Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/68

 lasting fitness of all things that are or ever were created. I am sensible, what a shortness, and even impropriety there is, in these and all other human expressions, when we endeavour by these faint pictures, to shadow out the deep things of God. Nevertheless we have no better, indeed no other way, during this our infant state of existence. As we now know but in part, so we are constrained to prophesy, i. e. speak of the things of God, in part also. ''We cannot order our speech by reason of darkness'', while we are in this house of clay. While I am a child I must ''speak as a child''. But I shall soon ''put away childish things''. For ''when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away''.

6. * But to return. The law of God, (speaking after the manner of men) is a copy of the eternal mind, a transcript of the divine nature: yea it is the fairest offspring of the everlasting Father, the brightest efflux of his essential wisdom, the visible beauty of the Most High. It is the delight and wonder of Cherubim and Seraphim and all the company of heaven, and the glory and joy of every wise believer, every well-instructed child of God upon earth.

III. 1. Such is the nature of the ever blessed law of God. I am, in the third place, to shew the properties of it: not all; for that would exceed the wisdom of an angel. But those only which are mentioned in the text. These are