It is this two-fold, this mingled exhibition that is so powerful in drawing back the wandering spirit of man to God as its centre, its rest, and its end. It awakens us to our true situation; clothes us with shame and confusion of face; makes the heart bleed with generous and penitential sorrow; bows the spirit in humility before God; amidst the tears of sorrow wakens up the flames of gratitude; kindles the fire of an everlasting love, which becomes the impulse of obedience, submission, and devotedness. These surpassing and overwhelming disclosures of divine glory, awe, subdue and humble the spirit; self is thenceforth renounced-self worship, self seeking, self lauding, self justification, and self sufficiency;-God is then adored and loved as the chief excellency, sought as the Infinite Good, and reposed in as the “ All in All.” And these motives continue to operate with increasing force to the close of life. It is by a perpetual reference to the cross of Christ that the heart is kept tender, and the stream of repentance kept flowing; that God becomes an object of intenser delight; that obedience becomes steadier and purer; that greater acquiescence in the divine will is attained, and greater resemblance to the divine character acquired. Hence the interest with which holy minds, inspired and uninspired, have ever regarded the cross, not only as the cause of past deliverance, but as the source of present and future improvement. It is now the watchword of piety, and in heaven it will remain the memorial and the pledge of that everlasting friendship with which God shall bless the souls of his redeemed,

Such are the motives to return unto God, and after returning, to live unto God, which flow from redemption-such their aptitude and vitality, their glory and power. Especially is the principle of gratitude called into action. The appeal made by redemption to our thankfulness, is not to be measured by any exhibition of kindness or mercy made by man. There is marvellous disparity between human favours and divine mercies. There are great peculiarities in divine benevolence. Amongst these may be mentioned the vastness and completeness of the blessings. The spontaneous and sovereign design of saving the fallen; mercy in quest of sinners to the very verge of perdition; the Eternal Parent seeking his rebellious, wandering, and lost offspring; free and gracious remission of guilt; the "wondrous love" of being made "the children of God; "* the infusion of a new and holy nature; communion with God; all the blessings of the "exceeding great and precious promises;" all the security of the everlasting covenant; an escape from a deserved and eternal hell; a place in heaven for ever ;—all presented to us by the mediatorial work of the Son of God, and all enhanced, immeasurably enhanced, by those mysterious and awe-striking manifestations of righteousness and purity by which they have been introducedfurnish a tide of motives which shall bear forward upon their mighty though safe and gentle surges, the souls of the ransomed to that glory which they seek. these specialities add, the utter undeservingness of man, the wonders of incarnation, the mysteries and

• 1 John iii. 1..

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terrors of atonement: and how inconceivably does divine mercy rise above all human kindness! And then comes eternity, and swells this difference to infinitude. If there be then peculiarity in the favour which is shewn, shall there not be pecnliarity in the grateful affection produced: Shall there not be some seemly correspondency between the gifts and the gratitude? Shall not he "who has much forgiven love much?" Shall there not be peculiar depth, tenderness and strength in those emotions which are created by unparalleled and infinite compassion? If they are to bear any comely proportion to the objects which awaken them, who shall give them limits? We may sometimes be required to practice a species of self denial with regard to our gratitude to man. We may have to check its overflowings-to put a restraint upon its promptings. Other claims may have to be considered. But here our gratitude may exult in its boundless freedom. God deserves all, and we may give him all—a lovely and a glorious liberty to a mind deeply thankful for its redemption. We might devote too much to an earthly benefactor, and by a too complete surrender of ourselves, be guilty of folly and idolatry. But here we may yield ourselves— we may become 68 offerings to God of a sweet smelling savour." Pure gratitude is of a self devoting, self sacrificing kind, and when awakened and sustained by the "mercies of God" in Christ, will express itself in entire and habitual consecration to the Lord. Thus it is that gratitude, moved by redeeming grace, draws us off from every wrong end, and sweetly wins us back by a direct course to the glory of God, as the true end of our being; which we now

learn to desire as our rest, to long for as the home of our spirits, to pant for as our life and our exceeding joy. Thus the cross accomplishes its object in restoring, sanctifying, and sealing us unto God; and Christ fulfils his highest designs, and "MAKES US PILLARS IN THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND WRITES UPON US THE NAME OF HIS GOD, AND HIS OWN NEW NAME.

V. The happiness connected with seeking God's glory is also an appropriate and powerful motive.

When we mention this inducement, let it not be imagined that we thereby displace the glory of God, or that we obscure and depreciate it, by our own interests. There is no disagreement between these things. A regard for our own happiness is a law of our being— an essential element of our sentient nature, and cannot be laid aside. The Bible never asks us to lay it aside. It encourages it, appeals to it, works by it, sanctifies it. It upbraids us with folly and madness when we do not seriously and rightly cherish it; and puts us in that wise and safe path by which its great object may be secured. Moreover God seeks the happiness of his creatures in connection with his own glory; we therefore in imitation of him may seek our own bliss in conjunction with his honour. God seeks his own honour in imparting bliss. He manifests his glory by diffusing holy happiness through the creation. If we seek this pure blessedness then, we seek what God seeks. It may surely engage us to seek more cheerfully the divine glory, to know that in so

• Rev. iii. 12.

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doing we pursue our own felicity. That our interests and God's glory are thus made to blend and become one, tends to render our regard for God and our desires of happiness identical and united-forming one great and eternal impulse towards God-the blessed God." Thus "we dwell in God and God in us." The glory of God is the christian's heaven. When therefore we are called to follow the glory of God, let us not feel as if we were about to surrender happiness-to tread a desert, there to be dazzled and withered to have our enjoyment consumed by the scorching beams of this glorious light; but as if invited to a fruitful field-the garden of the Lord, where the beams of the Father of lights fall mildly and genially, diffusing joy through our own frame, and spreading fertility, beauty, and sweetness around us.

It is an awakening as well as a joyous consideration, that as God has blended his own glory and our bliss, we must combine them in our pursuit. We shall never find them separated. If we will not seek God's glory, we may as well give over our pursuit of happiness. Misery is then natural and inevitable. Our affections and purposes being thus separated from their proper object, we are cut off from God. The avenues by which he pours his own blessedness into the mind, are closed. We already become wretches, forlorn, outcast and hopeless. We fall under the frown of that "wrath which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness as well as unrighteousness of men." * Revolted and alienated, we are at last driven far away from the divine pre

Rom. i, 18.