Thirtieth Day. Of the love we ought to have for God

I. * Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none on earth that 1 desire beside thee." Psalm Ixxiii. 25, When we saj to God, that we love him with all our heart, it is often a mere form of words without truth or meaning. Men learn it when they arc young, and continue to use it when they are grown up, without thinking of what they say. To love God is to have no other will but his; to keep faithfully his law, and have in abhorrence all violation of it. To love God, is to love what Christ loved, poverty, humiliations, and sufferings; it is to hate what he hated, the world and its vanities. Can we be said to love an object which we do not desire to resemble? To love God, is to desire to conr verse w ith hinij to wish to go to him, to sigh and languish after him. That is hut a ieigned love, which does not desire to see the heloved.

11. O ar Lord * ca m e to br i n fire upon the earth,"' Luke xi 49? and desired tiiat fire might overspread it. Yet men live in a deadly coldness and indiiTerence. They love money, buildings, titles, and a chimera which they call reputation: they love eveu the meanest and most eontemptlhle things, but divine love rarely finds a phce in their hearts. Do thou, 0 Lord, vindicate thy right in us, notwithstanding our infidelities: let the fire of thy love extinguish all otlicr fires. What can wa see lovely out of thee, wliich is not to be found in its full perfection in thee, O thou fountain of all gox)d! grant us but grace to love

Thirty - thee, and we shall then love thee only; thee eternally.