536 DIVINE LOVE ES THE COIIIMANDIN EASSI0N. sent state of flesh and blood, to love God with our whole hearts, and yet to feel no sensible workings of fear or hope, desire or auger, in correspondence with this holy passion : To have no pleasures nor sorrows, no holy longings, nor holy joys, acting iu concert with this principle of divine love. Believe me, sirs, there are no outward actions, no visible attendances on public worship, no bodily services, no costly sacri- fices can so happily evidence our sincere love to God, as the steady and constant workings of the other inward powers of na- ture in conformity to this holy principle. Ahundred outward plausible actions may be the cloak of vice, the disguise of hypo- crisy. Vain pharisees may make broad their phylacteries, may tithe their herds and their flocks as well as mint and cummin, may give much alms, or buildhospitals and churches ; but the various inward affections of nature, can never be kept in any re-' gular and steady exercise of piety, by all the toil and skill of a hypocrite. And on the other hand, if the heart be thoroughly devoted to the love of God, this love will reign sovereign among the ether passions. The other passions will obey love, and we may judge by their obedience, how far the love of God prevails. Il. "If mankind be examinedby this rule, hew few sincere, lovers of Ged will be found among them !" It is a vain thing for a man to 'say, " I love God with all my heart," when his strongest desires and hismost relishing joys centre in meaner ob- jects; when his highest hopes and his most painful fears, his deepest anxieties and disquietudes of mind, are always raised and sunk again by the things of this world only, and the chang- ing scenes of this mortal state. Alas ! How few are there whose love to God does not fall under some just suspicion, when brought to this test ! Let us survey the world round about us, and observe what it is that influences the various passions of men, even those Who are called christians, and would be thought the disciples of Christ. Some have their hearts so filled with the business of this life, and the love of money, as their chief idol, that all their desires, their fears, and their hopes, and the perpetual course and labour Of all. their povvers, keep this point ever in view and in warm pursuit : The .disappointment of a small sum, the loss of a few pounds will hang upon their spiritswith a constant heaviness, and create them more pain than twenty sins against God their Maker. What shall we think of these people, who love riches so well, that if their hands and their heads would hold Out, 'and daylight tvonld last, they would never be weary ofthis Chace, nor require cessation or respite. Does the love of God appear as the supreme and reigning passion in such earthly souls as these ? There have been some in all ages, and there are the successors ofthem in our day, who have loved gold and silver with so warn a pas-
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