The children of God maintain communion with God as their Father in Christ —
[The Apostle speaks of Christians as " obedient chil- dren ;" and as calling upon the Father for a supply of their daily wants. This is the privilege of all true Christians ; " a spirit of adoption is given them, that they may cry, Abba, Father ;" and, because they are children, they may expect to receive all the glory of heaven as their inheritance ]
Nevertheless they will experience no partiality in the day of judgment —
[Among men it is but too common for parents to feel an undue bias in concerns relating to their children. But God has established one mode of procedure for all. His written law is the standard to which every thing shall be referred. The principles from which our actions flowed, the manner in which they were performed, and the end for which they were done, will be minutely investigated, and a sentence passed upon us according to their real quality. There will be no dif- ference in this respect between Jew or Gentile, rich or poor ; nor will any regard be shewn to men's professions : it will be to no purpose to plead, " that they had Abraham to their Father," or that they had " cast out devils in the name of Christ;" the one inquiry will be, Were ye holy? and accord- ing as this appears, their state will be for ever fixed.]
Interested as we are in the event of that day, let us inquire into,
II. The influence which this consideration should have upon us —
God requires us to pass our short span of life in
fear —
[We are " sojourners in this world, as all our fathers were." It is but a short time that any of us have to live, and then we shall be removed to our long home. The present state is a state of probation, a moment allotted us to prepare for eternity. Under such circumstances we should be " working out our salvation with fear and trembling." Not that we should indulge a servile dread of God as a hard master, and a vin- dictive judge, but a holy reverential fear of offending him, and a tender concern to please him in all things. This is " the fear in which we should walk all the day long,"]
Nor can any thing tend more to produce this fear in us than the consideration now before us —