23S THE DOCTRINE Or THE TRINITY, DEEM. XLTV. way of return to the favour of God, and a state of peace and friendship with him, since we are said to be "brought near to God by the blood of Christ," verse 13. I sup- pose, it cannot be improper to take this verse, in the same extensive sense*. But, if the apostle should mean our access to God, in particular acts of worship, here, in my text, yet, I am sure, this glorious sentence isjustly applicable to the general access of a sinner to God, and his introduction into a state of divine favour: For it must be confessed, that our first general return to God from a state ofsin, and all our gradual advances to greater nearness, must be still expected, and obtained through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit. Here let us consider the different stations, or charac, ters, in which the sacred Three are represented in this great and important concern of our salvation, and at the end of each representation, I shall shew briefly, what our duties are to the sacred Three, in our approaches to God, correspondent to the stations, in which the gospel places them. I. God, the great God, and Father of all, is here re-, presented as sustaining the majesty ofgodhead, as the sovereign Lord, and governor of his creatures, and my text, compared with the foregoing verses, discovers him to us in these four views : 1. As offended with his creature man, on theaccount of sin; verse 3. for we are, " by nature, the children of his wrath, we are strangers and enemies in our minds, by wicked works," Col. i. 21. " We are " afar off from God, without God, and without hope in theworld," .Eph. ii. 12. Though this be spoken particularly of the Ephesian idolaters, yet, in a sense, it is true of every man, in a state of nature. 2. God appears willing to be reconciled, ready to receive us upon our return to him, in this chapter. In other places of scripture, he is represented sitting on a throne of grace, approachable by sinful creatures; and * I might take notice here, in order to confirm my extensive sense of the text, that the word access, in one or more copies, is sir7vnv, peace: And the inference, which the apostle makes in the next verse, Therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners," is very naturally drawn from, our access to God, as a state of peace with God, but not from a particular act of worship.
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