at the same time, disgraced himself, by his vices, that, bad as he is, he has been at all times remarkably kind to me, and felt many a movement of friendship towards my person, and done many a deed of important service to my family, and that I, at least, owe him a gratitude for all this,-that I, ai least, should be longer than others, of dismissing from my bosom the last remainder of cordiality towards him,-that if, infamy and poverty have followed, in the career of his wickedness, and he have become an outcast from the attentions of other men, it

my door,-or, in the face of my particular recollections, to look unpitying and unmoved, at the wretchedness into which he has fallen.

quired to love them, in the same way in of kindness, when he cannot, from the nawhich God loves his enemies. A conscien-ture of the object, feel for us the slightest tious man will feel oppressed by the diffi- degree of the love of moral esteem. In the culty of such a precept, if he try to put it same manner may we feel, we are not sayinto obedience, by loving those who have of-ing towards God, but towards an earthly fended, with the same feeling of complacency benefactor, the love of gratitude, when, from with which he loves those who have be- the nature of the object we are employed friended him. But the truth is, that the love in contemplating, there is much to impair of moral esteem often enters, as a principal within us the love of moral esteem, or to ingredient, into the love of complacency; extinguish it altogether. Is it not most naand we are not required, by our imitation tural to say of the man, who has been perof the Godhead, to entertain any such affec-sonally benevolent to myself, and who has, tion for the depraved and the worthless. It is enough, that we cherish towards them in our hearts the love of kindness; and this will be felt a far more practicable achievement, than to force up the love of complacency into a bosom, revolted by the aspect of treachery, or dishonesty, or unprincipled selfishness. There is no possible motive to excite the latter affection. There may be a thousand to excite the former: and we have only to look to the unhappy man in all his prospects, and in all his relations; we have only to pity his delusions, and to view him as the hapless victim of a sad and ruin-is not for me to spurn him instantly from ous infatuation; we have only to carry our eye onwards to the agonies of that death, which will shortly lay hold of him, and to compute the horrors of that eternity, which, if not recovered from the error of his way, he is about to enter; we have only, in a word, to put forth an exercise of faith in certain near and impending realities, the evidence of which is altogether resistless, in order to summon up such motives, and such considerations, as may cause the compassion of our nature to predominate over the re-gression, and generously admitted me into sentment of our nature: and as will assure the privileges and the rewards of obeto a believer the victory over such urgen- dience,-I see in this a tenderness, and a cies of his constitution as, to the unrenewed mercy, and a love, for his creatures, which, heart, are utterly unconquerable. if blended at the same time with all that is But to resume our argument, let it be ob-high and honourable in the more august served that the kindness of God is one of the attributes of his nature, have the effect of loveliest, and most estimable of the attri- presenting him to my mind, and of drawbutes which belong to him. It is a bright ing out my heart in moral regard to him. feature in that assemblage of excellencies, as a most amiable and estimable object of which enter into the character of the God- contemplation. But besides this, there is a head: and, as such, independently altogether peculiar love of gratitude, excited by the of this kindness being exercised upon me, I consideration that I am the object of this should offer to it the homage of my moral benignity,-that I am one of the creatures approbation. But, should I be the special to whom he has directed this peculiar reand the signalized object of his kindness, gard,-that he has singled out me, and conthere is another sentiment towards God, be-ceived a gracious purpose towards me, and side the love of moral esteem, that ought to be formed within me by that circumstance, and which, in the business of reasoning, should be kept apart from it. There is the love of gratitude. These often go together, and may be felt simultaneously, towards the one being we are employed in contemplating. But they are just as distinct, each from the other, as is the love of moral esteem from the love of kindness. We trust that we have already convinced you, that God feels towards us, his inferiors, the love

It is the more necessary, to distinguish the love of gratitude from the love of moral esteem, that each of these affections may be excited simultaneously within me, by one act or by one exhibition of himself, on the part of the Deity. Let me be made to understand, that God has passed by my trans

in the execution of this purpose is lavishing upon my person, the blessings of a father's care, and a father's tenderness. Both the love of moral esteem, and the love of gratitude, may thus be in contemporaneous operation within me; and it will be seen to accomplish a practical, as well as a metaphysical purpose, to keep the one apart from the other, in the view of the mind, when love towards God is the topic of speculation which engages it.

But, farther, let it be understood, that the

knowledgment of them; and so it may be, when one looks to the venerable, and the lovely in the character of God. The more appropriate offering of the latter, is the offering of thanksgiving, or of such services as are fitted to please, and to gratify a benefactor. But still it may be observed, how each of these simple affections tends to express itself, by the very act which more characteristically marks the workings of the other; or, how the more appropriate offering of the first of them, may be prompted under the impulse, and movement of the second of them, and conversely. For, if I love God because of his perfections, what principle can more powerfully or more directly lead to the imitation of them?— which is the very service that he requires, and the very offering that he is most pleased with. And, if I love God because of his goodness to me, what is more fitted to prompt my every exertion, in the way

and of his name among my fellows,and, for this purpose, to magnify in their hearing the glories and the attributes of his nature? It is thus that the voice of praise and the voice of gratitude may enter into one song of adoration; and that whilst the Psalmist, at one time, gives thanks to God at the remembrance of his holiness, he, at another, pours forth praise at the remembrance of his mercies.

love of gratitude differs from the love of moral esteem, not merely in the cause which immediately originates it, but also in the object, in which it finds its rest and its gratification. It is the kindness of another being to myself, which originates within me the 'ove of gratitude towards him; and it is the view of what is morally estimable in this being, that originates within me all the love of moral esteem, that I entertain for him. There is a real distinction of cause between these two affections, and there is also between them a real distinction of object. The love of moral esteem finds its complacent gratification, in the act of dwelling contemplatively on that Being, by whom it is excited; just as a tasteful enthusiast inhales delight from the act of gazing on the charms of some external scenery. The pleasure he receives, emanates directly upon his mind, from the forms of beauty and of loveliness, which are around him. And if, instead of a taste for the beauties of nature, there ex-of spreading the honours of his character ists within him, a taste for the beauties of holiness, then will he love the Being, who presents to the eye of his contemplation the fullest assemblage of them, and his taste will find its complacent gratification in dwelling upon him, whether as an object of thought, or as an object of perception. "One thing have I desired," says the Psalmist, "that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." To have the love of gratitude towards Now, the love of gratitude is distinct from God, it is essential that we know and bethis in its object. It is excited by the love lieve his love of kindness towards us. To of kindness; and the feeling which is thus have the love of moral esteem towards him, excited, is just a feeling of kindness back it is essential that the loveliness of his charagain. It is kindness begetting kindness. acter be in the eye of the mind: or, in other The language of this affection is, "What words, that the mind keep itself in steady shall I render unto the Lord for all his bene- and believing contemplation of the excelfits?" He has done what is pleasing and lencies which belong to him. The view gratifying to me. What shall I do to please, that we have of God, is just as much in the and to gratify him? The love of gratitude order of precedency to the affection that we seeks for answers to this question, and finds entertain for him, as any two successive its delight in acting upon them, and whether steps can be, in any of the processes of our the answer be, this is the will of God, even mental constitution. To obtain the introyour sanctification,-or, with the sacrifices duction of love into the heart, there must, of liberality God is well pleased,-or, obe- as a preparatory circumstance, be the indience to parents is well pleasing in his troduction of knowledge into the undersight, these all point out so many lines of standing; or, as we can never be said to conduct, to which the impulse of the love know what we do not believe-ere we have of gratitude would carry us, and attest this love, we must have faith; and, accordingly, in to be the love of God,-that ye keep his the passage from which our text is extracted, commandments. do we perceive the one pointed to, as the And, indeed, when the same Being com-instrument for the production of the other. bines, in his own person, that which ought to excite the love of moral esteem, with that which ought to excite the love of grati- And here, it ought to be remarked, that a tude, the two ingredients, enter with a man may experience a mental process, and mingled but harmonious concurrence, into yet have no taste or no understanding for the exercise of one compound affection. It the explanation of it. The simple truths of is true, that the more appropriate offering the Gospel, may enter with acceptance into of the former is the offering of praise,- the mind of a peasant, and there work all just as when one looks to the beauties of the proper influences on his heart and chanature, he breaks out into a rapturous ac-racter, which the Bible ascribes to them: and

"Keep yourselves in the love of God, building yourselves up on your most holy faith."

yet he may be utterly incapable of tracing that series of inward movements, by which he is carried onward from a belief in the truth, to all those moral and affectionate regards, which mark a genuine disciple of the truth. He may be the actual subject of these movements, though altogether unable to follow or to analyze them. This is not peculiar to the judgments or the feelings of Christianity. In the matters of ordinary life, a man may judge sagaciously, and feel correctly while ardently;-and experience, in right and natural order, the play of his various faculties, without having it at all in his power, either to frame or to follow a true

theory of his faculties. It is well, that the simple preaching of the Gospel has its right practical operation on men, who make no attempt whatever, to comprehend the metaphysics of the operation. But, if ever metaphysics be employed to darken the freeness of the Gospel offer, or to dethrone faith from the supremacy which belongs to it, or to forbid the approaches of those whom God has not forbidden; then must it be met upon its own ground, and the real character of our beneficent religion be asserted, amid the attempts of those who have in any way obscured or injured it by their illustrations.

SERMON X.

Gratitude, not a sordid Affection.

"We love him, because he first loved us."-1 John iv. 19.

their contemplation from the objects which are fitted to inspire it. In other words, they have hesitated to entertain the free of fers of salvation, and misinterpreted all the tokens of an embassy, which has proclaimed peace on earth and good will to men. They think that all which they can possibly gather, in the way of affection, from such a contemplation, is the love of gratitude; and that gratitude is selfishness; and that selfishness is not a gracious affection; and that ere they be surely and soundly converted, the love they bear to God must be of a totally disinterested character; and thus through another medium than that of a free and gratuitous dispensation of kindness, do they strive, by a misunderstood gospel, or without the gospel altogether, to reach a peace and a preparation which we fear, in their way of it, is to sinners utterly unattainable.

SOME theologians have exacted from an inquirer, at the very outset of his conversion, that he should carry in his heart what they call the disinterested love of God. They have set him on the most painful efforts to acquire this affection,--and that too, before he was in circumstances in which it was at all possible to entertain it. They have led him to view with suspicion the love of gratitude, as having in it a taint of selfishness. They are for having him to love God, and that on the single ground that he is lovely, without any reference to his own comfort, or even to his own safety. Strange demand which they make on a sentient being, that even amidst the fears and the images of destruction, he should find room in his heart for the love of complacency! and equally strange demand to make on a sinful being, that ere he admit such a sense of reconciliation into his bosom, as will instantly call forth a grateful In the progress of this discourse let us regard to him who has conferred it, he endeavour, in the first place, to rescue the must view God with a disinterested affec- love of gratitude from the imputations tion; that from the deep and helpless abyss which have been preferred against it,-and of his depravity, he must find, unaided, his secondly, to assign to the love of kindness ascending way to the purest and the sub-manifested to the world in the gospel, and limest emotion of moral nature; that ere he is delivered from fear he must love, even though it be said of love, that it casteth out fear; and that ere he is placed on the vantage ground of the peace of the Gospel, he must realize on his character, one of the most exalted of its perfections.

The effect of all this on many an anxious seeker after rest, has been most discouraging. With the stigma that has been affixed to the love of gratitude, they have been positively apprehensive of the inroads of this affection, and have studiously averted the eye of

to the faith by which that love is made to arise in the heart, the place and the preeminence which belong to them.

I. The proper object of the love of gratitude, is the being who has exercised towards me the love of kindness; and this is more correct than to say, that the proper object of this affection is the being who has conferred benefits upon me. I can conceive another to load me with benefactions, and at the same time, to evince that kindness towards me was not the principle which impelled him. It may be done reluctantly

at the bidding of another, or it may be done | secret charm which so heightens and so multo serve some interested purpose, or it may tiplies the pleasure of all the members of it; be done to parade his generosity before the and, when transported from earth to heaven, eye of the public. If it be not done from they will still feel, that while it is to the a real principle of kindness to myself, I may benefits which God hath conferred that they take his gifts, and I may find enjoyment in owe the possession and all the privileges of the use of them; but I feel no gratitude to- existence; it is to a sense of the love which wards the dispenser of them. Unless I see prompted these benefits, that they will owe his kindness in them, I will not be grateful. the ecstatic charm of their immortality. It It is true, that, in point of fact, gratitude is the beaming kindness of God upon them, often springs from the rendering of a bene- that will put their souls into the liveliest fit; but, lest we should confound things transports of gratitude and joy ; and it is the which are different, let it be well observed, reciprocation of this kindness on the part of that this is only when the benefit serves as those, who, while they have fellowship with the indication of a kind purpose, or of a the Father, and with the Son, have fellowkind affection, on the part of him who hath ship also with one another, that will cause the granted it. And this may be proved, not joy of heaven to be full. merely by showing, that there may be no The distinction which we are now adgratitude where there is a benefit, but also verting to, is something more, than a mere by showing, that there may be gratitude shadowy refinement of speculation. It may where there is no material benefit what-be realized on the most trodden and ordiever. Just let the naked principle of kind-nary path of human experience, and is, in ness discover itself, and though it have nei- fact, one of the most familiar exhibitions of ther the power, nor the opportunity of genuine and unsophisticated nature in those coming forth with the dispensation of any ranks of society where refinement is unservice, it is striking to observe, how, upon known. Let one man go over any given the bare existence of this affection being district of the city fully fraught with the known, it is met by a grateful feeling, on materiel of benevolence; let him be the the part of him to whom it is directed; and agent of some munificent subscription, and what mighty augmentations may be given with nothing in his heart but just such in this way, to the stock of enjoyment, and affections, and such jealousies, and such that, by the mere reciprocation of kindness thoughtful anxieties, about a right and equibegetting kindness. For, to send the expres- table division, as belong to the general spirit sion of this kindness into another's bosom, of his office; let him leave some substantial it is not always necessary to do it on the deposit with each of the families; and then vehicle of positive donation. It may be compute, if he can, the quantity of gratitude conveyed by a look of benevolence; and which he carries away with him. It were thus it is, that by the mere feeling of cor- a most unkind reflection on the lower orders, diality, a tide of happiness may be made to and not more unkind than untrue, to deny circulate throughout all the individuals of that there will be the mingling of some an assembled company. Or it may be done gratitude, along with the clamour, and the by a very slight and passing attention, and envy, and the discontent, which are ever sure thus it is, that the cheap services of courte- to follow in the train of such a ministration. ousness, may spread such a charm over the It is not to discredit the poor, that we introface of a neighbourhood. Or it may be done duce our present observation; but to bring by the very poorest member of human so-out, if possible, into broad and luminous exciety; and thus it is, that the ready and sin-hibition, one of the finest sensibilities which cere homage of attachment from such a man, may beam a truer felicity upon me, and call forth a livelier gratitude to him who has conferred it, than some splendid act of patronage on the part of a superior. Or it may be done by a Christian visiter in some of the humblest of our city lanes, who, without one penny to bestow on the children of want, may spread among them the simple conviction of her good will, and call down upon her person the voice of thankfulness and of blessing from all their habitations. And thus it is, that by good will creating good will, a pure and gladdening influence will at length go abroad over the face of our world, and mankind will be made to know the might and the mystery of that tie which is to bind them together into one family, and they will rejoice in the power of that Ꮓ

adorns them. It is to let you know the high cast of character of which they are capable; and how the glow of pleasure which arises in their bosoms, when the eye of simple affection beams upon their persons, or upon their habitations, may not have one single taint of sordidness to debase it. And to prove this, just let another man go over the same district, and in the train of the former visitation; conceive him unbacked by any publie institution, to have nothing in his hand that might not be absorbed by the needs of a single family, but that, utterly destitute as he is of the materiel, he has a heart charged and overflowing with the whole morale of benevolence. Just let him go forth among the people, without one other recommendation than an honest and undissembled good will to them; and let

this good will manifest its existence, in any ing gratitude, may be made to circulate one of the thousand ways, by which it may throughout all our dwelling-places; if, in a be authenticated; and whether it be by the word, while they profess to serve the poor, cordiality of his manners, or by his sympa- they could be led to respect the poor, to do thy with their griefs, or by the nameless at- homage to that fineness of moral temperatentions and offices of civility, or by the ment which belongs to them, and which higher aim of that kindness which points to hitherto seems to have escaped, altogether, the welfare of their immortality, and evinces the eye of civil or political superintendence; its reality by its ready and unwearied ser- and they may rest assured, that let them vices among the young, or the sick, or the give as much in the shape of munificence dying; just let them be satisfied of the one as they will, if they add not the love to the fact, that he is their friend, and that all their liberality of the Gospel, they will never joys and all their sorrows are his own; he soften one feature of unkindness, or chase may be struggling with hardships and ne-away one exasperated feeling, from the cessities as the poorest of them all; but poor hearts of a neglected population. as they are, they know what is in his heart, and well do they know how to value it; and from the voice of welcome, which meets him in the very humblest of their tenements; and from the smile of that heartfelt enjoy-which it actually exists among the most dement, which his presence is ever sure to praved of our species. And, on this subject, awaken, and from the influence of gracious- do we think that the venerable HOWARD ness which he carries along with him into has bequeathed to us a most striking and every house, and by which he lights up an valuable observation. You know the hishonest emotion of thankfulness in the bosom tory of this man's enterprises; how his doof every family, may we gather the existings, and his observations, were among the ence of a power, which worth alone, and veriest outcasts of humanity,-how he dewithout the accompaniment of wealth, can scended into prison houses, and there made bestow; a power to sweeten and subdue, himself familiar with all that could most and tranquillize, which no money can pur-revolt or terrify, in the exhibition of our chase, which no patronage can create.

But, beside the degree of purity in which this principle may exist among the most destitute of our species, it is also of importance to mark the degree of strength, in

fallen nature; how, for this purpose, he It will be readily acknowledged by all, made the tour of Europe; but instead of that the most precious object in the manage- walking in the footsteps of other travellers, ment of a town, is to establish the reign of he toiled his painful and persevering way happiness and contentment among those through these receptacles of worthlessness; who live in it. And it is interesting to mark and, sound experimentalist as he was, did the operations of those, who, without advert- he treasure up the phenomena of our naing to the principle that I now insist upon, ture, throughout all the stages of misforthink that all is to be achieved by the beg-tune, or depravity. We may well conceive garly elements which enter into the arith- the scenes of moral desolation that would metic of ordinary business; who rear their often meet his eye; and that, as he looked goodly scheme upon the basis of sums and to the hard, and dauntless, and defying computations; and think that by an over- aspect of criminality before him, he would whelming discharge of the materiel of be- sicken in despair of ever finding one remnevolence, they will reach an accomplish- nant of a purer and better principle, by ment which the morale of benevolence which he might lay hold of these unhappy alone is equal to. We are sure that it is not men, and convert them into the willing and to mortify our men of grave, and official, the consenting agents of their own amelioand calculating experience, that we tell ration. And yet such a principle he found, them, how, with all their strength, and all and found it, as he tells us, after years of their sagacity, they have only given their intercourse, as the fruit of his greater exmoney for that which is not meat, and perience, and his longer observation; and their labour for that which satisfieth not. gives, as the result of it, that convicts, and It is to illustrate a principle of our common that among the most desperate of them all, nature, so obvious, that to be recognized, it are not ungovernable, and that there is a needs only to be spoken of. And it were way of managing even them, and that the well, if in so doing their thoughts could be way is, without relaxing, in one iota, from led to the instrumentality of this principle, the steadiness of a calm and resolute discias the only way, in which they can redeem pline, to treat them with tenderness, and to the failures of their by-gone experience; if show them that you have humanity; and they could be convinced, that the agents of thus a principle, of itself so beautiful, that a zealous and affectionate Christianity can to expatiate upon it, gives in the eyes of alone do what all the influence of municipal some, an air of fantastic declamation to our weight and municipal wisdom cannot do; argument, is actually deponed to, by an aged if they could be taught what the ministra- and most sagacious observer. It is the very tions are, by which a pure and a respond-principle of our text; and it would appear