Lastly, the consideration of this whole subject tends to excite gratitude and devotion, when we approach to God in acts of worship.  The hour of which I have discust, presents Him to us in the amiable light of the deliverer of mankind, the restorer of our forfeited hopes.  We behold the greatness of the Almighty, softened by the mild radiance of condescension and mercy.  We behold Him diminishing the awful distance at which we stand from His presence, by appointing for us a mediator and intercessor, through whom the humble may, without dismay, approach to Him who made them.  By such views of the divine nature, Christian faith lays the foundation for a worship which shall be at once rational and affectionate; a worship in which the light of the understanding shall concur with the devotion of the heart, and the most profound reverence be united with the most cordial love.  Christian faith is not a system of speculative truths.  It is not a lesson of moral instruction only.  By a train of high discoveries which it reveals, by a succession of interesting objects which it places in our view, it is calculated to elevate the mind, to purify the affections, and by the assistance of devotion, to confirm and encourage virtue.  Such, in particular, is the scope of that divine institution, the sacrament of our Lord’s Supper.  To this happy purpose let it conduce, by concentering in one striking point of light all that the gospel has displayed of what is most important to man.  Touched with such contrition for past offenses, and filled with a grateful sense of divine goodness, let us come to the altar of God, and, with a humble faith in His infinite mercies, devote ourselves to His service forever.

DWIGHT

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Timothy Dwight was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1752.  He graduated from Yale in 1769, served as chaplain in the army during the Revolutionary War and was chosen president of his university in 1795.  He died, after holding that office for twelve years, in 1817.  Lyman Beecher, who attributed his conversion to him, says:  “He was of noble form, with a noble head and body, and had one of the sweetest smiles that ever you saw.  When I heard him preach on ’the harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved,’ a whole avalanche rolled down on my mind.  I went home weeping every step.”

DWIGHT

1752—­1817

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself:  it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.—­Jeremiah x., 23.