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 hath his eye upon them that honor 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 savor 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 bear in our bosoms 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 or the faithful, was not exempt
from the fowls {a257} pecking at it (Gen. xv. 11). Zechariah himself
was drowsy in the midst of his visions, which being more amazing,
might cause a heavenly intentness (Zech. iv. 1): “The angel that
talked with me, came again and awaked me, as a man is awaked out of
sleep.” 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 doth of the enemies of the Jews
(Lam. iv. 19). Our persecutors are swifter than eagles; they light
upon us with as much speed as eagles upon a carcass; they pursue us
upon the mountain of divine institutions, and they lay wait for us in
the wilderness, in our retired addresses to God. And this will be so
while,
(1.) There is natural corruption in us. There are in a godly man
two contrary principles, flesh and spirit, which endeavor to hinder
one another’s acts, and are alway stirring upon the offensive or
defensive part (Gal. v. 17). There is a body of death, continually
exhaling its noisome vapors: it is a body of death in our worship,
as well as in our natures; it snaps our resolutions asunder (Rom.
vii. 19); it hinders us in the doing good, and contradicts our
wills in the stirring up evil. This corruption being seated in all
the faculties, and a constant domestic in them, has the greater
opportunity to trouble us, since it is by those faculties that we
spiritually transact with God; and it stirs more in the time of
religious exercises, though it be in part mortified; as a wounded
beast, though tired, will rage and strive to its utmost, when the
enemy is about to fetch a blow at it. All duties of worship tend to
the wounding of corruption; and it is no wonder to feel the striving
of sin to defend itself and offend us, when we have our arms in our
hands to mortify it, that the blow may be diverted which is directed
against it. The apostles had aspiring thoughts; and being persuaded of
an earthly kingdom, expected a grandeur in it; and though we find some
appearance of it at other times, as when they were casting out devils,
and gave an account of it to their Master, he gives them a kind of
a check (Luke x. 20), intimating that there was some kind of evil in
their rejoicing upon that account; yet this never swelled so high, as
to break out into a quarrel who should be greatest, until they had the
most solemn ordinance, the Lord’s supper, to quell it (Luke xxii. 24).
Our corruption is like lime, which discovers not its fire by any smoke
or heat, till you cast water, the enemy of fire, upon it; neither doth
our natural corruption rage so much, as when we are using means to
quench and destroy it.
(2.) While there is a devil, and we in his precinct. As he accuseth
us to God, so he disturbs us in ourselves; he is a bold spirit, and
loves to intrude himself when we are conversing with God: we read,
that when the angels presented themselves before God, Satan comes
among them (Job i. 6). Motions from Satan will thrust themselves
in with our most raised and angelical frames; he loves to take off
the edge of our spirits from God; he acts but after the old rate; he
from the first envied God an obedience from man, and envied man the
felicity of communion with God; he is unwilling God should have the
honor of worship, and that we should have the fruit of it; {a258} he
hath himself lost it, and therefore is unwilling we should enjoy it;
and being subtle, he knows how to make impressions upon us suitable to
our inbred corruptions, and assault us in the weakest part. He knows
all the avenues to get within us (as he did in the temptation of Eve),
and being a spirit, he wants not a power to dart them immediately upon
our fancy; and being a spirit, and therefore active and nimble, he
can shoot those darts faster than our weakness can beat them off. He
is diligent also, and watcheth for his prey, and seeks to devour our
services as well as our souls, and snatch our best morsels from us. We
know he mixed himself with our Saviour’s retirements in the wilderness,
and endeavored to fly‑blow his holy converse with his Father in the
preparation to his mediatory work. Satan is God’s ape, and imitates
the Spirit in the office of a remembrancer; as the Spirit brings good
thoughts and divine promises to mind, to quicken our worship, so the
devil brings evil things to mind, and endeavors to fasten them in
our souls to disturb us; and though all the foolish starts we have in
worship are not purely his issue, yet being of kin to him, he claps
his hands, and sets them on like so many mastiffs, to tear the service
in pieces. And both those distractions, which arise from our own
corruption and from Satan, are most rife in worship, when we are under
some pressing affliction. This seems to be David’s case, Ps. lxxxvi.
when in ver. 11 he prays God to unite his heart to fear and worship
his name; he seems to be under some affliction, or fear of his enemies:
“O free me from those distractions of spirit, and those passions which
arise in my soul, upon considering the designs of my enemies against
me, and press upon me in my addresses to thee, and attendances on
thee. ” Job also in his affliction complains (Job xvii. 11) that
“his purposes were broken off;” he could not make an even thread
of thoughts and resolutions; they were frequently snapt asunder,
like rotten yarn when one is winding it up. Good men and spiritual
worshippers have lain under this trouble. Though they are a sign of
weakness of grace, or some obstructions in the acting of strong grace,
yet they are not alway evidences of a want of grace; what ariseth from
our own corruption, is to be matter of humiliation and resistance;
what ariseth from Satan, should edge our minds to a noble conquest of
them. If the apostle did comfort himself with his disapproving of what
rose from the natural spring of sin within him, with his consent to
the law, and dissent from his lust; and charges it not upon himself,
but upon the sin that dwelt in him, with which he had broken off the
former league, and was resolved never to enter into amity with it;
by the same reason we may comfort ourselves, if such thoughts are
undelighted in, and alienate not our hearts from the worship of God
by all their busy intrusions to interrupt us.
2. These distractions (not allowed) may be occasions, by an holy
improvement, to make our hearts more spiritual after worship, though
they disturb us in it, by answering those ends for which we may
suppose God permits them to invade us. And that is,
First, When they are occasions to humble us,
(1.) For our carriage in the particular worship. There is nothing
so dangerous as spiritual pride; it deprived devils and men of the
{a259} presence of God, and will hinder us of the influence of God.
If we had had raised and uninterrupted motions in worship, we should
be apt to be lifted up; and the devil stands ready to tempt us to
self‑confidence. You know how it was with Paul (2 Cor. xii. 1‒7);
his buffetings were occasions to render him more spiritual than his
raptures, because more humble. God suffers those wanderings, starts,
and distractions, to prevent our spiritual pride; which is as a worm
at the root of spiritual worship, and mind us of the dusty frame of
our spirits, how easily they are blown away; as he sends sickness to
put us in mind of the shortness of our breath, and the easiness to
lose it. God would make us ashamed of ourselves in his presence; that
we may own, that what is good in any duty, is merely from his grace
and Spirit, and not from ourselves; that with Paul we may cry out,
“By grace we are what we are,” and by grace we do what we do; we may
be hereby made sensible, that God can alway find something in our
exactest worship, as a ground of denying us the successful fruit of it.
If we cannot stand upon our duties for salvation, what can we bottom
upon in ourselves? If therefore they are occasions to make us out of
love with any righteousness of our own, to make us break our hearts
for them, because we cannot keep them out; if we mourn for them as
our sins, and count them our great afflictions, we have attained
that brokenness which is a choice ingredient in a spiritual sacrifice.
Though we have been disturbed by them, yet we are not robbed of the
success; we may behold an answer of our worship in our humiliation,
in spite of all of them.
(2.) For the baseness of our nature. These unsteady motions help us
to discern that heap of vermin that breeds in our nature. Would any
man think he had such an averseness to his Creator and Benefactor;
such an unsuitableness to him; such an estrangedness from him, were
it not for his inspection into his distracted frame? God suffers this
to hang over us as a rod of correction, to discover and fetch out the
folly of our hearts. Could we imagine our natures so highly contrary
to that God who is so infinitely amiable, so desirable an object;
or that there should be so much folly and madness in the heart, as
to draw back from God in those services which God hath appointed
as pipes through which to communicate his grace, to convey himself,
his love and goodness to the creature? If, therefore, we have a deep
sense of, and strong reflections upon our base nature, and bewail that
mass of averseness which lies there, and that fulness of irreverence
towards the God of our mercies, the object of our worship, it is a
blessed improvement of our wanderings and diversions. Certainly, if
any Israelite had brought a lame and rotten lamb to be sacrificed to
God, and afterward had bewailed it, and laid open his heart to God
in a sensible and humble confession of it, that repentance had been a
better sacrifice, and more acceptable in the sight of God, than if he
had brought a sound and a living offering.
Secondly, When they are occasions to make us prize duties of worship.
When we argue, as rationally we may, that they are of singular use,
since our corrupt hearts and a malicious devil doth chiefly endeavor
to hinder us from them, and that we find we have not those gadding
thoughts when we are upon worldly business, or {a260} upon any sinful
design which may dishonor God and wound our souls. This is a sign
sin and Satan dislike worship, for he is too subtle a spirit to
oppose that which would further his kingdom. As it is an argument the
Scripture is the word of God, because the wickedness of the world doth
so much oppose it, so it is a ground to believe the profitableness
and excellency of worship, because Satan and our own unruly hearts
do so much interrupt us in it: if, therefore, we make this use of our
cross‑steps in worship, to have a greater value for such duties, more
affections to them, and desires to be frequent in them, our hearts are
growing spiritual under the weights that would depress them to
carnality.
Thirdly, When we take a rise from hence, to have heavenly admirations
of the graciousness of God, that he should pity and pardon so many
slight addresses to him, and give any gracious returns to us. Though
men have foolish rangings every day, and in every duty, yet free
grace is so tender as not to punish them (Gen. viii. 21): “And the
Lord smelt a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not
curse the ground for man’s sake, for the imagination of man’s heart
is evil from his youth.” It is observable, that this was just after
a sacrifice which Noah offered to God (ver. 20): but probably not
without infirmities common to human nature, which may be grounded upon
the reason God gives, that though he had destroyed the earth before,
because of the “evil of man’s imaginations” (Gen. vi. 5), he still
found evil imaginations; he doth not say in the heart of Cham, or
others of Noah’s family, but in man’s heart, including Noah also, who
had both the judgments of God upon the former world, and the mercy
of God in his own preservation, before his eyes; yet God saw evil
imaginations rooted in the nature of man, and though it were so, yet
he would be merciful. If, therefore, we can, after finding our hearts
so vagrant in worship, have real frames of thankfulness that God hath
spared us, and be heightened in our admirations at God’s giving us
any fruit of such a distracted worship, we take advantage from them
to be raised into an evangelical frame, which consists in the humble
acknowledgments of the grace of God. When David takes a review of
those tumultuous passions which had ruffled his mind, and possessed
him with unbelieving notions of God in the persons of his prophets
(Ps. cxvi. 11), how high doth his soul mount in astonishment and
thankfulness to God for his mercy! (ver. 12.) Notwithstanding his
distrust, God did graciously perform his promise, and answer his
desire: then it is, “What shall I render to the Lord?” His heart was
more affected for it, because it had been so passionate in former
distrusts. It is indeed a ground of wondering at the patience of the
Spirit of God, that he should guide our hearts when they are so apt to
start out, as it is the patience of a master to guide the hand of his
scholar, while he mixes his writing with many blots. It is not one
or two infirmities the Spirit helps us in, and helps over, but many
(Rom. viii. 26). It is a sign of a spiritual heart, when he can take
a rise to bless God for the renewing and blowing up his affections,
in the midst of so many incursions from Satan to the contrary, and
the readiness of the heart too much to comply with them.
{a261} Fourthly, When we take occasion from thence to prize the
mediation of Christ. The more distractions jog us, the more need
we should see of going out to a Saviour by faith. One part of our
Saviour’s office is to stand between us and the infirmities of our
worship. As he is an advocate, he presents our services, and pleads
for them and us (1 John ii. 1), for the sins of our duties, as well as
for our other sins. Jesus Christ is an High‑priest, appointed by God
to take away the “iniquities of our holy things,” which was typified
by Aaron’s plate upon his mitre (Exod. xxviii. 36, 38). Were there
no imperfections, were there no creeping up of those frogs into our
minds, we should think our worship might merit acceptance with God
upon its own account; but if we behold our own weakness, that not
a tear, a groan, a sigh, is so pure, but must have Christ to make
it entertainable; that there is no worship without those blemishes;
and upon this, throw all our services into the arms of Christ for
acceptance, and solicit him to put his merits in the front, to make
our ciphers appear valuable; it is a spiritual act, the design of God
in the gospel being to advance the honor and mediation of his Son.
That is a spiritual and evangelical act which answers the evangelical
design. The design of Satan, and our own corruption is defeated, when
those interruptions make us run swifter, and take faster hold on the
High‑priest who is to present our worship to God, and our own souls
receive comfort thereby. Christ had temptations offered to him by
the devil in his wilderness retirement, that, from an experimental
knowledge, he might be able more “compassionately to succor us” (Heb.
ii. 18); we have such assaults in our retired worship especially,
that we may be able more highly to value him and his mediation.
3. Let us not, therefore, be discouraged by those interruptions and
starts of our hearts.
(1.) If we find in ourselves a strong resistance of them. The flesh
will be lusting; that cannot be hindered; yet if we do not fulfil the
lusts of it, rise up at its command, and go about its work, we may be
said to walk in the Spirit (Gal. v. 16, 17): we “walk in the Spirit,”
if we “fulfil not the lusts of the flesh,” though there be a lusting
of the flesh against the Spirit; so we worship in the Spirit, though
there be carnal thoughts arising if we do not fulfil them; though
the stirring of them discovers some contrariety in us to God, yet the
resistance manifests that there is a principle of contrariety in us
to them; that as there is something of flesh that lusts against the
spirit, so there is something of spirit in worship which lusts against
the flesh: we must take heed of omitting worship, because of such
inroads, and lying down in the mire of a total neglect. If our spirits
are made more lively and vigorous against them; if those cold vapors
which have risen from our hearts make us, like a spring in the midst
of the cold earth, more warm, there is, in this case, more reason
for us to bless God, than to be discouraged. God looks upon it as
the disease, not the wilfulness of our nature; as the weakness of the
flesh, not the willingness of the spirit. If we would shut the door
upon them, it seems they are unwelcome company; men do not use to lock
their doors upon those they love; if they break in and disturb {a262}
us with their impertinences, we need not be discomforted, unless we
give them a share in our affections, and turn our back upon God to
entertain them; if their presence makes us sad, their flight would
make us joyful.
(2.) If we find ourselves excited to a stricter watch over our
hearts against them; as travellers will be careful when they come to
places where they have been robbed before, that they be not so easily
surprised again. We should not only lament when we have had such
foolish imaginations in worship breaking in upon us, but also bless
God that we have had no more, since we have hearts so fruitful of
weeds. We should give God the glory when we find our hearts preserved
from these intruders, and not boast of ourselves, but return him our
praise for the watch and guard he kept over us, to preserve us from
such thieves. Let us not be discomforted; for as the greatness of our
sins, upon our turning to God, is no hindrance to our justification,
because it doth not depend upon our conversion as the meritorious
cause, but upon the infinite value of our Saviour’s satisfaction,
which reaches the greatest sins as well as the least; so the multitude
of our bewailed distractions in worship are not a hindrance to our
acceptation, because of the uncontrollable power of Christ’s
intercession.
_Use IV._ is for exhortation. Since spiritual worship is due to God,
and the Father seeks such to worship him, how much should we endeavor
to satisfy the desire and order of God, and act conformable to the law
of our creation and the love of redemption! Our end must be the same
in worship which was God’s end in creation and redemption; to glorify
his name, set forth his perfections, and be rendered fit, as creatures
and redeemed ones, to partake of that grace which is the fruit of
worship. An evangelical dispensation requires a spiritual homage; to
neglect, therefore, either the matter or manner of gospel duties, is
to put a slight upon gospel privileges. The manner of duty is ever
of more value than the matter; the scarlet dye is more precious than
the cloth tinctured with it. God respects more the disposition of
the sacrificer than the multitude of the sacrifices.[527] The solemn
feasts appointed by God were but dung as managed by the Jews (Mal.
ii. 3). The heart is often welcome without the body, but the body
never grateful without the heart. The inward acts of the spirit
require nothing from without to constitute them good in themselves;
but the outward acts of devotion require inward acts to render them
savory to God. As the goodness of outward acts consists not in the
acts themselves, so the acceptableness of them results not from the
acts themselves, but from the inward frame animating and quickening
those acts, as blood and spirits running through the veins of a duty
to make it a living service in the sight of God. Imperfections in
worship hinder not God’s acceptation of it, if the heart, spirited
by grace, be there to make it a sweet savor. The stench of burning
flesh and fat in the legal sacrifices might render them noisome to the
outward senses; but God smelt a sweet savor in them, as they {a263}
respected Christ. When the heart and spirit are offered up to God, it
may be a savory duty, though attended with unsavory imperfections; but
a thousand sacrifices without a stamp of faith, a thousand spiritual
duties with an habitual carnality, are no better than stench with God.
The heart must be purged, as well as the temple was by our Saviour, of
the thieves that would rob God of his due worship. Antiquity had some
temples wherein it was a crime to bring any gold; therefore those that
came to worship laid their gold aside before they went into the temple.
We should lay aside our worldly and trading thoughts before we address
to worship (Isa. xxvi. 9): “With my spirit within me will I seek thee
early.” Let not our minds be gadding abroad, and exiled from God and
themselves. It will be thus when the “desire of our soul is to his
name, and the remembrance of him” (ver. 8). When he hath given so
great and admirable a gift as that of his Son, in whom are all things
necessary to salvation, righteousness, peace, and pardon of sin, we
should manage the remembrance of his name in worship with the closest
unitedness of heart, and the most spiritual affections. The motion
of the spirit is the first act in religion; to this we are obliged in
every act. The devil requires the spirit of his votaries; should God
have a less dedication than the devil?
Motives to back this exhortation.