The Affection of Moral Esteem towards God

PSALM XxvVil. 4.

e thing have I desired of the-Lord, that will I seek

er; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the

‘cys of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, «and to quire in his temple.’

our last discourse we adverted to the effect certain theological speculation about love, arkening the freeness of the gospel, and inepting the direct influence of its overtures its calls on the mind of an inquirer. Ere conceive the love of gratitude towards her, we must see in him the love of kindtowards us; and thus, by those who have d to distinguish between a love of the beneind a love of the benefactor, has the virtue ratitude been resolved into the love of ourzs. And they have thought that there mustly be a purer affection than this, to mark outset of the great transition from sin unto teousness; and the one they have specified - e disinterested love of God. They have n to this last affection a place so early, as

istract the attention of an enquirer from that vay which is primary. The invitation of “come and buy without money, and without price,” is not heard by the sinner along with the exaction of loving God for himself, — of loving him, on account of his excellencies, — of loving him, because he is lovely. Let us, therefore, try to ascertain whether even this love of moral esteem is not subordinate to the faith of the gospel; and whether it follows, that because this affection forms so indispensable a part of godliness, faith should, on that, account, be deposed from the place of antecedency which belongs to it. And here let it be most readily and most abundantly conceded, that. we are not perfect and complete, in the whole of God’s will, till the love of moral esteem be in us, as well as the love of gratitude, — till that principle, of which, by nature, we are utterly destitute, be made to arise in our hearts, and to have there a thorough establishment, and operation, — till we love God, not merely on account of his love to our persons, but on account of the glory, and the residing excellence, which meet the eye of the spiritual beholder, upon his own character. We are not preparing for heaven, — we shall be utterly incapable of sharing in the noblest of its enjoyments, — we shall not feel ourselves surrounded by an element of congeniality in paradise, — there will be no happiness for us, even in ‘the neighbourhood of the throne of God, ‘and with the moral lustre of the Godhead made visible to our eyes, if we are strangers to the emotion of loving God for himself- — if addi. tional altogether, to the consideration that God is looking with complacency upon me, I do not feel touched and attracted by the beauties of his

character, when I look with the eye of contemplation towards him. I am. without the most

essential of all moral accomplishments in myself,

if 1 am without the esteem of moral accomplishments in another; and if my heart be of such a

constitution that nothing mm the character of

God can draw my admiration, or my regard, to

him — then, though admitted within the portals

of the city which hath foundations, and removed from the torments of hell, I am utterly unfit

for the joys and the exercises of heaven. I may

spend an eternity of exemption from pain, but

without one rapture of positive felicity to brighten it. Heaven. in fact, would bea wilderness to my héart; and, in the midst of its acclaiming throng would droop, and be in heaviness

under a sense of-perpetual dissolution.

And let this convince us of the mighty transition, that must be described by the men of this world, ere they are meet for the other world of the spirits of just men made perfect. It is not speaking of this transition, m terms too great and too lofty, to say, that they must be born again, and made new creatures, and called out of darkness into a light that is marvellous. The truth is, that out of the pale of vital Christianity, there is not to be found among all the varieties of taste, and appetite, and sentimental admiration, any love re God as he is, — any relish for the holiness of his character, — any echoing testimony, in the bosom of alienated man, ‘to what is graceful, or to what is venerable in the character of the Deity. He may be feelingly alive to the beauties of what is seen, and what is sen-

. on one sible. The scenery of external nature may charm him. The sublimities of a surroundin

materialism may kindle and dilate him wit

images of grandeur. Even the moralities of a fellow-creature may engage him; and these, with the works of genius, may fascinate him into an idolatrous veneration of human power, or of human virtue. But while he thus luxuriates and delights himself with the forms of derived excellence, there is no sensibility in: his heart towards God. He rather prefers to keep by the things that are made, and, surrounded, by them, to bury himself into a forgetfulness of his Maker. He is most in his element, when in feeling, or in employment, he is most at a distance from God. There is a coldness, or a hatred, or a terror, which mixes up with all his contemplations of the Deity; and gives to his mind a kind of sensitive recoil from the very, thought of him. He-would like to live always in the world, and be content with such felicity as it can give, and cares not, could he only get what his heart is set upon here, and be permitted to enjoy it for ever, though he had no sight of God, and no fellowship with him through eternity. The event to which, of all others, he looks forward with the most revolting sense of aversion and dismay, is that event which is to bring him into a nearer contact withGod, — which is to dissolve his present close relationship with the creature, and to conduct his disembodied spirit into the immediate presence of the Creator. There is nothing. in -deathy in. grim, odious, terrific death, that he less desires, or is more afraid of, than a nearer manifestation of the Deity. The world, in truth, the warm and the well known world, is his home; and the men who live in it, and are as regardless of the Divinity as himself, form the whole of his companionship. Were it not for the fear of hell, he would shrink from heaven as a dull and melancholy exile. All its songs of glory to him who sitteth on the throne, would be to his heart a burden and a weariness; — and thus it is, that the foundation of every natural man has its place in that perishable earth, from which death will soon carry hint away, and which the fiery indignation of God will at length burn up; and as to the being who endureth for ever, and with whom alone he has to do, he sees in him no form nor comeliness, nor no beauty that he should desire him.; Now, is not this due to the darkness of nature, as well as to the depravity of nature? There is in our diseased constitution, a spiritual blindness to the excellencies of the Godhead, as well as a spiritual disrelish for them. The truth is, that these two elements go together in the sad progress of human degeneracy. Man liked not to retain God in his knowledge, and God gave him over to a reprobate mind; and again, man walking in vanity, and an enemy to God by wicked works, had his understanding darkened, and was visited with ignorance, and blindness of heart. We do not apprehend God, and therefore it is that we must be renewed in the- knowledge of him, ere we can be formed again to the love of him. The natural man can no more admire the Deity through the obscurities in which he is sbrouded, 20*

23h SERMON XL

than he can admire a landscape which he never

saw, and which at the time of his approach to it, is wrapped in the gloom of midnight. He can no more, with every effort to stir up his faculties to lay hold of him, catch an endearing view of the Deity, than his eye can by straining, ‘penetrate its way throughadarkened firmament, to the features of that material loveliness which lies before him, and around him. It must be lighted up to him, ere he can love it, or enjoy it, and tell us what the degree of his affection for the scenery would be, if instead of being lighted up by the peaceful approach of a summer morn, it were to blaze into sudden visibility, with all its cultivation and cottages, by the fires of a bursting volcano. ‘Tell us, if all the glory and gracefulness of the landscape which had thus started into view, would charm the beholder for a moment, from the terrors of his coming destruction! Tell us, if it is possible for a sentient being, to admit another thought in such circumstances as these, than the thought of his own preservation. O would not the sentiment of fear about himself, cast out every sentiment of love for all that he now saw, and were he only safe could look. upon with exstacy P — and let the beauty be as exquisite as it may, would not all the power and pleasure of its enchantments fly away from his bosom, were it only seen through the glowing fervency of elements that threatened to destroy him?

Let us now conceive, that through that thick spiritual darkness by which every child of nature is encompassed, there was forced upon him, a view of the countenance of the Deity, — that the perfections of God were made visible, — wae

Pe See Pe ele eee My Mey eae ee eee NE Ny Pe ee ikke COM rere: and that the character on which the angels of paradise gaze with delight, because they there behold all the lineaments of moral grandeur, and. moral loveliness; were placed before the eye of his mind, in bright and convincing manifestation. It is very true, that on what he would

be thus made to see, all that is fair and magnificent are assembled, — that whatever of. greatness, or whatever of beauty can be found in creation, is but a faint and shadowy transcript of that original substantial excellence, which resides in the conceptions of him who is the fountain of being, — that all the pleasing of goodness, and all the venerable of worth, and all the sovereign command of moral dignity meet and are realised on the person of God, — that through the whole range of universal existence, there cannot be devised a single feature of excellence, which does not serve to enrich the character of him who sustains all things, and who originated all things. No wonder that the pure eye of an angel takes in such fulness of pleasure from a contemplation so ravishing. But let all this burst upon the eye of a sinner, and let the truth and the righteousness of God out of Christ stand before it in- visible array, along with the other glories of character which belong to him. The love of moral esteem, you may say, ought to arise in his bosom; — but it cannot. ‘The affection is in such-circumstances. impossible. ‘The man is in terror. And he can no more look with complacency upon. his God, than he can delight himself with the fair forms of a landscape, opened to his view, by the flashes of an impending volcano. He cannot draw an emotion so sweet, and delightful as love, from

So. eee the view of that countenance, on which he beholds a purpose of vengeance against himself, as — one of the children of iniquity. The fear which hath torment casteth out this affection altogether. There is positively no room for it within the bosom of a sentient being, along with the dread, and the alarm by which he is agitated. It is this which explains the recoil of his sinful nature; from the thought of God. The sense of guilt comes into his heart, and the terrors and the agitations of guilt come along with it. It is because he sees the <justice of God frowning upon him, and the truth of God pledged to the execution of its threatenings against him, and the holiness of God, which cannot look upon him without abhorrence, and all the sacred attributes of a nature that is jealous, and unchangeable, leagued against him for his everlasting destruction. He cannot love the Being, with the very idea of whom there is mixed up a sense of danger, and a dread of condemnation, and ail the images of a wretched eternity. We cannot love God, so long as we look upon him as an enemy. armed to destroy us: Ere we love him, we must be made to feel the security, and the enlargement of one who knows himself to be safe. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear, terrify me, — and then may I love him and not fear him; but it is not so with me.

But let him who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of his own. glory, in the: face of Jesus Christ, — let us only look upon him as God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, and not imputing unte a

SERMON XI. BR

them their trespasses, — let him without expunging the characters of truth, and majesty, from that one aspect of perfect excellence which belongs to him, — let him in his own unsearchable wisdom devise a way, by which he can both bring them out in the eye of sinners with bright-

er illustration, and make these sinners feel, that

they are safe, — let him lift off from the men of this guilty world, the burden of his violated law, and cause it to be borne by another who can magnify that law, and make it honourable, — let him publish a full release from all its penalties, but in such a way, as that the truth which proclaimed them, and the justice which should execute them, shall remain untainted under this dispensation of mercy, — let him instead of awaking the sword of vengeance against us, awake it against a sufferer of such worth and such. dignity, that his blood shall be the atonement of a world, and by pouring out his soul unto the death, he shall make the pardon of the - transgressor meet, and be at one with the everlasting righteousness of God, — in a, word, instead of the character of God being lighted up to the eye of the sinner, by the fire of his own indignation, let it: through the demonstration

of the Spirit be illustrated, and shone upon, by

the mild, but peaceful ight of the Sun of righteousness, and then may the sinner look in peace, and safety, on the manifested character of the Godhead. Delivered from the burden of his fears, he may now open his whole heart to the influences of affection. And that love of moral esteem, which before the entrance of ,the faith of the gospel, the sense of condemnation

was sure to scare away, is now free to take its place -beside the love of gratitude, and to arise along with it, in the offering of one spiritual sacrifice to a reconciled Father. F tte Thus, then, it would appear, that the love of moral esteem is in every way as much posterior, and subordinate to faith,.as is the love of gratitude. That we may be able to love God, either according to the one or the other of its modifications, we. must first know that God loved us. We cannot harbour this affection in any one shape whatever, so long as there is the suspicion, and the dread of a yet unsettled controversy between us and God. Peace with our offended Lawgiver, is not the fruit of our love, but of our faith; — and faith if it be a reality, and not a semblance, worketh by love... We-have peace —

With: God through Jesus Christ our Lord. —

And we love much when we know, and believe, that our sins:are forgiven us. sid God did not wait for any returning affection on the part of a guilty world, ere he felt an affection for it himself. At that period when he so loved the world, as to send his only begotten Son into it, — did it exhibit the spectacle of an immense prison-house of depravity. Among the men of it, there was friendship one for another, but there was one unalleviated character of enmity against God. Measuring themselves by themselves, there was often a high mutual esteem for such accomplishments, as were in demand for the good of society; — but that which: is highly esteemed among men, is in God’s sight an abomination; and when brought to the measure of that universal. righteousness which forms the standard and rule of Heaven’s government, was it found that our species, had through all its generations broken off from their allegiance, and stood at as wide a distance from the obedient, and unfallen creation, as does a colony of convicts, from the country which has cast them out of its borders. And it was at such a time, when the world liked not to retain God in their knowledge, — when all flesh- had corrupted their ways, — when there was none seeking after God, — when there was not the thought, or the wish, of a movement to him back again, that he looked with pity on our fallen race, and in the fulness of time, sent his Son into the world to seek and to save us. - And the same is true of every individual to whom the overtures cf reconciliation are proposed. God does not wait for any change of affection in our heart, ere we accept of pardon at his hands. But he asks one and all of us now to accept of pardon, and to submit our heart and character to the influences of that grace which he is ready to bestow upon us. In the gospel he proclaims a pardon ready made for you, a deed of amnesty which he is even now stretching out for your acceptance, a preventing offer of mercy, of which if you believe the reality, you will feel that he is your friend, and in which feeling you will not be disappomted. He does not expect from you the love of gratitude, till you have known, and believed the great things that he hath done for you. - But he expects from you the offering of an homage to his truth. He does not expect from you the love of moral esteem, till, released from the terror of having him for your enemy, you may contemplate with all the tranquil calmness of

24ay SERMON XI. conscious safety, the glories and the graces of his manifested character. But he expects from you faith in his declaration, that he is not your enemy, — that he has no pleasure in your death, — that in Christ he is beseeching you to be reconciled, — and -stretching out to you the arms of invitation. |: wee The first matter on hand, then, between God and sinners, in the work of making reconciliation, is, that they believe in him. It is, that the tidings of great joy shall fall upon them with credit, and acceptance. It is, that they count the sayings of the word of this life to be faithful sayings. It is, that they put faith in the record. which God hath given of his Son, which if they do, they will believe that God hath given them eternal life, and that this life is in his Son.: There is a certain speculation about the disinterested love of God, which has served. to darken and to embarrass this process. It has cast an unmerited stigma on the love of gratitude.. But its worst effect, by far, is, that it has impeded: the freeness of the overtures of the gospel. It has perplexed the outset of many an inquirer. It has made him search in his own mind for the evidences of an affection, which he never can meet with, till he embrace the offers, and rely upon the promises of the New Testament. It has deposed faith from that post of presiding supremacy which belongs to it, and shifted from its place that great principle on which .both thetove of gratitude, and the love of moral. esteem are suspended.

ae

Let us cease to wonder, then, why faith oecupies so much the station of a preliminary in the New Testament. It is the great starting-point, as it were, of Christian discipleship. Grant but this principle, and love, with all the vi- - gour, and all the alacrity which it gives to obedience, will emerge from its operation. There. is no other way, in fact, of charming love into existence; and the gratitude which devotes me to the service ofa reconciled God, and the love of his character, which makes me meet for the enjoyment of him in heaven, can only arise in my bosom after I have believed.

Let this consideration shut you up unto the faith. Let it exalt, in your estimation, the mighty importance ofa principle, without which there can neither be any sanctification here, nor any salvation hereafter. Think it not enough that you import it into your mind as a bare existence. Know what it is to put it into habitual exercise, to dwell upon the truths which it embraces, and to submit, in feeling and practice, to their genuine operation. This is the only way in which you can ever live a life of faith, on the Son of God, — or live by the power of a world to,come, — or keep yourselves in the love of God, seeing that it is only when you know and believe that God first loved you, that you ean be made to love him.

CLOSE ENT

Iv the progress of these observations, a few thoughts have occurred, which we trust may

be deemed of sufficient importance to be brought 21 ity. se forward, — and which we bring forward now, as

supplementary to the whole argument.

- It will have been remarked, that we do not consider man as altogether incapable of the love of moral esteem towards any being whatever. There are certain virtues of character which do call forth the admiration and the tenderness, even. of our diseased nature, when they reside somewhere else than in the person of the Deity. Let our depravity be what it may, it were in the face of all observation to affirm, that man does not love truth rather than falsehood, and compassion.rather than cruelty, in a fellow-man, — and the interesting question comes to be, how is it that these qualities appear to lose all the force which naturally belongs to them, of attracting our regard, so as to awaken no such sentiment towards God, though they be exemplified by him, in a degree that is infinite?

It will help us, in part, to resolve this question, if we conceive of our man of moral virtues, that his very truth, and justice, and compassion, lead him, in the defence of wronged or calumniated innocence, to turn the whole force of his

indignation on the head of an oppressor; and then think of the feeling which will arise, of consequence, in the heart of the latter. It will be a feeling of hatred and antipathy. And yet we do not see far into the secrecies of the human constitution, if we do not perceive, that, in perfect consistency with this feeling of personal dislike to the man of virtue, who is hostile to him, there may exist, even in his vitiated soul, the love of moral esteem toward virtue residing in some other quarter, or exemplified by some other individual. Instead of this virtue beine realized on the person of one who is an enemy to myself, let it be offered by description to my notice, in the person of one who lives in a distant country, or who lived in a distant age, and let the thought of’my particular adversary be not offensively suggested to my mind by such a contemplation, — and I, with all those depravities which have provoked the resentment of my upright neighbour against me, and have called forth. in my heart a corresponding hatred towards him, will offer the homage of my regard and reverence towards the picture of moral excellence, that is thus set before me. This may look an anomalous exhibition of our nature; but it certainly is not more so, than the well-known fact of a slave proprietor, at one time wreaking his caprice and his cruelty on the living men who are around him, and at another weeping, in all the softness of pathetic emotion, over the distresses of a fictitious narrative. Distress in one quarter may move our pity. Distress in another may be inflicted by our own hand, to glut our vindictive propensities. Worth, im the person of one who is indifferent, and still more of one who is friendly, may call forth our warm and honest acknowledgments. Worth, in the person of another, the very principles of whose character have moved him to irritate our pride, or to wound our selfishness, may turn him into the object of our most passionate, determined, and unrelenting hostility.

And thus it is, that I may have a natural taste for several of the virtues which enter into the Godhead, and, at the same time, may have a hatred towards the person of the Godhead. — This natural taste may be regarded by some, as a predisposing element in my heart towards the love of God; but so long as I view him armed in righteousness to destroy me, will this as effectually repress the embryo affection, as if still it were fast slumbering in the depths of nonentity. It is, willingly admitted, that there are certain partial sketches of the character of the. Deity, which, if offered to our notice, in a state of separation from his anger against us the children of disobedience, would kindle in our bosoms a feeling of tasteful admiration. But the dread, or the suspicion of his anger absorbs this feeling altogether; and however much we may bear the semblance of love for his character, when we look to certain traits of it in a detached and broken exhibition, — yet this is perfectly consistent with the fact, that the natural mind hates the person of the Deity, — that the natural mind is enmity against God. And this ought to convince us, that even though there should be predisposing elements of love to him for his worth, it is still indispensable, in order to change our hatred into affection, that we should. ial upon God as having ceased from his anger, or that we should see him arrayed in all the tenderness of offered and inviting friendship. There is aspell by which these elements are fastened, and which can never be done away, till God woo me to friendship and confidence, by an exhibition of good will. Faith in the cross of Christ, -is the primary step of this approximation. ‘To call for a disinterested affection towards God, from one who looks upon

SERMON XI. wae 245

“God as an adversary, and that even though there should be in his bosom the undeveloped seeds of regard to the worth or character of the Supreme, is to make a demand on a sentient being, which, by his very constitution, he is unable to meet or to satisfy. And is not this demand still more preposterous, when it comes from a quarter where the depravity of man is held to be so entire, that not one latent or predisposing element towards the love of God is ascribed to him? Is it not a still vainer expectation to think, in such hopeless circumstances as these, that ere man seizes the gift of redemption, he shall import into his character the grace of a pure and spiritual affection; ‘that with the terror of his bosom yet unpacified, and the countenance of God upon him as unrelenting as ever, there shall arise, in the midst of all this

agitation, a love to that Being, the very thought of whom brings a sense of insecurity along with it; or that a guilty creature, who, even if he had in a state of dormancy within him the principles of moral regard to the Divinity, could not, under the burden of wrath still unappeased, charm these principles, out of the state of their inaction, — that he, even were he utterly destitute of these principles, should be able, under this burden, to charm them out of the state of non-existence?

And this, by the way, may serve to show the whole amount of that tasteful sentimentalism, in virtue of which, a transient but treacherous and hollow regard towards the Divinity, may be detected in the hearts of those who nauseate the whole spirit and contents of the gospel. They

21* admit into their contemplation only as much of” the character of God, as may serve to make out a tender or an engaging exhibition of him. They may leave entire the ground-work of his natural attributes; but; in every survey they take of the moral complexion of the Godhead, they refuse to look to all bis moral attributes put together, and only fasten their regard upon one of them, even the attribute of indulgence. They cannot endure the view of his whole character; and should this view ever intrude itself, it. puts to‘flight all the pathos and elegance of mere natural piety. Truth, as directed against themselves; Holiness, as refusing to dwell in peacefulor approving fellowship with themselves; Justice, as committed toa sentence of severe and inflexible retribution upon themselves, — all these are out of their contemplatién at that moment, when the votaries of a poetical theism feel towards their magined deity an evanescent glow of affection or reverence. But truth and conscience are ever meddling with this enjoyment; and piety resting on so frail and partial a foundation, never can attain an habitual aseendency over the character; and what at the best is fictitious, does not, and ought not, to have more than a rare and a little hour of emotion given to it; and this may explain how it is, that with the very same individual, there may be both an occasional recurrence of devotional feeling, and a life of rooted and practical ungodliness. Anillusory representation of God will no more draw away our affections from the world, or engage us in the solid and experimental -business of ebedience to its Maker, than the flippancy of a

= novel will practically influence the habits of nature, or of society. And thus it is, that, the religion which is apart from Christianity, falls as far short of true religion, as the humanity we have just quoted, falls short of true humanity. But to return. We have already said, that even though there did exist in the heart of man a native regard to certain ingredients of worth in the character of the Divinity, a previous exhibition of good will is still essential, that the person of the Divinity may be endeared to him. And the argument for such a priority, becomes much stronger, when it is made out, on a farther attention to this matter, that there — is, in fact, no such native or predisposing regard. For, though it be true, that there are certain moral virtues, which, when realized upon man, draw towards them the love and the reverence even of our depraved nature, and which, when heightened into perfection upon God, should therefore, it might: be conceived, obtain from nature, if placed in favourable circumstances, the homage of a love still more tender, and of a reverence still more profound; — yet there is one great and comprehensive quality by which all the moral attributes of the Godhead are pervaded, and for which, we can detect no native and no kindred principle of attachment whatever, in the constitution of our-species. We allude to the holiness of the Godhead. Were we asked to define this holiness, we should feel that we were not giving to the term its full significancy, by saying, that it merely consisted in the absolute perfection of all the moral virtues of the Divinity. It is a term, which, in -the appropriate force of it, denotes contrast or separation. It was for this reason assigned to the vessels of the temple, and just because they were set apart from common use. To have made them common, would have been to make them unclean, or unholy. ‘To have turned them to any ordinary or household purposes, would have been to inflict upon them such a touch of profanation, that their holiness would have departed from them. Had there been a full and perfect sense of God in every house, and in every heart, — had the presence of the Divinity been equally felt by his creatures at all times, and in all places, — had the will of the Divinity held as presiding an influence over the every-day doings, as over the services of the solemn and extraordinary occasion, — then there might have been no temple, and no ritualobservation, and, of consequence, no room for such an application of the term holiness. A thing is not consecrated by being set apart from that which is equally pure and sacred with itself; and did there obtain an equal and universal purity throughout the whole system of nature, there could be no need for separation. In these circumstances there would have been no contrast, and, therefore, no demand for such a term as that of holiness. This may serve to illustrate the force and import of the term, as applied to the character of God. It does not signify the moral perfection ‘of his character, taken absolutely. It signifies this perfection in relation to its opposite. When we look to the holiness of the divine character, we look to it in its aspect of lofty separation from all that can either taint or debase it. We we

SERMON XI. Qa9

look to its:irreconcilable variance with sin. We look to the inaccessible height at which it stands above all the possible acquirements of created nature, insomuch, that he who possesses it, charges even his angels with folly: and when created nature is not only imperfect, but sinful, we then look to the recoil of the Divinity from all contact, and from all approximation. We think of the purer eyes than can behold iniquity, and of the presence so sacred, that evil cannot dwell with it. We think of that sanctuary into which there cannot enter any thing that defileth, or that maketh a lie, — a sanctuary guarded by all the jealousies of the Divine nature, and so repugnant to the approach of pollution, that if it offer to draw nigh, the fire of a consuming indignation will either check, or will destroy it.

Now, were the whole severity of this attribute directed against the violations of social kindness, and social. equity, we would admit that there was a ready coalescence with it in the principles of our natural constitution. But when it searches into the character of the most urgent affections of nature, and there detects the very essence of sinfulness; — when it sits in judgment over the preference given by every child of Adam to the creature, rather than the Creator, and holds this in righteous abomination; — when it looks through a society of human beings, and pronounces, in spite of all the justice by which its interests are guarded, and of all the humanity by which its ills are softened, or done away, that, wholly given over to the enjoyment of the world, it is wholly immersed in the guilt of an idolatry, by which the jealousies of the supreme and spiritual God are provoked to the uttermost; — when holiness is thus seen, not merely in its antipathy to crime, which is occasional and rare, but in its antipathy to an affection, the rooted obstinacy of which, and the engrossing power of which, are universal — then so far from the coalescence of approving nature, do we ‘behold the revolt of pained and irritated nature. It no more fol-, lows, because man loathes the cruelty or the injustice of his fellow-man, that he therefore carries in his heart a predisposing element of regard for the essential character of God, than it follows, because a man would sicken with disgust at the atrocities of a prison-house, that he therefore feels his element and his joy to be in the humble piety of a conventicle. A high-minded and an honourable merchant finds room in his bosom for the love both of truth and of the world. Yet the one is an attribute of God, while the love of the other is opposite to the love of God. “If any man love the world,” says an apostle, ‘ the love of the Father is not in him.” He may like the transcript of truth, and of many other virtues on the face of the creature, but he likes not the Creator. He can gaze, and that-even with rapture, on the partial and imperfect sketches of the unfinished copy, but he shrinks from the view of the entire original. He can hold the intercourse of wistful thoughts, and fervent aspiration, with the absent object of his earthly regard, but he has neither taste nor capacity for communion with his Father in heaven. ‘“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, Almighty,” is the anthem of the celestial, but theirs is a delight which he cannot share in. And as surely as -his body would need to be transformed, ere it could cease to have pain amid the agonies of hell, — so surely would his mind need to be transformed, ere it ceased to feel a confinement and an irksomeness amid the halleluiahs of paradise.

Even though man, then, had in his heart a nascent affection for the character of God, this would be restrained from passing onwards to an affection for his person, by a sense of guilt, and the consequent dread of God as an enemy. Nor could the love of God be inserted in his bosom, till by faith in the expiation of the gospel, that which letteth was taken out of the way. But still more, if, in conformity to our present argument, there be no such nascent affection for the Divine character, is it hopeless to attempt the establishment of love antecedently to belief, or that attachment should take possession of the heart, ere fear takes its departure away from it. Even if by the working of some power unknown in the human constitution, or by some effort, the success of which has never yet, in a single instance, been experienced, there could be made to arise in the soul, the love of holiness, previous to the act of trusting in the offered Saviour, — a terror at God, which, in the absence of this trust, is the instinctive and universal feeling of nature, would just as effectually repress the love of holiness, as it does the love of truth, or of compassion, or of justice, from carrying us Onwards to a regard for the person of the Godhead. To put the love of God’s character into a heart not yet brought into enlargement by the faith of the gospel, would just be to put it into a prison-hold, and there to” chain it down to a fruitlessness and inactivity, where it would be wholly unproductive of love

to God himself. Confidence must take the pre- — cedency of this love, even in a bosom already

furnished with the preparatory elements of affection; and how much more essential then is it, that ic should take the precedency in a bosom, where these elements are altogether wanting? Faith is thus more strongly evinced to be a thing of prior and indispensable necessity. Without it, even the seed of any pre-

cious affection for the Godhead,: stifled in embryo, would not blow into luxuriance. And if our nature be such a wilderness that no seed is there, — if the thing wanted be the germination of a new principle, and not the’ development of

an old, — if it be by a.creative and not by a.

mere fostering process, that we are transformed into a meetness for heaven, — if the agency that is made to bear upon the human soul, must have a power to regenerate as well as to repair, — and if the promise of this agency be given only to these who believe, then let us no more ‘linger, or be bewildered, in that abyss of helplessness from which faith alone can extricate the enquirer, — let us no longer arrest the eye of confidence from that demonstration of good will, which is held out to the most widely alienated of sinners, — but hasten to place ourselves, even now, on that foundation of trust, where alone we are made the workmanship of God in Christ Jesus, and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.

‘* Destroy this temple,” says the Saviour, “and 1 will raise it up again in three days.” It is there ‘alone that we can behold the beauty of the Lord and be safe. ‘’Phis place of greatest security, is also the place of chiefest glory. It is when ad- ‘mitted into this greater and more perfect taber-»

nacle, that we can look on majesty without terror, and on holiness without an overwhelming sense of condemnation. ‘The sinner encircled in mercy look in tranquil contemplation on all that is awful and venerable in the character of the Godhéad, — and never do truth, and righteousness, and purity, appear in loftier exhibition before him, than when, withheld from his own person, he sees the whole burden of their avenging laid upon the head of the great Sacrifice.

* One.thing have I desired of the Lord,” says the Psalmist, “that I may dwell in the courts of the Lord, all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his

’ temple.” It is not till we are within the portals of the place of refuge that this desire can obtain its fulfilment. Selfishness may have originated the movement which took us there. The fear of the coming wrath. may haye lent celerity to our footsteps. A joyful sense of -deliverance may have been felt, ere the glories of the divine character were seen in bright and convincing manifestation. The love of gratitude may have kindled within us, — and, with the Psalmist, we may have to seek, and to enquire, and to have daily exercise and meditation, ere the love of moral esteem has attained the place of ascendancy which belongs to it. Nevertheless, the chief end of man is to glorify God, and

to enjoy himforever. ‘This is the real destination of every individual who is redeemed front

among men. This should be the main object of

all his prayers, and all his preparations. It is.

this which fits him for the company of heaven; and unless there be a growing taste for God,. in the glories of his excellency, — for God, in the ‘beauties of his holiness, — there. is no ripening, and no perfecting, for the mansions of immor- — tality... Though you have to combat, then, with the sluggishness of sense, and with the real aversion of nature to every. spiritual exercise, you must attempt, and strenuously cultivate, the

. habit of communion with God. And as no man knoweth the Father save the Son reveal him, and as it is by the Spirit that Christ gives light to those who believe in him ; — for the attainment of this great moral and spiritual accomplishment, do what the Apostle directs you,

’ avhen he says, ‘Keep yourselves in the love of God, by praying in the Holy Ghost.” Your first endeavoursmay be feeble, and fatiguing, and fruitless. But God will not despise the day of small things, — nor will the light of his countenance be always withheld from those who aspire afier it, — nor will the soul that thirsts after God,. be left for ever unsatisfied, — and. the life and peace of being spiritually minded, will come in rich experience to his feelings, — and the whole habit — of his tastes and enjoyments, will be in diametric opposition to that of the children of the world, — God being the habitation to which he resorts. continually — God being the strength of his heart, and his portion for evermore.