ring necessities. Our own reason will suggest many; the Bible diligently read and faithfully applied will enlarge and rectify our views. It will show us God showering his blessings on the unthankful and the evil, commending his love to us in that while we were enemies Christ died for us; repaying our guilt with the gift of his only Son. All those proofs of the divine goodness, which the natural world displays, are eclipsed by this surpassing glory. We are excited to love God by our creation, our preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but above all by his inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Saviour Jesus Christ. That the Holy Scriptures do not, with such rich displays of divine goodness, always awaken corresponding emotions of our breasts must be attributed to the deadening influence of sin, which makes our hearts cold and insensible. Conscience whispers that we have deserved wrath; and we tremble at the expectation of it. We fear to appropriate to ourselves those comfortable promises which are made to all the penitent and believing. Christ has indeed atoned for sin; but we must not venture to assume that atonement as our own, unless we keep his commandments; I am not speaking of a perfect, but of an universal and sincere obedience; and we cannot keep them, unless we have a delight in them. It is not in human nature to yield a cheerful obedience, unless we love the law which we purpose to obey. Here we see the need of that promised Spirit, whose 66 re

grace

moves the stony from our hearts," and gives us a heart of flesh, on which the law of God is written. Are we then deeply sensible that our love of God is defective? unceasing must be our prayer, that the Holy Ghost may generate it in our hearts. It must not however be the prayer of passive indolence, but of active exertion. We must strive to work the works of God; and while we strive according to his will, he will purify and invigorate our motives, and lead us into perfect love, which casteth out fear. Thus shall we make continual advances towards that heavenly state, in which our happiness shall be full, because we shall love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind.

SERMON XI.

THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.

FIRST.

THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

MATT. xxii. 39.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

OUR blessed Saviour has here made self-love the measure of our love to our neighbour. It cannot therefore be thought that self-love is sinful'. For if it were sinful, we should be bound to strive to eradicate it; and a principle, whose vigour we were con

"In this I dissent from some American divines; they would have self-love almost excluded from religion; whereas it seems to me that it is a part of our nature, as God made us, not as sin hath degraded us; that sin has only perverted it, and that grace recovers us from that perversion, and brings us to love ourselves wisely, by seeking happiness in God, and not in the creature; in which exercise of it, it perfectly consists with the supreme love of God, and equal love of our neighbour, and with doing all to the glory of God." -Davies's Estimate of the Human Mind.

tinually endeavouring to lessen, could not be made the standard, by which we are to ascertain our growth in this essential Christian grace of love to our fellow-creatures. Nay, I will go farther, and assert, that if it be a standard, by which the degree and intensity of our social love is to be measured, self-love must, in its nature and essence, be unchangeable, be subject to no diminution; for were it variable and uncertain, it would no longer be a standard; and this grand, cardinal rule of Christian morals would want that clearness and stability which it were profaneness to deny it. The love of ourselves is, in truth, nothing but the desire of our own happiness: and it is impossible to conceive a rational being to exist, in whom that desire does not unceasingly and invariably' act, whenever his reason is exerted.

But here it is necessary, in order that I may not be misunderstood, to point out the distinction between self-love as I have defined it, and selfishness. Every appetite and passion which is natural to man, and every principle of his soul, has its corresponding gratification; from the low sensual appetites of an animal kind, to those refined and exalted desires, which find their satisfaction in the good of our fellow-creatures and in the favour of Almighty God. And it is the continually operating desire of happiness which impels men to all

"An essential requisite to moral liberty is an invariable desire for the greatest apparent good."—Davies.

the infinitely varied pursuits which engage the attention and exertion of the world around us. It is true that a corrupt nature, evil habits, wrong instructions, bad example, and the delusions of Satan, are constantly leading men astray. The bulk of mankind form wretchedly erroneous estimates as to these sources of happiness. They look for it from bodily pleasures, or from the indulgence of inordinate passions, more than from those benevolent feelings, whose object is the happiness of others; or, at best, they expect their main gratification from the things of this world, such as the applause or love of their fellow-creatures, or the acquisition of superior knowledge, instead of looking to that highest source of perfect and everduring happiness, the love and favour of God. It is not that these varied principles of our nature are in their essence and origin evil; the evil consists in not strictly subjecting them to the dominion of reason, and in pursuing the gratification of our inferior propensities farther than the claims of our loftier and more noble faculties permit. Our appetites are not to be eradicated; the passions are not to be extinguished; the pleasures of taste and of a cultivated mind are not to be neglected; but each is to be pursued only so far as it does not interfere with some known and plain duty, arising from the other capacities of our nature. Reason is given us to determine which of these propensities will, in the end, produce the greatest good; and, if we would indeed be happy, it must