Part 21
Our desires of the word are to issue from the regenerate principle : 1 Peter ii. 2, ' As new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word.' It seems to be not a comparison, but a restriction. All worship must have the same spring, and be the exercise of that principle, otherwise we can have no communion with God. Friends that have the same habitual dis positions have a fundamental fitness for an agreeable converse with one another ; but if the temper wherein their likeness consists be languishing, and the string out of tune, there is not an actual fitness, and the present indisposition breaks the converse, and renders the company troublesome. Though we may have the habitual graces which compose in us a resem blance to God, yet for want of acting those suitable dispositions, we render ourselves unfit for his converse, and make the worship, which is funda mentally spiritual, to become actually carnal. As the will cannot naturally act to any object but by the exercise of its affections, so the heart cannot
spiritually act towards God but by the exercise of graces. This is God's music: Eph. v. 19, 'singing and making melody to God in your hearts.' Singing and all other acts of worship are outward, but the spiritual melody
is ' by grace in the heart,' Col. iii. 16. This renders it a spiritual worship, for it is an effect of the fulness of the Spirit in the soul; as ver. 19, 'But be filled with the Spirit.' The overflowing of the Spirit in the heart, setting the soul of a believer thus on work to make a spiritual melody to God, shews that something higher than bare reason is put in tune in the heart. Then is the fruit of the garden pleasant to Christ, when the Holy
Spirit, 'the north and south wind, blow upon the spices,' Cant. iv. 16, and strike out the fragrancy of them. Since God is the author of graces, and bestows them to have a glory from them, they are best employed about him and his service. It is fit he should have the cream of his own gifts. Without the exercise of grace, we perform but a work of nature, and offer him a few dry bones without marrow.
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The whole set of graces must be one way or other exercised. If any treble be wanting in a lute, there will be a great defect in the music. If any one spiritual string be dull, the spiritual harmony of worship will be spoiled.
And therefore, • 1. First, Faith must be acted in worship; a confidence in God. A natural worship cannot be performed without a natural confidence in the goodness of God. Whosoever comes to him must regard him as a rewarder and a faithful Creator, Heb. xi. 6 ; a spiritual worship cannot be performed without an evangelical confidence in him as a gracious Redeemer. To think him a tyrant, meditating revenge, damps the^soul; to regard him as a gracious king, full of tender bowels, spirits the affections to him. The mercy of God. is the proper object of trust: Ps. xxxiii. 18, ' The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.' The worship of God in the Old Testament is most described by fear, in the New Testament by faith. Fear, or the worship of God, and hope in his mercy, are linked together. When they go hand in hand, the accepting eye of God is upon us ; when we do not trust, we do not worship. Those of
Judah had the temple worship among them, especially in Josiah's time, Zeph. iii. 2, the time of that prophecy ; yet it was accounted no worship, because no trust in the worshippers. Interest in God cannot be improved without an exercise of faith. The gospel worship is prophesied of to be a confidence in God, as in a husband more than in a lord : Hosea ii. 16,
1 Thou shalt call me Ishi, and shalt call me no more Baali.' ' Thou shalt
call me ;' that is, thou shalt worship me, worship being often comprehended under invocation. More confidence is to be exercised in a husband or father than in a lord or master.
If a man have not; faith, he is without Christ ; and though a man be in Christ by the habit of faith, he performs a duty out of Christ without an act of faith. Without the habit of faith, our persons are out of Christ ; and with out the exercise of faith, the duties are out of Christ. As the want of faith in a person is the death of the soul, so the want of faith in a service is the death of the offering. Though a man were at the cost of an ox, yet to kill it without bringing it to the door of the tabernacle was not a sacrifice but a murder, Lev. xvii. 3, 4. The tabernacle was a type of Christ, and a look to him is necessary in every spiritual sacrifice. As there must be faith to make any act an act of obedience, so there must be faith to make any act of worship spiritual. That service is not spiritual that is not vital, and it cannot be vital without the exercise of a vital principle ; all spiritual life is
' hid in Christ,' and drawn from him by faith, Gal. ii. 20. Faith, as it hath relation to Christ, makes every act of worship a living act, and consequently a spiritual act. Habitual unbelief cuts us off from the body of Christ : Bom.
xi. 20, * Because of unbelief they were broken off;' and a want of actuated belief breaks us off from a present communion with Christ in spirit. As unbelief in us hinders Christ from doing any mighty work, so unbelief in ns hinders us from doing any mighty spiritual duty.
So that the exercise of faith, and a confidence in God, is necessary to every duty.
2. Love must be acted to render a worship spiritual. Though God com manded love in the Old Testament, yet the manner of giving the law bespoke more of fear than love. The dispensation of the law was with fire, thunder, &c., proper to raise horror and (benumb the spirit, which effect it had upon the Israelites, when they desired that God would speak no more to them.
Grace is the genius of the gospel, proper to excite the affection of love. The VOL. i. u
306 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [JOHN IV. 24.
law was given ' by the disposition of angels,' with signs to amaze ; the gospel was ushered in with the songs of angels, composed of peace and good will, calculated to ravish the soul. Instead of the terrible voice of the law, Do this and live ; the comfortable voice of the gospel is, Grace, grace. Upon this account, the principle of the Old Testament was fear, and the worship often expressed by the fear of God ; the principle of the New Testament is love.
* The mount Sinai gendereth to bondage,' Gal. iv. 24 ; mount Zion, from whence the gospel or evangelical law goes forth, gendereth to liberty ; and, therefore, the Spirit of bondage unto fear, as the property of the law, is opposed to the state of adoption, the principle of love, as the property of the gospel, Rom. viii. 15 ; and therefore the worship of God, under the gospel or New Testament, is oftener expressed by love than fear, as proceeding from higher principles, and acting nobler passions. In this state we are to
' serve him without fear,' Luke i. 74 ; without a bondage-fear, not without a fear of unworthy treating him, with a fear of his goodness, as it is pro phesied of, Hosea iii. 5. Goodness is not the object of terror, but reverence. God, in the law, had more the garb of a judge ; in the gospel, of a father ; the name of a father is sweeter, and bespeaks more of affection. As their services were with a feeling of the thunders of the law in their consciences, so is our worship to be with a sense of gospel grace in our spirits. Spiri tual worship is that, therefore, which is exercised with a spiritual and heavenly affection proper to the gospel. The heart should be enlarged, according to the liberty the gospel gives of drawing near to God as a father ; as he gives us the nobler relation of children, we are to act the nobler quali ties of children. Love should act according to its nature, which is desire of union, desire of a moral union by affections, as well as a mystical union by faith, as flame aspires to reach flame and become one with it. In every act of worship we should endeavour to be united to God, and become one spirit with him. This grace doth spiritualise worship. In that one word love, God hath wrapt up all the devotion he requires of us. It is the total
sum ;of the first table, * Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ; ' it is to be acted in everything we do ; but in worship our hearts should more solemnly rise up and acknowledge him amiable and lovely, since the law is stripped of its cursing power, and made sweet in the blood of the Redeemer. Love is a thing acceptable of itself, but nothing acceptable without it. The gifts of one man to another are spiritualised by it. We would not value a present without the affection of the donor. Every man would lay claim to the love
of others, though he would not to their possessions. Love is God's right in every service, and the noblest thing we can bestow upon him in our adora
tions of him. God's gifts to us are not so estimable without his love,^nor our services valuable by him without the exercise of a choice affection. Hezekiah regarded not his deliverance without the love of the deliverer : ' In love to my soul thou hast delivered me/ Isa. xxxviii. 17 ; so doth God say, In love to my honour thou hast worshipped me.
So that love must be acted, to render our worship spiritual. 3. A spiritual sensibleness of our own weakness is necessary to make our worship spiritual. Affections to God cannot be without relentings in our
selves. When the eye is spiritually fixed upon a spiritual God, the heart will mourn that the worship is no more spiritually suitable. The more we
act love upon God, as amiable and gracious, the more we should exercise grief in ourselves, as we are vile and offending. Spiritual worship is a melting worship as well as an elevating worship ; it exalts God, and debaseth the creature. The publican was more spiritual in his humble address to God, when the Pharisee was wholly carnal with hte swelling language. A
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spiritual love in worship will make us grieve that we have given him so little, and could give him no more. It is a part of spiritual duty to bewail our carnality mixed with it. As we receive mercies spiritually when we receive
them with a sense of God's goodness and our own vileness, in the same manner we render a spiritual worship.
4. Spiritual desires for God render the service spiritual ; when the soul
' follows hard after him,' Ps. Ixiii. 8, pursues after God, as a God of infinite communicative goodness, with sighs and groans unutterable. A spiritual soul seems to be transformed into hunger and thirst, and becomes nothing but desire. A carnal worshipper is taken with the beauty and magnificence of the temple, a spiritual worshipper desires to see the glory of God in the sanctuary, Ps. Ixiii. 2. He pants after God. As he came to worship, to find God, so he boils up in desires for God, and is loath to go from it without
God, ' the living God,' Ps. xlii. 2. He would see the Urim and the Thummim, the unusual sparkling of the stones upon the high priest's breast plate. That deserves not the title of spiritual worship, when the soul makes
no longing inquiries : ' Saw you him whom my soul loves ?' A spiritual worship is, when our desires are chiefly for God in the worship ; as David
desires to ' dwell in the house of the Lord ;' but his desire is not terminated there, but * to behold the beauty of the Lord,' Ps. xxvii. 4, and taste the ravishing sweetness of his presence. No doubt but Elijah's desires for the enjoyment of God, while he was mounting to heaven, were as fiery as the chariot wherein he was carried. Unutterable groans acted in worship are the fruit of the Spirit, and certainly render it a spiritual service, Rom. viii. 26. Strong appetites are agreeable to God, and prepare us to eat the fruit of worship. A spiritual Paul presseth forward to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection ; and a spiritual worshipper actually aspires in every duty to know God, and the power of his grace. To desire worship as an end, is carnal ; to desire it as a means, and act desires in it for communion with God in it, is spiritual, and the fruit of a spiritual life.
5. Thankfulness and admiration are to be exercised in spiritual services. This is a worship of spirits. Praise is the adoration of the blessed angels, Isaiah vi. 3, and of glorified spirits : Rev. iv. 11, 'Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power.' And Rev. v. 13, 14, they worship him, ascribing « blessing, honour, glory, and power to him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.' Other acts of worship are confined to this life, and leave us as soon as we have set our foot in heaven. There no notes but this of praise are warbled out. The power, wisdom, love, and grace in the dispensation of the gospel seat themselves in the thoughts and tongues of blessed souls. Can a worship on earth be spiritual, that hath no mixture of an eternal heavenly duty with it ? The worship of
God in innocence had been chiefly an admiration of him in the works of creation ; and should not our evangelical worship be an admiration of him in the work of redemption, which is a restoration to a better state ? After the petitioning for pardoning grace, Hos. xiv. 2, there is a rendering the calves or heifers of our lips, alluding to the heifers used in eucharistical sacrifices. The praise of God is the choicest sacrifice and worship, under a dispensation of redeeming grace. This is the prime and eternal part of worship under the gospel. The Psalmist, Ps. cxlix. and cl., speaking of the gospel times, spurs on to this kind of worship : ' Sing to the Lord a new song; let the children of Zion be joyful in their King; let the saints be joyful in glory, and sing aloud upon their beds ; let the high praises of God be in their mouths.' He begins and ends both psalms with Praise ye the Lord. * That cannot be a spiritual and evangelical worship that hath
808 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [JOHN IY. 24.
nothing of the praise of God in the heart. The consideration of God's ador able perfections discovered in the gospel will make us come to him with more seriousness, beg blessings of him with more confidence, fly to him with a winged faith and love, and more spiritually glorify him in our attendances upon him.
6. Spiritual worship is performed with delight. The evangelical worship
is prophetically signified by keeping the feast of tabernacles : * They shall go up from year to year, to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles,' Zech. xiv. 16. Why that feast, when there were other feasts observed by the Jews ? That was a feast celebrated with the greatest joy, typical of the gladness which was to be under the exhibi tion of the Messiah, and a thankful commemoration of the redemption wrought by him. It was to be celebrated five days after the solemn day of atonement, Lev. xxiii. 34, compared with ver. 27, wherein there was one of the solemnest types of the sacrifice of the death of Christ. In this feast they commemorated their exchange of Egypt for Canaan, the manna where with they were fed, the water out of the rock wherewith they were refreshed. In remembrance of this, they poured water on the ground, pronouncing
those words in Isaiah, * they shall draw waters out of the wells of salvation,' which our Saviour refers to himself,1; John vii. 37, inviting them to him to drink 'upon the last day, the great day of the Feast' of Tabernacles, wherein this solemn ceremony was observed. Since we are freed by the death of the Redeemer from the curses of the law, God requires of us a joy in spiritual privileges. A sad frame in worship gives the lie to all gospel
liberty, to the purchase of the Redeemer's death, the triumphs of his resur rection. It is a carriage as if we were under the influences of the legal fire and lightning, and an entering a protest against the freedom of the gospel. The evangelical worship is a spiritual worship, and praise, joy, and delight are prophesied of as great ingredients in attendance on gospel ordinances, Isa. xii. 3-5. What was occasion of terror in the worship of God under the law, is the occasion of delight in the worship of God under the gospel. The justice and holiness of God, so terrible in the law, becomes comfortable under the gospel, since they have feasted themselves on the active and passive obedience of the Redeemer. The approach is to God as gracious, not to God as unpacified ; as a son to a father, not as a criminal to a judge. Under the law, God was represented as a judge, remembering their sin in their sacrifices, and representing the punishment they had merited ; in the gospel as a father, accepting the atonement, and publishing the reconcilia tion wrought by the Redeemer. Delight in God is a gospel frame, therefore the more joyful, the more spiritual. The Sabbath is to be a delight, not only in regard of the day, but in regard of the duties of it, Isaiah Iviii. 13 ; in regard of the marvellous work he wrought on it, raising up our blessed Redeemer on that day, whereby a foundation was laid for the rendering our persons and services acceptable to God : Ps. cxviii. 24, * This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will be glad and rejoice in it.' A lumpish frame becomes not a day and a duty that hath so noble and spiritual a mark upon it.
The angels, in the first act of worship after the creation, were highly
joyful : Job xxxviii. 7, They ' shouted for joy,' &c. The saints have particularly acted this in their worship. David would not content himself with an approach to the altar, without going to God as
his ' exceeding joy,' Ps. xliii. 4, my triumphant joy. When he danced before the ark, he seems to be transformed into delight and pleasure, 2 Sam. vi. 14, 16. He had as much delight in worship as others had in their
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harvest and vintage. And those that took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, would as joyfully attend upon the communications of God. Where there is a fulness of the Spirit, there is a ' making melody to God in the heart,' Eph. v. 18, 19 ; and where there is an acting of love (as there is in all spiritual services), the proper fruit of it is joy, in a near approach to the object of the soul's affection. Love is appetitus unionis. The more love, the more delight in the approachings of God to the soul, or the outgoings of the soul to God. As the object of worship is amiable in a spiritual eye, so the means tending to a communion with this object are delightful in the exercise. Where there is no delight in a duty, there is no delight in the object of the duty. The more of grace, the more of pleasure in the actings of it. As the more of nature there is in any natural agent, the more of pleasure in the act, so the more heavenly the worship, the more spiritual. Delight is the frame and temper of glory. A heart filled up to the brim with joy, is a heart filled up to the brim with the Spirit. Joy is the fruit of the Holy Ghost, Gal. v. 22.
(1.) Not the joy of God's dispensation, flowing from God, but a gracious active joy streaming to God. There is a joy when the comforts of God are dropped into the soul, as oil upon the wheel, which indeed makes the faculties move with more speed and activity in his service, like the chariots of Amminadab ; and a soul may serve God in the strength of this taste, and its delight terminated in the sensible comfort. This is not the joy I mean, but such a joy that hath God for its object, delighting in him as the term,
in worship as the way to him. The first is God's dispensation, the other is our duty. The first is an act of God's favour to us, the second a sprout of habitual grace in us. The comforts we have from God may elevate our duties, but the grace we have within doth spiritualise our duties.
(2.) Nor is every delight an argument of a spiritual service. All the requisites to worship must be taken in. A man may invent a worship, and delight in it, as Micah in the adoration of his idol, when he was glad he had got both an ephod and a Levite, Judges xvii. As a man may have a con tentment in sin, so he may have a contentment in worship ; not because it is a worship of God, but the worship of his own invention, agreeable to his own humour and design, as Isaiah Iviii. 2, it is said, they « delighted in approaching to God,' but it was for carnal ends. Novelty engenders com placency ; but it must be a worship wherein God will delight, and that must be a worship according to his own rule and infinite wisdom, and not our shallow fancies.
God requires a cheerfulness in his service, especially under the gospel, where he sits upon a throne of grace, discovers himself in his amiableness, and acts the covenant of grace and the sweet relation of a Father. The priests of old were not to sully themselves with any sorrow when, they were in the exercise of their functions. God put a bar to the natural affec tions of Aaron and his sons when Nadab and Abihu had been cut off by a severe hand of God, Lev. x. 6. Every true Christian, in a higher order of priesthood, isLa person dedicated to joy and peace, offering himself a lively sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving ; and there is no Christian duty but is to be set off and seasoned with cheerfulness. He that loves a cheerful giver in acts of charity, requires no less a cheerful spirit in acts of worship. As this is an ingredient in worship, so it is the means to make your spirits intent in worship. When the heart triumphs in the consideration of divine excellency and goodness, it will be angry at anything that offers to jog and disturb it.
7. Spiritual worship is to be performed, though with a delight in God,
310 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [JOHN IV. 24.
yet with a deep reverence of God. The gospel, in advancing the spirituality of worship, takes off the terror, but not the reverence of God, which is nothing else in its own nature but a due and high esteem of the excellency of a thing according to the nature of it. And therefore the gospel, presenting us with more illustrious notices of the glorious nature of God, is so far from indulging any disesteem of him, that it requires of us a greater reverence, suitable to the height of its discovery, above what could be spelled in the book of creation. The gospel worship is therefore expressed by trembling : Hos. xi. 10, ' They shall walk after the Lord ; he shall roar like a lion ; when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west.' When the Lion of the tribe of Judah shall lift up his powerful voice in the gospel, the western Gentiles shall run trembling to walk after the Lord. God hath alway attended his greatest manifestations with remarkable characters of majesty, to create a reverence in his creature. He caused the wind to march before him, to cut the mountain, when he manifested himself to Elijah,
1 Kings xix. 11; a wind and a cloud of fire before that magnificent vision to Ezekiel, Ezek. i. 4, 5 ; thunders and lightnings before the giving the law, Exod. xix. 18 ; and a mighty wind before the giving the Spirit, Acts ii. God requires of us an awe of him in the very act of performance. The angels are pure, and cannot fear him as sinners, but in reverence they cover their faces when they stand before him, Isaiah vi. 2. His power should make us reverence him, as we are creatures ; his justice, as we are sinners;
his goodness, as we are restored creatures. * God is clothed with unspeak able majesty ; the glory of his face shines brighter than the lights of heaven in their beauty. Before him the angels tremble, and the heavens melt ; we ought not, therefore, to come before him with the sacrifice of fools, nor tender a duty to him without falling low upon our faces, and bowing the knees of our hearts in token of reverence.'* Not a slavish fear, like that of devils, but a godly fear, like that of saints, Heb. xii. 28, joined with a sense of an unmoveable kingdom, becometh us. And this the apostle calls a grace necessary to make our service acceptable ; and therefore the grace necessary to make it spiritual, since nothing finds admission to God but what is of a spiritual nature. The consideration of his glorious nature
should imprint an awful respect upon our souls to him. His goodness should make his majesty more adorable to us, as his majesty makes his goodness more admirable in his condescensions to us. As God is a Spirit, our worship must be spiritual ; and being he is the supreme Spirit, our worship must be reverential. We must observe the state he takes upon him
in his ordinances; ' he is in heaven, we upon the earth;' we must not there fore be * hasty to utter anything before God,' Eccles. v. 7. Consider him a Spirit in the highest heavens, and ourselves spirits dwelling in a dreggy earth, V. Loose and garish frames debase him to our own quality ; slight pos tures of spirit intimate him to be a slight and mean being ; our being in covenant with him must not lower our awful apprehensions of him. As he
is ' the Lord thy God,' it is a ' glorious and fearful name,' or wonderful, Deut. xxviii. 58. Though he lay by his justice to believers, he doth not lay by his majesty. When we have a confidence in him, because he is the Lord our God, we must have awful thoughts of his majesty, because his name is glorious. God is terrible from his holy places, in regard of the great things he doth for his Israel, Ps. Ixviii. 35. We should behave ourselves with that inward honour and respect of him as if he were present to our bodily eyes. The higher apprehensions we have of his majesty, the greater awe will be upon our hearts in his presence, and the greater spirituality in our acts.
* Daille, Sur. 3. Jean, p. ICO.
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We should manage our hearts so as if we had a view of God in his heavenly glory.
8. Spiritual worship is to be performed with humility in our spirits. This is to follow upon the reverence of God. As we are to have high thoughts of God, that we may not debase him, we must have low thoughts of ourselves, not to vaunt before him. When we have right notions of the divine majesty, we shall be as worms in our own thoughts, and creep as worms into his presence. We can never consider him in his glory, but we have a fit opportunity to reflect upon ourselves, and consider how basely we revolted from him, and how graciously we are restored by him. As the
gospel affords us greater discoveries of God's nature, and so enhanceth our reverence of him, so it helps us to a fuller understanding of our own vileness and weakness, and therefore is proper to engender humility. The more spiritual and evangelical therefore any service is, the more humble it is. That is a spiritual service that doth most manifest the glory of God, and this cannot be manifested by us without manifesting our own emptiness and nothingness. The heathens were sensible of the necessity of humility
by the light of nature ;* after the name of God signified by rE/ inscribed on the temple at Delphos, followed TvuQi 'Szavrov, whereby was insinuated, that when we have to do with God, who is the only Ens, we should behave our selves with a sense of our own infirmity and infinite distance from him. As a person, so a duty, leavened with pride, hath nothing of sincerity, and there
fore nothing of spirituality in it : Hab. ii. 4, * His soul, which is lifted up,
is not upright in him.' The elders that were crowned by God to be kings
and priests, to offer spiritual sacrifices, uncrown themselves in their worship of him, and cast down their ornaments at his feet, Rev. iv. 10 compared with v. The Greek word to worship, wgoffzvvs/v, signifies to creep like a dog upon his belly before his master, to lie low. How deep should our sense
be of the privilege of God's admitting us to his worship, and affording us such a mercy under our deserts of wrath ! How mean should be our thoughts, both of our persons and performances ! How patiently should we wait upon God for the success of worship ! How did Abraham, the father of the faithful, equal himself to the earth when he supplicated the God of heaven, and devoted himself to him under the title of very dust and ashes ! Gen. xviii. 27. Isaiah did but behold an evangelical apparition of God and the angels worshipping him, and presently reflects upon his own
uncleanness, Isa. vi. 5. God's presence both requires and causes humility. How lowly is David in his own opinion, after a magnificent duty performed by himself and his people : 1 Chron. xxix. 14, « Who am I ? and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly ? ' The more spiritual the soul is in its carriage to God, the more humble it is ; and the more gracious God is in his communications to the soul, the lower it lies.
God commanded not the fiercer creatures to be offered to him in sacrifices, but lambs and kids, meek and lowly creatures ; none that had stings in their tails or venom in their tongues. f The meek lamb was the daily sacrifice ; the doves were to be offered by pairs ; God would not have honey mixed with any sacrifice, Lev. ii. 11. That breeds choler, and choler pride ; but oil he commanded to be used, that supples and mollifies the parts. Swelling pride and boiling passions render our services carnal ; they cannot be spiritual without an humble sweetness and an innocent sincerity ; one grain of this transcends the most costly sacrifices. A contrite heart puts a gloss upon worship, Ps. Ii. 16, 17. The departure of men and angels from
* Plutarch, Moral, p. 344. t Caudam aculeatam vel linguam nigram Alexand. ab Alex. 1. 3, c. 12.
812 CHAENOCK'S WOEKS. [JOHN IV. 24.
God began in pride ; our approaches and return to him must begin in humility ; and therefore all those graces which are bottomed on humility must be acted in worship, as faith, and a sense of our own indigence. Our blessed Saviour, the most spiritual worshipper, prostrated himself in the garden with the greatest lowliness, and offered himself upon the cross a sacrifice with the greatest humility. Melted souls in worship have the most spiritual conformity to the person of Christ in the state of humiliation, and his design in that state ; as worship without it is not suitable to God, so
neither is it advantageous for us. A time of worship is a time of God's communication. The vessel must be melted to receive the mould it is designed for ; softened wax is fittest to receive a stamp, and a spiritually melted soul fittest to receive a spiritual impression. We cannot perform duty in an evangelical and spiritual strain without the meltingness and meanness in ourselves which the gospel requires.
9. Spiritual worship is to be performed with holiness. God is a holy Spirit ; a likeness to God must attend the worshipping of God, as he is ;
holiness is alway in season, ' it becomes his house for ever,' Ps. xciii. 5. We can never ' serve the living God' till we have * consciences purged from dead works,' Heb. ix. 14. Dead works in our consciences are unsuitable to God, an eternal living Spirit. The more mortified the heart, the more quickened the service. Nothing can please an infinite purity but that which is pure ; since God is in his glory in his ordinances, we must not be in our filthiness. The holiness of his Spirit doth sparkle in his ordinances ; the holiness of our spirits ought also to sparkle in our observance of them. The holiness of God is most celebrated in the worship of angels, Isa. vi. 8, Kev. iv. 8. Spiritual worship ought to be like angelical ; that cannot be with souls totally impure. As there must be perfect holiness to make a worship perfectly spiritual, so there must be some degree of holiness to make it in any measure spiritual. God would have all the utensils of the sanctuary employed about his service to be holy ; the inwards of the sacrifice were to be rinsed thrice.* The crop and feathers of sacrificed doves was to be hungf eastward towards the entrance of the temple, at a distance from the holy of holies, where the presence of God was most eminent, Lev. i. 16. When Aaron was to go into the holy of holies, he was to sanctify himself in an extraordinary manner, Lev. xvi. 4. The priests were to be barefooted in the temple in the exercise of their office ; shoes alway were to be put off
upon holy ground : ' Look to thy foot when thou goest to the house of God,' saith the wise man, Eccles. v. 1. Strip the affections, the feet of the soul, of all the dirt contracted ; discard all earthly and base thoughts from the heart. A beast was not to touch the mount Sinai without losing his life ; nor can we come near the throne with brutish affections without losing the life and fruit of the worship. An unholy soul degrades himself from a spirit to a brute, and the worship from spiritual to brutish. If any unmortified sin be found in the life, as it was in the comers to the temple, it taints and pollutes the worship, Isa. i. 15, Jer. vii. 9, 10. All worship is an acknow ledgment of the excellency of God as he is holy ; hence it is called a ' sancti fying God's name.' How can any person sanctify God's name that hath not a holy resemblance to his nature ? If he be not holy as he is holy, he cannot worship him according to his excellency in spirit and in truth ; no worship is spiritual wherein we have not a communion with God. But what intercourse can there be between a holy God and an impure creature, between light and darkness ? We have no fellowship with him in any
service, unless we * walk in the light,' in service and out of service, as he is
* As the Jewish doctors observe on Lev. i. 9. | Qu. ' flung ' ? — ED.
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light, 1 John i. 7. The heathen thought not their sacrifices agreeable to God without washing their hands, whereby they signified the preparation of their hearts before they made the oblation. Clean hands without a pure heart signify nothing ; the frame of our hearts must answer the purity of
the outward symbols : Ps. xxvi. 6, * I will wash my hands in innocence, so
will I compass thine altar, 0 Lord.' He would observe the appointed cere monies, but not without cleansing his heart as well as his hands. Vain man is apt to rest upon outward acts and rites of worship ; but this must alway be practised, the words are in the present tense, I wash, I compass. Purity in worship ought to be our continual care. If we would perform a spiritual service, wherein we would have communion with God, it must be in holiness ; if we would walk with Christ, it must be in white, Rev. iii. 4, alluding to the white garments the priests put on when they went to perform their service. As without this we cannot see God in heaven, so neither can we see the beauty of God in his own ordinances.
10. Spiritual worship is performed with spiritual ends, with raised 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 our selves ; 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 spiritualiseth 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 con template the glory of God in his stupendous works of creation, and render him a homage for them : Rev. iv. 11, * Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive honour, 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 honour. 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 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. Iviii. 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, testifieth 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 will-
314 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [JOHN IV. 24.
ingly 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 honour them, but to gain for themselves a reward richer than
their gift. < What profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?' &c., Mai. 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 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 be lieve that we ought to be satisfied rather than God glorified; we set God below ourselves, imagine that he should submit his own honour 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, 0 house of Israel ? ' They did it not to God, but to themselves ; for their own security, and the attainment of the pos session 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 honour 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 endeavours pre sently 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 of the majesty of God to whom we address, and unbecoming a rational creature. The acting for a sensitive end is not rational, much less can it be a spiritual service ; though the acting 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 Peter 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 spiritualise 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 Zion, —
Ps. cxxxiv. 3, ' The Lord bless thee out of Zion,' — that is, from the gospel hid under the law ; all the duties we present to God, are to be presented in Zion, in an evangelical manner. All our worship must be bottomed on Christ. God hath intended that we should ' honour the Son as we honour
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the Father.' As we honour the Father by offering our service only to him, so we are to honour 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 con sideration of him in Christ veils his justice, draws forth his mercy, repre sents 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 confi dence,' Eph. iii. 12, whereby the spirit is kept from benumbedness and distraction, and our souls quickened and refined. The thoughts kept upon Christ, in a duty of worship, quickly elevates the soul, and spiritualizeth 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 with purity ; he is a Spirit infinitely glo rious, 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 sub ject 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 1. 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 to 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 a being. God being a great King, slight services become not his majesty, Mai. 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
316 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Jonx IV. 24.
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' accord ing to the excellency of his nature, Joshua xxiv. 19 ; and shall we give him less than all ? His infinite excellency, and our dependence on him as crea tures, 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 honour.
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, Exod. xxix. 13, the inward fat, not the offals. 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 offerings 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 excel lent than man, and nothing dearer to parents than their children, which
are parts 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 shew 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 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 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 : Ps. c. 2, 3,
* Serve the Lord with gladness : know ye that the Lord he is God ; it is he
JOHN IV. 24.] SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 317
that 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 honour of his best gift to us ? Our souls are more his gift to us than any thing in the world. Other things are so given, that they are often taken from us, but our spirits are the most durable gift. Eational faculties cannot be removed without a dissolution of nature.
Well, then ; * as he is God, he is to be honoured with all the propensions and ardour that the infiuiteness and excellency of such a Being requires, 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 honour him not, unless we give him the choicest we have.
Reason 2. 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' as it ought to be, Kom. xii. 1, 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
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 com manded 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.
* Amyrald, Mor., torn. ii. p. 811.
318 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [JOHN IV. 24.
God did not require a worship from man for any want he had, or any essential honour 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 dishonour 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 unviolable, 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 obligation can never cease till man 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 appre hensions of God equal to the excellency of his nature, which though we may attempt, we can never attain. vi Reason 3. Without this engagement of our spirits, no act is an act of worship. True worship being an acknowledgment of God and the perfec tions 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 pre tends to honour, as the beast doth of the altar to which he bows. Worship is a reverent remembrance of God, and giving some honour 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 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 wor ship, 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
JOHN IV. 24. J SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 319
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 : Hosea 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 wor ship, though instituted by himself, when it wanted the qualities of such a service. The spirit of whoredom was in the midst of them, ver. 4. In the judgment of our Saviour it is a vain worship, when the traditions of men
are taught for the doctrines of God, Mat. 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 amiable excel lency ; and that which is a contempt and mockery can lay no just claim to the title of worship.
Reason 4. 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 communi cations ? We are in such acts more peculiarly in his presence. In the
Israelites' hearing the law, it 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 ; ' 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 institu tions than in the legal ; he * loves the gates of Zion, more than all the dwellings of Jacob,' Ps. Ixxxvii. 2. His evangelical law and worship which was to go forth from Zion, as the other did from Sinai, Micah iv. 2. God delights to approach to men, and converse with them in the worship insti tuted 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 ordi
nances 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 render to him what he hath commanded us to present. If we put off God
320 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [JOHN IV. 24.
with a shell, he will put us off with a husk. How can we expect his heart, when we do not 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 5. 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, Mai. 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 offering from a purified spirit. He came to ' bring us to God,' 1 Peter 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 Peter ii. 5. We can no more be worshippers of God, without a worshipper's nature, than a man be a man without human nature. As man was at first created for the honour 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.