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wander wide of the mark, is not from any want of plainness in the path, but from the perverseness of our will in not chusing it, from the indolence of our minds in not following it up.

In our attachments to earthly things even the most innocent, there is always a danger of excess, but from this danger we are here perfectly exempt, for there is no possibility of excess in our love to that Being who has demanded the whole heart. This peremptory requisition cuts off all debate. Had God required only a portion, even were it a large portion, we might be puzzled in settling the quantum. We might be plotting how large a part we might venture to keep back without absolutely forfeiting our safety; we might be haggling for deduc.. tions, bargaining for abatements, and be perpetually compromising with our Maker. But the injunction is entire, the command is definite, the portion is unequivocal. Though it is so compressed in the expression, yet it is so expansive and ample in the measure; it is so distinct a claim, so imperative a requisition of all the faculties of the mind and strength; all the affections of the heart and soul; that there is not the least opening left for litigation; no place for any thing but absolute unreserved compliance.

Every thing which relates to God is infinite. We must therefore, while we keep our hearts humble keep our aims, high. Our highest services indeed are but finite, imperfect. But as God is unlimited in goodness, he should have our unlimited love. The best we can offer is poor, but let us not withhold that best. He deserves incomparably more than we have to give. Let us not give him less than all. If he has ennobled our corrupt nature with spiritual affections, let us not refuse their noblest aspirations, to their noblest object. Let him not behold us so prodigally lavishing our affections on the meanest of his bounties, as to have nothing left for himself. As the standard of every thing in religion is high, let us endeavour to act in it with the highest intention of mind, with the largest use of our faculties. Let us obey him with the most intense love, adore him with the most fervent gratitude. Let us "praise him according to his excellent greatness." Let us serve him with all the strength of our capacity, with all the devotion of our will.

Grace being a new principle added to our natural powers, as it determines the desires to a higher object, so it adds vigour to their activity. We shall best prove its dominion over us by desiring to exert ourselves in the cause of heaven with the same energy with which we once exerted ourselves in the cause of the world. The world was too little to fill our whole capacity. Scaliger lamented how much was lost because so fine a poet as Claudian, in bis choice of a subject, wanted matter wor thy of his talents; but it is the felicity of the Christian to have chosen a theme to which all the powers of his heart and of his understanding will be found inadequate. It is the glory of religion to supply an object worthy of the entire consecration of every power, faculty and affection of an immaterial, immortal being.

CHAP. VIII.

THE HAND OF GOD TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED IN THE DAILY CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE.

IF we would indeed love God, let us " acquaint ourselves with him." The word of inspiration has assured us that there is no other way to "be at peace." As we cannot love an unknown God, so neither can we know him, or even approach toward that knowledge, but on the terms which he himself holds out to us; neither will he save us but in the method which he has himself prescribed. His very perfections, the just objects of our adoration, all stand in the way of creatures so guilty. His justice is the flaming sword which excludes us from the Paradise we have forfeited. His purity is so opposed to our corruptions, his omnipotence to our infirmity, his wisdom to our folly, that had we not to plead the great propitiation, those very attributes which are now our trust, would be our terror. The most opposite images of human conception, the widest extremes of human language, are used for the purpose of shewing what God 18 to us, in our natural state, and what he is under the Christian dispensation. The "consuming fire" is transformed into essential love.

But as we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection, so we cannot love him with that pure flame, which animates glorified spirits. But there is a preliminary acquaintance with him, an initial love of him, for which he has furnished us with means by his works, by his word, and by his Spirit. Even in this weak and barren soil some germs will shoot, some blossoms will open, of that celestial plant, which, watered by the dews of heaven, and ripened by the Sun of Righteousness, will, in a more genial clime, expand into the fulness of perfection, and bear immortal fruits in the paradise of God.

A person of a cold phlegmatic temper, who laments that he wants that fervour in his love of the supreme Being, which is apparent in more ardent characters, may take comfort, if he find the same indifference respecting his worldly attachments. But if his affections are intense towards the perishable things of earth, while they are dead to such as are spiritual, it does not prove that he is destitute of passions, but only that they are not directed to the proper object. If however he love God with that measure of feeling with which God has endowed him, he will not be punished or rewarded, because the stock is greater or smaller than that of some other of his fellow creatures.

In those intervals when our sense of divine things is weak and low, we must not give way to distrust, but warm our hearts with the recollection of our best moments. Our motives to love and gratitude are not now diminished, but our spiritual frame is lower, our natural spirits are weaker. Where there is languor there will be discouragements. But we must not desist. "Faint "yet pursuing," must be the Christian's motto.

There is more merit, (if ever we dare apply so arrogant a word to our worthless efforts) in persevering under depression and discomfort, than in the happiest flow of devotion, when the tide of health and spirits runs high. Where there is less gratification there is more disinterestedness. We ought to consider it as a cheering evidence, that our love may be equally pure though it is not equally fervent, when we persist in serving our hea venly father with the same constancy, though it may please him to withdraw from us the same consolations. Perseverance may bring us to the very dispositions the absence of which we are lamenting-" O tarry thou the Lord's leisure, be strong and he shall comfort thy heart."

*We are too ready to imagine that we are religious because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute. Instead of an undue elation of heart when we peruse some of the Psalmist's beautiful effusions, we should feel a deep self-abasement at the reflection, that however our case may sometimes resemble his, yet how inapplicable to our hearts are the ardent expressions of his repentance, the overflowing of his gratitude, the depth of his submission, the entireness of his self-dedication, the fervor of his love. But he who indeed can once say with him, "Thou art my portion," will, like him, surrender himself unreservedly to his service.

It is important that we never suffer our faith, any more than our love, to be depressed or elevated, by mistaking for its own operations, the ramblings of a busy imagination. The steady principle of Faith must not look for its character, to the vagaries of a mutable and fantastic Fancy La folle de la Maison, as she has been well denominated. Faith which has once fixed her foot on the immutable rock of ages, fastened her firm eye on the cross, and stretched out her triumphant hand to seize the promised crown, will not suffer her stability to depend on this ever-shifting faculty; she will not be driven to despair by the blackest shades of its pencil, nor be betrayed into a careless security, by its most flattering and vivid colours.

One cause of the fluctuations of our faith is, that we are too ready to judge the Almighty by our own low standard. We judge him not by his own declarations of what he is, and what he will do, but by our own feelings and practices. We ourselves are too little disposed to forgive those who have offended us. We therefore con

clude that God cannot pardon our offences. We suspect bin to be implacable, because we are apt to be so, and we are unwilling to believe that he can pass by injuries, because we find it so hard to do it. When we do forgive, it is grudgingly and superficially; we therefore infer that God cannot forgive freely and fully. We make a hypocritical distinction between forgiving and forget

ting injuries. God clears away the score when he grants the pardon. He does not only say, "thy sins and thy iniquities will I forgive," but "I will remember no

more."

We are disposed to urge the smallness of our offences, as a plea for their forgiveness; whereas God, to exhibit the boundlessness of his own mercy, has taught us to allege a plea directly contrary, "Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great." To natural reason this argument of David is most extraordinary. But while he felt that the greatness of his own iniquity left him no resource, but in the mercy of God, he felt that God's mercy was greater even than his own sin. What a large, what a magnificent idea does it give us of the divine power and goodness that the believer, instead of pleading the smallness of his own offences as a motive for pardon, pleads only the abundance of the divine compassion!

We are told that it is the duty of the Christian to "seek God." We assent to the truth of the proposition. Yet it would be less irksome to corrupt nature, in pur suit of this knowledge, to go a pilgrimage to distant lands, than to seek him within our own hearts. Our own heart is the true terra incognita; a land more foreign and nnknown to us, than the regions of the polar circle: Yet that heart is the place, in which an acquaintance withi God must be sought. It is there we must worship him, if we would worship him in spirit and in truth.

But, alas! the heart is not the home of a worldly man, it is scarcely the home of a Christian. If business and pleasure are the natural element of the generality ; a dreary vacuity, sloth, and insensibility, too often worse than both, disincline, disqualify too many Christians for the pursuit.

..I have observed, and I think I have heard others observe, that a common beggar had rather screen himself under the wall of a churchyard, if overtaken by a shower of rain, though the church doors stand invitingly open, than take shelter within it, while divine service is per forming. It is a less annoyance to him to be drenched with the storm, than to enjoy the convenience of a shelter and a seat, if he must enjoy them at the heavy price of listening to the sermon.

While we condemn the beggar, let us look into our own hearts; happy if we cannot there detect somewhat of

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