in the creature are not attractive to your view, how can your affections rise to the perfect essence?  How can you ascend to the very sun itself, when you can not enjoy even the faint reflection of its glory?  He who knew the heart, could alone say to those around Him, “I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you”:  but tho none can address you now in the same tone of divine authority, yet we may hear it uttered by a voice—­the voice of your own conscience:  you may know, without any perturbations of hope or fear, by the spiritual insensibility and inaction of your soul—­by this you may know, with equal certainty as by a voice from heaven, that you have not the love of God in you.

Consider the disposition you entertain toward the person and office of the Son of God.  “If ye had loved the Father, ye would have loved me also,” was the constant argument of Jesus Christ to those Pharisees whom He addresses in the text For Jesus Christ is the express image of God:  the effulgence of the divine character is attempered in Him, to suit the views of sinful humanity.  In the life of Jesus Christ we see how the divine Being conducts Himself in human form and in our own circumstances:  we behold how He bears all the sorrows, and passes through all the temptations, of flesh and blood.  Such, indeed, is the identity, so perfect the oneness of character, between the man Christ Jesus and the divine Being—­that our Savior expressly assures us, “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father; I and my Father are one.”  The purpose for which God was manifested in the flesh was not to reveal high speculations concerning the nature of the Deity:  it was to bear our sorrows, and to die for our sins.  But can you contemplate Him, thus stooping to your condition, thus mingling with every interest of your own, and not be moved by such a spectacle?—­not be attracted, fixt, filled with grateful astonishment and devotion—­crucified, as it were, on the cross of Christ, to the flesh, and to the world?  What mark, then, of our possessing no love of God can equal this, that we are without love to Jesus Christ?—­that neither the visibility of His divine excellence, nor His participation of all our human sufferings, can reach our hearts and command our affections?

In examining whether you love God, examine how you are affected by His benefits.  These are so numerous and so distinguished that they ought to excite our most ardent gratitude:  night and day they are experienced by us; they pervade every moment of our being.  We know that favors from an enemy derive a taint from the hands through which they are received, and excite alienation rather than attachment:  but the kindness of a friend, by constantly reminding us of himself, endears that friend more and more to our hearts; and thus, he that has no love to God receives all His favors without the least attraction toward their Author, whom he regards rather as an enemy than as a friend.  But the Christian feels his love of God excited by every fresh goodness.  The mercies of God have accompanied you through every stage of your journey; and they are exhibited to you in His word as stretching through a vast eternity.  Are these the only benefits you can receive without gratitude, and suffer to pass unregarded How, then, can any love of God dwell in your bosom?