glorious hopes which it unfolds hereafter, he must "follow in His steps," constrained by the love which, of free grace, chose him to his high calling:-"For even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps."

But let it be, in addition to all other motives for patient continuance in well doing, constantly borne in mind; that every wilful act of disobedience, every departure from the example bequeathed us in Christ, is an assault which we commit on our faith; which, often repeated, will deaden that principle which alone can spring up into life eternal; and must, finally, provoke God to withdraw from us that gracious spirit, without which, whoso liveth is counted dead before Him.

SERMON V.

1 CORINTHIANS i. 4, 5, 6, 7.

"I THANK MY GOD ALWAYS ON YOUR BEHALF, FOR THE GRACE OF GOD WHICH IS GIVEN YOU BY JESUS CHRIST; THAT IN EVERY THING YE ARE ENRICHED BY HIM, IN ALL UTTERANCE, AND IN ALL KNOWLEDGE; EVEN AS THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST WAS CONFIRMED IN YOU: so THAT YE COME BEHIND IN NO GIFT; WAITING FOR THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST."

WHEN St. John desires to represent the Almighty to us, in the most endearing form, it is in these words, "God is love."* No attribute could be brought forward, declared so briefly, yet containing so much to excite our affection-to strengthen our faith-to lead us to desire to please God, as this, that God is love. For if so, as indeed his works to the

* 1 John iv. 8.

reflecting mind speak him; and yet more, the mercy prepared for those who come unto him by Christ; then there is no fear for such as "walk in love:" for them the attributes of Almighty power, and unerring justice, will excite reverence, not terror. The spirit of love to God, and love to man once resting in the heart, the interval which separates us from God, is in such measure lessened; and the obstacles which shut him from the worldly heart so far removed; that a man, thus influenced, may in some degree be said to "see God" as he is, and to "know even as he is known."*

When, therefore, the sacred writer announces God in the character of love, as summing up in one word whatever we can imagine of highest perfection and excellence, he draws from it an argument whereby we may judge in what relation we stand to that gracious being, and how far we may be said to know him. This knowledge he states to be absolutely

* 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

incompatible with an absence of the quality which he had mentioned as the characteristic of the Godhead: "He that loveth not knoweth not God."*

As the knowledge of God does not consist in any intellectual discernment of his works; nor in the conviction, simply, that an almighty and omniscient Being has created and still sustains the fabric of the universe; but rather in the moral sense, whereby, through the light of faith, we discern what God loves, and what he hates, and regulate our affections thereby : as the true knowledge of God consists, in a word, in our considering his holiness, his mercy, his truth, and seeking to subdue the soul to his image, according to the grace given us, so the Apostle infers, that our partaking in the quality which he selects as a distinctive character of the Godhead, is the test of our knowing God. He enforces this in language familiar for its beauty and force: "He that

* 1 John iv. 8.

loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

Before we endeavour to connect these observations with the opening language of the text, let me entreat you, brethren, to consider for a moment, how much of our boasted knowledge of God vanishes and comes to nought, when tried by the test which the Scripture thus supplies.

We see that the knowledge of God differs in this respect from all other knowledge: the one is the cultivation of the intellectual, the other, of the moral faculties of man. The knowledge which the world esteems, is the enlargement and cultivation of the mind; the knowledge which God esteems, is the culture and improvement of the heart. We shall find that the justice of God requires this. The constitution of the world denies-and, for any thing that we can yet see, must for ever deny to the mass of mankind, the acquirement, to any profitable extent, of the one kind of know