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it, an approving testimony. The eye of of nature, and if any believer amongst the world cannot enter within the spiritual you be led by it not to despise these accomrecesses of his heart; but let him ever re-plishments, but to put them on, and to animember that it is fastened, and that too mate them all with the spirit of religiouswith keen and scrutinizing jealousy, on the ness,-if any hearer amongst you, beginning path of his visible history. It will offer no to perceive his own nothingness in the sight homage to the mere sanctity of his com- of God, be prompted to inquire, Wherewithal plexion; nor, unless there be shed over it shall I appear before him? and not to rest the expression of what is mild in domestic, from the inquiry, till he flee from his hidingor honourable in public virtue, will it ever place, to that everlasting righteousness look upon him in any other light, than as which the Saviour hath brought in: and if an object of the most unmingled disgust. any believer amongst you, rightly dividing And therefore it is, that he must enter on the word of truth, shall act on the principle, the field of ostensible accomplishment, and that though nothing but the doctrine of there bear away the palm of superiority, Christ crucified, can avail him for acceptand be the most eminent of his fellows in ance with God, yet he is bound to adorn all those recognized virtues, that can bless this doctrine in all things. And knowing or embellish the condition of society; the that one may acquiesce in the whole of most untainted in honour, and the most dis- such a demonstration, without carrying it interested in justice, and the most alert in personally home, we leave off with the sinbeneficence, and the most unwearied in all gle remark, that every conviction not prosethese graces, under every discouragement cuted, every movement of conscience not and every provocation. followed up, every ray of light or of truth not turned to individual application, will aggravate the reckoning of the great day,and that in proportion to the degree of urgency which has been brought to bear upon you, and been resisted, will be the weight and the justness of your final condemnation.

We have now only time to say, that we shall not regret the length of this discourse, or even the recurrence of some of its arguments, if any hearer amongst you, not in the faith, be led by it, to withdraw his confidence from the mere accomplishments

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cise of discrimination. But instead of dwelling any more on the significancy of the term love, which is the term of my text, let

forthwith take it unto use, and be confident that, in itself, it carries no ambiguity along with it.

It is not easy to give the definition of a rests, and finds a complacent gratification,term, which is currently and immediately and to assign the circumstances, which are understood without one. But, should not either favourable or unfavourable to its exthis ready understanding of the term super-citement. All this may call forth an exersede the definition of it, what can we tell of love in the way of explanation, but by a substitution of terms, not more simple and more intelligible than itself? Can this affec-us tion of the soul be made clearer to you by words, than it is already clear to you by your own consciousness? Are we to at- The term love, indeed, admits of a real tempt the elucidation of a term, which, and intelligible application to inanimate obwithout any feeling of darkness or of mys-jects. There is a beauty in sights, and a tery, you make familiar use of every day? beauty in sounds, and I may bear a posiYou say with the utmost promptitude, and tive love to the mute and unconscious inyou have just as ready an apprehension of dividuals in which this beauty hath taken the meaning of what you say, that I love up its residence. I may love a flower, or this man, and bear a still higher regard to a murmuring stream, or a sunny bank, or a another, but have my chief and my best humble cottage peeping forth from its conliking directed to a third. We will not at- cealment,- -or in fine, a whole landscape tempt to go in search of a more luminous may teem with such varied graces, that I or expressive term, for this simple affection, may say of it, this is the scene I most love than the one that is commonly employed. to behold, this is the prospect over which But it is a different thing to throw light upon my eye and my imagination most fondly the workings of this affection,-to point expatiate. your attention to the objects on which it

The term love admits of an equally real,

and equally intelligible application to our when this cordiality is turned, in one stream fellow-men. They, too, are the frequent of kindliness, towards myself; when the and familiar objects of this affection, and eye of friendship has singled out me, and they often are so, because they possess cer- looks at me with a peculiar graciousness; tain accomplishments of person and of cha- when the man of tenderness has pointed racter, by which it is excited. I love the his way to the abode of my suffering family, man whose every glance speaks an effusive and there shed in secrecy over them his cordiality towards those who are around liberalities, and his tears; when he has forhim. I love the man whose heart and given me the debt that I was unable to diswhose hand are ever open to the represen-charge; and when, oppressed as I am, by the tations of distress. I love the man who consciousness of having injured or reviled possesses such a softness of nature, that the him, he has nobly forgotten or overlooked imploring look of a brother in want, or of the whole provocation, and persists in a rea brother in pain, disarms him of all his gard that knows no abatement, in a wellselfishness, and draws him out to some large doing that is never weary and willing surrender of generosity. I love the man who carries on his aspect, not merely the expression of worth, but of worth maintained in the exercise of all its graces, under every variety of temptation and discouragement; who, in the midst of calumny, can act the warm and enlightened philanthropist; who, when beset with many provocations, can weather them all in calm and settled endurance; who can be kind even to the unthankful and the evil; and who, if he possess the awful virtues of truth and of justice, only heightens our attachment the more, that he possesses goodness, and tenderness, and benignity along with them.

Now, we would have you to advert to one capital distinction between the former and the latter class of objects. The inanimate reflect no love upon us back again. They do not single out any one of their admirers, and, by an act of preference, either minister to his selfish appetite for esteem, or minister to his selfish appetite for enjoyment, by affording to him a larger share than to others, of their presence, and of all the delights which their presence inspires. They remain motionless in their places, without will and without sensibility; and the homage they receive, is from the disinterested affection which men bear to their loveliness. They are loved, and that purely, because they are lovely. There is no mixture of selfishness in the affection that is of fered to them. They do not put on a sweeter smile to one man than to another; but all the features of that beauty in which they are arrayed, stand inflexibly the same to every beholder; and he, without any conscious mingling whatever of self-love, in the emotion with which he gazes at the charms of some external scenery, is actuated by a love towards it, which rests and which terminates on the objects that he is employed in contemplating.

But this is not always the case when our fellow men are objects of this affection. I should love cordiality, and benevolence, and compassion for their own akes; but let your own experience tell how far more sweetly and more intensely the love is felt,

There is an element, then, in the love I bear to a fellow man, which does not exist in the love I bear to an inanimate object; and which may serve, perhaps, to darken the character of the affection I feel towards the former. We most readily concede it, that the love of another, on account of the virtues which adorn him, changes its moral character altogether, if it be a love to him, solely on account of the benefit which I derive from the exercise of these virtues. I should love compassion on its own account, as well as on the account that it is I who have been the object of it. I should love justice on its own account, as well as on the account that my grievances have been redressed by the dispensation of it. On looking at goodness, I should feel an affection resting on this object, and finding there its full and its terminating gratification; and that, though I had never stood in the way of any one of its beneficent operations.

How is it, then, that the special direction of a moral virtue in another, towards the object of my personal benefit, operates in enhancing both the sensation which it imparts to my heart, and the estimate which I form of it? What is the peculiar quality communicated to my admiration of another's friendship, and another's goodness, by the circumstance of myself being the individual towards whom that friendship is cherished, and in favour of whom, that goodness puts itself forth into active exertion? At the sight of a benevolent man, there arises in my bosom an instantaneous homage of regard and of reverence;-but should that homage take a pointed direction towards myself,-should it realize its fruits on the comfort, and the security of my own person,—should it be employed in gladdening my home, and spreading enjoyment over my family, oppressed with want and pining in sickness, there is, you will allow, by these circumstances, a heightening of the love and the admiration that I formerly rendered him. And, we should like to know what is the precise character of the addition that has thus been given to my regard for the virtue of benevolence. We should like to know, if it be altogether a pure and a

words, it may enhance my affection for worth, without any change whatever in the moral character of that affection.

Now, before we proceed to consider those peculiar emotions which are excited within me, by being the individual, in whose favour certain virtues are exercised, and which emotions are, all of them, different in kind from the affection that I bear for these virtues,-let us farther observe, that the term love, when applied to sentient beings considered as the object of it, may denote an affection, different in the principle of its excitement, from any that we have been yet considering. My love to another may lie in the liking I have for the moral qualities which belong to him; and this, by way of distinctness, may be called the love of moral esteem or approbation. Or, my love to an

praise-worthy accession that has thus come upon the sentiment with which I now look at my benefactor,-or, if, by contracting any taint of selfishness, it has lost the high rank that formerly belonged to it, as a disinterested affection, towards the goodness which beautifies and adorns his character. There is one way, however, in which this special direction of a moral virtue towards my particular interest, may increase my affection for it, and without changing the moral character of my affection. It gives me a nearer view of the virtue in question. It is true, that the virtue may just be as lovely when exercised in behalf of my neighbour, as when exercised in behalf of myself. But, in the former case, I am not an eye-witness to the display and the evolution of its loveliness. I am a limited being, who cannot take in so full and so dis-other may consist in the desire I have for tinct an impression of the character of what his happiness; and this may be called the is distant, as of the character of what is love of kindness. These two are often alimmediately beside me. It is true, that all lied to each other in fact, but there is a real the circumstances may be reported. But difference in their nature. The love of you know very well, that a much livelier kindness which I bear to my infant child representation is obtained of any object, may have no reference to its moral qualities by the seeing of it, than by the hearing of whatever. This love finds its terminating it. To be told of kindness, does not bring gratification in obtaining, for the object of this attribute of character so forcibly, or so it, exemption from pain, or in ministering clearly home to my observation, as to re- to its enjoyments. It is very true, that the ceive a visit from kindness, and to take it sight of what is odious or revolting in the by the hand, and to see its benignant mien, character of another, tends, in point of fact, and to hear its gentle and complacent voice, to dissipate all the love of kindness I may and to witness the solicitude of its inquiries, have ever borne to him. But it does not and to behold its tender and honest anxiety always do so, and one instance of this for my interest, and to share daily and proves a real distinction, in point of nature, weekly in the liberalities which it has be- between the love of kindness, and the love stowed upon me. When all this goes on of moral esteem. And the highest and around my own person, and within the most affecting instance which can be given limits of my own dwelling-place, it is very of this distinction, is in the love wherewith true that self is gratified, and that this cir- God hath loved the world; is in that kindcumstance may give rise to sensations, ness towards us, through Christ Jesus, which are altogether distinct from the love which he hath made known to men in the I bear to moral worth, or to moral excel-Gospel; is in that longing regard to his lence. But this does not hinder, that along fallen creatures, whereby he was not willwith these sensations, a disinterested love ing that any should perish, but rather that for the moral virtue of which I have been all should live. There was the love of kindthe object, may, at the same time, have its ness standing out, in marked and separate room and its residence within my bosom. display, from the love of moral esteem; for, I may love goodness more than ever, on alas! in the degraded race of mankind, there its own account, since it has taken its spe- was not one quality which could call forth cific way to my habitation, and that, just such an affection in the breast of the Godbecause I have obtained a nearer acquaint-head. It was, when we were hateful to him ance with it. I may love it better, because in character, that in person and in interest I know it better. My affection for it may we were the objects of his most unbounded have become more intense, and more de- tenderness. It was, when we were enemies voted than before, because its beauty is now by wicked works, that God looked on with more fully unfolded to the eye of my ob-pity, and stretched forth, to his guilty chilservation than before. And thus, while we dren, the arms of offered reconciliation. It admit that the goodness of which I am the was when we had wandered far in the paths object, originates within me certain feelings of worthlessness and alienation, that he dedifferent in kind from that which is excited vised a message of love, and sent his Son by goodness in the general, yet it may into our world, to seek and to save us. heighten the degree of this latter feeling And this, by the way, may serve to ilalso. It may kindle or augment the love Ilustrate the kind of love which we are rebear to moral virtue in itself; or, in other quired to bear to our enemies. We are re

quired to love them, in the same way in of kindness, when he cannot, from the nawhich God loves his enemies. A conscien- ture of the object, feel for us the slightest tious man will feel oppressed by the diffi- degree of the love of moral esteem. In the culty of such a precept, if he try to put it same manner may we feel, we are not sayinto obedience, by loving those who have of-ing towards God, but towards an earthly fended, with the same feeling of complacency benefactor, the love of gratitude, when, from with which he loves those who have be- the nature of the object we are employed friended him. But the truth is, that the love in contemplating, there is much to impair of moral esteem often enters, as a principal | within us the love of moral esteem, or to ingredient, into the love of complacency; extinguish it altogether. Is it not most naand we are not required, by our imitation|tural to say of the man, who has been perof the Godhead, to entertain any such affec-sonally benevolent to myself, and who has, tion for the depraved and the worthless. It at the same time, disgraced himself, by his is enough, that we cherish towards them in vices, that, bad as he is, he has been at all our hearts the love of kindness; and this times remarkably kind to me, and felt many will be felt a far more practicable achieve- a movement of friendship towards my perment, than to force up the love of compla- son, and done many a deed of important cency into a bosom, revolted by the aspect service to my family, and that I, at least, of treachery, or dishonesty, or unprincipled owe him a gratitude for all this, that I, at selfishness. There is no possible motive to least, should be longer than others, of disexcite the latter affection. There may be a missing from my bosom the last remainder thousand to excite the former: and we have of cordiality towards him,-that if, infamy only to look to the unhappy man in all his and poverty have followed, in the career of prospects, and in all his relations; we have his wickedness, and he have become an only to pity his delusions, and to view him outcast from the attentions of other men, it as the hapless victim of a sad and ruin-is not for me to spurn him instantly from ous infatuation; we have only to carry our eye onwards to the agonies of that death, which will shortly lay hold of him, and to compute the horrors of that eternity, which, if not recovered from the error of his way, It is the more necessary, to distinguish he is about to enter; we have only, in a the love of gratitude from the love of moral word, to put forth an exercise of faith in esteem, that each of these affections may certain near and impending realities, the be excited simultaneously within me, by one evidence of which is altogether resistless, in act or by one exhibition of himself, on the order to summon up such motives, and such part of the Deity. Let me be made to unconsiderations, as may cause the compassion derstand, that God has passed by my transof our nature to predominate over the re-gression, and generously admitted me into sentment of our nature: and as will assure the privileges and the rewards of obeto a believer the victory over such urgen-dience,-I see in this a tenderness, and a cies of his constitution as, to the unrenewed mercy, and a love, for his creatures, which, heart, are utterly unconquerable. if blended at the same time with all that is

my door,-or, in the face of my particular recollections, to look unpitying and unmoved, at the wretchedness into which he has fallen.

But to resume our argument, let it be ob-high and honourable in the more august served that the kindness of God is one of the attributes of his nature, have the effect of loveliest, and most estimable of the attri- presenting him to my mind, and of drawbutes which belong to him. It is a bright ing out my heart in moral regard to him, feature in that assemblage of excellencies, as a most amiable and estimable object of which enter into the character of the God-contemplation. But besides this, there is a head: and, as such, independently altogether peculiar love of gratitude, excited by the of this kindness being exercised upon me, I consideration that I am the object of this should offer to it the homage of my moral benignity,-that I am one of the creatures approbation. But, should I be the special to whom he has directed this peculiar reand the signalized object of his kindness, gard, that he has singled out me, and conthere is another sentiment towards God, be- ceived a gracious purpose towards me, and side the love of moral esteem, that ought to in the execution of this purpose is lavishing be formed within me by that circumstance, upon my person, the blessings of a father's and which, in the business of reasoning, care, and a father's tenderness. Both the should be kept apart from it. There is the love of moral esteem, and the love of gratilove of gratitude. These often go together, tude, may thus be in contemporaneous opand may be felt simultaneously, towards eration within me; and it will be seen to the one being we are employed in contem- accomplish a practical, as well as a metaplating. But they are just as distinct, each physical purpose, to keep the one apart from the other, as is the love of moral es- from the other, in the view of the mind, teem from the love of kindness. We trust when love towards God is the topic of specthat we have already convinced you, that ulation which engages it. God feels towards us, his inferiors, the love

But, farther, let it be understood, that the

what principle can more powerfully or more directly lead to the imitation of them?— which is the very service that he requires, and the very offering that he is most pleased with. And, if I love God because of his goodness to me, what is more fitted to prompt my every exertion, in the way of spreading the honours of his character and of his name among my fellows,— and, for this purpose, to magnify in their hearing the glories and the attributes of his nature? It is thus that the voice of praise and the voice of gratitude may enter into one song of adoration; and that whilst the Psalmist, at one time, gives thanks to God at the remembrance of his holiness, he, at another, pours forth praise at the remembrance of his mercies."

love of gratitude differs from the love of knowledgment of them; and so it may be, moral esteem, not merely in the cause which when one looks to the venerable, and the immediately originates it, but also in the lovely in the character of God. The more object, in which it finds its rest and its grati-appropriate offering of the latter, is the offerfication. It is the kindness of another being ing of thanksgiving, or of such services as to myself, which originates within me the are fitted to please, and to gratify a bene'ove of gratitude towards him; and it is the factor. But still it may be observed, how view of what is morally estimable in this each of these simple affections tends to exbeing, that originates within me all the love press itself, by the very act which more sof moral esteem, that I entertain for him. characteristically marks the workings of There is a real distinction of cause between the other; or, how the more appropriate these two affections, and there is also between offering of the first of them, may be promptthem a real distinction of object. The love ed under the impulse, and movement of of moral esteem finds its complacent grati- the second of them, and conversely. For, fication, in the act of dwelling contempla- if I love God because of his perfections, tively on that Being, by whom it is excited; just as a tasteful enthusiast inhales delight from the act of gazing on the charms of some external scenery. The pleasure he receives, emanates directly upon his mind, from the forms of beauty and of loveliness, which are around him. And if, instead of a taste for the beauties of nature, there exists within him, a taste for the beauties of holiness, then will he love the Being, who presents to the eye of his contemplation the fullest assemblage of them, and his taste will find its complacent gratification in dwelling upon him, whether as an object of thought, or as an object of perception. "One thing have I desired," says the Psalmist, "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 inquire in his temple." To have the love of gratitude towards Now, the love of gratitude is distinct from God, it is essential that we know and bethis in its object. It is excited by the love lieve his love of kindness towards us. To of kindness; and the feeling which is thus have the love of moral esteem towards him, excited, is just a feeling of kindness back it is essential that the loveliness of his charagain. It is kindness begetting kindness. acter be in the eye of the mind: or, in other The language of this affection is, "What words, that the mind keep itself in steady shall I render unto the Lord for all his bene- and believing contemplation of the excelfits?" He has done what is pleasing and lencies which belong to him. The view gratifying to me. What shall I do to please, that we have of God, is just as much in the and to gratify him? The love of gratitude order of precedency to the affection that we seeks for answers to this question, and finds entertain for him, as any two successive its delight in acting upon them, and whether steps can be, in any of the processes of our the answer be, this is the will of God, even mental constitution. To obtain the introyour sanctification,-or, with the sacrifices duction of love into the heart, there must, of liberality God is well pleased,-or, obe- as a preparatory circumstance, be the indience to parents is well pleasing in his troduction of knowledge into the undersight, these all point out so many lines of standing; or, as we can never be said to conduct, to which the impulse of the love know what we do not believe-ere we have of gratitude would carry us, and attest this love, we must have faith; and, accordingly, in to be the love of God,-that ye keep his the passage from which our text is extracted, commandments. do we perceive the one pointed to, as the And, indeed, when the same Being com-instrument for the production of the other. bines, in his own person, that which ought to excite the love of moral esteem, with that which ought to excite the love of grati- And here, it ought to be remarked, that a tude, the two ingredients, enter with a man may experience a mental process, and mingled but harmonious concurrence, into yet have no taste or no understanding for the exercise of one compound affection. It the explanation of it. The simple truths of is true, that the more appropriate offering the Gospel, may enter with acceptance into of the former is the offering of praise, the mind of a peasant, and there work all just as when one looks to the beauties of the proper influences on his heart and chanature, he breaks out into a rapturous ac-racter, which the Bible ascribes to them: and

"Keep yourselves in the love of God, building yourselves up on your most holy faith."

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