when I receive an account of one, as a most excellent person, who designs to adopt me at the same time for his son, and overtures are made to me for that purpose, I think myself highly concerned to inquire into the character of a person to whom I am to be related. And so should we consider the characters that we meet with of God; for we must cither have him as our Father, or we must be children of a worse father, or of the worst of fathers. Therefore, this should be hearkened unto, your heavenly Father is perfect, perfectly good, perfect in goodness, upon this account, that overtures are made to me in order to my becoming one of his children: I am to come into his family; this is the thing that is proposed to me. And should not I labour to know what a one he is, and to contemplate the representation that is made to me of him, upon this account? And,

7. Consider with highest admiration and gratitude, the greatness, the privilege, that you are, or may be so related. As the case is stated, if this be not, there is nothing wanting but your own willing and joyous acceptance of the overture, falling in with it, resigning and giving up yourselves most absolutely and entirely to him; and taking his Christ for yours; with him goes the sonship, that is, with the acceptance of his own eternal Son. John 1. 12. "To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed in his name." And then, consider the greatness of the privilege, that you are, or may be thus related to the Most High God as a Father, to the best, most perfect, and most excellent of beings. You may have him for your Father, and perhaps you have him so already. How great a privilege is this! To have him for your Father is to have all. He that overcometh, shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. Rev. 21. 7. "And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." God is to be your portion and inheritance, that if we suffer together with him (which is but a trifle, not to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed) we may be also glorified together. Rom. 8. 17, 18. Methinks, this should run in our minds every day; we are either related to this blessed One, as our Father, or we may be; we are invited and called by the gospel, (and it is the great design of this gospel) into this blessed state. Methinks, it should run in our minds all the day long, that that glorious and most excellent One, should look down from heaven upon such an abject worm as I, and say to me, "Call me Father, take me for the Father." A heart that were full of the sense of this, would soon grow too big for all this world. What a trifle.

would this world be to that soul which were full of that sense; "God is become my Father, I have a Father in heaven, that doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth, and there is no withstanding him." He can do what he will, and he will do nothing but what is kind and good to them that willingly consent to come into this comfortable relation to him. You see how distinguishingly such a case is spoken of in the next chapter, Mat. 6. in the latter end. Do not you so and so, like the gentiles. Do not torture yourselves with cares and thoughts, "what ye shall eat, and what ye shall drink, and what you shall put on," and what shall become of your affairs and concerns in the world, and the like: the gentiles do so: after these things do the gentiles seek; but your heavenly Father knows what you need; you have a Father in heaven that knows all your concernments, and that minds all of them, with all wisdom, and all the tenderness and kindness imaginable, I would not have you be as if you had no Father, to put yourselves into the same condition with pagans and outcasts, and those that are without God in the world. And then,

8. Lastly; Imitate God in his imitable perfections, and especially in this his goodness. I say, imitate him with all the goodness that is possible, in all his perfections: "Be ye perfect, for your heavenly Father is perfect." So I would shut up, bringing the exhortation in the text, and inferring reason together. And pray drive it to this one particular thing, to which the context draws and claims it, that is, unto love: and even unto such love as shall reach enemies themselves. You very well know, that God could have shewn no love at all to any in all this world, but he must shew it to an enemy: all were in enmity and rebellion against him. "The carnal mind is enmity against God." And this world was only possessed with such inhabitants, all sunk in carnality and earthliness, and deep oblivion of God, and full of anger and displeasure, upon being put in mind that there is One that claims a right over them, and that would have all their thoughts and their love: this they cannot endure; this carnalized race of creatures cannot bear this. "For the carnal mind is enmity against God." And he could never have been kind to men but he must be kind to enemies. For all were become his enemies, affected liberty, and could not endure the thought that there should be a power and a Lord to prescribe to them. I pray, let us labour to imitate this great perfection of the divine goodness, even in this very application of it to enemies. This is the beauty and the glory of the Christian religion, the thing wherein it excels the precepts of the most refined paganism, and of

that which was higher, (as it was grown,) Judaism itself. "You have heard that it was said of old time, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy:" (as it is in the context) "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." I never expect the Christian religion to flourish much in this world, till this appear and be exercised as the common temper of christians. They are to be such a sort of men, as that all the world may be the better for. If you express never so much of unkindness towards them, if you use them hardly, they will bless you, they will pray for you, they will do you all the good they can, all the good and kind offices in their power. When this spirit comes to be revived among men, it will make the Christian religion (as I may say) grassari, mightily to prevail and grow upon the world. The world must fall before such a sort of men as this. But that it will never do while, in this respect, christians are just like other men, as wrathful, as vindictive, as full of rage, and as full of revenge as any body else. Christian religion must grow upon the world, by things that will strike the sense, that incur the most sensible observation of men. Every one can tell and sees it when one is kind to them, and when they have good returned for evil. But there are two things most directly opposite to this temper, which christians are wont too frequently to overlook, never to animadvert upon the one is,

:

(1.) When they let their hearts tumultuate with too great fervour and anger against men, upon account of their profaneness and irreligiousness; and they think themselves warranted so to do such a one is a wicked man, an open, visible enemy against God and Christ, a rebel against heaven. And so they allow themselves to let wrath have its vent and liberty towards such men, and upon such occasions. It was a great deal of zeal for Christ, that the disciples discovered, when they would have had fire to fall down from heaven to vindicate his cause upon those Samaritans that would not receive him into their town. But, saith Christ, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of." This is quite another thing from that spirit which I intend to introduce into the world, and which must breathe in, and animate, the religion that I am setting on foot among men. The other is,

(2.) Their confining their kindness and respects to men of such and such a character, to this or that party. It is a temper more grossly remote, more vastly different from what is enjoined upon us here; and the thing that our Saviour animadverts

upon in this context, as that wherein we do not only not exceed the pharisees as such, but even publicans themselves. ver. 20. We are told, that except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God: not even into the initial kingdom. As if he had said, "Ye are not fit for the Christian state, you do not come within the confines of Christianity, real Christianity, if your righteousness do not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees. But when men do confine their respects and the kindness of their hearts to a party, this is not only to outdo the pharisees, but even publicans and sinners, for they do so; if you love and salute them that love and salute you, if you are kind to them that are kind to you, what do you more than others? do not even the publicans and sinners the same? But "be ye perfect;"-(that is the contexture of this discourse)" even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

And so I have done with what I designed upon this subject, of the divine perfections or attributes; the next we come in course to, will be that of the divine decrees and purposes of God: and more especially concerning men, and with reference to them.

THE PRINCIPLES

-OF

THE ORACLES OF GOD,

En Two Parts,

NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED.

PART II.

CONTAINING

I. THE DECREES, OR COUNSELS of God, in EIGHT LECTURES, ON EPHES. 1. 11.

II. GOD'S WORK OF CREATION, IN SEVEN LECTURES, ON HEB. 11. 3.

III. GOD'S CREATION OF MAN, IN FIVE LECTURES, ON GENESIS 1..27.

IV. THE FALL OF THE FIRST MAN, and the FALLEN STATE OF MAN, WITH THE DEATH AND MISERY CONSEQUENT ON EACH OF THEM, IN FOURTEEN LECTURES ON ROMANS 5. 12.

V. THE JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD VINDICATED, AS TO ALL MEN'S COMING INTO THE WORLD WITH DEPRAVED NATURES, IN EIGHT LECTURES, ON PSALM 51. 4. 5.

VI. THE GEneral and SPECIAL GRACE OF GOD, IN ORDER TO THE RECOVERY OF APOSTATE SOULS, IN THREE LECTURES, ON LUKE 2. 14.