make them melancholy. Alas, my friends! do we desire to see God in heaven? Surely that place will be no heaven for us if we do not. But if we do, if we reckon on God's presence there as the great joy of that blissful mansion, how comes it that some so wilfully, and others so heedlessly, forget God? that we have all so much to blame ourselves for, in our little care to walk with God? We desire not God's favour but exactly in proportion as we desire his presence. Judge therefore how cold your desires after God have been; and remember that he who can truly say, "I have none in heaven but thee," can say with equal truth, "There is none upon earth that I desire besides thee." I go on to the other point. Thirdly. Have you always delighted, or do you delight, in God as your chief happiness? This delight consists in a certain calm, steady, and rational complacency in God, as an allsufficient happiness, the soul resting on him as every way excellent and satisfying. The commandment requires we should thus delight in God, that we should do so at all times, and that we should delight in nothing else as our happiness; and we have seen that God is every way a suitable object of this our delight and joy; because in himself he is every way excellent, suited to be such a satisfying happiness to his rational creatures; and hath revealed and proposed himself to us of the world in this view. But, now, have or do we thus delight in God? It supposes two things, that, under the sense of God's presence with us, and his fatherly direction of us, we have always enjoyed a contented and thankful frame of spirit. But hath our soul been always in this contented and thankful state? or, if composed, hath this composedness arisen only from a full satisfiedness in God? How far is this from the case of any of us! Some to this day do not so much as know what I am speaking of; are quite strangers, as they have always been, to this joy in God; perhaps would be ready to dispute whether there is any such thing, at least any possibility of so being content and thankful in God in certain seasons of worldly distress. And which of you hath always thus delighted in God, and that in such a measure as to possess always a contented and thankful spirit? Have we never been discontented and dissatisfied? Have we never been unthankful? Whence else have we been so ready to complain? Whence have we so often fallen into, or perhaps lived long in, an unthankful mood, peevish, fretful, and displeased with every thing, forgetting all God's other favours because one was taken away or wanting? And what was that one thing wanting, at the bottom, but satisfiedness in God? Say have you never been discontented and unthankful? What! in no case? What! not when you have been disappointed of that you had set your heart upon; when you have thought yourself ill used by your friends; when you have met with difficulties in your worldly affairs; when you have been sick; when dangers public or private threatened you; when your schemes have not answered, or have been delayed: or when you met with great and trying temptations; when you were evil-spoken of; when you were suffering for righteousness in your character or interest; when your soul did not thrive as you would; when your corruptions were strong, and, as it were, let loose upon you; when you seemed to gain little ground upon them; when disorder hindered you from the free exercise of prayer, meditation, and the like; when death or Providence took away your friends; when infirmity or age was growing upon you? In all cases have you been content and thankful? And, as far as you have seemed to be so, hath it been only because of your satisfiedness in God? Hath this been your only joy when things have gone well with you; and this your only refuge when things have gone amiss? The most of the joy in the world is plainly a carnal joy, a joy springing from youth, health, easy circumstances, cheerful companions, worldly gratifications; have none of these things been in part, or the whole, the matter of your supreme joy? Religious joy is a rare joy; but carnal joy there is enough and too much of. Eat, drink, and be merry,' this joy abounds; but, When the fig-tree doth not blossom, when there is no fruit in the vine, then to joy in God'* is a favourable token of our submission to his will. If we can rejoice in God, and be content and thankful in adversity, how pleasant is it to delight in him in prosperity! 6 Thus I have opened to you the great duty of loving God; and I need not ask whether you be guilty or not. Our happiness is, my brethren, that God hath provided a ransom for us in Jesus Christ. But let none think that propitiation sufficient *Habak. iii. 17, 18. without more ado, lest he abuse my design and his own soul; I mean not to give any the least room for security, while I show that all are guilty. I would have you all, with deep humiliation, with self-loathing and shame, betake yourselves to Christ. And I declare, in the name of God, that whoever doth not thus, with humble acknowledgment and confession of his vileness, lay his sins on the head of Jesus, his sins shall be on his own head.— There is yet the fear of God to be spoken of, which must be deferred to our next meeting. SERMON XXVIII. GALATIANS iii. 24. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. I AM now to speak of the fear of God, in correspondence with the design of the text, to stir you up with deep humiliation to betake yourselves unto Christ for mercy. God, considered in his divine majesty, as the absolute Sovereign of the world, is the object of fear. And inasmuch as his kingdom reacheth unto all, and he is every way qualified to maintain the glory and the rights of it, he must be entitled to the highest fear from all his creatures. It is God's wisdom, power, justice, and sovereignty over all creatures, which render him the object of all fear. So the Scriptures speak; they represent God's wisdom and knowledge as a foundation of fearing him: Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.'* And again, All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.'+ So the power of God is set forth as a motive to fear: O foolish people, and without understanding, fear ye not me? saith the Lord: Will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it ?'‡ Also because of his justice he is to be feared; If ye call on the Father, who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every one's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.'§ Lastly, because * Jeremiah xxiii. 24. + Heb. iv. 13. of his sovereignty over all creatures, God is to be feared. If I be a Master, where is my fear? I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.'* Yet however God, by reason of his wisdom, power, justice, and sovereignty, be the object of all fear, yet he is not actually feared but when he is considered as present: in which view Job saith, Therefore am I troubled at his presence; when I consider, I am afraid of him.' + And the Holy Spirit gives us to understand, by the mouth of Joshua, that God manifests himself in miraculous doings, to the end that all the people of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty; that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever.'‡ Now though God be the object of all fear, by reason of his glorious majesty, yet he will be differently feared by his reasonable creatures, according as they are differently disposed towards him, and have or have not an interest in his favour. The blessed angels and perfected saints above, conscious of his favour towards them, and their love towards him, have a fear of God, which is most properly a high reverence of his majesty and perfections, possessing their spirits with a most awful approbation of his government, with the most pleasing submissions thereto, and with a most perfect detestation of whatever is contrary to it; and this is what is figured out to us by the angels being said to cover their faces before the Lord.§ Again, on the other part, the inhabitants of hell are possessed with a fear of God's majesty, which is full of horror, because they have both the utmost detestation of his government, and lie under the immediate fury of his wrath, which also they are conscious they shall never escape, because they are sure he will never be reconciled to them. The devils believe and tremble.' In like manner the fear of God will be various upon earth, according as men are conscious that they have, or have not, an interest in his favour; if the interest in God's favour be sure, and love of God more advanced, the fear of God will have more of that heavenly reverence, and less of that tormenting apprehension, just spoken of. If there be no interest in God's favour, and the conscience is awakened to see the danger of our state, the fear will be Mal. i. 6---14. § Isaiah vi. 2. + Job xxiii. 15. Joshua iv. 24. |