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love for all that he now saw, and were he only safe could look upon with ecstacy?-and let the beauty be as exquisite as it may, would not all the power and pleasure of its enchantments fly away from his bosom, were it only seen through the glowing fervency of elements that threatened to destroy him?

Let us now conceive, that through that thick spiritual darkness by which every child of nature is encompassed, there was forced upon him a view of the countenance of the Deity,-that the perfections of God were made visible,-and that the character on which the angels of paradise gaze with delight, because they there behold all the lineaments of moral grandeur, and moral loveliness, were placed before the eye of his mind, in bright and convincing manifestation. It is very true, that on what he would be thus made to see, all that is fair and magnificent are assembled,-that whatever of greatness, or whatever of beauty can be found in creation, is but a faint and shadowy transcript of that original substantial excellence, which resides in the conceptions of him who is the fountain of being,—that all the pleasing of goodness, and all the venerable of worth, and all the sovereign command of moral dignity meet and are realised on the person of God,-that through the whole range of universal existence, there cannot be devised a single feature of excellence, which does not serve to enrich the character of him who sustains all things, and who originated all things. No wonder that the pure eye of an angel takes in such fulness of pleasure from a contemplation so ravishing. But let all this burst upon the eye of a sinner, and let the truth and the righteousness of God out of Christ stand before it in visible array, along with the other glories of character which belong to him. The love of moral esteem, you may say, ought to arise in his bosom ;but it cannot. The affection is in such circumstances impossible. The man is in terror. And he can no more look with complacency upon his God, than he can delight himself with the fair forms of a landscape, opened to his view, by the flashes of an impending volcano. He cannot draw an emotion so sweet, and delightful as love, from the view of that countenance, on which he beholds a purpose of vengeance against himself, as one of the children of iniquity. The fear which hath torment

casteth out this affection altogether. There is positively no room for it within the bosom of a sentient being along with the dread, and the alarm by which he is agitated. It is this which explains the recoil of his sinful nature, from the thought of God. The sense of guilt comes into his heart, and the terrors and the agitations of guilt come along with it. It is because he sees the justice of God frowning upon him, and the truth of God pledged to the execution of its threatenings against him, and the holiness of God which cannot look upon him without abhorrence, and all the sacred attributes of a nature that is jealous, and unchangeable, leagued against him for his everlasting destruction. He cannot love the Being, with the very idea of whom there is mixed up a sense of danger, and a dread of condemnation, and all the images of a wretched eternity. We cannot love God, so long as we look upon him as an enemy armed to destroy us. Ere we love him, we must be made to feel the security, and the enlargement of one who knows himself to be safe. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear, terrify me, and then may I love him and not fear him ; but it is not so with me.

But let him who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of his own glory, in the face of Jesus Christ,-let us only look upon him as God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, and not imputing unto them their trespasses,-let him without expunging the characters of truth, and majesty, from that one aspect of perfect excellence which belongs to him,--let him in his own unsearchable wisdom devise a way, by which he can both bring them out in the eye of sinners with brighter illustration, and make these sinners feel, that they are safe ;-let him lift off from the men of this guilty world, the burden of his violated law, and cause it to be borne by another who can magnify that law, and make it honourable,-let him publish a full release from all its penalties, but in such a way, as that the truth which proclaimed them, and the justice which should execute them, shall remain untainted under the dispensation of mercy,-let him instead of awaking the sword of vengence against us, awake it against a sufferer of such worth and such dignity, that his

blood shall be the atonement of a world, and by pouring out his soul unto the death, he shall make the pardon of the transgressor meet, and be at one with the everlasting righteousness of God, ---in a word, instead of the character of God being lighted up to the eye of the sinner, by the fire of his own indignation, let it through the demonstration of the Spirit be illustrated, and shone upon, by the mild, but peaceful light of the Sun of righteousness, and then may the sinner look in peace, and safety, on the manifested character of the Godhead. Delivered from the burden of his fears, he may now open his whole heart to the influences of affection. And that love of moral esteem, which before the entrance of the faith of the gospel, the sense of condemnation was sure to scare away, is now free to take its place beside the love of gratitude, and to arise along with it, in the offering of one spiritual sacrifice to a reconciled Father.

Thus, then, it would appear, that the love of moral esteem is in every way as much posterior, and subordinate to faith, as is the love of gratitude. That we may be able to love God, either according to the one or the other of its modifications, we must first know that God loved us. We cannot harbour this affection in any one shape whatever, so long as there is the suspicion, and the dread of a yet unsettled controversy between us and God. Peace with our offended Lawgiver, is not the fruit of our love, but of our faith ;--and faith if it be a reality, and not a semblance, worketh by love. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And we love much when we know, and believe, that our sins are forgiven us.

God did not wait for any returning affection on the part of a guilty world, ere he felt an affection for it himself. At that period when he so loved the world, as to send his only begotten Son into it,--did it exhibit the spectacle of an immense prison-house of depravity. Among the men of it, there was friendship one for another, but there was one unalleviated character of enmity against God. Measuring themselves by them. selves, there was often a high mutual esteem for such accomplishments, as were in demand for the good of society ;-but that which is highly esteemed among men, is in God's sight an abomination; and when brought to the measure of that univer

sal righteousness which forms the standard and rule of Heaven's government, was it found that our species, had through all its generations broken off from their allegiance, and stood at as wide a distance from the obedient, and unfallen creation, as does a colony of convicts, from the country which has cast them out of its borders. And it was at such a time, when the world liked not to retain God in their knowledge,-when all flesh had corrupted their ways,-when there was none seeking after God,-when there was not the thought, or the wish, of a movement to him back again, that he looked with pity on our fallen race, and in the fulness of time, sent his Son into the world to seek and to save us.

And the same is true of every individual to whom the overtures of reconciliation are proposed. God does not wait for any change of affection in our heart, ere we accept of pardon at his hands. But he asks one and all of us now to accept of pardon, and to submit our heart and character to the influences of that grace which he is ready to bestow upon us. In the gospel he proclaims a pardon ready made for you,-a deed of amnesty which he is even now stretching out for your acceptance, a preventing offer of mercy, of which if you believe the reality, you will feel that he is your friend, and in which feeling you will not be disappointed. He does not expect from you the love of gratitude, till you have known, and believed the great things that he hath done for you. But he expects from you the offering of an homage to his truth. He does not expect from you the love of moral esteem, till, released from the terror of having him for your enemy, you may contemplate with all the tranquil calmness of conscious safety, the glories and the graces of his manifested character. But he expects from you faith in his declaration, that he is not your enemy,-that he has no pleasure in your death, that in Christ he is beseeching you to be reconciled,—and stretching out to you the arms of invitation.

The first matter on hand, then, between God and sinners, in. the work of making reconciliation, is, that they believe in him. It is, that the tidings of great joy shall fall upon them with credit, and acceptance. It is, that they count the sayings of the word of this life to be faithful sayings. It is, that they put faith

in the record which God hath given of his Son, which if they do, they will believe that God hath given them eternal life, and that this life is in his Son.

There is a certain speculation about the disinterested love of God, which has served to darken and to embarrass this process, It has cast an unmerited stigma on the love of gratitude. But its worst effect, by far, is, that it has impeded the freeness of the overtures of the gospel. It has perplexed the outset of many an inquirer. It has made him search in his own mind for the evidences of an affection, which he never can meet with, till he embrace the offers, and rely upon the promises of the New Testament. It has deposed faith from that post of presiding supremacy which belongs to it, and shifted from its place that great principle on which both the love of gratitude, and the love of moral esteem are suspended.

Let us cease to wonder, then, why faith occupies so much the station of a preliminary in the New Testament. It is the great starting point, as it were, of Christian discipleship. Grant but this principle, and love, with all the vigour, and all the alacrity which it gives to obedience, will emerge from its operation. There is no other way, in fact, of charming love into existence; and the gratitude which devotes me to the service of a reconciled God, and the love of his character, which makes me meet for the enjoyment of him in heaven, can only arise in my bosom after I have believed.

Let this consideration shut you up unto the faith. Let it exalt in your estimation, the mighty importance of a principle, without which there can neither be any sanctification here, nor any salvation hereafter. Think it not enough that you import it into your mind as a bare existence. Know what it is to put it into habitual exercise, to dwell upon the truths which it embraces, and to submit, in feeling and practice, to their genuine operation. This is the only way in which you can ever live a life of faith on the Son of God,-or live by the power of a world to come, or keep yourselves in the love of God, seeing that it is only when you know and believe that God first loved you, that you can be made to love him.

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