3. If we do not fear to offend, God will be served with every affec- tion. Love is of use in the spiritual life, so is fear : 2 Cor. vii. 1, ' Perfecting holiness in the fear of God.' They are both of great use. Love sweetens duties, and fear makes us watchful against sin ; love is the doing grace, and fear is the conserving or keeping grace ; and therefore this is the honour that God constantly expects from us, that we should always walk in his fear. Oh ! think of the pure eyes of his glory that are upon us : Eccles. xii. 13, * Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter ; Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man ; ' that is, the sum of all practical godliness. The internal root of all duty and worship is a holy filial fear and rever- ent awe of God, when as obedient children we dare not grieve God, nor affront him to his face ; as Ahasuerus said concerning Haman, Esther vii. 8, ' Will he force the queen also before me in the house ? ' God is always a looker-on ; and can we grieve our good God when he directly looks upon us ? But now, when you are secure and careless, and sin freely in thought and foully in act, and without any remorse, you deny God his fear. Fear is a grace of continual use ; we cannot be always praying or praising God, or employed in acts of solemn wor- ship and special communion with him, but we must be always in the fear of God. You have not done with God when you have left your requests with him in the morning ; you must fear him all the day long : Prov. xxiii. 17, * Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.' A man hath done with his devotion in the morning, but he hath not done with God. A man should think of him all the day long, in the shop, in the streets ; especially when corruptions arise, and we are tempted to folly and filthiness, or any unworthy act, remember God looks on. Thus must we be in the fear of God continually, rise in fear, walk in fear, feed in fear, and trade in fear ; it is a grace never out of season.
4. If we do not care to please him, it is ungodliness. If we make it our work and the drift of our lives to find out what may be pleasing and acceptable to God in order to practice, and value our lives for this end only, that we may serve God, it is a sign grace is planted in the heart. But now ungodly men neither care to know the ways of God, nor to walk in them. They that are willingly ignorant, and do not
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search to know how God will be served and pleased, and make this their work, they do not count God their chiefest good ; they search not, that they may not practise ; they err not in their mind only, but in their hearts : Ps. xcv. 10, ' It is a people that do err in their hearts ; they have not known my ways.' To err in the mind may be through invincible ignorance ; but a man errs in his heart when he doth not desire to know God, and to know his will, and what he must do in worship and conversation, but saith, I do not desire to know God : Job xxi. 14, ' Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.' Therefore he that doth not make it his great work and the business of his life to find out what God would have him do, he is ungodly. Usually this is found in men half con- vinced ; they have not a mind to know that which they have not a mind to do, and so they are willingly ignorant. But now a godly man makes it the business of his life still to follow God foot by foot, to know more of his mind and will : Kom. xii. 2, ' That you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God ; ' Eph. v. 12, ' Prov- ing what is acceptable unto the Lord.' A true christian always practiseth what he knows, and still searcheth that he may know more ; he would be always more useful for God, and more according to his heart; that is the study, the great business and project of his life, to find out God's will, and then practise it. What shall I do moi-e for God?
Thirdly, God must be acknowledged as the supreme truth and authority ; and there, if we be not moved with his promises, with his threatenings and counsels, as the words of the great God, as if he had spoken from heaven by an audible voice ; if we do not yield him rever- ence in his worship, and subject our hearts and lives unto his laws, it is ungodliness.
1. We must receive the counsels of his word with all reverence and veneration, as if God had spoke to us by a voice from heaven. This is to receive the word as the word of God : 2 Thes. ii. 10, ' They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.' The heathens received the oracles of their gods with great reverence, and were much moved when they had an oracle ; but when the word comes with a mighty convincing power upon the heart, and you are not moved and affected, this argues your ungodliness. So when we can drowsily hear of the great things of heaven, and the death of Christ, and the covenant of grace, and the glorious salvation offered, and are no more moved than with a fable, or with a dream of rubies dropping down from heaven in the night, this is ungodliness. That there is a great deal of ungodliness in this kind is clear by our neglect of these precious things. If a man should proffer another a thousand pounds for a trifle, and he should not accept it, you would not say it was because he prized that trifle that is not profitable, but because he did not believe the offer. So when God offers heaven and Christ to us upon such easy terms as to part with nothing but our sins, which are better parted with than kept, we do not honour him as the eternal truth, if we do not accept it, but count him a liar ; and this is the greatest affront you can put upon God ; for ' he that believeth not, God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son,' 1