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ON SEEING HIM THAT IS INVISIBLE

NDEAVOR to get a firm and rational persuasion of the existence, providence, and presence of God. You all allow the thing at first hearing; but have you a firm persuasion of it in your own minds? do you consider how evident, how apparent, how certain it is? look about you, look within you, and reflect seriously. Could these things be without a God? Could I be without Him? Did I call myself into being? Did another creature create me? if he were the means of producing me, how came he by that power? how was he himself produced by another, and another? Still you will come to him who was the son of him, who was the son of God. How were the sun and moon formed, and the host of heaven? who gave to them all their lustre? who fixed them in their orbs? who moves them with that swiftness and steadiness, so that all the process and order of them is the same from generation to generation? look upon the tokens of His goodness, as well as of His power, in the formation of your body and your mind. Thou hast possessed my reins. Thou enterest, as it were, into the most vital parts of my frame, and there Thou dwellest and actest continually; and there Thou, Lord, art doing I know not particularly and assuredly what. But that which, because I know not, it is plain that I do not myself; and yet that which, if it be not done, I must die in a moment, and this poor body sink and drop under its own weight. Look about into the world: wherever you direct your eyes, you may trace the footsteps of Deity, and you must say, I am sure that God has been here, by the blessings which He has scattered and left behind Him; or rather, I am sure that He is here, by the blessings which at every moment He is dealing out. How does the grass grow, the fruit ripen, the animals live? it is because God gives grass for the cattle, and corn and herb for the service of man; it is because God feeds the fowls of the air, and they fly by His power.

I will not, then, set it down among possibilities, among probabilities, that there may probably or possibly be a God, but among the greatest certainties, of which the mind of man is capable; as a thing of which I have as much evidence, as that there is any visible being at all, as great as that I have myself the power of thought.

Endeavor to view the blessed God in the light in which the Gospel of His Son has placed him. It is so noble and so amiable to view, that if you accustom yourselves to it, you will delight to dwell upon it, and to review it again and again. It represents God, not as slighting this world of ours, even when it had offended Him, not as immediately destroying it, or as marking its inhabitants for a day of slaughter, as traitors, and maintained at the expense of the king till their execution day is come; but as entertaining thoughts of love and mercy towards poor, sinful man, as caring for us with a great care, and employing His counsels, even long before we were born, for our deliverance, and for our salvation. It represents Him as busying Himself so much (if I may use the expression) about us and our concerns, as to send His own Son to inform us who He himself is, and what He would have us to be, what He expects from us on the one hand, and what we may expect from Him on the other. Yea, as sending His Son in a mortal body that He might converse with us for a long time, and might sow the seeds of true religion in our world, seeds which were to last as long as this world itself, and that He might at length die for us too, and redeem us to God, by pouring His own blood, and that He might leave a Gospel behind Him, written by the inspiration of His Spirit, which, under Divine blessing and grace, might be the food and comfort of souls from one generation to another: that Gospel which He brought down from heaven. Oh! did those poor blind heathens reverence and adore a senseless image of deity because they supposed it of heavenly original, the image that fell down from Jupiter out of heaven! What reason have we to value Christ and His Gospel as of celestial original indeed; and to love that God who sent us such a present, a blessing so much more valuable than the sun in the firmament? And how delightful should it be to us to look to the blessed God in this, as " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," and, in and through Him, as" the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation."

Labor to secure an interest in God through Christ, and then it will be pleasant to maintain a sight of Him. The great reason why men look at God no more is because they dread the sight of Him, their consciences telling them that He is their enemy, or at least that He may be so; that it is at best a very dubious case whether they have any interest in Him or not. Labor, therefore, I beseech you, to make it out to your own souls, as a plain and evident thing, that you have a covenant interest in God. And how can this be done but by solemnly laying hold of His covenant in Christ, and by setting your seal to it? Wilt thou not, says God, from this time cry unto me, My Father, Thou art the guide of my youth? And surely it is a pleasant thing for a dutiful and affectionate child to look upon his father. View Him not merely as reconcilable, as one who may, perhaps, lay aside His wrath and become your friend, but as one who is actually reconciled. Go to Him, therefore, this day and say, "Lord, I have been a rebel, and I have deserved to die for my rebellion. I deserve that He who made me should not have mercy on me, and that He who formed me should show me no favor. But I have heard that Thou art a merciful God. I have been told that Thou didst condescend to say, and even to swear, that Thou desirest not the death of a sinner.' I have been told that Thou didst send Thine own dear and gracious Son into this world of ours to call back poor lost creatures to Thee and to purchase pardon for them, and to declare it to them; yea, that Thou hast assured us by Him that he who believes shall have eternal life.' 'Now, Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief.' I have been told that Thou hast been pleased to make a covenant, a new and better covenant, with poor sinners, of which He is the surety. I desire to enter myself into this covenant; I am heartily willing to be saved by Thee in Thine own way, and therefore I beseech Thee that Thou wouldst save me. I beseech Thee that Thou wouldst become my God and Father in Christ, and I present myself to Thee in token of this desire, and would gladly, whenever Thou shalt give me an opportunity, do it at Thy table. Yea, I desire daily to repeat it as my own act and deed, to give myself to Thee, and to receive Thee, through Christ, into my soul as my portion, and hope, and God." When you are conscious of this temper you will view God not only with pleasure, but I had almost said, in allusion to the common

form of our expressing ourselves, with pride (but that were improper), with humble joy and triumph, as the Psalmist," Behold this God is our God!" O how I delight to fix my eyes upon Him, and survey Him in this view! This God, with all His infinite wisdom and almighty power, and immense inexhaustible treasure of goodness, and mercy, and faithfulness, and love, is mine, and mine forever. Shall one man view his estate, and another his honor with satisfaction? and another perhaps his person, and another even his dress, and inwardly congratulate himself that he is so rich, and so powerful, and so beautiful, and so fine? And shall not I, with infinitely greater satisfaction, view my God, and congratulate my own soul that I am so happy as to possess Him, and to stand in such a relation to Him? I would do it every day and every hour.

If you desire to maintain such views of Him, who is invisible, then guard against an undue attachment to all things that are seen, to this world and its interests.

These things, do, as it were, stand in the way of God; they make such a crowd about us that we cannot see Him. It alienates the heart from His love and service; so says the apostle in those remarkable words, "Love not the world nor the things of the world; for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John ii. 15). If you are much attached to worldly interests, you will venture to displease God for the sake of them, and then, when you have displeased Him, you will not care to see Him with those marks of displeasure which His awful countenance will wear. As our Lord says, "No man can serve two masters; you cannot serve God and Mammon;" and the soul that serves not God with some degree of zeal, as well as of fidelity, loves not to see Him, and thus the world concludes. Whereas the heart in which God has dwelt, and which has been used to live in the sight of Him, when flesh and heart fail, has something for "strength of its heart and its portion forever." What then will you say, must we needs go out of the world, and betake ourselves to the life of hermits, that we may preserve religion in our hearts? By no means. We may do it with much greater honor to religion by abiding in the converse of the world, even though we had it in our power to quit it, which many of us have not. We may show more of the force of it, and we may spread more of the spirit of it, by a social and con

versable life. But then let us take heed that business and conversation do not possess our minds so much as to leave in them no room for God. Let us take care that we be often looking at the blessed God while we are conversing in the world; and let us guard against a fond affection for anything in this world which would give us a disrelish of devotion and the exercises of it. The greatest and noblest exercise is not to fly from the world, but to meet and conquer it; nor can it be better expressed than by the apostle, that "those who rejoice should be as though they rejoiced not."

If we would maintain habitual intercourse with God, let us think frequently and solemnly of the invisible world to which we are going. This advice stands in connection with the former, both giving and receiving strength, and therefore they are joined by the apostle, "Look not at the things which are seen, but at those things which are unseen." How happy would it be for us in this respect if we could look at the things which are unseen! Is there not a world of spirits of a nature quite different from and vastly superior to this world of bodies in which we dwell? Expatiate, my thoughts, in this immense region. And what inhabitants dost thou see here? I see on the one hand the paradise of God, where Jehovah dwells; on the other, millions of bright and happy creatures who, during the many thousand years for which they have existed (and God only knows how many thousand), have never known a sentiment of guilt or a perception of misery. Is there not such a species of beings? I certainly know from the Word of God that there is, and that among them there are human spirits, who once dwelt in such bodies as mine, and having broken their way through the entanglements, temptations, and dangers of life, are received by the angels as their brethren and friends, and dwell with them, sharing, in some considerable degree, in their business and their pleasures. And is there not another kind of a region, of darkness and despair, where the fallen spirits dwell? "The angels that kept not their first state," but sinned, and upon that were cast down from heaven! And are there not, likewise, among them vast numbers that once dwelt upon earth, who saw the sun, and tasted but abused the bounty of their Creator? Thousands, ten thousands, no doubt, who heard His word, but trifled with the grace of His Gospel during the certain time which God had