God for his power, his holiness also engages their attention: “O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvellous things; his right hand and his holy arm " have " gotten him the victory." Psalm 98: 1. When they praise him for his justice and terrible majesty, they likewise have respect to his holiness: Let them praise thy great and terrible name, for it is HOLY." Psalm 99: 3. See also verses 5, 9. When they praise God for his mercy and faithfulness, they celebrate his HOLINESS: "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his HOLINESS.' " Psalm 97: 11, 12.

By this circumstance therefore professors may try their affections, particularly their love and joy. Various kinds of creatures manifest the difference of their natures by choosing different things as their chief good, one delighting in what another abhors. Such a difference is there between real saints and unregenerate men. Natural men have no love for the excellency of holy things, at least not on account of their holiness: they have no taste for that kind of good, and may therefore be said not to know it. The saints, by the grace and power of God, have it discovered to them; they have that spiritual perception communicated to them by which they perceive it; and it is this that captivates their hearts and fills them with delight. By this we may examine our love to God. Does it arise from a supreme delight in this kind of beauty without being primarily excited by our imagined interest in spiritual blessings? There are often high affections. with great apparent love and joy, which have nothing of this holy relish belonging to them.

From what has been said it appears, that our havir.g

a clear sense of the natural perfections of God, even If we are greatly affected by them, or having any other view of God than that which arises from a perception of his moral perfections, is no certain evidence of grace. In particular we may have a sense of the greatness and majesty of God, for these are only natural perfections, and yet be entirely blind to the beauty of his moral perfections.

It has been shown already, in what was said upon the first distinguishing mark of gracious affections, that that which is spiritual is entirely different in its nature from all that any unregenerate man can possibly experience. But those who are without grace may possess a clear view, and a very affecting sense of the majesty and power of God; for this is what the devils possess, though they have lost the spiritual knowledge of God, consisting in a sense of the excellency of his moral perfections. They are without any sense of that kind of beauty, yet they have a clear knowledge of the natural glory of God. They behold this, are affected by it, and therefore tremble before him. At the day of judgment all intelligent creatures shall behold this glory of God. When Christ shall come in the glory of his Father, and every eye shall see him, he will manifest his infinite majesty to every one in the clearest and most striking manner. Then the wicked shall call to the mountains to fall on them, and hide them from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne. The enemies of God shall behold his glory, and live in a clear and affecting view of it in hell for ever. He hath declared his immutable purpose as to this subject, in so often annexing these words to the threatenings he denounces against the wicked: And they shall know that I am the Lord." Wicked me

and devils will have a deep sense of every thing that belongs to the glory of God, except the beauty of his moral perfections. They will have a deep sense of every thing belonging to his moral perfections except their beauty and amiableness. They will know and acknowledge that he is perfectly just and righteous; that he is of purer eyes than to behold moral evil with approbation, and that he cannot look upon iniquity but with the greatest abhorrence. Nebuchadnezzar had a very affecting view of the infinite greatness and majesty of God; of his supreme and absolute dominion; of his mighty and irresistible power; and was convinced that he, and all the inhabitants of the earth, were as nothing before him. He had likewise a clear conviction of the justice of God, and a most affecting view of his great goodness. Daniel, 4 : 1, 2, 3, 34, 35, 37. And the sense that Darius had of the perfections of God seems to have been similar to his. Daniel, 6:25, &c. But the saints and angels behold the glory of God, as that glory results from his holiness; and it is this sight only that will humble the hearts of men, draw them to God, and effectually change them. A sight of the majesty and greatness of God may overpower the mind; but if the moral beauty of God is hid, the enmity of the heart will remain in its full strength; no love will be enkindled, the WILL will remain inclined to evil; whereas the first glimpse of the moral and spiritual glory of God shining into the neart will produce holiness of disposition, as it were with omnipotent power and absolute certainty

IV. In the production of gracious affections our minds are so enlightened that we obtain proper and spiritual views of divine things.

Holy affections are not heat without light, but invariably arise from some information conveyed to the understanding. The child of God is graciously affected, because he sees and understands something more of divine things than he did before: something more of God-of Christ-and of the glorious things exhibited in the Gospel: “Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." 1 John, 4:7. "I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment." Phil. 1: 9. They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge." Rom. 10:2. "Put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge." Col. 3: 10. "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” John, 6:45. Knowledge, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, softens the heart, elevates the affections, and so opens the way into the kingdom of heaven.

There are seeming religious affections which do not arise from light in the understanding; and these affections, let them be ever so strong, are not spiritual. Such is the nature of man that he cannot be affected but by something of which he conceives an idea. But in many persons those conceptions by which they are affected have nothing in them of the 1 ture of knowledge or information. For instance, when a person is affected by a lively idea suddenly excited in his mind, of a very

beautiful countenance, a vivid light, or some other extraordinary appearance, there is something conceived by the mind, but there is nothing of the nature of in struction. Persons do not become wiser by such conceptions, or know more about God, or a Mediator between God and man, or the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, or any thing contained in the doctrines of the Gospel.

Truly spiritual and gracious affections arise from the understanding being enlightened as to what is taught respecting God and Jesus Christ; so that we clearly discover the glorious nature of God, and obtain new views of Christ in his fullness and divine excellencies. Those things which relate to the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, are presented to our minds with a new aspect, in consequence of which we now understand those holy and divine doctrines which before were foolishness to us. Such light communicated to the understanding is entirely different from lively conceptions of shapes and colors, of brightness and glory, or of voices and sounds. If all gracious affections arise from light in the understanding, those which are produced by mere impressions on the imagination are not gracious. Hence it also appears, that affections arising from texts of Scripture impressed on the mind are delusive, when no information is communicated by them to the understanding, and when the manner of their coming to the mind, rather than any thing taught by them, is the ground of those affections. When Christ makes his word the means of gracious affections, it is by opening the Scriptures to our understandings. "Did not our hearts burn within us," exclaimed the disciples, "while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the