but then the inquiry is,—What shall we render unto the Lord for all his benefits unto us? In fine, we are saved, as man and angels were at first created, that we may glorify God. Safety is not the end, but a mean that conduces to it; and we add, as far as man is concerned, it is a mighty and a perpetual motive to constrain the saved sinner to surrender himself to God, with an entire and irrevocable devotion, that shall have respect to his glory as an ultimate end.

To be perpetually conversant with inquiries like these: What shall I eat, and what shall I drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed? What shall secure feelings of comfort, and keep far off the aggressions of pain? How shall I multiply means of enjoyment, and rise to distinctions more exalted and conspicuous, to the admiration of others, and the increase of self-esteem? To be perpetually occupied, as many are, with inquiries like these, is miserable,―reason reproves it as unworthy, and religion condemns it as an entire departure of the creature from its chief and excellent end-the glory of God. A system of opinions on religion is compatible enough with a perpetual occupation among such low and trivial cares; for mere opinion wants power to ele

vate the depraved creature from the depths of selfishness in which it abides. But to deliver us from such low, and worthless, and wretched pursuits, the Son of God be=came incarnate, and redeemed us unto God by his blood; and on receiving this grand doctrine in its lengths and breadths of grace, we awake to nobler discoveries of the divine character, and rise to scenes of action more becoming and, dignified; and ceasing from an undue self-regard in our sphere of motion, we seek to live and move for God; constrained by a force of esteem, love, and gratitude which will operate undiminished throughout eternity. Then do we own the obligation of redeeming mercy; and being bought with a price, we earnestly pursue the glory of God.

Referring to a preceding discourse, for illustration of the doctrine in the text, we proceed, in this, to lay down some directions for the duty prescribed. We must premise, however, in the first place, that there must be in the mind of the agent an express intention, or there must be a principle in exercise that involves intention towards God. Many things seemingly good, and such as apparently tend to glorify God, may be done; but if they are not done for God,

he is not glorified in them at all. To pray much to God, and manifest zeal for his name, tends to his glory, if the principle be right; otherwise, it is like the long prayers and ostentatious zeal of the Pharisees, against which the Saviour denounced the woes of condemnation. To endure martyrdom for the true religion, seems an act of the most exalted virtue, and, inasmuch as it manifests an adherence to his truth at the expense of life itself, it seems in a high degree to glorify God; yet we may easily conceive a case in which pride, obstinacy, and vain glory, more than pious principle, led to the sacrifice; and then God derives no glory from the deed.

We might carry this remark over all the field of human activity, and show, that whatever is done without an intention, direct or implicit, to glorify God, comes short of it. For if we give alms, or evince liberality towards the gospel, or in other respects abound in the work of the Lord, in order to glorify God, it is well; if not, we are only bringing forth fruit unto ourselves, and exhibiting what have been termed"splendid sins." For, doubtless, it is sin in the creature not to act for God; there is sin in it, how fair soever seem the action, in the

formality of performance. And this is true, though it be admitted, that not to do it would have been a greater sin.

If we apply this criterion to much of men's better deeds,-if we inquire into the intention, and ask, if to glorify God was expressly in view by the donation, the suffering, or the devotional duty; we fear the apparent virtues of many will suffer much loss of character by the investigation. If such a test be applied, some seemingly religious in their lives, will be found never to have acted for the glory of God,-no, not in a single instance. And even the best men, on strictly examining their principles of action, will be often disappointed and ashamed at the detections made by conscience, of partial and inadequate intention towards God. If the eye has been at times single, and a reference to God direct,-if they have sometimes consciously risen to virtues far above the reach of natural and selfish principles; they see reason to deplore the wonderful infrequency of such attainments, and to lament that even in many of those duties which appeared to men highly meritorious and praise-worthy, there was great defect in point of pure and simple intention to glorify God! This was partly owing to forget

G

fulness of the divine character and glory; for in order to exercise intention, we need to maintain remembrance, without which we labour in vain. We cannot glorify a forgotten Lord.

Again, to glorify God requires not only intention, but conformity to the divinely appointed rule. Some have professed a

most sincere intention, and have actually confirmed their sincerity by great and astonishing sacrifices of comfort and of life itself, who seem to have laboured under a ruinous mistake as to the way and means. Ask the emaciated devotee, who has vowed to exercise his austerities in the unpeopled desert, or immured in the solitary cell; wherefore he endures voluntary pain and privation, and thinks himself successful in religion, in proportion to the quantity of self-inflicted hardships, and the multitude of unmeaning prayers which he repeats day and night? He tells us, he does it all for the glory of God. Or inquire of some priestly procession on their way to commit some fellow-creature to the flames, what moves them to act so inhuman a part? They tell us, it is an act of faith, and that they go to burn an heretic, for the glory And And many other real, though

of God.