whole influence and endeavour to maintain and to conciliate peace in the sphere of that fociety in which they live. Inftructed by the law of Chriftian charity to extend the relation of neighbours to all who partake of the fame common nature, they labour to promote a spirit of amity and affection between perfons and focieties, that are distinguished by difference of fect or party, of country or religion; and they labour to establish upon earth the dominion of the Prince of Peace both in common and in public life, by promoting a spirit of brotherly love and focial affection.

The fame zeal, which they manifeft for the peace of men in their civil relations, they also exercise in promoting a harmony of sentiment in the more important concerns of religion. They earnestly endeavour to keep the unity of the fpirit in the bond of peace. They labour to render men of one accord both in doctrine and discipline, that there be no fchifm or divifion in the Church of Christ, that all may be bound together in the fellowfhip of the Spirit, all may be animated with one foul, and as they profefs one faith, and are called in one hope, may with one mind and one mouth glorify God even the Father of our Lord Jefus Christ m.

Eph. iv. 3. Rom. xv. 6.

A a 3

But

But they do not limit their exertions of brotherly love to the conciliation of peace between man and man. In concurrence with the labours, in imitation of the example, of the Prince of Peace, they are no lefs affiduous to promote the reconciliation of man to God. When they see their brethren both in nature and in grace unhappily withdrawn from the presence of their heavenly Father, and abandoning themfelves without reflexion to a courfe of vice and irreligion, ftill regarding them as children of the fame household and heirs of the fame promises, they embrace a fair occafion to warn them of the danger they incur by this inconfiderate course of life; and by the united weight of exhortation and reproof, of admonition and example, of fupplication and interceffion, they strive to move them to repentance, to reconcile them to their divine Parent, and to bring them back to the household of the faithful. By this truly charitable conduct they establish their claim to the character of Peacemakers; and they acquire a title to the bleffing here affigned, that they fhall be called the Children of God.

A name fo diftinguished has engaged the defires of men in different ages of the world. The Heathens of diverse nations would fome

times boaft of their celeftial origin. Whether Greeks or Barbarians, they generally derived themselves from fome divine Founder or Progenitor. The Philofophers in their fpeculations on the great First Caufe would fometimes style him the Father of Gods and Men. And Saint Paul, when addreffing himself to the Athenians on the fubject of the unknown God, whom they ignorantly worshipped and whom he now declared unto them, has quoted certain of their Poets who had faid: « Τῇ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν· For we alfo are his offspring "." But they derived no privilege from this relation; and it was to them rather a fource of pride, than an encouragement to virtue.

The Children of Ifrael had a better claim to boast of their divine origin. For they had been called by divine authority "A holy Nation, a peculiar People." God is pleafed under their Economy to ftyle himself the God of Ifrael; and he acknowledged that People in an appropriate sense his own. Accordingly the Apostle enumerates the privileges which they derived from that relation; "To whom pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the

n Acts xvii. 28. These words are literally quoted from Aratus and Cleanthes; but the fentiment is common to the Greek and Latin Poets.

covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service, and the promises; whose are the Fathers; and of whom according to the flesh is Chrift, who is over all, God bleffed for ever." But at the fame time he teftifies, that they are not all Ifraelites indeed, neither are they all virtually the Children of God, who are of the House of Ifrael in their civil relation, who are of the feed of Abraham by natural descent. The high privilege of being his Children in the true and most important fenfe was reserved for those, who are Ifraelites in heart, who are of the feed of Abraham by the righteoufnefs of faith. As many as receive the divine Word in the person of Jesus Christ, as many as believe in his name, to them gives he power to become the Sons of God; being admitted to this distinction, not by natural generation, or by civil adoption, but by the special grace of God '.

In the Gofpel of Jefus Chrift, who is himfelf in a preeminent and peculiar fense the Son, and therefore is fo frequently styled, the firft, or only, begotten Son of God, we have larger privileges than were ever imparted to the house of Ifrael, as the relation to which we are called approaches nearer to the Father of fpirits. And therefore the beloved Apostle P John i. 12, 13.

• Rom. ix. 4, &c.

invites

invites us to contemplate that extraordinary token of affection, which we have now received from Heaven; "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the Sons of God."

But while we with gratitude rejoice in the privilege now fet before us, we must not overlook the means, by which we may call this privilege our own. When by the miniftry of our bleffed Lord it is offered to thofe that receive him, it is offered to thofe only that acknowledge and regard him as a Teacher come from God: When it is proposed to them that believe in his name, it is propofed to no others but to thofe, who fubftantiate and verify their belief by cultivation of his precepts and adoption of his character. We cannot otherwife become the Sons of God, than by ftrenuoufly feeking to be like him, by copying into our own difpofitions all those graces of the divine nature, that come within the fphere of human imitation, and by labouring to be renovated and restored in moral goodness to that image of God in which man was originally made.

But by no courfe of duty can we be brought to a clofer resemblance to God, than

¶ 1 John iii. 1.

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