felicity, then how vain are all pretences to happiness, while man is a
stranger to God? Let him be surrounded with all imaginable delights of
sense, or let him be furnished with all advantages of reason or natural
knowledge, to entertain the mind; yet if he be afar off from God, he
must be afar off from blessedness. _Without God, and without hope_, is
the character of the sinful world. Do the profane and sensual wretches
boast of their pleasures, while God is not in all their thoughts? Empty
shews of pleasure, and vain shadows! And even these shadows, these vain
flatteries, are ever flying from their embraces; they delude their
pursuit in this world, and shall vanish all at once at the moment of
death, and leave them in everlasting sorrow.
Let the sensualist _sport himself in his own deceivings_, and bless
himself in the midst of his madness: Let the rich worldling say, “Soul
take thine ease, for thy barns and thy chests are full.” Let the mere
philosopher glory that he has found happiness out; let him busy himself
in refined subtilties, and swell in the pride of his reason: let all
these pretenders to felicity, compliment each other, if they please, or
call themselves the only happy men; yet the meanest, and the weakest of
all the saints, would not make an exchange with them; for the saint is
brought nigh to God: And though his poverty here be never so great and
his understanding never so contemptible, yet he knows this great truth
well, that to exchange God for the creature, would be infinite loss, and
misery unspeakable. They who never drew near to God, who never saw God
in his works or his word, so as to love him above all things, and
partake of his love, must be miserable in spite of all their pretences:
_They that are far from God shall perish_; Ps. lxxiii. 27.
IV. Reflection. God has not utterly abandoned this world to sin and
misery, while he keeps his word and his ordinances in it: For these are
his appointed means of approaching to him, and steps whereby we may
climb to the blessedness of saints and angels. God sent his word after
Adam the sinner, when he fled from him in paradise, that he might recal
man back to himself; and he has been ever since sending messages of
peace, and invitations of love, to a ruined and rebellious world. Happy
sinners, who hear the voice of an inviting God, who turn their back upon
the perishing vanities of life and time, who forsake the creatures, and
return to their Creator again! Thousands of the sons and daughters of
Adam have accepted the messages of this grace, and have been by these
methods trained up for glory: By conversing with God in his ordinances,
and dwelling in his courts on earth, they have been happily prepared for
an everlasting habitation in his court of heaven. We this day are
favoured with the same divine call in the gospel; let every soul of us
rejoice and follow.
V. Reflection. The true value of things on earth may be judged of and
determined by their tendency to bring us near to God and heaven. The
common measure of our esteem of things, is the influence they have to
promote what we think our happiness. Now, if our judgment be set right
in this point, and we are convinced that an approach to God is the way
to be happy, then whatsoever leads us nearest to God will rise in value
in our esteem.
Then our hearts will set a high esteem on those friends or relatives who
draw us to the knowledge and love of God: Then we shall prize the
ministrations of the gospel in England above the riches of both the
Indies; then we shall not think the ministry of the word a mean and
contemptible employment, nor delight to hear scandals thrown on the
persons or the characters of those who are engaged in it; for _these are
the servants of the living God, who shew us the way_ to be happy. Then
we shall commend those sermons, and those writings most, not that have
most wit and fancy in them, but those which we feel and find to draw our
hearts farthest off from sin and the creature, and bring them nearest to
God; and then, if there were but one bible in the world, we should all
agree to say, that there is not treasure enough in all the material
creation to purchase it out of our hands.
VI. Reflection. All the means of separation from God should be numbered
among the instruments of real misery.
Does Satan the fallen angel, solicit our youth with his flatteries; that
it is time enough to mind religion yet; let us have a few more gaudy
days first? Does he frighten the aged sinner with terrible falsehoods,
and tempt him to an utter despair of grace? Let his wicked suggestions
be renounced with disdain, and let him never prevail to keep one soul of
us at a distance from God; for his first business was to divide us from
God, and to ruin our happiness: And it is his daily employment to hold
us fast in the chains of iniquity and death, and thus to prevent our
return to God.
Does the flesh allure us to pursue sinful delights? Does it awaken and
charm our imagination with the flowery and fatal scenes of luxury and
mirth? Do the lusts of the flesh, or the lusts of the eye, persuade us
to seek happiness among them? And tempt us, at least for the present, to
lay aside the thoughts of God? Let us set a strict guard upon ourselves,
and watch all the avenues of sense and appetite, lest we be drawn off
from the practice of piety, and the service, and the love of God, where
true happiness is only to be found.
Do you find, O christians, that the world begins to creep into your
hearts? Do you find any creature sit too near your souls, and take up
any of that time and room which God should have there? Awake, betimes,
and bestir yourselves, lest it divide you from your happiness. When you
feel your spirits at any time grow cold in religious worship, when you
can pass a day with an indifference about secret converse with God, and
be content to be long absent from him, search with diligence what enemy
it is that has crept in secretly, and interposes betwixt God and you;
and when you have found it, never rest, till by the aids of divine
grace, you have removed the idol from your thoughts, and your soul be
restored to its holy nearness to God again. I might say in general,
concerning all this world, keep your hearts aloof from it, while your
hands, and perhaps your heads too, are engaged in the necessary affairs
of it. The nearer your souls are to the creatures, the farther they
depart from God and blessedness. As a natural consequence from this
thought, we may raise another
VII. Reflection. Wanderings, and vain thoughts in the time of religious
worship, are, and will be, the great burdens of a child of God; for they
clog him, and keep him down when he would rise to his heavenly Father;
they are bars in his way to blessedness, for they hinder his approach to
God. But what wretched creatures are we, if we indulge vain thoughts,
and worldly images and idols in the house of God, without complaint, and
without mourning! What holy shame and repentance should it work in us,
to think, that even in the place where the great and blessed God comes
to shew his face, we should be building up walls and partitions to hide
his face from us! that we should turn away our faces from him in the
hour when he comes on purpose to meet us!
I might add, as a concluding reflection, that it is a tiresome bondage
to a saint, in a devout frame, to dwell so long in this body of flesh
and blood. This mortal state prevents our complete happiness every hour
that we tarry in it. While we sojourn in this tabernacle, we are so much
the farther from God; while _we are at home in the body, we are absent
from the Lord_; 2 Cor. v. 6. This mortal flesh is a painful veil to the
lively christian, for it divides him from the sight and full enjoyment
of his chosen blessedness. At the best we see God but _darkly through a
glass_ while we dwell here; the moment of release places us in the
region of spirits, _where we shall see him face to face_; 1. Cor. xiii.
12. Though all these reflections may afford us many useful rules for our
practice, yet I will not finish the discourse without a few inferences
which are more expressly practical.
Practical Directions.—1. Give all glory to God for ever, who brings
himself so near to us: He puts us thus far in the road to happiness,
when he builds his houses amongst us, when he approaches to us in his
holy ordinances, when he calls, and causes us to approach to him, and
gives us kind and sure promises of eternal blessedness above in his
immediate presence. Let each of us join with Solomon in that noble piece
of worship; 1 Kings viii. 27. “But will God indeed dwell on earth?
Behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less any
house that is built for thee?” Yet the Lord is near to the churches of
his saints, when they worship him; _he is near to all that call upon
him, to all that call upon him in truth_; Ps. cxlv. 18. And _his word is
near us_, even in our hands, and on our lips; that word which teaches us
the way to approach God, and ensures the blessedness.
O give glory to God, the great and holy God, that he should ever be
willing to let sinners approach him; that the Majesty of Heaven, and the
supreme Lord of all, who had been highly provoked by his rebellious
creatures, should ever come into terms of reconciliation; that he
himself should provide a reconciling sacrifice, to satisfy his own
governing justice, and a reconciling spirit to reduce the rebel man to
his obedience and love. This divine condescension, O my soul, demands
thy wonder and thy worship.
2. Adore the mystery of the incarnation, and bless God incarnate; for
this is the ground of all our habitual nearness to God, and all our
actual approaches to him and heaven. It was the Son of God, who is one
with the Father, that stooped down, and approached to our nature, and
took a part of it into union with himself, that we might approach to the
Deity: No man cometh to the Father but by the Son; John xiv. 6. For ever
had we, the wretched offspring of Eve, been banished from the courts,
and the presence of God, had not this man Jesus the Son of Mary, been
caused first to draw near, and to dwell near; and blessed be his name
for ever.
We rejoice with all the powers of our souls, to think how near to God
the man Jesus is, for since he approaches the throne, we shall approach
too; Rev. iii. 21. We shall be blessed through his blessedness; Gal.
iii. 8. 14. He was first chosen to draw near, and _we chosen in him_;
Eph. i. 4. Nearness to God is still a matter of divine choice and
distinction: He approaches to God above, accepted in his own spotless
righteousness, and we in him: He is in a more transcendant manner one
with God, and we must be united to God by him, and so made somewhat like
him; John xvii. 24. When our Mediator approaches to the Father in
worship, he, as our High-priest, bears the name of the whole church in
heaven and earth, on his breast, and on his shoulders; Ex. xxxviii.
12-29. In his beauty of holiness, we unholy creatures are presented
before God, and caused to approach with glorious acceptance.
Stand still here, O ye saints of the Most High, and survey your
privileges and your honours; and remember that whensoever you draw near
to God in the courts of his house, it was Jesus who drew near first, it
is Jesus who still dwells near to make you acceptable: it is he who
maintains the nearness of your state, and your peace with God, by ever
presenting your natures in his person: _He appears in the presence of
God for us_; Heb. ix. 24. It is Jesus, who, by his Spirit, lifts you up
near to the Father; and it is by his best beloved and nearest Son, that
God the Father draws near to all his children.
3. Be not found amongst the mockers of approach to God, and holy
converse with him in worship. They despise felicity itself. Such there
have been of old, and such there are in our days; and because they are
afar off from God themselves, they deny all nearness to him, they
ridicule our approaches to God, as the vain effects of a wild
imagination, and the mere sensible commotions of a warm fancy.
But is it not a very rational and intelligible thing, for a soul in
public worship, so to draw near to God, as to learn more of him, and to
know more of his perfections and graces than he knew before? May not
such a worshipper have his love to God raised and warmed by such
advancing knowledge! And may he not arise, by holy inferences, to a
livelier and surer hope that he is beloved of God too, and solace
himself in this assurance? What is there in all this which is not
perfectly agreeable to reason, or that should provoke an impious jest?
But let such have a care, lest they blaspheme God and his Spirit; let
them take heed, lest they be thrust down to hell, and set at a dreadful
distance from God, without remedy, who deride the joy of heaven.
4. Take heed of those deceits of being above ordinances, lest you lose
true happiness through pride and vain conceit. Abandon the vain fancy of
living nearer to God in the neglect of them. God is glorious in himself,
but he has appointed ordinances, as means whereby we may approach and
see him. Some stars, though large in themselves, yet are not visible
without glasses; and others that are visible to the naked eye, yet
appear much fairer and larger by this help. Even so those glories of
God, which are unknown to reason, and to the light of nature, are
discovered in the ministrations of his word; such are his subsistence in
three persons, and his forgiving grace: and those glories of his nature,
which are traced out by human reason, stand in a diviner light, with all
their splendors about them, in the gospel, and the sanctuary.
5. Never rest satisfied without approaching to God in spirit and in
truth, when you attend on his ordinances. This is the goodness of his
house that must satisfy the holy soul of the Psalmist, as he expresses
it in the following words of my text: _We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thine house._
What a folly it is to be pleased with empty ordinances without God! 1
Tim. iv. 8. _Bodily exercise profiteth little._ To make a serious matter
of mere external things, and to make nothing of spiritual ones! These
formal and silly creatures come to the palace of the king, and turn
their backs on his person, to play with his shadow upon the wall:
ridiculous and childish folly! And yet how often is this the trifling
practice of the men of wisdom? And sometimes persons of true piety are
tempted to indulge in it. Let me ask my conscience, “Did I never let my
curiosity dwell upon the just reasoning, the correct style, the pretty
similies, the flowing oratory, or flowery beauties of a sermon, while I
neglected to seek my God there, and to raise my soul near him? Or
perhaps I was charmed with the decency and voice of the preacher; or, it
may be, was better entertained with some zealous party flights which
flattered my own bitter zeal, and seemed to sanctify my uncharitable
censures; and when I returned from the place of worship, I had a
pleasant remembrance of all these.” But it had been better, if
conscience had reproached my folly, and made me remember that I had
forgot my God there.
It is also a dreadful abuse of gospel-ordinances, and a high mockery of
God, to come to his courts, and not draw near him; Jer. xii. 2. “When
God is near in our mouth, but far from our heart.” Ordinances are an
appointed medium for man to come to God by them. If we use them not as
such, we either make idols of them, by placing of them in God’s stead,
or we make nothing of them, no means of converse with God: both ways we
nullify them, for an idol is nothing, and mere vanity, as the prophets
and the apostles speak: So ordinances are vain and unprofitable, and
utterly insufficient to make us happy without God. They are mere images,
and shadows without the substance.
To seek after God, and endeavour to approach him in all his own
institutions, is the way to be recovered from the miseries of the fall.
To live in a holy nearness to God, is a restoration to the pleasures of
innocency. It is the full happiness of reasonable natures to be always
with God: It is our noblest honour, and our sweetest consolation, in
this state of darkness and trial, to get as near him as earth and grace
will admit; and it is also the best preparative for heaven and the state
of glory, where we shall dwell for ever near him, and be for ever
blessed. _Amen._
HYMN FOR SERMON XI.
_Nearness to God the Felicity of Creatures._
Are those the happy persons here,
Who dwell the nearest to their God,
Has God invited sinners near?
And Jesus bought his grace with blood?
Go then, my soul, address the Son,
To lead thee near the Father’s face;
Gaze on his glories yet unknown,
And taste the blessings of his grace.
Vain vexing world, and flesh, and sense,
Retire while I approach my God;
Nor let my sins divide me thence,
Nor creatures tempt my thoughts
abroad.
While to thine arms, my God, I press,
No mortal hope, nor joy, nor fear,
Shall call my soul from thine embrace;
’Tis heav’n to dwell for ever there.
SERMON XII.
_The Scale of Blessedness: Or, Blessed Saints, Blessed Saviour, and
Blessed Trinity._
PSALM LXV. 4.—Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to
approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts.
THE SECOND PART.
By the entrance of sin into the world, man was first separated from God
and happiness: God in righteous anger withdrew from his creature man;
and man, obeying the dictates of his own impious folly, runs farther
away from his Maker God; _He is born like a wild ass’s colt_, unknowing
and thoughtless: and like a colt he runs wild in the forest of this
world, roving amongst a thousand vanities in quest of happiness, but
afar off from God still. He seeks substantial and pleasant food, but he
meets with broad barren sands in the wilderness, or with brakes, and
briars, and bitter weeds. He follows every foolish fire of fancy, till
he is led into many a pit and precipice; He rises again, and changes the
chase: He flies perpetually from object to object, but finds everlasting
disappointment: Shadows, and painted hopes, flatter and tire, and delude
him, till he lies down and despairs in death.
This is the case of mankind by nature; they live ignorant of God, and
wilfully blind to their own felicity. Fatal blindness and wretched
mankind! But blessed be God, that he has not renounced and abandoned all
our race for ever, and fixed us in a state of eternal separation from
him! Blessed be God, who has chosen, and already called many of the
wanderers to himself again! He has built dwellings for himself on earth;
he has appointed means for our return, and invites all to approach him.
Good David had a full and lively sense hereof when he wrote the words of
this song; _Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to
approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts_: Whence I derived
this doctrine in the foregoing sermon.
Doctrine. Nearness to God is the foundation of a creature’s happiness.
This doctrine appeared in full evidence, while we considered the three
chief ingredients of true felicity, _viz._ the contemplation of the
noblest object, to satisfy all the powers of the understanding, the love
of the supreme good, to answer the utmost propensities of the will; and
the sweet and everlasting sensation and assurance of the love of an
almighty friend, who will free us from all the evils which our nature
can fear, and confer upon us all the good which a wise and innocent
creature can desire. Thus all the capacities of man are employed in
their highest and sweetest exercises and enjoyments. Now it is God
alone, the great and ever-blessed God, who can furnish us with all these
materials of blessedness, who can refine our natures, and who can thus
engage and entertain all the powers and appetites of our natures
refined.
Having finished what I designed in the explication and proof of this
doctrine, I proceeded to make various reflections for our information
and practice. But the meditation which I proposed, and reserved for this
discourse, was the sacred scale of blessedness, or the several degrees
of felicity, that creatures are possessed of, according to their
advancing approaches toward God; and we shall find blessedness, in its
highest perfection, to belong only to God himself.
First degree of blessedness.—I. Happy are they who, though they are
sinners by nature, yet are brought so near to God, as to be within the
sound and call of his grace.
In this sense the whole nation of the Jews was a people near unto God,
for he shewed his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto
Israel; and upon this account they were happy, in ancient ages, above
all kingdoms of the earth; Ps. cxlvii. and cxlviii.
Happy those countries where the apostles of Christ planted the gospel,
and brought grace and salvation near them, though they were before at a
dreadful distance from God! Happy Britons in our age! Though we are
involved, with the rest of mankind, in the common ruins of our first
defection from God, yet we are not left in the darkness of heathenism,
on the very confines of hell: But God has exalted us near to heaven and
himself, in the ministrations of his word, and led us in a way to his
everlasting enjoyment. He has built his sanctuaries amongst us, and
established his churches in the midst of us. We are invited to behold
_the beauty of the Lord_, to return to our obedience and his love, and
thus be made happy for ever.
This is a matter of divine choice and peculiar favour. Blessed England,
whom “He hath chosen, and caused to approach” thus far towards himself!
And why was not the polite nation of China chosen too; And why not the
poor Savages of Africa, and the barbarous millions of the American
world? Why are they left in a dismal estrangement from God, “Even so,
Father, because it pleased thee,” whose counsels “are unsearchable, and
whose ways of judgment and mercy are past finding out.”
“Blessed are the people who hear and know the joyful sound;” Ps. lxxxix.
15. But there are degrees of this blessedness, even in the lands which
enjoy the gospel. Blessed are they above others, who dwell near to the
places of public worship, who sit under an enlightening, a powerful and
persuasive ministry, who have opportunity to hear the word of God often,
and who have skill to read it. Blessed are they who are born of
religious parents, and trained up in the early forms of piety; these are
still brought near unto God; they are nursed up, as it were, in his
churches, and dwell in his courts. And blessed are those who are devoted
to the service of the sanctuary, like the priests and levites of old,
who were brought nearest to God, among all Israel; for their civil
employment, as well as their religious duty, led them continually toward
God, heaven and happiness. But all these glorious privileges are not
sufficient to ensure eternal felicity, unless we come one step farther
in approaching to God.
Second degree of blessedness—II. Happy are those souls who have been
taught to improve their outward advantages of nearness to God, so as to
obtain reconciliation, with him by the blood of Christ. This is the
great end of all the privileges before-mentioned, which either Jew or
Gentile were partakers of: This was the design of all the approaches
that God made towards them. Peace and salvation, were preached _to those
which were afar off, and to them that were nigh_, and Christ died to
reconcile both unto God; and that _through him both might have an access
by one Spirit unto the Father_: Eph. ii. 16, 17, 18. Why are all the
alluring glories of the Lord displayed before us, in his gospel, but
that we might be drawn to love him? Why are these wondrous
manifestations of his grace made to us, but that we might become the
objects of his love, and taste of his special goodness.