in the Old Teftament to call God Father: Therefore when he prophctically promises, that he will be to them a Father, and they Shall be to him as fons, he represents that nearness of relation that would hereafter be founded by the Meffiah. This expression of Father, in the Chriftian fenfe, (and that is the sense of this Prayer,) fpeaks the privileges of the redemption; by which we that were afar off are brought to be rear, and are treated as children in the affurance of an inheritance eternal, incorruptible, undefiled, referved in the heavens for us.

We call God Father, by virtue of that relation which cur Redeemer hath established by his Merits, and discover'd by his Gospel. However it is to be obferv'd, that our Lord Jefus Chrift is call'd the Son of God in a different fenfe from men who were made and redeem'd by him. e He is call'd the Son of God by his common nature with his Father, but Christians are call'd fo by adoption. Our Saviour doth not in the whole Gospel once

fes made by the Prophets, that God would be their Father in the days of the Meffiah. So that the Jews by calling God Father, profefs their hope of a redemption to come; the Chriftians by doing fo, their faith in a redemption that is paft.

• Αὐτὸς ἦν καὶ φύσιν ψός ἐτι το Θεό, ἡμεῖς ἢ καὶ χάριν, Athanaf. de Incarnatione.

fay,

fay, Our Father, but in the Lord's Prayer; where he speaks not his own words, but thofe of the multitude, which he there teaches to pray. Wherefoever he mentions God befides, he calls him my Father, or your heavenly Father; fhewing by this distinction that he only in a true fenfe is the Son of God, and thereby of the fame divine nature with his Father. The Jews (whatsoever fome Chriftians may now think) fo understood the expreffion, that by calling God Father, he John v. made himself equal with God. Our Saviour himself therefore to diftinguish his own natural fonship from our adoptive one, tells his difciples, I go to my Father and your Father, John xx. and to my God and your God.

18.

17.

The privileges of Chriftianity fhould not leffen that dignity the Son of God hath by nature; and we fhould not think him lef fen'd, but our felves advanc'd by this common appellation. He indeed by nature, but we only by his grace and redemption, call God Father: And as when we ftyle our felves fons, we mean no more than the privileges of Christianity; fo when we ftyle him fo, we fhould mean no lefs than that he is one with his Father, and by that, as the Apostle expreffeth it, over all, God blessed for ever. Rom. ix.

But

5.

i.

But to proceed, the redemption by our Saviour is the only reafon of this expreffion 1 John iii. in the Lord's Prayer: Behold what manner of love the Father hath beftow'd upon us; that we should be call'd the fons of God. This expreffion in the Lord's Prayer seem'd to the antient Church fo much to exceed the merit and dignity of human nature, that they generally fet a modeft preface before it in their Liturgies, befeeching God to suffer them to use that familiar name, by which he is there pleas'd to be call'd, with truth and impunity. The New Testament generally useth the word adoption, in calling us the fons of God; and the rights of adoption by the Roman law, may serve to explain the Christian sense of it. In the first place no one could have any legal claim to be adopted, but he depended for it upon the free motion of another; but then after he was fo adopted he was entitled to a fhare in the inheritance, and to call the person so adopting him, Father. Now this is

* Καταξίωσον ἡμᾶς δέσποτα μετὰ παρρησίας ακατακρίτως τολμᾷν ἐπικαλέσαι σε ὃ ἐπεράνιον Θεὸν πατέρα καὶ λέγειν, Πάτες

, &c. Chryfoftomi Liturgia. Which office is to this day continu'd in the Greek Church. Something like this hath been us'd in the Western Church for many ages: Præceptis falutaribus moniti & divinâ inftitutione formati, audemus dicere, Pater nofter, &c. Card. Bona de rebus Liturg.

a juft

a just representation, as far as temporal things can be of spiritual, of our redemption and the rights of it. By our Saviour's Merits, not any claim of our own, we are affur'd of an inheritance with the faints in light; and this right of inheritance, as in the case of adopted fons by the Roman law, empowers us to call God Father.

*. 15

St. Paul seems to ground his expression upon the customs of the Empire which then prevailed, when he tells the Romans, Te have received the Spirit of adoption, where- Chap.viii. by we cry, Abba, Father. And he repeats very near the fame words to the Galatians, when the fulness of time came, God fent his Ch. iv. Son, --- that we might receive the adoption : . 6. But because ye are fons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father; fo that thou art no more a fervant, but a fon; and if a son, then an heir of God through Chrift.

Our condition by grace is fo different from that by nature, that what we were before baptifm, in the Gospel account ftands for nothing. This new relation to God by Chritianity is the reason why the members of it are faid to be regenerate, to be new born, and new men. The Christian by baptism is as it were tranflated into another family;

and from the different relation in which he ftands from that time, is with fome propriety of fpeech call'd for that reafon a new mar. This then is the Gospel fenfe, in which we call God Father in the Lord's Prayer; namely, because we are treated by him as fons, and in that capacity affur'd of a better hopè in reverfion.

Tho' every instance of his common care over all his creatures deserves much thankfulnefs, yet his peculiar bounty to. Christians fhould be more especially both remember'd and valu'd. He doth not blefs men with existence, and as soon as that is given, with repenting churlishness resume it; but they by his mercy in Christ Jefus exchange this deceitfulnefs of human breath, this infancy of life, for a better and more enduring fubftance. They by the comfort of the Gofpel fee not beyond the grave a dreadful profpect of infenfible nothing; but by the eye of faith can already difcover thofe prepar'd mansions of everlasting joy, into which they are to be receiv'd, when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. That death, which is by nature the punishment of the fin and the terror of the finner, is, by the example of Chrift the first fruits from the dead, made the comfort and reward of virtue. Blefed