(4.) A care of obedience, or a holy ambition to please God and approve ourselves to him. Now in this pleasing of God there must be —
1st. An avoiding of whatever is grievous and displeasing to him. He that seeth God to be always present certainly he will be afraid to displease him ; he will be always reasoning and discoursing thus in his soul, How will God like this with whom I am present, and before whom I am ? You know the question of Ahasuerus concerning Haman, when he threw himself upon the queen's bed, Esther vii. 8, ' Will he force the queen before my face ? ' so, should I go about to grieve God before his face ? to betray his cause, and comply with his enemies when he looks on ? It is impudence to sin before any looker-on, — before a man, or before a child ; but this in the presence of the just, powerful, and avenging God. Would a man ease himself, or void his excrements, before a prince ? The comparison is not too homely, for this is the type w^hich God gave his ancient church. There was a law, that if they went aside to ease themselves, they should cover their filth with a paddle, ' for the Lord walketh in the midst of the camp,' Dent, xxiii. 12-14. God would teach them by this similitude to avoid whatever is unseemly in his presence. There must be con- stantly manifested a respect to his presence ; so Josej^h : Gen. xxxix.
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VeR. 5.] SEEMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 59
9, ' How shall I do this wickedness, and sin against God ? ' Sin is. on our part, a departure and a going out of God's presence ; and as to God, it makes him to break off the journey — ' Can two Wiilk together except they be agieed ? ' Amos iii. 3. He cannot walk \Nith us, and draw nigh to us, it we turn aside to those crooked paths.
2dly. There must be a constant care of those things God likes of, not only a declining of evil, but a doing of good. Take one disposi- tion that is very pleasing to God. When your hearts are carried out wholly to spiritual things, then God delights to hold company and communion with such. When Solomon desired wisdom, and passed by riches and honour, it is said, ' The thing exceedingly pleased God,' 1 Kings iii. 10 ; so when the bent and strength of your desires are carried after spiritual blessings, that you may be wise to salvation, the thing is very pleasing to God.
odly. This pleasing of God implies the uprightness of our aim, that the man is as good as the action. The main intent of the soul must be to please God, as his will must be the rule of your life ; so his glory must be the end of your lives : Gen. xvii. 1, ' Walk before me, and be thou perfect.' God can look into the bottom of the heart ; he weighs the spirits, and knows what are the inward propensions, the inward inclinations, the proposal we make to ourselves ; so Hezekiah : Isa. xxxviii. 3, " I have walked before thee with a perfect heart.' The heart must be sincere and rightly set, the aim must be to please God ; negatively, it must not be to please ourselves, or to gratify the flesh in the conveniences of the present life, in outward profits and delights : Rom. viii. 12, ' We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.' A man that walks with God must dissolve the natural contract and agreement that is between him and the flesh ; we are come under the bond of the new contract to please God. Look, as Jesus Christ, when he came to purchase this communion and this society with God, it is said, Eom. xv. 3, ' He pleased not himself ; ' so when we come to enjoy this communion, we are not to please ourselves, and so also our aims must not be to please men. He is nothing in Christianity that doth not count the judgment of man a small thing, 1 Cor. iv. 3. When we give up ourselves to walk with God, we must remember we are not to seek for the humour of men : 1 Peter iv. 3, ' That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh, to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.' Men of sociable, sweet dispositions are loth to displease those with whom they do converse ; and so they are mightily prone to carnal compliance. The apostle disclaims this. Gal. i. 10, ' If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Jesus Christ.' The Pharisees were angry when Paul revolted from their confederacy, when he that was their prime instrument turned preacher of the gospel. Company and humouring of men many times is a mighty snare to sordid spirits, but if it be done out of worldliness, it is worse ; many men would please God so as they may not infringe their secular in- terest. Oh, consider, God will never walk with us as long as mammon is in company, when the bent of the heart is set that way : the world is to be our servant, not our fellow. When we walk with God we must have no other companion but God alone. Walking with God is usually a counter-motion to the times. Enoch, and Noah, and Levi,