need is there then to "watch unto prayer."

How desirable to fix the eye on God! An oblique twinkle invites the rival objects. How hopeless our case, were it not for that affecting and wonderful provision of condescension and love,-"Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities!"

In order to glorify God in our devotion, God must be seen, regarded and acknowledged according to his Glorious Majesty, his character, his revealed will and designs. If we approach with minds unawed, and unhumbled, we make God altogether such an one as ourselves. Our God is a consuming fire, and he who worships acceptably must worship" with reverence and godly fear." If we venture regardless of the Mediator between God and man, we insult God by the virtual denial of his righteous claims, as well as by the contempt of his revealed mercy in the gospel. We are to confess that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We shall not honour the Father, unless we also, and in like manner, honour the Son. And if we address the Supreme Being with nought that is tender, nought that is confiding, nought that is filial, we deny that "God is love." We treat Him as slaves treat their Tyrant, and not as children their Parent, We shall never truly honour God in devotion, until we cast off the "spirit of bondage, and receive the spirit of adoption, whereby we shall say, Abba, Father." The worship of heaven honours God. We shall honour him as we approximate to that.

We have seen the plain and deep stigma which God has put upon all pretended devotion which has not him for its end. But if we prefer viewing the

subject in more pleasing lights, we are not without the amplest instructions and the strongest examples. The whole matter receives a flood of illustration from the single fact, that "to worship God," and "to glorify God" are employed in the scriptures, as similar and convertible expressions. Plainly then, our worship, if not "to the glory of God," is not worship, but empty shew and simulation. And if we enter upon detail, this is marked in the divine epitome and directory of prayer, as the essentiality and spirit of our ordinary and every day devotions: "Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name: Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth." In this emphatically lies the sanctification of the Sabbath: "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on. my holy day; and call the sabbath a Delight, the Holy of the Lord, Honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." This too is the highest explanation of a good man's attachment to the house of God: "One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, to behold the beauty of the

Lord, and to enquire in his Temple." And it is this which gives meaning, interest, and acceptableness to all the private engagements of piety: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." After these "true sayings of God," comment and argument are needless

to show that as our devotion embodies God's glory as its end, so will be its consistency, purity, elevation, and approvableness to him "who trieth the reins."

II. We are to act to the glory of God in the formation of our religious views. All our inquiries after sacred truth should be conducted under the safe and powerful regulation of this motive.

We should feel as if seeking divine truth, i. e. the truth which comes from God, which reveals God, which tends to God. When we value the truth of God we honour the God of truth. If our appreciation of different kinds of knowledge defines and marks our regard for the specific and corresponding objects of knowledge, then to value religious truth only as we value other truth is to place God upon a level with his works. If we pursue heavenly truth with no greater interest, solemnity, sense of responsibility, and earnestness, than we bestow upon human science, we dishonour the Great Fountain of truth. This is to make "the Father of lights"-the Infinite and Everlasting Sun-"with whom is no variableness nor shadow of change," of no more account than the dim lamps and feeble torches of human wisdom.

We are also to give the Great Instructor credit for revealing his will in the best way—the way most calculated to convey it to the minds of men. Under this impression our course of investigation is to be direct, plain, simple, open; with no oblique, evasive, tortuous, doubling movements, as if we distrusted the competency, or suspected the honesty of the witness we professed to examine.

Our anxiety should be to find out what God meant in each communication; and our settled intention should be, to regard that as finally decisive. To suppose any appeal beyond this-to make any reserve of our acquiescence-to take sanctuary in any opposite philosophical conclusion or abstract principle-to allow the divine decision to be interrupted or qualified by any dogma of system, any conjecture of prejudice, any dictum of pure dislike or to wait for other possible light or voice-is unworthily and con temptuously to dispute the only competent authority.

An equally firm purpose should there be of adhering faithfully to the decision when known, let it be what it may, and let it lead whither it will. If we suspend our compliance upon the agreement of the decision with our preconceived notions, its congeniality with our feelings, or its accordancy with our convenience, we are paying court to ourselves, whilst truth is dishonoured, and its author insulted. If "thus saith the Lord," does not suffice for us, we are guilty of unreasonable arrogance and offensive perverseness towards the God of all truth.

But all will come short of glorifying God, unless divine truth when found, be practically used. After having searched for it as for hid treasure, we must not make it the mere gewgaw of ostentatious knowledge the plaything of theory-the football of disputation-the deposit of useless curiosity. This assuredly is not the way to treat the discovery, the emanation, the likeness, the glory of the Lord. The honour of God requires that we fall in with the tendencies of his revelations, and enter into the great designs for which they were given.

But we are to regard God's glory in the character of the views we form. The great system of salvation is constructed with a view to give "glory to God in the highest." It is presented to us in this aspect, recommended and enforced on this ground. When we receive it therefore in this character and with these pretensions, we give glory to God. The truths of the gospel are urged upon our acceptance because they "show forth the righteousness of God that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth" because they disclose "the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God"because" he thereby shows the exceeding riches of his grace." It is mentioned as their recommendation that they show salvation to be "by grace"-that it is "to the praise of the glory of his grace"-that they manifest "the excellency of the power to be of God" and not of man-that they "suffer no flesh to glory in his presence," but enjoin on "him that glorieth to glory in the Lord." It is upon their subserviency to these ends that the inspired writers ground no small share of their argumentation. If our views do not recognise these ends they derogate from the divine honour. If they but partially acknowledge them, they so far fall short of the glory of God. The revelations of the word of God are so many openings to the divine throne, through which we gaze and adore. All the doctrines are to be channels in which our profoundest sentiments of awe, lowliness, submission, and affection, are to flow towards our God and Saviour. We have not made our proper use of Truth, if we do not travel in it as our "high way" to the presence of "the excellent glory." Such is the