454 A HEAVKXLY COXFEEENCE.
it. I ratlier leave it to your admiration, that you may sec what use to make of this sweet relation of a father.
(1.) But we must know, that eveiy one cannot say, * my Father,' for there are a company of men in the world that may say, in some respects, ' our Father ;' hut in other respects they cannot. As our Saviour Christ saith peremptorily, John viii. 44, ' You are of your father the devil.' They bragged of God their Father, and they were of their ' father the devil.' Therefore, consider who is fit to take this name into their mouths, * My Father.' Mark the disposition of the Scribes and Pharisees, and then you shall see who be fit to brag of God as their Father. They be very formal men, look to their outward devotion, who so devout as they ? They studied it ; but what were they for the inside ? They were malicious men, they were Satanical men, men opposite to the power of religion, arrant hypocrites, painted sepulchres. | It is no matter for compliment or formality. An hypocrite may have much of that in the eyes of the world, yet may be a child of the devil for all that, and a Pharisee for all that. Thou mayest be malicious against the truth, as the Pharisees sought Christ's blood. A man may be like Herod, seeking the blood of Christ in his members, per- secuting Christ, as all cruel men do. They seek to devour Christ in his professors. What they can, they disparage and dishearten them. They are enemies to the power of religion and to the ordinances of God. They be the children of the devil, and therefore have no reason at all to brag that God is their Father. Indeed, an inward bitter disposition against the power of religion, though under any formality, is a character of a Satanical spirit, and such cannot say, ' Our Father.' If they do, it is an usurpation, for their true father is the devil.
(2.) Who can say. Our Father ? Those that by the Spirit of the Father and the Son, by the Holy Ghost, are ingrafted into Christ by a spirit of adoption, and have the stamp of the Father upon them. The likeness of the Father and of Christ, whom God begets to his own likeness, that are, in a word, like Christ. Christ is the first Son, and in him, and for his sake, we are sons. He is the natural Son, and they may say ' Our Father' that labour to express the disposition of Christ, who is the first Son. See this disposition of Christ in the gospel, how marvellously patient he was under the hand of his Father, obedient to the death of his cross, humbled, full of love, full of goodness. ' He went about doing good,' Acts x. 38. Do we then walk as Christ did ? Carry we the image of the ' second Adam ' ? Have we the patient, humble, meek disposition of Christ in our measure ? Do we love Christ in his membei-s, God in his image ? Do we love the ordinances and the power of religion ? This sheweth what ■we are. And is our conversation suitable to our inward disposition ? Do we walk in light ? Do we shew by our conversation whose children we are ? Do our speeches give a character of the inward man ? If this be in us, though in never so small a measure, with comfort we may say, * Our Father.'
But may not another man, that is not in Christ, come to God under the sweet name of ' our Father ?' Yea, he may come to him as his father by creation and providence, or sacramentally a father, or as brought into the church, and having God to create him and to provide for him. Lord, thou hast shewed thyself a gracious Father thus far, though I cannot from any inward persuasion say, ' My Father.' Thus far as I can I say, ' My Father.' Strive against our spiritual infidelity, believe God and cast ourselves on his gracious promises in Christ. God will meet us at the same time, and he
A HEAVENLY CONFERENCE. 455
will send us Lis Spirit to make us his sons. And therefore let no man that hath been a wicked liver be discouraged from going to God in the name of a father, in that wherein he is a father. Lord, thou hast created me and preserved me, and it is thy mercy I am not in hell. Yet thou offerest to be my Father in Christ — thou hast made gracious promises and invited me ; and upon this, when the heart yieldeth to the gracious appre- hensions of God as a Father, there is a spirit of faith wrought in the heart presently. Therefore think of the name of a father, and the very thoughts of it will bring the spirit of adoption.
Only it speaks no comfort to the bitter malicious satanical enemies of Christ, and the power of religion. They be children of the devil. But now poor souls, that groan under the burden of sin, let them think that God is a Father, and of the mercies of God, though they do not see they be interested in them. By the very contemplation of the mercies of God in Christ, and his inviting them to receive them, the Spirit of God will be wrought in the soul, whereby they may have confidence to come to God as a Father.