THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT GENEVA, JULY, 1829.

"He came unto his own, and his own received him not; but to 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." -JOHN i. 11, 12, 13.

THE Lord had chosen the people of Israel in order to keep alive the knowledge of Himself and the hope of His salvation, while all other nations walked in darkness. He had brought them out of Egypt, established them in Canaan, preserved them distinct in the midst of other nations of the earth; and, when the appointed time was come, in which the Lord should humble Himself, and appear as a man among men, HE COMES at first, says the Gospel, unto His own-HE COMES into the midst of His own people, just as a man, arriving in a city, goes first to his own dwelling, and not to the abode of strangers. But His family would not recognize Him; His own received Him not, they repulsed Him, and crucified the Lord of glory! Yet there was a chosen remnant in Israel, who received by faith Jesus the Lord. Soon, from among the nations of the earth, an immense number cried Hosanna to Him who came in the name of the Lord, and all Jews, Greeks, Scythians, bond and free, were made children of God. I have sanctified my king in Zion, the mountain of my holiness; I will give him the heathen for his inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.

But does not the same thing still happen unto ourselves? Doubtless there are many who receive Christ the Lord and enter into the family of God; but how many reject Him? how many remain sadly without Him? Listen but to the conversation of men; open the writings which find the highest favor with them; contemplate the course of the world; above all, study your own heart. Have you there received Jesus Christ? Oh, my dear hearers! we would put forth a feeble effort to give you a better knowledge of the riches, that you have, perhaps, hitherto despised. We announce to you to-day, then, a fact, which has better claims on your attention than every other fact which is pre

sented in the history of the world. Christ has come to establish, in the midst of all human families, a family of God. God, by one vast adoption, assumes all who believe for his sons and daughters. You can be accounted of this number; it is only necessary that you truly receive by faith Jesus Christ. Oh, man! my brother-thou mayest be adopted into the family of God, and thou wilt not! Let me unfold this important subject, presenting, as it does, Christianity in all its divine grandeur; and, above all, let us seek to dissipate the numerous errors in which it has been enveloped. Come, Lord! come unto us to-day by Thy word! Come Thyself to the door! Knock-and may we hear Thee, may we open to Thee, and may we receive Thee with joy! May there be many souls who will enter into Thy house, who may be reckoned in the number of the children of God, to praise Thee now and for ever, with all the kindred, who are named in the heavens and upon earth. Amen.

NECESSITY.

And first we address ourselves to you who, recognizing the Scriptures as the word of God, say: "God is the father of the human race. All men are His children, without exception, without distinction of religious faith, Jews, Christians, Mahomedans, Pagans-we have all but one Father, and we are all breth

ren."

Before refuting your opinion we ought to grant that it is grounded upon various foundations. It is true that God shows his paternal goodness to all men, and makes his sun to rise upon the good and on the wicked: it is true that we are all brethren in Adam, that is to say, we have all lost the holiness and primitive glory of our nature, and form by our birth but one family, exposed to sin, to the miseries of life and to death. It is also true that God has no respect of nations, of religions, the sect, or the visible Church in which one is born; and when a soul awakened by the sound of the good news of Christ believes on Him that he might have life, He receives that soul with joy whatever may be the standard under which he was born, whether of abominable idols, of the false prophet of Rome, or the glorious standard of the Reformation. From my very soul I recognize the truth that God has no respect of persons.

But Christ has actually been given to the world to create in it a family of God in quite another sense; in a sense much more intimate and true than it is of the human species in general. The word of God which is the truth, proclaims to us that to be children of God, is quite a different thing from being simply children of Adam. Turn to our text: To as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God. Those, then, who have not received him, or will not receive him do not enjoy this right. The meaning of the Word is clear. Refer to the twelfth Chapter of Matthew. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother. Whosoever therefore does not the

holy will of the Everlasting Father, is not the brother, nor sister of Christ, and consequently, not the child of God. In the epistle to the Romans, chapter viii: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Those, then, who are not led by the Spirit of God, but by their own spirit, are not his children. It is impossible to receive the Word without receiving also its conclusions.

You well understand, in the interpretation of our human laws, that when the child of any man is his by adoption it is because he is not so by nature. Why not apply to the things of God, this plain common sense which directs us in the things of this world? Christianity proclaims to the sinner who believes a free and gratuitous adoption into the family of the God of heaven. Man is then, by nature, out of the family of the Most High, and he can enter therein only by an act of mercy and of love from Him, who would be his father. "God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of Sons . . . . Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son." Oh! if men by nature are children of God, what children, great God, are like thy children? Are those thy children in whom there is so entire a forgetfulness of their Father? We speak not solely of the nations who prostrate themselves at the feet of idols, but of ourselves by our own nature; do we not constantly forget the great God in all our actions, all our words, all our thoughts, and seek only ourselves and our own good? Are these indeed the children of God, having the nature of their Father, who are prone to pride, to envy, to hatred, to wrath, to covetousness, in a word, to SIN which God abhors? What family, Lord, should be like thy family? What! shall all this corruption, all these vices, all these crimes, all those abominations which one dares not even to name, which are found in the world, shall all these exist in thy family! A family so full of disorders would be disowned even by men; and should this be the family of God! thine, oh God! who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. No, my brethren, these fine words, that we are all the children of God, are the declamations of a carnal sensibility, but are not according to the truth; they are the words either of fraud or error. Yes, we are by birth children-but learn from the word of God himself what kind of children: CHILDREN OF DISOBEDIENCE, as says St. Paul to the Ephesians, children of wrath, he continues disobedient, foolish, says he to Titus, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. There is no difference, we have all come short of the glory of God.

THE MEANS.

But here, my brethren, I discover among us other thoughts and another class of persons. You, my dear hearers, far from thinking so lightly of becoming a child of God, you imagine you can never become one. To be a son, a daughter of God! what a privilege, you exclaim! what a happiness! what a glory! but how

dare we pretend to a relation so touching and so beautiful with the great God of the universe? Perhaps there are those who can thus aspire, but for myself, I cannot. I am too insignificant, too sinful-I remain afar: and I bow my head in the dust before the face of the King of kings. Who can abide in the day of his coming, and who can stand when he shall appear?

Oh ye, who are filled with such fear, haply the word of your God does not make the thing as impossible as does your own heart. You would have reason for such apprehensions if this privilege were to be gained by yourself; but know that this adoption into the family of God is a GIFT, a free gift which the God of Heaven makes by his beloved Son: To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God:-gave, says the Word, not sold; given as a tender father makes a gift to his son, or as a rich man, powerful and good, makes the gift of adoption to the poor abandoned child, whom he thus makes rich by a simple act of his great compassion and of his great love. Why would you refuse to God the privilege of giving, of giving gratuítously such great blessings?

But how, you say, can I be assured that this pardon is truly given; that this salvation is truly acquired; that God adopts for himself a family on earth? How? Because God himself has spoken it; because He from whom such grace proceeds has caused it to be announced and published in all places; because he declares it to you by his ministers, by his sacraments, by his Word; by his Word which is the truth. Assuredly that which is spoken by the Eternal, the True, is well worthy of our belief. If some unnatural wicked children, having been banished from the paternal roof, loaded with a father's curse, should soon after learn the news of that father's death, with what trouble-with what anguish would the thought of that parent's curse fill their souls! But suppose that a friend should come unto one of these sons and should place in his hand a letter, a will written by that father, in which were written these words: "I declare unto my children, into whose hands these lines may fall, that before giving up my last breath I withdrew from them all my curses; I pardon them everything, and from my death-bed I raise my hands to heaven for them, to bless them and constitute them anew my children, my heirs." The child considers these lines; he exclaims, "It is my father's writing! it is his signature, it is his seal! it is himself who has said it! How can I doubt? I am blessed. I am saved. My father has caused me to attain unto this assurance. I am at peace. I believe the testimony of my father."

Unto you likewise I bring a letter, O my brethren! a letter written by Himself, furnished with his signature, and impressed with his seal a letter which he has sent from heaven to earth; a letter of pardon a letter of amnesty: a letter of adoption: a letter of peace. Listen! listen to that which is written in this letter by the finger of God himself. In this letter it is written,-I take the eternal word as witness: Jesus saves his people from their sins. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.—

Having been made perfect, Christ has become the eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. God gives eternal life, AND THIS LIFE IS IN HIS SON. HE WHO HAS THE SON HAS LIFE. To as many as receive him to them gives he power to become the sons of God. Will you not believe the testimony of God? This testimony written in a Testament which each of you possesses in his own dwelling, which you can read and read again. Will you refuse to believe a Testament dictated from the cross, sealed with the blood of its author? Alas! can you believe the testament of a father, and will you not believe that of God? a will which puts you in possession of so glorious an inheritance! If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son."

If, then, you have believed this witness, and have thus received Jesus Christ, you are become in God, my brother, you are become his child; already, here below, you belong unto him! And when He shall call you from this earth, it will be a father's voice to call you home to himself. You will enter then into the paternal mansion in the heavens. Oh what a glorious prospect! what happiness to you is given!

If you have received Jesus Christ, the God Saviour, who has borne in himself the curse of sin, and who has humbled and vanquished it by His divine power, why can you still doubt that you may become children of God? Do you speak of your sins? True, but Christ, who is now your Saviour, has borne them, says the Scripture, has expiated them on the cross: he has scattered them as a cloud, he has cast them into the bottom of the sea. And of them not the smallest part shall ever be brought to light.

Do you speak of your insignificance, of your nothingness, of the misery of this human nature which is your's? True: but Christ, the Son of God, has taken this humanity; he has become the Brother of man; the human nature has been glorified by the divinity of Him whom it has clothed. It may belong to God and enter into heaven. What is there in this which need astonish you? The Son of God is become the Son of man: cannot the son of man become then the son of God? He who was in heaven is become a member of the family of the earth may not then he who is on the earth become a member of the family of heaven? And if the Son of God was not ashamed to call himself our brother in the midst of our misery, will he be ashamed to call us his brethren in the midst of all his glory and his immortal grandeur? Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God!

NATURE.

Certainly," you say, my dear hearers, " certainly, we admit all these things; we are born in the Christian church; we believe in Jesus Christ: we think that it is through Him we can call God our Father." It may be so. Meanwhile, however, we invite you candidly to examine yourselves, to see if you truly possess the faith