worship is prophetically signified by keeping the feast of tabernacles;
“They shall go up from year to year, to worship the King, the Lord
of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles” (Zech. xiv. 16):
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 commemoration of the redemption wrought by him. It was to be
celebrated five days after the “solemn day of atonement” (Lev. xxiii.
34, compared with ver. 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 refreshed;
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 refers to himself (John vii. 37),
inviting them to him, to drink “upon the last day, the great day of
the feast of tabernacles,” wherein the 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 privileges. A sad frame in
worship gives the lie to all gospel liberty, to the purchase of the
Redeemer’s death, the triumphs of his resurrection: it is a carriage,
as if we were under the influences of the legal fire and lightning,
and an entering a protest against the freedom of the gospel. The
evangelical worship is a spiritual worship; and praise, joy, and
delight are prophesied of, as great ingredients in attendance on
gospel ordinances (Isaiah xii. 3‒5). 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; remembering 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 to the duties of it (Isa.
lviii. 13); in regard of the marvellous work he wrought on it; raising
up our blessed Redeemer on that day, whereby a foundation was laid for
the rendering our persons and services acceptable to God (Psalm cxviii.
24); “This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will be glad and
rejoice 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 xxxviii. 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 {a235} God as his “exceeding joy” (Psalm xliii.
4). My triumphant joy: when he danced before the ark, he seems to be
transformed into delight and pleasure (2 Sam. vi. 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
fulness of the Spirit, there is a “waking melody to God in the heart”
(Eph. v. 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 near
approach to the object of the soul’s affection. Love is _appetitus
unionis_; the more love, the more delight in the approachings of
God to the soul, or the outgoings of the soul to God. As the object
of worship is amiable in a spiritual eye, so the means 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. v. 22). (1.) Not the joy of God’s
dispensation flowing from God, but a gracious active joy streaming
to God. There is a joy, when the comforts of God are dropped into the
soul, as oil 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 terminate 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 God’s
dispensation, the other is our duty; the first is an act of God’s
favor 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 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 xvii). 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. lviii. 2) it is said, they “delighted in approaching to God;”
but it was for carnal ends. Novelty engenders 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 sully 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. x. 6).
Every true Christian in a higher order of priesthood, is a person
{a236} 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
anything that offers to jog and disturb it.
7. 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 suitable to the height
of its discovery, above what could be spelt in the book of creation;
the gospel worship is therefore expressed by trembling (Hos. xi. 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 xix. 11); “A
wind and a cloud of fire,” before that magnificent vision to Ezekiel
(chap. i. 4, 5); “Thunders and lightnings” before the giving the law
(Exod. xix. 18); and a “mighty wind” before the giving the Spirit
(Acts ii.): God requires of us an awe 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.
vi. 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. “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.”[517] Not a slavish fear, like that
of devils; but a “godly fear,” like that of saints (Heb. xii. 28);
joined with a sense of an unmovable kingdom, becometh 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, as he is, the supreme Spirit, our worship {a237}
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 anything before God” (Eccles. v. 7).
Consider him a Spirit in the highest heavens, and ourselves 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, it is a glorious and
fearful name, or wonderful (Deut. xxviii. 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 (Psalm lxviii. 35); we should behave ourselves with that inward
honor and respect of him, as if he were present to our bodily eyes;
the higher apprehensions we have of his majesty, the greater awe 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.
8. 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 ourselves, 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 ourselves, and
consider how basely we revolted from him, and how graciously we are
restored by him. As the gospel affords us greater discoveries of God’s
nature, and so enhanceth our reverence of him, so it helps us to a
fuller understanding of our own vileness and weakness, and therefore
is proper to engender 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;[518] after the name of God, signified by Εἶ
inscribed on the temple at Delphos, followed Γνῶθί σεαυτον, whereby
was insinuated, that when we have to do with God, who is the only
_Ens_, we should behave ourselves 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. ii. 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”[519] the
Greek word to worship, προσκυνεῖν, signifies to creep like a dog upon
his belly before his master; to lie low. How deep should our sense be
of the privilege of God’s 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 {a238} 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. xviii. 27.) Isaiah did but
behold an evangelical apparition of God and the angels worshipping him,
and presently reflects upon his “own uncleanness” (Isa. vi. 5). God’s
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. xxix. 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[520] The meek lamb was the
daily sacrifice; the doves were to be offered by pairs; God would not
have honey mixed with any sacrifice (Lev. ii. 11), that breeds choler,
and choler pride; but oil 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 a humble sweetness
and an innocent sincerity; one grain of this transcends the most
costly sacrifices: a contrite heart puts a gloss upon worship (Psalm
li. 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 bottomed 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 suitable to God, so neither is it advantageous for us. A time of
worship is a time of God’s communication. The vessel must be melted
to receive the mould it is designed for; softened 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 meanness in ourselves
which the gospel requires.
9. 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 forever” (Psalm
xci. 5). We can never serve the living God till we “have consciences
purged from dead works” (Heb. ix. 14). Dead works in our consciences
are unsuitable to God, an eternal living Spirit. The more mortified
the heart, the more quickened 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 {a239} holiness
of God is most celebrated in the worship of angels;[521] 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.[522] The crop and feathers of sacrificed
doves were 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. i. 16). When Aaron was to go into the holy of holies,
he was to “sanctify himself” in an extraordinary manner (Lev. xvi. 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. v. 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. i. 15). All
worship is an acknowledgment of the excellency of God as he is holy;
hence it is called, a “sanctifying God’s name” (Jer. vii. 9, 10); how
can any person sanctify God’s 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 i. 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 (Psalm xxvi. 6): “I will
wash my hands in innocence, so will I compass thine altar, O 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” (Rev. iii. 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.