infinitely greater, than the distance between the, knowledge of the new-born babe and the fagacity of the wifeft and beft of all earthly parents.

Yes, God is love, my dear brethren! This fhall now be to us a demonftrated, eternally established truth! As furely as God is, fo furely is he love! And that he is, we are certified by every thought of our mind, by every motion of our body, every pulfation of our blood; of that we are certified by the heavens and the earth, the fun and the atom of duft, the morning and the evening, the brute and the man; of that we are certified by every thing that has existence and life and breath!

Yes, God is love, of this will we affure ourselves, as often as we lie down to fleep, and as often as we awake from fleep again; whenever anything agreeable, and whenever anything adverfe befalls us; whenever we are fummoned to fulfill any duty, and whenever we are called to bear any affliction; whenever we go forth to our work, and whenever we recreate ourselves after it by innocent pleasure; whenever we are folaced in the company of good, and whenever we are injured by wicked men ; whenever we are forced to admire the methods of his go. vernment as blameless and holy, and whenever we cannot explain and comprehend them; whenever we think on life, and whenever we meditate on death!

Yes, God is love! This will we affirm to each other, whenever the troubles and inconveniences

of life bear hard upon us; whenever we have focial duties to fulfill and focial fatisfactions to enjoy; whenever we affemble and meet together here or there, in our houses or the houfe of God, to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy word, and to ask thofe things which are requifite and neceffary, as well for the body as the foul, for the particular celebration of his more refplendent mercies, for interceffion, for his public adoration and worship!

Yes, God is love! In this will we even now rejoice at the feast of his love and the love of his fon Jesus ; this fhall even now give us hope and affiance in him, -fhall enable us to draw near with boldness, with truly filial boldness to his throne of grace, there to feek and find whatever can render us really happy! ́ There the bread that is broken, the wine that is poured out fhall fay to us: God is love, and is fo as certainly as thou eateft of this bread and drinkest this wine, for from love, from matchlefs love, he fent his fon to thee and for thee fubmitted him to death! And Jefus, whofe memorial thou art folemnizing here, with whom thou haft here communion, is the exprefs image of his father is vifible, incarnate love divine! He loved thee even unto death, loved thee more than his life, more than the glory which he had with the father, before the foundation of the world! For that he left for thee, that he voluntarily facrificed to the fatisfaction of delivering

delivering and faving thee! And couldst thou still Couldft thou ftill doubt the

doubt of his love?

love of thy heavenly father? Oh what mayst thou, what shouldft thou not now expect of this God, of this faviour!- Yes, in profperity and in adverfity, in life and in death, here and there and every where, now and then, in the present and in the future world, from eternity to eternity God is and will be love! Rejoice, o man, that thou art a man, o christian, that thou art a chriftian! Be glad in this thy happiness! Glory in it before God and the world! Let this grand and glorious fentiment be thy guide and companion all the reft of thy life, carry it with thee into the tomb, take it with thee into the better world! For ever wilt thou find it true and grand and inexhaustible; and for ever wilt thou, with all the bleffed, that stand before the throne of the Highest, and assemble about it from all quarters of the immense territory of his empire, bear witness to its truth, and with them in lofty fongs of triumph join the celestial choir in one holy act of adoration, and fay, Thou art worthy, o Lord, who fittest upon the throne, and livest for ever and ever, to receive glory and honour and power. God is love! God is pure effential love! Amen! Hallelujah! Amen!

Communion.

SERMON XXXIII.

If God be Love, what follows.

G

OD; who from eternity to eternity enjoyeft the fupreme felicity, becaufe from eternity to eternity thou art continually diffufing and producing life and felicity all around thee, how great is our happiness in knowing thee as the God of love, as the God who conftantly wills and does the beft, who is gracious and merciful to all his creatures, and conducts them all, though in very diverfe ways, to perfection and happiness! It is the joy and confolation of our hearts, that we need not fear thee with fervile dread, but should love thee with filial affection! That we can rejoice in thy existence, thy inspection and government, all thy ordinances and laws, that thou, the Lord God omnipotent, reigneft, that we can entertain a rational and firm reliance on the rectitude and benignity of thy administration, and behold all the events that befall us, whether we call them good or evil, whether we feel them to be agree able or painful, fulfilling the purposes of thy confummate wisdom and unbounded love! That without thy permiffion and appointment, o heavenly Fa

ther,

ther, nothing comes to pass; and though clouds and darkness are often round about thee, juftice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne, mercy and truth go before thy face! That we can rejoice in our life and in our death; that in the thought of thee, that thou art effential love, we can find fo much light, fo much comfort, fo much motive and ability to the practice of virtue, fo much hope and felicity! Oh that this thought were ever prefent to our minds, ever important to our hearts, oh that it were the leading principle of all our other thoughts, the foul of all our emotions! How wife, how virtuous, how good, how blithe and happy fhould we be both living and dying, and through the gate and grave of death pass over to the celestial life, and through all the stages of eternal existence be ever approaching nearer to thee and to perfection! Ah, cause us even now to experience the efficacy, the facred efficacy of this idea, feel it in all its truth, in all its weight, and become better and happier by it! Teach us however to combine it with fo many other of our ideas, feelings and concerns that it may never escape our recollection, and more than any other fentiment live and rule within us, and operate upon our conduct. Blefs to that end the doctrines of truth, on which we purpose now to reflect, and cause them, while they tend to promote our hap piness, to tend also to the glorification of thy love. We address our prayers to thee for these bleffings as the votaries of thy fon Jefus, who has revealed