only sound Divines having tasted the old he did not desire the new but said the old is better Some Errours especially the Socinian he sets himself industriously against and cuts the very Sinews of them yet sometimes almost without naming them In the Doctrinal Part of several of his Discourses thou wilt find the depth of Polemical Divinity and in his Inferences from thence the sweetness of Practical some things which may exercise the profoundest Scholar and others which may instruct and edifie the weakest Christian nothing is more nervous than his Reasonings and nothing more affecting than his Applications Though he make great use of Schoolmen yet they are certainly more beholden to him than he to them he adopts their Notions but he refines them too and improves them and reforms them from the barbarousness in which they were expressed and dresseth them up in his own Language so far as the nature of the matter will permit and more clear terms are to be found and so makes them intelligible to Vulgar Capacities which in their original rudeness were obscure and strange even to Learned Heads In a word he handles the great Truths of the Gospel with that Perspicuity Gravity and Majesty which best becomes the Oracles of God and we have reason to believe that no judicious and unbiassed Reader but will acknowledge this to be incomparably the best practical Treatise the World ever saw in English upon this Subject What Dr. Jackson did to whom our Authour gave all due respect was more brief and in another way Dr. Preston did worthily upon the Attributes in his day but his Discourses likewise are more succinct when this Authours are more full and large But whatever were the mind of God in it it was not his Will that either of these two should live to finish what he had begun both being taken away when Preaching upon this Subject Happy Souls whose last breath was spent in so noble a Work * Psal 146.2 praising God while they had any being His Method is much the same in most of these Discourses both in the Doctrinal and Practical Part which will make the whole more plain and facile to ordinary Readers He rarely makes Objections and yet frequently answers them by implying them in those Propositions he lays down for the clearing up the Truths he asserts His Dexterity is admirable in the Applicatory Work where he not only brings down the highest Doctrines to the lowest Capacities but collects great varietie of proper pertinent useful and yet many times unthought of Inferences and that from those Truths which however they afford much matter for Inquisition and Speculation yet might seem unless to the most intelligent and judicious Christians to have a more remote influence upon Practice He is not like some School Writers who attenuate and rarefie the Matter they Discourse of to a degree bordering upon Annihilation at least beat it so thin that a puff of breath may blow it away spin their Thred so fine that the Cloth when made up proves useless Solidity dwindles into Niceties and what we thought we had got by their Assertions we lose by their Distinctions But if our Author have some Subtilties and superfine Notions in his Argumentations yet he condenseth them again and consolidates them into substantial and profitable Corolaries in his Applications And in them his main business is as to discipline a prophane World for its neglect of God and contempt of him in his most adorable and shining Perfections so likewise to shew how the Divine Attributes are not only infinitely excellent in themselves but a grand Foundation for all true Divine Worship and should be the great Motives to provoke men to the exercise of Faith and Love and Fear and Humility and all that holy Obedience they are called to by the Gospel And this without peradventure is the great end of all those rich Discoveries God hath in his Word made of himself to us And Reader if these elaborate Discourses of this holy Man through the Lord's blessing become a means of promoting Holiness in thee Psal 109.1 and stir thee up to love and live to the God of his praise we are well assured that his end in Preaching them is answered and so is ours in publishing them Thine in the Lord EDW. VEEL RI. ADAMS The several Discourses in this Volume VIZ. Page 1. 47. THE Existence of God and Practical Atheism from Psal 14.1 The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God c. Page 109. 129. God a Spirit and Spiritual Worship from John 4.24 God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth Page 179. The Eternity of God from Psal 90.2 Before the Mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the Earth and the World Even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God Page 203. The Immutability of God From Psal 102 26 27. They shall perish but thou shalt endure Yea all of them shall wax old like a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years shall have no end Page 241. The Omnipresence of God from Jer. 23.24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord. Do not I fill Heaven and Earth saith the Lord Page 272. God's Infinite Knowledge from Psal 147.5 Great is our Lord and of great Power His Vnderstanding is infinite Page 341. God's Infinite Wisdom from Rom. 16.27 To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen Page 417. God's Infinite Power from Job 26.14 Lo these are parts of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him But the Thunder of his Power who can understand Page 493. God's Infinite Holiness From Exod. 15.11 Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods Who is like thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Page 577. God's Infinite Goodness from Mark 10.18 And Jesus said unto him Why callest thou me good There is none good but one that is God Page 697. The Dominion of God from Psal 103.19 The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth over all Page 787. God's Infinite Patience from Nahum 1.3 The Lord is slow to Anger and great in Power and will not all acquit the Wicked The Lord hath his way in the Whirlwind and in the Storm and the Clouds are the Dust of his feet A DISCOURSE UPON THE Existence of God Psalm 14.1 The fool hath said in his heart there is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable Works there is none that doth good THIS Psalm is a description of the deplorable corruption by Nature of every Son of Adam since the withering of that Common Root Some restrain it to the Gentiles as a Wilderness full of Bryars and Thorns as not concerning the Jews the Garden of God planted by his Grace and watered by the Dew of Heaven
directions upon emergent occasions In counting the actions of others to be good or bad as they sute with or spurn against our fancies and humors Man would make himself the Rule of God and give laws to his Creator In striving against his Law Disapproving of his Methods of Government in the world in impatience in our particular concerns envying the gifts and prosperity of others Corrupt matter or ends of Prayer or praise Bold interpretations of the Judgments of God in the world Mixing Rules in the Worship of God with those which have been ordained by him Suting interpretations of Scripture with our own minds and humors Falling off from God after some fair compliances when his Will grates upon us and crosseth ours 2. Man would be his own end This is natural and universal This is seen in frequent self applauses and inward overweening reflections In ascribing the glory of what we do or have to our selves In desire of self pleasing Doctrines In being highly concerned in injuries done to our selves and little or not at all concerned for injuries done to God In trusting in our selves In workings for Carnal self against the light of our own Consciences this is a usurping Gods prerogative vilifying God destroying God Man would make any thing his end or happiness rather than God This appears in the fewer thoughts we have of him than of any thing else In the greedy pursuit of the world In the strong addictedness to sensual pleasures In paying a service upon any success in the world to instruments more than to God This is a debasing God in setting up a Creature But more in setting up a base lust T is a denying of God Man would make himself the end of all Creatures In pride using the Creatures contrary to the end God hath appointed This is to dishonour God And it is Diabolical Man would make himself the end of God In loving God because of some self pleasing benefits distributed by him In abstinence from some sins because they are against the interest of some other beloved Corruption In performing duties meerly for a selfish interest which is evident in unwealdiness in Religious duties where self is not concern'd In calling upon God only in a time of necessity In begging his assistance to our own projects after we have by our own Craft laid the Plot. In impatience upon a refusal of our desires In selfish aims we have in our duties This is a vilifying God a dethroning him In unworthy imaginations of God universal in Man by nature Hence spring Idolatry Superstition Presumption the common disease of the world This is a vilifying God worse than Idolatry worse than absolute Atheism Natural desires to be distant from him No desires for the remembrance of him No desires of converse with him No desires of a through return to him No desire of any close imitation of him A DISCOURSE UPON GODS BEING A SPIRIT JOHN 4.24 God is a Spirit and they that Worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth THE words are part of the Dialogue between our Saviour * Amiraut Paraph. sur Jean and the Samaritan Woman Christ intending to return from Judea to Galilee passed through the Country of Samaria a place inhabited not by Jews but a mixt Company of several Nations and some remainders of the posterity of Israel who escaped the Captivity and were returned from Assyria and being weary with his Journey arrived about the sixth hour or noon according to the Jews reckoning the time of the day at a Well that Jacob had digged which was of great account among the Inhabitants for the Antiquity of it as well as the usefulness of it in supplying their necessities He being thirsty and having none to furnish him wherewith to draw water at last comes a Woman from the City whom he desires to give him some water to drink The Woman perceiving him by his Language or Habit to be a Jew wonders at the question since the hatred the Jews bore the Samaritans was so great that they would not vouchsafe to have any Commerce with them not only in Religious but Civil affairs and Common Offices belonging to Man-kind Hence our Saviour takes occasion to publish to her the Doctrine of the Gospel and excuseth her rude Answer by her Ignorance of him And tells her that if she had askt him a greater matter even that which concern'd her Eternal Salvation he would readily have granted it notwithstanding the rooted hatred between the Jews and Samaritans and bestowed a water of a greater vertue the water of life * ver 10. Or living water The Woman is no less astonished at his reply than she was at his first demand It was strange to hear a Man speak of giving living water to one of whom he had beg'd the water of that Spring and had no Vessel to draw any to quench his own thirst She therefore demands whence he could have this water that he speaks of * ver 11. since she conceived him not greater than Jacob who had digged that Well and drunk of it Our Saviour desirous to mak a progress in that work he had begun extols the Water he spake of above this of the Well from its particular vertue fully to refresh those that drank of it and be as a Cooling and Comforting Fountain within them of more efficacy than that without * ver 13.14 The Woman conceiving a good opinion of our Saviour desires to partake of this Water to save her pains in coming dayly to the Well not apprehending the Spirituality of Christs discourse to her * ver 15. Christ finding her to take some pleasure in his Discourse partly to bring her to a sense of her sin before he did Communicate the excellency of his grace bids her return back to the City and bring her Husband with her to him * ver 16. She freely acknowledges that she had no Husband whether having some check of Conscience at present for the unclean life she led or loth to lose so much time in the gaining this water so much desired by her * ver 17. Our Saviour takes an occasion from this to lay open her sin before her and to make her sensible of her own wicked life and the prophetick excellency of himself and tells her she had had five Husbands to whom she had been false and by whom she was divorced and the person she now dwelt with was not her lawful Husband and in living with him she violated the Rights of Marriage and encreased guilt upon her Conscience * ver 18. The Woman being affected with this discourse and knowing him to be stranger that could not be certified of those things but in an extraordinary way begins to have a high esteem of him as a Prophet * 〈◊〉 19. And upon this opinion she esteems him able to decide a question which had been Canvast between them and the Jews about the place of Worship
* â—â—r 20. Their Fathers Worshipping in that Mountain and the Jews affirming Jerusalem to be a place of worship She pleads the Antiquity of the worship in this place Abraham having built an Altar there Gen. 12.7 and Jacob upon his return from Syria And surely had the place been capable of an exception such persons as they and so well acquainted with the Will of God would not have pitched upon that place to Celebrate their worship Antiquity hath too too often bewitched the minds of Men and drawn them from the revealed Will of God Men are more willing to imitate the outward actions of their famous Ancestors than conform themselves to the revealed Will of their Creator The Samaritans would imitate the Patriarchs in the place of worship but not in the faith of the worshippers Christ answers her that this question would quickly be resolved by a new state of the Church which was neer at hand and neither Jerusalem which had now the precedency nor that Mountain should be of any more value in that concern than any other place in the world * ver 21. But yet to make her sensible of her sin and that of her Country-men tells her that their Worship in that Mountain was not according to the Will of God he having long after the Altars built in this place fixed Jerusalem as the place of Sacrifices besides they had not the knowledge of that God which ought to be worshipped by them but the Jews had the true object of Worship and the true manner of worship according to the declaration God had made of himself to them * ver â—â— But all that service shall vanish the vail of the Temple shall be rent in twain and that Carnal worship give place to one more Spiritual shadows shall fly before substance and truth advance it self above figures and the worship of God shall be with the strength of the Spirit such a worship and such worshippers doth the Father seek * ver 23. For God is a Spirit and those that Worship him must Worship him in Spirit and in truth The design of our Saviour is to declare that God is not taken with external worship invented by men no nor Commanded by himself and upon that this reason because he is a Spiritual essence infinitely above gross and Corporeal matter and is not taken with that pomp which is a pleasure to our Earthly imaginations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some translate it just as the words lie Spirit is God * Vulgar lat Illyrc Clav. But it is not unusual both in the old and new Testament languages to put the predicate before the subject as Psal 5.9 Their throat is an open Sepulchre in the Hebrew a Sepulchre open their throat So Psa 111.3 His work is honourable and glorious Heb. Honour and glory his work And there wants not one example in the same Evangelist Joh. 1.1 And the word was God Greek and God was the word In all the predicate or what is ascribed is put before the subject to which it is ascribed One tells us and he an head of a party that hath made a disturbance in the Church of God * Eâ—â—â—â—â—p Institut lib. 4. cap. 3. that this place is not aptly brought to prove God to be a Spirit And the reason of Christ runs not thus God is of a Spiritual Essence and therefore must be worshipped with a Spiritual worship for the Essence of God is not the Foundation of his worship but his Will for then we were not to worship him with a Corporal worship because he is not a body but with an invisible and Eternal worship because he is invisible and eternal But the nature of God is the foundation of worship the Will of God is the Rule of worship the matter and manner is to be performed according to the Will of God But is the nature of the object of worship to be excluded No as the object is so ought our Devotion to be Spiritual as he is Spiritual God in his Commands for worship respected the discovery of his own nature in the Law he respected the discovery of his mercy and justice and therefore Commanded a worship by Sacrifices a Spiritual worship without those institutions would not have declared those Attributes which was Gods end to display to the world in Christ And tho the nature of God is to be respected in worship yet the obligations of the Creature are to be considered God is a Spirit therefore must have a Spiritual worship The Creature hath a body as well as a Soul and both from God and therefore ought to worship God with the one as well as the other since one as well as the other is freely bestowed upon him The Spirituality of God was the foundation of the change from the Judaical carnal worship to a more Spiritual and Evangelical God is a Spirit That is he hath nothing Corporeal no mixture of matter not a visible substance a bodily form * Melancton He is a Spirit not a bare Spiritual substance But an understanding willing Spirit holy wise good and just Before Christ spake of the Father * ver 23. the first person in the Trinity Now he speaks of God Essentially The word Father is personal the word God essential So that our Saviour would render a reason not from any one person in the blessed Trinity but from the Divine nature why we should worship in Spirit and therefore makes use of the word God the being a Spirit being Common to the other persons with the Father This is the reason of the proposition verse 23. Of a Spiritual Worship Every nature delights in that which is like it and distasts that which is most different from it If God were Corporeal he might be pleased with the victims of beasts and the beautiful Magnificence of Temples and the noyse of Musick But being a Spirit he cannot be gratified with carnal things He demands something better and greater than all those that Soul which he made that Soul which he hath endowed a Spirit of a frame sutable to his nature He indeed appointed Sacrifices and a Temple as shadows of those things which were to be most acceptable to him in the Messiah but they were imposed only till the time of Reformation * Heb. 9.10 Must Worship him Not they may or it would be more agreeable to God to have such a manner of worship But they must T is not exclusive of bodily worship for this were to exclude all publick worship in societies which cannot be performed without reverential postures of the body * Terniti The Gestures of the body are helps to worship and declarations of Spiritual acts We can scarcely worship God with our Spirits without some tincture upon the outward-man But he excludes all acts meerly Corporeal all resting upon an external service and devotion which was the Crime of the Pharisees and the general persuasion of the Jews
the Spirit * 2 Cor. 7.1 By the one we defile the Body by the other we defile the Spirit which in regard of its Nature is of kin to the Creator To wrong one who is neer of kin to a Prince is worse than to injure an inferior Subject When we make our Spirits which are most like to God in their Nature and framed according to his Image a stage to act vain imaginations wicked desires and unclean affections we wrong God in the excellency of his Work and reflect upon the nobleness of the Patern we wrong him in that part where he hath stampt the most signal Character of his own spiritual nature we defile that whereby we have only converse with him as a Spirit which he hath ordered more immediately to represent him in this Nature than all corporeal things in the world can and make that Spirit with whom we desire to be joyned unfit for such a knot Gods Spirituality is the root of his other perfections We have already heard he could not be infinite omnipresent immutable without it Spiritual sins are the greatest root of bitterness within us As grace in our Spirits renders us more like to a spiritual God so spiritual sins bring us into a conformity to a degraded Devil * Eph. 2.2 3. Carnal sins change us from men to brutes and spiritual sins devest us of the Image of God for the Image of Satan We should by no means make our Spirits a Dung-hill which bear upon them the Character of the spiritual Nature of God and were made for his residence Let us therefore behave our selves towards God in all those ways which the spiritual nature of God requires us A DISCOURSE OF Spiritual Worship HAVING thus dispatcht the first proposition God is a Spirit It will not be amiss to handle the inference our Saviour makes from that proposition which is the second observation propounded Doct. That the Worship due from us to God ought to be Spiritual and Spiritually performed Spirit and Truth are understood variously Either we are to Worship God 1. Not by legal ceremonies The Evangelical administration being called Spirit in opposition to the legal ordinances as carnal and Truth in opposition to them as typical As the whole Judaical service is called flesh so the whole Evangelical service is called Spirit Or Spirit may be opposed to the worship at Jerusalem as it was carnal Truth to the worship on the Mount Gerizim because it was false They had not the true object of worship nor the true Medium of worship as those at Jerusalem had Their worship should cease because it was false and the Jewish worship should cease because it was carnal There is no need of a Candle when the Sun spreads it beams in the Air no need of those Ceremonies when the Sun of righteousness appeared They only served for Candles to instruct and direct men till the time of his coming The shadows are chased away by the displaying the substance so that they can be of no more use in the worship of God since the end for which they were instituted is expired and that discovered to us in the Gospel which the Jews sought for in vain among the baggage and stuff of their Ceremonies 2. With a Spiritual and sincere frame In Spirit i. e. with Spirit with the inward operations of all the faculties of our Souls and the cream and flower of them And the reason is because there ought to be a worship sutable to the nature of God And as the worship was to be Spiritual so the exercise of that worship ought to be in a Spiritual manner * Lingend Tom. 2. p. 777. It shall be a worship in Truth because the true God shall be adored without those vain imaginations and phantastick resemblances of him * Taylors Exemplar Preface § 30. which were common among the blind Gentiles and contrary to the glorious nature of God and unworthy ingredients in Religious services It shall be a worship in Spirit without those carnal rites the degenerate Jews rested on Such a posture of Soul which is the life and ornament of every service God looks for at your hands There must be some proportion between the object adored and the manner in which we adore it It must not be a meer Corporeal worship because God is not a body but it must rise from the Center of our Soul because God is a Spirit If he were a body a bodily worship might sute him Images might be fit to represent him but being a Spirit our bodily services enter us not into communion with him Being a Spirit we must banish from our minds all carnal imaginations of him and separate from our Wills all cold and dissembled affections to him We must not only have a loud voice but an elevated Soul not only a bended knee but a broken heart not only a supplicating tone but a groaning Spirit not only a ready ear for the word but a receiving heart and this shall be of greater value with him than the most costly outward services offered at Gerizim or Jerusalem Our Saviour certainly meant not by worshipping in Spirit only the matter of the Evangelical service as opposed to the legal administration without the manner wherein it was to be performed T is true God always sought a worship in Spirit he expected the heart of the worshipper should joyn with his instituted rights of adoration in every exercise of them But he expects such a carriage more under the Gospel administration because of the clearer discoveries of his nature made in it and the greater assistances conveyed by it I shall therefore 1. Lay down some general propositions 2. Shew what this Spiritual worship is 3. Why we must offer to God a Spiritual service 4. The Vse 1. Some general propositions Proposition 1. First The right exercise of worship is founded upon and riseth from the Spirituality of God * Ames medul lib. 2. cap. 4. § 20. The first ground of the worship we render to God is the infinite excellency of his nature which is not only one attribute but results from all For God as God is the object of worship and the Notion of God consists not in thinking him wise good just but all those infinitely beyond any Conception And hence it follows that God is an object infinitely to beloved and honoured His goodness is sometimes spoken of in Scripture as a motive of our homage Psal 130.4 There is forgiveness with thee that thou maist be feared Fear in the Scripture dialect signifies the whole worship of God Acts 10.35 But in every Nation he that fears him is accepted of him * So 2 Kings 17.32 33. If God should act towards men according to the rigors of his Justice due to them for the least of their Crimes there could be no exercise of any affection but that of despair which could not engender a worship of God which ought to be joyned with love not
effect of Divine Revelation He only knows himself and can only make himself known to us It could not be supposed that an infinite God should have no perfections but what were visible in the works of his hands and that these perfections should not be infinitely greater than as they were sensible in their present effects This had been to apprehend God a limited Being meaner than he is Now 't is impossible to honour God as we ought unless we know him as he is and we could not know him as he is without divine revelation from himself for none but God can acquaint us with his own nature And therefore the nations void of this conduct heapt up modes of worship from their own imaginations unworthy of the Majesty of God and below the nature of man A rational man would scarce have owned such for signs of honour as the Scripture mentions in the services of Baal and Dagon Much less an infinitely wise and glorious God And when God had signified his mind to his own people how unwilling were they to rest satisfied with Gods determination but would be warping to their own inventions and make Gods and wayes of worship to themselves * Amos 5.26 As in the matter of the Golden Calf as was lately spoken of 2. Tho the outward manner of worship acceptable to God could not be known without revelation and those revelations might be various yet the inward manner of worship with our Spirits was manifest by nature And not only manifest by nature to Adam in Innocence but after his fall and the scales he had brought upon his understanding by that fall When God gave him his positive institutions before the fall or whatsoever additions God should have made had he persisted in that state or when he appointed him after his fall to testifie his acknowledgment of him by Sacrifices there needed no Command to him to make those acknowledgments by those outward wayes prescribed to him with the intention and prime affection of his Spirit This nature would instruct him in without revelation For he could not possibly have any semblance of reason to think that the offering of beasts or the presenting the first fruits of the increase of the ground as an acknowledgment of Gods Soveraignty over him and his bounty to him was sufficient without devoting to him that part wherein the Image of his Creator did consist He could not but discerne by a reflection upon his own being that he was made for God as well as by God For it is a natural principle of which the Apostle speaks Rom. 11.36 For of him and through him and to him are all things c. That the whole whereof he did consist was due to God and that his Body the dreggy and dusty part of his nature was not fit to be brought alone before God without that nobler principle which he had by Creation linkt with it Nothing in the whole law of nature as it is informed of Religion was clearer next to the being of God than this manner of worshipping God with the mind and Spirit And as the Gentiles never sunk so low into the mud of Idolatry as to think the Images they worshipped were really their Gods but the representations or habitations of their Gods so they never deserted this principle in the Notion of it that God was to be honoured with the best they were and the best they had As they never denyed the being of a God in the Notion tho they did in the practise so they never rejected this principle in Notion tho they did and now most men do in the inward observation of it It was a maxime among them that God was mens animus mind and Spirit and therefore was to be honoured with the mind and Spirit That religion did not consist in the Ceremonies of the body but the work of the Soul Whence the speech of one of them * Menander Grot. de veritat relig lib. 4. § 12. Sacrifice to the Gods not so much clothed with purple garments as a pure heart And of another God regards not the multitude of the Sacrifices but the disposition of the Sacrificer T is not fit we should deny God the Cream and Flower * Jamblick and give him the flotten part and the stalks And with what Reverence and intention of mind they thought their worship was to be performed is evident by the Priests crying out often hoc age Mind this let your Spirits be intent upon it This could not but result 1. From the knowledge of our selves T is a natural principle God hath made us and not we our selves Psal 100.1 2. Man knows himself to be a rational Creature As a Creature he was to serve his Creator and as a rational Creature with the best part of that rational nature he derived from him By the same act of reason that he knows himself to be a Creature he knows himself to have a Creator That this Creator is more excellent than himself and that an honour is due from him to the Creator for framing of him and therefore this honour was to be offered to him by the most excellent part which was framed by him Man cannot consider himself as a thinking understanding being but he must know that he must give God the honour of his thoughts and worship him with those faculties whereby he Thinks Wills and Acts. * Amiraut Mor. Tom. 1. pa. 309. 310. He must know his faculties were given him to act and to act for the glory of that God who gave him his Soul and the faculties of it and he could not in reason think they must be only active in his own service and the service of the Creature and idle and unprofitable in the service of his Creator With the same Powers of our Soul whereby we contemplate God we must also worship God We cannot think of him but with our Minds nor love him but with our Will and we cannot worship him without the acts of thinking and loving and therefore cannot worship him without the exercise of our inward faculties How is it possible then for any man that knows his own nature to think that extended hands bended knees and lifted up eyes were sufficient acts of worship without a quickned and active Spirit 2 From the knowledge of God As there was a knowledge of God by nature so the same nature did dictate to Man that God was to be glorified as God The Apostle implies the inference in the charge he brings against them for neglecting it We should speak of God as he is said one * Bias. Rom. 1.21 and the same reason would inform them that they were to act towards God as he is The excellency of the Object required a worship according to the dignity of his Nature which could not be answered but by the most serious inward affection as well as outward decency and a want of this cannot but be judged to be unbecoming
the Majesty of the Creator of the world and the excellency of Religion No Nation no person did ever assert that the vilest part of man was enough for the most excellent Being as God is That a bodily service could be a sufficient acknowledgment of the greatness of God or a sufficient return for the bounty of God * Amyraut Ib. Man could not but know that he was to act in Religion conformably to the Object of Religion and to the excellency of his own Soul The notion of a God was sufficient to fill the mind of man with admiration and reverence and the first conclusion from it would be to honour God and that he have all the affection placed on him that so infinite and spiritual a Being did deserve The progress then would be that this excellent Being was to be honoured with the motions of the Understanding and Will with the purest and most spiritual powers in the nature of man because he was a spiritual Being and had nothing of matter mingled with him Such a brutish imagination to suppose that blood and fumes beasts and incense could please a Deity without a spiritual frame cannot be supposed to befal any but those that had lost their reason in the rubbish of sense Meer rational nature could never conclude that so excellent a Spirit would be put off with a meer animal service an attendance of matter and body without Spirit when they themselves of an inferior nature would be loath to sit down contented with an outside service from those that belong to them So that this instruction of our Saviour that God is to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth is conformable to the sentiments of nature and drawn from the most undeniable principles of it The excellency of Gods nature and the excellent constitution of human faculties concur naturally to support this perswasion This was as natural to be known by men as the necessity of Justice and Temperance for the support of human societies and bodies 'T is to be feared that if there be not among us such brutish apprehensions there are such brutish dealings with God in our services against the light of nature when we place all our worship of God in outward attendances and drooping countenances with unbelieving frames and formal devotions when Prayer is muttered over in private slightly as a Parrot learns lessons by rote not understanding what it speaks or to what end it speaks it not glorifying God in Thought and Spirit with Understanding and Will 3. Spiritual Worship therefore was always required by God and always offered to him by one or other Man had a perpetual obligation upon him to such a worship from the nature of God and what is founded upon the nature of God is unvariable This and that particular mode of worship may wax old as a Garment and as a Vesture may be folded up and changed as the expression is of the Heavens * Heb. 1.11 12. But God endures for ever his spirituality fails not therefore a worship of him in Spirit must run through all ways and rites of Worship God must cease to be Spirit before any service but that which is spiritual can be accepted by him The light of Nature is the light of God the light of nature being unchangeable what was dictated by that was alway and will alway be required by God The worship of God being perpetually due from the Creature the worshipping him as God is as perpetually his right Though the outward expressions of this Honour were different one way in Paradice for a worship was then due since a solemn time for that worship was appointed another under the Law another under the Gospel the Angels also worship God in Heaven and fall down before his Throne yet though they differ in rites they agree in this necessary ingredient All rites though of a different shape must be offered to him not as Carcasses but animated with the affections of the Soul Abels Sacrifice had not been so excellent in Gods esteem without those gracious habits and affections working in his Soul * Heb. 11.4 Faith works by Love his heart was on fire as well as his Sacrifice Cain rested upon his Present perhaps thought he had obliged God he depended upon the outward Ceremony but sought not for the inward purity It was an offering brought to the Lord * Gen. 4.5 he had the right object but not the right manner Gen. 4.7 If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted And in the Command afterwards to Abraham Walk before me and be thou perfect was the direction in all our religious acts and walkings with God A sincere act of the Mind and Will looking above and beyond all Symbolls extending the Soul to a pitch far above the Body and seeing the day of Christ through the vail of the Ceremonies was required by God And though Moses by Gods order had instituted a multitude of carnal Ordinances Sacrifices Washings Oblations of sensible things and recomended to the people the diligent observation of those Statutes by the allurements of promises and denouncing of threatnings as if there were nothing else to be regarded and the true workings of Grace were to be buried under a heap of Ceremonies yet sometimes he doth point them to the inward worship and by the Command of God requires of them the Circumcision of the Heart Deut. 10.16 the turning to God with all their heart and all their Soul Deut. 30.10 whereby they might recollect that it was the engagement of the Heart and the worship of the Spirit that was most agreeable to God and that he took not any pleasure in their observance of Ceremonies without true Piety within and the true purity of their thoughts 4. 'T is therefore as much every mans duty to worship God in Spirit as it is their duty to worship him Worship is so due to him as God as that he that denies it disowns his Deity And spiritual worship is so due that he that waves it denies his spirituality 'T is a debt of Justice we owe to God to worship him and it is as much a debt of Justice to worship him according to his Nature Worship is nothing else but a rendring to God the honour that is due to him and therefore the right posture of our Spirits in it is as much or more due than the material worship in the modes of his own prescribing that is grounded both upon his Nature and upon his Command this only upon his Command that is perpetually due whereas the Channel wherein outward worship runs may be dryed up and the River diverted another way Such a worship wherein the mind thinks of God feels a sense of God has the Spirit consecrated to God the Heart glowing with affections to God 'T is else a mocking God with a feather A rational Nature must worship God with that wherein the Glory of God doth most sparkle in him God is most visible in the frame
Holy-Ghost for the Apostle would never have called the Spirit of God his own Spirit but with my Spirit that is a sincere frame of heart A Carnal-worship whether under the Law or Gospel is when we are busied about external rites without an inward compliance of Soul God demands the heart * Pro. 23.26 my Son give me thy heart not give me thy tongue or thy lips or thy hands these may be given without the heart but the heart can never be bestowed without these as its attendants A heap of services can be no more welcome to God without our Spirits than all Jacobs Sons could be to Joseph without the Benjamin he desired to see God is not taken with the Cabinet but the Jewel He first respected Abels Faith and Sincerity and then his Sacrifice he disrespected Cains Infidelity and Hypocrisie and then his Offering * Moulin Sermons Decad. 4. Ser. 4. P. 80. For this cause he rejected the Offerings of the Jews the Prayers of the Pharisees and the Alms of Ananias and Sapphira because their hearts and their duties were at a distance from one another In all spiritual Sacrifices our Spirits are Gods portion Under the Law the Reins were to be consumed by the Fire on the Altar because the secret intentions of the heart were signified by them Psal 7.9 The Lord trieth the Heart and the Reins It was an ill Omen among the Heathen if a Victim wanted a heart The Widows Mites with her heart in them were more esteemed than the richer Offerings without it Not the quantity of service but the will in it is of account with this infinite Spirit All that was to be brought for the framing of the Tabernacle was to be offered willingly with the heart * Exod. 25.7 The more of Will the more of Spirituality and Acceptableness to God Psal 119.108 Accept the Free-will-offering of my lips Sincerity is the Salt which seasons every Sacrifice The heart is most like to the object of worship The heart in the body is the spring of all vital actions and a spiritual Soul is the spring of all spiritual actions How can we imagin God can delight in the meer service of the Body any more than we can delight in converse with a Carcass Without the heart 't is no worship 'T is a Stage-play an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us A Hypocrite in the notion of the word is a Stage-player We may as well say a man may believe with his body as worship God only with his body Faith is a great ingredient in Worship and it is with the heart Man believes unto Righteousness * Rom. 10.10 We may be truly said to worship God though we want perfection but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity A Statue upon a Tomb with eyes and hands lifted up offers as good and true a service it wants only a voice the gestures and postures are the same nay the service is better 't is not a mockery it represents all that it can be framed to But to worship without our Spirits is a presenting God with a Picture an Eccho Voice and nothing else a Complement a meer Lye a compassing him about with Lyes * Hos 11.12 Without the heart the tongue is a Lyar and the greatest Zeal dissembling with him To present the Spirit is to present with that which can never naturally dye to present him only the Body is to present him that which is every day crumbling to dust and will at last lye rotting in the Grave To offer him a few Raggs easily torn a Skin for a Sacrifice a thing unworthy the Majesty of God a fixed eye and elevated hands with a sleepy Heart and earthly Soul are pitiful things for an ever blessed and glorious Spirit Nay it is so far from being spiritual that it is Blasphemy To pretend to be a Jew outwardly without being so inwardly is in the Judgment of Christ to blaspheme * Revel 2.9 And is not the same title to be given with as much reason to those that pretend a worship and perform none Such a one is not a spiritual Worshipper but a blaspheming Devil in Samuel's Mantle 4. Spiritual Worship is performed with an unitedness of heart The heart is not only now and then with God but united to fear or worship his name * Psal 86.11 A spiritual duty must have the engagement of the Spirit and the thoughts tyed up to the spiritual Object The union of all the parts of the heart together with the body is the life of the body and the moral union of our hearts is the life of any duty A heart quickly flitting from God makes not God his treasure he slights the worship and therein affronts the Object of Worship All our thoughts ought to be ravished with God bound up in him as in a bundle of life But when we start from him to gaze after every feather and run after every bubble we disown a full and affecting excellency and a satisfying sweetness in him When our thoughts run from God 't is a testimony we have no spiritual affection to God Affection would stake down the thoughts to the Object affected 'T is but a Mouth-love as the Prophet phraseth it * Ezek. 33.31 But their hearts go after their Covetousness Covetous Objects pipe and the heart danceth after them and thoughts of God are shifted off to receive a multitude of other imaginations The heart and the service stayed a while together and then took leave of one another The Psalmist * Psal 39.18 still found his heart with God when he awak'd still with God in spiritual affections and fixed meditations A carnal heart is seldom with God either in or out of worship If God should knock at the heart in any duty it would be found not at home but straying abroad Our worship is spiritual when the door of the heart is shut against all Intruders as our Saviour commands in Closet-duties * Mat. 6.6 It was not his meaning to command the shutting the Closet-door and leave the Heart-door open for every thought that would be apt to haunt us Worldly affections are to be laid aside if we would have our worship spiritual This was meant by the Jewish custom of wiping or washing off the dust of their feet before their entrance into the Temple and of not bringing mony in their girdles To be spiritual in worship is to have our Souls gathered and bound up wholly in themselves and offered to God Our Loyns must be girt as the fashion was in the Eastern Countries where they wore long Garments that they might not waver with the Wind and be blown between their leggs to obstruct them in their travel Our faculties must not hang loose about us He is a carnal Worshipper that gives God but a piece of his heart as well as he that denies him the whole of it that hath
Majesty of God and the reason of a Creature to give him a trivial thing 'T is unworthy to bestow the best of our strength on our Lust and the worst and weakest in the service of God An infinite Spirit should have affections as near to infinite as we can As he is a Spirit without bounds so he should have a service without limits When we have given him all we cannot serve him according to the excellency of his nature * Josh 24.19 and shall we give him less than all His infinite excellency and our dependance on him as Creatures demands the choicest adoration Our Spirits being the noblest part of our nature are as due to him as the service of our bodies which are the vilest To serve him with the worst only is to diminish his honour 2. Vnder the Law God commanded the best to be offered him He would have the Males the best of the kind the fat the best of the Creature * Exod. 29.13 The inward fat not the of-fails He commanded them to offer him the Firstlings of the flock not the Firstlings of the Womb but the Firstlings of the Year The Jewish Cattle having two breeding times in the beginning of the Spring and the beginning of September The latter breed was the weaker which Jacob knew * Gen. 30. when he laid the Rods before the Cattle when they were strong in the Spring and witheld them when they were feeble in the Autumn One reason as the Jews say why God accepted not the offering of Cain was because he brought the meanest not the best of the fruit and therefore 't is said only that he brought of the fruit of the Ground Gen. 4.3 not the first of the fruit or the best of the fruit as Abel who brought the Firstling of his Flock and the Fat thereof v. 4. 3. And this the Heathen practiced by the light of Nature They for the most part offered Males as being more worthy and burnt the Male not the Female Frank incense as it is divided into those two kinds They offered the best when they offered their Children to Molock Nothing more excellent than Man and nothing dearer to Parents than their Children which are parts of themselves When the Israelites would have a Golden-Calf for a representation of God they would dedicate their Jewels and strip their Wives and Children of their richest Ornaments to shew their devotion Shall men serve their dumb Idols with the best of their substance and the strength of their Souls and shall the living God have a duller service from us than Idols had from them God requires no such hard but delightful worship from us our spirits 4. All Creatures serve Man by the providential order of God with the best they have As we by Gods appointment receive from Creatures the best they can give ought we not with a free will render to God the best we can offer The Beasts give us their best Fat the Trees their best Fruit the Sun its best Light the Fountains their best Streams Shall God order us the best from Creatures and we put him off with the worst from our selves 5. God hath given us the choicest thing he had A Redeemer that was the Power of God and the Wisdom of God The best he had in Heaven his own Son and in himself a Sacrifice for us that we might be enabled to present our selves a Sacrifice to Him And Christ offered himself for us the best he had and that with the strength of the Deity through the Eternal Spirit and shall we grudge God the best part of our selves As God would have a worship from his Creature so it must be with the best part of his Creature If we have given our selves to the Lord * 2 Cor. 8.5 we can worship with no less than our selves What is the Man without his Spirit If we are to worship God with all that we have received from him we must worship him with the best part we have received from him 'T is but a small glory we can give him with the best and shall we deprive him of his right by giving him the worst As what we are is from God so what we are ought to be for God Creation is the foundation of worship Psal 100.2 3. Serve the Lord with gladness Know ye that the Lord he is God 't is he that hath made us He hath ennobled us with spiritual affections where is it fittest for us to employ them but upon him and at what time but when we come solemnly to converse with him Is it Justice to deny him the honour of his best gift to us Our Souls are more his gift to us than any thing in the World Other things are so given that they are often taken from us but our Spirits are the most durable gift Rational faculties cannot be removed without a dissolution of nature Well then * Amyraut Mor. Tom. 2. P. 311. As he is God he is to be honoured with all the propensions and ardor that the infiniteness and excellency of such a Being requires and the incomparable obligations he hath laid upon us in this state deserve at our hands In all our worship therefore our minds ought to be filled with the highest admiration love and reverence Since our end was to glorifie God we answer not our end and honour him not unless we give him the choicest we have Reason 2. We cannot else act towards God according to the nature of rational Creatures Spiritual worship is due to God because of his nature and due from us because of our nature As we are to adore God so we are to adore him as men The nature of a rational Creature makes this impression upon him He cannot view his own nature without having this duty striking upon his mind As he knows by inspection into himself that there was a God that made him so that he is made to be in subjection to God subjection to him in his Spirit as well as his Body and ought morally to testifie this natural dependance on him His constitution informs him that he hath a capacity to converse with God that he cannot converse with him but by those inward faculties If it could be managed by his Body without his Spirit Beasts might as well converse with God as Men. It can never be a reasonable service as it ought to be * Rom. 12.1 unless the reasonable faculties be employed in the management of it It must be a worship prodigiously lame without the concurrence of the cheifest part of Man with it As we are to act conformably to the nature of the object so also to the nature of our own faculties Our faculties in the very gift of them to us were destined to be exercised about what What All other things but the Author of them 'T is a conceit cannot enter into the heart of a rational Creature that he should act as such a Creature in other things
and as a stone in things relating to the Donor of them as a man with his mind about him in the affairs of the world as a Beast without reason in his acts towards God If a man did not employ his reason in other things he would be an unprofitable Creature in the world If he do not employ his spiritual faculties in worship he denies them the proper end and use for which they were given him 't is a practical denial that God hath given him a Soul and that God hath any right to the exercise of it If there were no worship appointed by God in the world the natural inclination of man to some kind of Religion would be in vain and if our inward faculties were not employed in the duties of Religion they would be in vain The true end of God in the endowment of us with them would be defeated by us as much as lies in us if we did not serve him with that which we have from him solely at his own cost As no man can with reason conclude that the Rest commanded on the Sabbath and the Sanctification of it was only a rest of the body that had been performed by the Beasts as well as Men but some higher end was aimed at for the rational Creature So no man can think that the Command for worship terminated only in the presence of the Body that God should give the Command to Man as a reasonable Creature and expect no other service from him than that of a Brute God did not require a worship from man for any want he had or any essential honour that could accrue to him but that men might testifie their gratitude to him and dependance on him 'T is the most horrid ingratitude not to have lively and deep sentiments of gratitude after such obligations and not to make those due acknowledgments that are proper for a rational Creature Religion is the highest and choicest act of a reasonable Creature No Creature under Heaven is capable of it that wants reason As it is a violation of reason not to worship God so it is no less a violation of reason not to worship him with the Heart and Spirit It is a high dishonour to God and defeats him not only of the service due to him from Man but that which is due to him from all the Creatures Every Creature as it is an effect of Gods Power and Wisdom doth passively worship God that is it doth afford matter of adoration to man that hath reason to collect it and return it where it is due Without the exercise of the Soul we can no more hand it to God than without such an exercise we can gather it from the Creature So that by this neglect the Creatures are restrained from answering their chief end they cannot pay any service to God without man nor can man without the employment of his rational faculties render a homage to God any more than beasts can This engagement of our inward power stands firm and unviolable let the modes of worship be what they will or the changes of them by the Soveraign Authority of God never so frequent this could not expire or be changed as long as the nature of Man endured As Man had not been capable of a Command for Worship unless he had been endued with spiritual faculties so he is not active in a true practice of Worship unless they be imployed by him in it The constitution of Man makes this manner of worship perpetually obligatory and the oblation can never cease till man cease to be a Creature furnisht with such faculties In our worship therefore if we would act like rational Creatures we should extend all the powers of our Souls to the utmost pitch and essay to have apprehensions of God equal to the excellency of his Nature which though we may attempt we can never attain Reason 3. Without this engagement of our Spirits no act is an act of worship True worship being an acknowledgment of God and the perfections of his Nature results only from the Soul that being only capable of knowing God and those perfections which are the object and motive of worship The posture of the body is but to testifie the inward temper and affection of the mind If therefore it testifies what it is not 't is a lye and no worship The cringes a Beast may be taught to make to an Altar may as well be called Worship since a man thinks as little of that God he pretends to honour as the beast doth of the Altar to which he bowes Worship is a reverent remembrance of God and giving some honour to him with the intention of the Soul It cannot justly have the name of Worship that wants the essential part of it 'T is an ascribing to God the glory of his Nature an owning subjection and obedience to him as our soveraign Lord This is as impossible to be performed without the Spirit as that there can be life and motion in a body without a Soul 'T is a drawing neer to God not in regard of his essential presence so all things are neer to God but in an acknowledgement of his excellency which is an act of the Spirit without this the worst of men in a place of worship are as neer to God as the best The necessity of the conjunction of our Soul ariseth from the nature of worship which being the most serious thing we can be employed in the highest converse with the highest object requires the choicest temper of Spirit in the performance That cannot be an act of worship which is not an act of Piety and Vertue but there is no act of vertue done by the members of the Body without the concurrence of the Powers of the Soul We may as well call the presence of a dead Carcass in a place of worship an act of Religion as the presence of a living body without an intent Spirit The separation of the Soul from one is natural the other moral that renders the body lifeless but this renders the act loathsome to God As the being of the Soul gives life to the Body so the operation of the Soul gives life to the actions As he cannot be a man that wants the form of a man a rational Soul so that cannot be a worship that wants an essential part the act of the Spirit God will not vouchsafe any acts of man so noble a title without the requisite qualifications Hos 5.6 They shall go with their Flocks and their Herds to seek the Lord c. A multitude of Lambs and Bullocks for Sacrifice to appease Gods Anger God would not give it the title of worship though instituted by himself when it wanted the qualities of such a service The Spirit of Whoredom was in the midst of them v. 4. In the judgment of our Savior it is a vain worship when the Traditions of Men are taught for the Doctrins of God * Mat. 15.9 and no
one as well as the other denies his spiritual nature This is worse for had it been lawful to represent God to the eye it could not have been done but by a bodily figure suted to the sense but since it is necessary to worship him it cannot be by a corporeal attendance without the operation of the Spirit A spiritual frame is more pleasing to God than the highest exterior adornments than the greatest gifts and the highest Prophetical illuminations The glory of the second Temple exceeded the glory of the first * Hag. 2.8 9. As God accounts the spiritual glory of Ordinances most beneficial for us so our spiritual attendance upon Ordinances is most pleasing to him He that offers the greatest services without it offers but flesh Hos 8.13 They sacrifice Flesh for the Sacrifices of my Offerings but the Lord accepts them not Spiritual frames are the Soul of Religious services all other carriages without them are contemptible to this Spirit We can never lay claim to that promise of God none shall seek my face in vain We affect a vain seeking of him when we want a due temper of Spirit for him And vain Spirits shall have vain returns 'T is more contrary to the nature of Gods Holiness to have communion with such than it is contrary to the nature of Light to have communion with Darkness To make use of this Vse 1. First it serves for information 1. If spiritual worship be required by God How sad is it for them that are so far from giving God a spiritual worship that they render him no worship at all I speak not of the neglect of publick but of private when men present not a devotion to God from one years end to the other The speech of our Saviour that we must worship God in Spirit and Truth implies that a worship is due to him from every one That is the common impression upon the Consciences of all men in the world if they have not by some constant course in gross sins hardned their Souls and stifled those natural sentiments There was never a Nation in the world without some kind of Religion and no Religion was ever without some modes to testifie a devotion The Heathens had their Sacrifices and Purifications and the Jews by Gods order had their rites whereby they were to express their Allegiance to God Consider 1. Worship is a duty incumbent upon all men 'T is a homage Mankind ows to God under the relation wherein he stands obliged to him 'T is a prime and immutable justice to own our Allegiance to him 'T is as unchangeable a truth that God is to be worshipped as that God is He is to be worshipped as God as Creator and therefore by all since he is the Creator of all the Lord of all and all are his Creatures and all are his Subjects Worship is founded upon Creation Psal 100.2 3. 'T is due to God for himself and his own essential excellency and therefore due from all 'T is due upon the account of mans nature The human rational nature is the same in all Whatsoever is due to God upon the account of mans nature and the natural obligations he hath laid upon man is due from all men because they all enjoy the benefits which are proper to their nature Man in no state was exempted nor can be exempted from it In Paradise he had his Sabbath and Sacraments Man therefore dissolves the obligation of a reasonable nature by neglecting the worship of God Religion is in the first place to be minded As soon as Noah came out of the Ark he contrived not a Habitation for himself but an Altar for the Lord to acknowledge him the Author of his preservation from the Deluge * Gen. 8.20 And wheresoever Abraham came his first business was to erect an Altar and pay his arrears of gratitude to God before he ran upon the score for new mercies * Gen. 12.7 Gen. 13.4.18 He left a testimony of worship where ever he came 2. Wholly therefore to neglect it is a high degree of Atheism He that calls not upon God saith in his heart there is no God and seems to have the sentiments of natural Conscience as to God stifled in him * Psal 14.1 4 It must arise from a conceit that there is no God or that we are equal to him adoration not being due from persons of an equal state or that God is unable or unwilling to take notice of the adoring acts of his Creatures What is any of these but an undeifying the supream Majesty When we lay aside all thoughts of paying any homage to him we are in a fair way opinionatively to deny him as much as we practically disown him Where there is no knowledge of God that is no acknowledgment of God a gap is opened to all licentiousness * Hos 4.1 2. And that by degrees brawns the Conscience and raseth out the sense of God Those forsake God that forget his holy Mountain * Isa 65.11 They do not practically own him as the Creator of their Souls or bodies 'T is the sin of Cain who turning his back upon worship is said to go out from the presence of the Lord * Gen. 4.16 Not to worship him with our Spirits is against his Law of Creation Not to worship him at all is against his act of Creation Not to worship him in truth is Hypocrisie Not to worship him at all is Atheism whereby we render our selves worse than the worms in the Earth or a toad in a Ditch 3. To perform a worship to a false God or to the true God in a false manner seems to be less a sin than to live in perpetual neglects of it Though it be directed to a false Object instead of God yet it is under the notion of a God and so is an acknowledgement of such a Being as God in the world whereas the total neglect of any worship is a practical denying of the existence of any supream Majesty Whosoever constantly omits a publick and private worship transgresses against an universally received dictate For all Nations have agreed in the common notion of worshipping God though they have disagreed in the several modes and rites whereby they would testifie that adoration By a worship of God though superstitious a veneration and reverence of such a being is maintained in the world whereas by a total neglect of worship he is vertually disowned and discarded if not from his existence yet from his Providence and Government of the world All the mercies we breath in are denied to flow from him A foolish worship owns Religion though it bespatters it As if a stranger coming into a Country mistakes a Subject for the Prince and pays that reverence to the Subject which is due to the Prince though he mistakes the object yet he owns an Authority or if he pays any respect to the true Prince of that Country after the mode of
up and the Devil stands ready to tempt us to self-confidence You know how it was with Paul * 2 Cor. 12. from v. 1. to v. 7. His buffetings were occasions to render him more spiritual than his raptures because more humble God suffers those wandrings starts and distractions to prevent our spiritual pride which is as a Worm at the root of spiritual worship and mind us of the dusty frame of our Spirits how easily they are blown away As he sends sickness to put us in mind of the shortness of our breath and the easiness to lose it God would make us ashamed of our selves in his presence that we may own that what is good in any duty is meerly from his Grace and Spirit and not from our selves That with Paul we may cry out by Grace we are what we are and by Grace we do what we do We may be hereby made sensible that God can alway find something in our exactest worship as a ground of denying us the successful fruit of it If we cannot stand upon our duties for Salvation what can we bottom upon in our selves If therefore they are occasions to make us out of love with any righteousness of our own to make us break our hearts for them because we cannot keep them out If we mourn for them as our sins and count them our great afflictions we have attained that brokeness which is a choice ingredient in a spiritual Sacrifice Though we have been disturbed by them yet we are not robbed of the success we may behold an answer of our worship in our humiliation in spite of all of them 2. For the baseness of our Nature These unsteady motions help us to discern that heap of vermin that breeds in our nature Would any man think he had such an averseness to his Creator and Benefactor such an unsutableness to him such an estrangedness from him were it not for his inspection into his distracted frames God suffers this to hang over us as a Rod of Correction to discover and fetch out the folly of our hearts Could we imagin our natures so highly contrary to that God who is so infinitely amiable so desirable an Object or that there should be so much folly and madness in the heart as to draw back from God in those services which God hath appointed as pipes through which to communicate his grace to convey himself his love and goodness to the Creature If therefore we have a deep sense of and strong reflections upon our base nature and bewail that mass of aversness which lies there and that fulness of irreverence towards the God of our mercies the Object of our worship 't is a blessed improvement of our wandrings and diversions Certainly if any Israelite had brought a lame and rotten Lamb to be sacrificed to God and afterward had bewailed it and laid open his heart to God in a sensible and humble confession of it That Repentance had been a better Sacrifice and more acceptable in the sight of God than if he had brought a sound and a living Offering 2. When they are occasions to make us prize duties of worship When we argue as rationally we may that they are of singular use since our corrupt hearts and a malicious Devil doth chiefly endeavour to hinder us from them And that we find we have not those gadding thoughts when we are upon worldly business or upon any sinful design which may dishonour God and wound our Souls This is a sign Sin and Satan dislike worship for he is too subtle a Spirit to oppose that which would further his Kingdom As it is an argument the Scripture is the Word of God because the wickedness of the world doth so much oppose it so it is a ground to believe the profitableness and excellency of worship because Satan and our own unruly hearts do so much interrupt us in it If therefore we make this use of our cross steps in worship to have a greater value for such duties more affections to them and desires to be frequent in them Our hearts are growing spiritual under the weights that would depress them to carnality 3. When we take a rise from hence to have heavenly admirations of the graciousness of God That he should pity and pardon so many slight addresses to him and give any gracious returns to us Though men have foolish rangings every day and in every duty yet free grace is so tender as not to punish them Gen. 8.21 And the Lord smelt a sweet savour and the Lord said in his heart I will not curse the Ground for mans sake for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth 'T is observable that this was just after a Sacrifice which Noah offered to God v. 20. But probably not without infirmities common to human nature which may be grounded upon the reason God gives that though he had destroyed the Earth before because of the evil of mans imaginations Gen. 6.5 He still found evil imaginations He doth not say in the heart of Cham or others of Noah's Family but in mans heart including Noah also who had both the Judgments of God upon the former world and the mercy of God in his own preservation before his eyes yet God sawevil imaginations rooted in the nature of Man and though it were so yet he would be merciful If therefore we can after finding our hearts so vagrant in worship have real frames of thankfulness that God hath spared us and be hightned in our admirations at Gods giving us any fruit of such a distracted worship we take advantage from them to be raised into an Evangelical frame which consists in the humble acknowledgments of the grace of God When David takes a review of those tumultuous passions which had rufled his mind and possessed him with unbelieving notions of God in the persons of his Prophets * Psal 116.11 how high doth his Soul mount in astonishment and thankfulness to God for his mercy * verse 12. Notwithstanding his distrust God did graciously perform his promise and answer his desire Then it is what shall I render to the Lord His heart was more affected for it because it had been so passionate in former distrusts 'T is indeed a ground of wondring at the patience of the Spirit of God that he should guide our hearts when they are so apt to start out as it is the patience of a Master to guide the hand of his Scholar while he mixes his writing with many blots 'T is not one or two infirmities the Spirit helps us in and helps over but many * Rom. 8.26 'T is a sign of a spiritual heart when he can take a rise to bless God for the renewing and blowing up his affections in the midst of so many incursions from Satan to the contrary and the readiness of the heart too much to comply with them 4. When we take occasion from thence to prize the mediation of Christ The
be purged as well as the Temple was by our Saviour of the Thieves that would rob God of his due worship Antiquity had some Temples wherein it was a crime to bring any gold therefore those that came to worship laid their gold aside before they went into the Temple We should lay aside our worldly and trading thoughts before we address to worship Isa 26.9 With my Spirit within me will I seek thee early Let not our minds be gadding abroad and exil'd from God and themselves It will be thus when the desire of our Soul is to his name and the remembrance of him ver 8. When he hath given so great and admirable a gift as that of his Son in whom are all things necessary to Salvation Righteousness Peace and pardon of sin we should manage the remembrance of his name in worship with the closest unitedness of heart and the most Spiritual affections The motion of the Spirit is the first act in Religion to this we are obliged in every act The Devil requires the Spirit of his votaries should God have a less dedication than the Devil Motives to back this exhortation 1. Not to give God our Spirit is a great sin T is a mockery of God not worship contempt not adoration whatever our outward fervency or protestations may be * Nâ—n valet prâ—testatio câ—ntra jactum is a rule in the civil law Every alienation of our hearts from him is a real scorn put upon him The acts of the Soul are real and more the acts of the man than the acts of the body because they are the acts of the choicest part of man and of that which is the first spring of all bodily motions 't is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Inrenal speech whereby we must speak with God To give him therefore only an external form of worship without the life of it is a taking his name in vain We mock him when we mind not what we are speaking to him or what he is speaking to us when the motions of our hearts are contrary to the motions of our tongues when we do any thing before him slovenly impudently or rashly As in a Lutinisi it is absurd to sing one Tune and play another so it is a foul thing to tell God one thing with our lips and think another thing with our hearts 't is a sin like that the Apostle chargeth the Heathens with Rom. 1.28 they like not to retain God in their knowledge their stomachs are sick while they are upon any duty and never leave working till they have thrown up all the spiritual part of Worship and rid themselves of the thoughts of God which are as unwelcome and troublesome Guests to them When men behave themselves in the sight of God as if God were not God they do not only defame him but deny him and violate the unchangeable perfections of the Divine Nature 1. 'T is against the Majesty of God When we have not awful thoughts of that great Majesty to whom we address when our Souls cleave not to him when we petition him in Prayer or when he gives out his Orders to us in his Word 'T is a contempt of the Majesty of a Prince if whiles he is speaking to us we listen not to him with reverence and attention but turn our backs on him to play with one of his Hounds or talk with a Begger or while we speak to him to rake in a Dunghill Solomon adviseth us to keep our foot when we go to the House of God * Eccles 5.1 Our affections should be steady and not slip away again why v. 2. because God is in Heaven c. He is a God of Majesty earthly durty frames are unsutable to the God of Heaven low Spirits are unsutable to the most High We would not bring our mean Servants or durty Dogs into a Princes Presence Chamber yet we bring not only our worldly but our prophane affections into Gods presence We give in this case those services to God which our Governour would think unworthy of him * Mal. 1.8 The more excellent and glorious God is the greater contempt of him it is to suffer such foolish affections to be Competitors with him for our hearts 'T is a scorn put upon him to converse with a Creature while we are dealing with him but a greater to converse in our thoughts and fancies with some sordid lust which is most hateful to him And the more aggravation it attracts in that we are to apprehend him the most glorious Object sitting upon his Throne in time of worship and our selves standing as vile Creatures before him supplicating for our lives and the conveyances of grace and mercy to our Souls As if a grand Mutineer instead of humbly begging the pardon of his offended Prince should present his Petition not only scribled and blotted but besmeared with some loathsome excrement 'T is unbecoming the Majesty both of God and the worship it self to present him with a Picture instead of Substance and bring a world of nasty affections in our hearts and ridiculous toys in our heads before him and worship with indisposed and heedless Souls Malac. 1.14 He is a great King therefore address to him with fear and reverence 2. 'T is against the Life of God Is a dead worship proportioned to a living God The separation of heavenly affections from our Souls before God makes them as much a Carcass in his sight as the divorce of the Soul makes the Body a Carcass When the affections are separated worship is no longer worship but a dead offering a liveless bulk for the essence and spirit of worship is departed Though the Soul be present with the Body in a way of information yet it is not present in a way of affection and this is the worst for it is not the separation of the Soul from informing that doth separate a man from God but the removal of our affections from him If a man pretend an application to God and sleep and snore all the time without question such a one did not worship In a careless worship the heart is morally dead while the eyes are open The heart of the Spouse * Cant. 5.2 waked whiles her eyes slept and our hearts on the contrary sleep while our eyes wake Our blessed Saviour hath died to purge our Consciences from dead works and frames that we may serve the living God * Heb. 9.14 to serve God as a God of Life Davids Soul cried and fainted for God under this consideration * Psal 42.2 But to present our Bodies without our Spirits is such a usage of God that implies he is a dead Image not worthy of any but a dead and heartless service Like one of those Idols the Psalmist speaks of * Psal 115.5 that have eyes and see not ears and hear not no life in it Though it be not an objective Idolatry because the worship is directed to the true
as well as Heathens who used the outward Ceremonies not as signs of better things but as if they did of themselves please God and render the worshippers accepted with him without any sutable frame of the inward man * Amirald in loc It is as if he had said now you must separate your selves from all carnal modes to which the service of God is now tyed and render a worship chiefly consisting in the affectionate motions of the heart and accommodated more exactly to the condition of the object who is a Spirit In Spirit and Truth * Amirald in loc The Evangelical Service now required has the advantage of the former that was a Shadow and Figure this the Body and Truth * Muscul Spirit say some is here opposed to the legal Ceremonies Truth to hypocritical services or * Chemnit rather truth is opposed to shadows and an opinion of worth in the outward action 't is principally opposed to external Rites because our Saviour saith v. 23. The hour comes and â—oâ— is c. Had it been opposed to Hypocrisy Christ had said no new thing For God always required Truth in the inward parts and all true Worshippers had served him with a sincere Conscience and single Heart The old Patriarks did worship God in Spirit and Truth as taken for sincerity Such a Worship was always and is perpetually due to God because he always was and eternally will be a Spirit * Musâ—al And it is said the Father seeks such to worship him not shall seek He always sought it it always was performed to him by one or other in the world And the Prophets had always rebuked them for resting upon their outward Solemnities Isa 58.7 and Micah 6.8 But a Worship without legal Rites was proper to an Evangelical State and the times of the Gospel God having then exhibited Christ and brought into the world the substance of those shadows and the end of those institutions There was no more need to continue them when the true reason of them was ceased All Laws do naturally expire when the true reason upon which they were first framed is changed Or by Spirit may be meant such a Worship as is kindled in the heart by the breath of the holy Ghost Since we are dead in sin a spiritual light and flame in the heart sutable to the nature of the object of our worship cannot be raised in us without the operation of a supernatural Grace And though the Fathers could not worship God without the Spirit yet in the Gospel-times there being a fuller effusion of the Spirit the Evangelical State is called the administration of the Spirit and the newness of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the legal Oeconomy entitled the oldness of the Letter * Rom. 7.6 The Evangelical State is more suted to the Nature of God than any other Such a Worship God must have whereby he is acknowledged to be the true Sanctifier and Quickner of the Soul The nearer God doth approach to us and the more full his manifestations are the more spiritual is the Worship we return to God The Gospel pares off the rugged parts of the Law and Heaven shall remove what is material in the Gospel and change the Ordinances of Worship into that of a Spiritual Praise In the words there is 1. A Proposition God is a Spirit The Foundation of all Religion 2. An Inference they that worship him c. As God a Worship belongs to him as a Spirit a spiritual Worship is due to him in the inference we have 1. The manner of Worship in Spirit and Truth 2. The necessity of such a Worship must The Proposition declares the Nature of God the Inference the Duty of Man The Observations lie plain Ob. 1. God is a pure spiritual Being He is a Spirit 2. The Worship due from the Creature to God must be agreeable to the Nature of God and purely spiritual 3. The Evangelical State is suted to the Nature of God For the first D. God is a pure spiritual Being 'T is the Observation of one * Episcop insti tut l. 4. c. 3. that the plain assertion of Gods being a Spirit is found but once in the whole Bible and that is in this place which may well be wondred at because God is so often described with hands feet eyes and ears in the form and figure of a Man The spiritual Nature of God is deducible from many places but not any where as I remember asserted totidem verbis but in this Text Some alledge that place 2 Cor. 3.17 the Lord is that Spirit for the proof of it but that seems to have a different sense In the Text the Nature of God is described in that place the operations of God in the Gospel * Amyrald in loc 'T is not the Ministry of Moses or that old Covenant which communicates to you that Spirit it speaks of but it is the Lord Jesus and the Doctrin of the Gospel delivered by him whereby this Spirit and Liberty is dispensed to you He opposes here the Liberty of the Gospel to the Servitude of the Law 'T is from Christ that a Divine Vertue diffuseth it self by the Gospel 't is by him not by the Law that we partake of that Spirit * Suarez de Deo vol. 1. P. 9. Col. 2. The Spirituality of God is as evident as his Being If we grant that God is we must necessarily grant that he cannot be corporeal because a Body is of an imperfect Nature It will appear incredible to any that acknowledge God the first Being and Creator of all things that he should be a massy heavy Body and have Eyes and Ears Feet and hands as we have For the explication of it 1. Spirit is taken various ways in Scripture It signifies sometimes an aereal substance as Psal 11.6 A horrible Tempest Heb. A Spirit of Tempest Sometimes the breath which is a thin substance Gen. 6.17 All Flesh wherein is the breath of Life Heb. Spirit of Life A thin substance though it be material and corporeal is called Spirit And in the bodies of living Creatures that which is the principle of their actions is called Spirits the animal and vital Spirits And the finer parts extracted from Plants and Minerals we call Spirits Those volatile parts separated from that gross matter wherein they were immerst because they come nearest to the nature of an incorporeal substance And from this notion of the word 't is translated to signifie those substances that are purely immaterial as Angels and the Souls of Men. Angels are called Spirits Psal 104.4 who makes his Angels Spirits * Heb. 1.14 And not only good Angels are so called but evil Angels Mark 1.27 Souls of men are called Spirits Eccl. 12. And the Soul of Christ is called so John 19.30 whence God is called the God of the Spirits of all Flesh Numb 22.16 and Spirit is opposed to Flesh Isa
representations were made as were accomodated to the inward sense of Daniel Daniel saw him in a rapture or extasy wherein outward senses are of no use God is described not as he is in himself of a human form but in regard of his fitness to Judge White notes the purity and simplicity of the Divine nature Ancient of days in regard of his eternity white hair in regard of his prudence and wisdom which is more eminent in age than youth and more fit to discern causes and to distinguish between right and wrong Visions are riddles and must not be understood in a litteral sense We are to watch against such determinate conceptions of God Vain imaginations do easily infest us Tinder will not sooner take fire than our natures kindle into wrong Notions of the Divine Majesty We are very apt to fashion a God like our selves We must therefore look upon such representations of God as accommodated to our weakness And no more think them to be literal descriptions of God as he is in himself than we will think the image of the Sun in the water to be the true Sun in the Heavens We may indeed conceive of Christ as man who hath in Heaven the vestment of our nature and is Deus figuratus tho we cannot conceive the God-head under a human shape 1. To have such a fancy is to disparage and wrong God A Corporeal fancy of God is as ridiculous in it self and as injurious to God as a wooden Statue The capricios of our imagination are often more monstrous than the images which are the works of art T is as irreligious to measure Gods essence by our line his perfections by our imperfections as to measure his thoughts and actings by the weakness and unworthiness of our own This is to limit an infinite essence and pull him down to our scanty measures and render that which is unconceivably above us equal with us T is impossible we can conceive God after the manner of we a body but must bring him down to the proportion of a body which is to diminish his glory and stoop him below the dignity of his nature God is a pure Spirit he hath nothing of the nature and tincture of a body whosoever therefore conceives of him as having a bodily form tho he fancy the most beautiful and comely body instead of owning his dignity detracts from the supereminent excellency of his nature and blessedness When men fancy God like themselves in their Corporeal nature they will soon make a progress and ascribe to him their corrupt nature and while they clothe him with their bodies invest him also in the infirmities of them God is a jealous God very sensible of any disgrace and will be as much incensed against an inward Idolatry as an outward That * Exod. 20.4 Command which forbad Corporeal images would not indulge carnal imaginations since the nature of God is as much wronged by unworthy images erected in the fancy as by statues carved out of stone or metals One as well as the other is a deserting of our true spouse and committing Adultery one with a material image and the other with a carnal Notion of God Since God humbles himself to our apprehensions we should not debase him in thinking him to be that in his nature which he makes only a resemblance of himself to us 2. To have such fancies of God will obstruct and pollute our worship of him How is it possible to give him a right worship of whom we have so debasing a Notion We shall never think a corporeal Deity worthy of a dedication of our Spirits The hating Instruction and casting Gods word behind the back is charged upon the imagination they had that God was such a one as themselves Psal 50.17.21 Many of the wiser Heathens did not judge their Statues to be their Gods or their Gods to be like their Statues but suted them to their politick designs and judged them a good invention to keep people within the bounds of Obedience and Devotion by such visible figures of them which might imprint a reverence and fear of those Gods upon them But these were false measures A despised and undervalued God is not an Object of Petition or Affection Who would address seriously to a God he has low apprehensions of The more raised thoughts we have of him the viler sense we shall have of our selves They would make us humble and self abhorrent in our supplications to him Job 42.6 wherefore I abhorr my self c. 3. Though we must not conceive of God as of a human or Corporeal shape yet we cannot think of God without some reflection upon our own being We cannot conceive him to be an intelligent being but we must make some comparison between him and our own understanding nature to come to a knowledge of him Since we are inclosed in bodies we apprehend nothing but what comes in by sense and what we in some sort measure by sensible Objects And in the consideration of those things which we desire to abstract from sense we are fain to make use of the assistances of sense and visible things And therefore when we frame the highest notion there will be some similitude of some corporeal thing in our fancy and though we would spiritualize our thoughts and aim at a more abstracted and raised understanding yet there will be some dreggs of matter sticking to our conceptions yet we still judge by argument and reasoning what the thing is we think of under those material Images * Nazianzen A corporeal Image will follow us as the shadow doth the body While we are in the body and surrounded with fleshly matter we cannot think of things without some help from corporeal representations Something of sense will interpose it self in our purest conceptions of spiritual things * Amiraut Morale Tom. 1. P. 180 c. for the faculties which serve for contemplation are either corporeal as the sense and fancy or so allyed to them that nothing passes into them but by the Organs of the body so that there is a natural inclination to figure nothing but under a corporeal notion till by an attentive application of the mind and reason to the object thought upon we separate that which is bodily from that which is spiritual and by degrees ascend to that true notion of that we think upon and would have a due conception of in our mind Therefore God tempers the declaration of himself to our weakness and the condition of our Natures He condescends to our littleness and narrowness when he declares himself by the similitude of bodily members As the light of the Sun is tempered and diffuseth it self to our sense through the air and vapours that our weak eyes may not be too much dazled with it Without it we could not know or judge of the Sun because we could have no use of our sense which we must have before we can judge of it in our
with hatred The beneficence and patience of God and his readiness to pardon men is the reason of the honour they return to him And this is so evident a motive that generally the Idolatrous world rankt those Creatures in the number of their Gods which they perceived useful and neficial to man-kind as the Sun and Mooâ— the Aegyptians the Ox c. And the more beneficial any thing appeared to mankind the higher station men gave it in the rank of their deities and bestowed a more peculiar and solemn worship upon it Men worshipped God to procure or continue his favour which would not have been acted by them had they not conceived it a pleasing thing to him to be merciful and gracious Sometimes his Justice is proposed to us as a motive of worship Heb. 12.28 29. Serve God with Reverence and Godly fear for our God is a consuming fire which includes his holiness whereby he doth hate sin as well as his wrath whereby he doth punish it Who but a mad and totally brutish person or one that was resolved to make war against heaven could behold the effects of Gods anger in the world consider him in his Justice as a consuming fire and despise him and rather be drawn out by that consideration to blasphemy and despair than to seek all ways to appease him Now tho the infinite power of God his unspeakable wisdom his incomprehensible goodness the holiness of his nature the vigilance of his Providence the bounty of his hand signifie to man that he should love and honour him and are the motives of worship yet the Spirituality of his nature is the rule of worship and directs us to render our duty to him with all the powers of our Soul As his goodness beams out upon us worship is due in Justice to him and as he is the most excellent nature veneration is due to him in the highest manner with the choicest affections So that indeed the Spirituality of God comes chiefly into consideration in matter of worship All his perfections are grounded upon this He could not be infinite immutable omniscient if he were a Corporeal being * Amirald dissert 6. disp 1. pa. 11. We cannot give him a worship unless we Judge him worthy excellent and deserving a worship at our hands And we cannot Judge him worthy of a worship unless we have some apprehensions and admirations of his infinite vertues And we cannot apprehend and admire those perfections but as we see them as causes shining in their effects When we see therefore the frame of the world to be the work of his power the order of the world to be the fruit of his wisdom and the usefulness of the world to be the product of his goodness We find the motives and reasons of worship and weighing that this power wisdom goodness infinitely transcend any corporeal nature we find a rule of worship that it ought to be offered by us in a manner sutable to such a nature as is infinitely above any bodily Being His being a Spirit declares what he is his other perfections declare what kind of Spirit he is All Gods perfections suppose him a Spirit all center in this His wisdom doth not suppose him merciful or his mercy suppose him omniscient There may be distinct notions of those but all suppose him to be of a spiritual nature How cold and frozen will our devotions be if we consider not his omniscience whereby he discerns our hearts How carnal will our services be if we consider him not as a pure Spirit * Amyraut de Relig. In our offers to and transactions with men we deal not with them as meer Animals but as rational Creatures and we debase their natures if we treat them otherwise And if we have not raised apprehensions of Gods spiritual nature in our treating with him but allow him only such frames as we think fit enough for men we debase his spirituality to the littleness of our own Being We must therefore possess our Souls with this we shall else render him no better than a fleshly service We do not much concern our selves in those things of which we are either utterly ignorant or have but slight apprehensions of That is the first Proposition The right exercise of worship is grounded upon the spirituality of God Propos 2. This spiritual worship of God is manifest by the light of Nature to be due to him In reference to this consider 1. The outward means or matter of that worship which would be acceptable to God was not known by the light of Nature The Law for a Worship and for a spiritual worship by the faculties of our Souls was natural and part of the Law of Creation though the determination of the particular acts whereby God would have this homage testified was of positive institution and depended not upon the Law of Creation Though Adam in Innocence knew God was to be worshipped yet by Nature he did not know by what outward acts he was to pay this respect or at what time he was more solemnly to be exercised in it than at another This depended upon the directions God as the soveraign Governour and Law-giver should prescribe You therefore find the positive institutions of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and the determination of the time of worship Gen. 2.3.17 Had there been any such notion in Adam naturally as strong as that other that a worship was due to God there would have been found some reliques of these modes universally consented to by Mankind as well as of the other But though all Nations have by an universal consent concurred in the acknowledgment of the Being of God and his right to adoration and the obligation of the Creature to it and that there ought to be some publick rule and polity in matters of Religion for no Nation hath been in the world without a worship and without external acts and certain ceremonies to signifie that worship yet their modes and rites have been as various as their climates unless in that common notion of sacrifices not descending to them by nature but tradition from Adam and the various ways of worship have been more provoking than pleasing Every Nation suted the kind of worship to their particular ends and polities they designed to rule by How God was to be worshipped is more difficult to be discerned by Nature with its eyes out than with its eyes clear * King on Jonah P. 63. The pillars upon which the worship of God stands cannot be discerned without revelation no more than blind Sampson could tell where the pillars of the Philistians Theatre stood without one to conduct him What Adam could not see with his sound eyes we cannot with our dim eyes He must be told from Heaven what worship was fit for the God of Heaven 'T is not by Nature that we can have such a full prospect of God as may content and quiet us This is the noble
of the Soul 't is there his Image glitters He hath given us a Jewel as well as a Case and the Jewel as well as the Case we must return to him The Spirit is Gods gift and must return to him * Eccl. 12.7 It must return to him in every service morally as well as it must return to him at last physically 'T is not fit we should serve our Maker only with that which is the Brute in us and withold from him that which doth constitue us reasonable Creatures we must give him our bodies but a living Sacrifice * Rom. 12.1 If the Spirit be absent from God when the Body is before him we present a dead Sacrifice 'T is morally dead in the duty though it be naturally alive in the posture and action 'T is not an indifferent thing whether we shall worship God or no nor is it an indifferent thing whether we shall worship him without Spirits or no As the excellency of mans knowledge consists in knowing things as they are in Truth so the excellency of the Will in willing things as they are in goodness As it is the excellency of Man to know God as God so it is no less his excellency as well as his duty to honour God as God As the obligation we have to the Power of God for our Being binds us to a worship of him so the obligation we have to his bounty for fashioning us according to his own Image binds us to an exercise of that part wherein his Image doth consist God hath made all things for himself Pro. 16.4 that is for the evidence of his own goodness and wisdom We are therefore to render him a glory according to the the excellency of his nature discovered in the frame of our own T is as much our sin not to glorifie God as God as not to attempt the glorifying of him at all T is our sin not to worship God as God as well as to omit the testifying any respect at all to him As the divine nature is the object of worship so the Divine perfections are to be honoured in worship We do not honour God if we honour him not as he is we honour him not as a Spirit if we think him not worthy of the ardors and ravishing admirations of our Spirits If we think the Devotions of the body are sufficient for him we contract him into the condition of our own being and not only deny him to be a Spiritual nature but dash out all those perfections which he could not be possessed of were he not a Spirit 5. The Ceremonial law was abolisht to promote the Spirituality of Divine worship That service was gross carnal calculated for an infant and sensitive Church It consisted in rudiments the Circumcision of the flesh the blood and smoak of Sacrifices the steams of incense observation of days distinction of meats Corporal purifications every leaf of the law is clogged with some rite to be particularly observed by them The Spirituality of worship lay veild under a thick cloâ—ld that the people could not behold the glory of the Gospel which lay covered under those shadows 2 Cor. 3.13 They could not stedfastly look to the â—â—d of that which is abolished They understood not the Glory and Spiritual intent of the law and therefore came short of that Spiritual frame in the worship of God which was their duty And therefore in opposition to this administration the worship of God under the Gospel is called by our Saviour in the Text a worship in Spirit more Spiritual for the matter more Spiritual for the motives and more Spiritual for the manner and frames of worship 1. This legal service is called flesh in Scripture in opposition to the Gospel which is called Spirit The ordinances of the Law tho of Divine institution are dignified by the Apostle with no better a title than Carnal ordinances * Heb. 9.10 and a Carnal Command * Heb. 7.16 But the Gospel is called the Ministration of the Spirit as being attended with a special and Spiritual efficacy on the minds of men * 2 Cor. 3.8 And when the degenerate Galatians after having tasted of the pure streams of the Gospel turned about to drink of the thicker streams of the Law the Apostle tells them that they begun in the Spirit and would now be made perfect in the flesh * Gal. 3.3 They would leave the righteousness of faith for a justification by works The moral law which is in its own nature Spiritual * Rom. 7.14 in regard of the abuse of it in expectation of justification by the outward works of it is called flesh Much more may the Ceremonial administration which was never intended to run parallel with the moral nor had any foundation in nature as the other had That whole Oeconomy consisted in sensible and material things which only touched the flesh 'T is called the letter and the oldness of the Letter * Rom. 7.6 as Letters which are but empty sounds of themselves but put together and formed into words signifie something to the mind of the hearer or reader An old Letter a thing of no efficacy upon the Spirit but as a law written upon paper The Gospel hath an efficacious Spirit attending it strongly working upon the mind and Will and moulding the Soul into a Spiritual frame for God according to the Doctrin of the Gospel the one is old and decays the other is new and increaseth dayly And as the law it self is called flesh so the observers of it and resters in it are called Israel after the flesh * 1 Cor. 10.18 And the Evangelical worshipper is called a Jew after the Spirit Rom. 2.29 They were Israel after the flesh as born of Jacob not Israel after the Spirit as born of God and therefore the Apostle calls them Israel and not Israel * Rom. 9.6 Israel after a carnal birth not Israel after a Spiritual Israel in the Circumcision of the flesh not Israel by a regeneration of the heart 2. The legal Ceremonies were not a fit means to bring the heart into a Spiritual frame They had a Spiritual intent the Rock and Manna prefigured the Salvation and Spiritual nourishment by the Redeemer * 1 Cor. 10.3 4. The Sacrifices were to point them to the Justice of God in the punishment of sin and the mercy of God in substituting them in their steads as types of the Redeemer and the ransome by his blood The Circumcision of the flesh was to instruct them in the Circumcision of the heart They were flesh in regard of their matter weakness and cloudiness Spiritual in regard of their intent and signification They did instruct but not efficaciously work strong Spiritual affections in the Soul of the worshipper They were weak and beggerly elements * Gal 4.9 had neither wealth to inrich nor strength to nourish the Soul They could not perfect the Comers to them or put
that we might now serve God in a more spiritual manner and with more spiritual frames 6. Proposition The Service and worship the Gospel settles is spiritual and the performance of it more spiritual Spirituality is the Genius of the Gospel as Carnality was of the Law the Gospel is therefore called Spirit We are abstracted from the imployments of Sense and brought neerer to a Heavenly State The Jews had Angels Bread poured upon them we have Angels Service prescribed to us the Praises of God Communion with God in Spirit through his Son Jesus Christ and stronger foundations for spiritual affections 'T is called a reasonable service * Rom. 12.1 t is suted to a rational nature tho it finds no friendship from the Corruption of reason It prescribes a service fit for the reasonable faculties of the Soul and advanceth them while it employs them The word reasonable may be translated word service * V. Hammond in loc as well as reasonable service an Evangelical service in opposition to a Law service All Evangelical service is reasonable and all truly reasonable service is Evangelical The matter of the worship is Spiritual it consists in love of God faith in God recourse to his goodness Meditation on him and Communion with him It lays aside the Ceremonial Spiritualizeth the moral The Commands that concerned our duty to God as well as those that concerned our duty to our Neighbour were reduced by Christ to their Spiritual intention The Motives are Spiritual t is a state of more grace as well as of more truth * John 1.17 supported by Spiritual promises beaming out in Spiritual priviledges heaven comes down in it to Earth to Spiritualize Earth for Heaven The manner of worship is more Spiritual higher flights of the Soul stronger ardours of affections sincerer aims at his glory mists are removed from our minds Cloggs from the Soul more of love than fear faith in Christ kindles the affections and works by them The assistances to Spiritual worship are greater The Spirit doth not drop but is plentifully poured out It doth not light sometimes upon but dwells in the heart Christ suted the Gospel to a Spiritual heart and the Spirit changeth a carnal heart to make it fit for a Spiritual Gospel He blows upon the Garden and causes the spices to flow forth And often makes the Soul in worship like the Chariots of Aminadab in a quick and nimble motion Our blessed Lord and Saviour by his death discovered to us the nature of God and after his ascension sent his Spirit to fit us for the worship of God and converse with him One Spiritual Evangelical believing breath is more delightful to God than millions of Altars made up of the richest pearls and smoaking with the costliest oblations because it is Spiritual And a mite of Spirit is of more worth than the greatest weight of flesh One holy Angel is more excellent than a whole world of meer bodies 7. Proposition Yet the worship of God with our bodies is not to be rejected upon the account that God requires a Spiritual worship Tho we must perform the weightier duties of the Law yet we are not to omit and leave undone the lighter precepts Since both the Magnalia and minutula legis the greater and the lesser duties of the Law have the stamp of Divine authority upon them As God under the Ceremonial Law did not Command the worship of the body and the observation of outward rites without the engagement of the Spirit so neither doth he Command that of the Spirit without the peculiar attendance of the body The Schwelk sendians denied bodily worship And the indecent postures of many in publick attendance intimate no great care either of Composing their bodies or Spirits A morally discomposed body intimates a tainted heart Our Bodies as well as our Spirits are to be presented to God * Rom. 12.1 Our bodies in lieu of the Sacrifices of Beasts as in the Judaical institutions body for the whole man a living Sacrifice not to be slain as the Beasts were but living a new life in a holy posture with Crucified affections This is the inference the Apostle makes of the priviledges of Justification Adoption Coheirship with Christ which he had before discoursed of Priviledges conferred upon the person and not upon a part of man 1. Bodily worship is due to God He hath a right to an Adoration by our bodies as they are his by Creation his right is not diminisht but increased by the blessing of Redemption 1 Cor. 6.20 For you are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your bodies and your Spirits which are Gods The Body as well as the Spirit is redeemed since our Saviour suffered Crucifixion in his body as well as Agonies in his Soul Body is not taken here for the whole man as it may be in Rom. 12. But for the material part of our nature it being distinguisht from the Spirit If we are to render to God an obedience with our bodies we are to render him such Acts of worship with our bodies as they are capable of As God is the Father of Spirits so he is the God of all flesh Therefore the flesh he hath framed of the Earth as well as the noble portion he hath breathed into us cannot be denyed him without apalpable in justice The service of the body we must not deny to God unless we will deny him to be the author of it and the exercise of his providential care about it The mercies of God are renewed every day upon our bodies as well as our Souls and therefore they ought to express a fealty to God for his bounty everyday * Sherman's Greek in the Temple pa. 61.62 both are from God both should be for God Man consists of Body and Soul the service of Man is the service of both The body is to be Sanctified as well as the Soul and therefore to be offered to God as well as the Soul Both are to be glorified both are to glorifie As our Saviours Divinity was manifested in his body so should our Spirituality in ours To give God the service of the body and not of the Soul is hypocrisie to give God the service of the Spirit and not of the body is sacriledge to give him neither Atheism If the only part of man that is visible were exempted from the service of God there could be no visible Testimonies of piety given upon any occasion Since not a moiety of man but the whole is Gods Creature he ought to pay a homage with the whole and not only with a moiety of himself 2. Worship in societies is due to God but this cannot be without some bodily expressions The law of nature doth as much direct men to combine together in publick societies for the acknowledgment of God as in Civil Communities for self preservation and order And the notice of a society for Religion is more Ancient than the mention of
Civil associations for Politick Government Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord viz. In the time of Seth. No question but Adam had worshipped God before as well as Abel and a Family-Religion had been preserved but as mankind increased in distinct Families they knit together in Companies to solemnize the worship of God * Stillingfleet's Irenicum cap. 1. § 1. pa. 23. Hence as some think those that incorporated together for such ends were called the Sons of God Sons by profession tho not Sons by Adoption As those of Corinth were Saints by profession tho in such a Corrupted Church they could not be all so by regeneration yet Saints as being of a Christian society and calling upon the name of Christ that is worshipping God in Christ tho they might not be all Saints in Spirit and Practise So Cain and Abel met together to worship Gen 4.3 at the end of the days at a set time God setled a publick worship among the Jews instituted Synagogues for their Convening together whence call'd the Synagogues of God * Psa 74.8 The Sabbath was instituted to acknowledge God a Common Benefactor Publick worship keeps up the Memorials of God in a world prone to Atheism and a sense of God in a heart prone to forgetfulness The Angels sung in Company not singly at the Birth of Christ * Luke 2.13 and praised God not only with a simple elevation of their Spiritual nature but audibly by forming a voice in the air Affections are more lively Spirits more raised in publick than private God will Credit his own ordinance Fire increaseth by laying together many Coals on one place so is devotion inflamed by the union of many hearts and by a joynt presence Nor can the approach of the last day of Judgment or particular Judgments upon a Nation give a Writ of ease from such assemblies Heb. 10.25 Not forsaking the assembling our selves together but so much the more as you see the day approaching Whether it be understood of the day of Judgment or the day of the Jewish destruction and the Christian persecution the Apostle uses it as an argument to quicken them to the observance not to encourage them to a neglect Since therefore natural light informs us and Divine institution Commands us publickly to acknowledge our selves the Servants of God it implies the service of the body Such acknowledgments cannot be without visible Testimonies and outward exercises of devotion as well as inward affections This promotes Gods honour checks others prophaness allures men to the same expressions of duty And tho there may be hypocrisy and an outward garb without an inward frame yet better a moiety of worship than none at all better acknowledge Gods right in one than disown it in both 3. Jesus Christ the most Spiritual worshipper worshipt God with his body He Prayed orally and kneeled Father if it be thy Will c. * Luke 22.41 42. He blessed with his mouth Father I thank thee * Mat. 11.26 He lifted up his eyes as well as elevated his Spirit when he praised his Father for mercy received or begged for the blessings his Disciples wanted * John 11.41 John 12.1 The strength of the Spirit must have vent at the outward members The holy men of God have employed the body in significant expressions of worship Abraham in falling on his face Paul in kneeling employing their Tongues lifting up their hands Tho Jacob was bedrid yet he would not worship God without some devout expression of Reverence t is in one place leaning upon his staff * Heb. 11.21 in another bowing himself upon his beds head * Gen. 47.31 The reason of the diversity is in the Heb. word which without vowels may be red Mittah a bed or Matteh a staff howsoever both signifie a Testimony of adoration by a reverent gesture of the body Indeed in Angels and separated Souls a worship is performed purely by the Spirit but whiles the Soul is in conjunction with the body it can hardly perform a serious act of worship without some tincture upon the outward man and reverential composure of the body Fire cannot be in the clothes but it will be felt by the members nor flames be pent up in the Soul without bursting out in the body The heart can no more restrain it self from breaking out than Joseph could enclose his affections without expressing them in tears to his Brethren * Gen. 45.1 2. We Believe and therefore speak * 2 Cor. 4.13 To conclude God hath appointed some parts of worship which cannot be performed without the body as Sacraments we have need of them because we are not wholly spiritual and incorporeal Creatures The Religion which consists in externals only is not for an intellectual nature A worship purely intellectual is too sublime for a nature allyed to sense and depending much upon it The Christian mode of worship is proportioned to both It makes the sense to assist the mind and elevates the spirit above the sense Bodily worship helps the spiritual The members of the body reflect back upon the heart the voice bars distractions the tongue sets the heart on fire in good as well as in evil T is as much against the light of nature to serve God without external significations as to serve him only with them without the intention of the mind As the invisible God declares himself to men by visible works and signs so should we declare our invisible frames by visible expressions God hath given us a soul and body in conjunction and we are to serve him in the same manner he hath framed us 2. The second thing I am to shew is what Spiritual worship is In general the whole Spirit is to be employed The name of God is not sanctifyed but by the engagement of our Souls Worship is an Act of the understanding applying it self to the knowledge of the excellency of God and actual thoughts of his Majesty recognizing him as the supreme Lord and Governour of the world which is natural knowledge beholding the glory of his Attributes in the Redeemer which is Evangelical knowledge This is the sole act of the Spirit of Man The same reason is for all our worship as for our thanksgiving This must be done with understanding Psal 47.7 Sing ye praise with understanding with a knowledge and sense of his greatness goodness and Wisdom T is also an act of the Will whereby the Soul adores and reverenceth his Majesty is ravisht with his amiableness embraceth his goodness enters it self into an intimate Communion with this most lovely object and pitcheth all his affections upon him We must worship God understandingly t is not else a reasonable service The nature of God and the Law of God abhor a blind offering we must worship him heartily else we offer him a dead Sacrifice A reasonable service is that wherein the mind doth truly act something with God
All Spiritual acts must be acts of reason otherwise they are not human acts because they want that principle which is constitutive of man and doth difference him from other Creatures Acts done only by sense are the acts of a brute acts done by reason are the acts of a man That which is only an act of sense cannot be an act of Religion The sense without the conduct of reason is not the subject of Religious acts for then beasts were capable of Religion as well as Men There cannot be Religion where there is not reason and there cannot be the exercise of Religion where there is not an exercise of the rational faculties Nothing can be a Christian act that is not a human act Besides all worship must be for some end the worship of God must be for God t is by the exercise of our rational faculties that we only can intend an end An Ignorant and Carnal worship is a brutish worship Particularly 1. Spiritual Worship is a Worship from a spiritual Nature Not only Physically spiritual so our Souls are in their frame but morally spiritual by a renewing principle The heart must be first cast into the Mould of the Gospel before it can perform a Worship required by the Gospel Adam living in Paradice might perform a spiritual worship but Adam fallen from his rectitude could not We being Heirs of his Nature are Heirs of his Impotence Restoration to a spiritual Life must precede any act of spiritual Worship As no work can be good so no worship can be spiritual till we are created in Christ * Eph. 2.10 Christ is our Life * Col. 3.4 As no natural action can be performed without life in the root or heart so no spiritual act without Christ in the Soul Our being in Christ is as necessary to every spiritual act as the union of our Soul with our Body is necessary to natural action Nothing can exceed the limits of its nature for then it should exceed it self in acting and do that which it hath no principle to doe A Beast cannot act like a Man without partaking of the nature of a Man nor a Man act like an Angel without partaking of the Angelical nature How can we perform spiritual acts without a spiritual principle Whatsoever worship proceeds from the corrupted nature cannot deserve the title of spiritual worship because it springs not from a spiritual habit If those that are evil cannot speak good things those that are carnal cannot offer a spiritual service Poyson is the fruit of a Vipers nature Mat. 12.34 Oh Generation of Vipers how can you being evil speak good things For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks As the root is so is the fruit If the Soul be habitually carnal the worship cannot be actually spiritual There may be an intention of Spirit but there is no spiritual principle as a root of that intention A heart may be sensibly united with a duty when it is not spiritually united with Christ in it Carnal motives and carnal ends may fix the mind in an act of worship as the sense of some pressing affliction may enlarge a mans mind in Prayer Whatsoever is agreeable to the nature of God must have a stamp of Christ upon it a stamp of his grace in performance as well as of his mediation in the acceptance The Apostle lived not but Christ lived in him * Gal. 2.20 the Soul worships not but Christ in him Not that Christ performs the act of Worship but enables us spiritually to worship after he enables us spiritually to live As God counts not any Soul living but in Christ so he counts not any a spiritual Worshipper but in Christ The goodness and fatness of the fruit comes from the fatness of the Olive wherein we are engrafted We must find healing in Christs wings before God can find spirituality in our services All worship issuing from a dead nature is but a dead service A living action cannot be performed without being knit to a living root 2. Spiritual Worship is done by the influence and with the assistance of the Spirit of God A Heart may be spiritual when a particular act of Worship may not be spiritual The Spirit may dwell in the Heart when he may suspend his influence on the act Our worship is then spiritual when the fire that kindles our affections comes from Heaven as that fire upon the Altar wherewith the Sacrifices were consumed God tasts a sweetness in no service but as it is drest up by the hand of the Mediator and hath the Air of his own Spirit in it They are but natural acts without a supernatural assistance Without an actual influence we cannot act from spiritual motives nor for spiritual ends nor in a spiritual manner We cannot mortifie a Lust without the Spirit * Rom. 8.13 nor quicken a service without the Spirit Whatsoever corruption is killed is slain by his Power whatsoever duty is spiritualized is refined by his Breath He quickens our dead bodies in our Resurection * Rom. 8.11 He renews our dead Souls in our Regeneration He quickens our carnal services in our adorations The choicest acts of worship are but infirmities without his auxiliary help * Rom. 8.26 We are Loggs unable to move our selves till he raise our faculties to a pitch agreeable to God puts his hand to the duty and lifts that up and us with it Never any great act was performed by the Apostles to God or for God but they are said to be filled with the Holy-Ghost Christ could not have been conceived immaculate as that holy thing without the Spirits overshadowing the Virgin nor any spiritual act conceived in our heart without the Spirits moving upon us to bring forth a living Religion from us The acts of worship are said to be in the Spirit Supplication in the Spirit * Eph. 6.18 not only with the strength and affection of our own Spirits but with the mighty operation of the Holy-Ghost if Jude may be the Interpreter * Jude 20. The Holy-Ghost exciting us impelling us and firing our Souls by his divine flame raising up the affections and making the Soul cry with a holy importunity Abba Father To render our worship spiritual we should before every ingagement in it implore the actual presence of the Spirit without which we are not able to send forth one spiritual breath or groan but be Wind-bound like a Ship without a Gale and our worship be no better than carnal How doth the Spouse solicite the Spirit with an awake oh North-wind and come thou South-wind c. * Cant. 4.16 3. Spiritual Worship is done with Sincerity When the heart stands right to God and the Soul performs what it pretends to perform When we serve God with our Spirits as the Apostle Rom. 1.9 God is my Witness whom I serve with my Spirit in the Gospel of his Son This is not meant of the
some thoughts pitch'd upon God in worship and as many willingly upon the World David sought God not with a moity of his heart but with his whole heart with his intire frame * Psal 119.10 He brought not half his heart and left the other in the possession of another Master It was a good lesson Pythagoras gave his Scholars * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jamblich l. 1. c. 518. p. 87. Not to make the Observance of God a work by the by If those Guests be invited or entertained kindly or if they come unexpected the spirituality of that worship is lost the Soul kicks down what it wrought before But if they be Brow-beaten by us and our grief rather than our pleasure they divert our spiritual intention from the work in hand but hinder not Gods acceptance of it as spiritual because they are not the acts of our Will but offences to our Wills 5. Spiritual Worship is performed with a spiritual activity and sensibleness of God With an active Understanding to meditate on his excellency and an active Will to embrace him when he drops upon the Soul If we understand the amiableness of God our affections will be ravisht if we understand the immensity of his goodness our Spirits will be enlarged We are to act with the highest intention sutable to the greatness of that God with whom we have to do Psal 150.2 Praise him according to his excellent greatness Not that we can worship him equally but in some proportion the frame of the heart is to be suted to the excellency of the Object Our spiritual strength is to be put out to the utmost as Creatures that act naturally do The Sun shines and the Fire burns to the utmost of their natural power This is so necessary that David a spiritual Worshipper prays for it before he sets upon acts of adoration Psal 80.18 quicken us that we may call upon thy Name As he was loth to have a drowzy faculty he was loth to hâ—â— a drowzy instrument and would willingly have them as lively as himself Psal 57.8 Awake up my glory awake Psaltery and Harp I my self will awake early How would this Divine Soul serue himself up to God and be turned into nothing but a holy flame Our Souls must be boyling hot when we serve the Lord * Rom. 12.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The heart doth no less burn when it Spiritually comes to God than when God doth Spiritually approach to it * Luke 24.32 A Nabals heart one as cold as a stone cannot offer up a Spiritual service Whatsoever is enjoyned us as our duty ought to be performed with the greatest intensness of our Spirit As it is our duty to pray so it is our duty to pray with the most fervent importunity T is our duty to love God but with the purest and most sublime affections Every Command of God requires the whole strength of the Creature to be imployed in it That love to God wherein all our duty to God is summed up is to be with all our strength with all our might c. * Lady Falklands life pa. 130. Tho in the Covenant of grace he hath mitigated the severity of the Law and requires not from us such an elevation of our affections as was possible in the state of innocence yet God requires of us the utmost moral industry to raise our affections to a pitch at least equal to what they are in other things What strength of affections we naturally have ought to be as much and more excited in acts of worship than upon other occasions and our ordinary works As there was an inactivity of Soul in worship and a quickness to sin when sin had the dominion so when the Soul is Spiritualized the temper is changed there is an inactivity to sin and an ardor in duty The more the Soul is dead to sin the more it is alive to God * Rom. 6.11 and the more lively too in all that concerns God and his honour For grace being a new strength added to our natural determines the affections to new objects and excites them to a greater vigor And as the hatred of sin is more sharp the love to every thing that destroys the dominion of it is more strong And acts of worship may be reckoned as the cheifest batteries against the power of this inbred enemy When the Spirit is in the Soul like the Rivers of waters flowing out of the belly the Soul hath the activity of a River and makes hast to be swallowed up in God as the streams of the River in the Sea Christ makes his people Kings and Priests to God * Revel 1.6 first Kings then Priests Gives first a Royal temper of heart that they may offer Spiritual Sacrifices as Priests Kings and Priests to God acting with a magnificent Spirit in all their motions to him We cannot be Spiritual Priests till we be Spiritual Kings The Spirit appeared in the likeness of fire and where he resides Communicates like fire purity and activity Dulness is against the light of nature I do not remember that the Heathen ever offered a Snail to any of their false Deities nor an Ass but to Priapus their unclean Idol but the Persians Sacrificed to the Sun a Horse a swift and generous Creature God provided against those in the Law Commanding an Asses Firstling the off-spring of a sluggish Creature to be Redeemed or his neck broke but by no means to be offered to him * Exod. 13.13 God is a Spirit infinitely active and therefore frozen and benummed frames are unsutable to him He rides upon a Cherub and flies he comes upon the wings of the wind he rides upon a swift cloud * Isa 19.1 and therefore demands of us not a dull reason but an active Spirit God is a living God therefore must have a lively service Christ is life and slothful adorations are not fit to be offered up in the name of life The worship of God is called wrestling in Scripture and Paul was a striver in the service of his Master * Col. 1.29 in an agony * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Angels worship God Spiritually with their wings on and when God Commands them to worship Christ the next Scripture quoted is that he makes them flames of fire * Heb. 1.7 If it be thus how may we charge our selves What Paul said of the sensual Widow * 1 Tim. 5.6 that she is dead while she lives we may say often of our Selves we are dead while we worship Our hearts are in duty as the Jews were in deliverances as those in a dream * Psa 126.1 by which unexpectedness God shewed the greatness of his care and mercy and we attend him as men in a dream whereby we discover our negligence and folly This activity doth not consist in outward acts The body may be hot and the heart may be faint but in an inward stirring
meltings flights In the highest raptures the body is most insensible Strong Spiritual affections are abstracted from outward sense 6. Spiritual worship is performed with acting Spiritual habits When all the living springs of Grace are opened as the Fountains of the deep were in the deluge the Soul and all that is within it all the Spiritual impresses of God upon it erect themselves to bless his holy name * Psa 103.1 This is necessary to make a worship Spiritual As natural agents are determined to act sutable to their proper nature So rational agents are to act conformable to a rational being When there is a conformity between the act and the nature whence it flows t is a good act in its kind if it be rational t is a good rational act because sutable to its principle As a Man endowed with reason must act sutable to that endowment and exercise his reason in his acting So a Christian endued with Grace must act sutable to that nature and exercise his Grace in his acting Acts done by a natural inclination are no more human acts than the natural acts of a beast may be said to be human Tho they are the acts of a Man as he is the efficient cause of them yet they are not human acts because they arise not from that principle of Reason which denominates him a man So acts of worship performed by a bare exercise of reason are not Christian and Spiritual acts because they come not from the principle which constitutes him a Christian Reason is not the principle for then all rational Creatures would be Christians They ought therefore to be acts of a higher principle Exercises of that Grace whereby Christians are what they are Not but that rational acts in worship are due to God for worship is due from us as men and we are setled in that rank of being by our reason Grace doth not exclude reason but ennobles it and calls it up to another form But we must not rest in a bare rational worship but exert that principle whereby we are Christians To worship God with our reason is to worship him as Men To worship God with our grace is to worship him as Christians and so Spiritually But to worship him only with our bodies is no better than Brutes Our desires of the word are to issue from the regenerate principle 1 Pet. 2.2 As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word It seems to be not a comparison but a restriction All worship must have the same spring and be the exercise of that principle otherwise we can have no Communion with God Friends that have the same habitual dispositions have a fundamental fitness for an agreeable converse with one another but if the temper wherein their likeness consists be languishing and the string out of tune there is not an actual fitness and the present indisposition breaks the converse and renders the Company troublesome Tho we may have the habitual graces which compose in us a resemblance to God yet for want of acting those sutable dispositions we render our selves unfit for his converse and make the worship which is fundamentally Spiritual to become actually carnal As the Will cannot naturally act to any object but by the exercise of its affections So the heart cannot Spiritually act towards God but by the exercise of graces This is Gods Musick Eph. 5.19 Singing and making melody to God in your hearts Singing and all other acts of worship are outward but the Spiritual melody is by grace in the heart Col. 3.16 This renders it a Spiritual worship for it is an effect of the fulness of the Spirit in the Soul as v. 19. But be filled with the Spirit The overflowing of the Spirit in the heart setting the Soul of a beliver thus on work to make a Spiritual melody to God shews that something higher than bare reason is put in tune in the heart Then is the fruit of the Garden pleasant to Christ when the holy Spirit the North and South wind blow upon the spices and strike out the fragrancy of them * Cant. 4.16 Since God is the Author of graces and bestows them to have a glory from them they are best employed about him and his service T is fit he should have the Cream of his own gifts Without the exercise of grace we perform but a work of nature and offer him a few dry bones without marrow The whole set of graces must be one way or other exercised If any treble be wanting in a Lute there will be a great defect in the Musick If any one Spiritual string be dull the Spiritual harmony of worship will be spoiled And therefore 1. First Faith must be acted in worship A confidence in God A natural worship cannot be performed without a natural confidence in the goodness of God Whosoever comes to him must regard him as a Rewarder and a faithful Creator * Heb. 11.6 A Spiritual worship cannot be performed without an Evangelical confidence in him as a gracious Redeemer To think him a Tyrant meditating revenge damps the Soul to regard him as a gracious King full of tender bowels Spirits the affections to him The mercy of God is the proper object of trust Psal 33.18 The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him upon them that hope in his mercy The worship of God in the old Testament is most described by fear In the new Testamen by faith Fear or the worship of God and hope in his mercy are linkt together when they go hand in hand the accepting eye of God is upon us When we do not trust we do not worship * Zeph. 3.2 Those of Judah had the Temple worship among them especially in Josiah's time Zeph. 3.2 the time of that Prophecy yet it was accounted no worship because no trust in the Worshippers Interest in God cannot be improved without an exercise of Faith The Gospel worship is prophecied of to be a confidence in God as in a Husband more than in a Lord Hos 2.16 Thou shalt call me Ishi and shalt call me no more Baali Thou shalt call me that is thou shalt worship me Worship being often comprehended under Invocation More confidence is to be exercised in a Husband or Father than in a Lord or Master If a Man have not Faith he is without Christ and though a Man be in Christ by the habit of Faith â—e performs a duty out of Christ without an act of Faith Without the habit of Faith our persons are out of Christ and without the exercise of Faith the duties are out of Christ As the want of Faith in a person is the death of the Soul so the want of Faith in a Service is the death of the Offering Though a man were at the cost of an Ox yet to kill it without bringing it to the door of the Tabernacle was not a Sacrifice but a Murder * Levit. 17.3 4. The Tabernacle
was a Type of Christ and a look to him is necessary in every spiritual Sacrifice As there must be Faith to make any act an act of obedience so there must be Faith to make any act of worship spiritual That service is not spiritual that is not vital and it cannot be vital without the exercise of a vital Principle All spiritual life is hid in Christ and drawn from him by Faith * Gal. 2.20 Faith as it hath relation to Christ makes every act of worship a living act and consequently a spiritual act Habitual unbelief cuts us off from the Body of Christ Rom. 11.20 Because of unbelief they were broken off and a want of actuated belief breaks us off from a present communion with Christ in Spirit As unbelief in us hinders Christ from doing any mighty work so unbelief in us hinders us from doing any mighty spiritual duty So that the exercise of Faith and a confidence in God is necessary to every duty 2. Love must be acted to render a worship spiritual Though God commanded love in the Old-Testament yet the manner of giving the Law bespoke more of Fear than Love The dispensation of the Law was with Fire Thunder c. proper to raise horror and benum the Spirit which effect it had upon the Israelites when they desired that God would speake no more to them Grace is the Genius of the Gospel proper to excite the affection of Love The Law was given by the disposition of Angels with signs to amaze the Gospel was usher'd in with the songs of Angels composed of peace and good-will calculated to ravish the Soul Instead of the terrible voice of the Law do this and live The comfortable voice of the Gospel is Grace Grace Upon this account the principle of the Old testament was Fear and the Worship often exprest by the Fear of God The principle of the New-testament is Love The Mount Sinai gendreth to Bondage * Gal. 4.44 Mount Sion from whence the Gospel or Evangelical Law goes forth gendreth to Liberty and therefore the Spirit of Bondage unto Fear as the Property of the Law is opposed to the State of Adoption the principle of Love as the property of the Gospel * Rom. 8.15 And therefore the worship of God under the Gospel or New-testament is oftner exprest by Love than Fear as proceeding from higher principles and acting nobler passions In this State we are to serve him without fear * Luke 1.74 without a Bondage-fear not without a fear of unworthy treating him with a fear of his goodness as it is prophesied of * Hos 9.9 Goodness is not the object of terror but reverence God in the Law had more the garb of a Judge in the Gospel of a Father The name of a Father is sweeter and bespeaks more of affection As their services were with a feeling of the thunders of the Law in their Consciences so is our worship to be with a sense of Gospel-grace in our Spirits Spiritual worship is that therefore which is exercised with a spiritual and heavenly affection proper to the Gospel The heart should be enlarged according to the liberty the Gospel gives of drawing neer to God as a Father As he gives us the nobler relation of Children we are to act the nobler qualities of Children Love should act according to its nature which is desire of Union desire of a moral union by Affections as well as a mystical union by Faith as flame aspires to reach flame and become one with it In every act of worship we should endeavour to be united to God and become one Spirit with him This Grace doth spiritualize Worship In that one word Love God hath wrapt up all the devotion he requires of us 'T is the total sum of the first Table Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 'T is to be acted in every thing we do But in Worship our hearts should more solemnly rise up and acknowledge him amiable and lovely since the Law is stript of its cursing power and made sweet in the blood of the Redeemer Love is a thing acceptable of it self but nothing acceptable without it The gifts of one man to another are spiritualized by it We would not value a Present without the affection of the Donor Every man would lay claim to the love of others though he would not to their Possessions Love is Gods right in every service and the noblest thing we can bestow upon him in our adorations of him Gods gifts to us are not so estimable without his love not our services valuable by him without the exercise of a choice affection Hezekiah regarded not his deliverance without the love of the Deliverer In love to my Soul thou hast delivered me * Isa 38.17 So doth God say in love to my honour thou hast worshipped me So that Love must be acted to render our worship spiritual 3. A spiritual sensibleness of our own weakness is necessary to make our worship spiritual Affections to God cannot be without relentings in our selves When the eye is spiritually fixed upon a spiritual God the heart will mourn that the worship is no more spiritually sutable The more we act love upon God as amiable and gracious the more we should exercise grief in our selves as we are vile and offending Spiritual worship is a melting worship as well as an elevating worship It exalts God and debaseth the Creature The Publican was more spiritual in his humble address to God when the Pharisee was wholly carnal with his swelling language A spiritual love in worship will make us grieve that we have given him so little and could give him no more 'T is a part of spiritual duty to bewail our carnality mixed with it as we receive mercies spiritually when we receive them with a sense of Gods goodness and our own vileness in the same manner we render a spiritual worship 4. Spiritual desires for God render the service spiritual When the Soul follows hard after him * Psal 63.8 pursues after God as a God of infinite and communicative goodness with sighs and groans unutterable A spiritual Soul seems to be transformed into hunger and thirst and becomes nothing but desire A carnal Worshipper is taken with the beauty and magnificence of the Temple a spiritual Worshipper desires to see the glory of God in the Sanctuary * Psal 63.2 He pants after God As he came to worship to find God he boyls up in desires for God and is loth to go from it without God the living God Psal 42.2 He would see the Vrim and the Thummim the unusual sparkling of the stones upon the High-priests Breast-plate That deserves not the title of spiritual worship when the Soul makes no longing inquiries saw you him whom my Soul loves A spiritual worship is when our desires are chiefly for God in the worship As David desires to dwell in the House of the Lord but his desire is not terminated
there but to behold the beauty of the Lord * Psal 27.4 and taste the ravishing sweetness of his presence No doubt but Elijah's desires for the enjoyment of God while he was mounting to Heaven were as fiery as the Chariot wherein he was carried Unutterable groans acted in worship are the fruit of the Spirit and certainly render it a spiritual service * Rom. 8.26 Strong appetites are agreeable to God and prepare us to eat the fruit of worship A spiritual Paul presseth forward to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and a spiritual Worshipper actually aspires in every duty to know God and the power of his Grace To desire worship as an end is carnal to desire it as a means and act desires in it for communion with God in it is spiritual and the fruit of a spiritual life 5. Thankfulness and admiration are to be exercised in spiritual services This is a worship of Spirits Praise is the adoration of the blessed Angels * Isa 6.3 and of glorified Spirits Rev. 4.11 Thou art worthy oh Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power And Rev. 5.13.14 they worship him ascribing Blessing Honour Glory and Power to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever Other acts of worship are confined to this Life and leave us as soon as we have set our foot in Heaven There no notes but this of Praise are warbled out The Power Wisdom Love and Grace in the dispensation of the Gospel seat themselves in the thoughts and tongues of blessed Souls Can a worship on Earth be spiritual that hath no mixture of an eternal heavenly duty with it The worship of God in Innocence had been chiefly an admiration of him in the works of Creation and should not our Evangelical worship be an admiration of him in the works of Redemption which is a restoration to a better State After the petitioning for pardoning Grace * Hos 14.2 there is a rendring the Calves or Heifers of our lips alluding to the Heifers used in Eucharistical Sacrifices The Praise of God is the choicest Sacrifice and Worship under a dispensation of redeeming Grace This is the prime and eternal part of worship under the Gospel The Psalmist Psalm 149. and 150. speaking of the Gospel times spurrs on to this kind of worship Sing to the Lord a new Song Let the Children of Zion be joyful iâ—â—â—â—ir King Let the Saints be joyful in glory and sing aloud upon their beds Let the high praises of God be in their mouths He begins and ends both Psalms with praise ye the Lord. That cannot be a spiritual and evangelical worship that hath nothing of the praise of God in the heart The consideration of Gods adorable perfections discovered in the Gospel will make us come to him with more seriousness beg blessings of him with more confidence fly to him with a winged Faith and Love and more spiritually glorify him in our attendances upon him 7. Spiritual Worship is performed with delight The Evangelical worship is prophetically signified by keeping the Feast of Tabernacles * Zach. 14.16 they shall go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of Hosts and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles Why that Feast when there were other Feasts observed by the Jews That was a Feast celebrated with the greatest joy typical of the gladness which was to be under the exhibition of the Messiah and a thankful comemmoration of the Redemption wrought by him It was to be celebrated five days after the solemn day of Atonement Levit. 23.34 compared with v. 27. wherein there was one of the solemnest types of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ In this Feast they commemorated their exchange of Egypt for Canaan the Manna wherewith they were fed the Water out of the Rock wherewith they were refresht In remembrance of this they poured water on the ground pronouncing those words in Isaiah they shall draw waters out of the Wells of Salvation which our Saviour referrs to himself John 7.37 inviting them to him to drink upon the last day the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles wherein this solemn Ceremony was observed Since we are freed by the death of the Redeemer from the Curses of the Law God requires of us a Joy in spiritual priviledges A sad frame in worship gives the lye to all Gospel-liberty to the Purchase of the Redeemers Death the Triumphs of his Resurrection 'T is a carriage as if we were under the influences of the legal Fire and Lightning and an entring a Protest against the Freedom of the Gospel The Evangelical worship is a Spiritual worship and Praise Joy and Delight are prophecied of as great ingredients in attendance on Gospel Ordinances Isa 12.3 4 5. What was occasion of terror in the worship of God under the Law is the occasion of delight in the worship of God under the Gospel The Justice and Holiness of God so terrible in the Law becomes comfortable under the Gospel since they have feasted themselves on the active and passive obedience of the Redeemer The approach is to God as gracious not to God as unpacified as a Son to a Father not as a Criminal to a Judge Under the Law God was represented as a Judge remembring their Sin in their Sacrifices and representing the punishment they had merited in the Gospel as a Father accepting the Atonement and publishing the Reconciliation wrought by the Redeemer Delight in God is a Gospel frame therefore the more joyful the more spiritual The Sabbath is to be a delight not only in regard of the Day but in regard of the Duties of it * Isa 58.13 in regard of the marvelous work he wrought on it raising up our blessed Redeemer on that day whereby a foundation was laid for the rendring our persons and services acceptable to God Psal 118.24 This is the day which the Lord hath made we will be glad and rejoyce in it A lumpish frame becomes not a day and a duty that hath so noble and spiritual a mark upon it The Angels in the first act of worship after the Creation were highly joyful Job 38.7 They shouted for joy c. The Saints have particularly acted this in their Worship David would not content himself with an approach to the Altar without going to God as his exceeding joy Psal 43.4 My triumphant joy When he danced before the Ark he seems to be transformed into delight and pleasure 2 Sam. 6.14 16. He had as much delight in Worship as others had in their Harvest and Vintage And those that took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods would as joyfully attend upon the Communications of God Where there is a fullness of the Spirit there is a waking melody to God in the heart * Eph. 5.18.19 and where there is an acting of love as there is in all spiritual services the proper fruit of it is joy in a neer
approach to the Object of the Souls affection Love is appetitus unionis The more love the more delight in the approachings of God to the Soul or the out-goings of the Soul to God As the Object of Worship is amiable in a spiritual eye so the â—â—â—hs tending to a communion with this Object are delightful in the exercise Where there is no delight in a duty there is no delight in the object of the duty The more of grace the more of pleasure in the actings of it As the more of nature there is in any natural Agent the more of pleasure in the Act So the more heavenly the Worship the more spiritual Delight is the frame and temper of Glory A heart filled up to the brim with joy is a heart filled up to the brim with the Spirit Joy is the fruit of the Holy-Ghost * Gal. 5.22 1. Not the joy of Gods dispensation flowing from God but a gracious active joy streaming to God There is a joy when the Comforts of God are dropt into the Soul as Oyle upon the Wheel which indeed makes the faculties move with more speed and activity in his service like the Chariots of Aminadab And a Soul may serve God in the strength of this taste and its delight terminated in the sensible comfort This is not the joy I mean but such a joy that hath God for its Object delighting in him as the term in worship as the way to him The first is Gods dispensation the other is our duty The first is an act of Gods favour to us the second a sprout of habitual grace in us The Comforts we have from God may elevate our duties but the grace we have within doth spiritualize our duties 2. Nor is every delight an argument of a spiritual service All the the requisites to worship must be taken in A man may invent a worship and delight in it as Micah in the adoration of his Idol when he was glad he had got both an Ephod and a Levite * Judges 17. As a man may have a contentment in Sin so he may have a contentment in Worship not because it is a worship of God but the worship of his own invention agreeable to his own humor and design as Isa 58.2 't is said they delighted in approaching to God but it was for carnal ends Novelty ingenders Complacency but it must be a worship wherein God will delight and that must be a worship according to his own Rule and infinite Wisdom and not our shallow fancies God requires a cheerfulness in his service especially under the Gospel where he sits upon a Throne of Grace discovers himself in his amiableness and acts the Covenant of Grace and the sweet relation of a Father The Priests of old were not to fully themselves with any sorrow when they were in the exercise of their functions God put a bar to the natural affections of Aaron and his Sons when Nadab and Abihu had been cut off by a severe hand of God * Lev. 10.6 Every true Christian in a higher order of Priest-hood is a person dedicated to joy and peace offering himself a lively Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving And there is no Christian duty but is to be set off and seasoned with cheerfulness He that loves a cheerful Giver in acts of Charity requires no less a cheerful Spirit in acts of Worship As this is an ingredient in worship so it is the means to make your Spirits intent in worship When the heart triumphs in the consideration of Divine excellency and goodness it will be angry at any thing that offers to jogg and disturb it 8. Spiritual worship is to be performed though with a delight in God yet with a deep reverence of God The Gospel in advancing the spirituality of worship takes off the terror but not the reverence of God which is nothing else in its own nature but a due and high esteem of the excellency of a thing according to the nature of it And therefore the Gospel presenting us with more illustrious notices of the glorious nature of God is so far from indulging any disesteem of him that it requires of us a greater reverence sutable to the hight of its discovery above what could be spell'd in the Book of Creation The Gospel worship is therefore exprest by trembling Hos 11.10 They shall walk after the Lord he shall roar like a Lion when he shall roar then the Children shall tremble from the West When the Lion of the Tribe of Judah shall lift up his powerful voice in the Gospel the Western Gentiles shall run trembling to walk after the Lord. God hath alway attended his greatest manifestations with remarkable Characters of Majesty to create a reverence in his Creature He caused the wind to March before him to cut the Mountain when he manifested himself to Elijah 1 Kings 19.11 A Wind and a Cloud of Fire before that magnificent Vision to Ezekiel Ezek. 1.4 5. Thunders and Lightnings before the giving the Law Exod. 19.18 And a mighty wind before the giving the Spirit Acts 2. God requires of us an aw of him in the very act of performance The Angels are pure and cannot fear him as Sinners but in reverence they cover their Faces when they stand before him * Isa 6.2 His power should make us reverence him as we are Creatures His Justice as we are Sinners His goodness as we are restored Creatures * Daille Sur. 3. Jean P. 150. God is clothed with unspeakable Majesty the glory of his face shines brighter than the Lights of Heaven in their beauty Before him the Angels tremble and the Heavens melt we ought not therefore to come before him with the Sacrifice of Fools nor tender a duty to him without falling low upon our faces and bowing the knees of our hearts in token of reverence Not a slavish fear like that of Devils but a Godly fear like that of Saints * Heb. 12.28 joyned with a sense of an unmoveable Kingdom becomth us And this the Apostle calls a grace necessary to make our service acceptable And therefore the grace necessary to make it spiritual since nothing finds admission to God but what is of a spiritual nature The consideration of his glorious nature should imprint an awful respect upon our Souls to him His goodness should make his Majesty more adorable to us as his Majesty makes his goodness more admirable in his condescensions to us As God is a Spirit our worship must be spiritual and being he is the supream Spirit our worship must be reverential We must observe the State he takes upon him in his Ordinances He is in Heaven we upon the Earth we must not therefore be hasty to utter any thing before God Eccles 5.7 Consider him a Spirit in the highest Heavens and our selves Spirits dwelling in a dreggy Earth Loose and garish frames debase him to our own quality Slight postures of Spirit intimate him to
be a slight and mean Being Our being in Covenant with him must not lower our awful apprehensions of him As he is the Lord thy God 't is a gloririous and fearful Name or wonderful * Deut. 28.58 Though he lay by his Justice to Believers he doth not lay by his Majesty When we have a confidence in him because he is the Lord our God we must have awful thoughts of his Majesty because his name is glorious God is terrible from his Holy-places in regard of the great things he doth for his Israel * Psal 68.35 We should behave our selves with that inward honour and respect of him as if he were present to our bodily eyes The higher apprehensions we have of his Majesty the greater aw will be upon our hearts in his presence and the greater spirituality in our acts We should manage our hearts so as if we had a view of God in his heavenly glory 9. Spiritual Worship is to be performed with humility in our Spirits This is to follow upon the reverence of God As we are to have high thoughts of God that we may not debase him we must have low thoughts of our selves not to vaunt before him When we have right notions of the Divine Majesty we shall be as Worms in our own thoughts and creep as Worms into his presence We can never consider him in his Glory but we have a fit opportunity to reflect upon our selves and consider how basely we revolted from him and how graciously we are restored by him As the Gospel affords us greater discoveries of Gods nature and so enhaunceth our reverence of him so it helps us to a fuller understanding of our own vileness and weakness and therefore is proper to ingender Humility The more spiritual and evangelical therefore any service is the more humble it is That is a spiritual service that doth most manifest the glory of God and this cannot be manifested by us without manifesting our own emptiness and nothingness The Heathens were sensible of the necessity of Humility by the Light of Nature * Plutarch Moral P. 344. after the Name of God signified by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inscribed on the Temple at Delphos followed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby was insinuated that when we have to do with God who is the only Ens we should behave our selves with a sense of our own infirmity and infinite distance from him As a person so a duty leavened with Pride hath nothing of sincerity and therefore nothing of spirituality in it Hab. 2.4 His Soul which is lifted up is not upright in him The Elders that were crowned by God to be Kings and Priests to offer spiritual Sacrifices uncrown themselves in their worship of him and cast down their Ornaments at his feet * Revel 4 1◠compared with 5. and the 1◠The Greek word to worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to creep like a Dog upon his belly before his Master to lye low How deep should our sense be of the priviledge of Gods admitting us to his worship and affording us such a mercy under our deserts of wrath How mean should be our thoughts both of our persons and performances How patiently should we wait upon God for the success of worship How did Abraham the Father of the Faithful equal himself to the Earth when he supplicated the God of Heaven and devote himself to him under the title of very Dust and Ashes * Gen. 18.27 Isaiah did but behold an Evangelical Apparition of God and the Angels worshipping him and presently reflects upon his own uncleaness * Isa 6.5 Gods presence both requires and causes Humility How lowly is David in his own opinion after a magnificent duty performed by himself and his people 1 Chron. 29.14 Who am I And what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly The more spiritual the Soul is in its carriage to God the more humble it is and the more gracious God is in his communications to the Soul the lower it lies God commanded not the fiercer Creatures to be offered to him in Sacrifices but Lambs and Kids meek and lowly Creatures none that had stings in their tails or venom in their tongues * Caudam aculeatam vel linguam nigram Alexand. ab Alex. l. 3. c. 12. The meek Lamb was the daily Sacrifice The Doves were to be offered by Pairs God would not have Hony mixed with any Sacrifice Levit. 2.11 That breeds Choler and Choler Pride but Oyle he commanded to be used that supples and mollifies the parts Swelling Pride and boiling Passions render our services carnal they cannot be spiritual without an humble sweetness and an innocent sincerity One grain of this transcends the most costly Sacrifices A Contrite Heart puts a gloss upon Worship * Psal 51.16 17 The departure of men and Angels from God began in Pride Our approaches and return to him must begin in Humility And therefore all those Graces which are bottom'd on Humility must be acted in worship as Faith and a sense of our own indigence Our blessed Saviour the most spiritual Worshipper prostrated himself in the Garden with the greatest lowliness and offered himself upon the Cross a Sacrifice with the greatest humility Melted Souls in worship have the most spiritual conformity to the person of Christ in the state of humiliation and his design in that state As worship without it is not sutable to God so neither is it advantageous for us A time of worship is a time of Gods Communication The Vessel must be melted to receive the Mould it is designed for Softned wax is fittest to receive a stamp and a spiritually melted Soul fittest to receive a spiritual impression We cannot perform duty in an evangelical and spiritual strain without the meltingness and meaness in our selves which the Gospel requires 10. Spiritual worship is to be performed with Holiness God is a holy Spirit a likeness to God must attend the worshipping of God as he is Holiness is alway in season It becomes his house for ever * Psal 91.5 We can never serve the living God till we have Consciences purged from dead works Heb. 9.14 Dead works in our Consciences are unsutable to God an eternal living Spirit The more mortified the heart the more quickned the service Nothing can please an infinite Purity but that which is pure Since God is in his Glory in his Ordinances we must not be in our Filthiness The Holiness of his Spirit doth sparkle in his Ordinances The holiness of our Spirits ought also to sparkle in our observance of them The Holiness of God is most celebrated in the worship of Angels * Isa 6.3 Revel 4.8 Spiritual worship ought to be like Angelical That cannot be with Souls totally impure As there must be perfect holiness to make a worship perfectly spiritual so there must be some degree of holiness to make it in any measure spiritual God would
have all the Utensils of the Sanctuary employed about his service to be holy The Inwards of the Sacrifice were to be rinsed thrice * As the Jewish Doctors observe on Lev. 1.9 The Crop and Feathers of sacrificed Doves was to be hung Eastward towards the entrance of the Temple at a distance from the Holy of Holies where the presence of God was most eminent * Lev. 1.16 When Aaron was to go into the Holy of Holies he was to sanctifie himself in an extraordinary manner * Lev. 16.4 The Priests were to be bare footed in the Temple in the exercise of their Office shoes alway were to be put off upon holy ground Look to thy foot when thou goest to the House of God saith the wise man Eccles 5.1 Strip the affections the feet of the Soul of all the dirt contracted discard all earthly and base thoughts from the heart A Beast was not to touch the Mount Sinai without losing his Life Nor can we come near the Throne with brutish affections without losing the life and fruit of the worship An unholy Soul degrades himself from a Spirit to a Brute and the worship from spiritual to brutish If any unmortified sin be found in the Life as it was in the comers to the Temple It taints and pollutes the Worship * Isa 1.15 All worship is an acknowledgment of the excellency of God as he is holy * Jer. 7.9 10. Hence it is called a sanctifying Gods Name How can any person sanctifie Gods Name that hath not a holy resemblance to his Nature If he be not holy as he is holy he cannot worship him according to his excellency in Spirit and in Truth No worship is spiritual wherein we have not a communion with God But what intercourse can there be between a holy God and an impure Creature between Light and Darkness We have no fellowship with him in any service unless we walk in the Light in service and out of service as he is Light * 1 John 1.7 The Heathen thought not their Sacrifices agreeable to God without washing their hands whereby they signified the preparation of their hearts before they made the Oblation Clean hands without a pure heart signify nothing The frame of our hearts must answer the purity of the outward Symbols Psal 26.6 I will wash my hands in Innocence so will I compass thine Altar oh Lord He would observe the appointed Ceremonies but not without cleansing his heart as well as his hands Vain Man is apt to rest upon outward acts and rites of worship But this must alway be practised The words are in the present Tense I wash I compass Purity in worship ought to be our continual Care If we would perform a spiritual service wherein we would have communion with God it must be in Holiness If we would walk with Christ it must be in white * Revel 3.4 alluding to the white Garments the Priests put on when they went to perform their service As without this we cannot see God in Heaven so neither can we see the beauty of God in his own Ordinances 11. Spiritual worship is performed with spiritual ends with raised aims at the glory of God No duty can be spiritual that hath a carnal aim Where God is the sole Object he ought to be the principal End In all our actions he is to be our End as he is the principle of our Being much more in Religious Acts as he is the Object of our worship The worship of God in Scripture is exprest by the seeking of him * Heb. 11.6 Him not our selves all is to be referred to God As we are not to live to our selves that being the sign of a carnal state so we are not to worship for our selves Rom. 14.7 8. As all actions are denominated good from their end as well as their object so upon the same account they are denominated spiritual The end spiritualizeth our natural actions much more our religious Then are our faculties devoted to him when they center in him If the intention be evil there is nothing but darkness in the whole service Luke 11.34 The first institution of the Sabbath the solemn day for worship was to contemplate the glory of God in his stupendous works of Creation and render him a homage for them Revel 4.11 Thou art worthy oh Lord to receive Honour Glory and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created No worship can be returned without a glorifying of God and we cannot actually glorify him without direct aims at the promoting his honour As we have immediately to do with God so we are immediately to mind the praise of God As we are not to content our selves with habitual grace but be rich in the exercise of it in worship so we are not to acquiesce in habitual aims at the glory of God without the actual outflowings of our hearts in those aims 'T is natural for Man to worship God for self Self-righteousness is the rooted aim of Man in his worship since his revolt from God and being sensible it is not to be found in his natural actions he speaks for it in his moral and religious By the first Pride we flung God off from being our Soveraign and from being our end since a Pharisaical Spirit struts it in nature not only to do things to be seen of men but to be admired by God Isa 58.3 Wherefore have we fasted and thou takest no knowledge This is to have God worship them instead of being worshipped by them Cain's carriage after his Sacrifice testified some base end in his worship he came not to God as a Subject to a Soveraign but as if he had been the Soveraign and God the Subject and when his design is not answered and his desire not gratified he proves more a Rebel to God and a Murderer of his Brother Such base scents will rise up in our worship from the body of death which cleaves to us and mix themselves with our services as Weeds with the Fish in the Net David therefore after his People had offered willingly to the Temple beggs of God that their hearts might be prepared to him * 1 Cron. 29.18 that their hearts might stand right to God without any squinting to self-ends Some present themselves to God as poor men offer a present to a great person not to honour him but to gain for themselves a reward richer than their gift What profit is it that we have kept his Ordinance c Mal. 3.14 Some worship him intending thereby to make him amends for the wrong they have done him wipe off their scores and satisfie their debts as though a spiritual wrong could be recompensed with a bodily service and an infinite Spirit be outwitted and appeased by a carnal flattery Self is the Spirit of Carnality To pretend a homage to God and intend only the advantage of self is rather
to mock him than worship him When we believe that we ought to be satisfied rather than God glorified we set God below our selves imagin that he should submit his own honour to our advantage We make our selves more glorious than God as though we were not made for him but he hath a Being only for us this is to have a very low esteem of the Majesty of God Whatsoever any man aims at in worship above the glory of God that he forms as an Idol to himself instead of God and sets up a Golden-Image God counts not this as a Worship The Offerings made in the Wilderness for forty years together God esteemed as not offered to him Amos 5.25 Have you offered to me Sacrifices and Offerings in the Wilderness forty years oh House of Israel They did it not to God but to themselves for their own security and the attainment of the possession of the promised Land A spiritual Worshipper performs not worship for some hopes of carnal advantage he uses ordinances as means to bring God and his Soul together to be more fitted to honour God in the world in his particular place When he hath been inflamed and humble in any address or duty he gives God the glory his heart sutes the doxology at the end of the Lords-prayer ascribes the Kingdom Power and Glory to God alone and if any viper of Pride starts out upon him he endeavours presently to shake it off That which was the first end of our framing ought to be the chief end of our acting towards God But when men have the same ends in worship as Brutes the satisfaction of a sensitive part the service is no more than brutish The acting for a sensitive end is unworthy of the Majesty of God to whom we address and unbecoming a rational Creature The acting for a sensitive end is not a rational much less can it be a spiritual service though the Act may be good in it self yet not good in the Agent because he wants a due end We are then spiritual when we have the same end in our redeemed services as God had in his redeeming love viz. his own Glory 12. Spiritual service is offered to God in the name of Christ Those are only spiritual Sacrifices that are offered up to God by Jesus Christ * 1 Pet. 2.5 that are the fruits of the Sanctification of the Spirit and offered in the mediation of the Son As the Altar sanctifies the gift so doth Christ spiritualize our services for Gods acceptation as the Fire upon the Altar separated the airy and finer parts of the sacrifice from the terrene and earthly This is the Golden Altar upon which the Prayers of the Saints are offered up before the Throne * Revel 8.3 As all that we have from God streams through his blood so all that we give to God ascends by vertue of his merits All the blessings God gave to the Israelites came out of Sion * Psal 134.3 The Lord bless thee out of Sion that is from the Gospel hid under the Law all the duties we present to God are to be presented in Sion in an evangelical manner All our worship must be bottomed on Christ God hath intended that we should honour the Son as we honour the Father As we honour the Father by offering our service only to him so we are to honour the Son by offering it only in his name In him alone God is well pleased because in him alone he finds our services spiritual and worthy of acceptation We must therefore take fast hold of him with our Spirits and the faster we hold him the more spiritual is our worship To do any thing in the name of Christ is not to believe the worship shall be accepted for it self but to have our eye fixed upon Christ for the acceptance of it and not to rest upon the work done as carnal people are apt to do The Creatures present their acknowledgments to God by Man and man can only present his by Christ It was utterly unlawful after the building of the Temple to sacrifice any where else The Temple being a type of Christ it is utterly unlawful for us to present our services in any other name than his This is the way to be spiritual If we consider God out of Christ we can have no other notions but those of horror and bondage We behold him a Spirit but environ'd with Justice and Wrath for Sinners But the consideration of him in Christ vails his Justice draws forth his Mercy represents him more a Father than a Judge In Christ the aspect of Justice is changed and by that the temper of the Creature so that in and by this Mediator we can have a spiritual boldness and access to God with confidence * Eph. 3.12 whereby the Spirit is kept from benummedness and distraction and our Souls quickned and refined The thoughts kept upon Christ in a duty of worship quickly elevates the Soul and spiritualizeth the whole service Sin makes our services black and the blood of Christ makes both our persons and services white To conclude this Head God is a Spirit infinitely happy therefore we must approach to him with cheerfulness He is a Spirit of infinite Majesty therefore we must come before him with reverence He is a Spirit infinitely high therefore we must offer up our Sacrifices with the deepest humility He is a Spirit infinitely holy therefore we must address with purity He is a Spirit infinitely glorious we must therefore acknowledge his excellency in all that we do and in our measures contribute to his glory by having the highest aims in his worship He is a Spirit infinitely provoked by us therefore we must offer up our worship in the name of a pacifying Mediator and Intercessour 3. The third general is why a spiritual worship is due to God and to be offered to him We must consider the Object of Worship and the Subject of worship the Worshipper and the Worshipped God is a spiritual Being Man is a reasonable Creature The nature of God informs us what is fit to be presented to him our own nature informs us what is fit to be presented by us Reason 1. The best we have is to be presented to God in worship For 1. Since God is the most excellent Being he is to be served by us with the most excellent thing we have and with the choicest veneration God is so incomprehensibly excellent that we cannot render him what he deserves We must render him what we are able to offer the best of our affiections the flower of our strength the Cream and Top of our Spirits By the same reason that we are bound to give to God the best worship we must offer it to him in the best manner We cannot give to God any thing too good for so blessed a Being God being a great King slight services become not his Majesty * Mal. 1.13 14. 'T is unbecoming the
less vain must it be when the Bodies of Men are presented to supply the place of their Spirits As an omission of duty is a contempt of Gods Soveraign Authority so the omission of the manner of it is a contempt of it and of his amiable excellency and that which is a contempt and mockery can lay no just claim to the title of Worship Reason 4. There is in worship an approach of God to Man It was instituted to this purpose that God might give out his blessings to Man And ought not our Spirits to be prepared and ready to receive his communications We are in such acts more peculiarly in his presence In the Israelites hearing the Law it is said God was to come among them * Exod. 19.10 11. Then men are said to stand before the Lord * Deut. 10.8 God before whom I stand that is whom I worship And therefore when Cain forsook the worship of God setled in his Fathers Family * Kings 1.17 he is said to go out from the presence of the Lord Gen. 4.16 God is essentially present in the world graciously present in his Church The name of the Evangelical City is Jehovah Shammah * Ezek. 48.35 the Lord is there God is more graciously present in the Evangelical institutions than in the Legal He loves the Gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob * Psal 87.2 His Evangelical Law and Worship which was to go forth from Zion as the other did from Sinai Mic. 4.2 God delights to approach to Men and converse with them in the worship instituted in the Gospel more than in all the dwellings of Jacob. If God be graciously present ought not we to be spiritually present A liveless Carcass service becomes not so high and delectable a presence as this 'T is to thrust him from us not invite him to us 'T is to practise in the Ordinances what the Prophet predicts concerning mens usage of our Saviour Isa 53.2 There is no form no comeliness nor beauty that we should desire him A slightness in worship reflects upon the excellency of the object of worship God and his worship are so linkt together that whosoever thinks the one not worth his inward care esteems the other not worth his inward affection How unworthy a slight is it of God who profers the opening his Treasure the reimpressing his Image conferring his blessings admits us into his presence when he hath no need for us who hath millions of Angels to attend him in his Court and celebrate his Praise He that worships not God with his Spirit regards not Gods presence in his Ordinances and slights the great end of God in them and that perfection he may attain by them We can only expect what God hath promised to give when we tender to him what he hath commanded us to present If we put off God with a Shell he will put us off with a Husk How can we expect his heart when we do not give him ours or hope for the blessing needful for us when we render not the glory due to him It cannot be an advantagious worship without spiritual graces for those are uniting and Union is the ground of all Communion Reason 5. To have a spiritual worship is Gods end in the restoration of the Creature both in Redemption by his Son and Sanctification by his Spirit A fitness for spiritual Offerings was the end of the coming of Christ * Mal. 3.3 He should purge them as Gold and Silver by Fire a Spirit burning up their dross melting them into a holy compliance with and submission to God To what purpose That they may offer to the Lord an Offering in Righteousnes a pure Offering from a purified Spirit He came to bring us to God * 1 Pet. 3.18 in such a Garb as that we might be fit to converse with him Can we be thus without a fixedness of our Spirits on him The offering of spiritual Sacrifices is the end of making any a spiritual Habitation and a holy Priest-hood * Pet. 2.5 We can no more be Worshippers of God without a Worshippers nature than a man can be a man without humane nature As man was at first created for the honour and worship of God so the design of restoring that Image which was defaced by Sin tends to the same end We are not brought to God by Christ nor are our services presented to him if they be without our Spirits Would any man that undertakes to bring another to a Prince introduce him in a slovenly and sordid habit such a garb that he knows hateful to him Or bring the Clothes or Skin of a Man stuft with straw instead of the Person To come with our Skins before God without our Spirits is contrary to the design of God in Redemption and Regeneration If a carnal worship would have pleased God a carnal heart would have served his turn without the expence of his Spirit in Sanctification He bestows upon man a spiritual nature that he may return to him a spiritual service He enlightens the Understanding that he may have a rational service and new moulds the Will that he may have a voluntary service As it is the Milk of the Word wherewith he feeds us so it is the service of the Word wherewith we must glorifie him So much as there is of confusedness in our understanding so much of starting and levity in our Wills so much of slipperiness and skipping in our affections so much is abated of the due qualities of the worship of God and so much we fall short of the end of Redemption and Sanctification Reason 6. A spiritual worship is to be offered to God because no worship but that can be acceptable We can never be secured of acceptance without it He being a Spirit nothing but the worship in Spirit can be sutable to him What is unsutable cannot be acceptable There must be something in us to make our services capable of being presented by Christ for an actual acceptation No service is acceptable to God by Jesus Christ but as it is a spiritual Sacrifice and offered by a spiritual heart 1 Pet. 2.5 The Sacrifice is first spiritual before it be acceptable to God by Christ When it is an offering in righteousness it is then and only then pleasant to the Lord Mal. 3.3 4. No Prince would accept a gift that is unsutable to his Majesty and below the condition of the person that presents it Would he be pleased with a bottle of water for drink from one that hath his Cellar full of wine How unacceptable must that be that is unsutable to the Divine Majesty And what can be more unsutable than a withdrawing the operations of our Souls from him in the oblation of our Bodies We as little glorifie God as God when we give him only a corporeal worship as the Heathen did when they represented him in a corporeal shape * Rom. 1.21
his own though appearing ridiculous in the place where he is he owns the Authority of the Prince whereas the omission of all respect would be a contempt of Majesty And therefore the Judgments of God have been more signal upon the Sacrilegious Contemners of worship among the Heathens than upon those that were diligent and devout in their false worship and they generally owned the blessings received to the preservation of a sense and worship of a deity among them Though such a worship be not acceptable to God and every man is bound to offer to God a devotion agreeable to his own mind yet it is commendable not as worship but as it speaks an acknowledgment of such a Being as God in his power in Creation and his beneficence in his Providence Well then omissions of worship are to be avoided Let no man execute that upon himself which God will pronounce at last as the greatest misery and bid God depart from him who will at last be loath to hear God bid him depart from him Though man hath natural sentiments that God is to be worshipped yet having an hostility in his nature he is apt to neglect or give it him in a slight manner He therefore sets a particular mark and notice of attention upon the fourth Command Remember thou keep holy the Sabath-day Corrupt nature is apt to neglect the worship of God and flagg in it This Command therefore which concerns his worship he fortifies with several reasons Nor let any neglect worship because they cannot find their hearts spiritual in it The further we are from God the more carnal shall we be No man can expect heat by a distance from the Sun beams or other means of warmth Though God commanded a circumcised heart in the Jewish services yet he did not warrant a neglect of the outward testimonies of Religion he had then appointed He expected according to his Command that they should offer the Sacrifices and practise the legal Purifications he had commanded he would have them diligently observed though he had declared that he imposed them only for a time And our Saviour ordered the practise of those positive rites as long as the law remained unrepealed as in the Case of the Leper * Mark 14.4 'T is an injustice to refuse the offering our selves to God according to the manner he hath in his Wisdom prescribed and required If spiritual worship be required by God then 2. It informs us that diligence in outward worship is not to be rested in * Daille melange des Sermon Ser. 2. Men may attend all their days on worship with a juiceless heart and unquickned frame and think to compensate the neglect of the manner with abundance of the matter of service Outward expressions are but the badges and liveries of service not the service it self As the strength of Sin lies in the inward frame of the heart so the strength of worship in the inward complexion and temper of the Soul What do a thousand services avail without cutting the throat of our carnal affections What are loud Prayers but as sounding Brass and tinkling Cymbals without Divine Charity A Pharisaical diligence in outward forms without inward Spirit had no better a title vouchsafed by our Saviour than that of hypocritical God desires not Sacrifices nor delights in burnt Offerings Shadows are not to be offered instead of Substance God required the heart of man for it self but commanded outward Ceremonies as subservient to inward worship and goads and spurs unto it They were never appointed as the substance of Religion but auxiliaries to it What value had the Offering of the human nature of Christ been of if he had not had a divine nature to qualifie him to be the Priest And what is the oblation of our Bodies without a Priestly act of the Spirit in the presentation of it Could the Israelites have called themselves Worshippers of God according to his Order if they had brought a thousand Lambs that had died in a Ditch or been killed at home They were to be brought living to the Altar the blood shed at the foot of it A thousand Sacrifices killed without had not been so valuable as one brought alive to the place of Offering One sound Sacrifice is better than a thousand rotten ones As God took no pleasure in the blood of Beasts without its relation to the Antitype So he takes no pleasure in the outward rites of worship without Faith in the Redeemer To offer a Body with a sapless Spirit is a Sacriledge of the same nature with that of the Israelites when they offered dead Beasts A man without spiritual worship is dead whiles he worships though by his diligence in the externals of it he may like the Angel of the Church of Sardis have a name to live * Revel 3.1 What security can we expect from a multitude of dead services What weak shields are they against the holy eye and revenging wrath of God What man but one out of his wits would sollicite a dead man to be his Advocate or Champion Diligence in outward worship is not to be rested in Vse 2. Shall be for Examination Let us try our selves concerning the manner of our worship We are now in the end of the world and the dreggs of time wherein the Apostle predicts there may be much of a form and little of the power of Godliness * 2 Tim. 3.1 5. And therefore it stands us in hand to search into our selves whether it be not thus with us Whether there be as much reverence in our Spirits as there may be devotion in our countenances and outward carriages 1. How therefore are our hearts prepared to worship Is our diligence greater to put our hearts in an adoring posture than our bodies in a decent garb Or are we content to have a muddy Heart so we may have a drest Carcass To have a Spirit a Cage of unclean Birds while we wipe the filth from the outside of the Platter is no better than a Pharisaical devotion and deserves no better a name than that of a whited Sepulcher Do we take opportunities to excite and quicken our Spirits to the performance and cry aloud with David awake awake my glory Are not our hearts asleep when Christ knocks when we hear the voice of God seek my face Do we answer him with warm resolutions thy face Lord we will seek * Psal 27.8 Do we comply with spiritual motions and strike whiles the Iron is hot Is there not more of reluctancy than readiness Is there a quick rising of the Soul in reverence to the motion as Eglon to Ehud or a sullen hanging the head at the first approach of it Or if our hearts seem to be engaged and on fire What are the motives that quicken that fire Is it only the blast of a natural Conscience fear of Hell desires of Heaven as abstracted from God Or is it an affection to God an obedient
will to please him longings to enjoy him as a holy and sanctifying God in his Ordinances as well as a blessed and glorified God in Heaven What do we expect in our approaches from him That which may make divine impressions upon us and more exactly conform us to the divine nature Or do we design nothing but an empty formality a rowling eye and a filling the Air with a few words without any openings of heart to receive the incomes which according to the nature of the duty might be conveyed to us Can this be a spiritual worship The Soul then closely waits upon him when its expectation is only from him Psal 62.6 Are our hearts seasoned with a sense of sin a sight of our spiritual wants raised notions of God glowing affections to Him strong appetite after a spiritual fulness Do we rouze up our sleepy Spirits and make a Covenant with all that is within us to attend upon him So much as we want of this so much we come short of a spiritual worship In Psal 57.7 My heart is fixed oh God my heart is fixed David would fix his heart before he would engage in a praising act of worship He appeals to God about it and that with doubling the expression as being certain of an inward preparedness Can we make the same appeals in a fixation of Spirit 2. How are our hearts fixed upon him How do they cleave to him in the duty Do we resign our Spirits to God and make them an intire Holocaust a whole burnt-offering in his worship Or do we not willingly admit carnal thoughts to mix themselves with spiritual duties and fasten our minds to the Creature under pretences of directing them to the Creator Do we not pass a meer complement on God by some superficial act of devotion while some covetous envious ambitious voluptuous imagination may possess our minds Do we not invert Gods Order and worship a Lust instead of God with our Spirits that should not have the least service either from our Souls or Bodies but with a spiritual disdain be sacrificed to the just indignation of God How often do we fight against his Will while we cry hail Master instead of crucifying our own thoughts crucifying the Lord of our Lives Our outward carriage plausible and our inward stark naught Do we not often regard iniquity more than God in our hearts in a time of worship Roul some filthy imagination as a sweet morsel under our tongues and taste more sweetness in that than in God Do not our Spirits smell rank of Earth while we offer to Heaven and have we not hearts full of thick Clay as their hands were full of blood * Isa 1.15 When we sacrifice do we not wrap up our Souls in communion with some sordid fancy when we should entwine our Spirits about an amiable God While we have some fear of him may we not have a love to something else above him This is to worship or swear by the Lord and by Malchom * Zeph. 1.5 How often doth an Apish-fancy render a service inwardly ridiculous under a grave outward posture skipping to the Shop Ware-house Compting-house in the space of a short Prayer And we are before God as a Babel a confusion of internal languages and this in those parts of worship which are in the right use most agreeable to God profitable for our selves ruinous to the Kingdom of Sin and Satan and means to bring us into a closer communion with the Divine Majesty Can this be a spiritual worship 3. How do we act our graces in worship Though the Instrument be strung if the strâ—ngs be not wound up what melody can be the issue All readiness and alacrity discover a strength of nature and a readiness in Spirituals discovers a spirituality in the heart As unaffecting thoughts of God are not spiritual thoughts so unaffecting addresses to God are not spiritual addresses Well tâ—en what awakenings and elevations of Faith and Love have we What strong outflowings of our Souls to him What indignation against Sin What admirations of redeeming Grace How low have we brought our corruptions to the foot-stool of Christ to be made his conquered Enemies How straitly have we claspt ouâ— Faith about the Cross and Throne of Christ to become his intimate Spouse Do we in hearing hang upon the lips of Christ in prayer take hold of God and wil not let him go in confessions rent the Caul of our hearts and indite our Souls before him with a deep humility Do we act more by a soaring love than a drooping fear So far as our Spitits are servile so far they are legal and carnal so much as they are free and spontaneous so much they are evangelical and spiritual As men under the Law are subject to the constraint of Bondage * Heb. 2.15 all their life-time in all their worship so under the Gospel they are under a constraint of love * 2 Cor. 5.14 How then are believing affections exercised which are alway accompanied with holy fear a fear of his goodness that admits us into his presence and a fear to offend him in our act of worship So much as we have of forced or feeble affection so much we have of carnality 4. How do we find our hearts after worship By an after carriage we may judge of the spirituality of it 1. How are we as to inward strength When a worship is spiritually performed grace is more strengthened corruption more mortified The Soul like Sampson after his awakening goes out with a renewed strength As the inward man is renewed day by day that is every day so it is renewed in every worship Every shower makes the grass and fruit grow in good ground where the root is good and the weeds where the ground is naught The more prepared the heart is to obedience in other duties after worship the more evidence there is that it hath been spiritual in the exercise of it 'T is the end of God in every dispensation as in that of John Baptist To make ready a People prepared for the Lord * Luke 1 17. When the heart is by worship prepared for fresh acts of obedience and hath a more exact watchfulness against the incroachments of Sin As carnal men after worship sprout up in spiritual wickedness so do spiritual Worshippers in spiritual graces Spiritual fruits are a sign of a spiritual frame When men are more prone to sin after duty 't is a sign there was but little communion with God in it and a greater strength of sin because such an act is contrary to the end of worship which is the subduing of Sin 'T is a sign the Physick hath wrought well when the stomach hath a better appetite to its appointed food and worship hath been well performed when we have a stronger inclination to other acts well pleasing to God and a more sensible distaste of those temptations we too much relisht before 'T is a sign of
a good Concoction when there is a greater strength in the vitals of Religion a more eager desire to know God When Moses had been praying to God and prevailed with him he puts up a higher request to behold his Glory * Exod. 33.13 18. When the appetite stands strong to fuller discoveries of God it is a sign there hath been a spiritual converse with him 2. How is it especially as to humility The Pharisees worship was without dispute carnal and we find them not more humble after all their devotions but over-grown with more weeds of spiritual pride they performed them as their righteousness What men dare plead before God in his day they plead before him in their hearts in their day but this men will do at the day of Judgement we have prophesied in thy Name c. Mat. 7.21 They shew what tincture their services left upon their Spirits That which excludes them from any acceptation at the last day excludes them from any estimation of being spiritual in this day The carnal Worshippers charge God with Injustice in not rewarding them and claim an acceptation as a compensation due to them Isa 58.3 Wherefore have we afflicted our Souls and thou takest no knowledge A spiritual Worshipper looks upon his duties with shame as well as he doth upon his sins with confusion and implores the mercy of God for the one as well as the other In the 143 Psalm v. 2. the Prophet David after his supplications begs of God not to enter into Judgment with him and acknowledges any answer that God should give him as a fruit of his faithfulness to his promise and not the merit of his worship * Psal 143.2 In thy Faithfulness answer me c. Whatsoever springs from a gracious Principle and is the breath of the Spirit leaves a man more humble whereas that which proceeds from a stock of nature hath the true blood of nature running in the veins of it viz. that pride which is naturally derived from Acam The breathing of the Divine Spirit is in every thing to conform us to our Redeemer that being the main work of his Office is his work in every particular Christian-act influenced by him Now Jesus Christ in all his actions was an exact Pattern of Humility After the institution and celebration of the Supper a special act of worship in the Church though he had a sense of all the Authority his Father had given him yet he humbles himself to wash his Disciples feet * John 13.2 3 4 And after his sublime Prayer John 17. He humbles himself to the death and offers himself to his Murderers because of his Fathers pleasure John 18.1 When he had spoken those words he wâ—nt over the Brook Kedron into the Garden What is the end of God in appointing worship is the end of a spiritual heart in offering it not his own exaltation but Gods glory Glorifying the name of God is the fruit of that Evangelical-worship the Gentiles were in time to give to God Psal 86.9 All Nations which thou hast made shall come and worship before thee oh Lord and shall glorifie thy Name Let us examin then what debasing our selves there is in a sense of our own vileness and distance from so glorious a Spirit Self-denial is the heart of all Gospel-grace Evangelical Spiritual-worship cannot be without the ingredient of the main Evangelical Principle 3. What delight is there after it What pleasure is there and what is the Object of that pleasure Is it Communion the we have had with God or a Fluency in our selves Is it something which hath touched our hearts or tickled our fancies As the strength of sin is known by the delightful thoughts of it after the commission so is the spirituality of duty by the object of our delightful remembrance after the performance It was a sign David was spiritual in the worship of God in the Tabernacle when he enjoyed it because he longed for the spiritual part of it when he was exil'd from it His desires were not only for Liberty to revisit the Tabernacle but to see the power and glory of God in the Sanctuary as he had seen it before * Psal 63.2 His desires for it could not have been so ardent if his reflection upon what had past had not been delightful nor could his Soul be poured out in him for the want of such opportunities if the remembrance of the converse he had had with God had not been accompanied with a delightful relish * Psal 42.4 Let us examin what delight we find in our spirits after worship Vse 3. Is of comfort And 't is very comfortable to consider that the smallest worship with the Heart and Spirit flowing from a principle of grace is more acceptable than the most pompous veneration yea if the oblation were as precious as the whole Circuit of Heaven and Earth without it That God that values a Cup of Cold water given to any as his Disciple will value a sincere service above a costly Sacrifice God hath his eye upon them that honour his nature He would not seek such to worship him if he did not intend to accept such a worship from them When we therefore invoke him and praise him which are the prime parts of Religion he will receive it as a sweet favour from us and overlook infirmities mixed with the graces The great matter of discomfort and that which makes us question the spirituality of worship is the many starts of our Spirits and rovings to other things For answer to which 1. 'T is to be confest that these starts are natural to us Who is free from them We bear in our own bosoms a nest of turbulent thoughts which like busie Gnatts will be buzzing about us while we are in our most inward and spiritual converses Many wild beasts lurk in a mans heart as in a close and covert wood and scarce discover themselves but at our solemn worship No duty so holy No worship so spiritual that can wholly priviledge us from them They will jogg us in our most weighty employments that as God said to Cain sin lyes at the door and enters in and makes a riot in our Souls As it is said of wicked men they cannot sleep for multitude of thoughts * Eccles 5.12 so it may be of many a good man he cannot worship for multitude of thoughts There will be starts and more in our Religious than natural imployments 't is natural to man Some therefore think the Bells tied to Aarons Garments between the Pomegranates were to warn the People and recall their fugitive minds to the present service when they heard the sound of them upon the least motion of the High priest The Sacrifice of Abraham the Father of the Faithful was not exempt from the Fouls pecking at it * Gen. 15.11 Zechariah himself was drowsie in the midst of his Visions which being more amazing might cause a heavenly intentness*
more distractions jogg us the more need we should see of going out to a Saviour by Faith One part of our Saviours Office is to stand between us and the infirmities of our worship As he is an Advocate he presents our services and pleads for them and us * 1 John 2.1 for the sins of our duties as well as for our other sins Jesus Christ is an High-priest appointed by God to take away the iniquities of our holy things which was typified by Aarons Plate upon his Mitre * Exod. 28.36 38. Were there no imperfections were there no creeping up of those Froggs into our minds we should think our worship might merit acceptance with God upon its own account But if we behold our own weakness that not a tear a groan a sigh is so pure but must have Christ to make it entertainable that there is no worship without those blemishes and upon this throw all our services into the Arms of Christ for acceptance and sollicite him to put his merits in the front to make our ciphers appear valuable 't is a spiritual act the design of God in the Gospel being to advance the honour and mediation of his Son That is a spiritual and evangelical act which answers the evangelical design The design of Satan and our own corruption is defeated when those interruptions make us run swifter and take faster hold on the High-priest who is to present our worship to God and our own Souls receive comfort thereby Christ had temptations offered to him by the Devil in his Wilderness retirement that from an experimental knowledge he might be able more compassionatly to succour us * Heb. 2.18 we have such assaults in our retir'd worship especially that we may be able more highly to value him and his mediation 3. Let us not therefore be discouraged by those interruptions and starts of our hearts 1. If we find in our selves a strong resistance of them The Flesh will be lusting that cannot be hindered yet if we do not fulfil the lusts of it rise up at its command and go about its work we may be said to walk in the Spirit * Gal. 5.16 17. We walk in the Spirit if we fulfil not the lusts of the Flesh though there be a lusting of the Flesh against the Spirit So we worship in the Spirit though there be carnal thoughts arising if we do not fulfil them though the stirring of them discovers some contrariety in us to God yet the resistance manifests that there is a principle of contrariety in us to them that as there is something of Flesh that lusts against the Spirit so there is something of Spirit in worship which lusts against the Flesh We must take heed of omitting worship because of such in-rodes and lying down in the mire of a total neglect If our Spirits are made more lively and vigorous against them If those cold vapours which have risen from our hearts make us like a Spring in the midst of the cold Earth more warm There is in this case more reason for us to bless God than to be discouraged God looks upon it as the disease not the wilfulness of our nature as the weakness of the Flesh not the willingness of the Spirit If we would shut the door upon them it seems they are unwelcome company Men do not use to lock their doors upon those they love If they break in and disturb us with their impertinencies we need not be discomforted unless we give them a share in our affections and turn our back upon God to entertain them If their presence makes us sad their flight would make us joyful 2. If we find our selves excited to a stricter watch over our hearts against them As Travellers will be careful when they come to places where they have been rob'd before that they be not so easily surprized again We should not only lament when we have had such foolish imaginations in worship breaking in upon us but also bless God that we have had no more since we have hearts so fruitful of weeds We should give God the glory when we find our hearts preserved from these intruders and not boast of our selves but return him our praise for the watch and guard he kept over us to preserve us from such Thieves Let us not be discomforted for as the greatness of our sins upon our turning to God is no hinderance to our justification because it doth not depend upon our conversion as the meritorious cause but upon the infinite value of our Saviours satisfaction which reaches the greatest sins as well as the least so the multitude of our bewail'd distractions in worship are not a hinderance to our acceptation because of the uncontroulable power of Christs intercession Vse 3. Is for exhortation Since Spiritual worship is due to God and the Father seeks such to worship him how much should we endeavour to satisfie the desire and order of God and act conformable to the Law of our Creation and the love of Redemption Our end must be the same in worship which was Gods end in Creation and Redemption to glorifie his name set forth his perfections and be rendred fit as Creatures and Redeemed ones to partake of that grace which is the fruit of worship An Evangelical dispensation requires a Spiritual homage to neglect therefore either the matter or manner of Gospel duties is to put a slight upon Gospel priviledges The manner of duty is ever of more value than the matter the Scarlet dye is more precious than the cloth tinctured with it God respects more the diposition of the Sacrificer than the multitude of the Sacrifices * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 Abstinentia The Solemn feasts appointed by God were but Dung as managed by the Jews Mâ—â— 2.3 The heart is often welcome without the body but the body never graâ—â—ful without the heart The inward acts of the Spirit require nothing from without to constitute them good in themselves but the outward acts of devotion require inward acts to render them savory to God As the goodness of outward acts consists not in the acts themselves so the acceptableness of them results not from the acts themselves but from the inward frame animating and quickning those acts as blood and Spirits running through the veins of a duty to make it a living service in the sight of God Imperfections in worship hinder not Gods acceptation of it if the heart Spirited by Grace be there to make it a sweet Savour The stench of burning flesh and fat in the legal Sacrifices might render them noysome to the outward senses but God smelt a sweet savour in them as they respected Christ When the heart and Spirit are offered up to God it may be a savory duty though attended with unsavory imperfections But a thousand Sacrifices without a stamp of faith a thousand Spiritual duties with an habitual carnality are no better than stench with God The heart must
God yet I may call it a subjective Idolatry in regard of the frame fit only to be presented to some sensless stock We intimate God to be no better than an Idol and to have no more knowledge of us and insight into us than an Idol can have If we did believe him to be the living God we durst not come before him with services so unsutable to him and reproaches of him 3. 'T is against the infiniteness of God We should worship God with those boundless affections which bear upon them a Shadow or Image of his Infiniteness such are the desires of the Soul which know no limits but start out beyond whatsoever enjoyment the heart of man possesses No creeping Creature was to be offered to God in Sacrifice but such as had leggs to run or wings to fly For us to come before God with a light creeping frame is to worship him with the lowest finite affections as though any thing though never so mean or torn might satisfie an infinite Being as though a poor shallow Creature could give enough to God without giving him the heart when indeed we cannot give him a worship proportionable to his infiniteness did our hearts swell as large as Heaven in our desires for him in every act of our duties 4. 'T is against the spirituality of God God being a Spirit calls for a worship in Spirit to withold this from him implies him to be some gross corporeal matter As a Spirit he looks for the heart a wrestling heart in Prayer a trembling heart in the Word * Isa 66.2 To bring nothing but the Body when we come to a spiritual God to beg spiritual benefits to wait for spiritual communications which can only be dispensed to us in a spiritual manner is unsutable to the spiritual nature of God A meer carnal service implicitely denies his spirituality which requires of us higher engagements than meer corporeal ones Worship should be rational not an imaginative service wherein is required the activity of our noblest faculties and our fancy ought to have no share in it but in subserviency to the more spiritual part of our Soul 5. 'T is against the supremacy of God As God is one and the only Soveraign so our hearts should be one cleaving wholly to him and undivided from him In pretending to deal with him we acknowledge his Deity and Soveraignty but in with holding our choicest faculties and affections from him and the starting of our minds to vain Objects we intimate their equality with God and their right as well as his to our hearts and affections 'T is as if a Princess should commit Adultery with some base Scullion while she is before her Husband which would be a plain denial of his sole right to her It intimates that other things are superior to God they are true Soveraigns that ingross our hearts If a man were addressing himself to a Prince and should in an instant turn his back upon him upon a beck or nod from some inconsiderable person is it not an evidence that that person that invited him away hath a greater soveraignty over him than that Prince to whom he was applying himself And do we not discard Gods absolute dominion over us when at the least beck of a corrupt inclination we can dispose of our hearts to it and alienate them from God As they in Ezek. 33.32 left the service of God for the service of their covetousness which evidenced that they owned the authority of sin more than the authority of God This is not to serve God as our Lord and absolute Master but to make God serve our turn and submit his Soveraignity to the Supremacy of some unworthy affection The Creature is preferred before the Creator when the heart runs most upon it in time of religious worship and our own carnal interest swallows up the affections that are due to God 'T is an an Idol set up in the heart * Ezek. 14.4 in his solemn presence and attracts that devotion to it self which we only owe to our Soveraign Lord and the more base and contemptible that is to which the Spirit is devoted the more contempt there is of Gods dominion Judas his kiss with a hail Master was no act of worship or an owning his Masters authority but a designing the satisfaction of his Covetousness in the betraying of him 6. 'T is against the Wisdom of God God as a God of order has put earthly things in subordination to heavenly and we by this unworthy carriage invert this order and put heavenly things in subordination to earthly in placing mean and low things in our hearts and bringing them so placed into Gods presence which his Wisdom at the Creation put under our feet A service without spiritual affections is a sacrifice of Fools Eccles 5.1 which have lost their Brains and Understandings A foolish Spirit is very unsutable to an infinitely wise God Well may God say of such a one as Achish of David who seemed mad Why have you brought this Fellow to play the Mad-man in my presence Shall this Fellow come into my House 1 Sam. 21.15 7. 'T is against the Omnisciency of God To carry it fair without and impertinently within is as though God had not an all-seeing eye that could pierce into the heart and understand every motion of the inward faculties As though God were easily cheated with an outward fawning service like an Apothecaries box with a guilded title that may be full of Cobwebs within What is such a carriage but a design to deceive God when with Herod we pretend to worship Christ and intend to murder all the motions of Christ in our Souls A heedless Spirit an estrangement of our Souls a giving the Rains to them to run out from the presence of God to see every Reed shaken with the Wind is to deny him to be the Searcher of hearts and the Discerner of secret thoughts as though he could not look through us to the darkness and remoteness of our minds but were an ignorant God who might be put off with the worst as well as the best in our Flock If we did really believe there were a God of infinite Knowledge who saw our frames and whether we came drest with Wedding-garments sutable to the duties we are about to perform should we be so garish and put him off with such trivial stuff without any reverence of his Majesty 8. 'T is against the Holiness of God To alienate our Spirits is to offend him while we pretend to worship him Though we may be mighty officious in the external part yet our base and carnal affections make all our worship but as a heap of Dung and who would not look upon it as an affront to lay Dung before a Prince's Throne Pro. 21.27 The Sacrifice of the Wicked is an abomination How much more when he brings it with a wicked mind A putrified Carcass under the Law had not been so great an affront
to the Holiness of God as a frothy unmelted heart and a wanton fancy in a time of worship God is so holy that if we could offer the worship of Angels and the quintessence of our Souls in his service it would be beneath his infinite purity How unworthy then are they of him when they are presented not only without the sense of our uncleaness but sullied with the fumes and exhalations of our corrupt affections which are as so many Plague spots upon our duties contrary to the unspotted purity of the Divine Nature Is not this an unworthy conceit of God and injurious to his infinite Holiness 9. 'T is against the Love and Kindness of God 'T is a condescension in God to admit a piece of Earth to offer up a duty to him when he hath miriads of Angels to attend him in his Court and celebrate his Praise To admit Man to be an Attendant on him and a Partner with Angels is a high favour 'T is not a single mercy but a heap of mercies to be admitted into the presence of God Psal 5.7 I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercies When the blessed God is so kind as to give us access to his Majesty do we not undervalue his kindness when we deal uncivilly with him and deny him the choicest part of our selves 'T is a contempt of his Soveraignty as our Spirits are due to him by nature a contempt of his Goodness as our Spirits are due to him by gratitude How abusive a carriage is it to make use of his mercy to encourage our impudence that should excite our fear and reverence How unworthy would it be for an indigent Debtor to bring to his indulgent Creditor an empty Purse instead of Payment When God holds out his Golden Scepter to encourage our approaches to him stands ready to give us the pardon of sin and full felicity the best things he hath Is it a fit requital of his kindness to give him a formal outside only a shadow of Religion to have the heart overswayed with other thoughts and affections as if all his profers were so contemptible as to deserve only a slight at our hands 'T is a contempt of the love and kindness of God 10. 'T is against the Sufficiency and Fullness of God When we give God our Bodies and the Creature our Spirits it intimates a conceit that there is more content to be had in the Creature than in God blessed for ever that the waters in the Cistern are sweeter than those in the Fountain Is not this a practical giving God the Lye and denying those promises wherein he hath declared the satisfaction he can give to the Spirit as he is the God of the Spirits of all Flesh If we did imagin the excellency and loveliness of God were worthy to be the ultimate Object of our affections the heart would attend more closely upon him and be terminated in him did we believe God to be all sufficient full of grace and goodness a tender Father not willing to forsake his own willing as well as able to supply their wants the heart would not so lamely attend upon him and would not upon every impertinency be diverted from him There is much of a wrong notion of God and a predominancy of the world above him in the heart when we can more savourly relish the thoughts of low inferior things than heavenly and let our Spirits upon every trifling occasion be fugitives from him 'T is a testimony that we make not God our chiefest good If apprehensions of his excellency did possess our Souls they would be fastned on him glued to him we should not listen to that rabble of foolish thoughts that steal our hearts so often from him Were our breathings after God as strong as the pantings of the Hart after the water Brooks we should be like that Creature not diverted in our Course by every Puddle Were God the predominant satisfactory Object in our eye he would carry our whole Soul along with him When our Spirits readily retreat from God in worship upon every giddy motion 't is a kind of repentance that ever we did come near him and implies that there is a fuller satisfaction and more attractive excellency in that which doth so easily divert us than in that God to whose worship we did pretend to address our selves 'T is as if when we were petitioning a Prince we should immediately turn about and make request to one of his Guard as though so mean a person were more able to give us the boon we want than the Soveraign is 2. Consideration by way of motive To have our Spirits off from God in worship is a bad sign It was not so in Innocence The heart of Adam could cleave to God the Law of God was engraven upon him he could apply himself to the fulfilling of it without any twinkling there was no folly and vanity in his mind no independency in his thoughts no duty was his burden for there was in him a proneness to and delight in all the duties of worship 'T is the Fall hath distempered us and the more unwieldiness there is in our Spirits the more carnal our affections are in worship the more evidence there is of the strength of that revolted state 1. It argues much corruption in the heart As by the eructations of the Stomach we may judge of the windiness and foulness of it so by the inordinate motions of our minds and hearts we may judge of the weakness of its complexion A strength of sin is evidenced by the eruptions and ebullitions of it in worship when they are more sudden numerous and vigorous than the motions of grace When the heart is apt like tinder to catch fire from Satan 't is a sign of much combustible matter sutable to his temptation Were not corruption strong the Soul could not turn so easily from God when it is in his presence and hath an advantagious opportunity to create a fear and aw of God in it Such base fruit could not sprout up so suddenly were there not much sap and juice in the root of sin What communion with a living root can be evidenced without exercises of an inward life That Spirit which is a Well of living waters in a gracious heart will be especially springing up when it is before God 2. It shews much affection to earthly things and little to heavenly There must needs be an inordinate affection to earthly things when upon every slight sollicitation we can part with God and turn the back upon a service glorious for him and advantagious for our selves to wedd our hearts to some idle fancy that signifies nothing How can we be said to entertain God in our affections when we give him not the precedency in our understandings but let every trifle justle the sense of God out of our minds Were our hearts fully determined to spiritual things such vanities could not seat themselves in our
understandings and divide our Spirits from God Were our hearts ballanced with a love to God the world could never steal our hearts so much from his worship but his worship would draw our hearts to it It shews a base neutrality in the greatest concernments a halting between God and Baal a contrariety between Affection and Conscience when natural Conscience presses a man to duties of worship and his other affections pull him back draw him to carnal objects and make him slight that whereby he may honour God God argues the prophaness of the Jews hearts from the wickedness they brought into his house and acted there Jer. 23.11 Yea in my house that is my worship I found their wickedness saith the Lord. Carnality in worship is a kind of an Idolatrous frame when the heart is renewed Idols are cast to the Moles and the Batts Isa 2.20 3. It shews much hypocrisie to have our Spirits off from God The mouth speaks and the carriage pretends what the heart doth not think there is a dissent of the heart from the pretence of the body Instability is a sure sign of Hypocrisie Double thoughts argue a double heart The Wicked are compared to Chaff * Psal 1.4 for the uncertain and various motions of their minds by the least wind of fancy The least motion of a carnal Object diverts the Spirit from God as the scent of Carrion doth the Raven from the flight it was set upon The People of God are called Gods Spouse and God calls himself their Husband whereby is noted the most intimate union of the Soul with God and that there ought to be the highest love and affection to him and faithfulness in his worship but when the heart doth start from him in worship it is a sign of the unstedfastness of it with God and a disrelish of any communion with him It is as God complains of the Israelites a going a whoreing after our own imaginations As grace respects God as the object of worship so it looks most upon God in approaching to him Where there is a likeness and love there is a desire of converse and intimacy if there be no spiritual entwining about God in our worship it is a sign there is no likeness to him no true sense of him no renewed image of God in us Every living Image will move strongly to joyn it self with its original Copy and be glad with Jacob to sit steadily in those Chariots that shall convey him to his beloved Joseph Motion 3. Consider the danger of a carnal worship 1. We lose the comfort of worship The Soul is a great Gainer when it offers a spiritual worship and as great a loser when it is unfaithful with God Treachery and perfidiousness hinder commerce among men so doth Hypocrisie in its own nature communion with God God never promised any thing to the Carcass but to the Spirit of worship God hath no obligation upon him by any word of his to reward us with himself when we perform it not to himself When we give an outside worship we have only the outside of an ordinance We can expect no kernel when we give God only the shell He that only licks the outside of the Glass can never be refreshed with the rich Cordial enclosed within A cold and lazy formality will make God to withdraw the light of his countenance and not shine with any delightful communications upon our Souls but if we come before him with a liveliness of affections and steadiness of heart he will draw the vail and cause his glory to display it self before us An humble praying Christian and a warm affectionate Christian in worship will soon find a God who is delighted with such frames and cannot long withold himself from the Soul When our hearts are enflamed with love to him in worship 't is a preparation to some act of love on his part whereby he intends further to gratifie us When John was in the Spirit on the Lords day that is in spiritual employment and meditation and other duties he had that great Revelation of what should happen to the Church in all ages * Rev 1.10 His being in the Spirit intimates his ordinary course on that day and not any extraordinary act in him though it was followed with an extraordinary discovery of God to him When he was thus engaged he heard a voice behind him God doth not require of us spirituality in worship to advantage himself but that we might be prepared to be advantaged by him If we have a clear and well disposed eye 't is not a benefit to the Sun but fits us to receive benefits from his Beams Worship is an act that perfects our own Souls they are then most widened by spiritual frames to receive the influence of divine blessings as an eye most opened receives the fruit of the Suns light better than the eye that is shut The communications of God are more or less according as our spiritual frames are more or less in our worship God will not give his blessings to unsutable hearts What a nasty Vessel is a carnal heart for a spiritual communication The chief end of every duty enjoyned by God is to have communion with him and therefore it is called a drawing near to God 'T is impossible therefore that the outward part of any duty can answer the end of God in his institution 'T is not a bodily appearance or gesture whereby men can have communion with God but by the impressions of the heart and reflections of the heart upon God Without this all the rich streams of grace will run besides us and the growth of the Soul be hindered and impaired A diligent hand makes rich saith the wise man a diligent heart in spiritual worship brings in rich incomes to the humble and spiritual Soul 2. It renders the worship not only unacceptable but abominable to God It makes our Gold to become Dross it soyls our duties and bespotts our Souls A carnal and unsteady frame shews an indifferency of Spirit at best and luke warmness is as ungrateful to God as heavy and nauseous meat is to the stomach he spues them out of his mouth * Rev. 3.16 As our gracious God doth overlook infirmities where intentions are good and endeavours serious and strong so he loaths the services where the frames are stark naught Psal 66.118 If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my Prayer Luke warm and indifferrent services stink in the Nostrils of God The heart seems to loath God when it starts from him upon every occasion when it is unwilling to employ it self about and stick close to him And can God be pleased with such a frame The more of the Heart and Spirit is in any service the more real goodness there is in it and the more savoury it is to God the less of the Heart and Spirit the less of goodness and the more nauseous to God who loves Righteousness
and Truth in the inward parts * Psal 51.6 And therefore infinite Goodness and Holiness cannot but hate worship presented to him with deceitful carnal and flitting affections They must be more nauseous to God than a putrified Carcass can be to Man They are the prophanings of that which should be the habitation of the Spirit They make the Spirit the seat of duty a filthy dung-hill and are as loathsome to God as Mony-changers in the Temple were to our Saviour We see the evil of carnal frames and the necessity and benefit of spiritual frames For further help in this last let us practise thesâ— following directions Direction 1. Keep up spiritual frames out of worship To avoid low affections we must keep our hearts as much as we can in a setled elevation If we admit unworthy dispositions at one time we shall not easily be rid of them at another * Fitzherbert Pol. in relig part 2. cap. 19. § 12. As he that would not be bitten with Gnats in the Night must keep his windows shut in the Day when they are once entred 't is not easie to expel them In which respect one adviseth to be such out of worship as we would be in worship If we mix spiritual affections with our worldly employments worldly affections will not mingle themselves so easily with our heavenly engagements If our hearts be spiritual in our outward calling they will scarce be carnal in our religious service If we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lusts of the Flesh * Gal. 5.16 A spiritual walk in the day will hinder carnal lustings in worship The Fire was to be kept alive upon the Altar when Sacrifices were not offered from morning till night from night till morning as well as in the very time of Sacrifice A spiritual life and vigour out of worship would render it at its season sweet and easie and preserve a spontaneity and preparedness to it and make it both natural and pleasant to us Any thing that doth unhinge and discompose our Spirits is inconsistent with religious services which are to be performed with the greatest sedateness and gravity All irregular passions disturb the serenity of the Spirit and open the door for Satan * Eph. 4.26.27 Saith the Apostle Let not the Sun go down upon your wrath neither give place to the Devil Where wrath breaks the Lock the Devil will quickly be over the Threshold and though they be allayed yet they leave the heart sometime after like the Sea rowling and swelling after the storm is ceased Mixture with ill company leaves a tincture upon us in worship Ephraims allying himself with the Gentiles bred an indifferency in Religion Hos 7.8 Ephraim hath mixed himself with the People Ephraim is a Cake not turn'd It will make our hearts and consequently our services half Dough as well as half bak'd These and the like make the holy Spirit withdraw himself and then the Soul lies like a wind-bound Vessel and can make no way When the Sun departs from us it carries its Beams away with it then doth Darkness spread it self over the Earth and the Beasts of the Forests creep out * Psal 1â—4 2â— When the Spirit withdraws a while from a good man it carries away though not habitual yet much of the exciting and assisting grace and then carnal dispositions perk up themselves from the bosome of natural corruption To be spiritual in worship we must bar the door at other times against that which is contrary to it As he that would not be infected with a contagious disease carries some Preservative about with him and inures himself to good scents To this end be much in secret ejaculations to God these are the purest slights of the Soul that have more of fervor and less of carnality they preserve a liveliness in the Spirit and make it more fit to perform solemn stated worship with greater freedom and activity A constant use of this would make our whole lives lives of worship As frequent sinful acts strengthen habits of sin so frequent religious acts strengthen habits of grace Direction 2. Excite and exercise particularly a love to God and dependence on him Love is a commanding affection a uniting graces it draws all the faculties of the Soul to one Center The Soul that loves God when it hath to do with him is bound to the beloved Object It can mind nothing else during such impressions When the affection is set to the worship of God every thing the Soul hath will be bestowed upon it As David's disposition was to the Temple 1 Chron. 29.3 Carnal frames like the Fouls will be lighting upon the Sacrifice but not when it is enflam'd Though the scent of the flesh invite them yet the heat of the fire drives them to their distance A flaming love will singe the Flies that endeavour to interrupt and disturb us The happiness of Heaven consists in a full attraction of the Soul to God by his glorious influence upon it There will be such a diffusion of his goodness throughout the Souls of the Blessed as will unite the affections perfectly to him These affections which are scattered here will be there gathered into one flame moving to him and centring in him Therefore the more of a heavenly frame possesses our affections here the more settled and uniform will our hearts be in all their motions to God and operations about him Excite a dependence on him Pro. 16.3 Commit thy works to the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established Let us go out in Gods strength and not in our own vain is the help of man in any thing and vain is the help of the heart 'T is through God only we can do valiantly in spiritual concerns as well as temporal the want of this makes but slight impressions upon the Spirit Direction 3. Nourish right conceptions of the Majesty of God in your minds Let us consider that we are drawing to God the most amiable Object the best of Beings worthy of infinite honour and highly meriting the highest affections we can give a God that made the world by a word that upholds the great frame of Heaven and Earth a Majesty above the conceptions of Angels who uses not his power to strike us to our deserved punishment but his love and bounty to allure us a God that gave all the Creatures to serve us and can in a trice make them as much our Enemies as he hath now made them our Servants Let us view him in his greatness and in his goodness that our hearts may have a true value of the worship of so great a Majesty and count it the most worthy employment with all diligence to attend upon him When we have a fear of God it will make our worship serious when we have a joy in God it will make our worship durable Our affections will be raised when we represent God in the most reverential endearing and obliging
circumstances We honour the Majesty of God when we consider him with due reverence according to the greatness and perfection of his works and in this reverence of his Majesty doth worship chiefly consist Low thoughts of God will make low frames in us before him If we thought God an infinite glorious Spirit how would our hearts be lower than our knees in his presence How humbly how believingly pleading is the Psalmist when he considers God to be without comparison in the Heavens to whom none of the Sons of the Mighty can be likened when there was none like to him in strength or faithfulness round about * Psal 89.6 7 8. We should have also deep impressions of the Omniscience of God and remember we have to deal with a God that searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins to whom the most secret temper is as visible as the loudest words are Audible that though man judges by outward expressions God judges by inward affections As the Law of God regulates the inward frames of the heart so the eye of God pitches upon the inward intentions of the Soul If God were visibly present with us should we not approach to him with strong affections summon our Spirits to attend upon him behave our selves modestly before him Let us consider he is as really present with us as if he were visible to us let us therefore preserve a strong sense of the presence of God No man but one out of his wits when he were in the presence of a Prince and making a Speech to him would break off at every Period and run after the catching of Butter-flyes Remember in all worship you are before the Lord to whom all things are open and naked Direction 4. Let us take heed of inordinate desires after the world As the world steals away a mans heart from the Word so it doth from all other worship It chokes the Word * Mat. 13.27 it stifles all the spiritual breathings after God in every duty The edge of the Soul is blunted by it and made too dull for such sublime exercises The Apostles rule in Prayer when he joyns sobriety with watching unto Prayer 1 Pet. 4.7 is of concern in all worship sobriety in the pursuite and use of all wordly things A man drunk with worldly fumes cannot watch cannot be heavenly affectionate spiritual in service There is a magnetick force in the Earth to hinder our flights to Heaven Birds when they take their first flights from the Earth have more flutterings of their wings than when they are mounted further in the Air and got more without the Sphear of the Earths attractiveness the motion of their wings is more steady that you can scarce perceive them stir they move like a Ship with a full Gale The world is a clog upon the Soul and a bar to spiritual frames 'T is as hard to elevate the heart to God in the midst of a hurry of worldly affairs as it is difficult to meditate when we are near a great noise of waters falling from a Precipice or in the midst of a Volly of Muskets Thick claiy affections bemire the heart and make it unfit for such high flights it is to take in worship Therefore get your hearts clear from worldly thoughts and desires if you would be more spiritual in worship 5. Let us be deeply sensible of our present wants and the supplies we may meet with in worship Cold affections to the things we would have will grow cooler Weakness of desire for the communications in worship will freez our hearts at the time of worship and make way for vain and foolish diversions A Begger that is ready to perish and knows he is next door to ruin will not slightly and dully began Alms and will not be diverted from his importunity by every slight call or the moving of an Atom in the Air. Is it Pardon we would have Let us apprehend the blackness of sin with the aggravations of it as it respects God Let us be deeply sensible of the want of pardon and worth of mercy and get our affections into such a frame as a condemned man would do Let us consider that as we are now at the Throne of Gods grace we shall shortly be at the Bar of Gods Justice and if the Soul should be forlorn there how fixedly and earnestly would it plead for mercy Let us endeavour to stir up the same affections now which we have seen some dying men have and which we suppose despairing Souls would have done at Gods Tribunal * Guliel Paris Rhetor. Divin cap. 26. p. 350. Col. 1. We must be sensible that the life or death of our Souls depends upon worship Would we not be ashamed to be ridiculous in our carriage while we are eating and shall we not be ashamed to be cold or garish before God when the Salvation of our Souls as well as the Honour of God is concerned If we did see the heaps of sins the eternity of punishment due to them If we did see an angry and offended Judge If we did see the riches of mercy the glorious outgoings of God in the Sanctuary the blessed Doles he gives out to men when they spiritually attend upon him both the one and the other would make us perform our duties humbly sincerely earnestly and affectionately and wait upon him with our whole Souls to have misery averted and mercy bestowed Let our sense of this be encouragâ—d by the consideration of our Saviour presenting his merits With what affection doth he present his merits his blood shed upon the Cross now in Heaven And shall our hearts be cold and frozen flitting and unsteady when his affectioâ—s are so much concerned Christ doth not present any Mans case and duties without a sense of hiâ— wants and shall we have none of our own Let me add this let us affect our hearts with a sense of what supplies we haâ—â— met with in former worship The delightful remembrance of what converâ—â— we have had with God in former worship would spiritualize our hearts for the present worship Had Peter had a view of Christs glory in the Mount fresh in his thoughts he would not so easily have turned his back upon his Master Nor would the Israelites have been at leasure for their Idolatry had they preserved the sense of the Majesty of God discovered in his late Thunders from Mount Sinai 6. If any thing intrudes that may choak the Worship cast it speedily out We cannot hinder Satan and our own Corruption from presenting Coolers to us but we may hinder the success of them We cannot hinder the Gnats from buzzing about us when we are in our business but we may prevent them from setling upon us A man that is running on a considerable Errand will shun all unnecessary discourse that may make him forget or loyter in his business What though there may be something offered that is good in it self yet if it hath a
to do a dishonest action in the sight of a grave and holy man one of great reputation for Wisdom and Integrity how much more should we lift up our selves in the ways of God who is Infinite and Immense is every where and infinitely superior to man and more to be regarded We could not seriously think of his Presence but there would pass some entercourse between us we should be putting up some Petition upon the sense of our Indigence or sending up our Praises to him upon the sense of his Bounty The actual thoughts of the Presence of God is the Life and Spirit of all Religion we could not have sluggish Spirits and a careless Watch if we consider'd that his Eye is upon us all the day 3. It will quell Distractions in Worship The actual thoughts of this would establish our thoughts and pull them back when they begin to rove The mind could not boldly give God the slip if it had lively thoughts of it the consideration of this would blow off all the Froth that lies on the top of our Spirits An eye taken up with the presence of one object is not at leisure to be fill'd with another He that looks intently upon the Sun shall have nothing for a while but the Sun in his Eye Oppose to every intruding Thought the Idea of the Divine Omnipresence and put it to silence by the awe of his Majesty When the Master is present Scholars mind their Books keep their Places and run not over the Forms to play with one another The Masters Eye keeps an idle Servant to his Work that otherwise would be gazing at every Straw and prating to every Passenger How soon would the remembrance of this dash all extravagant fancies out of Countenance just as the News of the approach of a Prince would make the Courtiers bustle up themselves huddle up their vain sports and prepare themselves for a Reverent Behaviour in his sight We should not dare to give God a piece of our heart when we apprehended him present with the whole we should not dare to mock one that we knew were more inwards with us than we are with our selves and that beheld every motion of our mind as well as action of our body 2. Let us endeavour for the more special and influential Presence of God Let the Essential Presence of God be the ground of our Awe and his gracious influential Presence the Object of our Desire The Heathen thought themselves secure if they had their little petty Houshold-Gods with them in their Journeys such seem to be the Images Rachel stole from her Father Gen. 31.19 to company her Travel with their Blessings she might not at that time have cast off all respect to those Idols in the acknowledgment of which she had been Educated from her Infancy and they seem to be kept by her till God called Jacob to Bethel after the Rape of Dinah Gen. 35.4 when Jacob called for the strange Gods and hid them under the Oak The â—â—â—â—cious Presence of God we should look after in our actions as Travellers that 〈◊〉 a Charge of Money or Jewels desire to keep themselves in Company that may protect them from High-way men that would rifle them Since we have the concerns of the Eternal Happiness of our Souls upon our hands we should endeavour to have Gods Merciful and Powerful Presence with us in all our ways Psal 14 In all thy ways acknowledg him and he shall direct thy Paths acknowledg him before any action by imploring acknowledg him after by rendring him the Glory acknowledg his Presence before Worship in Worship after Worship 'T is this Presence makes a kind of Heaven upon Earth causeth affliction to put off the nature of misery How much will the Presence of the Sun out-shine the Stars of lesser Comforts and fully answer the want of them The Ark of God going before us can only make all things successful It was this led the Israelites over Jordan and setled them in Canaan Without this we signify nothing tho' we live without this we cannot be distinguisht for ever from Devils his Essential Presence they have and if we have no more we shall be no better 'T is the enlivening fructifying presence of the Sun that revives the languishing Earth and this only can repair our ruin'd Soul Let it be therefore our desire That as he fills Heaven and Earth by his Essence he may fill our Understandings and Wills by his Grace that we may have another kind of Presence with us than Animals have in their brutish state or Devils in their Chains His Essential Presence maintains our Beings but his gracious Presence confers and continues a Happiness A DISCOURSE UPON Gods Knowledg Psal 147.5 Great is our Lord and of great Power his Vnderstanding is Infinite 'T IS uncertain who was the Author of this Psalm and when it was Penn'd some think after the return from the Babylonish Captivity 'T is a Psalm of Praise and is made up of matter of Praise from the beginning to the end Gods benefits to the Church his Providence over his Creatures the Essential excellency of his Nature The Psalmist doubles his Exhortation to Praise God v. 1. Praise ye the Lord sing Praise to our God to praise him from his Dominion as Lord from his Grace and Mercy as our God from the Excellency of the Duty it self 't is good 't is comely some read it comely some lovely or desirable from the various derivation of the Word Nothing doth so much delight a gracious Soul as an opportunity of Celebrating the Perfections and Goodness of the Creator The highest Duties a Creature can render to the Creator are pleasant and delight-lightful in themselves 't is comely Praise is a Duty that affects the whole Soul The Praise of God is a decent thing the Excellency of Gods nature deserves it and the Benefits of Gods grace requires it 'T is comely when done as it ought to be with the Heart as well as with the Voice a Sinner Sings ill tho' his Voice be good the Soul in it is to be elevated above Earthly things The first matter of Praise is Gods erecting and preserving his Church v. 2. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem he gathers together the out-casts of Israel The Walls of demolish'd Jerusalem are now re-edified God hath brought back the Captivity of Jacob and reduced his People from their Babylonish Exile and those that were disperst into strange Regions he hath restor'd to their Habitations Or it may be Prophetick of the calling of the Gentiles and the gathering the out-casts of the Spiritual Israel that were before as without God in the World and strangers to the Covenant of Promise Let God be praised but especially for Building up his Church and gathering the Gentiles before counted as out-casts * Isaâ— 11.12 he gathers them in this World to the Faith and hereafter to Glory Obs 1. From the two first Verses observe 1.
it This is a fruit of Gods soveraign Dominion 3. The Dominion of God is manifest in restraining the furious passions of men and putting a block in their way Sometimes God doth it by a remarkable hand as the Babel builders were diverted from their proud design by a sudden confusion of their Language and rendring it unintelligible to one another sometimes by ordinary though unexpected means as when Saul like a Hawk was ready to prey upon David whom he had hunted as a Patridge upon the Mountains he had another object presented for his arms and fury by the Philistines suddain invasion of a part of his Territory 1 Sam. 23.26 27 28. But it is chiefly seen by an inward curbing mutinous affections when there is no visible Cause What reason but this can be render'd why the Nations bordering on Canaan who bore no good will to the Jews but rather wished the whole race of them rooted out from the face of the Earth should not invade their Countrey pillage their Houses and plunder their Cattle while they were left naked of any humane defence the Males being annually employ'd at one time at Jerusalem in Worship what reason can be render'd but an invisible curb God put into their Spirits What was the reason not a man of all the Buyers and Sellers in the Temple should rise against our Saviour when with a high hand he began to whip them out but a Divine bridle upon them though it appears by the questioning his Authority that there were Jews enough to have chas'd out him and his Company John 2 15.18 What was the reason that at the publishing the Gospel by the Apostles at the first descent of the spirit those that had us'd the Master so barbarously a few days before were not all in a foam against the Servants that by preaching that Doctrine upbraided them with the late Murder Had they better sentiments of the Lord whom they had put to death Were their natures grown tamer and their malignity expell'd No but that soveraign who had loos'd the Reins of their malicious corruption to execute the Master for the purchase of Redemption curb'd it from breaking out against the servants to further the propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption He that restrains the roaring Lyon of Hell restrains also his Whelps on Earth he and they must have a Commission before they can put forth a finger to hurt how malicious soever their nature and Will be His Empire reaches over the Malignity of Devils as well as the nature of Beasts The Lions out of the Den as well as those in the Den are bridled by him in favour of his Daniel's His Dominion is above that of Principalities and Powers their Decrees are at his Mercy whither they shall stand or fall he hath a vote above their stiffest resolves His single word I will or I forbid outweighs the most resolute purposes of all the Mighty Nimrods of the Earth in their rendezvouses and Cabals in their Associations and Counsels Isaiah 8.9 10. Associate your selves O ye people and ye shall be broken in peices take Counsel together and it shall come to nought When the Enemy shall come in like a floud with a violent and irresistable force intending nothing but ravage and desolation the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against them Isaiah 59.19 shall give a sudden check and damp their Spirits and put them to a stand When Laban furiously pursued Jacob with an intent to do him an ill turn God gave him a Command to do otherwise Gen. 31.24 Would Laban have respected that command any more than he did the light of Nature when he Worshipped Idols had not God exercised his Authority in inclining his will to observe it or laying restraints upon his natural inclinations or denying his concourse to the acting those ill intentions he had entertain'd The stilling the principles of commotion in men and the noise of the Sea are arguments of the Divine Dominion neither the one nor the other is in the power of the most soveraign Prince without Divine assistance As no Prince can command a calm to a raging Sea so no Prince can order stillness to a tumultuous people they are both put together as equally parts of the Divine prerogative Psal 65.7 Which stills the noise of the Sea and tumult of the People And David owns Gods soveraignty more than his own in subduing the people under him Psal 18.47 In this his Empire is illustrious Psal 29.10 The Lord sitteth upon the flouds yea the Lord sitteth King for ever a King impossible to be depos'd not only on the natural floods of the Sea that would naturally overflow the World but the metaphorical flouds or tumults of the people the Sea in every wicked man's Heart more apt to rage morally than the Sea to foam naturally if you will take the interpretation of an Angel Waters and Flouds in the Prophetick stile signifie the inconstant and mutable people Revel 17.1.5 The Waters where the whore sits are people and multitudes and nations and tongues So the Angel expounds to John the Vision which he saw ver 1. The Heathens acknowledg'd this part of Gods soveraignty in the inward restraints of Men. Those Apparitions of the Gods and Goddesses in Homer to several of the great men when they were in a Fury were nothing else in the Judgment of the wisest Philosophers than an exercise of Gods soveraignty in quelling their passions checking their uncomely intentions and controuling them in that which their rage prompted them to And indeed did not God set bounds to the storms in mens hearts we should soon see the Funeral not only of Religion but Civility the one would be blown out and the other torn up by the Roots 4. The Dominion of God is manifest in defeating the purposes and devices of men God often makes a mock of humane projects and doth as well accomplish that which they never dreamt of as disappoint that which they confidently design'd He is present at all Cabals laughs at mens formal and studied Counsels bears a hand over every Egg they hatch thwarts their best compacted designs supplants their contrivances breaks the Engines they have been many years rearing diverts the intentions of men as a mighty Wind blows an arrow from the mark which the Archer intended Job 5.12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their enterprize He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the Council of the froward is carried headlong Enemies often draw an exact scheme of their intended proceedings Marshal their Companies appoint their Rendezvous think to make but one morsel of those they hate God by his soveraign Dominion turns the scale changeth the gloominess of the oppressed into a Sun-shine and the Enemies Sun-shine into darkness When the Nations were gathered together against Sion and said Let her be defiled and let our Eye look upon Sion Micah 4.11 What doth God do in this case
Goodness of God seen in them Pag. 450 607 Spaces imaginary beyond the World God is present with Pag. 249 250 251 Spirit that God is so plainly asserted but once in Scripture Pag. 112 Various acceptations of the word Pag. 113 That God is so how to be understood ibid. God the only pure one Pag. 114 Arguments to prove God is one Pag. 115 ad 118. Objection against it answered Pag. 118 119 Spirit of God his assistance necessary to Spiritual Worship Pag. 142 Spirits of men raised up and ordered by God as be pleases Pag. 743 744 Subjection to our Superiors God remits of his own right for preserving it Pag. 651 652 Success men apt to ascribe to themselves Pag. 82 Not to be ascribed to our selves Pag. 669 670 Denied by God to some Pag. 740 Summer how necessary Pag. 350 Sun conveniently placed Pag. 22 148 Its motion useful Pag. 22 23 25 148 The Power of God seen in it Pag. 450 Lord's Supper the goodness of God in appointing it Pag. 639 Seals the Covenant of Grace Pag. 640 641 In it we have Union and Communion with Christ Pag. 641 642 The neglect of it reproved Pag. 642 Supererogation an Opinion that injures the Holiness of God Pag. 546 Superstition proceeds from vain imaginations of God Pag. 95 Swearing by any Creature an injury to God's Omniscience Pag. 323 324 T. TEmptations the Presence of God a comfort in them Pag. 266 The thoughts of it would be a Shield against them Pag. 269 The Wisdom and Power of God a comfort under them Pag. 406 486 The goodness manifested to his people under them Pag. 658 659 660 The thoughts of God's Soveraignty would arm and make us watchful against them Pag. 774 Thankfulness a necessary ingredient in Spiritual worship Pag. 148 Due to God Pag. 689 690 777 778 823 824 825 A sense of his Goodness would promote it Pag. 689 Theft an Invasion of God's Dominion Pag. 758 Thoughts should be often upon God Pag. 46 Seldom are on him Pag. 86 97 98 All known by God only Pag. 285 286 287 And by Christ Pag. 316 317 Cherishing evil ones a practical denial of God's Knowledge Pag. 327 Thoughts of God's Knowledge would make us watchful over them Pag. 338 †Threatnings the not fulfilling them sometimes argue no change in God Pag. 226 227 Are conditional ibid. The goodness of God in them Pag. 613 Go before Judgments v. Judgments Time cannot be infinite Pag. 16 Times of bestowing Mercy God orders as a Soveraign Pag. 741 Tongue how curious a Workmanship Pag. 31 Traditions old ones generally lost Pag. 11 Belief of a God not owing meerly to it ibid. Transubstantiation an absurd Doctrine Pag. 483 Trees how useful Pag. 23 350 Trust in themselves men do and not in God Pag. 83 84 We should not in the World Pag. 199 200 236 God the fit Object of it Pag. 329 386 397 489 551 552 †678 779 Means to promote it Pag. 339 †773 Should not in our own Wisdom Pag. 411 412 In our selves a contempt of God's Power and Dominion Pag. 482 759 God's Power the main ground of trusting him Pag. 489 490 And sometimes the only one Pag. 490 Should be placed in God against outward appearances Pag. 558 Goodness the first motive of it Pag. 678 More foundations of it and motives to it under the Gospel than under the Law Pag. 679 Gives God the glory of his goodness Pag. 679 680 God's Patience to the Wicked a ground for the Righteous to trust in his promise Pag. 821 Truths of God most contrary to self man most opposite to And to those that are most holy spiritual lead most to God and relate most to him Pag. 59 60 Men unconstant in the belief of them Pag. 231 232 Corrupters of them no better than Devils Pag. 541 †Evangelical shall prevail ibid. U. UBiquity of Christ's Human Nature confuted Pag. 252 Venial sins an opinion that reproaches God's Holiness Pag. 546 Vertue and Vice not Arbitrary things Pag. 51 Vnbelief the Reason of it Pag. 101 102 A contempt of Divine Power Pag. 483 And Goodness Pag. 664 665 Vnion of Soul and Body an effect of Almighty Power Pag. 33 Of two Natures in Christ made no change in his Divine Nature Pag. 224 Shews the Wisdom of God Pag. 339 ad 383 How necessary for us Pag. 381 382 383 Shews the Power of God Pag. 458 459 460 Explain'd Pag. 459 460 Vide Incarnation Vsurpations of Men an Invasion of God's Soveraignty Pag. 754 755 W. WAter an excellent Creature Pag. 588 Weakness a sensibleness of it a necessary ingredient in Spiritual Worship Pag. 148 Will of God cannot be defeated Pag. 52 Man averse to it vide Man The same with his Essence Pag. 214 Always accompanied with his Understanding ibid. Unchangeable Pag. 214 215 The unchangeableness of it doth not make things willed by him so Pag. 215 216 Free Pag. 216 How conversant about Sin Pag. 522 Will of Man not necessitated by God's Fore-knowledge Pag. 301 ad 304 Of Man subject to God Pag. 720 Winds how useful Pag. 349 Winter how useful Pag. 350 Wisdom an Attribute of God Pag. 337 What it is and wherein it consists Pag. 338 Distinct from Knowledge Pag. 338 Essential which is the same with his Essence and personal Pag. 339 In what sense God is only wise Pag. 339 ad 343 Proved to be in God Pag. 343 ad 346 Appears in Creation Pag. 346 ad 351 In government of Man as Rational Pag. 352 ad 357 As fallen and sinful Pag. 357 ad 367 As restored Pag. 367 ad 373 In Redemption Pag. 373 ad 388 In the Condition of the Covenant of Grace Pag. 388 ad 390 In the propagation of the Gospel Pag. 390 ad 395 Ascribed to Christ Pag. 395 Renders God fit to govern the World and enclines him actually to govern it Pag. 395 396 A ground of his Patience and Immutability in his Decrees Pag. 396 397 Makes him a fit Object of our Trust Pag. 397 Infers a Day of Judgment Pag. 398 Calls for a Veneration of him ibid. A ground of Prayer to him Pag. 399 Prodigiously contemn'd and wherein Pag. 399 ad 405 Comfortable to the Righteous Pag. 405 406 407 In Creation and Government should be meditated on and Motives to it Pag. 407 ad 410 In Redemption to be studied and admired Pag. 410 411 To be submitted to in his Revelations Precepts Providences Pag. 413 414 415 Not to be censured in any of his ways Pag. 415 Wisdom no Man should be proud of or trust in Pag. 411 412 Should be sought from God Pag. 412 413 World was not and could not be from Eternity Pag. 16 17 Could not make it self Pag. 17 18 19 No Creature could make it Pag. 20 Its Harmony Pag. 21 ad 27 Greedily pursued by Men Pag. 86 Inordinate desires after it a great hindrance to Spiritual Worship Pag. 177 Our Love and Confidence not to be placed in it Pag. 199 200 207 Shall not be