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kindness, in his mercy. Behold him in his word, in his works, in his providence, in his saints, in thy soul, in his Son; set him before thine eyes, look upon thy God, and never leave looking till thou art changed into his image and satisfied with his likeness; and when thou art brought to this, then he hath done for thee what he hath said: "I will give them a heart to know me."

CHAPTER VIII.

ONE HEART.

"I WILL give them one heart.”

Ezek. 11:19.

We read, "Ephraim is like a silly dove, without heart," Hos. 7:11; he hath no heart at all, that is, none for his God, as good as none; and in Psa. 12:2, we read that Israel had a double heart, a heart and a heart-more hearts than one; but says the Lord, I will give them a heart, and it shall be but one, and

no more.

Not to dwell on the signification of this text as it respects Christians collectively, let us consider it as it respects each particular Christian. This "one heart" may be taken as opposed to a wavering, a divided, and a double heart.

It is opposed to a wavering, unstable heart. Jas. 1:6, 8. Wavering-minded men have almost as many hearts as they live days, or meet with cases; a heart that changes with the weather, and tacks about with every wind, that resolves and repents, that chooses and changes, that, like a wave of the sea, is tossed about with every wind. This you may call either many hearts, or no heart, as you will. But the believer's one heart is a fixed, established, resolved heart: "It is good that the heart be established with grace." Heb. 13:9. Grace fixes, establishes, and brings to a

consistency with itself the heart which before was any thing or nothing.

It is opposed to a divided heart, Hos. 10:2; a heart cut in two as it were; a cloven heart, one half for God, the other half for sin; one half for Christ, the other half for this present world; God having a corner in it, and the rest for sin and the devil. This " one heart" is an entire heart; all the powers of it are united within itself, and go the same way; God hath the whole heart. "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name." Psalm 103:1. All its springs are in him, and thither do all its streams bend their course.

It is opposed to a double heart or a hypocritical heart, properly so called, Psa. 12:2, 3; "a heart and a heart," a heart in the breast and another in the tongue. Our outside is presumed to be an expression of our inside; what we speak, we pretend to be in our very hearts. It is the very heart in the tongue that speaks, the heart in the eye that weeps, the heart in the hand that works, the heart in the foot that walks. It is not so with the hypocrite; he shows another heart in his tongue, in. his ways, than that which is within him. He hath a heart, and a heart; one in his tongue or life, and quite another in his breast. His course speaks him another man than he is. Thus "one heart" signifies a single or a plain heart.

To sum up all together, this one heart is such as fixes upon one end; has but one thing to do; and does what it does.

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I. IT FIXES UPON ONE END. God is its end. There it wholly bestows itself: "I am thine." Psa. 119: 94. And there only it takes up its rest. "And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee." Psalm 39:7. God is both its work and its wages. Το please God, this is its whole business; and to enjoy God, this is its happiness. This is the mark it hath in its eye, this is the scope of all its motions, to honor and enjoy God. This it wills, this it loves, this it desires, designs, hopes, labors for, that the Lord may possess, and be the possession of it. Particularly, it gives God both the place and the power of its chief end.

1. The place of its chief end. God is its first and last. He is first in the eye, and it looks no further. It makes him not only its chief, but in a sense its only aim. It will have no other God, and therefore no other end but the Lord. It makes all things else not only to stoop and stand by, but to serve him. Get you hence, stand off, is its language to all that stands up in his room or stands in his way. Evil men, whatever regard they pretend to have for the Lord, do but make him a servant to their other gods. Religion they will take up, but it is only to serve their own turns, to bring about their carnal ends: "They serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies," saith the apostle, Rom. 16:18; Phil. 3:19. Nay, they make the Lord their fellow-servant; they serve, and their religion must serve their sensual appetites. He that will have so much religion only as he may live upon, which is the measure of most men, makes the Lord

no longer his God, but his servant. A sincere Christian will set God upon the throne, and make all things else his servants or his footstool. Whatever will not be serviceable must be trodden in the dust. Nothing will be loved and embraced but what will set God higher, or bring God nearer to his heart.

2. The power of the end. The end hath a fourfold power: it draws; it directs; it governs; and it rewards.

(1.) It draws the heart to it; God, who is a Christian's end, is also his beginning. Our first step heavenward we owe to the influence of heaven upon us: "Draw me, we will run after thee." Sol. Song 1:4. "No man can come unto me, unless the Father, which hath sent me, draw him." Nothing but God will so do it that nothing will draw the soul another way The pleasures of sin, the wages of unrighteousness, are poor and low baits to entice a soul away from God, that is, so far as it is renewed; so it is nothing but God that draws the soul away from these to him, and he will do it. God draws the soul not by an act of power only, but by the proper attractive influence of the end. Not by efficiency only, but by sympathy; as by the water the thirsty soul is drawn to the water-brooks.

It is God who draws hearts after him: there are instruments, as his word and ministers; and there are arguments by which God draws; but whatever the instruments or arguments are, it is God who does it. What is the work of either word or ministers, but to set God before men? and this draws. Instruments

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