be long absent from him, search with diligence what enemy it is that has crept in secretly, and interposes betwixt God and you; and when you have found it, never rest, till by the aids of divine grace, you have removed the idol from your thoughts, and your soul be restored to its holy nearness to God again. I might say in general, concerning all this world, keep your hearts aloof from it, while your hands, and perhaps your heads too, are engaged in the necessary affairs of it. The nearer your souls are to the creatures, the farther they depart from God and blessedness. As a natural consequence from this thought, we may raise a VII. Reflection. Wanderings, and vain thoughts in the time of religious worship, are, and will be, the great burdens of a child of God; for they clog him, and keep him down when he would rise to his heavenly Father; they are bars in his way to blessedness, for they hinder his approach to God. But what wretched creatures are we, if we indulge vain thoughts, and worldly images and idols in the house of God, without complaint, and without mourning! What holy shame and repentance should it work in us, to think, that even in the place where the great and blessed God comes to shew his face, we should be building up walls and partitions to hide his face from us! that we should turn away our faces from him in the hour when he comes on purpose to meet us! I might add, as a concluding reflection, that it is a tiresome bondage to a saint, in a devout frame, to dwell so long in this body of flesh and blood. This mortal state prevents our complete happiness every hour that we tarry in it. While we sojourn in this tabernacle, we are so much the farther from God; while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; 2 Cor. v. 6. This mortal flesh is a painful veil to the lively christian, for it divides him from the sight and full enjoyment of his chosen blessedness. At the best we see God but darkly through a glass while we dwell here; the moment of release places us in the region of spirits, where we shall see him face to face; 1. Cor. xiii. 12. Though all these reflections may afford us many useful rules for our practice, yet I will not finish the discourse without a few inferences which are more expressly practical. Practical Directions.-1. Give all glory to God for ever, who brings himself so near to us: He puts us thus far in the road to happiness, when he builds his houses amongst us, when he approaches to us in his holy ordinances, when he calls, and causes us to approach to him, and gives us kind and sure promises of eternal blessedness above in his immediate presence. Let each of us join with Solomon in that noble piece of worship; 1 Kings viii. 27. "But will God indeed dwell on earth? Behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less any house that is built for thee?" Yet the Lord is near to the churches of his saints, when they worship him; he is near to all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth; Ps. cxlv. 18. And his word is near us, even in our hands, and on our lips; that word which teaches us the way to approach God, and ensures the blessedness. O give glory to God, the great and holy God, that he should ever be willing to let sinners approach him; that the Majesty of Heaven, and the supreme Lord of all, who had been highly provoked by his rebellious creatures, should ever come into terms of reconciliation; that he himself should provide a reconciling sacrifice, to satisfy his own governing justice, and a reconciling spirit to reduce the rebel man to his obedience and love. This divine condescension, O my soul, demands thy wonder and thy worship. 2. Adore the mystery of the incarnation, and bless God incarnate; for this is the ground of all our habitual nearness to God, and all our actual approaches to him and heaven. It was the Son of God, who is one with the Father, that stooped down, and approached to our nature, and took a part of it into union with himself, that we might approach to the Deity: No man cometh to the Father but by the Son; John xiv. 6. For ever had we, the wretched offspring of Eve, been banished from the courts, and the presence of God, had not this man Jesus the Son of Mary, been caused first to draw near, and to dwell near; and blessed be his name for ever. We rejoice with all the powers of our souls, to think how near to God the man Jesus is, for since he approaches the throne, we shall approach too; Rev. iii. 21. We shall be blessed through his blessedness; Gal. iii. 8. 14. He was first chosen to draw near, and we chosen in him; Eph. i. 4. Nearness to God is still a matter of divine choice and distinction: He approaches to God above, accepted in his own spotless righteousness, and we in him: He is in a more transcendant manner one with God, and we must be united to God by him, and so made somewhat like him; John xvii. 24. When our Mediator approaches to the Father in worship, he, as our High-priest, bears the name of the whole church in heaven and earth, on his breast, and on his shoulders; Ex. xxxviii. 12-29. In his beauty of holiness, we unholy creatures are presented before God, and caused to approach with glorious acceptance. Stand still here, O ye saints of the Most High, and survey your privileges and your honours; and remember that whensoever you draw near to God in the courts of his house, it was Jesus who drew near first, it is Jesus who still dwells near to make you acceptable it is he who maintains the nearness of your state, and your peace with God, by ever presenting your natures in his person: He appears in the presence of God for us; Heb. ix. 24. It is Jesus, who, by his Spirit, lifts you up near to the Father; and it is by his best beloved and nearest Son, that God the Father draws near to all his children. 3. Be not found amongst the mockers of approach to God, and holy converse with him in worship. They despise felicity itself. Such there have been of old, and such there are in our days; and because they are afar off from God themselves, they deny all nearness to him, they ridicule our approaches to God, as the vain effects of a wild imagination, and the mere sensible commotions of a warm fancy.. But is it not a very rational and intelligible thing, for a soul in public worship, so to draw near to God, as to learn more of him, and to know more of his perfections and graces than he knew before? May not such a worshipper have his love to God raised and warmed by such advancing knowledge! And may he not arise, by holy inferences, to a livelier and surer hope that he is beloved of God too, and solace himself in this assurance? What is there in all this which is not perfectly agreeable to reason, or that should provoke an impious jest? But let such have a care, lest they blaspheme God and his Spirit; let them take heed, lest they be thrust down to hell, and set at a dreadful distance from God, without remedy, who deride the joy of heaven. you 4. Take heed of those deceits of being above ordinances, lest lose true happiness through pride and vain conceit. Abandon the vain fancy of living nearer to God in the neglect of them. God is glorious in himself, but he has appointed ordinances, as means whereby we may approach and see him. Some stars, though large in themselves, yet are not visible without glasses; and others that are visible to the naked eye, yet appear much fairer and larger by this help. Even so those glories of God, which are unknown to reason, and to the light of nature, are discovered in the ministrations of his word; such are his subsistence in three persons, and his forgiving grace: and those glories of his nature, which are traced out by human reason, stand in a diviner light, with all their splendors about them, in the gospel, and the sanctuary. 5. Never rest satisfied without approaching to God in spirit and in truth, when you attend on his ordinances. This is the goodness of his house that must satisfy the holy soul of the Psalmist, as he expresses it in the following words of my text: We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thine house. 1 What a folly it is to be pleased with empty ordinances without God! 1 Tim. iv. 8. Bodily exercise profiteth little. To make a serious matter of mere external things, and to make nothing of spiritual ones! These formal and silly creatures come to the palace of the king, and turn their backs on his person, to play with his shadow upon the wall: ridiculous and childish folly! And yet how often is this the trifling practice of the men of wisdom? And sometimes persons of true piety are tempted to indulge in it. Let me ask my conscience, "Did I never let my curiosity dwell upon the just reasoning, the correct style, the pretty similies, the flowing oratory, or flowery beauties of a sermon, while I neglected to seek my God there, and to raise my soul near him? Or perhaps I was charmed with the decency and voice of the preacher; or, it may be, was better entertained with some zealous party flights which flattered my own bitter zeal, and seemed to sanctify my uncharitable censures; and when I returned from the place of worship, I had a pleasant remembrance of all these." But it had been better, if conscience had reproached my folly, and made me remember that I had forgot my God there. It is also a dreadful abuse of gospel-ordinances, and a high mockery of God, to come to his courts, and not draw near him; Jer. xii. 2." When God is near in our mouth, but far from our heart." Ordinances are an appointed medium for man to come to God by them. If we use them not as such, we either make idols of them, by placing of them in God's stead, or we make nothing of them, no means of converse with God: both ways we nullify them, for an idol is nothing, and mere vanity, as the prophets and the apostles speak: So ordinances are vain and unprofitable, and utterly insufficient to make us happy without God. They are mere images, and shadows without the substance. To seek after God, and endeavour to approach him in all his own institutions, is the way to be recovered from the miseries of the fall. To live in a holy nearness to God, is a restoration to the pleasures of innocency. It is the full happiness of reasonable natures to be always with God: It is our noblest honour, and our sweetest consolation, in this state of darknes and trial, to get as near him as earth and grace will admit; and it is also the best preparative for heaven and the state of glory, where we shall dwell for ever near him, and be for ever blessed. Amen. HYMN FOR SERMON XI, Nearness to God the Felicity of Creatures. ARE those the happy persons here, Go then, my soul, address the Son, Vain vexing world, and flesh, and sense, While to thine arms, my God, I press, |