66 LECT. VII. morality, the two must be united. The second is not morality without the first. Men may choose, for the accommodation of their own consciences, to separate them under different designations, and to call the one religion and the other morality. But we dare not, on the principles that pervade the Word of God, admit the possibility of their separation. You may many a time find men who commend the second precept, while they disregard the first; who will even warmly eulogize the beautiful morality of the Scriptures, when they sum up our duty in " loving our neighbour as ourselves," and doing to others as we would that others should do to us." Yet what would such men say to us, were we to affirm that the first of the two precepts might be satisfactorily fulfilled without the second?-that a man might duly love God without loving his neighbour, and do his duty to God without doing his duty to his neighbour? Would they not, and with good reason, scoff at such religion, and tell us at once, with oracular decision, and with the scowl of disdain, that there can be no religion without morality? We grant it: there is, there can be, no religion without morality. But we must insist upon it, that, if the first precept cannot be fulfilled separately from the second, neither can the second separately from the first; that if we cannot love God without loving our neighbour, neither can we duly love our neigh neighbour, love to our bour without loving God; that if love to God LECT. VII. wants its proper evidence without love to our our neighbour wants its proper principle without love to God; that no position can be more unreasonable, than the position, that there may be morality without religion, while there can be no religion without morality; this being the same thing as to say, that the lower obligation may be fulfilled without the higher, though the higher cannot without the lower; that the love commanded towards fellow-creatures may be duly and sufficiently exercised, without any love to Him by whom the command is given, and in whose character and authority the obligation to render it originates! Away with such inconsistencies! Let Christians assume, and occupy, and resolutely maintain, the high ground of the Bible; that LOVE TO GOD not only takes precedence of every other affection of the soul, but is the TRUE MORAL PRINCIPLE OF ALL THE REST, and of whatever in practice is entitled to the name of virtue. This love to God, involving, as it does, complacency in his holy nature, is itself holiness: and this is the virtue of the Bible; the only virtue that can be recognized and accepted by the God of light and love whom the Bible reveals; the product of his regenerating Spirit; the necessary qualification for fellowship with him on earth; the only fitness for heaven! LECTURE VIII. ON THE QUESTION, HOW FAR DISINTERESTEDNESS IS AN LECT. VIII. Scripture views of God. 1 JOHN IV. 19. "We love Him, because he first loved us.” THERE are four short sentences of Holy Writ, which contain in them more of the knowledge of God than all the unaided wisdom of man had ever been able to discover:-" GOD IS A SPIRIT:" "GOD IS ONE :"-" GOD IS LIGHT:"-" GOD IS LOVE."-Spirituality of essence, unity of subsistence, purity of nature, and benevolence of character, are thus, with a sublime brevity, predicated of Jehovah. Light and love complete the character of his moral nature. They are inseparable. All the operations of his benevolence are in harmony with his unsullied purity; and all the manifestations of his purity, are blended with his infinite benevolence. The love dwells in light; and the light diffuses itself in beams of love. HOLY LOVE, then, is the essential character of the Godhead. And, in LECT. VIII. accordance with this delightful view of the Maker and Lord of all, holy love appears to be the general law of the universe, the bond of union, the spring of action, the fountain of joy. of the prin ral rectitude We have formerly traced the great principles of moral rectitude to their eternal origin in the nature of Deity, -a nature, from eternity, necessary and immutable. From this we have inferred their universality. As all orders of intelligent creatures owe their being to Him, and are the subjects of his moral government, it is, in the nature of the thing, inconceivable, that in the principles of his legislation, amongst these different orders, there should be any inconsistency or contrariety. In their essential Universality elements, they must be the same. But the ciples of mosame general principles may often, without in- consistent congruity, admit of no inconsiderable variety of of modifica modification. Thus it is in the natural world. There is one principle of vitality in all that lives; yet, among all living things, there probably are not two in every respect the same. There is one principle of vegetation in all the endless variety of colour, form, and fragrance, of elegance, and beauty, and utility, with which the surface of our world is clothed. For aught we can tell, the same principles of animal and vegetable life, which develop themselves in our own planet, may pervade the universe; and yet, with variety tion. LECT. VIII. in no two worlds may their modified developments be entirely alike. It Thus too, as far as our knowledge reaches, it is,—and thus, to an indefinite extent beyond the range of our knowledge, it may be, in the moral world. My exemplifications of what is must of course be found amongst ourselves; they must be taken from our own race. would, at the same time, be flagrantly inconsistent with all that has formerly been said, were I to take them from the race at large, as inheriting a nature of which the moral principles are disordered. I find them more appropriately, and extensively enough for my present purpose, in those renewed souls, into which, by the gracious operation of the Divine Spirit, the true elements of moral rectitude have been introduced;-in which holy love has become the supreme and dominant principle. Amongst the members of this redeemed and sanctified family, there are almost endlessly diversified modifications of character:-but these modifications are the result, not of different principles, but of principles the same in their primary elements, only practically unfolded under various circumstances and relations. If, in all the children of God, the principles of their new nature were the same in degree as well as in kind, and subjected universally to the influence of the very same modifying circumstances,-the result would be a sameness very dissimilar to what meets our |