Fourtldy, God will be honoured as the last and utmost end, and so in all acts, natural, moral, and spiritual. If we do not aim at God's glory, we are guilty of ungodliness. This is the proper work of godli- ness, to refer all we do to the glory of God ; and this is the distinction between godliness and holiness ; holiness minds the law of God, and implies only a conformity to the law ; godliness minds the glory of God, and is the aim of the soul to exalt God : 2 Peter iii. 11, ' What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godli- ness ? ' You see godliness is distinguished from holiness. Godliness refers all we do to God's glory. But more particularly —
1. In natural acts we must have a supernatural aim : 1 Cor. x. 31, ' Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' If we are to take a meal to sustain the body and refresh nature, it is that we may be more serviceable to God. And he that eats and drinks to himself, to his own pleasure, to satisfy his own appe- tite, and hath no respect to God, he doth but offer a meat-offering and a drink-offering to an idol. And he that traffics for himself, merely to get wealth, and doth not aim at usefulness and serviceableness to God, he is a priest consecrated to mammon, his eating is iilolatry : Phil. iii. 19, ' Whose God is his belly, and his trading is idolatry,' Mat. vi. 24, ' Ye cannot serve God and mammon.'
2. In your moral actions, Eph. vi., where all moral duties are recip- rocally set down, as duties of husbands and wives, mas tei'S and servants, parents and children. The apostle presseth them ' to do all as in and to the Lord ; ' not merely that they may live together in contentment and peace, but they must walk in their relations so as God may have honour. A christian by an excellent art turns his second-table duties into fii-st-table duties, and makes his civil commerce a kind of religious worship.
3. So in all spiritual acts. The whole ordination of the spiritual life must be to God ; ' I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God,' Gal. ii. 19. All the motions and tendencies of the soul are to advance God and glorify God. In the very sjiiritual internal actions and reacliings foilh of the soul after God, why do I desire to have grace and pardon ? That God may be glorified, that
88 SERMONS UPON TITUS II. 11-14. [SePw. IV.
must be the last end. Our desires can never be re,Q:ular in asking grace till they suit with God's end in giving grace. Now what are God's ends in gi^- ing grace ? Eph. i. 6, ' To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." AH that God aims at is to make grace glorious, and that grace may carry away all the praise. So in your desires of pardon, heaven, and salvation, you are to desire them that God may be glorified in your salvation, and in the pardon of your sins. So in our external actions, prayer, worship, preaching, whatever we do. In sacred things it is dangerous to look asquint, and to serve ourselves, our own lusts, our covetousness or pride, upon the worship of God ; this is to put dung in God's own cup. It were a mighty affront to a king to fill his cup full of excrements. Nothing alienates the heart from God so much as self-respect. God hath given us many things, but he hath reserved the glory of all to himself ; as Pharaoh said to Joseph, Gen. xli. 40, ' Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled ; only in the throne will I be greater than thou.' This is the first branch of ungodliness, the negative part, when we deny God his due honour.
Secondly, For the positive part. Positive ungodliness is more gross when we put an actual contempt and scorn upon God. AVe are guilty of tliis when we slight his providence and disobey his laws.
1. When we slight his providence: Heb. xii. 5, ' My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.' Men harden themselves against corrections, and count light of them. Men cannot endure to have their anger despised. When the three children despised Nebuchadnezzar's threatenings, it is said, Dan. iii. 19, 'Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego ; therefore he spake and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated.' It is a mighty affront to God and a contempt of him when we provoke him while we are under his afflicting hand, if in despite of God we break out into sin when he hedgeth up our way with thorns : 2 Chron. xxviii. 22, ' And in the time of his distress did he trespass jet more against the Lord ; this is that king Ahaz.'