We must honour the veracity, love, unchangeable faithfulness, forbearance and wisdom of God. When we do any thing in the exercise of this filial, confidential resting of the mind in God, we do it to his glory; whilst suspicion, shyness, and distrust dishonour him.

VII. Whatever we do in cordial submission to Divine Supremacy, is done to God's glory. This subject, so far as the will of God in reference to our conduct is concerned, has already been noticed. We introduce the particular now for the sake of another wide branch of practical godliness which it embraces. We refer to the meek, lowly, resigned, undisputing, childlike recognition of God as Supreme,. in the entire arrangement, disposal, and management of us and of ours. Every thing is to be undertaken, every thing carried forward; every thing done, under the subduing impression that God will do all his pleasure--that he orders all things after the counsel of his own will. And whilst the spirit lies prostrate' with this acknowledgment, it is to soothe and sweeten its humiliation with the thought, that the divine will ́ is as wise as it is absolute, and as good as it is supreme. If we act with this deference and subjection, we honour God, by giving him his own place in his own universe, as its Proprietor and Governor.

VIII. When we so act as to show that we seek our chief happiness in God, we glorify him. We manifest the highest imaginable respect to a fellowcreature when our actions are of such a nature as to indicate that we regard him as essential to our feli-'

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city. And if God is looked to as our indispensable, our highest source of enjoyment; if we so conduct ourselves as to demonstrate that we feel towards him as the centre of our interests, our affections, our hopes, our joys; if we "rest in God," yea "delight ourselves in the Lord;" if we seek his "favour as life and his lovingkindness as better than life;" if our thoughts seek to dwell in him; if we " thirst for the Lord, and pant for the living God;" if amidst the profusion of earthly good we can say, "whom have I in heaven but thee, there is none upon earth I desire beside thee," and amidst the wreck and ruin of all worldly blessings, we can exclaim, "though the fig tree shall not blossom, and there be no herd in the stall, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation ;"-then we are surely rendering to God that homage which a rational and immortal being, in a correct state, may be expected to render to its Great Original. We honour him as

the Father of our Spirits. We place him above every other thing and every other being. We then show that we love his excellence above all other excellence that we value his regard above the regard of all creatures-that we fear his displeasure above every evil-that we enjoy Him above every other good. We feel indeed that He is "all in all,” to us. God does not own himself glorified by us, until this is our disposition of mind towards him. If this be not our habit of soul, we are not in our proper position. If this is not their state, our minds are out of place. If they are not held to God, as their centre, they have broken and started from their proper circle, and are darkly wandering in distance, confusion, and ruin.

IX. We may be said to act to the glory of God, when in our actions we voluntarily concur and cooperate in the divine designs. We show respect to others, when we endeavour cordially to promote their intentions and to execute their plans. God seeks his own glory by carrying forward and perfecting his own purposes; and we seek the same object when we become "fellow-workers together with him"-when we sympathise in his intentions-when we enter into his plans and expedients-when we endeavour to throw our actions into the track and train of the divine proceedings of purity and benevolence-when we shape our humble contrivances after his perfect counsel-when we ally our feeble instrumentality with his omnipotent agency-our "working with fear and trembling" with "his working in us to will and to do"--our enterprise with his undertaking-when in every effort of personal piety, in every struggle with sin, in every work of faith, in every labour of love, in every attempt to build up the church, to spread the gospel and to convert the world, we "come to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." This way of honouring God stands opposed to the affront we offer to him when we make our own narrow and selfish designs the chief end at which we aim; and it also stands apart from the dishonour we do him, when we seek even our own salvation, without regarding it as his own design and as intended to show forth his own glory.

X. Whatever is done with a pure aim to promote the knowledge, enjoyment, and service of God, is done to his glory. God teaches us in his word to

look upon his glory as advanced when his character is manifested, when it is admired and adored, and when it is diffused through created intelligences:when God displays, magnifies, endears, imparts, Himself to his creatures:when instead of shrouding himself in mysterious and awful darkness, he unveils his perfection-when, instead of enjoying alone his infinite blessedness, he pours down streams of bliss into the souls he has made-when, instead of contenting himself with eternal satisfaction in his own solitary and uncommunicated excellence, he "sheds it forth abundantly" in endless forms of sanctity and love. To accomplish these blessed and glorious ends, he condescends to use us as his instruments. We then may join in this grandest and purest and loveliest of all undertakings; and in proportion as we do unite in these surpassing, these divine works, we act to the glory of God, in the strictest and most emphatical

sense.

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Do we so esteem the perfections of God that we wish the world to know them? Is it our lamentation, "O Father the world hath not known thee?"? Do we sigh for the day when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together?" Do we pray that "the knowledge of the Lord may cover the earth as the waters cover the sea?" we seek to pour "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ," upon the darkened minds of men? And do we desire too that men may imbibe and imitate these excellences? Are we anxious that they should resemble God-that they may be "partakers of the divine nature”—that he may impart to them his own purity and love? And do we wish that men may love him, serve him, praise him?

Would we that every knee was bowed to him, that every tongue celebrated him, that every heart adored him? And are we ready to promote these ends? Can we labour in this field? Can we sacrifice for these objects? So far as our actions are prompted by these motives, we act to the glory of God.

XI. We act to the divine glory, when our actions express satisfaction and delight in the anticipated honour of God as the grand result of all things, and in the discovery of the tendency of all things to that end. We are to regard this as the most worthy and becoming end, for God to propose and for us to seek. We are fully to acquiesce in it. Our minds are to repose in it, as the most suitable, exalted, and lovely. It is in every way to appear the best. We are therefore to anticipate it as "the glory that shall be revealed" -the returned and concentrated effulgence of those emanations of glory which for ages and generations have streamed forth to every part of the universe. It follows hence, that we shall derive pleasure from beholding the tendency of present things to this delightful issue. We are to feel a joy in discovering this tendency, and when we cannot trace it, we are to rejoice, in the persuasion that the darkest, most complicated, most perplexing scenes and affairs, shall contribute to the wondrous manifestation of the perfections of God. And whilst our minds rest in this delightful conviction, that God will bring honour, infinite, everlasting honour to himself, whoever and whatever may oppose; our desire will be to contribute voluntarily to this blessed end-that God may not extort this honour from us unwilling and unhap