i joiin, in. i. [2441.
When it is said, " WTe are called the sons of God," it means that we are really made so. And this change is altogether the effect of God's unbounded love. Behold, then, what manner of love this is :
1 . How sovereign !
[It is wholly unmerited on our part. There never was, there never could he, any thing in us to attract the Divine regards, since " every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts was only evil continually." In the selection of his objects, God was as free as in the choice of Abraham from amidst an idolatrous world, or of Isaac and Jacob in preference to their elder brethren. In conferring this high honour, God has respect only to his own will, and to the glory of his own name. This is marked with peculiar strength and force by the Apostle Paul, when, speaking on this very subject, he says, " God has predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved'." In truth, " He loved us because he would love usk :" and because " he loved us with an everlasting love, there- fore with loving-kindness hath he drawn us1."]
2. How beyond all human expectation !
[If man adopt any one, it is because, having no progeny of his own, he feels a want of some one to succeed to his estates : and in conferring this favour, he has respect to some qualities in the person selected by him. But God has no need of us. We can never add either to his happiness or glory. Or, if he needed any creatures to be objects of his favour, he could create any number, either of angels or men, as it should please him, and make them the happy objects of his choice. But it is not thus that he has acted. He has chosen from amongst men, corrupt and sinful men, multitudes, who shall in time, be born to him, and in eternity enjoy him. Nor is it of the best of men that he has made his selection, but often of the vilest. Even a murderous Manasseh has been made a vessel of honour, and a monument of grace ; whilst millions of persons, less guilty, have been passed by. If we ask the reason of this, our Lord assigns the only reason that can be given : " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." The potter has power over the clay, to do with it as seemeth him good : and " shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thusm ?" True it is, that, in reference to this matter, we must say, as David did in
; Eph. i. r>, G. k Deut. vii. 7, 8.
1 Jer. xxxi. 3. m Rom. ix. 20, 21.