03 - God A Father

Chapter 3

GOD A FATHER ’’Our Father, which art in Heaven"

It is said to have been a remark of the late Madame De Stael, that the prayer, of which this is the first sentence, was itself sufficient proof of the truth of Christianity. No fair mind can deny that the prayer itself is a remarkable production. The amount of truth it embodies, its high morality, and deep, touching devotion are such, that no mere philosopher, or sage, could have been its author.

"Have we not all one Father," saith the prophet, " hath not one God created us?" If not the minutest atom exists without the first great cause; that wondrous and complex being, man, could never have been the production of chance, or accident. If the form and features cannot be even transformed to the painted canvass, without the skill of the cunning artist; much less is the living original the production of a blind fatuity. ’’ Fearfully and wonderfully made," is the high distinction enstamped on the creature man. The eye, the ear, the tongue, the hand, — nay, every organ, and muscle, and nerve of his material frame, all indicate an intelligent and designing Creator. That single organ, the heart, repeating, with such wondrous regularity, its equable pulsations, some sixty times every minute, for three score years and ten, has not its equal within the whole compass of mechanical invention: nor is it in the power of language to express a greater absurdity, than that it does not indicate the hand and agency of a wise and almighty designer. The meanest of the race, too, is invested with an intellectual, moral, and accountable nature; the flame of undying thought is lighted up within him, and wondrous susceptibilities have a dwelling in his warm bosom. The great and Almighty Parent breathed into the cold clay the breath of life, "and man became a living soul."

It has often been questioned, if a speculative atheist ever existed. It is a remark of Cicero, that "there never was a man who constantly and absolutely denied a God." Pure atheism, or the absolute denial of an intelligent first cause, is rarely to be met with; but that there have been, and still are, modifications of atheism, may hardly be denied. Gross thoughtlessness; eager inspection of the apparent inequalities in the divine government; extreme depravity of manners; the enormous absurdity of vulgar superstitions; the affectation of singularity, and the desire of seeming wiser than others; skepticism on other moral subjects; and the refinements of false science, as well as the weak and inconclusive arguments which have sometimes been employed to prove the being of a God; have, there is reason to fear, shaken the faith of men in this fundamental truth of all natural religion. But whatever the forms, or the causes of this radical error, it has no apology in the reason, or even the prepossessions of the human mind. " I had rather believe," says Lord Bacon, ’’ all the fables in the Legend, the Yalmud, and the Koran, than that this universal frame is without a mind." The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. A strong and practical belief of the Divine being and presence, lies at the basis of all true devotion. An atheist cannot pray. " He that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Men sometimes utter the words of prayer, without seriously thinking of him to whom they pray ; and though they believe there is a God, they pray as if there were none. They do not deny, but they disregard his being. They are ’’ without God in the world." ’’ God is not in all their thoughts." For all they love, or fear, or hope for, God might as well not be. Such prayer is "an abomination." Prayer is the language of nature, because it is the language of want; it is the language of a creature to his Creator, of a child, dependent, helpless, benighted, to his unearthly Parent. The pagan poet, referred to by Paul, in his appeal to the philosophers of Greece, made no unnatural avowal, when he said, ’’ For we are also his offspring." Without distinction of age, character, condition, or faith, the enlightened and the ignorant, Jews, Mahometans, Pagans, and Christians, those who dwell on the land and those who are afar off upon the sea, may all look upward, and say, "Our Father, who art in heaven !" There is not one of them that is not the object of his paternal care and bounty; whom he does not instruct with a father’s counsel, restrain and govern with a father’s authority, and whom his hand has not been ten thousand times reached forth to keep from falling into destruction. From whatever station in human life, or portion of the world, or degraded state of human society; from whatever throne, or dungeon; from whatever liberty, or whatever servitude, any one of the vast family of man may affectionately and dutifully address his. thoughts to heaven, he shall find a father’s ear, and the heart of a father. His family is large and widely dispersed; it is composed of millions upon million, scattered over every continent and island, every sea and shore, every mountain and valley, every palace and every log-cabin; nor is any one of them denied the relation of children. They are his property; he made them for himself; he owns and cares for them.

One of the obligations of piety is founded on this natural relation which men sustain to God as the parent source of their being. There is indeed a higher claim ; but we need look for none that is more imperative in order to originate our obligations to filial love and obedience. "If I be a father," says he, "where is mine honor ? if I be a master, where is my fear ?" What rights of sovereignty are comprised in this single relation ! The potter has power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor ; yet the clay is not the potter’s creature. Men in authority say to one, go, and he goeth, and to their servants, do this, and they do it ; yet these are but conventional claims, and have no such deep and immutable foundation as those which result from the relation of man to his Maker. These are bonds which, however violated, cannot be dissolved, but must remain in full force and obligation as long as God and creatures exist and are what they are. Time cannot alter them ; no condition of suffering, or of joy, can alter them ; they remain unaltered to all eternity. Men will not pray, unless they acknowledge them ; nor is it any unusual thing for them to "cast off fear and restrain prayer," because this very service of prayer itself strengthens and confirms their obligations to him in whom they live, and move, and have their being. There is value in this relation. Men feel it in the hour of danger and distress, even though at heart they know not God. They look to him and are lightened. His tender mercies are over all his works. It is not a matter of indifference to him whether they live, or die. He who hears the young ravens when they cry, and supplies the young lions when they wander for lack of meat, hears the cry of distress. It is not in his heart of tenderness and love to turn a deaf ear to the sighs of human misery, come they from whose bosom they may. He who commendeth his love toward us in that when we were enemies Christ died for us, and who when we were dead in sin quickened us, with all his just hatred of their character, has a heart of pity. When agitated by fear, and depressed by despondency, from the ends of the earth even may such sinners cry unto him. There is no promise in the Bible which entitles them to a hearing, while there is the tenderness of the Divine compassion, that rebukes their despair and urges them to penitence.

I have said there are higher claims than these. When we adopt the language, " Our Father who art in heaven," we are also reminded of the still more endearing relation which exists between their Heavenly Father, and those who constitute his spiritual family. God has a family of his own on the earth, a "peculiar people," in distinction from the rest of mankind. To the earlier invitations to incorporate themselves with this spiritual family, men turned a deaf ear; they made light of them, and all began to make excuse. It is only when they fall in with these gracious overtures, that men become the children of God. They are more than creatures ; they are affectionate and dutiful children. They are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. From the far wandering where they perish with hunger, they come home to their heavenly Father’s house, where there is bread enough and to spare. This is a high and holy relationship. To be God’s creatures merely, does not constitute it. Birth in a Christian land does not constitute it. Descent from a pious ancestry does not constitute it. Holy baptism does not constitute it ; nor is it constituted by any mere outward forms, or professions, or services. Many a man sustains an outward and visible relation to God’s family, enjoys all the immunities which such relation furnishes, and passes under the external bond of God’s covenant, to whom none of these things give a passport to his kingdom, and who is in the end an outcast. The Scriptures and facts instruct us that every son and daughter of Adam is by nature alienated from God, and a child of wrath. He is destitute of holiness, unpardoned, unblessed, and has no natural rights but the just reward of his iniquity, and the inheritance of the fallen. When we speak of a child by adoption, we do not mean a child by nature. We speak of adopting a stranger, an orphan, an outcast; and this is the adoption to which we refer when we would indicate the spiritual family of God. It is the free, gracious adoption of an unworthy, guilty, and condemned, but now reconciled and pardoned sinner. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit;" there is a first birth, and there is a second, and one that is spiritual and from above. It is this new birth which is the starting point in the spiritual career, and which draws the dividing line between those who are aliens and those who are children. Born of earth only, they have the image of the earthly; it is not until they are " born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,’’ that they "bear the image of the heavenly." It is not more the law of nature that children resemble their parents, than it is the law of grace that the children of God resemble their heavenly Father. It is by no natural agencies, and no common method, that men thus become God’s children. ’’ Ye are the children of God," saith the Apostle, "by faith in Jesus Christ.’’ He is the honored One in this gracious arrangement. ’’God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we "might receive the adoption of sons." The great object of his advent and sacrifice was, "to take out," from the mass of men, "a people to his praise ;" to separate from this ruined race a family, redeemed by his blood, sanctified by his Spirit, and bearing the resemblance and name of their Father who is in heaven. He thus descended, that they might ascend. He became an obscure child of one of the families of earth, that they, through him, and through faith in his name, might become allied to the families of heaven. Though the Son of God, he became the son of man, that they, though the sons of men, might become the children of God

There is a great difference between the creature of God, coming to God as his Creator, and with no other encouragement than the flickering hopes that are warranted by the lights of reason and nature, and coming to God in the new and living way opened up by Jesus Christ. There is a great difference between the sinner under condemnation, coming to the Judge of all, and the Christian thus coming to his heavenly Father.

Even under the old dispensation, the people of God were not denied the hopes and consolations of this filial relation. The language of Moses to the people of Israel is, " Ye are the children of the Lord your God." " Doubtless thou art our Father" is the language of the prophet. " Though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; thou art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting." In the same strain of pensive confidence, he goes on to say, "But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; behold, see we beseech thee, we are all thy people!" And again, in the words of another prophet it is written " Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?" But this is not the ordinary language of that less illumined age. Under the old dispensation, the Holy Spirit in believers was, to no small extent, the spirit of bondage; under the new, it is that of adoption. The privilege of calling God their Father was not so fully known; because "the new and living way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest." Those ancient saints had beheld fearful exhibitions of the Deity; to them he was " fearful" even " in his praises ;" he had " said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." The Christian’s view, in approaching the throne of grace, is, that God is his Father. Abba, Father, is his cry. However great his un-worthiness and ill-desert, it is his privilege to come as a child, an heir of God, a fellow-heir with Christ his Son. The truth cannot be too frequently inculcated, that there is but one way of access unto God in any of his institutions. Every other way is but some modification of Deism. The punishment of sin is necessary because of sin. When a sinner approaches God with the confidence of a child, he honors the great propitiation made by his coequal Son. The eternal Father is well pleased to have this effective mediation thus put to the test by all who call upon him. He would have us address him by this new name, "Our Father" — a name so entwined with the dearest associations of the human heart. And it is in delightful keeping with his nature, " who breaks not the bruised’ reed, and quenches not the smoking flax," to teach his disciples thus to pray. Never was sight more interesting and lovely on earth than this; and many a miniature of it, though faint indeed, I doubt not is engraven on the memory of millions. Who first taught us to pray, as Christ taught his disciples ? Who can forget the time, or the place, when he buried his face in his mother’s bosom, or knelt at her feet, and repeated the words from her lips, "Our Father who art in heaven !" The eccentric, but remarkable man, John Randolph, once was heard to say, that he should probably have been an atheist, but for his tender remembrance of the scene where a devout mother bade him kneel by her side, and taking his little hands in hers, taught him to say, " Our Father, who art in heaven." And would not many of us have been atheists, had we not, in the gracious providence of God, thus been taught to pray? Our Father — blessed relation! Thrice blessed Saviour, thus to instruct the guilty children of men! That he should appropriate such language as this, is not strange; but that he should instruct us to appropriate it, may well lead us to exclaim, " Behold, what manner of love is this, that we should be called the sons of God !" The beautiful language of his prayer is, "Our Father." There are two thoughts of interest in this emphatic phraseology. "Thou art my God" says the Psalmist, " and I will exalt thee." Elsewhere he says, "God, our own God, shall bless us." There are the actings of an appropriating faith in words like these. When the Saviour showed Thomas his wounded hands and feet, he exclaimed, ’’My Lord and my God!" Faith is an humble grace, a self-renouncing grace; but it is a trusting confidence. God is in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; when the believer receives him, he receives him for his own soul. He is his own God. It is a privilege to call him Father, but a greater privilege to be enabled by his Spirit to say, in the language of this prayer. Our Father.

"We would no longer lie Like slaves beneath the throne; Our faith shall Abba, Father, cry, And thou the kindred own."

Whatever is expressed by that comprehensive word, the faith of the suppliant receives as his own, and for his own benefit. God’s fatherly love is his; his, his power and faithfulness; his, all the perfections of the Godhead, pledged for his security and ultimate salvation. Such is the privilege of faith, and of all the children of God. No unbeliever can thus use the words of this prayer. Every such man is a stranger to this filial relation, because there is not a trace of filial affection toward God within his cold, suspicious, and hostile bosom. He has not the adoption of sons; and they are sons only who can thus say, Our Father! But this is not all which these cheering words express. The social character of this prayer may not be passed over in silence. It is " Our Father." The social character of religion is too little known by the men of the world, and appreciated too little by Christians. It is an egregious error, into which many have fallen who know nothing of Christianity but its name, that it is a morose and cheerless thing; that it is made up of useless sacrifices, and joyless self-denial; and that, instead of being welcomed to the very bosom of human society, its proper place is the solitary mountain, the lonely chamber, the sequestered grove, or the cold monastery. True piety has indeed much to do with individual character and obligations. It cannot exist without secret meditation, and solitary communion with God. It becomes rank and poisonous, without the retirement of self-inspection and secret prayer. It withers and dies, without those hallowed feelings and affections that are unseen by mortal eye, and those unuttered breathings of the soul that are unheard by mortal ears. Yet is it designed to call into exercise and consecrate all the social principles of our nature.

There are common interests, and there are individual interests, to be prosecuted in joint supplication. God is not only the hearer of prayer, but the hearer of social prayer. There can be no family wisely constituted that is without it. Wherever God records his name, there will he meet his people, and bless them socially. No two individuals can be connected together, who have not some common interest as the ground of joint supplication. The same maybe said of larger bodies of men. Every Legislature that is convened for the enacting of laws and the purposes of government, should unitedly and daily seek the guidance and blessing of Heaven. Every ship that floats on the ocean, should be vocal with prayer. But especially is this the social privilege of the church of God. All her prayers are founded on the principle, that as an associated community, she is composed of God’s children, and approaches his throne as accepted in the Beloved. Those who oppose social prayer, do not love prayer at all. Social prayers, for things that belong to the social relations, are heard and answered. It is as much the constitution of God’s moral government, that bodies of men, who have a common interest, offer prayers for common wants, as it is the constitution of his providence that individuals offer them for individual wants. The author of this prayer was divine, yet a man like ourselves; and because he was no stranger to our sympathies, he has left the reviving promise, "Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." The primitive Christians were eminently spiritual, but their religion was strongly marked by its social character. It consisted in their "walking together in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly," in refreshing one another in their languor and fatigue — cheering one another in their depression — inspiriting one another in their thorny and often sanguinary way.

Why should it not always be thus? Is it that there are any necessary elements of dissension in the society of Christians, or that those who love God, and whom God loves, have not the strongest inducements to love one another? Men who have accepted the offers of the divine mercy, as sinners ; who have been renewed by the divine Spirit, and reconciled to God by faith in his Son ; who are the purchase of his blood, the subjects of his kingdom, the children of his family, the heirs of his glory — strangely forget the bond that constitutes them one society, when they do not " love as brethren." That sublime address, " Our Father, who art in heaven," is an everlasting- rebuke to all such Christians. Numbers unite in this act of worship. All have virtually united in it for eighteen centuries; and all will unite in it to the end of time. ’’ Our Father" binds all Christians in one. It leaps every external barrier; surmounts the obstacles of birth and station, wealth and talent ; disregards the shades and colors of denomination and difference; nay, it overlooks infirmities and faults; and asks only, before it gives the right hand of fellowship to the "partaker of its own apostasy and hopes," Is he a Christian ? does he love Jesus Christ ? does he believe in the Son of God ? does he do the will of his Father who is in heaven ? The social relations flourish only under the genial influence of Christianity. They have never been known in their purity in Pagan lands, however elevated by science, and refined by the courtesies of life. Those sentiments of predilection, those principles of elective affinity, and those laws of association which govern men and bodies of men, who are themselves ungoverned by the gospel, are for the most part false and treacherous, impure in their origin, sinful in their nature and designs, and melancholy in their consequences. The gospel alone purifies and elevates them, and gives them principle. "Our Father, who art in heaven" — how strong the bond! Here the worst affections are subdued, and the best called into exercise. Here every principle of truth and goodness is confirmed, every devotional feeling strengthened, and piety becomes invested with new attractions. The powers of earth and sin are here subdued, suspicion and jealousy, envy and hatred. Here the motives to mutual forbearance and confidence acquire increased force; and common hopes, hopes full of immortality, become the foretaste and earnest of holier and happier associations in a more holy and happy world. Nor may the thought be lost sight of, that union is the soul and strength of prayer. If "united action is powerful action," so is united prayer powerful prayer. That one word. Our Father, is a voice from heaven calling upon all the children of God to cultivate more assiduously the spirit, and practice more faithfully the duty of united prayer. " If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven." Why should the social principle be pressed into every other service, save the service of God ; and why, while men associate for the purposes of business, pleasure, literature, accomplishments, science, and the arts, are there so few associations for prayer ? Shall every other society be sought, rather than the society of God’s children ? Shall men be ambitious of fellowship with those who occupy a large place in this world’s consideration, and shall they be ashamed of those, who have no higher honors than that they are the disciples of Jesus ? There is something unutterably delightful, sweetly subduing, universally humanizing, in the bond which thus has its origin far above this low earth, which survives the changes of this world, which receives solidity from its afflictions and sufferings, becomes the stronger from all that threatens it, is indissoluble to the ravages of death, and grows purer and brighter forever!

There is also in this brief address, a sublime ascription. Our Father who art in heaven ! The Divine Being is not confined either to the heavens or the earth. He " filleth all in all." There is no height so lofty, and no depth so unfathomable; no place so unoccupied, and no void so empty and extensive, that he does not occupy it. "Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off, saith the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? " Neither land, nor sea, nor heaven, nor hell, nor light, nor darkness, contains the place where He does not dwell. But though this great and universal Parent is everywhere, there is strong propriety in fixing our thoughts upon him in prayer, as a being every way exalted, and far above all creatures. We may not think of our Father who is in heaven, as we think of any other being in the universe, nor address him as we address another. He Is in heaven!; highly exalted as God over all; reigning there in invisible majesty, and dwelling in light that is inaccessible and full of glory. He is venerable for his greatness. He decks himself with light as with a garment, and is arrayed in majesty and excellency. He stretcheth out the heavens as a pavilion; he layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; he maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind. The alternations of day and night, cold and heat, and all the varieties of the seasons, are determined by him. He commandeth the sun and it riseth not, and he sealeth up the stars. He maketh Arcturus, Orion, Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. He doeth great things, past finding out, yea, and wonders without number. He maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire. Clouds and darkness are round about him, justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne. A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlighten the world ; the earth sees and trembles. The hills melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and the people see his glory. We call him our Father, while angels bow before him, and before the splendor of his glory cover their faces with their wings. With what sacred emotions ought such a being to be approached and how wondrous the condescension that he should point us to his mercy seat, and say. There will I meet thee, and there will I commune with thee! O let us lift up our hands with our heart to God who dwelleth in the heavens! Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; no thoughtlessness, no impertinence, no irreverent familiarity may be indulged with the great God. The nearer the soul approaches to him, the more profound the reverence. There is reverence in the more familiar and confiding exercises and expressions of filial love. We reverence earthly parents; but he is our Father who is in heaven. Heaven is the place he has chosen for the seat of his glory; where the splendor of his divinity shines; whence he issues forth the decrees of his providence; and where he proclaims himself, and the myriads that stand in his presence proclaim him, the King eternal, immortal, and invisible.

Thoughts like these are searching thoughts. A child may deceive an earthly parent, but " God cannot be deceived, and he will not be mocked.’’ "All things are open and naked to the eye of him with whom we have to do." Lost, indeed, were that child to all virtuous and honorable feeling, who, amid scenes of folly and wickedness, would not shrink from the inspection of a father’s eye. We have a Father, whose inspection of our every thought is minute and constant; who asks no informer to acquaint him with our wickedness, no testimony to confound us before him, and clothe us with shame, if we come to his throne with dis-ingenuousness and insincerity. But they are also comforting thoughts. There is great imperfection in earthly parents compared with God. Earthly parents know not how to adapt their bounty at all times to the want of their children. They give when they ought not to give, and withhold when they ought not to withhold. There is no such defect, and no such mistake with God. Earthly parents, when they would fain give to their children, are not able. The poor cannot give of their penury ; and where competence, and wealth even, fall to the lot of parents, there are wants which no opulence can supply. But nothing restricts God’s power to give : giving does not impoverish, withholding does not enrich him. The love of earthly parents is strong ; it survives separation, annihilates distance, for gives disobedience, rebellion, and neglect. It does not perish even with the infamy of its objects, nor will it yield its claims to the stern and inevitable demands of the grave. It outlives life ; feeds on recollected joys and hopes, and lavishes on the marble and on the turf that tenderness of which the dead are unconscious. It is self-sacrificing and uncomplaining, coveting even weariness, and watchings, and pain for those it loves. But it is not indestructible. Other objects sometimes supersede its claims. Coldness has extinguished it ; desertion and neglect have quenched its glowing embers ; it has often yielded to prejudice, and perished under the power of lust and superstition. " Can a woman forget her sucking child ? Yea, they may forget," says our Father who is in heaven " yet will I not forget thee !" " Whom he loves, he loves to the end." Heaven and earth shall pass away, but this faithful word of love and mercy shall never pass away. Earthly parents die ; they dwell in " houses of clay , their foundation is in the dust, and they are crushed before the moth." The brow that bears the marks of care and toil, becomes pale and cold ; the hands that minister to the wants of those who are most beloved, must be paralyzed in the grave ; the tongue of wisdom must be silent in that narrow house where there is "no work, nor wisdom, nor device;" and the heart that beats for us, must soon beat its last throb, and sleep beneath the clods of the valley. Not so with our Father who is in heaven. Around the grave of the fondest earthly parent, the children of God may exclaim, " The Lord liveth, and blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted." Time passes, but shortens not his duration. Years roll away upon years, while he still lives in the bloom of his eternity. The expressions of parental love cannot follow those on whom they are lavished to the grave, and protect them from corruption and the worm ; nor go with them up to the bar of judgment, and shield them from the sentence of a violated law. It is a corruptible inheritance only which they can leave to their children, to be divided among them for a brief period, in this transitory world. Their Father, who is in heaven, distributes to his children honors that are unwasting — an inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In their Father’s house are many mansions. Their home is above the clouds. God himself is the heritage of his people— their heaven and their exceeding great reward. And they are also grateful thoughts. It has been objected to the Lord’s Prayer, that it contains no ascription of thanksgiving. But is there no feeling of tender love — of grateful, subduing remembrance, when from the heart we say, " Our Father, who art in heaven ?" Is there no recognition of inexhaustible bounty, boundless beneficence, rivers of love, oceans of mercy, a generosity so disinterested and noble, and a tenderness so touching, that it were impossible to give utterance to our deep sense of them in any language half so compendiously and forcibly as in these few words ? This great and good Being, this King eternal, immortal, invisible, writes his name, " Our Father’’ gives us access to Him as his children! The condescension is his; the privilege, ours. What have we to be thankful for, compared with this? What has all this world to offer, compared with the privilege of calling God our Father?

Let the spirit of this first sentence in the Lord’s Prayer counsel us to cherish more befitting impressions of the God we worship. He is no unbending tyrant, no hard master; but the best and kindest of fathers. Vengeance is not the attribute he delights in; he delighteth in mercy. Oh, how little do they know of God, who clothe him only with terrors, and refuse to hope in his mercy! He is terrible only to incorrigible wickedness; to the penitent, gentle and mild, as a nurse toward her children. Away with this jealousy and suspicion, this distrust, fear, and aversion, when contemplating the character of your Father which is in heaven. There is no sternness and repulsiveness in that Holy One, who teaches his children to call him Father. It is not with the frown of wrath upon his brow, nor with menaced damnation on his lips, nor with the thunderbolt of vengeance in his hand, that he invites sinners to his throne. There are other discoveries of the divine nature than these. There is the heart of love ; there is the infinitude of love, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." There is not one among all those to whom his Gospel is known, who has not the warrant to accept these great provisions of their heavenly Father’s love. Those who are afar off, may draw nigh ; those who are aliens and enemies, may become children, and be adopted into his divine family. ’’ Behold," saith he, " I stand at the door, and knock ; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me." Though unworthy of the privilege, though we cannot acquire it by any works of righteousness, though the gold of Ophir cannot purchase it, it is a privilege that he gives, gives as an affectionate father gives to his son: as a wealthy, bountiful prince adopts some poor orphan, and makes him the inheritor of his crown.

Come, then, ye who are young! No longer despise the bounty and grace of your Father who is in heaven. Come and enter into his family, whose faithful love will guard you from the sins that embitter, and the woes that await all who are strangers to the living God. Now, while conscience is yet tender, and memory and heart are open to impressions that will leave their trace upon many a passing year; now, " while the evil days come not," remember your Creator in the days of your youth. He utters no stronger and no more affectionate claim, than when he says, " My son, give me thy heart." He would have those wayward and wandering thoughts, those dissipated, and vain, and idolatrous affections weaned from others, and concentrated on himself. Child of promise and of hope, of solicitude and prayer; thoughtless and gay, and never more in need of a father’s care, ’’ wilt thou not, from this time, say unto him, "My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ?"

Ye, too, who are absorbed in earth, infatuated by its pleasures, burdened with its business, or grasping after its wealth and honors -- come ye, and seek the repose, and set your affections on the inheritance which earth has not, and which pertains only to that family of God. "Wherefore spend ye your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not?" Powerless as this world is to make you happy, it is mighty to destroy. Why, pilgrims and strangers on the earth, give ye to that world, the fashion of which passeth away, the affections which are due only to Him who liveth forever and ever! " Wherefore come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

Ye children of sorrow, to you the voice of mercy declares that the man is never comfortless who has God for his Father. Trials are no longer trials, when the burden is cast on the bosom of his paternal love. Sorrow loses its name, when his own soft hand wipes away the tear. Consolation in the woes of earth is not in forgetfulness, nor in gaiety, nor in braving the ills which it is impossible to avoid. Miserable comforters are they all !

Ye whose earthly parents have descended to the tomb, and left you to prove the chilling negligence and selfishness of this cold world, how unutterably precious for you to learn the lesson, " When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up !" Let not your heart be troubled. He will not leave you orphans. Think not that your last hope lies buried among the dead. Weep not in such bitter anguish at that grave. Say not, "O that I were resting with thee, beneath that tranquil clod!" Your Father who is in heaven shall never die. " He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee!

Ye, too, who are disappointed and mortified in the world ; who are sick of men because they have so often deceived you, come, make the eternal God your refuge. Ye whose hopes have leaned on earth, only to learn that in one sad hour the bright vision may vanish, come and lean on an arm that is never weary, and partake of bounty that is never exhausted. Ye, too, who may peradventure complain of earthly parents, come ye and make the God of heaven your Father. There is One of whose care and tenderness you shall never complain ; of whose liberality you shall indulge no suspicion ; and who, while all the objects of love and expectation here below prove broken cisterns that hold no water, himself remains the fountain of living waters. And ye who have no God ! O return ye to the God from whom you have revolted, the heavenly Parent you have so ungratefully forsaken, and who by so many and such various means, would fain induce you, prodigal as you may be, to look toward your Father’s house. What a void — what a chasm in that bosom that has no God — no Father! How true to nature is such a prayer ! How dear to nature are the precious truths it reveals ! Return, poor exile, to thy forsaken Father. Come, thou wanderer, thou long-lost spirit, come back at thy Father’s bidding. Here is his letter missive to thee, inviting thee to come. Here is his name and seal. Are they not your Father’s ? In the secret of thy closet, then, return to him. In the silence of thy heart, return to him. In mourning and penitence, in confidence in his Son, in peace and joy, come back to him. And then, when you die to sin and earth, you will live unto God and heaven ; you will go to your Father’s house, and where he is, there shall you be also.