2. If we do not delight in communion with him, we do not honour him as the chiefest good. Friends love to be often in one another's company, and certainly ' it is good to draw nigh to God,' to preserve an acquaintance between him and us. He hath appointed his ordinances, the word and prayer, which are as it were a dialogue and interchangeable discourse between God and the creature. In the word he speaketh to us, and in prayer we speak unto liim. He con- veyeth his mind in the word, and we ask his grace in prayer. In prayer we make the request, and in the word we have God's answer. Well, then, when men neglect public or private prayer, or oppor- tunities of hearing, they are guilty of ungodliness. So far they break ofif communion with God, especially if they neglect prayer, whidi is a duty to be done at all times — a sweet diversion which the soul enjoyeth with God in private, a duty which answereth to the daily sacrifice. Therefore the neglect of prayer is made to be a branch of atheism, Ps. xiv. 3, 4. When men are loath to come into God's pre- sence, out of a love to ease and carnal pleasures, and care not if God and they grow strange, or seldom hear from one another, it is a great evil. Our comfort and peace dependeth much upon frequent access to God. So when family worship, when that is neglected, God is not honoured as the chiefest good : the heathens are described to be ' the families th^t call not on God's name,' Jer. x. 25. In many places from one end of the week to the other there is no prayer and worship in the family, and so the house, which should be a church, is made a stye. Not a swine about their houses but is attended morning and evening, and yet they can find no time for the solemn invocation of the name of God. What are they better than heathens ?
3. If we do not fear to offend him. God will be served with every affection. Love is of use in the spiritual life, and so is fear : 2 Cor. vii. 1, ' Perfecting holiness in the fear of God.' Love sweeteneth duties, and fear maketh us watchful against sin : love is the doing grace, Gal. V. 6, and fear is the conserving grace, Jer. xxxii. 40. We have cause to walk in God's ways, because we are always under his eye.
140 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [VeR. 4.
Love is necessary, that we may keep God always in our hearts ; and fear, that we may keep him always in our eye : both of them are of great use ; but fear we now speak of, which is the true internal root of all obedience and worship, Eccles. xii. 13. When there is such a settled disposition of heart as that we dare not grieve him nor aflfront him to his face — as Ahasuerus said, ' Will he force the queen before my face ?' — God is much honoured. But now when we are secure and careless, and forget God, and can sin freely in thought and foully in act without remorse, it is ungodliness. Fear is a gi-ace of con- tinual use : we cannot be always praising God, worshipping God, and employed in acts of special communion with him, yet we must be always fearing God : ' Be thou in the fear of God all the day long,' Prov. xxiii. 17 ; and elsewhere, ' Blessed is he that feareth always,' Prov. xxviii. 14. A man hath done with his devotion in the morning, but he hath not done with God ; we should think of him, and re- member that his eye is upon us, all the day long : we must rise in the fear of God, walk in the fear of God, trade, eat, drink in the fear of God, Jude 12. Some graces are as the lungs, never out of use and e.xercise. More especially must fear be active when temptations and corruptions arise ; we must argue as Joseph, Gen. xxxix. 9.
4. If we do not care to please him. An ungodly man thinketh of nothing less than pleasing God ; he neither careth to know his ways, nor to walk in them ; they are 'willingly ignorant,' 2 Peter iii. 5. They do not search, that they may not practise, and so err not in mind, but heart : ' We desire not the knowledge of thy ways,' Job xxi. 14. They have not a mind to know that which they have not a mind to do,^ as those that would sleep shut the curtains to keep out the light. A godly man is always approving what is the will of God, Eom. xii. 2, and Eph. v. 10-17 ; he practiseth what he knoweth, and is still searching that he may know more, as willing always to be more useful for God. What have I to do more ?
Thirdly, God will be acknowledged as the supreme truth and authority, and then, if we are not moved with promises, threats, counsels, as with the the words of the great God, if we do not yield him reverence in his worship, and subject our hearts and lives to his laws, it is ungodliness.