Matthew 5:45

45. Children of your Father Images and likenesses of the Father of us all, who in patient calmness disregards the insults of men, and still pours upon them his sunlight and his showers. God, as a Father, we may well imitate, but not God as a judge. To him, indeed, vengeance belongeth, and, at the due time, by him it will be rendered. But it is rulers alone that are God’s representatives in this respect.

To become the children of God implies regeneration, or being born again. When a man is bidden to love God, and to love his enemy, he may truly reply, “I cannot love at my will I cannot love to order I cannot command a feeling to exist in my heart.” His excuse is true, and it proves the very doctrine of human helplessness which he is perhaps inclined to condemn. He cannot create a holy love, nor infuse a single holy emotion into his own heart. But he can see, if he will look at the truth written on his own conscience, that he ought to love God and man; and so seeing he may look to God the author of his being to renew him in righteousness, and to implant that affection in his heart which by nature he cannot have. That prayer, truly, and sincerely, and perseveringly offered, will be granted. So that while no man can regenerate himself, every man may, at proper will, attain regeneration from God.