth, first, in that it is the ground of all our filial fear, ho Eph. vi. 1 Eph. vi. 1, 2. nour, and obedience due unto him upon this relation. Honour thy father is the first commandment with promise, written in tables of stone with the finger of God; and, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, is an evangelical precept, but founded upon principles of reason and justice; for this is right, saith St Paul. And if there be such a rational and legal obligation of honour and obedience to the fathers of our flesh, how much more must we think ourselves obliged to him whom we believe to be our heavenly and everlasting Father? A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master. If then I be a father, where is my honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts. If we be heirs, we must be co-heirs with Christ; if sons, we must be brethren to the only-begotten: but being he came not to do his own will, but the will of Him that sent him, he acknow Mal. i. 6. 1 'In alienam familiam transitus,' is the description in A. Gellius, v. 19. 'Quum in alienam familiam inque liberorum locum extranei sumuntur, aut per prætorem fit, aut per populum: quod per prætorem fit, adoptio dicitur; quod per populum, arrogatio,' Ibid. 2 As appears out of the form of Rogation yet extant in this manner: 'Velitis, jubeatis, Quirites, uti Lucius Valerius Lucio Titio, tam jure legeque filius sibi siet, quam si ex eo patre matreque familias ejus natus esset, utique ei vitæ necisque in eo potestas siet, uti patri endo filio est?' Ibid. ledgeth no fraternity but with such as do the same; as he The same relation in the object of our faith is the life of Falle life i our devotions, the expectation of all our petitions. Christ, who taught his disciples, and us in them, how to pray, propounded not the knowledge of God, though without that he could not hear us; neither represented he his power, though without that he cannot help us; but comprehended all in this relation, When ye pray, say, Our Father. This prevents all vain Luke xi. 2 repetitions of our most earnest desires, and gives us full security to cut off all tautology, for Our Father knoweth what Matt. vi. 8. things we have need of before we ask him. This creates a clear assurance of a grant without mistake of our petition: What man is there of us, who if his son ask bread, will give Matt. vii. 9-him a stone? or if he ask fish, will give him a serpent? If we then who are evil know how to give good gifts unto our children; how much more shall our Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him1? 11. Again, this paternity is the proper foundation of our Also frueniatin Christian patience, sweetening all afflictions with the name O/ X2 patirian and nature of fatherly corrections. We have had fathers of Heb xii. 9. 10. our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? especially considering, that they chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness'; they, as an argument of their authority; he, as an assurance of his love: they, that we might acknowledge them to be our parents; he, that he 1 ̓Αντὶ πέρκης σκορπίου· παροιμία ἐπὶ τῶν τὰ χείρω αἱρουμένων ἀντὶ βελTióvwv. Zenob. [Cent. 1. n. 88. Diog. (Cent. I. n. 76) and Suidas (Cent. II. n. 94) have τῶν β.] Ο δ ̓ ἀντὶ πιποῦς σκορπίον λαιμῷ σπάσας. Lycophron. Cassand. ver. 476. 2 Quodsi a Domino nonnulla credimus incuti, cui magis patientiam Heb. xii. 6. may persuade us that we are his sons: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. And what greater incitement unto the exercise of patience is imaginable unto a suffering soul, than to see in every stroke the hand of a Father, in every affliction a demonstration of his love? Or how canst thou repine, or be guilty of the least Deut. viii. 5. degree of impatiency, even in the sharpest corrections, if thou shalt know with thine heart, that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee? How canst thou not be comforted, and even rejoice in the midst of thy greatest sufferings, when thou knowest that he which striketh pitieth, he Psal. ciii. 13. which afflicteth is as it were afflicted with it? For like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Gen. v. 3. Eph. v. 1. Lev. xi. 44; xix. 2; xx. 7. 1 Pet. i. 15. Lastly, the same relation strongly inferreth an absolute 30 necessity of our imitation; it being clearly vain to assume the title of son without any similitude of the father. What is the1 general notion of generation but the production of the like; nature, ambitious of perpetuity, striving to preserve the species in the multiplication and succession of individuals? And this similitude consisteth partly in essentials, or the likeness of nature; partly in accidentals, or the likeness in figure, or affections. Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image: and can we imagine those the sons of God which are no way like him? A similitude of nature we must not, of figure we cannot pretend unto: it remains then only that we bear some likeness in our actions and affections. Be ye therefore followers (saith the apostle), or, rather1 imitators of God, as dear children. What he hath revealed of himself, that we must express within ourselves. Thus God spake unto the children of Israel, whom he styled his sons, Ye shall be holy, for I am holy. And the apostle upon the same ground speaketh unto us, as to obedient children: As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. It is part of the general beneficence and universal goodness of 1 Πᾶν τὸ γεννῶν ὅμοιον ἑαυτῷ γεννᾷ. S. Epiphan. Hær. lxxvi. § 6. [Vol. 1. p. 918 D.] 4 Τὸ ὅμοια γίγνεσθαι τὰ ἔκγονα τοῖς yevvýσaoi evλoyov. Aristot. de Generat. Animal. l. i. c. 19. § 5. 3Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis: Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum Virtus; nec imbellem feroces 4 μιμηταί. 5 Filii hominum sunt quando male faciunt; quando bene, filii mei (sc. Dei).' S. August. in Psal. lii. [§ 6. Vol. IV. p. 489 o.] 45. our God, that he maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the Matt. v. 44, So necessary is this faith in God, as in our Father, both for direction to the best of actions, and for consolation in the worst of conditions. 45. But although this be very necessary, yet is it not the Pianis principal or most proper explication of God's paternity. For as we find one person in a more peculiar manner the Son of God, so must we look upon God as in a more peculiar manner the Father of that Son. I ascend unto my Father and your John xx. 17. Father, saith our Saviour; the same of both, but in a different manner, denoted by the article prefixed before the one, and not the other: which distinction in the original we may preserve by this translation, I ascend unto the Father of me, and Father of you; first of me, and then of you: not therefore his, because ours; but therefore ours, because his. So far we are the sons of God, as we are like unto him; and 1 Vide S. August. in Psal. c. § 1. [Vol. iv. p. 1081 D.] 2.Similitudinem patris actus indicent sobolis; similitudo operis similitudinem indicet generis: actus nomen confirmet, ut nomen genus demonstret.' S. August. de Temp. Serm. 76. [312. § 2. Vol. v. Append. p. 524 G.] 3 ̓Αναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου, καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν. Had πατέρα in both places had its article, there would have seemed two Fathers: had the article been prefixed to πατέρα ὑμῶν he would have seemed first ours, then Christ's: but being prefixed to πατέρα μου, it shews God to be principally and originally Christ's, and by our reference unto him, our Father. Пlarépa μου μὲν κατὰ φύσιν ἐν τῇ θεότητι, καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν διὰ χάριν δι' ἐμὲ ἐν τῇ υἱο Oeola. S. Epiphan. Hæres. lxix. § 55. Heb. i. 2. Gal. iv. 7. Heb. ii, 11. our similitude unto God consisteth in our conformity to the Rom. vii. 29. likeness of his Son. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. He the firstborn, and we sons, as brethren unto him: he appointed heir Rom. viii. 17. of all things, and we heirs of God, as joint-heirs with him. Gal. iv. 4-6. Thus God sent forth his Son, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father1. By his mission are we adopted, and by his Spirit call we God our Father. So we are no longer servants, but now sons; 31 and if sons, then heirs of God, but still through Christ. It is true, indeed, that both he that sanctifieth, that is, Christ, and they who are sanctified, that is, faithful Christians, are all of one, the same father, the same God; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren: yet are they not2 all of him after the same manner, not the many sons like the Captain of their salvation: but Christ the beloved, the firstborn, the only-begotten, the Son after a more peculiar and more excellent manner; the rest with relation unto, and deIsai vill 18. pendence on, his Sonship; as given unto him, Behold I, and the children which God hath given me; as being so by faith. in him, For we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; as receiving the right of Sonship from him, For as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. Among3 all the sons of God there is none like to that one Son of God. And if there be so great a disparity in the filiation, we must make as great a difference in the correspondent relation. There is one degree of sonship founded on creation, and that is the lowest, as belonging unto all, both good and bad: another degree above that there is grounded upon regeneration, or adoption, belonging only to the truly Heb. L. 10. lleb. ii. 13. Gal. iii. 26. 1 Hoc facit Deus, ex filiis hominum filios Dei, quia ex Filio Dei fecit filium hominis.' S. August. in Psal. lii. [§ 6. Vol. IV. p. 489 G.] 2 'Dicimur et filii Dei, sed ille aliter Filius Dei.' S. August. in Psal. lxxxviii. [Serm. i. § 7. Vol. iv. p. 939 F.] Εστι τοίνυν ὁ Θεὸς πολλῶν μὲν καταχρηστικῶς πατήρ, ἑνὸς δὲ μόνου φύσει καὶ ἀληθείᾳ τοῦ μονογενοῦς υἱοῦ. S. Cyril. Hieros. Catech. 7. [c. 5. |