An exposition of the Symbol or Creed of the Apostles according to the tenor…An exposition of the Symbole or Creed of the Apostles according to the tenour…

The duties which we may learn hence are manifold. And here we have occasion offered first of all to consider who is our father by nature.¹ I shall say to corruption (sayeth Job) thou art my father▪ and to the worm, thou art my mother seeing god vouchsafeth this great prerogative to them ⟨p. 33⟩that love him, that he vvill be their father: therefore Job in consideration hereof would have every man to have recourse to his own natural condition, to see who is his father by nature. Job saith, corruption is his father: but if we mark the condition of our nature, we shall further see every man is by nature the child of wrath, and that Satan is his father: for so long as a man walks in his sins (which every man doth by nature) so long doth he show himself to be the lively child of the devil. And thus Christ reasoneth against the Scribes and Pharisees. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. And true it is,² that no child is so like his father that begat him, as every man by nature is like the devil: and the whole tenor and course of his natural life without grace is a lively resemblance of the disposition of Satan. Secondly, every one that believes God to be a Father, and in Christ his father,³ must as a good child be obedient to his fathers will. So Solomon saith, A wise son maketh a glad father. How?⁴ by doing his will: and therefore when one told our Saviour Christ that his mother and brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him, he said,⁵ Whosoever shall do my fathers vvill which is in heaven, the same is my father, my sister, and mother: where we may note, that he that will have God the Father to be his Father, and Christ Jesus his brother, must do the will of God the father. And hence God saith, If I be a master, where is my fear? If I be a father, where is my honour? ⁶