he is, nor as he will be when made perfect, can he supply the large demands of his soul for happiness. He knows he cannot be fully satisfied in himself, however his powers may expand in the progress of his existence. God has endowed him with capacities for enjoyment which no internal resources can ever fill up. But his external means of happiness are equally insufficientfar from commensurate with his wants. Nothing on earth can make him completely blessed. No means of sensual pleasure, no intellectual treasures and employments, no social institutions, no one of all the comforts and joys of this life, nor all of them most felicitously combined and made as permanent as his own existence, can by any possibility meet the demands of his soul, and obliterate all sense of want. These things will render him happy in a degree, but he longs for something in addition to them all. God has made him for some other, higher enjoyment, and he has discovered the fact by his own experience.

On both these accounts, then, because of the limited resources of his own nature, and because of the comparative emptiness of all earthly pleasures, he thirsts for God as the only exhaustless fountain of delight. In Him he knows there is a fulness of high and holy blessedness which the universe besides cannot afford. Therefore he panteth after God. He longs with an intense outgoing of soul for the presence, fellowship, smiles, and love of his Divine Parent, as the only objects within the entire range of created and uncreated things that can actually satisfy his immortal desires. He feels that he was made to be happy, supremely happy, in God, and to be miserable without God, even though he were owner of the world. Therefore, when led away from this fountain of living waters by the force of some evil propensity, as he returns from his waywardness he is pained not only by keen remorse for his iniquity, but by bitter self-reproach and shame for his folly, because a little reflection would have taught him that to wander from God a single step, is to leave the most pure and exalted joy for the beggarly elements of wretchedness and woe. And all such experience should serve to bind him more closely to his Maker, cause him to dwell more constantly under the shadow of His wings, and to derive his most delightful plea-sures from that communion with God which is freely allowed to every faithful follower of Christ.

6. This thirsting for God is a consequence of the afflictions which the Christian is called to endure.

It is an ordinance of God that every child of Adam, the Christian as well as others, shall suffer many sorrows. They are incident to every sphere of life; no combination of circumstances can exclude them,-no forethought, care, and prudence can forestall them. But afflictions, although as keenly felt by him as by other men, cause the Christian to look upward to God for con

Isolation and relief. He does not, indeed, undervalue human sympathy and aid, nor is he unaffected by the consideration that his sufferings will in due time come to an end. He knows that the richest balm for all his sorrows is in God, and that the Divine Physician can make even his wounds and bruises a means of health and vigor. Therefore he greatly desires to be admitted into communion with Jehovah, in order to find rest and refreshment from the weariness of life, alleviation of all his woes, and grace to turn them to the profit of his soul. He doubts not that God sympathizes in his trials far more deeply than his fellowmen, that he understands the nature and degree of all human misery, that he is a compassionate Father especially to the children of his grace, and that he is infinitely skilful in healing the griefs of the broken spirit. Hence he thirsts for God.

Affliction also forcibly reminds the Christian of his sins, humbles him in view of them, and so brings him to God in confession and supplication, aud the most sincere and earnest expressions of sorrow, faith, and love.

Affliction, too, recalls the earthly sufferings of the blessed Saviour, and melts the heart by affecting remembrances of that redeeming love which made him willing to undergo such deep and dreadful woes for the sake of sinners worthy to perish.

Such, then, are some of the causes from which result that powerful longing of the renewed soul which the pious Psalmist styles "panting, or thirsting, after God."

II. Let us now proceed to the other main division of the subject, and consider the means by which the Christian seeks to gratify this spiritual thirst.

On this topic we remark in general that the Christian rescrts, for the purpose now stated, to all those modes of communion with God which Scripture and an enlightened and sanctified reason suggest. Among them are

1. The studious reading of God's Word. The Bible is a revelation of Jehovah to man, and as such is to be regarded as the voice of the Deity whispering in the ears of his earthly creatures. In this book are made known the perfect will of God, and the way of salvation; and in these, so fully set forth as they are, there may be seen reflected the glorious image of the Creator. The Christian, then, studying the Word of inspiration in all its parts and mutual connections, with that spirit which prompted the language of our text, will feel that he is having intercourse with God, that he is looking in on the Divine mind, and reading the wonderful workings of that mind towards the children of men. As he discovers a new doctrine, or takes a novel view of a familiar one, his heart is delighted with the discovery, as revealing to him fresh knowledge of his adorable God. Nor does the study grow irksome, for while it gratifies his thirsting for God, it

also increases it, and leads him on to a more thoughtful and earnest perusal of a volume so full of the excellent glory of Jehovah. From day to day and from year to year he learns more and more of the boundless depth of truth therein contained, every particle of which pertains to that blessed Being whom his soul loves, and concerning whom he desires to know all that is to be known. As he gazes on the sacred page, the Divine likeness becomes continually more and more distinct, and beautiful, and lovely, and ineffably glorious, far transcending in every feature all that he had ever conceived as possible to exist even in the perfections of a God. But,

2. The Christian indulges his thirst for God in the exercise of devout and holy contemplation, apart from the perusal of Scripture. He sometimes meditates, as did David, in the night watches, and inflames his soul with a heavenly fire by musing on the Divine glories when sleep and darkness have removed all disturbing causes. He also studies the works of God in nature, and in every thing sees some manifestation of the wisdom, or goodness, or power, or mysterious sovereignty of the Eternal Creator. He carefully observes the providence of God, and is led to wonder at the Divine skill in bringing good out of evil, in accomplishing his own plans in spite of the selfish indifference or opposition of men, in answering the prayers of his people, in prospering Zion, and in all things promoting his own glory. The Christian who has a cultivated mind will often exercise his imagination in meditating on God, and thus invest him with a radiance and beauty which does not appear to one who fails to employ this faculty of the soul. In some favored hour he will steal away from society, banish from his thoughts all worldly cares and pleasures, and give himself up without restraint to those sublime and ravishing views of God-his God and Fatherwhich a skilful fancy, guided by reason and Scripture, pictures before the mind. Not that he embellishes his conception of God with any fictitious adornment, by means of imagination, but only obtains a far more vivid idea of those qualities and attributes which the Bible warrants him to ascribe to God.

3. The Christian allays his thirst for God by prayer and praise. In these services he draws nigh to the presence of the Lord, and addresses him as it were face to face, and has sometimes such a sense of the Divine presence as overpowers his soul with awe, or elevates it with rapturous emotion, or diffuses through his mind a calm and holy joy, like that which pervades the society of heaven. At the throne of grace, too, he receives an increase of spiritual strength, and from time to time finds all his Christian virtues acquiring new vigor and stability. In the closet he gives unrestrained freedom to the struggling feelings of his breast, and enjoys sweet relief in thus unburdening his mind

before his covenant-keeping God. At the family altar and in the prayer-meeting, he experiences solid delight in the communion of his spirit with the Holy Comforter. But not at these places alone does the saint satisfy the panting of his soul for the Divine presence. In the sanctuary he meets his God, who delights there to manifest his mercy and love to his humble worshippers. The house of the Lord is hallowed in the mind of the Christian by the most sacred and delightful associations. It is a holy place; it always wears an air of solemnity, always reminds him of the Infinite Being to whose honor it was erected, and brings up to view the blissful relation which he sustains to that Being as his adorable Sovereign and Parent. It was doubtless in reference to the temple at Jerusalem that the Psalmist penned the text. At the time he wrote it, he was an exile from the holy city, far removed from the house of the Lord; and in remembrance of the sweet spiritual refreshment he had there so often enjoyed, he felt his soul burning to stand again within its consecrated walls, and to join in its beautiful, impressive, and holy worship. And thus it is with every devout child of God: he is glad to enter the courts of the Lord's house with thanksgiving and praise, because in so doing the wants of his soul are satisfied; he is quickened and made joyful by the holy services there performed.

4. The Christian who truly thirsts for God will carefully avoid sin, lest by committing it he should grieve God to withdraw his presence and leave him in darkness and sorrow.

5. The Christian thirsting for God, not by any means fully satisfied with the manifestations of God to his soul in the Bible, in contemplation, and in worship, and sensible that his thirst can be perfectly gratified only in heaven, keeps his eye and his heart steadfastly fixed on that world, and labors habitually to attain to an everlasting residence there. For there he knows that all hindrances to communion with God will be for ever removed, and that every redeemed spirit will enjoy a clear and most beatific vision of the Eternal, and a full realization of all those hopes which the inspired Word awakens in the believer's breast. There the soul, made perfect in the likeness of Jehovah, will be capacitated to receive and enjoy all the fulness of God for ever.

In bringing this discourse to a close, it inay be remarked, 1st. That if any professor of religion has not something of the spirit which has now been described, he is deceiving himself, for it is absolutely inseparable from true piety. No human soul can be brought into union with God by faith in Christ, without experiencing some active desires for sensible communion with his Maker, and this is thirsting after God.

2d. The subject we have been considering gives us an exalted view of the mediatorial work of the Redeemer. For it is by virtue of his atonement alone that the soul is ever made to

thirst for God, or that this holy thirst can be at all gratified. But for him, men would never have seen God in such a light as to be won by his attractions, nor have cherished towards him sincere affection, nor have had any of that inward spiritual experience which causes them to pant after God. Nor would there have been any possible way of access by which the soul could approach its Maker, and be happy in his presence and in the manifestations of his infinite glories. But now every believer has free admission to the throne of grace, and unlimited sources of bliss in God, even while in the flesh, and can anticipate with assurance the hour of full communion with Him in the midst of his unveiled perfections in heaven. Once the Christian was like a star that has left its orbit and shot away from the sphere of its sun's attraction into regions of darkness and chaos; now he is like that star brought back to its appointed place in the vast system to revolve again in harmony with its fellow-satellites around the great central orb, to derive light and heat from the rays which it sends forth.

Finally, may no one be unmindful of the vast difference between thirsting for God now, and thirsting for a drop of water in the world of despair. The one is a means of the most exalted and satisfying pleasure enjoyed by mortals, and a sure pledge of perfect and immortal happiness in heaven; the other is a raging fever that never can be slaked, but must burn on and consume the soul for ever with its unquenchable fires. Take care, then, O cold-hearted professor and thoughtless sinner, lest by your indif ference to God now, you shut yourselves out for ever from all those fountains of bliss which can meet the wants of your undying souls in eternity. Acquaint yourselves with God, and be joined to Him in bonds of everlasting love, that He may be your portion and joy while your existence shall endure.

CHRIST is a foundation-the foundation of our hope, of our peace, of our salvation; the foundation of all true worship, of all true access to God; the foundation of that spiritual temple which Jehovah is rearing to himself amid the ruins of the fall. He is the only foundation; the foundation that the Lord himself has laid for the hopes of a perishing world. He is the cornerstone-the support and the connection of the whole building-the chief corner-stone, chosen, tried, precious, sure, adjusted by infinite wisdom and infinite power to its position of honor, of