It shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.-Rom. ix. 26. If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.-Rom. viii 17. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God; neither he that loveth not his brother.-1 John iii 10. No child, that is his father's heir, does his father's will because he would be heir, which he is already by birth. His father gave him that before he was born, and is more unwilling that he should go without it, than he himself has sense to be. But of pure love he does what he does. And if you ask him why he does it, he answers, My father bade; it is my father's will; it pleases my father. Bond servants work for hire, children for love; for their father, with all that he has, is theirs already. So does a Christian man freely all that he does, considering nothing but the will of God and his neighbour's good. TINDAL. Faith which worketh by love.—Gal. v. 6. FEAR produces servile and unwilling performances. As those fruits which grow in winter, or in cold countries, are sour, unsavoury, and unconcocted; but those which grow in summer, or in hotter countries, by the warmth and influence of the sun, are sweet and wholesome: such is the difference between those fruits of obedience which fear and love produceth. REYNOLDS. |