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continuance, and room for never-ending improve

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Let it be remembered, that scriptural goodness is not, like the morality of the Stoics, a love of abstract virtue; but it is a love of the intelligent, communicative, infinite Source of virtue: and that, not in the way of conjectural theory, like that spoken of by the ancient Platonists and modern Theists of Asia, but with a practical confidential affection, as rational as it is ardent, because it has matter-of-fact for its foundation.

Now, what, in matters of this lower world, gives so much pleasure as the exercise of affection towards a virtuous, wise, and kind friend? The heart which is fitted for such a feeling delights to cultivate it, because it is felt to be its own reward. What, then, must be the happiness of exercising grateful, confidential love towards that Being who is infinite perfection; from whom, as from their single, inexhaustible source, flow all those streams of virtue and benignity, and all those rays of truth, of grandeur, and of beauty, which animate and irradiate created nature; and who, at the same time, is humbly and surely trusted in, as taking the wisest, kindest, minutest cognisance of every creature, throughout the universe, that looks sincerely towards Him! Can any thing fill, satisfy, or exalt the human mind, like such a sentiment as this? Yet is this no more than scriptural devotion: this is the very feeling which a vivid apprehension of Him whom the Scripture reveals has ever inspired; and with the highest and hap

piest expressions of this feeling the sacred books abound.

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The Book of Psalms, in particular, is a continued exemplification of it. Thy favour is better "In thy presence

than the life itself," says David.

is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand is pleasure for ever more. My soul shall be satisfied, as it were, with marrow and fatness, when my mouth praiseth thee with joyful lips. Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but thou art the strength of my heart, and

my portion for ever."

But even this, as I before intimated, is but Old Testament piety. The contemplation of "God manifest in the flesh," which forms the grand object of the New Testament, calls forth new energies, while it gives infinitely additional interest to the Old. It is, to be sure, the humble and purified soul only, which can fully relish this hidden manna of the sanctuary; "the bread which came down from heaven, and giveth life to the world," being but light food to those who have been habituated to "the flesh-pots of Egypt." But, were our minds once so enlightened from above as to be really sensible of the bondage of sin, and to conceive something of the happiness of a holy temper and an habitual spirit of devotion, then should we find so much vivid power in our blessed Lord's discourses, so assimilating an influence in his divine character, and so much invaluable hope in his gracious mediation, that the language of our hearts would be that of the Apostles, "Lord,

to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

The character of the happy man given by David is, "that his delight is in the law of the Lord" that is, as a well-tuned ear delights in concord of sweet sounds; as a tasteful eye drinks in those rays of light, which convey to the imagination the images of picturesque grandeur and beauty; so, in a similar, but infinitely exalted way, does the spiritualised mind find its truest satisfaction in those expressions of divine perfection and benignity which the Divine Word every where exhibits.

But it is in the Word made flesh that the perfections of the Divine Nature are fully prepared and fitted for the contemplation of such frail intelligences as ours. Here the delight is perfect, because here the influence is complete. Here the essential attributes of the infinite Jehovah are softened into the form of human virtues, that they may be viewed without fear; that they may be approached with humble confidence; that they may be familiarised to our minds; and that they may insinuate themselves into the very substance of our souls by a sweet, but resistless energy.

If human excellence furnishes a most gratifying object to a well-exercised imagination, what must be felt in rightly apprehending the grace of our Redeemer, where the virtue contemplated (if rightly valued and admired) never fails to rise into being, and grow into strength, while the mind's eye is fixed on its all-prolific, ever-communicative source?

Let it not be thought this is exaggerated lan

guage: the subject is too serious to be embellished with rhetoric; but it is also too great to be done justice to, even by the strongest expressions.

Who can set bounds to the moral and religious delight of which the human mind is capable? But, on what object can it be so delightfully fixed as on that where every thing that is greatest in the highest heavens is united with every thing that the utmost fancy can deem most amiable, and most tenderly interesting to man? The feelings of the sceptical Rousseau on this subject are well worth our attention. These were, certainly, no Christian prejudices; yet what Christian, under the strongest impressions of devotion, could have given a fuller testimony?

"Is this the tone of an enthusiast?" says he. "What sweetness, what purity in his manners! what persuasive grace in his instructions! what delicacy, and yet what sweetness, in his replies! what empire over his passions! Where is the man-where is the sage,-who could thus act, suffer, and die, at once without weakness and without ostentation? If the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God."

Surely, than this there can be no higher statement of human excellence. Nay, even this infidel confesses, that it cannot be kept within the bounds. of human nature. Let, then, faith-the feeling of an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart -- be added to this view. Let it be felt that, under this divine exterior, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Let us unite, in our

thoughts, the height of inconceivable majesty with the depth of poverty, of labour, of persecution. Let us add to this the infinite grandeur of the design, and the awful momentous relation in which we all stand to Him who thus lived and died to draw us from sin to God, and from death to life eternal; who is at this moment sending forth his gracious influences into every heart that will receive Him; and who will shortly pronounce a dreadful sentence upon all who wilfully reject Him. Let us, I say, try to connect all these astonishing particulars into one view; and say, whether, to a conscientiously good man, who humbly, yet confidently, hopes that the purposes of this great plan are even now accomplishing, and will be more and more accomplished, in himself; whose heart feels, practically, influentially, and permanently, all, and much more than all, that the mind of Rousseau tasted transiently in a moment of rapturous excitement-and then let it be said, whether any happiness of which intelligent nature is capable can be thought to exceed such a state of mind, except only that happiness of heaven of which this is the pledge and the prelibation.

Such, however, is the certain happiness of him who acquires, through God's gracious influence, a heart-attachment to the Holy Scriptures. "He that cometh to me," saith Christ, "shall never hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. For the water that I will give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life."

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