name, his word, his ordinances, his works-all are sacred, and to be revered. Whatever tends to desecrate the same, shocks the sensibility of every right mind. To take the name of God in vain, or to treat with levity anything pertaining to religion, is the height of irreverence and impiety.

2. LOVE.It is not enough to fear God. Reverence, however becoming, and however the want of it may indicate some serious defect or degradation of character, is still not the whole, nor the chief duty of the heart towards God. The displays of his power and majesty in nature, or the simple conception of his greatness and glory, the idea of the Infinite and the Absolute, of Him who is without beginning of days, or end of years, may fill the mind that once fairly entertains so grand and sublime a thought, with a profound awe, and call forth its deepest reverence. But God is more than this. He is a good, as well as a great Being, and as such, deserves not merely our reverence, but our love.

Gratitude alone, if there were no higher consideration, requires this. The goodness of God is not an abstract quality, a mere conception of the mind, but a matter of personal experience, as manifested to every man in the constant and ever-varying benefits of every passing hour of life. The God whom we are to love, is the God that hath led us all our life long, and hath crowned all our days with his loving kindness. There can be no clearer evidence of the guilt, and utter ruin of the soul, than that it should find in itself, among all its varied powers, and exquisite susceptibilities of emotion, no answering chord of grateful affection for all those benefits, that it should have a full and generous love to bestow on all inferior

objects, but no love for Him who alone is worthy of supreme regard, the giver of every good and perfect gift.

All true obedience, and all true and acceptable worship, must have its seat and source in this emotion. That is an idle and a vain service, which proceeds not from true love in the heart. Indeed, as Paley has well said, "That silent piety which consists in a habit of tracing out the Creator's wisdom and goodness in the objects around us, of referr ing the blessings we enjoy to his bounty, and of resorting in our distresses to his succor, may possibly be more acceptable to the Deity than any visible expressions of devotion whatever."

Love to God is the spring of all true religion, and the foundation of all genuine morality. It is a duty comprehensive, in part, of all others. It is the first and great commandment, comprising within itself all minor requirements. The God who made us, and whom we serve,- in whom we live, and move, and have our being, - demands our love will be satisfied with nothing less, deserves nothing less. Failing in this, we miss the whole duty of

man.

Accordingly, God has formed us to love him, and endowed us with a nature fitted to this end. He has so constituted us, that, by the very laws of our being, whatever is beautiful and excellent naturally wins our admiration, and calls forth our love. We are not insensible to all the beauty and grandeur of his works. On every side they surprise, they delight us. But these are only a portion of his ways-the dim and faint reflection of the eternal beauty and excellence that dwells in him, their author and original. Loving and admiring these his works, he would have us, in these and above these, love and adore

himself, the source of all-the Being in whom all loveliness, all beauty, dwell.

Our nature inclines us to admire, also, what is morally excellent, what is great and noble in character, as well as what is beautiful and lovely in the external world. There are certain attributes and qualities of mind and heart which, wherever manifested, win our admiration. We are formed to love and admire such qualities—it is our nature. But He who so formed us, possesses in himself, in highest perfection, these very attributes; and in so constituting us as to love what is truly great, and excellent, and worthy to be loved, he has specially formed and fitted us to love Himself, the source of all excellence.

And does he not richly deserve our love, simply for bestowing upon us a nature thus fitted for infinite enjoyment? A single sensation of happiness, it has been well remarked, though it should continue but for a moment, and terminate with that single moment, would be a cause for gratitude so long as it could be remembered. If this be so, if the enjoyment of even a single sense, for a single moment, is cause of gratitude, what shall we say of that constant enjoyment, not of one, but of all our senses; not of sense merely, but of the higher intellectual pleasures; not of intellect merely, but of heart, and soul, and all that fills the spiritual, moral nature with delight; and this not for a single moment of existence, but through life? Does not the generous donor of a happiness so varied and bountiful, and utterly undeserved, richly merit that love which he seeks to draw forth from his creatures toward himself?

CHAPTER II.

OF OBEDIENCE.

THE duties of the heart, though at the foundation of all morality and all piety, do not terminate in themselves, and are not complete in themselves. Moral obligation relates to the conduct, no less than to the feelings. Reverence toward God, and love to God, lead to obedience, and terminate in that as their natural result and object. The feeling manifests itself in the conduct, insomuch that where the latter is deficient, we are warranted in concluding that the former is also lacking. There cannot be true love to God in the heart, where there is not real obedience to God in the life. The first and chief duty of all these, so far as regards the conduct of man with respect to God, is obedience to the divine will. “If ye love me, keep my

commandments."

The obligation to obedience results both from the divine character, and from the relations we sustain to God as his

creatures.

The Divine Character. The character of God is conformable to the highest conceptions which the human mind can form of excellence and purity. In him are united all the attributes that command our admiration. To him belong not only infinite power, and matchless wisdom, but the most exalted purity, the strictest justice, the most universal benevolence. All that we see and admire in others of these virtues and perfections, is but the reflection of his own superior excellence, a feeble emanation from that Source of all beauty and splendor.

Now, it is fit that a Being of such exalted perfections should receive the homage and obedience of all hearts and all lives. His character entitles him to command, and obligates us to obey. There is a moral fitness and propriety that the sceptre of the universe should rest in his hands; that the Being in whom repose all wisdom, and power, and goodness, and truth, and justice, should be also the source of law, and receive the cordial obedience of the universe. For any being to refuse such obedience, is for the finite to set itself against the infinite; the feeble and imperfect to declare itself independent of the perfect; the impure and unholy to exalt itself against the holy; the creature of a day to declare itself more wise and worthy to rule than the august Being whose goings forth are from eternity. It is impossible for any candid and intelligent mind calmly to meditate upon the character and perfections of God, and not perceive in them a sufficient reason why all creatures, in all parts of his dominion, should yield him willing and earnest obedience.

Our Relations to Him. - The duty of obedience results also from the relations which we sustain to the Divine Being. He is not only in himself the source and fountain of highest excellence, but he has imparted from his own infinite resources life and happiness to all creatures. He is our Creator. All that we prize and value in life as such, is his gift. His breath woke us first into existence. Whatever powers of body or of mind we possess, with whatever natural attributes we are endowed, all are his, and of him. Nothing pertaining to us can we properly call our From the first moment of existence to the last, we exercise no faculty of thought or feeling or action, which he has not first given us, and which he does not rightly claim as belonging to himself. The very power to disobey

own.