These are so numerous and so distinguished that they
ought to excite our most ardent gratitude: night and day they are
experienced by us; they pervade every moment of our being. We know
that favors from an enemy derive a taint from the hands through which
they are received, and excite alienation rather than attachment: but
the kindness of a friend, by constantly reminding us of himself,
endears that friend more and more to our hearts; and thus, he that has
no love to God receives all His favors without the least attraction
toward their Author, whom he regards rather as an enemy than as a
friend. But the Christian feels his love of God excited by every fresh
goodness. The mercies of God have accompanied you through every
stage of your journey; and they are exhibited to you in His word as
stretching through a vast eternity. Are these the only benefits you
can receive without gratitude, and suffer to pass unregarded How,
then, can any love of God dwell in your bosom?
Consider, in the next place, in what manner you are imprest by
the sense of your sins. The question is not whether you have any
sins,--none can admit a doubt on this point; the only inquiry is, how
you are affected by those sins? Are they remembered by you with a
sentiment of tender regret, of deep confusion and humiliation, that
you should ever have so requited such infinite goodness? And is this
sentiment combined with a sacred resolution to go and sin no more,--to
devote yourself to the service of your divine Benefactor? If you
can live without an habitual sense of penitential tenderness and
reverential fear, be assured you can not love God; you have no
experience of those Scripture declarations: "They shall fear the Lord
and his goodness in the latter days;" "There is forgiveness with thee,
that thou mayst be feared;" you know not that "the goodness of God
leadeth to repentence.
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