ms in
the strictest sense to include in it all that is good and worthy, all
that is good, which we have any distinct particular notion of. We have
no clear conception of any position moral attribute in the Supreme Being,
but what may be resolved up into goodness. And, if we consider a
reasonable creature or moral agent, without regard to the particular
relations and circumstances in which he is placed, we cannot conceive
anything else to come in towards determining whether he is to be ranked
in a higher or lower class of virtuous beings, but the higher or lower
degree in which that principle, and what is manifestly connected with it,
prevail in him.

That which we more strictly call piety, or the love of God, and which is
an essential part of a right temper, some may perhaps imagine no way
connected with benevolence: yet surely they must be connected, if there
be indeed in being an object infinitely good. Human nature is so
constituted that every good affection implies the love of itself, _i.e._,
becomes the object of a new affection in the same person. Thus, to be
righteous, implies in it the love of righteousness; to be benevolent, the
love of benevolence; to be good, the love of goodness; whether this
righteousness, benevolence, or goodness be viewed as in our own mind or
another's, and the love of God as a being perfectly good is the love of
perfect goodness contemplated in a being or person. Thus morality and
religion, virtue and piety, will at last necessarily coincide, run up
into one and the same point, and _love_ will be in all senses _the end of
the commandment_.

* * * * *

_O Almighty God_, _inspire us with this divine principle_; _kill in us
all the seeds of envy and ill-will_; _and help us_, _by cultivating
within ourselves the love of our neighbour_, _to improve in the love of
Thee_. _Thou hast placed us in various kindreds_, _friendships_, _and
relations_, _as the school of discipline for our affections_: _help us_,
_by the due exercise of them_, _to improve to perfection_; _till all
partial affection be lost in that entire universal one_, _and thou_, _O
God_, _shalt_ be all in all.

SERMON XIII., XIV. UPON THE LOVE OF GOD.

MATTHEW xxii. 37.

_Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart_, _and with all
thy soul_, _and with all thy mind_.

Everybody knows, you therefore need only just be put in mind, that there
is such a thing as having so great horror of one extr