{a240} 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 expressed by the “seeking
of him” (Heb. xi. 6); him, not ourselves; all is to be referred to God.
As we are “not to live to ourselves, that being the sign of a carnal
state, so we are not to worship for ourselves” (Rom. xiv. 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 centre in him. If the
intention be evil, there is nothing but darkness in the whole service
(Luke xi. 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 (Rev. iv. 11):
“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive honor, 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 honor. As we have immediately to do with God, so we
are immediately to mind the praise of God. As we are not to content
ourselves with habitual grace, but be rich in the exercise of it in
worship, so we are not to acquiesce in the habitual aims at the glory
of God, without the actual overflowings of our hearts in those aims.
It 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 seeks
for it in his moral and religious. By the first pride we flung God off
from being our sovereign, 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. lviii. 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 sovereign, but as if he had been the sovereign, 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, begs of God that their “hearts
might be prepared to him” (1 Chron. xxix. 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 honor him, but to gain for themselves a reward richer than their
gift. “What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance?” &c. (Mal.
iii. 14). Some worship him, intending thereby to make him amends for
the wrong they have done him; wipe off their scores, and satisfy their
debts; as though a spiritual wrong could be {a241} 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 ourselves, imagine that he
should submit his own honor to our advantage; we make ourselves 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 v. 25): “Have you offered to me sacrifices and offerings
in the wilderness forty years, O 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 honor
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
suits the doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, ascribes the
kingdom, power, and glory to God alone, and if any viper of pride
starts out upon him, he endeavors 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 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 itself, 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.
11. 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. ii. 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
God’s 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” (Rev. viii. 3). As all that we have from God
streams through his blood, so all that we give to God ascends by
virtue of his merits. All the blessings God gave to the Israelites
came out of Sion,[523] 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 “honor the Son, as we honor the Father;”
as we honor the Father by offering our service only to him, so we
{a242} are to honor 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 anything in the name of Christ, is not
to believe the worship shall be accepted for itself, 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 anywhere 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 environed with justice and wrath for sinners;
but the consideration of him in Christ, veils 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. iii. 12), whereby the spirit
is kept from benumbness and distraction, and our souls quickened and
refined. The thoughts kept upon Christ in a duty of worship quickly
elevates the soul, and benumbness 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 him 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
Intercessor.
III. 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 I._ 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 affections; the flower of our strength; the
cream and top of our spirits. By the same reason that we are bound to
give God the best worship, we must offer it to him in the best manner.
We cannot give to God anything too good for so blessed {a243} a Being;
God being a “great king,” slight services become not his majesty
(Mal. i. 13, 14); it is unbecoming the majesty of God, and the reason
of a creature, to give him a trivial thing; it 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. xxiv. 19);
and shall we give him less than all? His infinite excellency, and our
dependence 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 honor.
2. Under 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;[524] 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. xxx.) when he laid the rods before the cattle
when they were strong in the spring, and withheld 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, it is said, only that he brought of
the “fruit” of the ground (Gen. iv. 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 (ver. 4).
3. And this the heathen practised by the light of nature. They for the
most part offered males, as being more worthy; and burnt the male, not
the female frankincense, as it is divided into those two kinds; they
offered the best, when they offered their children to Moloch. Nothing
more excellent than man, and nothing dearer to parents than their
children, which are part 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 show 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 God’s appointment, receive from creatures
the best they can give, ought we not with a free will to 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 ourselves?
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 {a244}
heaven, his own Son, and in himself a sacrifice for us, that we might
be enabled to present ourselves 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 ourselves? As God would have a worship from his creature,
so it must be with the best part of his creature. If we have “given
ourselves to the Lord” (2 Cor. viii. 5), we can worship with no less
than ourselves. 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; it 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 (Psalm
c. 2, 3): “Serve the Lord with gladness; know ye that the Lord he is
God; it 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 honor of his best gift to us? our souls
are more his gift to us, than anything 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, as he is God, he is to be
honored with all the propensions and ardor that the infiniteness and
excellency of such a Being require, 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 glorify God, we
answer not our end, and honor him not, unless we give him the choicest
we have.[525]
_Reason II._ 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 testify this natural dependence 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”
(Rom. xii. 1), as it ought to be, unless the reasonable faculties be
employed in the management of it; it must be a worship prodigiously
lame, without the concurrence of the chiefest 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. It is a conceit cannot enter into
the heart {a245} 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; it 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 honor that could
accrue to him, but that men might testify their gratitude to him,
and dependence on him. It 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 dishonor 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 God’s 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 inviolable, let the modes of worship be what they
will, or the changes of them by the sovereign 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 employed by
him in it. The constitution of man makes this manner of worship
perpetually obligatory, and the oblation can never cease, till man
{a246} cease to be a creature furnished 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 III._ 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 testify the
inward temper and affection of the mind; if, therefore, it testifies
what it is not, it is a lie, 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 honor, as the beast
doth of the altar to which he bows. Worship is a reverent remembrance
of God, and giving some honor to him with the intention of the soul;
it cannot justly have the name of worship, that wants the essential
part of it; it is an ascribing to God the glory of his nature, an
owning subjection and obedience to him as our sovereign 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; it is a drawing near to God,
not in regard of his essential presence, so all things are near to God,
but in an acknowledgment of his excellency, which is an act of the
spirit; without this, the worst of men in a place of worship are as
near 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 virtue;
but there is no act of virtue 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. v. 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 God’s 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 Saviour, it is a “vain worship, when the
traditions of men are taught for the doctrines of God” (Matt. xv. 9);
and no 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 God’s sovereign authority, so the omission of the manner
of it is a contempt of it, and of his {a247} amiable excellency; and
that which is a contempt and mockery, can lay no just claim to the
title of worship.
_Reason IV._ 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. xix. 10, 11). Then, men are said to stand before the
Lord (Deut. x. 8): “God, before whom I stand” (1 Kings, xvii. 1):
that is, whom I worship; and therefore when Cain forsook the worship
of God settled in his father’s family, he is said, “to go out from the
presence of the Lord” (Gen. iv. 16). God is essentially present in the
world; graciously present in his church. The name of the evangelical
city is Jehovah Shammah (Ezek. xlviii. 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” (Ps. lxxxvii. 2); his evangelical law and worship which was
to go forth from Zion, as the other did from Sinai (Mic. iv. 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
lifeless carcass service becomes not so high and delectable a presence
as this; it is to thrust him from us, not invite him to us; it is
to practise in the ordinances what the prophet predicts concerning
men’s usage of our Saviour (Isa. liii. 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 linked 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 proffers the
opening his treasure; the re‑impressing 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
God’s 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 advantageous worship without
spiritual graces; for those are uniting, and union is the ground of
all communion.
_Reason V._ To have a spiritual worship is God’s 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. iii. 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 righteousness;
a pure {a248} offering from a purified spirit; he came to “bring us
to God” (1 Pet. iii. 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 priesthood” (1 Pet. ii. 5).
We can no more be worshippers of God without a worshipper’s nature,
than a man can be a man without human nature. As man was at first
created for the honor 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 stuffed 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 expense 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 glorify 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.