Chapter 15. Reasons To Delight In Divine Worship.
CHAPTER 15. REASONS TO DELIGHT IN DIVINE
WORSHIP.
Delight of believers in the holy institutions of divine worship — The grounds and reasons for it — The evidence of being spiritually minded thereby, etc.
IT is fully evident that all true believers, whose minds are spiritually renewed, have a singular delight in all the institutions and ordinances of divine worship, both in the examples of the saints in the Scripture, and in their own experience, which they will never forego. For this has been the greatest cause of their persecution, and martyrdom itself, in all ages. If the primitive Christians living under the power of the pagan emperors, or the witnesses for Christ under the antichristian apostasy, would or could have omitted observing them (according to the advice and practice of the Gnostics), they might have escaped the rage of their adversaries. But they didn't love their lives in comparison to that delight which they had in observing the commands of Christ as to the duties of evangelical worship.
David frequently gives us an instance of this in himself:
Psa 42.1-4, "As the hart pants after the water-brooks, so pants my soul after you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, Where is your
God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday."
Psa 63.1-5, "O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land, where there is no water; to see your power and your glory, so I have seen you in the sanctuary. Because your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. Thus will I bless you while I live:
I will lift up my hands in your name My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips."
Psa 84.1-4, "How amiable are your tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Yes, the sparrow has found
a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house: they will be still praising you. Selah."
But "a greater than David is here." 103 Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, on all occasions, declared his delight in and zeal for all the ordinances of divine worship which were then in force by virtue of divine institution and command. He severely reproved and rejected whatever men had added to it under the pretense of a surpassing 104 strictness of outward order, laying it all under that dreadful sentence,
"Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be plucked up," Mat 15.13 and so cast into the fire. Yet, as to what was of divine appointment, his delight in it was singular, and exemplary to all his disciples. With respect to this, it was said of him that "the zeal of God's house had eaten him up," Joh 2.17 because of the affliction which he had in his spirit, seeing the worship of it neglected, polluted, and despised. This caused him to cleanse the temple, the seat of divine worship, from the polluters and its pollutions; it was not long before his sufferings, in the face of and to the high provocation of all his adversaries. So he longed with earnest desire for the celebration of his last Passover: Luk 22:15, "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." It is a sufficient evidence of the frame of spirit and practice of his disciples afterward, regarding the duties of evangelical worship by His appointment, that the apostle says when any fall into a neglect of them, it is an assured token of an unsound condition, and tends to final, cursed apostasy, Heb 10.25-27.
These things are manifest and unquestionable. But our present inquiry concerns only these: what believers so delight in, in the ordinances and institutions of divine gospel worship; what engages their hearts and minds in a diligent observance of them; and also, how and in what things they exercise their love and delight. I say, in general, that their delight in all ordinances of divine worship — evident in the testimonies produced before — is in Christ himself, or God in Christ. This alone is what they seek, cling to, and are satisfied with. They make use of the streams, but only as means of communication with the Spring. When men are really renewed in the spirit of their minds, this is so. Their regard for ordinances and
duties of divine worship, is because they are appointed by God as a blessed means of communion and intercourse between himself in Christ, and their souls. By them Christ communicates his love and grace to us; in and by them we act faith and love in him. It is the treasure hidden in the field, which when a man has found it, he purchases the whole field; but it is so that he may enjoy the treasure which is hidden in it, Mat 13.44. This field is the gospel and all its ordinances. Men sometimes purchase it at a dear price, even with the loss of all they enjoy. Yet, if they obtain nothing but the field, they will have little cause to rejoice in their bargain. Christ alone is the treasure, that pearl of great price which will eternally enrich the soul.
The field is to be used only so as to find and dig up the treasure that is in it. I say it is Christ alone, in the preaching of the gospel, that renewed affections cling to as the treasure. And they cling to all other things according to their relation to Him, or as they have a participation of him. Therefore, in all duties of religion, in all ordinances of worship, their inquiry is after the One whom their souls love, Song 1.7.
Yet we must treat these things more particularly and distinctly.
Those whose affections are spiritually renewed, will love, adhere to, and delight in ordinances of divine service and duties of worship, upon the ensuing grounds and reasons:
1. In general they do so as they find faith, love, and delight in God through Christ, excited and acted in and by them. This is the first and immediate end in their institution. It is a pernicious mistake to suppose that any external duties of worship — such as the hearing of the word, prayer, or the sacraments — are appointed or accepted for themselves alone.
The Jews of old had such thoughts concerning their sacrifices — namely, that they were appointed for their own sake, and were acceptable service to God merely on their own account. Therefore, to deliver them from this pernicious mistake, God often affirms that He never appointed them at all; that is, for any such end, Jer 7.22,23, Isa
1.12-14, etc. 105 And now, under the gospel, sundry things that are destructive to the souls of men have proceeded from such a supposition. There have always been some who satisfied and contented themselves with the external observance of them, without desiring or endeavoring any holy communion with God, in or by
them. This constitutes the state and condition mentioned in Rev 3.1.106 And by following this track, most Christians wander out of the way. They cannot leave them, nor do they know how to use them to their advantage, until they come wholly to that woeful state in Isa
29.13.107 Some, to establish this deceit, have taught that there is much more in the outward work of these duties than God ever put into them, and that they are sanctified merely by virtue of the work wrought.
But all the duties of the second commandment (as are all instituted ordinances of worship) are only means to express and exercise those of the first commandment, such as faith, love, fear, trust, and delight in God. The end of them all is that through them and by them, we may act those graces on God in Christ. Where this is not attended to, when the souls of men don't apply themselves to this exercise of grace in them — however solemn as to their outward performance, or attended to with diligence, or performed with earnestness and delight — they are neither acceptable to God nor beneficial to themselves, Isa 1.11.108 This, therefore, is the first general spring of the love of believers, of those whose affections are spiritually renewed, as to the ordinances of divine worship and their delight in them. They experience that in and by them, their faith and love are excited to be graciously exercised on God in Christ. And when they find it is otherwise with them, they can have no rest in their souls. It is for this end that they are ordained, sanctified, and blessed by God; and therefore they are effectual means of grace, when their efficacy is not defeated by unbelief.
Those who have no experience of this in their attendance to them, fall into pernicious extremes, as has been said. Some continue their observance with little regard to God, in cursed formality. So they make them a means of their ruin by countenancing them in their security. Others utterly reject them (at least the most solemn of them) — and in so doing, they reject both the wisdom, grace, and authority of God, by whom they are appointed — because through the power of their own unbelief, they find nothing in them.
This being the immediate end of all divine institutions; this being the only way by which we may give glory to God in their observance
(which is their ultimate end in this world); and this being the design
of believers, in general, in that obedience which they yield to the Lord Christ in their diligent observation of them — we may consider how, in what way, and by what means, those whose affections are spiritually renewed, should apply their minds and souls for their observance. And we may first consider in this, what they design; and second, why they endeavor to be found in the exercise and practice of these graces, in their use and enjoyment:
(1.) They come to them with this desire, design, and expectation — namely, to be enabled, directed, and excited by them to the exercise of divine faith and love. When it is not so with any, where there is not this design, then in various degrees they take the name of God in vain in their observance. These are "approximationes Dei," the "ways of drawing near to God," as they are everywhere called in Scripture. To suppose that drawing near to God may consist merely in the outward performance of duty, whatever its solemnity, is to reject all due reverence of Him. "Forasmuch," says the Lord, "as this people draw near me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but have removed their heart far from me, therefore, behold, I will proceed against them," Isa 29:13,14. By a synecdoche,109 the mouth and lips refer to all the means of outward worship and honor. These men may use and diligently attend to all these means, while their hearts are far from God — i.e., when they don't draw near to him by faith and love. But all this worship is rejected by God, with the highest tokens of his displeasure and indignation with it.
Our souls, then, have no way to approach God in duties of worship but by faith; no way of adherence or clinging to him but by love; no way of abiding in him but by fear, reverence, and delight.
Whenever these are not in exercise, outward duties of worship are so far from being a means of approach to him, that they set us at a greater distance from Him than we were before; or at least, they are utterly useless and fruitless to us. So indeed they are to most who come to them, they know not why; and behave themselves under them, they care not how. Nor is there any evil in the hearts and ways of men of which God complains more in His word, than that which is accompanied with the highest contempt of Him. These ordinances of divine worship are the means which the wisdom and grace of God has appointed to this end: namely, the exercise and
increase of divine faith and love. He therefore sanctifies and blesses them for it. Thus, I don't believe that those by whom these great means are despised or neglected, have any delight in the exercise of these graces, nor do they intend growth in them.
I have seen those [fruitful] valleys of public worship forsaken, either on pretenses that higher attainments in faith, light, and love are such that they aren't needed anymore; or on a foolish opinion that they ceased upon the dispensation of the Spirit, which is given to us to make them useful and effectual; or on some provocations given to some men, or which they have taken to themselves, which they thought to revenge by neglecting public administrations; or through slavish peace and negligence in times of difficulty, as is
"the manner of some who forsake the assemblies of the saints," Heb 10.25 — and yet I never saw it fail to issue in a great decay, if not in an utter loss of all exercise of faith and love, and sometimes in open profaneness. For such persons contemn the way and means which God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, has appointed for their exercise and increase — and this shall not prosper. We may therefore do well to consider that the principal way by which we may sanctify the name of God in all duties of His worship, and obtain the benefit of them to our own souls, is by a conscientious approach to them, with a holy desire and design to be found in the exercise of faith and love on God in Christ, and to be helped and guided in this by them.
To be under an efficacious influence from this design is the best preparation for any duty. So David expresses his delight in the worship of God: "How amiable are your tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God," Psa 84.1,2.
He longed for the tabernacle and its courts; but it was the enjoyment of God himself, the living God, that he desired and sought. This was what made him so fervent in his desires after those ordinances of God. So he expresses it in Psa 63.2, "To see your power and your glory, so I have seen you in the sanctuary,"
David had great communion with and delight in God, by faith and love, in the solemn duties of his worship; and it was this that inflamed him with desires for renewed opportunities to the same end.
(2.) This design is not general, inactive, useless, and slothful; but such persons diligently endeavor to be found in the exercise of these graces, in the use of these ordinances and attendance to them.
They not only have an antecedent design to be so, but a diligent actual endeavor after it, not letting their minds be diverted by anything, from the pursuit of that design, Ecc 5.1.110 Whatever is not quickened and enlivened by this, they esteem to be utterly lost.
Neither outward administrations nor order will give them satisfaction when these things are wanting in themselves. Without the internal actings of the life of faith, external administrations of ordinances of worship are but dead things; nor can any believer obtain real satisfaction in them, or refreshment by them, without an inward experience of faith and love in and by them. If we are wise, we will continually attend to the consideration of it. A watchful Christian will be careful lest he lose any one duty by taking up with its carcass. And the danger of so doing is not small. Our affections are renewed but in part; and as they are still liable to be diverted and seduced from spirituality in duty — specifically by things earthly and carnal, through the corruption that remains in them — so there is a disposition abiding in them to be pleased with those external things and religious duties which others satisfy themselves with (as we showed before), who are in no way graciously renewed. The grace and oratory of the speaker in preaching the word, especially in these days in which the foppery111 of fine language is so extolled, even in sacred things; the order and circumstances of other duties; with an inclination and love for party
(partisanship) — these are apt to insinuate themselves with great complacency into our affections, so far as they are unrenewed.
And these things reveal the true grounds for why the ordinances of divine worship are as useless as they are to many who seem to attend to them with diligence. These grounds may be referred to these three heads:
[1.] They don't come to them as the means appointed by God for the exercise of faith and love to Christ, so as to make that their design in approaching them; without this, all that is said about advantage in and by other duties, is utterly lost.
[2.] In and under them, they don't labor to stir up faith and love to their due exercise.
[3.] They let their minds be diverted from the exercise of these graces, partly by occasional temptations, and partly by attendance to what is only outward in the ordinances.
Spiritual affections find no place of rest in any of these things.
Those proposals of God in Christ, of His will and their own duty, that may draw out their faith, love, godly fear, and delight, into their due exercise — these are what they should inquire after and acquiesce in.
Faith regards two things alone in all duties of worship, as to its outward administration — the one absolutely, the other comparatively — both are with respect to the ends mentioned, or the exercise, growth, and increase of grace in us.
The first (the absolute respect) is that they may be of divine appointment. Where their origin and observance are resolved into divine authority, there and there alone will they have a divine efficacy. In all these things, faith regards nothing but divine precepts and promises. Whatever regards anything else isn't faith, but fancy.
Therefore, those un-commanded duties in religion, which so abound in the papal church, that if not the whole, all the principal parts of their worship consist in them, are such that in discharging them, it is impossible for faith to be duly exercised.
The second, to which it has a comparative respect, is the spiritual gifts of those to whom the administration of the ordinances of the gospel in the public worship of the church is committed. With respect to them, believers may have more delight and satisfaction in the ministry of one than another, as touched on before. But this is not because one is more learned than another; or more elegant than another; or has more ability of speech than another; or more fervency in utterance than another; or is more fervent or earnest in his delivery. It is because they find the gifts of one are more suited and more effectual to stir up faith and love to a holy exercise in their minds and hearts, than what they find in some others. Hence they have a particular value for and delight in the ministry of such persons, especially when they can enjoy it in due order, and without offending others.
Ministers who are wise will, in holy
administrations, neglect all other things, and attend to this alone: how they may be helpful to the faith, and love, and joy of believers, so far as they are the object of their ministry.
This is the first reason and ground on which affections that are spiritually renewed, cling to the ordinances of divine worship with delight and satisfaction — namely, because they are the means appointed and blessed by God for the exercise and increase of faith and love, with an experience of their efficacy to that end.
2. The second is, because they are the means of the communication of a sense of divine love, and supplies of divine grace for the souls of those who believe. So far as our affections are renewed, this is the principal attractive for clinging to them with delight and complacency.
They are, as observed before, the ways of our approaching to God.
Now, we don't draw near to God, as to a "dry heath or a barren wilderness," Jer 17.5-6 where no refreshment is to be obtained. To make a pretense of coming to God, and not expect to receive good and great things from Him, is to despise God himself, to overthrow the nature of the duty, and deprive our own souls of all benefit thereby. Lack of this is what renders worship, the most useless and fruitless to themselves. We are always to come to God as to an eternal spring of goodness, grace, and mercy, of all that our souls stand in need of, of all we can desire for our everlasting blessedness.
And all these things, as to believers, may be reduced to the two heads mentioned before: the communication of a sense of His love in Christ, and supplies of internal, sanctifying, strengthening grace.
(1.) They come for a communication of a sense of his love in Jesus Christ. From this comes all our peace, consolation, and joy; all our encouragement to do and suffer according to the will of God, all our supports under our sufferings solely depend on this; in these things our souls live; and without them we are, of all men, the most miserable. 1Cor 15.9
It is the Holy Spirit who is the immediate efficient cause of all these things in us. He "sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts," Rom
5.5; He testifies to us of our adoption, Rom 8.15,16; and thereby of an interest in the love of the Father, in God as He is love. But the outward way and means by which he ordinarily communicates
these things to us, and effects them in us, is by the dispensation or preaching of the gospel. He does the same work in prayer also, and oftentimes in other holy administrations. For this end, for a participation of this grace, of these mercies, believers come to God by them. They use them as means to "draw water from the wells of salvation," to receive that spiritual sense of divine love which God communicates by them.
So Christ knocks at the door of the heart by his word. If it is opened by faith, He comes in and sups with men, giving them a gracious refreshment by the testimony of his own love, and the love of the Father, Rev 3.20; Joh 14.23.112 This is what believers look for in, and in various measures receive by, the ordinances of divine worship. Although some are not sensible of it, through their fears and temptations, they inwardly receive those blessed, gracious supplies by which their souls are held in life, without which they would pine away and perish. So He deals with them, Song 4.5,6.
These are the gardens and galleries of Christ, in which he gives us his love, Song 7.12. Those who are humble and sincere know how often their souls have been refreshed in them, and how long the impressions they have received of divine grace and love, have sometimes continued with them, to their unspeakable consolation.
They remember what they have received in the opening and application of the "exceedingly great and precious promises" that are given to them, by which they are gradually, more and more,
"made partakers of the divine nature." 2Pet 1.4 — how many times they have received light in darkness, refreshment under despondencies, relief in their conflicts with dangers and temptations, in and by them. For this cause, affections that are spiritually renewed cling to them. Who can help but love and delight in what he has found by experience, to be the way and means of communicating to him the most invaluable mercy, the most inestimable benefit of which he can be made partaker in this life? Someone who has found a hidden treasure, though he at once takes away the whole of it, will yet esteem the place where he found it. But if it is of that nature that no more can be found or taken from it at once, except what is sufficient for the present occasion — and it is yet so full and boundless that whenever he comes back to seek it, he will be sure to obtain a fresh supply — then he will always value
it, and constantly apply himself to it. Such is the treasure of grace and divine love that is found in the ordinances of divine worship.
If we are strangers to these things, if we have never received efficacious intimations of divine love for our souls, in and by the duties of divine worship, then we cannot love them and delight in them as we should. What do men come to hear the word of God for?
What do they pray for? What do they expect to receive from Him?
Do they come to God as the eternal fountain of living waters — as the God of all grace, peace, and consolation? Or do they come to his worship without any design, as if to a dry and empty show? Do they fight uncertainly with these things, as men beating the air? 1Cor 9.26
Or do they think they bring something to God, but receive nothing back from Him? — that the best of their business is to please Him in doing what he commands, but not to expect to receive anything from Him. Nor do they ever examine themselves, whether they have done so or not? It is not for persons who walk in such ways, to ever attain a due delight in the ordinances of divine worship.
Believers have other designs in this; and among the rest, this is the first: that they may afresh be made partakers of refreshing, comforting pledges of the love of God in Christ, and thereby of their adoption, of the pardon of their sins, and acceptance of their persons. According to how they meet with these things in the duties of holy worship, public or private, they will love, value, and adhere to them. Some men are full of other thoughts and affections; thus these things are not their principal design or desire. Or they are contented with that measure of them which they think they've attained, or at least they're not sensible of their need for fresh communications of them to their souls; they suppose they can do well enough without a renewed sense of divine love every day. Some are so ignorant of what they ought to design or look for in the duties of gospel worship, that it is impossible for them to have any real design in them. Many of the better sort of professors are too negligent in this matter. They don't long and pant in the inward man for renewed pledges of the love of God; they don't consider how much need they have of them, so that they may be encouraged and strengthened for all other duties of obedience; they don't prepare their minds to receive them, nor come with any expectation of their communication to them; they don't rightly fix their faith on
this truth: namely, that these holy administrations and duties are appointed by God in the first place, as the ways and means of conveying His love and a sense of it to our souls.
From this springs all that lukewarmness, coldness, and indifference in and toward the duties of holy worship, that are growing among us. For if men have lost the principal design of faith in them, and disesteem the chief benefit to be obtained by them, from where should zeal for them, delight in them, or diligence in attendance to them, arise? Let not anyone please themselves under the power of such decays; they are infallible indications of their inward frame!
Such persons will grow cold, careless, and negligent as to the duties of public worship. They won't be charged nor troubled about them.
Every occasion of life diverts them, and is readily entertained in their minds. And when they do attend to them, it's with great indifference and lack of concern. Yet would they have it thought that all is as well within, as it ever was; they have as good a respect for religion as any! But these things clearly reveal an ulcerous disease in the very souls of men; it is as evident as if written on their foreheads. Whatever they pretend to the contrary, they are under the power of woeful decays from all due regard for spiritual and eternal things. And I would avoid the society of such persons, as those who carry an infectious disease about them, unless it were to further their cure.
But affections that are spiritually renewed, manifest themselves in this: When we delight in and value the duties of God's worship, because we find by experience that they are and have been means of communicating to us a sense and renewed pledges of the love of God in Christ, with all the benefits and privileges which depend on it. Then our affections are renewed in and by the Holy Ghost.
(2.) They come for supplies of internal, sanctifying, strengthening grace. This is the second great design of believers in their approaches to God in his worship. They find and are sensible of the lack of it in themselves, as to measures and degrees,. Yes, in this lies the great burden of the souls of believers in this world. All that we do in the life of God may be referred to two heads:
[1.] The observance of all duties of obedience; and, [2.] The conflict with and conquest over temptations.
We are continually exercised about these things. Hence the great thing which we desire, labor for, and pant after, is spiritual strength and ability to discharge ourselves in a due manner with respect to these things. This is what every true believer groans after in the inward man, and which he prefers infinitely above all earthly things. He desires nothing more in this world, so he may have sufficient grace in any competent measure for these ends, whatever befalls him. God in Christ is the only fountain of all this grace; there's not one dram of it to be obtained apart from Him alone. And just as He communicates it to us of his own sovereign goodness and pleasure, so the ordinary way and means by which he does that, are the duties of his worship:
Isa 40:28-31, "Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint, nor is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to those who have no might, he increases strength. Even the youths will faint and be weary, and the young men will utterly fall: but those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint."
All grace and spiritual strength is originally seated in the nature of God, verse 28. But what relief can that afford us who are weak, feeble, and fainting? He will act suitably to His nature in the communication of this grace and power, verse 29. But how will we have an interest in this grace, in these operations? Wait on him in the ordinances of his worship, verse 31. The word as preached is the food of our souls, by which God administers growth and strength to them, Joh 17.17. He says, "Desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby." But what encouragement have we to do so?
"If you have tasted that the Lord is gracious," 1Pet 2.2,3. If, in and by the dispensation of this word, you have experienced the grace, goodness, and kindness of God to your souls, you cannot help but desire and delight in it; otherwise you will not do so. When men have sat a good while under the dispensation of the word, and in the enjoyment of other ordinances, without tasting in and by them that "the Lord is gracious," they will grow weary of both it and them. Wherefore, prayer is the way of his appointment for the
application of our souls to Him to obtain participation in all needful grace; which he has therefore proposed to us in the promises of the covenant, so we may know what to ask for, and how to plead for it.
In the sacraments, the same promises are sealed to us, and the grace represented in them is effectually exhibited. Meditation confirms our souls in the exercise of faith about it, and it is the especial opening of the heart to receive it. By these means, I say,
God communicates all supplies of renewing, strengthening, and sanctifying grace to us, that we may live to Him in all holy obedience, and be able to get the victory over our temptations.
Under this apprehension, believers approach God in the ordinances of His worship. They come to them as the means of God's communication to their souls. Hence they cling to them with delight, so far as their affections are renewed. So the spouse testifies of herself, "I sat down under his shadow with great delight," Song 2.3. In these ordinances, is the protecting, refreshing presence of Christ. This [the Bride] rested in with great delight.
3. As they come to them with these designs and expectations, so they have experience of the spiritual benefits and advantages which they receive by them, which more and more engages them to them in their affections with delight. Those who have a change wrought in their affections, but not a spiritual renovation, are strangers to all these things. They have neither the design in coming to them, mentioned before, nor the experience of this efficacy which is now proposed in their attendance to them. But these benefits are great.
For instance, when men find the worth of the word preached, in its effect on their souls, in its enlightening, refreshing, strengthening, transforming power; when they find their hearts warmed, their graces excited and strengthened, the love of God improved, their desponding spirits under trials and temptations relieved, their whole soul gradually conformed more and more to Christ; when they find themselves extricated out of snares, doubts, fears, temptations, and brought to sanctification and rest by it — they cannot help but delight in its dispensation, and rejoice in it as food for their souls.
And it is a great hindrance to the increase of spiritual life, and an obstruction to fruitfulness, thankfulness, and consolation, when we are negligent in our meditation about the benefits that we receive by the word, and the advantages which we have by it. For while it is so
with us, we can neither value the grace of God in granting this inestimable privilege, nor perform any duty with respect to it in a right manner. This renders it an especial object of our affections as they are spiritually renewed. That secret love for, and heavenly delight in the statutes and testimonies of God, which David expresses in Psalm 119, arose from the spiritual benefit and advantage which he received by them, as he constantly declares.
And the sole reason, on the other hand, why men grow so careless, negligent, and cold in their attendance to the preaching of the word, is because they have no experience of any spiritual benefit or advantage by it. They've been brought to it by one means or another
— mostly by conviction of their duty; their mind has been variously affected by it, unto a joy in hearing it and a readiness for sundry duties of obedience. But after a while, when a sense of those temporary impressions has worn off, finding no real spiritual benefit by it, they lose all delight in it, and become very indifferent as to its enjoyment. The frame which such persons at length arrive to, is described in Mal 1.13, and 3.14.113 None can give any greater evidence of the decay of all manner of grace in them, or of their being destitute of all saving grace, than when they apostatize away from some degree of zeal for, and delight in the dispensation of the word of God, into such a cursed indifference as many are overtaken with.
It cannot be otherwise; for seeing this is a way and means of the exercise of all grace, it won't be neglected except where there is a decay of all grace, no matter how men may please themselves with other pretenses. And when they are thus ensnared, every foolish prejudice, every provocation, every wanton opinion and imagination, will confirm them in, and increase their gradual backsliding.
And as it is with believers as to hearing the word in general, so it is as to the degrees of advantage which they find by it. Once men have enjoyed the dispensation of the word in a special manner, both spiritual and effectual, if they can then be content to forego it for what is colder and lifeless, provided it takes the same time and outward form as the other, that's no great evidence that their souls prosper. Therefore, it is those alone who have a sense of the efficacy of the word on their souls and consciences as to all its holy ends, who cling to it with spiritual love and delight. They continually remember what holy impressions it has made on them, what engagements it has
brought their souls into, what encouragements to faith and obedience it has furnished them with; and so they long for a renewed sense of its enjoyment. When we don't find in ourselves this foundation of spiritual delight in the dispensation of the gospel, we can have no great evidence that our affections are renewed.
So it is in the duties of prayer and meditation also. When the soul of a believer has experienced communion with God in them, or either of them — of the spiritual refreshment it had from them; of the benefits and mercies which are obtained by them, in recovery from temptations, snares, and despondencies, in victory over sin and Satan, in spiritual impressions, working it into a holy, watchful frame which has abode in it in other ways and occasions; and like advantages with which fervent and effectual prayer and sincere heavenly meditation are accompanied — it cannot help but love them and delight in them. But if indeed we have no experience of these things, if we don't find these advantages in and by these duties, they cannot be anything but a burden to us; nor do they serve any other end than to satisfy our convictions.
Someone who had the benefit of a serene and wholesome air in recovering from many diseases and distempers, with the preservation of his health so obtained, will love it and prize it. And so will someone love and prize these duties, who has been partaker of any of those saving mercies and privileges with which they are accompanied. Some have been delivered from the worst of temptations, and their nearly prevailing (so as to destroy them), by a sudden remembrance of the frame of their souls, and the intimations of God's love in some particular prayer, at such a time. Some have had the same deliverance from temptations to sin, when they have been carried away under the power of their corruptions, and all circumstances have concurred under the apprehensions of it — and a sudden thought of such a prayer or meditation, with the engagement they made of themselves in it to God, has caused all the weapons of sin to fall out of its hands, and all the beauties of its allurements to disappear. When others have been under the power of such despondencies and disconsolations, that no present tenders of relief can approach them, they have been suddenly raised and refreshed by the remembrance of the intimate love and kindness between Christ and their souls that has evidenced itself in former duties. Multitudes,
in fears, distresses, and temptations, have found relief for their spirits and encouragement to their faith in the remembrance of the responses they have had to former supplications in like distresses.
These are grounds of spiritual delight in these duties.
Heartless, lifeless, wordy prayers, the fruit of convictions and gifts, or of custom and outward occasions, however multiplied, and whatever devotion they seem to be accompanied with, will never engage spiritual affections for them. When these things are absent, when the soul has no experience of them, prayer is but a lifeless form, a dead carcass; that would be a torment for a soul that is spiritually alive, to be tied to it. There may be a season, indeed, when God seems to hide himself from believers in their prayers, such that they neither find that life in themselves which they have found formerly, nor are they sensible of any gracious communications from Him. But this is done only for a time, and principally to stir them up to that fervency and perseverance in prayer which may recover them into their former, or a better estate than they have yet attained to. The same may be said concerning all other duties of religion or ordinances of divine worship.
4. Believers, whose affections are spiritually renewed, delight greatly in the duties of divine worship, because they are the great instituted way by which they may give glory to God. This is the first and principal end of all duties of religion as they respect divine appointment — namely, to ascribe and give to God the glory that is his due; for in them all acknowledgment is made of all the glorious excellencies of the divine nature, our dependence on Him and relation to him. And this is what, in the first place, believers design in all their duties of divine worship. And the pattern set for us by our blessed Savior, in the prayer he taught his disciples, directs us to this.
All its first requests immediately concern the glory of God, and the advancement of it; for in this is included all the blessedness and safety of the church. Those who fail in this design, err in all that they do; they never tend to the mark proposed to them. But this is what principally animates the souls of those who believe, in all their duties. Their universal relation to him, and their love in that relation, makes this necessary. That's why that way and means by which they may directly and solemnly ascribe and give glory to God, is precious and delightful to them; and such are all the duties of divine worship.
These are some of the things in which the respect of affections spiritually renewed, to the ordinances and duties of divine worship, differs from the actings of affections toward the same object, which are not thus sanctified and renewed.
There are yet other things, accompanied with the same evidence of the difference between affections spiritually renewed and those which have only a general change wrought in them by convictions and some outward occasions, which must be insisted on in one or two more instances, with the consideration of those cases that derive from them. For my design in this is not only to declare when our minds are spiritually renewed, but also what is the nature and operation of our affections by which we are constituted and termed
"spiritually minded" — which is the subject of our whole inquiry. In this, then, we will proceed.