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SERM. This World and in That which is to II. come.

~ Lastly, FROM hence we may learn to comfort and fatisfy the minds of fome weak Christians; who, not having a right. Notion What the Glory of God is, can never affure themselves that they are True Promoters of it. They read that Mofes prayed to God to blot Him out of his book, if thereby the children of Ifrael might be faved; and that St Paul even wifhed Himself accurfed from Chrift, if thereby the Nation of the Jews could be converted. And hence fome have put the queftion to Themselves, and others have been so weak as to put it in their Writings; whether a Chriftian ought to be content to perish finally, for the Glory of God. The question is abfurd and contradictory; and has no foundation in the Texts referred to. Mofes, and St Paul, in the circumstances they were Then in, might charitably, and without any extravagancy, be willing to have born the temporal Curfe then coming upon the Jews, (which is all that their words mean;) if thereby it could have been poffible to have faved the whole Nation. But fuch High Expreffi

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II.

ons of Affection, are always well under- SER M. ftood, in all books and in all languages, to have, not a literal, but a figurative Meaning. A Chriftian's Duty, of doing all things to the Glory of God, fignifies plainly This only; that he ought always to prefer the Intereft of Religion and Virtue, before all Worldly confiderations whatsoever. Which that We may All do, &c.

SERMON

SERMON

III

Of GOD's being the FATHER of

Mankind.

MATT. xxiii. 9.

And call no man your Father upon the Earth; For One is your Father which is in Heaven.

I

N the following Difcourfe up-S ER M. on these words, I fhall endea- III.

vour to show diftinctly, 1ft,' in what Senfe God is in Scripture usually styled Our. Father. 2dly, What we are to under ftand, when we find it affirmed of him, that he is in Heaven. 3dly, What is meant, by calling any man our Father upon the VOL. II.

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Earth.

SERM. Earth. And 4thly, Why we are forbidIII. den to call any man Father on the Earth, upon account of there being One which is our Father in Heaven.

I. IN the First place; there are two Senfes, wherein God is in Scripture ufually ftiled our Father.

1. THE first is, as he is the Father or Author of all things, by originally creating or giving them Being. In This Senfe, the wifeft of the Antient Philofophers among the Heathen, ftyled God, the Father of the Univerfe. And the Scripture fometimes ufes expreffions, of the fame Nature. Thus when St Paul had declared, 1 Cor. viii. 6. that To Us there is but One God; he immediately in the very next words gives a Defcription who That One God is, by adding, the Father of whom are all things; that is to fay, from whom all things derive their existence, and are brought into Being by his Will and Power. The like manner of fpeaking we find again, Eph. iv. 6. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all: Father of all, that is, Author and Creator of all things. So the word is ufed in the

Creed,

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