idea laboriously endeavouring to elevate our minds to thee, myriads of fuperior unencumbered fpirits are adoring thee as the God of love, and, entirely pervaded by the fentiment of thy love, enjoy extatic, ineffable felicities! Oh, that at least one ray of that more brilliant light which enlightens them, one fpark of that fuperior life, of that more fervent devotion which animates them, might glance into our hearts, inflame them with thy love, and enable us to know and to feel, fomewhat of that which no intelligent being can understand and feel without joy and felicity, and what hereafter will be the supreme joy and everlasting felicity of us and all mankind, of all intelligent beings! God, affection-, ate parent, even now may thy love be glorified in us, ftrengthen our weakness, quicken our dying. life, and caufe us every where to perceive thee and to feel thy love! To thee who liveft and reigneft for ever the God of our falvation and hope, we thy reasonable creatures, in the name of Christ, and in full reliance on his promises, afk of thee these graces, and thus further addrefs thee: Our father, &c.

JOHN iv. 16.

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God,, and God in him.

GOD is love! Who, my dear friends, who has ever expreffed fo much truth, fo much fublime, all involving, heart and foul rejoicing truth, in for few words as the apostle of Jefus in our text? And.

who

who was more capable, as far as man is capable, of being thoroughly fenfible to this truth, than he, the favourite of our Lord, the most affectionate difciple of the tenderest master; he, whofe fenfible, fentimental heart was continually overflowing with love, who embraced all the confeffors of Jefus with fuch a glowing cordiality, and even in his extreme old age preached love to them as the first and greatest commandment of christianity, as the pureft source of virtue and of felicity? But who of us, my pious hearers, who of all the children of men, which of all created beings can thoroughly apprehend the idea, the grand, the glorious idea, God is love? Whose heart is fo large, fo pure and strong, as to be thoroughly warmed and pervaded by the fublimeft of all fentiments, the fentiment that God is love, and not faint under it? -- To us, my christian brothers and fifters, who are this day affembled to enjoy the repaft of love, to us this idea cannot be foreign, this fentiment cannot be unknown. But whether this idea diffuses a light, a clear and radiant light upon our minds; whether this fentiment is productive of life and felicity to us, is a queftion of high importance. Such is its proper effect, my dear friends, and this it will infallibly produce, if we open the avenues of our hearts to its genial influence. Oh then, might I be fo happy as, in these moments devoted to religious inftruction, to give you a full view of this first, this grandeft of all truths, the truth, that God is love, render it truly affecting

B 3

affecting to your hearts, and by it diffuse joy and felicity within you and about you!

But where fhall I begin where break off in attempting to demonftrate a fact, which has more proofs in its behalf, than there are ftars in the firmament and fands on the fea fhore; which is proved and will be for ever proved by every living, fenfitive, intelligent, improvable being in heaven and on earth? God is love, he intends the welfare of all his creatures, defigns them to be happy, delights in their happiness, is inceffantly promoting it in all poffible methods, and finds in the promotion of it his own fupreme felicity: this, o man, this all nature declares to thee and particularly thy own, the human nature; this is declared to thee by all religion and particularly by christianity in the fupper of our lord, in a voice so distinct and clear that it cannot be mistaken.

Only open thy eyes, caft thy looks around thee in the universe of thy God, confider all the parts of its œconomy, all its inhabitants, all its goods, and fee whether thou doft not everywhere difcern the fhining traces of benevolence, of parental care and tenderness, the most glorious provisions for the happiness of all that is and lives, and particularly for thy own. The earth that bears thee; its lovely, fmiling aspect that gladdens thy heart; the air which thou breatheft; the food which nourishes and ftrengthens thee; the liquors that refresh thee; the garment that covers thee; the dwelling that fhelters

fhelters thee; the glory of the meads, the fields, the mountains, the waters, the forefts which are difplayed to thy view in every season of the year in fuch a different garb; the diverfity, the beauty, the utility of the trees, the fhrubs, the plants, the herbs; the fragrance and the artificial texture of the flowers; the blithe warbling of the birds; the sportive gestures of the animals attefting the fentiment of self and the exuberance of joy; the various, inexhaustible energies concentrated in all living and lifeless creatures, and unfolding and appearing in numberless ways; their general, ever-active propensity to approach and unite; their mutual dependence and connection; the continual preservation and propagation of the several species; the inceffant augmentation of life and action among mankind and the brute creation; the innumerable kinds of the pleasure and the fatisfaction of which they are feverally capable, to the gratification whereof they all know and find the proper fources and means, and which they all, more or lefs, in one way or another enjoy; the jovial fwarms of various fenfitive beings, glad of their existence, revelling in the air and on the ground, on the hills and in the dales, on the leaf of the lowlieft fhrub and in the fummits of the loftieft trees, which thou mayft fee and hear and trace in a fingle day of fpring or fummer and within the limits of a moderate field: what do all thefe proclaim to thee, but, God is love; he creates and preferves

and diffeminates everywhere life and joy and happiness.

And then, o man, the fun, which enlightens and warms thee, and fertilizes and blesses thy fields; the moon, that with ferener ray illumes and cheers the melancholy face of night; the evening that constantly fhuts in the day, and the morning that regularly reftores the light; the countless host of stars that raviẩn and exalt thy foul, that lifts it to the deity, and at last absorbs it in extatic tranfports of anticipations, hopes and profpects: what fays all this to thee, but, God is love, and his love is inexhauftible in bounty; it stretches as far as the expanse of heaven extends; it embraces all worlds, and there is no fpecies of joy, of pleasure, of happiness, that is not enjoyed in its immenfe dominion.

And if thou now proceed to confider thy nature, human nature in particular, o man, how plainly does it testify, that God is love! Thy fight, thy hearing, thy fiell, thy tafte, thy touch, what artificial organs, what watchful, ever-active spies and reporters of the most varied delight, the most agreeable fenfations! Canft thou open thy eyes, without beholding innumerable wonders and beauties in the universe of God? Canft thou hearken, and not hear the various founds of truth, of wisdom, of humanity, of friendship, of joy, or of pity, and confolation? Canft thou ever provide for thy fupport by meat and drink, but thy tafte and thy fmell