THEY СНАР. Х. Of Adoption. HEY whom God has admitted into a state of peace and friendship with himself, he has also adopted for his sons that they may enjoy the benefits both of grace and glory, not only by the favor of friendship, but also by a right of inheritance. There is no friendship more familiar than that which, takes place between a father and his children. Or, rather that natural affection between these exceeds, in familiarity and sweetness, every thing that can be signified by the name of friendship. There is not any one word, any one similitude, borrowed from human affairs, that can sufficiently express this most happy band of love; which can hardly be explained by a great number of metaphors heaped together. To express tranquility of conscience, the scripture calls it peace; to shew us the pleasantness of familiarity, it calls it friendship: and when it insists on a right to the inheritance, it speaks of adoption of which we are to treat in this chapter. II. We assert, that believers are the sons of God. The apostle John proclaims it, saying, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Beloved, now are we the sons of God.* This is God's covenant with them: And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.t III. But they are not so only on this account, that God as Creator gave them being and life, and as pre 1 Epist. iii. 1, 2. + Cor. vi. 18. ‡ Mal. ii. 10. server supports them, and provides them with all necessaries.* IV. Neither are they called the sons of God on account of any external prerogative only; whether political, as magistrates are called the children of the Most High; or ecclesiastical, in respect of an external federal communion; according to which some are called the sons of God,‡ and the children of the kingdom ;§ in which sense also the Lord commanded Pharaoh to be told concerning Israel, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. For this regarded that national covenant, which God entered into with the posterity of Israel, according to which he preferred them above all other nations, and heaped many blessings upon them, both of a corporal and spiritual kind, which he did not vouchsafe to bestow on other people. He called them his sons, because he managed their concerns with as much solicitous care, as any father could possibly do those of his own children.** Nay, he called them his first-born, both because he loved them far better than other people, beyond the measure of common providence, shewing his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgment unto Israel,†† as the first-born had a double portion in the paternal inheritance; and also because he had appointed them to have a kind of dominion over other people: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee, be lord over thy brethren,‡‡ &c. Though these words were indeed spoken to Jacob, yet they were to be chiefly verified in his posterity; of which we have illustrious evidences in David's time.§§ V. But indeed, however excellent these things were, yet they are very far below that dignity, for which be *Acts xvii.. 25, 28. + Psal. lxxxii. 6. 11 Psal. cxlvii. 19. ‡‡ Deut, xxi. 17. Gen. vi. 2. § Matth. **Deut. xxxii. 10, §§ Gen. xxvii. 29. lievers are called the sons of God. For most of those who were called by the name of Israel and the firstborn, were such, with whom God was not well pleased, and never were promoted to the inheritance of the land of Canaan, much less to the heavenly inheritance, but were overthrown in the wilderness.* That very people, to whom Moses said, Is not Jehovah thy Father, hath he not magnified (established) thee? in the same breath he called a foolish people and unwise.† Nay, there are of the children of the kingdom, who shall be cast out into outer darkness. For that national covenant without any thing else, did not bestow saving grace, nor a right to possess the heavenly inheritance. VI. The elect and believers are therefore, in a far more eminent sense, the sons of God: wherein John observed a love never enough to be commended.§ Angels indeed have the glorious appellation of sons of God, with which the Lord honors them, not only because he formed them, but also because he imprinted upon them the image and resemblance of his own holiness,¶ and because, as children of the family, they familiarly converse with God in his house, which is heaven:** in fine, because they partake something of the dignity and authority of God, as we have just said, that magistrates are also called the children of the Most High. They are thrones, dominions, principalities, powers :†† nay, they are also called E'LOHIM, gods, Psal. xcvii. 7, compared with Heb. i. 6. VII. In almost the same sense, Adam seems also to be called the son of God:‡‡ for seeing that name, which has the article TOU set before it, denotes farther in all 1 Cor. x. 5. Deut. xxxii. 6. + Matth. viii, | Job xxxviii. 7, ¶ Job iv. 18. ** Job. * 2 Sam. viii. 12. i. 6. 1 John iii. 1. Col. i. 16. Luke iii. 38. 3. the foregoing verses, as the Syriac interpreter in place of Tou always puts BAR; no reason can be assigned, why here, altering the phrase, we should translate with Beza, who was of God; in which he has followed the Syriac, who translated DAMAV ELOHA, who is of God. For it cannot be doubted, that Adam may be fitly called the son of God, the reasons of which Philo elegantly explains in the passage adduced by the illustrious Grotius on Luke iii. 38; in the manner Josephus has also written, that men were born of God himself: namely, 1. God created Adam. 2. In his own image. Eminently loved him. 4. Gave him dominion over the creatures. For these reasons he is deservedly called the son of God, though God had not yet declared him heir of his peculiar blessings. Nor does he seem without reason to mention Adam, as the Son of God. For this tends, as Grotius has learnedly observed, to raise our mind, by this scale, to the belief of the birth of Christ. For he who from the earth, without a father, could produce man, was able in like manner to make Christ to be born of a virgin without a father. VIII. But Adam did not long maintain that dignity, on account of which he was called the Son of God. For neglecting holiness, and losing that excellency, in which he was created, and suffering himself to be overcome by the devil, he became the servant of Satan, by whom he was foiled,* and, at the same time, a child of wrath, together with all his posterity. But what the elect have lost in Adam, they recover in Christ; namely, the same, nay a far more excellent degree or rank among the children. For let the disparity between Christ and believers be ever so great, yet he is not ashamed to call them brethren.‡ * 2 Pet. ii. 19. + Eph. ii. 3, Heb. ii. 11. IX. But the elect obtain this degree of children of God several ways. First, they become the sons of God by a new and spiritual generation, descending from above. John speaks of this, chap. i. 12, 13. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name : which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. This illustrious passage, which is variously explained by interpreters, requires some particular consideration. X. The apostle describes this generation, or birth, whereby the elect become the sons of God, both negatively and positively. He denies it to be of blood, that is, natural or ordinary, like that whereby the children come to be partakers of flesh and blood,* and which is judged to be of blood. Neither is it of the will of the flesh, that is, from any carnal desire of having children by any means; by which it happens, that one, by giving too much indulgence to the corrupt reasoning of the flesh, makes use of means for that end, which God ncver prescribed: something like this we may observe in Sarah, when, from a desire of having children, she gave Hagar to Abraham. Nor, in fine, is it of the will of man, who, for certain reasons of his own, loves one above others, and so appoints him to the principal part of the inheritance: just as this was the will of Isaac with respect to Esau. Nothing that is human can give being to this spiritual generation. But it is only of God, who decreed it from eternity, and actually regenerates at the appointed time. XI. To those who are thus born of God, he gave power to become the sons of God. EXOUSIA here denotes right and power: as Rev. xxii. 14. that they may have EXOUSIA, right to the tree of life. But it may *Heb. ii. 14. |