PM 93 The Blefdnefs of the Peace - makers. S E R M. perfecuted him, ye are of your father the de.. XIV. vil, which he thus explaineth, the lulls of your father ye will do ; he was a murthererfrom the beginning, and abode not in the truth, be- caufe there is no truth in him; when he fpeak- eth a lie, he fpeaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it. Notwithftanding your vain boaft of being the children of God, as defcended from Abraham and lfrael, you are really to be called the children of the de- vil, by a fimilitude of temper and condu ±, refembling him in your enmity againft and feeking to defiroy an innocent per- fon, and in your violent oppofition to the truth of God. And the apoftle yohn, in the 3d chapter of his firft epiftle, where he is defignedly treating of the adoption of chriftians and of the high privileges which belong to them as the fons of God, faith in general at the 9th and i oth verfes, Whofoever is born of God finneth not; but in this the chil- dren of God are manifefl, and the children of the devil; he that Both not righteoufnefs is not of God, neither he that loveth not bis brother. Now, in this refped, the peace- makers are rightly called the children of God, becaufe they imitate him. There is no character more frequently given him in fcripture than that of the God of peace, not only as by the infinite
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