And a Life thus employed is not only the most honourable, but the most comfortable and delightful Life, even in this prefent State. No Pleasures arifing from worldly Affluence or fenfual Enjoyments can be compared to the divine Satisfaction which floweth from a Senfe of God's Acceptance and Approbation, and from a Consciousness that we are engaged in a Course of Action which is agreeable to his Will, and which he in his rich and fovereign Grace and Goodness will abundantly reward. And this leads me to the laft Thing I would obferve, which is, that if we now make it our earneft Care and Endeavour to do whatfoever we do to the Glory of God; and therefore to glorify him on the Earth, we shall enjoy him for ever in Heaven. He will graciously crown our fincere Aims and faithful Endeavours for the Advancement of his Honour, with a tranfcendent Glory and Felicity in his own immediate Prefence and Kingdom above, throughout the boundless Ages of Eternity.

On

On being Followers of God.

DISCOURSE XXII.

EPHESIANS V. I.

Be ye therefore Followers of God, as dear
Children.

NOTHIN

OTHING can poffibly give us a nobler Idea of the Nature and Excellency of true Religion, than that it is defigned to raise us to a Conformity to God himself, the holiest and beft of Beings, the fupreme Original of Perfection and Happiness. Be ye perfect, faith our Saviour, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect. Not as if it were poffible for us to attain to an equal Degree of Perfec

tion with God himfelf, which it were the highest Impiety and Folly to imagine; but we must, as far as we are able, make it our continual Care and earnest Endeavour to resemble him more and more in thofe amiable Excellencies in which he is imitable by fuch Creatures as we are. And to engage us to this is the Design of this important and comprehenfive Exhortation of the Apostle; Be ye Followers, or as it might properly and literally be rendered,

Be ye Imitators', of God, as dear Children where it is plainly implied, both that all true Chriftians are in a special Senfe the Children of God, and that as fuch, they are obliged to endeavour to imitate and resemble him.

In treating of this Paffage I fhall, first, offer fomething concerning the Character by which true Chriftians are here described, that they are God's dear Children.

Secondly, I fhall enquire into the true Meaning and Extent of the Exhortation here given, or what is included in our being Followers and Imitators of God; and fhall fhew the Obligations we are under to be fo.

ift, Let us confider the Character by which true Chriftians are here described, that they are God's dear Children. The Perfons whom the Apostle here honours

with this glorious Character, are those, whom in the Beginning of this Epistle he calls, the Saints which are at Ephefus, and the faithful in Chrift Jefus. And the Character equally belongeth to all that in every Place believe in Jefus Chrift, and love and obey him in Sincerity.

There is indeed a general Senfe in which all Mankind may be faid to be the Children of God, in as much as he is the Author of their Beings, from whom they derive their Existence in a far properer and nobler Sense than they do from their earthly Parents. To him we owe the wonderful and curious Frame of our Bodies, and he is the Father of our Spirits. He giveth us Life, and Breath, and all Things, and on him we continually depend. In this Senfe he may be faid to be the God and Father of the whole human Race. We are all his Offspring, as St. Paul obferves to the Athenians by a Quotation from one of their own Poets. Acts xvii. 29. And on this Account we are obliged to love, obey, and honour him.

But it is not merely in this Sense that the Character of God's dear Children is to be understood in this Paffage. Every one that is acquainted with the New Teftament must be fenfible, that Chrift's faithful Difciples are there reprefented as

the