SER M. the Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, and the God of confolation, diffipates overwhelming apprehenfion, raises the foul from the duft, inspires confidence and joy, and enables the creature to look up to his Creator with complacency, and the finner to behold his Judge with hope, refignation, and firm, though humble, reliance, Now, every endearing confideration is connected with the idea of Deity. Admiration and astonishment are tempered with tenderness and gratitude; fear is fucceeded by affection and joy; and the foul is drawn by the strongest bands of love t. In God, we contemplate the source of our life, and the length of our days, the reliever of our wants, our defender againft danger, and calamity, the bestower of all our comforts and bleffings, the inftructor of our ignorance, our helper in temptation, the reformer of our follies and vices, our guide amidst uncertainty, our comforter under affliction, our counfellor in perplexity, the infpirer and fupporter of our virtues, the redeemer and fanctifier of our fouls, our friend in every circumftance

II.

circumftance and condition of life, our pre-S ER M. fent refuge and confidence, and our joy and happiness for ever. We behold infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, not only employed in promoting the happiness of the moral and intelligent creation, in general, but particularly engaged in our private behalf, and fo folicitous for our welfare, that nothing but our own depravity can fruftrate our felicity. Holy fcripture has excited, in our minds, ftrong feelings of attachment to the Deity, by representing him as the friend, the guide, and the protector of every good man, and the affectionate father of all who have not renounced the obligations of filial duty.

Can the foul, that is not blinded by folly or hardened by vice, confider, without the most lively emotions, that ever bleffed Being, who, having called us into existence, and raised us to that rank in creation which is but a little lower than that of the angels *, and hitherto preferved us through the stages, and amidft the viciffitudes of life, ftill continues to load us with loving kindness

*Psalm viii. 5.

and

II.

SERM. and tender mercy *? Can we contemplate, without affection, that gracious Creator, who, having looked, with an eye of paternal compaffion, on the human race, darkened by ignorance, polluted with guilt, finking in perdition, and unworthy of deliverance,-refolved to pardon and fave us, by fubjecting his only begotten Son to a cruel and ignominious death? Can we meditate, without gratitude, on that Father of spirits, who, in order to perpetuate the knowledge of falvation, made the gospel be configned to uncorrupted records, and ef tablished religious ordinances, as the standing means of its falutary application; who, guiding us by his gracious Spirit through the pilgrimage of this world, unfolds to us, at its conclufion, the gates of everlasting paradife? To fuppofe that these confiderations can be reviewed, I fay not with indifference, but without devotion and love, is to affert that all admiration of excellence, all fenfe of goodnefs, all gratitude, all elevated affection, in a word, every thing amiable and generous, is banished from the

human

II.

human breast. To entertain no impreffion SERM. of benefits received from our fellow men, to feel no love and reverence for estimable and endearing qualities, to view, with callous indifference, the nobleft difplays of virtue, are confidered as indubitable marks of a base and contemptible mind. But how much more must this be the cafe, when fuch a difpofition is manifested with respect to God, in whom all excellence and perfection centre, and who confers on us much greater benefits than we can receive from our terrestrial parents?However unfashionable the affertion may be, I fcruple not to maintain, that the perfon who feels no devout or affectionate fentiments rifing in his foul, on the confideration of the divine nature, is completely deftitute of every quality to which I can give the name of virtue. Such a man will not fail, fooner or later, to evince his depravity in his focial

relations.

Thus, the love of God implies that awful veneration, that folemn dread, which the fupreme Majefty of heaven, Jehovah, the

SERM. king immortal, eternal, invifible, the only wise

II.

God, infpires; that profound admiration which infinite perfection excites; that devotion, attachment, and acquiefcence, which arife on the confideration of inexhauftible goodness; that gratitude which is produced by benefits without number or measure ; and that defire of pleafing and fecuring the favour of the adored object, which results from the united force of all thefe emotions. It is a rapturous, but, at the fame time, a folemn ;-a vivid, but also a steady ;—an ardent, but moreover a calm, temperate, and permanent affection. It excludes, on the one hand, extravagant and indecent enthufiafm, and, on the other, ignorant and flavish fuperftition. It is a tender, yet rational principle, which satisfies the understanding while it touches the heart, It is exalted like the majefty of its object, intelligent like his wifdom, expanfive as his goodness, and beneficent as his power. It is an affection worthy of God to infpire, and of man to entertain. This brings me to fhew, in the second place, that the love of God is