Use 1. Is the enjoyinj^ of God in this life so sweet? IIow prodigiously wicked are they that prefer the enjoying of their lusts, before the enjoying of God ! 1 John ii. 16., " The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life," is the Trinity they worship. Lust is an inordinate desire or impulse, provoking the soul to that which is evil. There is the revengeful lust, and the wanton lust. Lust is like a feverish heat, it puts the soul into a flame. Aris- totle calls sensual lusts brutish, because, when any lust is violent, reason or con- science cannot be heard, the beast rides the man. These lusts, when they are enjoyed, do besot and dispirit persons, Hos. iv. 11,, " Wlioredom and wine take away the heart," — they have no heart for any thing that is good. How many make it their chief end not to enjoy God, but to enjoy their lusts ! As that cardinal said, " Let him but keep his cardinal ship of Paris, and he was content to lose his part in Pa- radise." Lust first bewitcheth with plea- sure, and then comes the fatal dart, Prov.vii. 23., " Till a dart strike through his liver." Tliis should be as a flaming sAvord to stop men in the way of their carnal delights. Wlio would for a drop of pleasure drink a sea of wrath ?
Use 2. Let it be our great care to enjoy God's sweet presence here, which is the beauty and comfort of the ordinances. En- joying spiritual communion with God, is a riddle and mystery to most people : every one that hangs about the court doth not speak with the king. We may approach to God in ordinances, and, as it were, hang about the court of heaven, yet not enjoy communion with God ; we may have the letter without the Spirit, the visible sign without the invisible grace ; it is the en- joying of God in a duty we should chiefly look at, Ps. xlii. 2,, " INIy soul thirsteth for God, for the living God." Alas ! what are all our worldly enjoyments without the enjoying of God ? What is it to enjoy a great deal of health, a brave estate, and not to enjoy God? Job xxx. 28., " I went mourning \\athout the sun." So mayest thou say in the enjoyment of all creatui'es
without God, " I went mourning without the sun." I have the star-light of outward enjoyments, but I cannot enjoy God, I want the Sun of Pighteousncss. " I went mourning without the sun." This should be our great design, not only to have the ordinances of God, but the God of tlie or- dinances. Tlie enjoying of God's sweet presence with us here, is the most content- ed life : he is an hive of sweetness, a mag- azine of riches, a fountain of delight, Ps. xxxAa, 8, 9. The higher the lark flics, the sweeter it sings ; and the higher we fly by the wing of faitli, the more of God we en- joy, the sweeter delight we feel in our souls. How is the heart inflamed in prayer and meditation ! What joy and peace in be- lieving ! Is it not comfortable being in heaven ? He that enjoys much of God in this life, carries heaven about him. O let this be the thing we are chiefly ambitious of, the enjoying of God in his ordinances ; remember, the enjoying of God's sweet presence here is an earnest of our enjoying him in heaven.
And that brings us to the second thing, viz.
2d. Tlie enjoying of God in the life to come : INIan's chief end is to enjoy God for ever. Before this plenary fruition of God in heaven, there must be something previous and antecedent; and that is, our being in a state of grace. ^Ve must have conlbrmity to him in grace, before we can have communion with him in glory ; grace and glory are linked and chained together; gTRcc precedes glory, as the morning-star ushers in the sun. God will haA^e us qua- lified and fitted for a state of blessedness. Drunkards and swearers are not fit to en- joy God in glory ; the Lord will not lay such A'ipcrs in his bosom ; only " the pure in heart shall see God ;" we must first be, as the king's daughter, glorious within, be- fore we arc clothed with the robes of glory. As king Ahasuerus first caused the virgins to be purified and anointed, and they had their sweet odours to perfume them, and then they went to stand befi)re the king, Esth. ii. 12., so must we; we must have the anointing of God, and be perfumed with the graces of the Spirit, those sweet odours, and then we shall stand before the King
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MAN'S CHIEF END IS TO GLORIFY GOD.
of heaven. Now, being tlius divin ly qua- lified by grace, we sliall be taken up to tlie mount of vision, and enjoy Go I for ever. Tins enjoying God for ever, is no- thing else but to be put in a state of hap- piness. As the body cannot have life but by having communion with the soul, so the soul cannot have blessedness, but by having immediate communion with God. God is the summum bonuni, the chief good; therefore the enjoying of him is the highest felicity. He is, I say, the chief good.