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(4) Resist every hindrance that keeps you from relishing your Father`s adopting
grace. Simon Ford lists these hindrances:
A secret murmuring frame of spirit against Gods present dispensations towards thee.
A kind of delight in complaining against thy self, and taking Satans part many times in bearing
false witness against thy own soul.
An unthankful denyal of the works of Gods sanctifying spirit in the heart.
An unwarrantable thrusting off those promises and comfortable truths which God in the Ministry
of the Word or otherwise brings home to our condition.
A groundlesse surmising of an irrecoverablenesse in our condition from such and such
threatenings of Scripture as concerne us not.
Keeping Satans counsel.
Secret tempting of God, and dependence upon such means and such men for peace, and limiting
God to such and such a time, and resolving not to wait on God beyond that time, or not to expect it
from any other meanes.
A sinfull ambition of self-preparations for comfort and peace: were I so much humbled, saith the
poor soul, so kindly and ingenuously affected with my sins; could I recover of this deadnesse, and
flatness of spirit into any measure of livelinesse and spiritualnesse in my performances; then I
would believe comfort, and assurance of God`s love belonged to me.
Giving too much way to prejudices against God, and his love, from present sense and feeling.
Slacknesse and remissnesse in (occasioned by successelessenesse of) Ordinances and Duties.
Over-scrupulousness, and scepticall-question-fulnesse.
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(5) Rejoice in being in your Father`s presence. Delight in communing with Him.
Burgess writes, A Son delights to have letters from his Father, to have discourse about
him, especially to enjoy his presence.
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In heaven, this joy will be full; our adoption will then be perfected (Rom. 8:23).
Then we will enter into the Father`s presence and palace, where we will be
everlastingly enjoying, delighting, and praising God.
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Let us wait and long for that, as
children who eagerly anticipate our full inheritance, where the Triune God shall be our all
in all.
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Concluding applications
The classic Puritan statement on adoption in the Westminster Standards leaves much
unsaid. Tim Trumper makes a case for it being insufficiently Pauline, insufficiently
pervasive, and insufficiently redemptive-historical.
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Though the first two of these
concerns are adequately addressed in Puritan literature, the Puritans are by no means
exhaustive in their doctrine of spiritual adoption. For example, they have not adequately
addressed the centrality of sonship in biblical doctrine nor as an organizing principle for
understanding salvation along the lines that Sinclair Ferguson suggests.
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