SERMON VIII.

THE INTIMATE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE FERVENT LOVE OF GOD, AND LOVE AND REVERENCE TOWARDS JESUS CHRIST.

To thee, the only-begotten Son of the Highest, the eternal Mediator and Propitiator, who hast acquired for us the sacred privilege of the children of God, be honour and praise for evermore! Amen.

Great and striking unquestionably, my Christian hearers, is the difference of judgments formed on human actions and speeches. But a greater and more striking diversity has never been exhibited, than that concerning the discourses and acts of Jesus, our Lord, whose last calamities pass before our view in these still and solemn weeks. The purity and innocence of his life, the superhuman power with which he performed things which no other man did, the celestial strength of the truth of his Gospel, did not fail to make a due impression. "Thou, O Lord, hast the words of eternal life," cried Peter with high inspiration before the chosen

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of Jesus, who were assembled in familiar circle round that Divine Being; who opened their hearts to his heavenly doctrine, and rested on him their trust, their labours, their wishes, their hope. "Never man spake like this Man." Verily this is that Prophet that should come into the world.” "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Thus said the unprejudiced among his contemporaries who could not conceal from themselves, nor deny, that they never before felt so deeply affected. When Jesus spake, feelings of joy, of admiration, of gratitude and love, broke forth in those multitudes which followed him, into loud acclamations, into an universal glorification of the Lord. But the louder the admiration of his deeds, the stronger the influence of his doctrine became; so much the more the hate of the Pharisees, the hate of the Scribes and Jewish priests, increased, and armed itself against Divine truth and Him who proclaimed it; so much the more assiduously did they labour to calumniate his character, to deride his instructions, to traduce his miracles, to destroy his reputation, to bias his adherents and make them revolt against him; so much the more studiously they contrived means and occasions to deprive him of his efficiency, his liberty, his earthly existence. Can we deny, my hearers, that Jesus is estimated in very different lights in our generation also? It is loudly proclaimed in our temples, that

he is the Son of the Eternal, the Saviour of the world, the true and only Mediator and Redeemer ; the song of praise soars aloft to him on the wings of devotion; at his altar is presented to us, that which should raise us to an invisible and blessed communion with him, the Divine Being; and in the hearts of pious Christians lives Jesus evermore.

But-how sad a spectacle! wicked men also have arisen, to whom the holy Scripture, the heavenly doctrine of Jesus our Lord, has afforded a convenient occasion for dull jesting, because they are not capable of comprehending what is holy, because their mouths, their hearts, their course of life, profane and desecrate every thing; persons full of hatred and hostility to Jesus are come forth and have blasphemed Him, in whose mouth was no guile; and thoughtless men live on the vanity of their hearts, who do not indeed mock nor blaspheme, but who feel no interest in Jesus. For this coldness towards the Redeemer, which has been so widely spread in our days, excuses are not wanting. It is often sought to be palliated by the explanation, that men can maintain a religious disposition in general, pray to the Highest, and love and worship the Deity, without particularly regarding Jesus and his word, without being Christianly religious. And in fact, my hearers, this objection is certainly plausible. Who may assert without injustice, that among all those, who have lived on the earth in ignorance of

Jesus and his Gospel, there has been no religious heart? But we, to whom the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord has appeared, to whom it is granted to search the Scripture, to understand therein, what that Divine person has communicated, what he has done, effected, and endured for us, to behold his glory, the glory of the only-begotten Son of God-we, who call ourselves Christians, cannot possibly accede to this erroneous opinion. He who has once received the word of eternal life, who is at all acquainted with the sacred history of him, in whom we have life and full sufficiency; if he will not contradict himself, nor belie his understanding, nor separate what is indissoluble, let him not say, "I love God," if in his inward mind he has no regard for Jesus. For a true, genuine, filial love of God stands in the closest connexion with the love and reverence which we owe to Jesus. The words of our text call upon us to unfold this thought more perspicuously.

JOHN vii 42-44.

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.

THE Jews, to whom Jesus speaks in the words of

our text, blinded by proud self-conceit, called themselves children of God and the Lord's people, since, being the posterity of the pious Abraham, they thought they had the first title to the favour of the Lord. They called themselves children of God, without worshipping him with a truly filial regard. They conspicuously manifested what little real desire they had seriously to perform the will of God, by the contempt and ungrateful hatred, with which they treated Jesus and his Gospel. Full of the generous love of truth Jesus addresses them," If God were your Father," if you worshipped God with truly filial' sentiments, if you could with perfect right call yourselves children of God, then "ye would love me." Let us take this saying of our Redeemer into consideration. The intimate connexion in which the filial love of God stands with love and reverence towards Jesus, is the subject for our present meditation. Let us in the first place inquire into the nature and grounds of this connexion, and then it will easily be shewn, how fruitful and important is the contemplation of this subject.

1st. To love God as a father, my hearers, comprehends infinitely more, than the worldly-minded man is accustomed to understand by it. It comprehends in fact far more, than openly to confess with the lips, that God is our Father, our Lord, and our Judge; more, than to feel a transient emo