liness; for otherwise thou hatest God, and art hated of him, as bringing that before him which he cannot but hate. And it is easy to judge how unfit they are to worship God, that hate him; and how unlike they are to be accepted by him whom he hateth. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight; thou hatest all the workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercies; and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple'." "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me "." "Who shall abide in God's tabernacle, but he that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness"?" God will be sanctified in them that come nigh him; and are unsanctified persons fit for this? and can the unholy offer him holy worship? "The carnal mind is enmity against God;" is it fit then to serve and honour him? Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity P." It is a purified, peculiar, holy people that Christ hath redeemed to be the worshippers of God, and as priests to" offer him acceptable sacrifice." If you will" receive the kingdom that cannot be moved, you must have grace in your hearts to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire." I know an ungodly person, as soon as he hath any repenting thoughts, must express them in confession and prayer to God. But as no prayers of an ungodly man are profitable to him, but those which are acts of his penitent return towards God; so no worship of God hath a promise of Divine acceptance, but that which is performed by such as sincerely return to God: (and such are not ungodly). "The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight." I know the wicked must seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he n Psal. xv. 1, 2. is near:" but it must be in "forsaking his way and thoughts and turning to the Lord." Simon Magus must first "repent of his wickedness," and then pray that the thoughts of his heart may be forgiven him". O come not in thy unholy, carnal state to worship God, unless it be as a penitent returner to him, to lament first thy sin and misery, that thou mayst be sanctified, and reconciled, and fit to worship him. Direct. VI. Yet take it not as sufficient that thou art in a state of sanctification, but also particularly sanctify thyself to every particular address to God in holy worship.' Even the child of a king will not go rudely in dirt and filthiness into his father's presence. Who would not search his heart and life, and cleanse his soul from his particular pollution, by renewed repentance and purposes of reformation, before he venture to speak to God? Particular sins have made sad breaches between God and his children, and made foul work in souls that the blood of Christ had cleansed. Search therefore with fear, lest there should be any reviving sin, or any hidden root of bitterness, or any transgression which thou winkest at, or wilfully cherishest in thyself; that, if there be such, thou mayst bewail and hate it, and not come to God as if he had laid by his hatred of sin. Direct. VII. Whenever thou comest to worship God, labour to awaken thy soul to a reverent apprehension of the presence, and greatness, and holiness of his majesty, and to a serious apprehension of the greatness and excellency of the holy work which thou takest in hand.' Remember with whom thou hast to do. To speak to God, is another kind of work than to speak to the greatest prince on earth, yea, or the greatest angel in heaven. Be holy, for the Lord your God is holy. To sanctify the name of God, and come in holiness before him, is to apprehend him as infinitely advanced above the whole creation, and to come with hearts that are separated from common things to him, and elevated above a common frame. A common frame of heart in worship (such as we have about our common business) is mere profaneness. If it be common it is unclean. Look to your feet when you go to the house of God. Put off the shoes of earthly, common, unhallowed affections, whenever you Isa. lv. 6, 7. " Acts viii. 22. x Heb. iv. 13. y Eccl. v. 1. tread on holy ground, that is, when you are about holy work, and when you draw near the Holy God. In reverent adoration say as Jacob, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven "." Direct. VIII. In the worship of God, remember your communion with the holy angels, and with all the hosts of heaven.' You are the servants of the same God, and though you are yet far below them, you are doing that which tendeth towards their dignity; for you must be equal with them. Your work is partly of the same kind with theirs: it is the same holy Majesty that you admire and praise, though you see him yet but as in a glass. And the angels are some of them present with you, and see you though you see not them you are commanded to respect them in your behaviour in God's worship. If the eye of faith were so far opened, as that in all your worshipping of God, you saw the blessed companies of angels, though not in the same place and manner with you, yet in the same worship and in communion with you, admiring, magnifying, extolling, and praising the Most Glorious God, and the glorified Redeemer, with flaming, fervent, holy minds, it would sure do much to elevate your souls, and raise you up to some imitation and resemblance of them. You find that in God's public worship, it is a great help to the soul, in holy cheerfulness and fervour, to join with a full assembly of holy, fervent, cheerful worshippers: and that it is very difficult to the best, to keep up life and fervent cheerfulness in so small, or ignorant, or profane a company, as where there is none to concur with us. O then, what a raising help would it be, to praise God as within the sight and hearing of the heavenly praises of the angelical choir! You see how apt men are to be conformed to the company that they are in. They that are among dancers, or gamesters, or tipplers, or filthy talkers, or scorners, or railers, are apt to do as the company doth, or at least to be the more disposed to it. And they that are among saints, in holy worship or discourse, are apt to imitate them much more than they would do in other z Gen xxviii. 17. See Isa. vi. 1, 3, 5. a See Mr. Ambrose's book of Communion with Angels; and Zanchy on the same subject: and Mr. Lawrence's and Dr. Hammond's Annotat, on 1 Cor. xi. company. And what likelier way is there, to make you like angels in the worshipping of God, than to do it as in the communion of the angels? and by faith to see and hear them in the concert? The angels disdain not to study our studies, and to learn "by the church the manifold wisdom of God "." They are not so far from us, nor so strange to us and our affairs, as that we should imagine ourselves to be out of their communion. Though we may not worship them, we must worship as with them. Direct. Ix. Take special care to the matter of your worship, that it be such as is agreeable to the will of God, to the holiness of his nature, and the directions of his Word; and such as hath a promise of his acceptance.' Offer him not the sacrifice of fools, who know not that they do evil, and are adding to their sins, while they think they are pleasing him. Bring no false fire unto his altars : let your zeal of God be according to knowledge. For no zeal will make a corrupt, unlawful kind of worship, to be acceptable unto God d. Direct. x. See that you perform every part of worship to the proper end to which it is appointed: both as to the ultimate, remote, and nearest end.' The end is essential to these relative duties. If you intend not the right end, you make another thing of it: as the preaching of a sermon to edify the church, or putting up a prayer to procure God's blessings, is not the same thing as a stageplayer's profane repeating the same words in scorn of godliness, or an hypocrite's using them for commodity or applause. The ultimate end of all worship and all moral actions is the same, even the pleasing and glorifying God. Besides which every part of worship hath its proper, nearest end. These must not only be distinctly known, but actually intended. It is God in Christ that a holy worshipper thirsteth after and seeketh for in every part of worship, either to know more of God, and of his will, and blessings; or to have some more communion with him, or some further grace commu Eph. iii. 10. 1 Pet. i. 12. d Adulterium est, impium est, sacrilegium est, stituitur, ut dispositio Divina violetur. Cyprian. Rom. x. 2, 3. e 1 Cor. x. 31. 2 Tim. ii. 4. c Col. ii. 18. quodcunque humano furore inEccles. v. 1, 2. Lev. x. 1-3. nicated from him, to receive his pardoning, or cleansing, or quickening, or confirming, or comforting, or exalting grace; to be honoured or delighted in his holy service, or to make known his grace and glory for the good of others, and the honour of his name. Here it is that God proclaimeth his name as Exod. xxxiv. 6. The ordinances of God's worship are like the tree in which Zaccheus climbed up (being of himself too low) to have a sight of Christ. Here we come to learn the will of God for our salvation; and must enter the assembly with such resolutions as Cornelius and his company met, Acts x. 33. "We are all here met to hear all things commanded thee of God:" and as Acts ii. 37. and Acts xvi. 30. to learn what we must do to be saved. Hither we come for that holy light, which may shew us our sin, and shew us the grace which we have received, and shew us the unspeakable love of God, till we are humbled for sin, and lifted up by faith in Christ, and can with Thomas, as it were, put our fingers into his wounds, and say in assurance, " My Lord and my God:" and as Psal. xlviii. 14." This God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death." Here we do as it were with Mary sit at the feet of Jesus, to hear his Word', that fire from heaven may come down upon our hearts, and we may say, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he spake to us, and while he opened to us the Scriptures &?" Here we cry to him as the blind man, 'Lord that I may receive my sight." We cry here to the watchmen, "Saw ye him whom my soul loveth"." Here we are in his "banqueting house," under the "banner of his love." We have here the sealing and quickenings of his Spirit, the' mortification of our sin, the increase of grace, and a prospect into life eternal, and a foresight of the endless happiness there. See then that you come to the worship of God with these intentions and expectations; that if God or conscience call to you (as God did sometime to Elias) "what dost thou here?" you may truly answer, I came to seek the Lord my God, and to learn his will that I might do it. And that your sweet delights may make you say, "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, they will be still praising thee." If thou come to f Luke x. 39. i Cant. ii. 4. 66 g Luke xxiv. 32. g I Cant. iii. 3. |