judgment." "For this cause we also do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." What the Apostle prayed for earnestly, we ought to desire fervently; and what we fervently desire, we shall strenuously endeavour to obtain.

The love of God has its foundation in our personal experience of his goodness, as well as in the knowledge of his perfections. Let us then so attend to and consider the mercies we receive, that we may grow daily more and more sensible to the bounty of him who bestows them. This is an exercise in which the more eminent saints appear, in all ages, peculiarly to have delighted. Indeed I know not any disposition which more decisively marks a truly Chistian frame of mind, than a lively sensibility to the exceeding bounty of God in all his hourly and ordinary mercies, as well as in the more special instances of his providential care and

kindness. Worldly persons seem to have little sense of the magnitude of the blessings they enjoy. They go on thoughtlessly and thanklessly wasting all the bounties of Providence; and, if but a few drops of bitterness are shed into the cup of their pleasures, are apt to think themselves hardly dealt with. But whoever has learned his religion at the feet of Christ Jesus; whoever has deeply felt the majesty of God and his own meanness; whoever has been duly humbled under a sense of his many and most griev ous offences, his abuse of the mercies he has largely shared, his frequent forgetfulness of his best Benefactor, the faint and worthless service of his least sinful days;-whoever, in short, has just notions of himself, and sees things as they really are; will be deeply penetrated with the condescension, the longsuffering, and the goodness of that adorable Being, who has bestowed upon him every thing he possesses, all he has, and all he hopes for. And if he has sinned wilfully against his Creator, (as alas! which of us has not?) and if he has suffered chastisement for his offences (" of which all are par takers"), how will his heart glow with gratitude towards the gracious Father who loved him even when he was most unworthy, and visited him with timely afflictions, lest he should perish for ever! Could the veil which now separates us from futurity be for a moment drawn aside, and those regions of everlasting happiness and sorrow, which strike so faintly on the imagination, be presented fully to our eyes; it would occasion, I doubt not, a sudden and strange

revolution in our estimate of things. Many are the distresses for which we now weep in suffering or sympathy, that would awaken us to songs of thanksgiving: Many the dispensations which now seem dreary and inexplicable, that would fill our adoring. hearts with astonishment and joy.

But though it is highly desirable that we should attend diligently to God's dealings with us, and acquire a very lively sensibility to every instance of his goodness; it is, at the samne time, important, that this personal wakefulness be accompanied with an habitual regard to the general character of his providence: otherwise it may happen, that the pressure of temporary affliction may shake the very foundations of our faith. A settled conviction, founded upon rational evidence, of the beneficence of our Creator, is the key-stone of all religion. This blessed persuasion, increasing with an increasing knowledge of the nature of his government, is the first source of Divine love. More strictly rational than the second, yet abounding less in ardour and animation, it gives in stability what it borrows in feeling. A love of God founded only on the perception of his excellence would move our hearts but faintly; flowing only from a grateful sense of his goodness to ourselves, it might be fluctuating and fitful. Both therefore must be united; and a more beautiful instance can hardly be imagined of the harmony with which the different principles of our nature concur in the service our Maker. It affords an example,

too, which is highly characteristic, of the way in which God has ordained that our faculties and feelings shall act together to build up the perfect Christian.

The seeds of holiness are sown in this life, but they grow up and flourish for eternity. It is im possible to contemplate the two great sources of our love to God, without perceiving that, as each is in its nature capable of increasing without limits, the sentiment to which they give birth must be, in like manner, infinite. God is unchangeable; but our idea of his perfections is capable of perpetual enlargement, and his promises assure us of an unceasing accumulation of benefits. Here, indeed, our views are faint, and our affections languid; yet even in this life we are gradually maturing for heaven, and travelling towards that kingdom where the tabernacle of God is planted. In proportion as our natures are renewed and sanctified, we feel a growing complacency in contemplating the adorable image of our Maker, and receive his increasing mercies with still increasing sensibility. And when this earthly house of our tabernacle shall be dissolved," and we shall rise in the likeness of our Redeemer, holy and incorruptible, will the love that cheered our pilgrimage below fail us in those celestial regions! When we stand before the throne of God and of the Lamb, every faculty vigorous, and every feeling awake to rapture; when the mysterious volume of Providence shall be unrolled, and

the wisdom and goodness of the great Father of all things fully vindicated; when the recollection of the past, the perception of the present, and the anticipation of the future, shall unite to overwhelm us with joy and wonder; when we shall behold our Saviour "face to face," and "know even as we are known; then will love be indeed triumphant, immeasurable as the perfections of our Maker, and inexhaustible as his bounties.

Love is the great principle of the Gospel; but it has been the first commandment under both dispensations. The Law was published, indeed, in thunders from Mount Sinai, and the punishments it denounced were the sanctions which enforced its precepts. Yet even then "God left not himself without witness;" the love of him was enjoined with the most affecting solemnity; and when our Redeemer republished that Divine precept, He borrowed it from the Pentateuch. This concurs with every natural indication to shew that, whatever other principles of action may be useful to a being so ignorant and infirm.as man, love is the true end of all religion. Our advancement in holiness may be safely measured by the growing influence of this affection; and it is the peculiar glory of Christianity, that, by opening to us the great doctrine of reconciliation through a Saviour, and introducing with that doctrine a service more rational and more spiritual than belonged to the former covenant, it has given to this heavenly prin