be still more forcibly urged to embrace it, I shall propose several other means, which may serve to the attaining it.
The reason why in holy Scripture we are so often called the children of God, by the mouths of the prophets, who very often repeat this saying, " I will be your father, and ye shall be my children;" and by St. Paul, who exhorts us to be " followers of God, as his most dear children" (Eph. v. 1); and by St. John, when he tells us, " See what love the heavenly Father has had for us, insomuch that he would have us called, and be effectually the sons of God" (1 John, iii. 1 ); and also in many other places to the same purpose. The reason, I say, why the same thing is repeated to us so often in holy Scripture is, as St. Austin says, " To the end that seeing, and considering the dignity and excellency of our origin, we may conceive and entertain a greater esteem and higher value of what we are; and, consequently, take greater care not to do anything unworthy our noble extraction. We use great care," says the same father, " to preserve a rich suit of clothes, and to see that it be not stained, and we look carefully to our jewels and other things of great value: so also, when holy Scripture tells us of our dignity; when it reminds us that we are the sons of God, and that God himself is our Father; it is to the end we should take great care to preserve our hearts pure and clean; and that we behave ourselves in all our actions, so as becomes those who have the honour to bear the character of the sons of God, and that we never degenerate from the noble and high sentiments with which that great dignity ought to inspire us." (Ep. 243, ca. 19.) The saying also of St. Leo Pope is well adapted to our purpose. " Consider," says he, " O Christian! what thy dignity is; and seeing thou art made partaker of the divine nature, suffer not thyself to fall back into thy ancient baseness, by attaching thyself too much to the things of this life; reflect on that head and body, whereof thou hast the honour to be a member". (Serm. 1. de Nat. Dom.) St. Paul represented the same thing heretofore to the Athenians, telling them, "That we descended from God; and it is from him we derive our origin" (Acts, xvii. 28', 29), and thereby he wishes to inspire them with sentiments worthy their noble extraction. But to make a still fuller and a more particular application of what is here said, and of the comparison of the rich robes mentioned by St. Austin, let us consider, that as the smallest stain is more indecent in a fine robe; and the richer the cloth is, the more the stain appears, inasmuch that what appears very considerable upon cloth of gold
