Overcome.

It is the sullenness, and the hardness, and the obstinacy of unbelief which stands as a gate of iron, between him and his enlargement. Could the kindness of God, in Christ Jesus, be seen by him, the softening of a kindness back again, would be felt by him. And let us cease to wonder, then, at the preachers of the gospel, when they lay upon belief all the stress of a fundamental operation;-when they lavish so much of their strength on the establishment of a principle, which is not only initial, but indispensable; when they try so strenuously to charm that into existence, without which all the elements of a spiritual obedience are in a state of dormancy or of death;when they labour at the only practicable way, by which the heart of a sinner can be touched, and attracted towards God;--when they try so repeatedly, to hold and to fasten him, by that link which God himself hath put into their hands and bring the mighty principle to bear upon their hearers, which any one of us may exemplify upon the poorest, and by which both HOWARD and FRY have tried with success, to soften and to reclaim the most worthless of mankind.

This also suggests a practical direction to Christians, for keeping themselves in the love of God. They must keep themselves in the habit, and in the exercise of faith. They must hold fast that conviction in their minds, the presence of which is indispensable to the keeping of that affection in their hearts. This is one of the methods recommended by the apostle Jude, when he tells his disciples to build themselves up on their most holy faith. This direction to you is both intelligible and prac

ticable. Keep in view the truths which you have learned. Cherish that belief of them which you already possess. Recall then to your thoughts, and, in general, they will not come alone, but they will come accompanied by their own power, and their own evidence. You may as well think of maintaining a steadfast attachment to your friend, after you have expunged from your memory all the demonstrations of kindness he ever bestowed upon you, as to think of keeping your heart in the love of God, after the thoughts and contemplations of the gospel have fled from it. It is just by holding these fast, and by building yourself up on their firm certainty, that you preserve this affection. Any man, versant in the matters of experimental religion, knows well what it is, when a blight and a barrenness come over the mind, and when, under the power of such a visitation, it loses all sensibility towards God. There is, at that time, a hiding of his countenance, and you lose your hold of the manifestation of that love, wherewith God loved the world, even when he sent his only begotten Son into it, that we might live through him. You will recover a right frame, when you recover your hold of this consideration. If you want to recall the strayed affection to your heart-recall to your mind the departed object of contemplation. If you want to reinstate the principle of love in your bosom---reinstate faith, and it will work by love. It is gotat through the medium of believing, and trusting;-Nor do we know a more summary, and at the same time, a more likly direction for living a life of holy and heavenly affection, than that you should live a life of faith.

SERMON XL

THE AFFECTION OF MORAL ESTEEM TOWARDS GOD.

PSALM XXVII. 4.

"One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; 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 enquire in his temple."

IN our last discourse we adverted to the effect of a certain theological speculation about love, in darkening the freeness of the gospel, and intercepting the direct influence of its overtures and its calls on the mind of an inquirer. Ere we conceive the love of gratitude towards another, we must see in him the love of kindness towards us; and thus, by those who have failed to distinguish between a love of the benefit, and a love of the benefactor, has the virtue of gratitude been resolved into the love of ourselves. And they have thought that there must surely be a purer affection than this, to mark the outset of the great transition from sin unto righteousness; and the one they have specified is the disinterested love of God. They have given to this last affection a place so early, as to distract the attention of an enquirer from that

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 additional 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 I am without the esteem of moral accomplishments in another; and if my heart be of such a constitution that nothing in 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 be a wilderness to my heart; and, in the midst of its acclaiming throng would I 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, in 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 for 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