loving-kindness has he drawn you : and whereinsoever ye differ from others, " it is He, and he alone, that has made you to differ."]
2. To improve them for their proper end —
[The Apostle tells us, " We love him, because he first loved us." And, verily, so it ought to be. The mercies of God ought so to affect our minds, as to make us " yield up our whole selves as living sacrifices unto him." This is " our reasonable service :" and to perform it should be the continued labour of our lives. What was it that wrought so powerfully on the heart of Paul, and made him so zealous in the service of his God? He tells us, "The love of Christ constraineth me1;" or, as the word imports, ' carries me away, like an impetuous torrent.' Thus, then, should it operate on us: and verily it would so operate, if we reflected on it as we ought. If we strove, as we ought, to " comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of Christ, it would surely fill us with all the fulness of GodV I am perfectly persuaded, that the reason of our making such low attainments in religion is, that we for- get to meditate on this glorious subject, and occupy our minds with considerations which tend only to depress them and to enervate all their energies. Let us turn our eyes from the world and from our various discouragements, to view the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and we shall soon be " changed by it into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord1."]
1 2 Cor. v. 14. k Eph. iii. 18, 19. l 2 Cor. hi. 18.