The Principle of Love to God

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Keep yourselves in the love of God.”

It. is not easy to give the definition of a term, which is currently and immediately understood without one. But, should not this ready understanding of the term supersede the definition of it, what can we tell of love in the way of explanation, but by a substitution of terms, not more sunple and more intelligible than itself? Can this affection of the soul be made clearer to you by words, than it is already clear. to you by your own consciousness? Are we to attempt the elucidation of a term, which, without any feeling of darkness or of mystery, you make familiar use of every day? You say with the utmost promptitude, and you have just as ready an apprehension of the meaning of what you say, that I love this man, and bear a still higher regard to another, but have my chief and my best liking directed to a third. We will not attempt to go in search of a more luminous or expressive term, for this simple affection, than the one that is commonly employed. But it is a different thing, to throw light upon the workings of this. affection, — to, point your attention to the objects on which. it rests, and finds a complacent gratification, — and to assign the circumstances, which are either favourable or unfavourable to its excitement. All this may call forth an exercise of discrimination. But instead of dwelling any more on the significancy of the term-love, which is the term. of my text, let us forthwith take it unto use, and be confident that, in itself, it carries no ambiguity along with it. wre The term. love, indeed, admits of a real andintelligent application to inanimate objects. ‘There is a beauty in sights, and a beauty in sounds, and I may bear a positive love to the mute and unconscious individuals in which this beauty hath taken up its residence. I may love a flower, or a murmuring stream, or a suimy bank, or.a humble cottage peeping forth from its concealment, — or, in fine, a whole landscape may teem with such varied graces, that I may say of it, this is the scene I most love to behold, this is the prospect over which my eye and my imagination, most fondly expatiate. The term love admits of an equally real. and equally intelligent application, to our fellow-men.. They, too, are the frequent and familiar objects of this affection, and they often are so, “because they possess certain accomplishments of person-and of character, by which it is ex- -cited. ol Jove the man whose every glance 16* speaks an elfusive cordiality towards those who are around him. I love the man whose heart and whose hand are ever open to the representations of distress. love the man who possesses such a softness of nature, that the imploring look of a brother in want, or of a brother in pain. disarms him-of all his selfishness, and draws him out to some large and willing surrender of generosity. I love the man who carries on his aspect, not merely the expression of worth, but of worth maintained in the exercise of all its graces, under every variety of temptation and discouragement; who, in the midst of calumny, can aet the warm and enlightened philanthropist; who, when beset with many provocations, can weather them all in calm and settled endurance; who can be kind even to the unthankful and the evil;-and who, if he possess the awful virtnes of truth and of justice, only heightens our attachment the more, that he possesses goodness, and tenderness, and benignity along with them, Now, we would have you to advert to one capital distinction, between the former and the latter class of objects. The inanimate reflect ‘no love upon us back again. They do not sin- ‘gle out any one of their admirers, and, by an act of preference, either minister to his selfish appetite for esteem, or minister to his: sefish appetite for enjoyment, by affording to him a larger

share ‘than to others, of their presence, e~d of all the delights which their presence inspires. They remain’ motionless in their places, without will and without sensibility; and the homage they receive, is‘ from the disinterested affection, which men bear to thei

Joveliness. They are loved, and that purely, because they are lovely. There is no mixture of selfishness in the affection that is offre d to them. They do not put on a sweeter smile to one man than to another;-but all the features of that beauty in which they are arrayed, stand inflexibly the same to every beholder; and he, without any conscious mingling whatever of self-love, in the emotion with which he gazes at the charms of some external scenery, is actuated by a love towards it, which rests and which terminates on the objects that he is, employed in contemplating. Saaae.:

But this is not always the case, when our fellow-men are the objects of this affection. I should love cordiality, and benevolence, and compassion for their own sakes; but Jet your own experience tell, how far more sweetly and more intensely the love is felt, when this cordiality is turned, in one stream of kindliness, towards myself; when the eye of friendship has singled out me, and looks at. me with a peculiar graciousness; when the man of tenderness has pointe! his way-to the abode of my suffering family, and there shed in secrecy over them his liberalities, and his tears; when he has forgiven me the debt that I was unable to discharge; and when, oppressed as I am, by the consciousness of having injured or reviled him, he has nobly forgotten or overlooked the whole: provocation, and persists in a regard that knows no abatement, and in a well-doing that is never weary.

‘There is an element, then, in the love I bear yee = SERMON” IX.

to a fellow-man, which does not exist in the love I bear to an inanimate object; and which may serve, perhaps, to darken the character of the affection that I feel towards the former. We most readily concede it, that the love of another, on account of the virtues which adorn him, changes its moral character altogether, if it be a love to him, solely on account.of the benefit which I derive from the exercise of these virtues. 1 should love compassion on its own account, as well as on the account that it is I who have been the object of it. I should Yove justice on its own account, as well as on the account that my grievances have been redressed by the dispensation of it. On looking at goodness, I should feel an affection resting on this object, and finding there its full and its terininating gratification; and that, though I had never stood in the way of any one of ‘its beneficent operations..

How is it, then, that the special direction of a moral virtue in another, towards the object of my personal benefit, operates in enhancing both the sensation which it imparts to my - heart; ‘and the estimate which I form of it? What is the peculiar quality communicated to my admiration of another’s friendship, and another’s goodness, by the circumstance of myself, being the individual towards whom that friendship is cherished, and in favour of whom that goodness puts itself forth into active exertion? At the sight of a benevolent-man, there arises in’ my bosom an instantaneous homage of regard and of reverence; — but should that homage take a pointed direction towards. my-

self, — should it realize its fruits on the comfort and security of my own person, — should it be employed in gladdening my home, and spreading enjoyment over my family, oppressed with want and pining in sickness, there ig, you will allow, by’these circumstances, a heightening of the love and the admiration that 1 formerly rendered to him. And, we should like to know what is the precise character of the addition that has thus been given to my regard for the virtue of benevolence. We should like to know, if it be altogether a pure and a praiseworthy accession that has thus come upon the sentiment, with which I now look at-my benefactor, — or, if, by contracting any taint of ‘selfishness, it has lost the high rank that formerly belonged — to it, as a disinterested affection, towards the goodness which beautifies and adorns his character.; Sie 24

“There is one-way, however, in which this special direction of a moral virtue towards my particular interest, may increase my affection for’it, and without changing the moral character of my affection. It gives me a nearer view of the virtue in question. It is true, that the virtue may just’be as lovely when exercised in behalf of my neighbour, as when exercised. in behalf of myself.. But, in the former case, I am not an eye-witness to the display and the evolution of its loveliness. am’ a limited being, who cannot take in so fall-and so distinct an impression of the character of what is distant, as of the character of what is immediately be- ‘side me. It is true, that all the circumstances may be reported. But you know very well, that a much livelier representation is obtained of any object, by the seeing of it, than by the hearing of it. To be told of kindness, does not bring this attribute of character so forcibly, or:so clearly hgme to my observation, as to receive a visit from kindness, and to take it by the hand, and to see its benignant mien, and to hear its gentle and complacent vce, and to witness the solicitude of its inquiries, and to behold its tender and honest anxiety for my interest, and to share daily and weekly in the liberalities which it has bestowed upon me. When all this goes on around my own person, and within the hmits of my own dwelling-place, it is very true that self.is gratified, and that this circumstance may give rise to sensations, which are altogether distinct from the love I bear to moral worth, or to moral excellence. But this does not hinder, that, along with these sensations, a disinterested love for the moral virtue of which [I have been the object, may, at the same time, have its room, and its residence within my bosom. I may love goodness more. than ever, on its own own account, since it has taken its specific way to my habitation, and: that, just because I have obtained a nearer acquaintance with it. I may love it better, because I know it better. My affection for it may have become more intense, and more devoted than before, because its beauty is now more fully anfolded to the eye of my observation than before. And.thus, when we admit that the goodness of which I am the object, originates within me certain. feelings different in kind from that which. is exeited by goodness in general, yet it may heighten the degree of this latter feeling also. It may kindle or augment the Jove I bear to moral virtue in itself; or, in other words, it may enhance my affection for worth, without any change whatever in the moral character of that affection.

Now, before we proceed to consider those peculiar emotions which are excited within me, by being the individual, in whose favour certain virtues are exercised, and which emotions are, all of them, different in kind from the affection that I bear for these virtues, — let us further observe, that the term love, when applied to a sentient being, considered as. the object of it, may denote an affection, different in the principle of its excitement, from any that we have been yet considering. My love to another may. He in the liking I have for the moral qualities which belong to him; and this, by way of distinctness, may be called the love of moral esteem or approbation. Or, my love to another, may consist in the desire I have for his happiness;-aed this may be called the love of kindness. These two are often allied to each other in fact, but there is a real difference in their nature. The love of kindness-which bear to my infant child, may have to reference to its moral qualities whatever. ‘This love finds: its terminating gratification, in obtaining for the object of it, exemption from pain, or in ministering to its enjoyments. It is very true, that the sight of what is odious or revolting in the character of another, tends, in point of fact, to dissipate, all the love of kindness [ may have ever. borne pto.him.. But it does not always

192 SERMON IX. Ne

do so, and one instance of this proves a real distinction, in point of nature, between the love of kindness, and the love of moral esteem. And the highest and most affecting instance which can be given of this distinction, is in the love wherewith God hath loved the world; is in that kindness towards us, through Christ Jesus, which he hath made known to meninthe Gospel; is in that longing regard to his fallen creatures, whereby he was not willing that any should perish, but rather that all should live. There was the love of kindness standing out, in marked and separate display, from the love of moral esteem; for, alas! in the degraded race of mankind, there, was not one quality which could call forth such an affection, in the breast of the Godhead. It was, when we were hateful to him in character, that, in person and in interest, we were the objects of his most unbounded tenderness. It was, when we were enemies by wicked works, that God looked on with pity, and stretched forth, to his guilty children, the arms of offered reconciliation. It was, when we had wandered far, in the paths of worthlessness and alienation, that he devised a message of love, and sent his Son into our world, to seek and to save us. 4 And this, by the way, may serve to illustrate the kind of love which we are required to bear to our enemiés. We are required to love them, in the same way in which God loves his enemies. A conscientious man will feel oppressed by the difficulty of such a-precept, if he try to put it into obedience, by loving those who have offended, with the same feeling of complacency with which he loves those who have befriended him. But the truth is, that the love of moral esteem often enters, as a principal ingredient, into the love of complacency; and We are not required, by our imitation of the Godhead, to entertain any such affection, for the depraved and the worthless. It is enough, that we cherish towards them in our hearts the love of kindness; and this will be felt a far more practicable achievement, than to force up the love of complacency into a bosom, ‘revolted by the aspect of treachery, or dishonesty, or unprincipled selfishness. There is no possible motive to excite the latter affection. There may be a thousand to excite the former: and we have only to look to the unhappy man in all his prospects, and in all his relations; we have only to pity his delusions, and to view him as the hapless victim of a sad and ruinous infatuation; we have only to carry our eye onwards to the agonies of that death, which will shortly lay hold of him, and to compute the horrors of that eternity, which if not recovered from the error of his way, he is about to enter; we have oly, in a word, to put forth an exercise of faith in certain near and impending realities, the evidence of which is altogether resistless, in order to summon up such motives, and such considerations, as may cause the compassion of our nature to predominate over the resentment of our nature; and as will assure to a believer the victory over such urgencies of his constitution, as to the unrenewed heart, are utterly unconquerable. But, to resume our argument, let it be ob- 17 served, that the kindness of God is one of the loveliest, and most estimable of the attributes, which belong to him. It is a bright feature in that assemblage of excellencies, which enter into the character of the Godhead; and, as such, independently altogether of this kindness being exercised upon me, I should offer to .it the homage of my moral approbation. But, should Ibe the special and the signalized object of his kindness, there is another sentiment toward God, beside the love of moral esteem, that ought to be formed within me by that circumstance, and which, in the business of reasoning, should be kept

apart from it. There is the love of gratitude. These often go together, and may be felt simultaneously, towards the one being we are employed in contemplating. But they are just as distinct, each from the other, as is the love of moral esteem from the love of kindness. We trust that we have already convinced you, that God feels towards us, his inferiors, the love of kindness, when he cannot, from the nature of. the object, feel for us the slightest degree of the love of moral esteem. In the same manner, may we feel, we are not saying towards God, but towards an earthly benefactor, the love of gratitude, when, from ‘ the nature of the object we are employed in contemplating, there is much to impair within us the love of moral esteem, or to extinguish it altogether. Js it not most natural to say of the man, who has been personally benevolent to myself, and who has, at the same time, disgraced himself by his vices, that, bad as he is, he has been at all times remarkably kind to me, and felt many a movement of friendship towards my person, and done many a deed of important service to my family, and that I, at least, owe him a gratitude for all this, — that I, at least, should be longer than others, of dismissing from my bosom the last remainder of cordiality towards him, — that, if infamy and poverty have followed, in the career of his wickedness, and he have become an outcast from the attentions of other men, it is not for me to spurn him instantly from my door, — or, in the face of my particular recollections, to look unpitying and unmoved, at the wretchedness into which he has fallen.

. It is the more necessary, to distinguish the love of gratitude from the love of moral esteem, that each of these affections may be excited simultaneously within me, by one act or by one exhibition of himself, on the part of the Deity. Let me be made to understand, that God has passed by my transgression, and generously admitted me into the privileges and the rewards ef obedience, — I see in this, a tenderness. and a mercy, and a love, for his creatures, which, if blended at the same time with all that is high atid honourable in the more august attributes of his nature, have the effect of presenting him to my mind, and of drawing out my heart in moral regard to him, as a most amiable and estimable object.ofcontemplation. But, besides this, there is a peculiar love of gratitude, excited by the consideration that I am the object of this benignity, — that I am one of the creatures to whom he has directed this peculiar regard, — that he has singled outme, and conceived a gracious purpose towards me, and in the execution of this purpose is lavishing upon my person, the blessings ofa father’s care, anda father’s tenderness. Both the love of moral esteem, and the love of gratitude, may thus be in contemporaneous operation within me; and it will be seen to accomplish a practical, as well as a metaphysical purpose, to keep the one apart from the other, in the view of the mind, when love towards God is the topic of speculation, which engages it.

But further, let it be understood, that the love of gratitude differs from the love of moral esteem, not merely in the cause which immediately originates it, but also in the object, in which it finds its rest and its gratification. It is the kindness of another being to myself, which originates within me the love of gratitude towards him; and it is the view of what is morally estimable in this being, that originates within me all the love of moral esteem, that I entertain for him. There is a real distinction of cause between these two affections, and there is also between them a real distinction of object. The love of moral esteem finds its complacent gratification, in the act of dwelling contemplatively on that Being, by whom it is excited; just as a tasteful enthusiast inhales delight frem the act of gazing, on the charms of some external scenery. The pleasure he receives, emanates directly upon his mind, from the forms of beauty and of loveliness, which are around him. And if, instead of a taste for the beauties of nature, there exists within him, a taste for the beauties of holiness, then will he love the Being, who presents to the eye of his contemplation the fallest assemblage of them, and his taste’ will find its complacent gratification in dwelling upon him, whether as an object of thought, or as an object of perception. “One thing have! desired,” says the Psalmist, “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” Now, the love of gratitude is distinct from this in its object. It is excited by the love of kindness; and the feeling which is thus excited, is just a feeling of kindness back again. It is kindness begetting kindness. The language of this affection is. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits?” He has done what is pleasing and gratifying to me. What shall I do to please, and to gratify him? The love of gratitude seeks for answers to this question, and finds its delight in acting upon them, and whether the answer be, — this is the will of God even your sanctification, — or, with the sacrifices of liberality God is well pleased,. — or, obedience to parents is well pleasing i: his sight, — these all point out so many lines of conduct, to which the impulse of the love of gratitude would carry us, and attest this to be the love of God, — that ye keep his commandments. 1 And, indeed, when the same Being compines, in his own person, that which ought to excite the love of moral esteem, with that which ought to excite the love of gratitude, — the two ingredients, enter with a miagled but harmonious concurrence, into the exercise of one compound affection. It is true, that the more appropriate offering of the former 17

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is the offering of praise, — just as when one. looks to the beauties of nature, he breaks out into a rapturous acknowledgment of them; and so it may be, when one looks to the venerable, and the lovely in the character of God. The more appropriate offering of the latter, is the offering of thanksgiving, or of such services as are fitted to please, and to gratify a benefactor. But still it may be observed, how each of these simple affections tends to express itself, by the very act which more characteristically marks the workings of the other; or, how the more appropriate offering of the first of them,may be prompt- ed under the impulse, and movement of the second of them, and conversely: For, if I love God because of his perfections, what principle can more powerfully or more directly lead to the imitation of them? — which is the very service that he requires, and the very offering that he is most pleased with. And, if I love God because of his goodness to me, what is more fitted to prompt my every exertion, in the way of spreading the honours of his character and of his name among my fellows, — and, for this purpose, to magnify in their hearing the glories and the attributes of his nature? It is thus that the voice of praise and the voice of gratitude may enter into one song of adoration; and that whilst the Psalmist, at one time, gives thanks to God at the remembrance of his holiness, he, at another, pours forth praise at the remembrance of his mercies.

To have the love of gratitude towards God, it is essential that we know and believe his love ef kindness towards us. To have the love of moral esteem towards him, it is essential that the loveliness of his character be in the eye of the mind; or, in other words, that the mind keep itself in steady and believing contemplation of the excellencies which belong to him. The view that we have of God, is just as much in the order of precedency to the affection that we entertain for him, as any two successive steps can be, in any of the processes of our mental constitution. To obtain the introduction of love into the heart, there must, asa preparatory circumstance, be the introduction of knowledge into the understanding; or, as we can never be said to know what we do not believe — ere we have love, we must have faith; and, accordingly, in the passage from which our text is extracted, do we perceive the one pointed to, as the instrument for the production of the other. “Keep yourselves in the love of God, building yourselves up on your most holy faith.”

And here, it ought to be remarked, that a man may experience a mental process, and yet have no taste or no understanding for the explanation of it. The simple truths of the Gospel, may enter with acceptance into the mind of a peasant, and there work all the proper influences on his heart and character, which the Bible ascribes to them: and yet he may be utterly incapable of tracing that series of inward movements, by which he is carried onwards from a belief in the truth, to all those moral and affectionate regards, which mark a genuine disciple of the truth. He may be the actual subject of these movements, though altogether unable to follow or to analyze them. This is not peculiar to the judgments, or the feelings of Christianity. In the matters of ordinary life,a man may judge sagaciously, and feel correctly while ardently; — and experience, in right and natural order, the play of his various faculties, without having it at all in his power, either to frame or to follow a true theory of his faculties It is well, that the simple preaching of the Gospel has its right practical operation on men, who make no attempt whatever, to comprehend the. metaphysics of the operation. But, if ever metaphysics be employed to darken the freeness of the Gospel offer, or to dethrone faith from the supremacy which belongs to it, or to forbid the approaches of those whom God has not forbidden; then must it be met upon its own ground, and the real character of our beneficent religion be asserted, amid the attempts of those who have in any way obscured or injured it by their illustrations.