o a blessed society and fellowship
with the Father, and withal, to a sweet fellowship among ourselves, for
both you see are here.

We are called to fellowship with the Father, and what is that but to have
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ thy Father, and thou to be his son by
adoption of grace? It is certainly the very marrow and extract of the
whole covenant, and all the promises thereof, "I will be your Father, and
ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty," 2 Cor. vi.
18. "I go," saith Christ, "to your Father and my Father, and to your God
and my God," John xx. 17. O what a sweet complication and interchange of
relations!

"I will be your God, and ye shall be my people." Here is the epitome of
all happiness and felicity. In this word all is enclosed, and without this
nothing is to be found that deserves the desires of an immortal spirit.
For hence it follows, that a soul is filled with the all fulness of God
(Eph. iii. 19), for that is made over to thee who believest the gospel,
and thou hast as real a right and title to it as men have to their
father's inheritance. Then to have fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ is
another branch of this dignity, and this is that which introduceth the
other. Christ is the middle person, the Mediator between God and man,
given for this end,--to recover men from their woeful dispersion and
separation from God, and reduce them again to that blessed society. And,
therefore, our acquaintance, as it were, first begins with him, and by him
we are led to the Father. No man can come to the Father but by the Son,
therefore, if you have his friendship, you have done the business, for he
and his Father are one.

Now this fellowship, to branch it forth more particularly, is either real
or personal. Real, I mean {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} _bonorum_, a communion of all good
things, a communion with him in his nature, offices, and benefits,--and
this must be laid down as the foundation stone of this fellowship. He came
near us, to partake of flesh and blood with us, that we might have a way,
a new and living way, consecrated,--even the vail of his flesh, to come to
God by, for certainly this gives boldness to a soul to draw near to God
with some expectation of success and acceptation, when it is seriously
consid