OF COMMUNION WITH THE SON JESUS CHRIST. 207
pux-ged, our sins mortified, our graces increased, our souls made hum- ble, holy, zealous, believing, — like to him ; to have our lives fruit- ful, our deaths comfortable. Let us herein abide, eyeing Christ by faith, to attain that measure of conformity to him which is allotted unto us in this world, that when we shall see him as he is, we may be like unto him.
CHAPTER X.
Of communion with Christ in privileges — Of adoption ; the nature of it, the con- sequences of it — Pecuhar privileges attending it; Hberty, title, boldness, afflic- tion— Communion with Christ hereby.
III. The third thing wherein we have communion with Christ, is grace of privilege before God; I mean, as the third head of purchased grace. The privileges we enjoy by Christ are great and innumerable; to insist on them in particular were work for a man's whole life, not a design to be wrapped up in a few sheets. I shall take a view of them only in the head, the spring and fountain whence they all arise and flow, — this is our adoption: " Beloved, now are we the sons of God," 1 John iii. 2. This is our great and fountain privilege. Whence is it that we are so? It is from the love of the Father. Vei'se 1, " Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God \" But by whom immediately do we re- ceive this honour ? As many as believe on Christ, he gives them this power, to become the sons of God, John i. 12. Himself was appointed to be the first-born among many brethren. Bom. viii. 29; and his taking us to be brethren, Heb. ii. 11, makes us become the children of God. Now, that God is our Father, by being the Father of Christ, and we his children by being the brethren of Christ, being the head and sum of all the honoui', privilege, right, and title we have, let us a little consider the nature of that act whereby we are invested with this state and title, — namely, our adoption.
I^ow, adoption is the authoritative translation of a believer, hy Jesus Christ, from the family of the world and Satan into the family of God, with his investiture in all the privileges and advan- tages of that family.
To the complete adoption of any person, these five things are required : —
1. That he be actually, and of his own right, of another family than that whereinto he is adopted. He must be the son of one family or other, in his o^vn right, as all persons are.
208 OF COMMUNION WITH THE SON JESUS CHRIST.
2. That there be & family unto which of himself lie liath no right, whereinto he is to be grafted. If a man comes into a family upon a personal right, though originally at never so great a distance, that man is not adopted. If a man of a most remote consanguinity do come into the inheritance of any family by the death of the nearer heirs, though his right before were little better than nothing, yet he is a born son of that family, — he is not adopted. [In adoption] he is not to have the plea of the most remote possihility of succession.
8. That there be an authoritative, legal translation of him, by some that have power thereinto, from one family into another. It was not, by the laiu of old, in the power of particular persons to adopt when and whom they would. It wa.s to be done by the authority of the sovereign power.
4. That the adopted person be freed from all the obligations that be upon him unto the family from whence he is translated ; othenvise he can be no way useful or serviceable unto the family whereinto he is insfrafted. He cannot serve two masters, much less two fathers.
5. That, by virtue of his adoption, he be invested in all the rights, 'privileges, advantages, and title to the whole inheritance, of the family into which he is adopted, in as full and ample manner as if he had been bom a son therein.
Now, all these things and circumstances do concur and are found in the adoption of believers : —
1. They are, by their own original right, of another family than that whereinto they are adopted. They are " by nature the children of wrath," Eph. ii. 3, — sons of wrath, — of that family whose inherit- ance is "wrath,"^ — called " the power of darkness," Col. i. 13; for from thence doth God " translate them into the kingdom of his dear Son." This is the family of the Avorld and of Satan, of which by na- ture believers are. Whatever is to be inherited in that family, — as wrath, curse, death, hell, — they have a right thereunto. Neither can they of themselves, or by themselves, get free of this family : a strong man armed keeps them in subjection. Their natural estate is a family condition, attended with all the circumstances of a family, — family duties and services, rights and titles, relations and observances. They are of the black family of sin and Satan.