But while the servants of Christ continue in this life, glorious as is the issue of their labours, they receive but too many humiliating memorials of their remaining imperfections, and they daily find reason to confess, that they cannot do the things that they would. Their _determination_, however, is still unshaken, and it is the fixed desire of their hearts to improve in _all holiness_--and this, let it be observed, on many accounts. Various passions concur to push them forward; they are urged on by the dread of failure, in this arduous but necessary work; they trust not, where their all is at stake, to lively emotions, or to internal impressions however warm; the example of Christ is their pattern, the word of God is their rule; there they read, that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." It is the description of real Christians, that "they are gradually changed into the image of their Divine Master;" and they dare not allow themselves to believe their title sure, except so far as they can discern in themselves the growing traces of this blessed resemblance. It is not merely however the fear of misery, and the desire of happiness, by which they are actuated in their endeavours to excel in all holiness; they love it for its own sake: nor is it _solely_ by the sense of self-interest (this, though often unreasonably condemned, is but it must be confessed a principle of an inferior order) that they are influenced in their determination to obey the will, and to cultivate the favour of God. This determination has its foundations indeed in a deep and humiliating sense of his exalted Majesty and infinite power, and of their own extreme inferiority and littleness, attended with a settled conviction of its being their duty as his creatures, to submit in all things to the will of their great Creator. But these awful impressions are relieved and ennobled by an admiring sense of the infinite perfections and infinite amiableness of the Divine Character; animated by a confiding though humble hope of his fatherly kindness and protection; and quickened by the grateful recollection of immense and continually increasing obligations. This is the Christian love of God! A love compounded of admiration, of preference, of hope, of trust, of joy; chastised by reverential awe, and wakeful with continual gratitude.