VER. 13, 14.] SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN II. 12-14. 435
(3.) Subjection and humble submission to his correction : Heb. xii. 5-10, ' And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him ; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons ; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ? But if ye be without chastise- ment, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of 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 ? for they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure ; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.' God hath castigations for all his children. It is consistent with the love of good-will and with the love of complacency. After that he hath made us amiable, the rod of correc- tion will not wholly be laid aside while God's children are in the flesh. In heaven, where there is no danger, there is no use of it any more, because then they are fully and perfectly sanctified. Those whom God sufTereth to go on in their sins to their own eternal undoing, they have not the privilege of sons, and therefore not the discipline of God's family ; they are bastards. Nodoi there doth not bear the notion of an illegitimate, but a degenerate son. Many profess themselves the children of God, but they are not owned as such. It is a sad and woful thing for a child to be left to himself, and to be suffered to go on in untoward courses ; but far more sad it is for a man to be suffered to go on in sin without any chastisement and correction. God seemeth to cast them off, and to leave them to their own lusts, that they may perish for ever. Children, though they take it ill at the hands of others, yet take it patiently when beaten for their faults by their own parents, who under God are the cause of their being, and maintain and love them, and even in correcting seek their good, much more their souls' good hereafter. Earthly parents may err by wanting wisdom, and out of passion and rashness their chastisements may be arbitrary and irregular, but God never mingleth passion with his rod ; there is more of compassion than passion in it ; it is but only medicinal. His chas- tisements flow from the purest love, and are regulated by perfect wisdom, and tend to and end in holiness and happiness. Therefore, John xviii. 11, ' The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink of it ? ' I speak the more in this case, because the comfort of adop- tion is for such a time ; and because the great error of these children is, that they had known the Father, yet would be dandled and never feel the rod.
II. For the second consideration, that the lowest sort of christians do know God in the relation of a father.
1. Christ hath taught all his disciples to say, ' Our Father,' Mat. vi. 9. There is none that cometh to pray with any confidence but taketh him up under this relation. We must all own him as a father, either by sense or by choice ; either by a sense of his fatherly love in Christ, or else we must choose and esteem him as a father, resolve to have no father but God, and depend upon him, and obey him as such : Jer. iii. 19, ' Thou shalt call me, My father, and not turn away from me ; '
436 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN II. 12-14. [SER. VI.
that is, take him and acknowledge him as a father, and promise to con- tinue loyal to him.
2. Adoption is one of the first privileges. As soon as a man owneth Christ, he is adopted and taken into God's family : John i. 12, ' To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God ; ' John xx. 17, ' I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God/ The state of the person is altered ; past sins are forgiven, and ground is laid for a future pardon. It is one of the first privileges we have as soon as we belong to Christ. What Christ is, he maketh his people to be in their proportion and measure.
3. It is God's covenant. He hath promised that all his 'shall know him, from the least to the greatest,' Heb. viii. 11. God hath no child so little but he knoweth his Father, though he be of little experi- ence in the world. God hath showed himself to be a father in Christ. God hath elsewhere promised to give his people ' a heart to know him,' Jer. xxiv. 7. They cannot else belong to him, nor he be their God, nor they his children.