THE LORD Direct your HEARTS INTO THE Love of God. OUR Creator has revealed himself to us that he may become an object of our affection; that our hearts may attach themselves to him. And it is a trait never wanting in the character of such as have felt the power of religion, that their hearts are fixed on God. "The fruit of the Spirit is

love."

This divine sentiment pretends to no peculiar alliance with its Great Object, resembling that existing in attachments of human beings to one another. It claims no favoritism as its origin and support. It dreams of no mystical translation of the soul to the "Heaven of Heavens," nor any descent of the Invisible Spirit to meet it like a personal friend. Yet does it suppose such a friendship as that the Just One regards with complacency the being, who is moved by it to grateful trust and filial obedience; and that the heart where it is enthroned feels itself bound by ties the most tender, and communes with God in a manner adapted to that tenderness. There is surely no reason why we should doubt those emotions, which fill the pious mind when in acts of devotion it approaches to God. They indicate no infirmity, betray no fanaticism; are not to be traced to a heated brain or a sickly sensibility. Nor are those the most rational men,

who limit piety to a bare assent to the great truths, that God liveth and reigneth, and a cold attention to some form of worship. We cannot conceive how it is inconsistent with wisdom to admit that God looks upon the devoted child, whose affections prompt his prayers, with other feelings than he beholds the lip-servant. It is hard to imagine that the heart absorbed in God, has lost the claim to respect, which is not thought to be forfeited by an enthusiastic attachment to other noble objects. In other words, there is perfect propriety in his choice, who gives to his Creator that place in his affections, which others give to inferior objects; who is not content to believe in God; but would love him; who binds himself to all duty by arraying that duty in the attractions, which affection for Him who has required it, creates.

Love to God is a natural sentiment. It springs from our nature itself, and not from a foreign source. It is not implanted like a new and separate principle among our other affections, but is one operation of those affections. The heart is "directed into the love of God," by a particular impulse, not by a new faculty. We have loved before; we have but to begin to love God. This may be made very clear, if we will consider what is the nature of this devout sentiment. God has revealed himself as our Father, and we sustain toward him the filial relation. Love to God springs from a proper sense of this tender affinity, a deep impression of the divine excellence, an affectionate recognition of God's parental goodness. It is seen to have its foundations in human nature, if we compare it with other affections. In every breast there may be found the germ of gratitude, and there are none quite strangers to those emotions which moral worth excites. However debased by bad associations, and chilled by evil influences, the heart still retains its susceptibility to kindness, and can scarce deny to heroic virtue the tribute of admiration. There can, at least, be no doubt that this is true with regard to those, who have not sunk too low to be reclaimed. Now where there is a susceptibility to kindness, where the mind is not incapable of gratitude, and can be moved to admiration by distinguished virtue, there the love of God may take root and flourish. We are just as capable of loving God, as we are of becoming attach

ed to any other friend. If we are not now insensible to benefits when they flow from human bounty, we are withheld by nothing in our nature, from acknowledging the divine goodness as it deserves. If we can discern and feel the qualities which endear to us an earthly friend, we have power to discern and feel the divine perfections. Upon this principle it is that the scriptures appeal to our hearts. Were it true that no human heart possessed those affections which are needed in piety; were it true that a new capacity must be conferred before we could love God, the sacred writers would not have thus addressed us. We must have hearts to give him, or God would not have required the gift.

When I say we are just as capable of love to God as of love to man, I do not mean that the former sentiment is as readily produced and as easily cherished. There are peculiar obstacles to be overcome, even where there is no barrier of sinful habit. It is not just to argue a fault in our nature, however, from this circumstance. Imperfection in our faculties is not the same with depravity of heart. But from that imperfection spring some of the difficulties to which I allude. Let me advert to them more particularly.

1. The first obstacle the mind encounters in devotional sentiment, is the Infinity and Spirituality of God. We have all the aid of the senses in other affections. Their objects are with us; share our pursuits; act upon our hearts by the charm of look and language, and innumerable offices of sympathy. Emotion is here almost irrepressible; attachment is spontaneous; the effort would be to keep ourselves insensible; to withdraw from the bonds which unite our hearts with their attached friends. But God is a Spirit. He is the object of no sense. "He passeth by us on every side," but we see him not. His gifts are conferred by the ministry of intermediate agents. His love for us is manifested by symbols, which can be apprehended only through the intellect. The splendor of his perfections awes and confounds the mind. Now it should be remembered, that long before the higher powers are or can be developed to any extent, we are necessarily under the dominion of the senses and outward objects. This obliges us, at length, to a severe effort, before we can bring ourselves to attend to what is interior

and spiritual. And through life, we are still so far subject to the same thraldom, that we do not escape wholly the like difficulty. Let us not wonder that a child, surrounded by engaging objects, all new to his senses, and with those senses in such full exercise while his reason is so feeble, should find no attractions in catechisms and prayers. Let us not speak of his utter ignorance as obstinacy, nor of his volatile spirits as sin. Let us not say that he hates God by nature, because his nature is yet not strong enough to understand or feel the truths concerning him. We are not authorized to expect the heart to be as ready to admit God, as it is to embrace an earthly parent. We must allow a great deal for the infinite difference between the two objects. We must distinguish a reluctance, produced by the mind's imperfection, from that resistance, which originates in the soul's guilt. God does not require a being immersed in matter to exhibit the devout tendencies of spirits, not thus encumbered. It is part of our trial to elevate the affections above earthly influences, but that trial ceases only when we quit the body; and so long as it remains, we have an explanation more satisfactory than the theory of innate depravity, to account for imperfect devotion.

2. A second hindrance to the pious affections, is found in some almost unavoidable effects, resulting from the necessary avocations of the present life. We are constituted for action. And the sphere in which our activity is to be unfolded is, with few exceptions, that low scene of things in which men toil for bread. Some labors call forth little mind; others absorb the faculties. But each description has the effect of detaching us from all views extending beyond the limits to which they carry us, and of indisposing and unfitting us for purely spiritual employments. The mind should be free from embarrassing cares, unruffled by conflicting emotions, have its sensations tranquil, its affections calm, and all its powers prepared for a lofty flight, in order to the full influence of devotion. But, in some measure, this is not uniformly possible. To a certain degree, we are not always able to attain to and preserve the state of mind, most favorable to spiritual affections. The difficulty arising from the causes to which we now allude, is felt and must be felt more or

less by all men. Our trial consists very much in counteracting it, by subjecting the mind to opposite influences. The heart proves its devotedness to God by the earnestness with which it guards itself, while exposed necessarily to such things as tend to depress and paralyze its best affections. It is not, surely, just to argue an enmity to God from the fact, that in the toils of the senses, the soul may sometimes find its aspirations checked; that we are not always able to cherish without effort emotions, which elevate us above the sphere in which we are compelled to act; and may sometimes return from the world's conflicts unfitted for celestial communion. We must allow for infirmity and the unavoidable influences of earthly engagements, lest we construe into an evidence of depravity what has indeed no alliance with it. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

3. To those already named, we may add, as another obstacle to the love of God, the strength of other natural or acquired attachments. As we cannot serve two masters, so neither can the heart be devoted entirely to many objects. For the same reason that our other affections are more readily and easily developed and matured, they become stronger than the love we owe to God. It may innocently, because unintentionally happen, that the heart shall be absorbed by the objects, to which it is drawn most closely by the duties and the solicitudes of our relative condition. Devotion may languish through the strength of other affections, a strength which has been the growth of circumstances, not always under our control.

4. Calamity, grief, pain, come in the way of the pious sentiments, which it is our happiness to cultivate. These shut up the heart, sometimes, against the Comforter, by filling it with their own influences. Though we do not doubt that God remaineth good, we may forget it. We may believe that "he chasteneth whom he loveth," but it is the highest attainment of piety to love him while he chasteneth.

5. A further difficulty is experienced by the heart that would give itself to God, from false opinions embraced as religious truth. There are some doctrines which seem to divest God of every quality, which we are wont to love. If there are those who thus believe, and yet have not failed of