ood which He did was like. Let us believe that God
the Father's goodness is the same as Jesus Christ's goodness. Let
us believe really what we say when we confess that Jesus was the
brightness of His Father's Glory, and the express image of His
Person.
SERMON VIII. SONSHIP
John v. 19, 20, 30. Then answered Jesus, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father
do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things
that Himself doeth.
I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my
judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of
my Father which is in Heaven.
This, my friends, is why man should walk humbly and obediently with
his God; because humility and obedience are the likeness of the Son
of God, who, though He is equal to His Father, yet to do His
Father's will humbled Himself, and took on Him the form of a slave,
and though He is a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He
suffered; sacrificing Himself utterly and perfectly to do the
commands of His Father and our Father, of His God and our God; and
sacrificing Himself to His Father not as a man merely, but as a son;
not because He was in the likeness of sinful flesh, but because He
was The Everlasting Son of His Father; not once only on the cross,
but from all eternity to all eternity, the Lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. This is a great mystery; we may understand
somewhat more of it by thinking over the meaning of those great
words, Father and Son.
Now, first, a son must be of the same nature as his father,--that is
certain. Each kind of animal brings forth after its kind: the lion
begets lions, the sheep, sheep; the son of a man must be a man, of
one substance with his earthly father; and by the same law, the Son
of God must be God. Take away that notion: say that the only-
begotten Son of God is not very God of very God, of one substance
with His Father, and the word son means nothing. If a son be not of
the same substance as his father, he is not a son at all. And more,
a perfect son must be as great and as good as his father, exactly
like his father in everything. That is the very meaning of father
and son; that like should beget like. Among fallen and imperfect
men, some sons are worse and weaker than their fathers: but we all
feel that that is
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