Children and Relations how to be denied. I 5 7 defpife them becaufe they are brethren but the rather do them fervice becaufe they are faithful. This is the doftrine of the Gofpel; which flablifheth and not diffolvetb our Relati- ons : and if any teach otherttife, he is proud, knov)hvg nothing, but doatini about queflicns and firifes of words, I Tim. 6.1,2, 3,4. 'Believing wives mull flay even with unbelieving hul- bands, and win them to Chrift by an eminent fubjeftion, chaffy, modefty, and piety, I Pet,. 3. I, 2, 3,4,6. Cor.7. 13,14. trld the like may be faid of other relations. God calls us not as Popifh votaries conceive, to renounce and feparate fromour natural or other near relations, onpretence of be- ing devoted to him. The words of Paul, 2 Car. 5. 16. are abufedby them. Its true, we mull know ne man after the fiefb, no not Chrill himfelf ; that is, as esteeming them principally for carnal excellencies ( as perfonage, greatnefs, birth, &c. ) or to carnal advantages and ends, or preferring the body and common relations before the inward fpiritual worth and fpi- ritual relations : And thus we mull not knoweither parents, or children, or husbands, or wives after the flefh ; should a Chriflian knowor do any thing after the flea as "a Carnal man : but yet as we fill continue our Relation to Chrifias his Difciples, and Servants, and Members, and Redeemed ones, for all that we know him not after the flefh fo mull we con- tinue our Relations to others, and be faithful in the duties of thofe Relations, and this after the Spirit and for God. So that by this you may fee, that it is our Relations car- nally confidered that are the flefhly intereft whichwe mull not know ; that is, As they are lookt upon as any part of that felf, or of the Interefi of that felf which would be its own End and God, and which is oppofite to God, or not fubordi- nate to him. To look upon your children more as _yours then as God's,is a carnal felfifh thought : To love them inordinately, and more becaufe they are your own, then becaufe they are Gods, and to love your own inter& inyour children more then Gods inter& in them, is a felfifh regarding them after the flefh : Grace doth not deliroy nature, nor natural Rela- tions or affeftions but it fanftifieth them all to God and carrieth ns above it, and deftroyeth it as glorious intuition X 3 deftroyeth
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