David, in Heman, in Job, &c., all holy saints. But the
scripture saith, Ye have not received the spirit of bondage for that end,
to fear again. It is not the allowance of your Father. Your allowance is
better and larger, if you knew it, and did not sit below it.

Now, the great gift, and large allowance of our Father, is expressed in
the next words, "But ye have received the Spirit of adoption," &c, which
Spirit of adoption is a Spirit of intercession, to make us cry to God as
our Father. These are two gifts, adoption, or the privilege of sons and
the Spirit of adoption revealing the love and mercy of God to the heart,
and framing it to a soul like disposition. Compare the two states
together, and it is a marvellous change,--a rebel condemned, and then
pardoned, and then adopted to be a son of God,--a sinner under bondage, a
bond slave to sin and Satan, not only freed from that intolerable bondage,
but advanced to this liberty, to be made a son of God. This will be the
continued wonder of eternity, and that whereabout the song of angels and
saints will be. Accursed rebels expecting nothing but present death,
sinners arraigned and sentenced before his tribunal and already tasting
hell in their consciences, and in fear of eternal perishing, not only to
be delivered from all that, but to be dignified with this privilege, to be
the sons of God, to be taken from the gibbet to be crowned! That is the
great mystery of wisdom and grace revealed in the gospel, the proclaiming
whereof will be the joint labour of all the innumerable companies above
for all eternity. Now, if you ask how this estate is attainable, himself
tells us, John i. 12, "As many as believed (or received) him, to them he
gave the privilege to be the sons of God." The way is made plain and easy.
Christ the Son of God, the natural and eternal Son of God, became the Son
of man. To facilitate this, he hath taken on the burden of man's sin, the
chastisement of our peace, and so of the glorious Son of God he became
like the wretched and accursed sons of men, and therefore God hath
proclaimed in the gospel, not only an immunity and freedom from wrath, to
all that in the sense of their own misery cordially receive him as he is
offered, but the unspeakable privilege of sonship and adoption for his
sake, who became our elder brother, Gal. iv. 4, 5. Men that want children,
use to supply their want by adopting some beloved friend in the place of a
son, and this is a kind of