"That it is a divine nature. And it may be fo called,

1. In refpect of its original and defcent: for it derives from God as the great author of it. If we partake of it we are therein "God's workmanship, created in Chrift Jefus unto good works," Eph. ii. 10. This is the import of thofe phrafes fo eften found in St. John's writings, and I think peculiar to them, when he describes men of a holy difpofition, that they are of God and born of God. "He that

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is of God, heareth me," John viii. 47. This Chrift fays in oppofition to what he had just before declared to his unbelieving hearers ver. 44. "Ye are of your father the devil.". To be of the devil, was to be of a difpofition, in forming which he had a great agency; according to 2 Cor. iv. 4. So-to be of God, is to be of a temper of mind derived from him. "He that doth good, is of God," 3 John 11. the fame fenfe good men are fo often defcribed as born of God. 1 John iii. 9. "Whofoever is born of God, doth not commit fin ;" doth not make an ordinary practice and cuftom of any known fin; "for his feed remaineth in him," i. e. that holy difpofition, to which he has been formed by regeneration, governs in him; and he cannot fin, cannot fo fin, because he is born of God. The fame thing is expreffed by being born of the Spirit; as the work of fanctification is eminently the province of the Spirit, John iii. 5. 6. "Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh :" the naVOL. I F

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ture or temper we bring with us into the world by natural generation, is no better than its original, carnal. "But that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit :" that nature or temper we receive by regeneration and the grace of the Holy Spirit, is like its author, fpiritual and divine.

2. In refpect of its bent and tendency, the new nature is divine; it leads to God. By the apoftacy we are turned off from God, and averse to him; but the new nature carries us back to God. It was the great intention of Christ in his humiliation and fuffering for us, to recover us to this." He fuffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," 1 Pet. iii. 18. And the fcope of the Gofpel, containing the glad tidings of falvation, is the fame. Acts xxvi. 18. "To open men's eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." Indeed the renewed temper cannot be more emphatically expreffed in a few words, than in these, being "dead unto fin, but alive unto God;" which the Apostle would have all profeffed Chriftians to reckon themselves obliged to be Rom. vi. 11.

3. In respect of refemblance and likeness, it is divine. It is the glory of it, that it is a god-like temper and difpofition. And this I take to be the main thing intended by the apostle in the character. God had it in defign in all the methods of his grace, and all the bleffed promises which he has been pleased to make, to affimilate us to himself; fo to renew us in the spirit of our minds, that we should

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bear his image again. This was the glory of man's ftate by creation, in order to which God is reprefented as forming a confultation, "Let us make man after our own likenefs,' Gen. i. 26. and it was executed accordingly, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him," And fo the new fpiritual man is after God, or according to God. Eph. iv. 24. and " after his image," Col. iii. 10.

ver. 27.

In treating of this argument, that the chriftian difpofition is a god-like nature, I shall I. Offer fome things proper to be confidered for the due ftating of this truth.

And II. Point at fome principal inftances wherein it appears to be fo.

I. I would offer fome things which I apprehend neceffary to be observed, in order to ftate aright the meaning of this truth. For it is not without its difficulties; and we may entertain fuch mistaken apprehenfions about it, as would be both difhonourable to God, and prejudicial to ourselves. I would therefore obferve the following particulars.

1. There are fome parts of the renewed difpofition, which do not connote any thing in God, that they properly refemble. Many things are excellencies in our nature, which would be imperfections in the blessed God. Reverential fear, humility, meekness, trust, fubjection of foul, and a readiness to obey, are neceffary virtues in a reasonable creature ; but they can have no place in God, who is the supreme being. Faith in Christ and repentance for our fins are proper ingredients

in the christian temper, because we are alf fallen creatures, and therefore cannot have access to God but through a Mediator, and with a penitent acknowledgment of our revolt: but nothing like thefe is to be fuppofed in: God. Many acts of the mind are truly excellent and becoming us in the present state of things, for which even we shall have no occafion when we arrive at our perfect ftate; fuch as fuit the prefent imperfection of our fouls, and are owing to the corrupt affections, and appetites, and paffions which have broke loofe in us; and fuch as arise from the ftate of things in the world about us, the corruptions and follies of our fellow-creatures, the sufferings or the temptations to which we are liable: These are only accidentally be come a part of the temper needful to be found in ourselves, by reason of the change made for the worfe in our condition from our original ftate; and therefore for certain nothing parallel to them can be found in God, "in whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning."

2. There are many perfections of God,' to which the divine nature in us bears no proper likenefs. To affect a refemblance of God in fome of his perfections, is the greatest arrogance; it would befpeak it would bespeak a devilish temper. To pretend to independance and fupremacy, as if there were no Lord over us, or as if we would have it fo, is to fly in the face of God, and to put off the creature. To aspire at omniscience, or the knowledge of things too fublime for our reach, or which God has forbidden

forbidden us to fearch into, as the ordering of future events; is no better that to repeat the folly of our first parents, who were taken by this bait of the ferpent, "Ye fhall be as Gods, knowing good and evil,” Gen. iii. 5. To fet up ourselves for our chief good, as it is the perfection and glory of God to be his own happiness, is the very temper which chriftianity is defigned to cure.

The divine nature in us includes indeed fuch difpofitions as bear a correfpondence, tho' not a likeness, to all the inimitable perfections of God; i. e. a temper of foul becoming the belief and confideration of fuch divine excel-lencies. We therefore place our fupreme truft and dependence upon God, because he is the independent and all-fufficient being : we fear him, as the greatest and most powerful being; we love him and center in him as our portion, because of his infinite fulness and abfolute perfection. Thefe difpofitions in ustowards God do aptly correfpond to and anfwer thofe excellencies of God, which are the reason of them: they are a proper regard to God, which is the ftrict notion of godliness,. and fo will be more fully confidered hereafter; but they cannot fo juftly be called godlike, as when we imitatę God in his moral per-fections, wherein we cannot afpire at too near a likeness.

God is pleafed indeed to put fome faint refemblances of his natural, as well as of his moral perfections, upon his reasonable creàtures and upon fome of them more than upon others. As we are intelligent beings, we efemble

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