habitant;--adored by the highest and brightest seraphs that are about him, and in whose breast there is ever burning an intense and ardent attachment to him. Oh! there is not an inmate of that high and blissful world whom the love of God does not absorb, and whose heart is not intensely and exclusively devoted to him. For those holy beings see him "as he is." They see him in all the essential brightness of his existence, and not only do they behold his essential glory, but his moral loveliness. They see the first risings of a benevolence which is overflowing the immense creation, which is the spring of felicity not only to themselves, but to his innumerable offspring. They see his reluctance to execute judgment when deserved; his unwillingness to give up his offending creatures; and that, while mercy and lovingkindness are his delight, judgment is his "strange work." They regard him as the fountain, the only fountain of life and blessedness, but for whose glorious presence among them their own bright and blissful world would be a scene of darkness, and but for the continual overflowing of whose

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benevolence the now teeming and joyful universe would be a wilderness of horror;--one vast and unbounded waste. Hence, although the Deity is but little regarded by the inhabitants of this fallen world, he is the object of supreme regard to the spirits of heaven, and must be the object of supreme regard to us ere we shall be permitted to mingle among them. For without a supreme affection for him his presence above could afford us no delight, neither could we join in those songs of praise which are ever offered by the ethereal host. And, Oh! if we have not that open vision of his unclouded glory, and that intimate view of his moral loveliness, with which the spirits above are always favoured, we have such an exhibition of his benevolence in the creation that is around us, and such an evidence of his love in the gift of his only begotten Son, as, when devoutly contemplated, are sufficient to enkindle a reciprocal affection for him; which, if as yet it does not burn with the fire of seraphic spirits, will nevertheless prepare us to associate with them, and to mingle our songs with theirs.

Love to the Saviour, tɔ angels, and to the society which is above, is another affection which is indispensably requisite to prepare us for their happy world. If we love not the Lord Jesus Christ, how could we unite in the adoration which is continually presented unto him?--How could we join with the heavenly multitude in saying, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing?" And again, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.-Amen." And if we love not the holy beings who compose the society which is above, how could we participate in their joys, in their sympathies, in their worship, and in their labours? Oh! without affection there could be no sympathy, without sympathy there could be no communion, without communion there could be no fellowship, and without fellowship there could be no happiness. So that were it even possible to enter the society which is before the Throne,

with no affection for the holy beings who belong to it, we should find ourselves in a world of strangers; and, though every where surrounded with an innumerable company of happy, social, and exalted creatures, should feel ourselves solitary and forlorn. If, however, the love of God be dwelling in our hearts, it is impossible not to love them, bearing as they do such a resemblance to him, and possessing as they do all those excellencies which adorn his moral character. "Every one," therefore, says the apostle, "that loveth him who begat, loveth those also who are begotten of him. And every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

As regards the society of heaven, the beings who compose it are altogether worthy of our love. It is so with him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person; whose love to the race of man was such as to surrender himself to death on their account; and the great end of whose sufferings unto death-ascension to the right hand of Power, bestowment of the Spirit, and pro

vidential arrangements, is to bring "many sons to glory." It is so with the angelic tribes, beings who have never sinned, but who in the midst of an awful and wide-spread rebellion maintained an unshaken allegiance to their Creator; beings whose high felicity it is to "behold the face of their Father who is in heaven;" beings who stand near the summit of the scale of intellectual existence; beings who "excel in strength," and are incessantly employed in doing good. It is so with the spirits of just men made perfect; all that is pure, and amiable, and benevolent, and lovely, in human character, is possessed by them, and that without any of the imperfections which on earth belong to the most perfect of our species. Such, then, is the company which is above; and not to love the possessors of so much goodness argues such a depravation of the moral feelings as would unfit us for any society in the universe that was at all pure, and especially for one like that to which they belong.

Love, then, is an indispensable qualification for heaven, the most indispensable of them all.