which demands all esteem, veneration, desire, delight, zeal. This is the spirit, is it not? If I have the highest measure of esteem and veneration; if I have the most eager desire after his favour and presence; if I delight in contemplating Him; if I am zealous for his glory; I may write myself down a lover of God. And the prayer here implies that there is this combination of esteem, desire, delight, zeal, in the soul of the suppliant. And that it is not an hypocritical pretence at desire, esteem, delight, and zeal; and that it is not a small measure, but an overflowing one; it is the heart occupied, taken by storm, as it were, by this affection. This is what I pray for. And am I now to go about to show you that this is right? Why, did God command rightly? Then what did God command? And what did the Lord say was the first and great commandment? "This is the first and great commandment; Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." I think I have not exceeded those words in my description. I think my "overflowing," and my "unmeasured intensity," does not go further than "all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength." And that is declared to be the first and great commandment. And let me add another word; "We know that all things work together for good"-to whom? "to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose;" intimating that the proof of effectual calling

given is, that love to God has been generated in the soul.

Now, beloved, how are we to come to this love? Why, you will answer, By the Spirit. Certainly it is by the Spirit. But have you considered that what God does by the Spirit He does through an intermediate? It is not a thought somehow or other injected into the soul. But we know that, where God generates the love of himself in the heart, the mean is by setting himself before the heart of the man as an object of contemplation. And therefore, if you want either to get the love of God, or to grow in the love of God, you must bring your heart into contact with God; you must set God before it; you must ruminate upon this part and that part of the plan of God, and see what a being He is, say rather, to be consistent in my setting forth,-what a person He is, of whom these are the attributes, and these the energies. Yes, beloved, I counsel you to think much upon God. Do you ask, why it is that you do not feel this warmth of affection? how comes it that you know so little of this love of God? It is because you have not thought about God. And if you say, I do not know how to set about it; you hear his plan in Christ set out continually, and what you do not hear you may learn. O, beloved, that plan in Christ hath this amongst other ends in view, that, being known and ruminated upon, may draw men to love God. And therefore, if you want to have this affection formed and increased in your

it

soul, study his counsel in Christ. And take another hint; that it is impossible to deal as you ought to deal with God, if you do not set Him before you as a person; and it is impossible to deal with Him according to the demands of his person, if you be not brought acquainted with his counsel: so that people may sneer as much as they will at the audacity of ascribing a counsel to God, I say an uncounselled God is a God that cannot be loved; and that, if I am to love God, I must know his counsels, even as He hath declared them unto me, and even as my predecessor in the ministry declared, "I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God."

Well now, take these two ideas; perfect, inasmuch as it is without hypocrisy; perfect, inasmuch as it is an enlarged and an intense affection,-one which occupies and expands the soul.

"That we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name." Now here again, you see, we are reminded of the occasion. This is a proper petition for all occasions; but is there no peculiarity of application? What is the meaning of this "magnifying his name?" Is not it praise? Is not it lauding and celebrating Him? Now what is this service? What is one of the names of this service, of this communion? The Eucharist; that is, thanksgiving service. Well then, you see, this petition,-this aspiration, let me rather say, in conformity with the plan I have pursued,-this aspiration, what is it but that my mind may be in a

suitable frame to declare the praise of God? Why, how can it be in a suitable frame to declare the praise of God, or how can it have any disposition to declare the praise of God, whilst filthy imaginations are allowed to lurk therein? My heart must be cleansed, before I can either have the love of God, or be inclined to celebrate his grandeur so that I may worthily magnify his holy name. O, beloved, what a depth and abundance of matter there is in this prayer! "Magnify." Now let us take these words. Why, we cannot make God a jot greater, but we can tell how great He is. And that is our magnification; it is the telling to one another how great He is; it is the telling to the angels how great He is; it is the telling to the universe how great our God is. Then "worthily." Why, it is unworthily, if there is nonconformity of soul to the image of praise. Do not you know that secret,-that which we were speaking of so much a little while ago? "Be ye holy, for I am holy." The very same term, you see, is applied to the worshipper as to the worshipped: meaning, that there must be similarity, strict congeniality, precise likeness of form, in the image and the worshipper of him to whom the adoration is paid. Then I say, it is not a worthy magnification, it is a magnification which God will abhor, it is a magnification from which God will turn away with disdain and disgust, if the man holds fast his idols: and that is but a figurative way of saying, if the man holds fast his lusts; if the man allows his heart to be a cage of unclean birds; if

the man indulges his vain imaginations, and pursues his corrupt reasonings: if this be the state of the man's mind, that he has his pictures of sin, and that he has his subtilties of abstruse speculations; if these are in his soul when he ought to be entertaining the glory of the great God, he does not extol Him, so that God can listen to his praise. "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." The worthy magnification is that which is presented by the mind conformed in its dispositions to those of the object which is extolled. Well then, "worthily magnify his holy name." I should not let these words, "his name," pass unnoticed. What is a name? Why, you have heard it again and again declared, a name is properly a compendious expression for the nature and properties of a substance. Then why shall it be said, "magnify his holy name," instead of "magnify Thee?" I will give you the reason. Because we desire to magnify Him according to what He is, according therefore to what His name expresses; for God has named himself; God has given himself his own name; God has called himself Jehovah. And therefore, according to what is included in the name whereby God sets himself forth to our adoration, according to that image which He presents to us of himself, in that name we desire to extol Him; not to extol an imagined God; not to make out a deity for ourselves, and then say, This shall be the object of our magnification; but that God who