"What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord."-Ps. cxvi, 12, 13.

THERE are certain representations of the Divinity, once very generally received, nor now entirely obsolete, which elevate him to such a distance from the interests and affections of his creatures, as utterly to nullify the Christian tenet of his paternity. A Being of vast and incomprehensible grandeur, girded with omnipotence and robed in majesty, creating worlds by his might, governing them by his wisdom, and judging them with severe and vindictive rigor, is portrayed to us, and we are commanded, on penalty of immortal misery, to tremble and adore, nay, but to love him with all our hearts,—not for the benefits he confers; but, in the first place, for the intrinsic excellencies and glories of his nature. It is admitted, that, in addition, we are informed that he is our Father. This, unquestionably, is also mentioned, but so elaborate is the description of his sovereignty and majesty, so few and slight are the allusions to his fatherhood and affection, that the tenderness and beauty of the latter relation are absorbed in the awe with which we tremble before the mighty monarch and the pitiless judge. And yet 1

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with this impression of dread paralyzing all the warmer emotions, we are imperiously commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul, because he is so great, so high, so glorious a God. And some have pushed the preposterous claim so far, as to insist that so profound should be our loyalty to such perfection, that the manner in which it may affect us should be a consideration of comparative indifference with us, and that ere we can hope for the faintest smile of his grace, we must be cordially willing to abandon ourselves even to endless damnation, if thereby the praise of his glorious justice, as the phrase is, be augmented. Under this once popular theological extravaganza there is, no doubt, a great doctrinal truth couched,-that of the supreme and inalienable sovereignty of the Maker and Ruler of the universe. God is certainly the absolute Governor of all worlds, and as such surrounded with all appropriate majesty, and, therefore, most properly the object of the highest religious reverence and adoration. But when in this capacity you claim for him my heart also,-when, merely because of the absolute perfections of his nature, without reference to their effect upon me, upon my present and immortal wellbeing, when, simply because he is God, supreme, inscrutable, and august, you demand not my homage only, but my heart, you seek what the gentlest whisper of Jesus can secure, what the combined thunders of omnipotence cannot conquer and subdue.

Inform me of the magnificence of the Emperor of China, -parade before my imagination the splendor of his armies, the vastness of his dominions, the unquestioning obedience of his myriad subjects,—be as minute and earnest in your account as you can, and then demand for him my allegiance and affection, and might I not with propriety ask, What is all this remote majesty to me? It affects me not personally, it touches no one of my interests, and, therefore, it cannot conciliate my affections. Assure me further, that, though now unconscious of the fact, I was born within his dominions, and, by the laws of his empire, am still recognized as his vassal, and that, at some future period, I shall be transported to his presence, there to answer for each act of my life, over which, by some mystic power, he maintains a constant and jealous supervision; and that, as my conduct has corresponded or diverged from his standard of duty, I shall be adjudged to a perpetual and loathsome imprisonment, or elevated to some station of dignity, and you quicken me from the indifference of uninterested admiration to trembling

apprehension of a despotism, decisive of my future weal or woe; but you wake no emotion of love for one who attaches me to himself by no relation but one of force and fear. You may add and enforce upon me, very earnestly too, that this dread arbiter of my destiny condescends,-as really does the Chinese monarch to his subjects,-to style himself my father; but the assumption of the name establishes with me no conviction of the relationship, nor allays in the slightest the trepidation with which I reflect on his unlimited sway over me. To persuade me of the reality of that paternity,which else is but a flourish of rhetoric,-you must convince me that he recognizes the proprieties of the connexion by the interest he feels in me,-you must show me that he manifests such an interest by a course of fatherly care and kindness toward me,-you must be able to point to some at least of the blessings I enjoy as the evidences of that kindness, to satisfy me that he bestows them, and that without his provision I should have been destitute of them; and the benefits must be numerous, palpable, and prominent enough to convince me that they were prompted by the heart, not from selfish motives, interested in my happiness, and, therefore, likely to feel in its permanence as well as its ardor, the paternal affection you say he bears me.

Just so is it with man in reference to God. So long as God's claim to man's love are based upon the glory of the divine attributes, the sovereignty of his power, the vastness of his wisdom, the majesty of his holiness, or even the beauty of his beneficence,-unless it be shown how that is exerted on us personally, so long man may contemplate the Deity with sensations akin to those with which he would gaze on some majestic pageant, -as an object of admiration, an ideal of sublimity; and according as loveliness or might is the prevailing aspect of the representation, it may awaken that love of the beautiful or grand, which is rather a capability of the taste and intellect than the heart; or, if of the heart, which but flickers on its surface like a winter's sunbeam, leaving its depths untroubled. Quicken this portraiture, by establishing between its subject and ourselves that connexion in which, we fear, he is principally recognized by the majority of Christians, furrow his brow with the terrors of offended majesty, lighten his eye with the piercing and pitiless flame which searches, detects, and burns into his book of remembrance and judgment each secret sin, each wavering of tremulous virtue, and furnish his impatient hand with the mace of vindictive wrath, and