our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ a man who, like Moses, can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and yet a God who, unlike Moses, can infallibly redress them. Let us, then, never be tempted to put such shame upon this appointed Mediator, as to look to saints or to angels to do for us that, which He hath undertaken with so unbounded a love, and at so countless a cost. What would our dearest friend think of us, if we preferred to ask a favour of one, with whom his own interest was supreme, through the mediation of a servant or a pauper, instead of himself? Could there be a greater and more palpable affront? Yet this is done by all who attempt to add the mediation of any created beings, be they saints, or angels, or the blessed Virgin herself, to that of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is often called humility! May we content ourselves with the humility taught by the written Word, and not desire to gild the fine gold of the sanctuary with the glittering but worthless tinsel of man's devices.

EXPOSITION XLVIII.

DEUTERONOMY vi. 1-5,

1. Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it :

2. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee; thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

3. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.

4. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord : 5. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

In this chapter, the same duties, and cautions, and precepts, are reiterated, as have formed the substance of the two preceding. In the old dispensation, as well as in the new and "better covenant," love to God appears to be the great end and object of all religion, standing out

amongst the commands of God, with a prominency and an importance, which almost overshadow every other. So that, in after ages, when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was asked, "Which is the great commandment in the law?" He did not hesitate to answer, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." Strange, indeed, is it, that that, which, if our hearts were right, if they now were, as Adam's was, when it came fresh from the hands of the Creator, and was pronounced "very good," would be the chiefest of our pleasures, the most natural and the choicest of our delights, is now compelled to be enforced upon us as a difficult duty, and urged upon us as a peremptory command. Yet so it most assuredly is, and none who has ever made the attempt to fulfil it, will for one moment doubt the need of all the strong and cogent precepts that enforce it. Do we desire a powerful and unanswerable evidence of the innate depravity and corruption of our fallen nature, surely we have it here. What would an angel say, were he commanded to love God? What would be the feelings with which he would listen to the delivery of such an order? Would it be possible to make him believe that the speaker were

in earnest? We think not; but if he did, his reply would probably be, Love God! why, it is the very joy of my heart, the one grand object of my existence; in his presence alone is life, in his love alone is happiness, without it, heaven itself would be desolate, and the thought of eternity a burden. Yet when we are commanded to love the Lord our God, with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, we, alas! feel no reason to doubt that we need the precept; our only question is, whether with every desire to do so, and every aid that we shall receive from on high, we shall in reality ever fully and faithfully practise it. Even when truly reconciled to God by his dear Son, when owning Him, as worthy, and alone worthy of our gratitude and love, when enabled, in some degree, to feel with the psalmist, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee,"-even then, where is the Christian who can say, I have fully achieved this arduous duty; I now love God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my strength? Alas! where is the man, who knows his own heart, who will not rather say, Lord, increase our love to Thee, for it bears no proportion, scarcely a resemblance to Thy love for us. So dull is it, that there are times, when the

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greatest efforts cannot arouse it; so cold, that there are hours when even the recollection of Thy dying love cannot kindle it so dead, that there are moments when it can neither speak in prayer, nor breathe in praise. O Lord, for thy great mercies' sake increase our love.

EXPOSITION XLIX.

DEUTERONOMY vi. 6-25.

6. And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart :

7. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

8. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

10. And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildedst not,

11. And houses full of all good things, which thou