But are there not many of you who may be convinced by those things, that you have not the love of God in you? For are you not conscious that your affectionate thoughts are prostituted to some trifle in this lower world, and hardly ever aspire to him? Nay, are not the thoughts of God, and things divine and eternal, unwelcome to you? and do you not cast them out of your minds as you would shake a spark of fire from your bosoms? Do you not find yourselves shy of him, and alienated from him? Do not those things give you pain which would turn your thoughts towords him? You do not affect such subjects of meditation or conversation, and you soon grow weary and uneasy when your minds are tied down to them. And what can be the cause of this, but a strong disaffection to God, and a secret consciousness that he is your enemy on this account? O sirs! what can be more astonishing, or what can be a stronger evidence of enmity to God, than that men should live in such a world as this, and yet hardly ever have one affectionate thought of their great Author, Preserver, and Benefactor? His glory shines upon them from all his works, and meets their eye wherever they look; his word exhibits him to their view in a still more bright and amiable light. It represents the Lord Jesus in all the love and agonies of his crucifixion, and in all the glories of his exaltation; they are receiving mercies from him every moment of their lives; for in him they live, and move, and have their being: their own reason and consciences tell them that he is the most excellent and lovely being, and worthy of supreme and universal love, and they profess to believe it; and yet he cannot, after all, gain so much as their frequent and affectionate thoughts! Their thoughts, those cheap and easy things, are ungratefully denied to him, who gave them a power of thinking! Oh what stupid indifferency about the supreme good, or rather what

prevailing enmity is here! Can you pretend to be lovers of Jesus Christ while this is your case? Can you excuse or extenuate this under the soft name of infirmity? No, it is rank, inveterate, sullen enmity: and a righteous God resents it as such. But,

3. If you love God and the Lord Jesus Christ, you delight in communion with them. Friends, you know, delight to converse together, to unbosom themselves to one another, and to enjoy the freedoms of society. They are fond of interviews, and seize every opportunity for that purpose; and absence is tedious and painful to them. If you are so happy as to have a friend, you know by experience this is the nature of love. Now, though God be a spirit, and infinitely above all sensible converse with the sons of men, yet he does not keep himself at a distance from his people. He has access to their spirits, and allows them to carry on a spiritual commerce with him, which is the greatest happiness of their lives. Hence God is so often said, in the Scriptures, to draw near to them, and they to him, James iv. 8; Heb. vii. 19; Psalm lxix. 18; and lxxiii. 28; Heb. x. 22; Lam. iii. 57; and St. John, speaking of himself and his fellow-Christians, says, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." 1 John i. 3. This divine fellowship is promised by Jesus Christ to all his friends, John xiv. 21, 23. "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him; my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." This mystical fellowship is peculiar to the friends of God; and others know nothing of it. They are reprehave no commu

sented as poor strangers and aliens, that nication with God. Eph. ii. 12: Col. i. 21. He is shy of them, and they of him: they keep at a distance from one another like persons disaffected. This communion on

God's part consists in his communicating to his people the influences of his grace, to quicken them, to inflame their love, to give them filial boldness in drawing near to him, in assuring them of his love to them, and representing himself to them as reconciled and accessible. And on their part it consists in a liberty of heart and speech in pouring out their prayers to him, a delightful freedom of spirit in all exercises of devotion, in returning him love for love, and dedicating themselves to him. Thus there is a kind of interchange of thoughts and affections, mutual freedoms and endearments, between them. And oh! how divinely sweet in some happy hours of sacred intimacy! This indeed is heaven upon earth: and, might it but continue without interruption, the life of a lover of God would be a constant series of pure, unmingled happiness. But, alas! at times their Beloved withdraws himself, and goes from them, and then they languish, and pine away, and mourn, like the mourning turtle that has lost his mate. This intercourse with God may be a strange thing to some of you; and to vindicate the want of it, you may give it some odious name; enthusiasm, fanaticism, or heated imagination. But I must tell you, if you know nothing of it, your temper and experience is entirely different from all the friends of God, and, therefore, you cannot rank yourselves in that happy number.

Now the ordinances of the gospel are, as it were, the places of interview, where God and his people meet, and where they indulge those sacred freedoms. It is in prayer, in meditation, in reading or hearing his word, in communicating at his table; it is in these and the like exercises that God communicates, and, as it were, unbosoms himself to those that love him; and they enjoy the freedom of children and friends with him: and on this account they delight in those ordinances, and take pleasure in attending

upon them. The workings of their hearts in this respect, you may discover in David, when, by the persecution of Saul, or the rebellion of his son Absalom, he was banished from the stated ordinances of public worship, Ps. xlii. 1, 2, 4, and lxxxiv. throughout, and xxvii. 4.

And now, my brethren, to come nearer home, have not some of you experienced the sacred joys of communion with God? And were not those the sweetest hours of your life? Have you not found it good for you to draw near to him? And when he has withdrawn his presence, how have you languished and mourned, and could never be easy till he was pleased to return to you? Do you not also find a sacred pleasure in the institutions of the gospel, because there you hope to meet your God, and enjoy communion with him? Is this the principle that prompts you to pray, to hear, and perform every religious duty? Then you may appeal to a heart-searching God, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.

But does not this view of the matter give the conscience of some of you reason to condemn you? You have neither known nor desired this fellowship with the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ. Alas! you know nothing of those freedoms of divine friendship: and you have no prevailing pleasure in devotion. You either neglect the duties of religion, or else you perform them from custom, education, constraint of conscience, or some other such principle. Let me point out one instance as a specimen ; and that is secret prayer and closet devotion. Nothing can be more expressly commanded than this is by Christ, Matt. vi. 6, and is this your daily practice? Is this the most pleasant exercise of your life? Or is it a mere formality, or a weariness to you? My brethren, inquire honestly into this matter.

4. And lastly, If you love the Lord Jesus Christ, you

VOL. II.-59

earnestly study and endeavour to please him by a life of universal obedience. Love is always desirous to please the person beloved; and it will naturally lead to a conduct that is pleasing. This, then, you may be sure of, that if you love Jesus, it is the labour of your life to please him. The grand inquiry with you is not, Will this or that please men? will it please myself? or will it promote my interest? but, Will it please my God and Saviour? If not, I will have nothing to do with it. This is the standing rule of your practice: let others consult their own inclinations, or the taste of the age; let them consult their own secular interest, or the applause of mortals; you consult what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Rom. xii. 2. See also Eph. vi. 6; 1 Pet. iii. 17; Heb. xiii. 21; and if you may but please him, it is enough. But are there not some of you who are hardly ever concerned with this dutiful solicitude? If you can please yourselves, and those whose favour you would court, if you can but promote your own interest, you are not solicitous whether you please God or not. This proves you destitute of his love.

The only way to please God, and the best test of your love to him, is obedience to his commandments. This is made the decisive mark by Christ himself. "If a man love me, he will keep my words-He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings." John xiv. 23, 24. He repeats it over and over in different forms: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me," ver. 21. "If ye love me, keep my commandments,' ver. 15. "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." John xv. 14. "This is the love of God," says St. John; that is, it is the surest evidence, and the natural, inseparable effect of our love to God, “that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not