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to God: thofe who love him undertake and carry on their feveral worldly callings as his work, not with eye fervice as men pleafers, but in finglenefs of heart fearing God. They enjoy what comforts and fatisfactions they have as his gift, and are perpetually confidering what effect their whole conduct and appearance has in promoting or hindering the progrefs of true religion and goodness in the world. They are very careful not to do any thing even in their moft unguarded hours, or to fay any thing in their freeft converfation which can have a bad tendency; they confcientioufly abftain from all appearance of evil. Whereever fituation or connection can give weight to their influence, they exert it heartily in favor of religion; they are anxious to have their children and families in particular taught the true principles of our holy faith, and to prevail on them to follow those principles in their temper and conduct:

they

they let their light so shine before men, that they may fee their good works and glorify their father which is heaven. And they reap the highest pleasure from any gratifications or accomplishments which they may poffefs in a fuperior degree to the rest of mankind, if by their means they can render true chriftian goodnefs more pleating and attractive in the eyes of the world. Attention to all this, would be an hard and irkfome task, and have the appearance of unnatural constraint, without fuch a principle as the love of God operating in the heart; and accordingly it appears to the worldly minded no better than the effects of enthusiasm, and is accounted to afford nothing but melancholy fear; but it naturally follows from this divine affection. It is the fure effect of the coolest reafon employed upon confidering the whole of things in their largest extent, and it affords a pleasure to the mind which no words can express.

For

For even the most common and most laborious employment becomes under its influence the fource of fatisfaction; it is in truth the grand fecret which removes the infipidity fo generally attendant upon all human poffeffions, and confequently the true way to the real enjoyment of the prefent world.

ANOTHER effect of the true love of God deferving particular notice is the fincere love of our fellow creatures. Independent of the tendency we have to imitate what we love, and confequently to follow the univerfal benevolence of our heavenly father, the contemplation of the divine perfections raises the mind above all the narrow views of felf love, which counteract our natural feelings towards our fellow creatures, and opens it to the perception of every thing excellent in the whole compafs of nature and the fenfe of the kindness of

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our heaevnly father towards us, fpreads a peculiar tenderness over the heart; fo that there is an habitual propenfity to love whatever is amiable of any fort in our fellow creatures, and, where we cannot love, to pity; hence we unavoidably become interested in every thing which concerns the welfare, the enjoyment, or the comfort of others: we weep with those that weep, and rejoice with thofe that do rejoice. And what will be the effects of fuch a temper of mind in all the nearer relations of life or in the common intercourfe of the world, I need not mention: in every thing important or trifling, the behaviour will bear the unaffected marks of fincere good will.

LASTLY-The fure effect of such a principle thus operating upon our minds and influencing our conduct, will be a progreffive improvement in the habits of real goodness, and a conftant regard to another

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world in which our love will be perfected, and confequently perfect our enjoyment. The more we love God, the more we fhall defire and endeavour to be like him, and the more we ftudy to be like him, the more will our affections be fixed upon that state where we fhall fee him as he is; and from feeing him as he is, the more we shall love him, and the more we do this, the happier we fhall be. Who can form the most diftant notion of that exultation of heart which will arife from the real view to which we shall be admitted of perfect excellence, and our feeling, past all doubt, that this perfect excellence will be the fource to us of unalloyed happiness for ever and ever!

AND now how bleffed must be the condition of that man, who finds himself going on from one degree of ftrength to another, animated with increasing earnestness to ap

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