like his father in everything.  That is the very meaning of father and son; that like should beget like.  Among fallen and imperfect men, some sons are worse and weaker than their fathers:  but we all feel that that is an evil, a thing to be sorry for, a sad consequence of our fallen state.  Our reasons and hearts tell us that a son ought to be equal to his father, and that it is in some way an affliction, almost a shame, to a father, if his children are weaker or worse than he is.  But we cannot fancy such a thing in God; the only-begotten perfect Son of the Almighty and perfect Father must be at least equal to His Father, as great as His Father, as good as His Father; the brightness of His Father’s glory, and the express image of His Father’s person.

But there is another thing about father and son which we must look at, and that is this:  a good son loves and obeys his father, and the better son he is, the more he loves and obeys his father; and therefore a perfect son will perfectly love and perfectly obey his father.

Now, here is the great difference between animals and men.  Among the higher animals, the mothers always, and the fathers sometimes, feed, and help, and protect their young:  but we seldom or never find that young animals help and protect their parents; certainly, they never obey their fathers when they are full grown, but are as ready to tear their fathers in pieces as their fathers are to tear them:  so that the love and obedience of full-grown sons to their fathers is so utterly human a thing, so utterly different from anything we find in the brutes, that we must believe it to be part of man’s immortal soul, part of God’s likeness in man.

And in the text our Lord declares that it is so; He declares that His obedience to His Father, and His Father’s love to Him, is the perfect likeness of what goes on between a good son and a good father among men; only that it is perfect, because it is between a perfect Father and a perfect Son.

Father and Son!  Let philosophers and divines discover what they may about God, they will never discover anything so deep as the wonder which lies in those two words, Father and Son.  So deep, and yet so simple!  So simple, that the wayfaring man, though poor, shall not err therein.  ’Who is God?  What is God like?  Where shall we find Him, or His likeness?’—­so has mankind been crying in all ages, and getting no answer, or making answers for themselves in all sorts of superstitions, idolatries, false philosophies.  And then the Gospel comes, and answers to every man, to every poor and unlearned labourer:  Will you know the name of God?  It is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit of love, joy, peace; a Spirit of perfect satisfaction of the Father in the Son, and perfect satisfaction of the Son with the Father, which proceeds from both the Father and the Son.  It needs no scholarship to understand that Name; every one may understand it who is a good father; every one may understand it who is a good son, who looks up to and obeys his father with that filial spirit of love, and obedience, and satisfaction with his father’s will, which is the likeness of the Holy Spirit of God, and can only flourish in any man by the help of the Holy Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son.