EXTRACTS. THE LOVE OF GOD. "Keep yourselves in the love of God." JUDE, 21. THE love of God is placed in the Scriptures at the head of human duties; and the principle of love itself, exercised towards God and man, is declared to be the substance of religion, and "the fulfilling of the law." The love of God is to be manifested by its influence on our lives; and we are to judge of its intensity, not by ardent expressions of attachment, but by holy and generous obedience to the will, and active coöperation in the benevolent designs, of the Most High. The man, who loves God, cannot deliberately offend him, or injure the humblest of his offspring. He is penetrated with sorrow, when he has failed in any returns of gratitude, or has long forgotten his Benefactor in heaven. He loves what God loves, and is most happy, when he has the strongest sense of his obligations to his heavenly Father. I know it is difficult to free this affection from all suspicion of enthusiasm, in the opinion of those who have not God in all their thoughts, or who would make religion a mere exercise of reason, independent of the heart and affections. Still, it is hard, to believe that a man, who has any sense of goodness or excellence, should be unable to answer the question, Why should we love God? Men should love God, because they alone of the creatures of this world are capable of loving him. The lower orders of creatures receive, according to their capacities for enjoyment, as many blessings as we do with all our rational prerogatives. But they cannot rise to the conception of a God; they cannot understand that it is he who feeds and comforts them. Yet, as far as they can see the hand that cherishes them, they love their visible patron, and lick the hand which has fed them, even when raised to shed their blood. But it is man, and man only, that can form the vast and beautiful conception of goodness without bounds, of purity without stain, of wisdom without imperfection, of benignity without a shadow of ill-will. Look up, O man, if there is yet in your heart a sentiment of undepraved goodness, look up from these miserable objects which enthrall and sink you, and see the Governor of the world, arrayed in all the beauties of holiness, in all the light of truth, in all the mild lustre of unmingled goodness. See in him all that you admire, all that you reverence, all that you honor, all that you aspire to, all that you can love in the good beings you have already known, all that you have felt with complacency in yourself, see all this concentred, and infinitely exalted, diffused through all nature, and subject to no change, no period, nor limit. This is God! This is the Being of whom you ask, Shall I love him? How low must a man suggested itself! have sunk, ere a doubt could have But you say, "I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him." O strange perver sion of reason! Is it not enough, that he is omnipresent, and fills all worlds, all space, but you must have his form defined and your senses affected, as they are by the imperfect, unsatisfactory objects which you love so unreasonably on earth? This is not worthy of a creature who is able to form the vast, the unparalleled conception of a God, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being." But do you not discern his influence? Look round upon nature, crowded with proofs of God's goodness. When you know that the powers of any human being, sage, patriot, or benefactor, have been devoted to the production of happiness, though he may have lived in a remote age, a distant country, and entirely out of the reach of your personal knowledge, yet, if you see or hear of the fruits of his exertions, you become interested in such a character, you love and admire him, for the happiness he has produced, even though you have no immediate share. Extend these ideas to God, the great Author of all the felicity there is in the world. Should not your hearts leap to embrace the inexhaustible fountain of the happiness of creation, fountain always full, always overflowing with delight? Do you ask for illustrations of this character of God, whose "mercy endureth forever?" See, then, in the system he has established, how evil is made subordinate and subservient to good, how temporary sufferings redound to happiness, and are often made beneficial even to the sufferers. If God had given no other proofs of the ineffable satisfactions of virtue, than the invitations held out in the Christian dispensation of grace to repenting sinners, and the spiritual blessings which spring from religion and the promises of the gospel; we should have abundant cause to |