66 How affectionate and inviting is the character of our text. It is a wish, nay, an anxious desire expressed by the Eternal God for the sincerity and fidelity of his people. "O that there were such a heart in them!" And can we suppose therefore for a moment that this God is not most ready to assist us in the fulfilment of his own desire? Can we suppose He will not receive with open arms every one who longs to become such as He requires? What a plea is here afforded for the sincere and trembling penitent.-Lord, thou art righteous-thou lovest righteousness-thou hast vouchsafed to express a holy desire for the devotion of thy people! O then receive me who long to be among them. Work in my heart that righteousness which thou lovest! Draw me by thy heavenly grace to the fulfilment of thine own wish. Make me by thy divine power a man after thine own heart. Who shall say, I cannot be religious, when he knows the readiness of God to give him all things needful? Who shall ask, how can I attain to such a piety as this, when he knows that whosoever cometh unto Jesus, shall in no wise be cast out? Who shall exclaim, it is too much to expect from mortal man, when he is assured that he can do all things through Christ strengthening him? Brethren, the Lord your God, is a merciful God- He does not command, and then leave you to your own helplessness He requires not the tale of bricks, and yet refuses straw-but in the very form of his requirements He shows his willingness to work them in us in the very character of his demands there is implied the promise, "I will give you a new heart,"-I will enable you to keep my commandments-I will preserve you by my power and faithfulness always. Lastly, let me notice THE GREAT SOURCE WHENCE SUCH A RELIGION IS TO BE OBTAINED. We have a source pointed out to us in the Gospel, which is inexhaustible. The Lord Jesus Christ is set before us as the great Author of all faith and holiness and love. No religion is now complete without Him as the centre of it-no feelings, desires, actions, can be acceptable to God but in and, through Him.— Would you have fervent devotedness to God? Look unto Jesus! Meditate on his grace; contemplate his cross; be constrained by his love. Would you have practical obedience? Go to him to stimulate your powers and strengthen your hearts; for he came to destroy the work of the devil, and to purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. And would you have constant fidelity in the service of God? Go again to Jesus, who has promised to keep his people from falling, and to present them faultless before the throne of glory with exceeding joy. good works And in the se him? Brethren, the Lord your God, WHENCE SUCH A Lord Jesus Ch Author of all religion is r centre of it acceptabl Would temp W T He first loved us. Gospel over the heart of its from the multiplicity of it calls into action. It addresses some part and fraction only of our out to the whole compound man. Have ecessities which, in order to our satisfacmust be supplied; desires pressing upwards the very depths of our nature, which defulfilment? The Gospel promises their Have we sentiments which find Wrth no scope for exercise; an admiration of the fair and good, a delight in excellence, hich seek in vain their proper objects here? The Gospel proposes those objects. Have we с to us. But where is there n as God has manifested in his Gos hat degree of kindness can ever come to that which He has shown, who gave Son, his only Son for us? He, the great and holy One, our Maker, our Father, our God -He has loved us, so as never man can love; and therefore, necessarily, spontaneously, without a thought further, without calculation of results or consequences, therefore we love him in return. It is not interest which actuates us here; it is not fear; it is not desire; it is not hope; it is not a reference to any thing future; but it is simply the exhibition of God's love to us, which stirs up the corresponding feeling of our love to God. The chord has been first struck by Him, and every string of the human |