atone among men, fhe was graciously received by him who knew her heart, and who faw her fincerity. He enlightened her mind-he taught her hopes to afpire-he forgave her offences-he was himself the facrifice for the fins which he forgave. Awakened to a view of all her guilt, and to the misery and infamy to which her passions had reduced her, ready to defpair of the mercy of God, as fhe had experienced the unpitying cenfure of the world, with what gratitude and joy would fhe fee herself reftored to purity by the word of Christ, and, by his interceffion and atonement, made an heir of immortal felicity and glory! Here was the fource of thofe ftrong emotions, and of thofe affectionate and affiduous attentions, which fhe was unable to reftrain, even in the presence of men who fufpected her motives, and were unfriendly to her character.

This is the hiftory of a real penitent. The love of Chrift, and of God through him, now reigned fupremely in her heart. "Thou fhalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy foul, with all thy ftrength, and with all thy mind," is the

law equally of reason and of revelation. Towards that eternal fource of intelligence and truth a pure and enlightened reafon will feek to bend all her powers. Into that infinite ocean of goodness and benignity, all the little ftreams of good in man will delight to pour themfelves. A mind, therefore, that is truly penitent, and renewed after the image of God, will demonftrate its change by the warm and lively courfe of its affections towards him. The heart he formed for himself. To withdraw it from him, and to devote it exclufively to other objects is a criminal diverfion of its powers. It is, befides, miftaking the means of our happiness to feek it from things fo imperfect, treacherous, and inconflant. A man who had amply tried whatever pleasures. the world can yield returned from them with the fad experience that all is vanity and vexation of fpirit. On the fluctuating ocean of life nothing is ftable or fatisfying; and the refiless heart of man, always deceived, yet never taught wisdom by its errors, only abandons one purfuit for another equally vain. When, convinced at laft that its infelicity arifes, not fo much from miftaking its object as from the cffential imperfection of

the objects exclufively of God, it returns to him who embraces in himself all that is excellent and perfect in the universe, with what firong and fervent affections will it cleave to him as its chief good? In him it finds a fweet repofe from all the agitations and tumults of the world-He is able to fix all its wanderings-He can fatisfy the infinity-he can fill the immensity of ns defires. He offers to its affections the mort fublime of all objects, infinite power, and benignity, infinite purity and truth. The love of God in a good man, feizing upon all the powers of his foul, will mingle itfelf not only with his devotions, but with all his ordinary occupations. He fees God in every thing that he beholds, he poffeffes him, if I may fpeak fo, in every thing that he enjoys. The whole world, ihat was curfed to man by fin, is again fan&tified to his ufe by the fpirit of divine love.

But the highest and most delightful exercife of this affection a fincere penitent muft fnd in contemplating his Saviour, and recognizing his obligations to rede, ming mercy. Is it poffible to believe the truths which are taught in the facred fçriptures concern

ing the guilt of man, and the incarnation and ficrifice of the fon of God, and to feel our own intereft in them, and not to be penetrated with the tendereft, and the fublimeft fentiments of gratitude and admiration? By his grace, the flaves of fin are made free with the liberty of the fons of God-The prifoners of juftice are made to fing of mercy-the victims of eternal death are made heirs of immortal life!-He hath redeemed us from the curfe of the law, having been made a curfe for us, and having borne our fins in his own body on the tree. O the heighth and the depth, the length and the breadth of the love of Chrift that paffeth knowledge! There are moments in which a pious man feels these ideas to be almost too powerful for the feebleness of human nature. No language is fufficient to express the emotions that fill his heart. Like the woman, he weeps at the footftcol of divine grace-he would, if poffible, kifs the Redeemer's feet. But the burden of his gratitude often makes him dumb, and he gives himself up to unutterable feelings.

Indifcreet acts of zeal in fome weak but well-meaning perfons, and hypocritical pre

tenfions in others to high fervors in religion, in order to cover unworthy defigns, have, with men of reflecting minds, and worldly principles, brought a degree of fufpicion on all the visible acts of a warm and affectionate piety. They would reduce religion to a lukewarm profeffion, and a formal detail of exterior rites in which the heart is not concerned. But, furely, if men be capable of high fentiment, or of ftrong and tender feelings upon any occafions, the great and tranfcendent objects prefented to us in the gospel fhould have the power of awakening them in the breaft. And the truth is, whatever be the degree of natural fenfibility which a good man poffeffes, it will shine out in his religious profeffion. Love preferves the fame character in religion as in other fubjects. It cannot be fmothered in the foul. It seeks for means by which to express itself, not only in the fervency of its devotions but in its zeal for whatever is connected with the glory of God, the felicity of mankind, and the progrefs of piety and virtue in the world. It is fuperior to a cold and inanimate formality, to which the error, and the practice of fo many in

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