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 generatior.s have streamed forth to every part of the univers‹. 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, mot 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 co: t ibute voluntarily to this blessed end-that God my not extort this honour from us unwilling and unhap

py in yielding it, but that we may give glory to him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb— that we may not deepen the stern and awful darkness of his manifested righteousness, but melt into that radiance of glorious grace, with which he will then surround himself.

Such are the ways in which the divine glory is sought. Not that all these views and considerations are present at the same instant and in the same act. They are modifications and varied expressions of one principle, and will adapt themselves to the various occasions and seasons which befit them. We are not to embarrass our path by attempting to crowd them all into one act, but are to draw them forth from "the good treasure of the heart," as they are needed.

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CHAP. III.

ON THE EXTENT OF THE REQUIREMENT TO DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD.

We have already admitted that it is of immense importance to form clear views of what it is to glorify God. Of necessity then we must consider it of moment to understand the extent of the requisition. Contractedness of view is to be deprecated as well as obscurity. It cannot well be doubted that the conceptions of numbers are extremely narrow upon this subject. It is sufficient to appeal to the consciousness of many. How uncomfortable a sense of distance between the recollected habits of their minds, and the comprehensive terms of the scriptural demand "to do all things to the glory of God."! How seldom is the rule brought in, and how partially applied! How far too small a place is the divine glory made to hold, even in the affairs of their salvation, in the exercises of their devotion, and in the practice of their obedience-matters in which we might expect it would be present and palpable, primary and all-absorbing! How little some professing christians think of the divine honour in their enqui. ries and discussions respecting religious truth! How often is its regulating power refused in our inter

course with the world! And who is never afraid to let in the full light of this glory upon his talents, upon his faculties, his time, his money, his influence, his station? And is it not often excluded, or but feebly admitted in the modes of christian association, the movements of religious zeal, and the enterprizes of benevolent exertion? And then, in what we choose to call indifferent matters a wide tract of actiondo we not often seem to think that the glory of God cannot be made by any possibility to bear upon it— that it is a sort of neutral ground, or unclaimed territory?

Serious indeed are the evils which arise from this narrowness of view. If there are large portions of thought, of feeling and of action, not brought under the control and government of the principle we are considering, what strange inequalities of character must present themselves! What incongruous appearances must meet the eye! What defects! What wastes! What chasms! Life altogether without the glory of God for its end, is one fearful and howling desert, where men roam and perish; whilst life with large portions of it undevoted to this object, has frequent, and lonely, and cheerless wilds, where christians wander and want, and fear and weep. But beyond this, other ills ensue. What becomes of these unappropriated portions of thought and feeling and life? Will not mind have some end? And what is that end, if God be not? Whither tends our nature let loose from the safe bond of acting to the glory of God? What happens to the region unblessed with this salutary light? If there be any considerable portion of life to which we do not apply the princi

ple in question, have we not reason to fear that it is moving in some wild, erratic and perilous direction? Whither is it tending? Is it to "make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof?" Is it to gratify an inordinate and ungodly ambition? Is it to gain the little paltry ends of selfishness? Is it to feed a greedy vanity? Is it to indulge in ignoble sloth? Is it toilsomely to amass gold? We may be certain that where we have not the glory of God for our end, we have some other, some lower, and probably some opposite end.

The first thing which meets us in our enquiries upon the extent of the requirement to seek the glory of God in our actions, is universality. "Whatsoever we do, whether we eat or whether we drink, we are to do all to the glory of God." Although the universal terms employed in the scriptures, are often to be restricted by the nature of the subjects in question, and by the special object of the writer and speaker, yet we conceive there is no need for limitation in the case before us. It seems rather that in the instance just quoted, the author brought a principle of universal range, to bear upon a special case. It forms therefore an appropriate motto and a safe directory for our thoughts upon the extent to which the great rule is to be carried, of doing all to the glory of God.

But in order to see more clearly this extensiveness of the principle, and to bring under this wide-spread power, as large a portion as possible of life, it will be desirable to classify the parts of character and action which are to be thus subjected.