صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

conform us to the Divine nature? Or do we design nothing but an empty formality, a rolling 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. lxii. 5. 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 rouse 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. lvii. 7. "My heart is fixed, O 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 fixedness 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 entire 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 mere compliment on God, by some superficial act of devotion; while some covetous, envious, ambitious, voluptuous imagination may possess our minds? Do we not invert God's order, and worship a lust instead of God with our spirit, 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 walk naught! Do we not often regard iniquity more than God in our hearts, in a time of worship? roll 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 the hands of some were full of blood? Isa. i. 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 Malcham, Zeph. i. 5. How often does an apish fancy render a service inwardly ridiculous, under a grave outward posture; skipping to the shop, warehouse, counting-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 ourselves, 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 strings 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 then, 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 footstool of Christ, to be made his conquered enemies? How straitly have we clasped our faith about the cross and the 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 will not let him go; in confessions rend 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 spirits 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 all their lifetime, in all their worship, Heb. ii. 15; so under the gospel they are under a constraint of love, 2 Cor. v. 14. How then are believing affections exercised, which are always 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 aftercarriage, we may judge of the spirituality of it.

How are we as to inward strength? When a worship is spiritually performed, grace is more strengthened, corruption more mortified; the soul, like Samson 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; and the more prepared the heart is to obedience in other duties after worship, the more evidence there is that it has been spiritual in the exercise of it. It is the end of God in every dispensation, as in that of John Baptist, "to make ready a people prepared for the Lord," Luke i. 17. When the heart is by worship prepared for fresh acts of obedience, it has a more exact watchfulness against the encroachments 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, it 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. It is a sign the physic has wrought well, when the stomach has a better appetite to its appointed food; and worship has 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 relished before. It 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. xxxiii. 13. 18. When the appetite stands strong to fuller discoveries of God, it is a sign there has been a spiritual converse with him.

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 overgrown 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 judgment: We have prophesied in thy name! Matt. vii. 22. They show 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: "Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?" Isa. lviii. 3. A spiritual worshipper looks upon his duties with shame, as well as he does upon his sins with with confusion, and implores the mercy of God for the one as well as the other. In Psal. cxliii. 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: " In thy faithfulness answer me," ver. 1. 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, has the true blood of nature running in the veins of it, namely, that pride which is naturally derived from Adam. The breathing of the Divine Spirit is in every thing to conform us to our Redeemer; that being the main VOL. I.-36

work of his office, is his work in every particular Christain act influenced by him. Now Jesus Christ in all his actions wasan 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 xiii. 2-5. And after his sublime prayer, John xvii, he humbles himself to the death, and offers himself to his murderers, because of his Father's pleasure: when he had spoken those words, he went over the brook Cedron into the garden, John xviii. 1. What is the end of God in appointing worship, is the end of a spiritual heart in offering it; not its own exaltation, but God's glory. Glorifying the name of God, is the fruit of that evangelical worship the gentiles were in time to give to God: "All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name," Psal. lxxxvi. 9. Let us examine then what debasing ourselves there is in a sense of our own vileness, and distance from so glorious a Spirit. Selfdenial is the heart of all gospel grace. Evangelical spiritual worship cannot be without the ingredient of the main evangelical principle.

What delight is there after it? What pleasure is there, and what is the object of that pleasure? Is it communion we have had with God, or a fluency in ourselves? Is it something which has 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 exiled 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, Psalm lxiii. 2. His desires for it could not have been so ardent, if his reflection upon what had passed 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, Psalm xlii. 4. Let us examine what delight we find in our spirits after worship.

Use (3.) Is of comfort. And it 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 has 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 savour 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.] It is to be confessed, that these starts are natural to us. Who is free from them? We hear in our own bosom, a nest of turbulent thoughts, which, like busy gnats, will be buzzing about us, while we are in our most inward and spiritual converses. Many wild beasts lurk in a man's 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 privilege us from them. They will jog us in our most weighty employments, that, as God said to Cain, sin lies 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. v. 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 employments; it is natural to man: some therefore think, the bells tied to Aaron's 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 fowls pecking at it, Gen. xv. 11. Zechariah himself was drowsy in the midst of his visions, which being more amazing, might cause a heavenly intenseness: "The angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep," Zech. iv. 1. He had been roused up before, but he was ready to drop down again; his heart was gone, till the angel jogged him. We may complain of such imaginations, as Jeremiah does of the enemies of the Jews: "Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles," Lam. iv. 19; they light upon us with as much speed as eagles upon a carcass; they pursue us upon the mountain of Divine institution, and they lay wait for us in the wilderness, in our retired addresses to God.

And this will be so while

There is natural corruption in us. There are in a godly man two contrary principles, flesh and spirit, which endeavour to hinder one another's acts, and are always stirring upon the offensive or defensive part, Gal. v. 17. There is a body of

« السابقةمتابعة »