awaken interest in our minds, and excite our affections, they are ever before us in the works and providence of God. When we survey the skies in the evening, when we look over the garden in the spring, and the fields in autumn, laden with the fruits of the year, and we drink health and sweetness from a thousand springs, O let us consider that the kind hand of God hath formed and furnished them all, that his creatures might be happy; and let the vast and tender thought excite us to holy gratitude, and to unutterable love.

The whole field of God's works and ways is boundless; and we are in danger, from its very infinitude, of losing that deep and due impression, which a nearer contemplation of them would excite. Let us then examine that little portion of it, which comprehends our personal interests. Would we count the mercies of God to us? Says the psalmist, they "are more than the sand." Look upon this little world of wonders, the body, which, his skill has formed; consider the more wonderful soul, which he has breathed into it, intelligent, free, immortal. Consider, as you look back, the signal instances of divine goodness, personal to yourselves, which cannot, ought not ever to be forgotten, dangers intercepted, sicknesses healed. You have been a shipwrecked and despairing mariner, and yet were brought safe to land. You stretched forth your hand to God, as your only hope, and he saved you. You found the words of the psalmist true"The Lord is nigh to all that call upon him, a refuge in times of trouble." But there are mercies greater

than these, shown to the immortal part in its more dreadful dangers. With what patience hath he borne' with us in our sins, and delayed his deserved judgments, waiting for our repentance, that he might show us mercy; multiplying the means of our recovery from sin, warning us by his providence, instructing us by his word, persuading us by his ministers, convincing, enlightening, sanctifying us by his spirit, redeeming us by his son, and ministering to us by his angels, that we "may be heirs of salvation." Ought we not to number over these personal mercies of God to us thoughtfully, till our hearts are full of grateful emotion, till they rise into the highest and purest degree of love, of which they are capable? Are there not some present, who trust they have not received all this grace of God in vain ; who hope that it has been made effectual to them? Such surely will not cease to think of the ways in which God has prepared for them his mercy; now alarming them by his terrors, or softening them by affliction, persuading them by the earnest voice of mercy in his word, and constraining them by the influence of his spirit. Mercies of this description cannot, will not fail to bring the subjects of them to high degrees of holy love. And let me remark—

If, as we have seen, the consideration of the works and providence of God in general is an efficient means of promoting love to him; so, above all other things, is the consideration of his gracious plan for the redemption of our race from sin and misery. It is in this, that his perfections shine forth with the brightest, the most

cheerful and penetrating beams. Here, in the lively figures of the psalmist, " Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs out of the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven." "Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he first loved us, and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins." If we truly desire to love God, let us view him through the medium of the gospel; through the ministry and sufferings of his beloved Son, most freely offering mercy to sinners, and constraining us to accept it, and with it everlasting blessedness and glory. If we can consider God presenting himself to us in this attitude, and fail to love him, then how chilled and dead are our affections ; how cold, how hard our hearts, if this does not melt them!

To all other means of promoting the love of God in the soul, we must add

IV, Earnest and constant prayer. For we must remember that the love of God is an affection, to the production of which, his favour is necessary, although that favour is commonly dispensed in our behalf, in the diligent improvement of those means which I have been suggesting, and others of a similar efficacy to enkindle the affections. And, I add, it is the direct tendency of the duty of prayer, to promote the love of God in the heart. Prayer is converse with God. The soul, in that act, draws near to him, and discovers his glory and loveliness, and the light of his countenance is often lifted upon the kneeling suppliant.

Frequent converse and communion with a friend, is the life of human friendship. It is so also-with reverence would I say it-between God and the soul. Love to him will be in proportion to communion with him in prayer and pious meditation; as I believe many happy souls can testify. And none can long neglect prayer, or run over the duty in a formal and careless manner, who will not find their hearts cold and distant from God.

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Thus I have suggested some of the best means of keeping ourselves in the love of God." I briefly recapitulate them, and close with a word of exhortation. We must withdraw our affections from the things which oppose his attributes and will. We must strive to obtain just apprehensions of the divine character. We must consider his works and ways, especially that little portion of them, which comprehends our personal mercies; and to these means, and each of them, we must add our fervent and constant prayer for the divine favour, without which onr exertions will be ineffectual.

These are scriptural and highly important suggestions. Let us apply ourselves to the use of these means with holy zeal, and with the deepest solicitude, to attain and increase the love of God in our souls. It is God's good pleasure to help the active, and to consign the slugglish to the dreadful fruits of their own neglect.

Beloved hearers, consider, I beseech you, the infinite and eternal importance of the love of God.

You rejoice when you find a good and sincere friend, in a mortal as frail as yourselves. If you have found a wise, faithful, and unalienable friend, you exclaim with the sententious Young

A world, in purchase for a friend, is gain.

And yet, such a one is but a feeble, destitute, sickly, dying friend. Tell me, then, what is the value of divine friendship? Here the friend is rich, omnipotent, unchangeable, everlasting. When you come to die, the arms of your human friend must resign you, and he will commit the body he loved to dust and corruption. But at that moment, when his love avails you nothing, God's love avails you most. When all things else fail, God is present. He cheers "the valley of the shadow of death"-" he watches over the dust of his saints," and the spirit he assumes into his glorious presence above, to enjoy the everlasting fruits of his love. O let us aspire, with the strongest affection of our souls, towards God. Perceiving the emptiness of all creatures and their comparative vanity, let us give all, all up, when they interfere, that we may obtain the love of God. May God, "who is love," breathe upon our cold hearts; purify them from corrupt affections, shed abroad in them the love of himself, by his spirit, and increase in us the holy and blessed affection, till it shall attain an inconceivable degree of purity and perfection, in the heavenly, in the eternal world. The joy, unspeakable and full of glory will be our's; but all the praise be his forever and ever. Amen.