no worship but that can be acceptable. We can never be secured of
acceptance without it; he being a Spirit, nothing but the worship
in spirit can be suitable to him: what is unsuitable, cannot be
acceptable; there must be something in us, to make our services
capable of being presented by Christ for an actual acceptation.
No service is “acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,” but as it is a
spiritual sacrifice, and offered by a spiritual heart (1 Pet. ii. 5).
The sacrifice is first spiritual, before it be acceptable to God by
Christ; when it is “an offering in righteousness,” it is then, and
only then, pleasant to the Lord (Mal. iii. 3, 4). No prince would
accept a gift that is unsuitable to his majesty, and below the
condition of the person that presents it. Would he be pleased with
a bottle of water for drink, from one that hath his cellar full of
wine? How unacceptable must that be that is unsuitable to the Divine
Majesty! And what can be more unsuitable than a withdrawing the
operations of our souls from him, in the oblation of our bodies? We as
little glorify God as God, when we give him only a corporeal worship,
as the heathen did, when they represented him in a corporeal shape
(Rom. i. 21); one as well as the other denies his spiritual nature:
this is worse, for had it been lawful to represent God to the eye, it
could not have been done but by a bodily figure suited to the sense;
but since it is necessary to worship him, it cannot be by a corporeal
attendance, {a249} without the operation of the Spirit. A spiritual
frame is more pleasing to God than the highest exterior adornments,
than the greatest gifts, and the highest prophetic illuminations.
“The glory of the second temple” exceeded the glory of the first
(Hag. ii. 8, 9). As God accounts the spiritual glory of ordinances
most beneficial for us, so our spiritual attendance upon ordinances
is most pleasing to him; he that offers the greatest services without
it, offers but flesh (Hos. viii. 13): “They sacrifice flesh for the
sacrifices of my offerings, but the Lord accepts them not.” Spiritual
frames are the soul of religious services; all other carriages without
them are contemptible to this spirit: we can never lay claim to that
promise of God, none shall “seek my face in vain.” We affect a vain
seeking of him, when we want a due temper of spirit for him; and vain
spirits shall have vain returns: it is more contrary to the nature of
God’s holiness to have communion with such, than it is contrary to the
nature of light to have communion with darkness. To make use of this:
_Use 1._ First it serves for information.
1. If spiritual worship be required by God, how sad is it for them
that they are so far from giving God a spiritual worship, that they
render him no worship at all! I speak not of the neglect of public,
but of private; when men present not a devotion to God from one year’s
end to the other. The speech of our Saviour, that we must worship God
in spirit and truth, implies that a worship is due to him from every
one; that is the common impression upon the consciences of all men
in the world, if they have not by some constant course in gross sins,
hardened their souls, and stifled those natural sentiments. There
was never a nation in the world without some kind of religion; and
no religion was ever without some modes to testify a devotion; the
heathens had their sacrifices and purifications; and the Jews, by
God’s order, had their rites, whereby they were to express their
allegiance to God. Consider,
(1.) Worship is a duty incumbent upon all men. It is a homage mankind
owes to God, under the relation wherein he stands obliged to him; it
is a prime and immutable justice to own our allegiance to him; it is
as unchangeable a truth that God is to be worshipped, as that God is;
he is to be worshipped as God, as creator, and therefore by all, since
he is the Creator of all, the Lord of all, and all are his creatures,
and all are his subjects. Worship is founded upon creation (Psalm c.
2, 3): it is due to God for himself and his own essential excellency,
and therefore due from all; it is due upon the account of man’s nature;
the human rational nature is the same in all. Whatsoever is due to
God upon the account of man’s nature, and the natural obligations
he hath laid upon man, is due from all men; because they all enjoy
the benefits which are proper to their nature. Man in no state
was exempted, nor can be exempted from it; in Paradise he had his
Sabbath and sacraments; man therefore dissolves the obligation of a
reasonable nature, by neglecting the worship of God. Religion is in
the first place to be minded. As soon as Noah came out of the ark, he
contrived not a habitation for himself, but an altar for the Lord, to
acknowledge him the author of his preservation from the deluge (Gen.
viii. 20): and wheresoever {a250} Abraham came, his first business was
to erect an altar, and pay his arrears of gratitude to God, before he
ran upon the score for new mercies (Gen. xii. 7; xiii. 4, 18): he left
a testimony of worship wherever he came.
(2.) Wholly therefore to neglect it, is a high degree of atheism.
He that calls not upon God, “saith in his heart, There is no God;”
and seems to have the sentiments of natural conscience, as to God,
stifled in him (Psalm xiv. 1, 4): it must arise from a conceit that
there is no God, or that we are equal to him, adoration not being due
from persons of an equal state; or that God is unable, or unwilling to
take notice of the adoring acts of his creatures: what is any of these
but an undeifying the supreme Majesty? When we lay aside all thoughts
of paying any homage to him, we are in a fair way opinionatively to
deny him, as much as we practically disown him. Where there is no
knowledge of God, that is, no “acknowledgment of God,” a gap is opened
to all licentiousness (Hos. iv. 1, 2); and that by degrees brawns the
conscience, and razeth out the sense of God. Those forsake God that
“forget his holy mountain” (Isa. lxv. 11); they do not practically
own him as the Creator of their souls or bodies. It is the sin of
Cain, who turning his back upon worship, is said to “go out from
the presence of the Lord” (Gen. iv. 16). Not to worship him with our
spirits, is against his law of creation: not to worship him at all, is
against his act of creation; not to worship him in truth, is hypocrisy;
not to worship him at all, is atheism; whereby we render ourselves
worse than the worms in the earth, or a toad in a ditch.
(3.) To perform a worship to a false God, or to the true God in a
false manner, seems to be less a sin than to live in perpetual neglect
of it. Though it be directed to a false object instead of God, yet it
is under the notion of a God, and so is an acknowledgment of such a
Being as God in the world; whereas the total neglect of any worship,
is a practical denying of the existence of any supreme Majesty.
Whosoever constantly omits a public and private worship, transgresses
against an universally received dictate; for all nations have agreed
in the common notion of worshipping God, though they have disagreed in
the several modes and rites whereby they would testify that adoration.
By a worship of God, though superstitious, a veneration and reverence
of such a being is maintained in the world; whereas by a total neglect
of worship, he is virtually disowned and discarded, if not from his
existence, yet from his providence and government of the world; all
the mercies we breathe in are denied to flow from him. A foolish
worship owns religion, though it bespatters it; as if a stranger
coming into a country mistakes the subject for the prince, and pays
that reverence to the subject which is due to the prince; though
he mistakes the object, yet he owns an authority; or if he pays any
respect to the true prince of that country after the mode of his own,
though appearing ridiculous in the place where he is, he owns the
authority of the prince; whereas the omission of all respect would
be a contempt of majesty: and, therefore, the judgments of God have
been more signal upon the sacrilegious contemners of worship among
the heathens, than upon {a251} those that were diligent and devout in
their false worship; and they generally owned the blessings received
to the preservation of a sense and worship of a Deity among them.
Though such a worship be not acceptable to God, and every man is
bound to offer to God a devotion agreeable to his own mind; yet it
is commendable, not as worship, but as it speaks an acknowledgment of
such a being as God, in his power and creation, and his beneficence
in his providence. Well, then, omissions of worship are to be avoided.
Let no man execute that upon himself which God will pronounce at last
as the greatest misery, and bid God depart from him, who will at last
be loth to hear God bid him depart from him. Though man hath natural
sentiments that God is to be worshipped, yet having an hostility in
his nature, he is apt to neglect, or give it him in a slight manner;
he therefore sets a particular mark and notice of attention upon the
fourth command, “Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day.” Corrupt
nature is apt to neglect the worship of God, and flag in it. This
command, therefore, which concerns his worship, he fortifies with
several reasons. Nor let any neglect worship, because they cannot
find their hearts spiritual in it. The further we are from God, the
more carnal shall we be. No man can expect heat by a distance from the
sunbeams, or other means of warmth. Though God commanded a circumcised
heart in the Jewish services, yet he did not warrant a neglect of the
outward testimonies of religion he had then appointed. He expected,
according to his command, that they should offer the sacrifices, and
practise the legal purification he had commanded; he would have them
diligently observed, though he had declared that he imposed them only
for a time; and our Saviour ordered the practice of those positive
rites as long as the law remained unrepealed, as in the case of
the leper (Mark xiv. 4). It is an injustice to refuse the offering
ourselves to God according to the manner he hath in his wisdom
prescribed and required. If spiritual worship be required by God, then,
2. It informs us, that diligence in outward worship is not to be
rested in. Men may attend all their days on worship, with a juiceless
heart and unquickened frame, and think to compensate the neglect
of the manner with abundance of the matter of service.[526] Outward
expressions are but the badges and liveries of service, not the
service itself. As the strength of sin lies in the inward frame
of the heart, so the strength of worship in the inward complexion
and temper of the soul. What do a thousand services avail, without
cutting the throat of our carnal affections? What are loud prayers,
but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, without divine charity?
A pharisaical diligence in outward forms, without inward spirit, had
no better a title vouchsafed by our Saviour than that of hypocritical.
God desires not sacrifices, nor delights in burnt‑offerings: shadows
are not to be offered instead of substance. God required the heart
of man for itself, but commanded outward ceremonies as subservient to
inward worship, and goads and spurs unto it. They were never appointed
as the substance of religion, but auxiliaries to it. What value had
the offering of the human nature of Christ been of, if he {a252} had
not had a divine nature to qualify him to be the Priest? and what is
the oblation of our bodies, without a priestly act of the spirit in
the presentation of it? Could the Israelites have called themselves
worshippers of God according to his order, if they had brought a
thousand lambs that had died in a ditch, or been killed at home? They
were to be brought living to the altar; the blood shed at the foot
of it. A thousand sacrifices killed without had not been so valuable
as one brought alive to the place of offering: one sound sacrifice
is better than a thousand rotten ones. As God took no pleasure in
the blood of beasts without its relation to the Antitype; so he takes
no pleasure in the outward rites of worship, without faith in the
Redeemer. To offer a body with a sapless spirit, is a sacrilege of the
same nature with that of the Israelites when they offered dead beasts.
A man without spiritual worship is dead while he worships, though by
his diligence in the externals of it, he may, like the angel of the
church of Sardis, “have a name to live” (Rev. iii. 1). What security
can we expect from a multitude of dead services? What weak shields are
they against the holy eye and revenging wrath of God! What man, but
one out of his wits, would solicit a dead man to be his advocate or
champion? Diligence in outward worship is not to be rested in.
_Use II._ shall be for examination. Let us try ourselves concerning
the manner of our worship. We are now in the end of the world, and
the dregs of time; wherein the apostle predicts there may be much of
a form, and little of the power of godliness (2 Tim. iii. 1, 5); and,
therefore, it stands us in hand to search into ourselves, whether it
be not thus with us? whether there be as much reverence in our spirits
as there may be devotion in our countenances and outward carriages.
1. How, therefore, are our hearts prepared to worship? Is our
diligence greater to put our hearts in an adoring posture, than our
bodies in a decent garb? or are we content to have a muddy heart,
so we may have a dressed carcass? To have a spirit a cage of unclean
birds, while we wipe the filth from the outside of the platter, is
no better than a pharisaical devotion, and deserves no better a name
than that of a whited sepulchre. Do we take opportunities to excite
and quicken our spirits to the performance, and cry aloud with David,
“Awake, awake, my glory!” Are not our hearts asleep when Christ
knocks? When we hear the voice of God, “Seek my face;” do we answer
him with warm resolutions, “Thy face, Lord, we will seek?” (Ps. xxvii.
8.) Do we comply with spiritual motions, and strike whilst the iron is
hot? Is there not more of reluctancy than readiness? Is there a quick
rising of the soul in reverence to the motion, as Eglon to Ehud; or a
sullen hanging the head at the first approach of it? Or if our hearts
seem to be engaged and on fire, what are the motives that quicken
that fire? Is it only the blast of a natural conscience, fear of
hell, desires of heaven, as abstracted from God? or is it an affection
to God; an obedient will to please him; longings to enjoy him, as a
holy and sanctifying God in his ordinances, as well as a blessed and
glorified God in heaven? What do we expect in our approaches from
him? that which may make {a253} divine impressions upon us, and more
exactly 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 (Psalm lxii.6). 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 Ps. 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 fixation 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
upon 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 spirits, 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 stark 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 their “hands
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
doth 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 {a254}
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
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 life‑time” (Heb.
ii. 15), in all their worship; so under the gospel they are under a
constraint of love (2 Cor. v. 14): how then are believing affections
exercised, which are alway 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 after carriage we
may judge of the spirituality of it.
(1.) 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; the more prepared the heart is to obedience
in other duties after worship, the more evidence there is that it
hath 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, and hath 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 hath wrought well, when the
stomach hath a better appetite to its appointed food; and worship
hath 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, {a255} 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 hath been a spiritual
converse with him.
(2.) 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,” &c. (Matt. vii. 21). 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 (Isa. lviii. 3): “Wherefore have we afflicted our souls, and thou
takest no knowledge?” A spiritual worshipper looks upon his duties
with shame, as well as he doth upon his sins with confusion; and
implores the mercy of God for the one as well as the other. In Psalm
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,” &c.
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, hath the true blood of nature running in the veins
of it; viz., that pride which is naturally derived from Adam. The
breathing of the Divine Spirit is, in everything, to conform us to
our Redeemer; that being the main work of his office, is his work in
every particular christian act influenced by him. Now Jesus Christ,
in all his actions, was an exact pattern of all 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. 2‒4); 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. (John xviii. 1): “When he had spoken those
words, he went over the brook Kedron into the garden.” What is the
end of God in appointing worship, is the end of a spiritual heart in
offering it; not his 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 (Ps. lxxxvi. 9): “All nations which thou hast
made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify
thy name.” Let us examine, then, what debasing ourselves there is in
a sense of our own vileness, and distance from so glorious a Spirit.
Self‑denial is the heart of all gospel grace. Evangelical, {a256}
spiritual worship cannot be without the ingredient of the main
evangelical principle.
(3.) What delight is there after it? What pleasure is there, and what
is the object of that pleasure? Is it the communion we have had with
God, or a fluency in ourselves? Is it something which hath 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 (Ps. lxiii. 2): his desires for it could not have been so
ardent, if his reflection upon what had past 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 (Ps. xlii. 4).
Let us examine what delight we find in our spirits after worship.