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ALTHOUGH We cannot add to the truth of God's Word, there is such a thing as what the apostle calls making that truth manifest to our consciences. Our own observation may be made to attest the very same truth which God announces to us in his Word; and if it be a truth respecting the state of our own heart, this agreement between what God says we are, and what we find ourselves to be, is often most powerfully instrumental, by the Divine blessing, in reclaiming to the knowledge of the truth, and in bringing the mind under its influence.

"The carnal mind is enmity against God."-Rom. viii. 7. We cannot make the assertion more strongly than God has made it already; but it were well to seek a deeper sense of the fact than we have ever obtained before. There is a mantle of delusion which the accomplishments of nature throw over the heart in its unrenewed state, by which it is prevented from seeing itself in its true colours, and by which it is, as a matter of course, prevented from seeking or appreciating the spiritual remedies God has provided. Let us endeavour to attend to the facts of the case closely; that if our finding of our own case should agree with God's saying about it, our consciences may feel all the energetic influence of the painful truth.

Now, it is no absolute proof of our love to God, that we do many things, and that too with the willing consent of the mind, the performance of which is agreeable to his law. If the same thing might be done upon either of two principles, then the doing of it may only prove the existence of one of these principles; while the other has no presence or operation in the mind whatever. I do not steal; and the reason of it may be, either that I love God, and so keep his commandments, or it may be, that I have honourable feelings, and would spurn at the disgracefulness of such an action. This is only one example; but the bare statement of it serves for a thousand more: it lets us in at once to the decisive fact, that there are many principles of action applauded and held in reverence, and most useful to society, and urging us to the performance of what, in the matter of it, is agreeable to the law of God, which may have a practical ascendancy over a man whose heart is alienated from the love of God. Propose the question to yourself Would not I do this, or abstain from this evil thing, though God had no will in the matter? If you would, then put not down what is altogether due to other principles, to the principle of love to God, or a desire of pleasing him. The principle upon which

you have acted may be respectable, and honourable, and amiable: we are not disputing all this; but we are only saying, that it is not the love of God. You may have a very large share of other estimable principles; but, along with the possession of these, you may lack one thing—and that one thing may be the love of God.

It is no test whatever of your love to God, that you tolerate him when he calls upon you to do the things which your natural principles incline you to do, and which you would have done at any rate. But when he claims that place in your affections which you give to many of the objects of the world-when he puts in for that share of your heart which you give to wealth, or pleasure, or reputation among men,then, is not God a weariness? and does not the inner man feel impatience and dislike at these grievous exactions? And when the will of God thwarts the natural current of your tastes, is not God, at the moment of urging that will, with all the natural authority which belongs to him, a positive offence to you?

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How would you like the visit of a man whose presence broke up some arrangement upon which you had set your heart, or marred the enjoyment of some favourite scheme you were going to put into execution? Would you not dislike it? And if it were often repeated, bringing with it the same disappointment perpetually, would you not cordially dislike the visitor? Now, is not God just such a visitor? how many favourite schemes of enjoyment would the thought of him, and of his will, if faithfully admitted to the inner chambers of the mind, put to flight! How many fond calculations must be given up about the world, the love of which is opposite to the love of the Father! How many trifling amusements surrendered, if a sense of God's will were to tell upon the conscience with all the energy which is due to it! How many affections torn away from the objects on which now they are fastened, if his presence were at all times attended to, and he was regarded with that affection which he at all times demands of us!

Is it not an undeniable circumstance in the history of many a man, that God is shut out of his thoughts for the greater portion of his time, and that he feels all the while the same kind of ease at the exclusion as when he shuts the door upon the most unwelcome of his visitors? The reason is, that the inner man, busied with other objects, would positively be offended at the intrusion of the thought of God. It is, we might say to such an one, because, to admit him, with all his high claims and spiritual requirements, into your mind, would

be to disturb you in the enjoyment of objects which are better loved and more sought after than he. It is because your heart is after another treasure-set upon other things. Whether it be wealth, or amusement, or distinction, we pretend not to know, but there is a something which is your god, to the exclusion of the great God of heaven and earth: the Being who is upholding you all the while, and in virtue of whose preserving hand you live, and think, and enjoy, is all the while unminded and unregarded by you. You look upon him as an interruption. It is of no consequence to the argument, what the occupation of the heart be, if it be such a one as excludes God from it. It need not be what the world calls a vicious occupation; it may be what would be called an innocent occupation: yet may the heart be so given to it that God is robbed of his portion of your regard. Or it may be what would be esteemed an honourable occupation-the pursuit of eminence in the walks of science or patriotism,—and still there may be an overlooking of Him who claims that all things should be done for his glory. Or it may be what is denominated an elegant occupation-even that of a mind enamoured with the tastefulness of literature; but it may be so enamoured with this, that the God who created your mind, and all within it, and all the objects without it which minister to its exquisitegratification, may be turned away from with an utter dislike.. Or, lastly, it may be what the world calls a virtuous occu pation-even that of a mind bustling with the full play of its energies among enterprises of charity and plans of public good; yet even here, wonderful as it appears, there may be an exclusion and forgetfulness of God; and while the mind is filled and gratified with a rejoicing sense of its activity and its usefulness, it may be merely delighting itself with a constitutionalgratification-and God, the author of that constitution, be never thought of; or, if thought of, according to his real character, and the real requirements he lays upon us even the man to whom the homage of virtue is yielded by his fellow-creatures may think of his God with feelings of distaste and antipathy.

The deep and lurking ungodliness which has vitiated our nature, and blinded our hearts, may prevent us from being startled by such facts. But let us try to conceive how such a state of things must be contemplated among those who can look on character with a spiritual estimation. How must the

pure eye of an angel be moved at such a spectacle of worthlessness; and surely, in the records of heaven, this great moral' peculiarity of an outcast race must stand engraven as that which, of all others, has the character of guilt most nakedly and most

essentially belonging to it. That the bosom of the creature should feel cold or indifferent to Him who formed it-that not a thought or an image should be so unwelcome to man, as that of his Maker-that hatred, unconcern, or disinclination should be the disposition of a fashioned and sustained being toward the hand of his preserver, there is a perversity here which time may palliate for a season, but which, under an universal reign of justice, must at length be brought out to its adequate condemnation; and on that day, when the earth is to be burnt up, and all its flatteries shall have subsided, will it be seen of many a heart that rejoiced in the applause and friendship of this world, that, alienated from the love of God, it was indeed in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

Neither does it palliate the representation now given, that a God in the fancied array of poetic loveliness-that a God of mere natural perfection, and without one other moral attribute than the single attribute of indulgence-that a God, divested of all that can make him repulsive to sinners, and for this purpose shorn of all those glories which truth, and authority, and holiness throw around his character,-that such a God should be idolized at times by many a sentimentalist. It would form no deduction from our enmity against the true God, that we gave an occasional hour to the work of a graven image-the work of our own hands. And it is just of as little significancy to the argument, if, having, from the fictions of our own imagination, rather than from the representations of the Scripture, made to ourselves a God, we feel an occasional glow of affection or reverence toward this fictitious being. If there be truth in the Bible, it is there where God has made an authentic exhibition of his nature; and if God in Christ be an offence to us-if we dislike this way of approach-if we shrink from the contemplation of that Being, who bids us sanctify him in our hearts, and who claims such a preference in our regard as shall dispossess our affections for all that is earthly-if we have no relish for the intercourse of prayer and of spiritual communion with such a God-if our memory neither love to recall him, nor himself be the Being with whom we greatly delight ourselves, then let us be assured that, amid all our other accomplishments, our heart is not right with God; and he, who is the Father of our existence, and of all that gladdens it, may still be an object of dislike.

Neither does it palliate the representation which we have now offered, that we do many things with the direct object of doing that which is pleasing to God. It is true, there cannot be love where there is no desire to please; but it is as true, that there may be a desire to please where there is no love.

I may both hate and fear the man whom I may find it very convenient to please; I may comply by action, but, instead of complying with my will, I may abominate the necessity which constrains me. A sovereign may overrule the humours of a rebellious province, by the presence of his resistless military; but would not say you there was any loyalty in this subordination. We have already affirmed that a large number of actions may be performed by us, not because God wills the doing, but because the doing falls in with our humour, or our interest, or our vanity, or our instinctive gratification. But now we are prepared to go farther, and say that they may be done because God wills the doing, and yet there may be an utter want of subjection in the mind to the law of God. The terror of his power may constrain you to many acts of obedience, even as the call," Flee from the wrath to come," told on the disciples of John the Baptist. Outward sins may be given up, and yet the mind be altogether carnal, and utterly destitute of subjection to the law of God. There may be the obedience of the hand, while there is bitterness in the heart at the necessity which compels it. It may not be the consenting of the mind to the law of one whom to please and honour is a cordial delight. Now this hearty service is that for which it is the aim of Christianity to prepare us. It is by putting that law, which was graven on tables of stone, upon the tablets of the heart, that the Holy Spirit enables men to yield that obedience which is acceptable to God.

No performances can satisfy God, while your heart, dear reader, remains in shut and shielded alienation against him: what he wants is to gain the friendship and the confidence of his creatures; and he feels all the concern of a wounded and mortified father, when he knocks at the door of your heart, and finds its affections to be away from him. He condescends to plead the matter, and, with the tenderness of a disappointed father, does he say,"Wherein have I wearied you, O children of Israel? testify against me." -Micah vi. 3. You may fear himyou may heap sacrifices upon his altar-you may bring the outer man to something like a slavish obedience at his bidding,—but, till your heart be subdued by that great process which all who are his spiritual subjects must undergo, you are carnal, and you do not love him your obedience is like a body without a soul-the very principle which gives it all its value is wanting. It is this which, with all the bustling activity of your services, keeps you dead in trespasses and sins-it is this which mars all your religious performances. While this principle is wanting, there is not one of them which is not accompanied by an act of disobe

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