God Exalted, Man Humbled & Chri (continued)
from above. The heathen were wont to feign that their heroes and great men were descended from the gods, but God's people are descended from the true and living God, without any fiction, Psa. 22:30, "A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation." That is, a seed, a posterity, shall serve him, and it shall be accounted to the Lord for his posterity or offspring.
Now the people of God may be considered as descending from God, and as being his posterity, either remotely or immediately.
1. They are remotely descended from God. The church is a distinct race that originally came from God. Other men are of the earth, they are of earthly derivation, they are the posterity of men, but the church is the posterity of God. Thus it is said, Gen. 6:2, "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." The sons of God were the children of the church, of the posterity of Seth. The daughters of men were those that were born out of the church, and of the posterity of Cain, and those that adhered to him.
It was God that set up the church in the world, and those who were the first founders of the church were of God, and were called specially the sons of God. Seth was the seed that God appointed, Gen. 4:25, "And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth. For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Adam, in Luke's genealogy of Christ (Luke 3:38, "Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God,") is called the son of God, possibly, not only because he was immediately created by God, but also because he was from God, and was begotten by him. As he was a good man, and was the founder of the church of which Christ himself became a son. He was the first in line of the church, and as such he was from God. When the church was almost extinct God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, and afterwards out of Haran. Abraham was one immediately from God, and all God's people in all succeeding ages are accounted as the children of Abraham. God promised Abraham that his seed should be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand on the seashore, meaning primarily not his posterity according to the flesh. John the Baptist said, God is able of the stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Those are the seed of Abraham, as we are taught in the New Testament, that are of the faith of Abraham. Christians, as well as Jews, are the seed of Abraham, Gal. 3:29, "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." So the church is the seed of Jacob, who is called God's son, Hos. 11:1, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." All God's people are called Israel, not only his posterity according to the flesh, but proselytes of old, and Gentile Christians now under the gospel. The sincerely godly, and they only, are the true Israel.
So the people of God are descended from God the Father originally, as they are descended from Christ the Son of God. Christians are called the seed of Christ, Gal. 3:29, "And if ye be Christ's," etc. They are, as it were, his posterity. Christ calls them his children, Heb. 2:13, "Behold I and the children which thou hast given me." So that if we trace the pedigree of God's people up to their original, they will be found to be descended from God: they are of heaven, they are not of this world. Other men are of the earth, and are earthly, but these are heavenly, and are of heaven. The wicked are called the men of this world, Psa. 17:14, "From men which are thy hand, O Lord, from men of the world which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes." The first beginnings of the church were from God, the great founder of the church. Jesus Christ