lare we unto
you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is
with the Father, and with his Son," 1 John i. 3. It is a voice of peace
and invitation to the fellowship of God. Behold, then the happiness of man
is the very end and purpose of the gospel. Christ is the repairer of the
breaches, the second Adam aspired to quicken what Adam killed. He hath
"slain the enmity," and cancelled the hand writing that was against us,
and so made peace by the blood of his cross, and then, having removed all
that out of the way, he comes and calls us unto the fellowship which we
were ordained unto from our creation. We who are rebels, are called to be
friends, "I call you not servants, but friends." It is a wonder that the
creature should be called a friend of God, but, O great wonder, that the
rebel should be called a friend! And yet that is not all. We are called to
a nearer union,--to be the sons of God, this is our privilege, John i. 12.
This is a great part of our fellowship with the Father and his Son, we are
the Father's children, and the Son's brethren "and if children then heirs,
heirs of God," and if brethren, then co-heirs with Christ, Rom. viii. 17.

Thus the union is begun again in Christ, but as long as sin dwells in our
mortal bodies it is not perfect, there is always some separation and some
enmity in our hearts, and so there is neither full seeing of God, for "we
know but in part," and we see "darkly," nor full enjoying of God, for we
are "saved by hope," and we "live by faith, and not by sight." But this is
begun which is the seed of eternal communion, we are here partakers of the
divine nature. Now then it must aspire unto a more perfect union with God
whose image it is. And therefore the soul of a believer is here still in
motion towards God as his element. There is here an union in affection but
not completed in fruition,--_affectu non effecta_. The soul pants after
God,--"Whom have I in heaven or earth but thee? My flesh and my heart
faileth," &c. A believing soul looks upon God as its only
portion,--accounts nothing misery but to be separated from him, and nothing
blessedness but to be one with him. This is the loadstone of their
affections and desires, the centre which they move towards, and in which
they will rest. It is true, indeed, that oftentimes our heart and our
flesh faileth us, and we become ignorant and brutish. Our affections
cleave to the earth, and temptations with their vio