3. How unsuitable and sad it is that we are most dead where we should be most raised, fresh, and vigorous ! At any time dead service doth ill become a living God. The heathens saw that the worship must be proportioned to the object of worship. When they worshipped the sun, they ofiered a horse, and Josiah destroyed the horses of the sun, 2 Kings xxiii. 11. Surely whatever is tendered to God should have the stamp of God upon it. But now in this duty special life and rejoicing in God is required of us ; here we have to do with the bread of life : John vi, 35, ' I am the bread of life ; ' and the water of life ; and shall we be conversant about these things with a dead heart ? All should be life and vigour here. What may be the causes of this deadness ?
[1.] Slowness of heart and averseness from all spiritual duties. Our heart naturally bendeth downwards, and sin doth beset us as a weight : Heb. xii. 1, ' Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us.' This cloggeth us in all our heavenly flights and motions. In the best the heart hath a wing and a weight , it would fain mount up to God, but the flesh depresseth us.
[2.] A particular cause is customariness. We come carelessly, with common hearts, as to a common work. Custom goeth no further than the external act, or conformity to the common practice : ' They sit before thee as my people,' Ezek. xxxiii. 31, They do not consider what is required, but perform what is used, and are guided by others' practice rather than their own conscience and the nature of the duty ; and then no lively exercise of grace is to be expected from them.
[3.] Some carnal distemper. When you give contentment to the flesh, you draw on a hardness and deadness upon the heart, and then in all acts of communion with God there is no life in you : Ps. cxix. 37, ' Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken nie in thy way.' An inordmate liberty in worldly and fleshly delights quencheth the vigour of grace, and obstructs the lively exercise of it ; as the prophet saith, ' They take away the heart/ Hosea iv. 11. This is a superadded burden and clog to the spirit.
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[4.] Confidence in tkeir own good estate, without actual preparation, or raising their desires and affections. They think, with Samson, to go forth and shake themselves as at other times ; but then- strength is gone, their mind is barren and vain, their will remiss, then- affections dead and cold. There needeth continual diligence to keep the heart in a right frame, and serious preparation before solemn duties.
[5.] The confusion of a dark and ignorant mind : ' What went you out for to see ? ' Mat. xi. 8. They have a devout aim in general, but do not consider the particular end and use of the duties they are con- versant about, nor then- own wants, and what suiteth most with their case, either the work of faith or repentance ; and then what life can you expect in them ?
Use 2. To press you to stir up your graces, and break open the box of precious ointment, that the whole house may be filled with the savour of it. If you want Christ, let your souls make hard pursuit after him. If you have found him whom your souls love, rejoice in the light of his countenance. But whether you exercise desire or delight most, let both endear Christ, that he may be more precious to you, and you may engage yourselves to great fidelity to birn, resolving to live for the future in all love and obedience to him. Consider again and again what sin deserved, what Christ hath suffered, how wonderfully God's love is expressed, and what thankful obedience is required of us. More particularly —
1. Humble yourselves before God, as unworthy to approach his presence. The saints never loath themselves so much as in the highest acts of communion with God : Job xlii. 5, 6, ' I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee ; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.' The soul is never in such a humble posture as when it hath the most raised thoughts of God ; then the most holy become vile and loathsome in their own eyes. So Isa. vi. 5, ' Woe is me ! for I am undone, because I am a man of un- clean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips ; for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.' Great is our un worthiness to ap- pear in the presence of so glorious a majesty ; yet this should not make us run away from God, which is an act of legal bondage, but humbly and penitently to run to him, which is an act of faith and dependence on Christ. We are unworthy, but we must not refuse God's remedy, but sue it out in a broken-hearted manner.