Use 1. It informeth us —
1. That our service is an honour, and worship a privilege ; for it is not only a way to heaven, but a beginning of heaven. Our work there is a part of our reward. The priestly ministration is so the work of heaven, that it is also a reward for our present diligence. Well, then, it is the most blessed life we can live upon earth, to be serving God and ministering before the Lord, and to be employed in any nearness about him ; his people desire no sweeter work. Alas ! what is the work of all the world to this but a toilsome drudgery or base servility ? Go to the brutish world, what is the work of the drunkard, glutton, gamester, or fornicator, compared with that of the spiritual priest ? They are priests to feed the belly, that base dunghill-god: Phil. iii. 19, ' Whose god is their belly.' Their business is to provide for and please the flesh. Nay ; go to the more refined part of the world, the covetous and ambitious worldlings ; they aim at nothing beyond this life ; but
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the spiritual priest contiimelli for ever ; his service is begun, and will ever last ; his work is his wages.
2. That it is no easy matter to be familiar with God, and to draw nigh to him in worship. We are stupid, and therefore not sensible of it. You see what distance God kept under the law, and what distance he yet keejKith as to his immediate presence. Surely ' God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all that are about him,' Ps. Ixxxix. 7. The redeemed are honoured to have access to God with boldness, yet they ought to be humbly sen- sible of the privilege. Every nearer apj)roach to God is an enlargement of honour. We must keep an even hand between natural bondage and irreverence. Natural bondage ; we are sometimes afraid to come into God's presence, and doubt of access, being so unworthy to come before the Lord ; but we are privileged by our calling ; Christ by his death hath made us kings and priests. The priests were sanctified to draw nearer unto God than the common people, and to be employed in his most holy service ; so if we be cleansed by the blood of Christ, we are separated from the ungodly world, and may acquaint him with all our desires, griefs, and fears. On the other side, against irreverence. It is no easy matter to come before the Lord as we ought to do ; and we must be sure to bless and thank the Eedeemer for this favour, that we are made priests of God and Christ, that we are freed from the fears of the second death : Rev. xx. 6, ' Blessed and holy is he that hatli part in the first resurrection ; on such the second death hath no powei", but they shall be priests of God and of Christ ; ' and we may hope for a more solemn service.
Use 2. To exhort the children of God —
1. To long and hope for the time of their ministration in the heavenly temple. When the time of our consecration is finished, then we shall be admitted into this blessed estate. Oh, comfort yourselves with the forethought of it ! There are many reasons to induce us —
[1.] Because then we shall see him whom we worship, and stand before his throne. This is often promised : Ps. xvii. 15, 'As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness ; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness ; ' 1 John iii. 2, ' When he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' So 1 Cor. xiii. 12, * Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; ' John xvii. 24, * Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me.' Now it is a blessed thing to see what we love, and possess what we see. The priests here, though they do not worship an unknown God, yet they worship an unseen God. The Ptomans, when they brake into the sanctum sanctorum, and saw no image there, gave out that the liigh priest did worship the clouds. The world suspecteth the God whom we worslii}) ; but there we see him face to face, with a clear and distinct vision : 2 Cor. v. 7, ' For we walk by faith, not by sight.* There vision succeedeth in the room of faith, fruition of hope, and perfect love of that weak adherence which now we put forth towards God. If God should suffer himself to be seen by his creature in the condition to which sin hath reduced him, it would prove rather a ground of fear and astonishment than of love and fruition ; or else the majesty
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must be clouded with some allay of condescension, which would not .sufficiently reveal him to us. The immediate presence of God, which is our felicity in heaven, would be our misery upon earth. The scripture telleth us, Exod. .xxxiii. 20, 'No man shall see him and live.' And Manoah, Judges xiii. 22, ' We shall surely die, because we have seen God.' We cannot look upon this glorious sun but we are in danger of losing our life together with our sight. The scripture sometimes maketh God to dwell in darkness, sometimes in light inaccessible, to note the incapacity of our faculties, and the incomprehensible splendour of his glorious majesty. We are not able to pierce through this darkness or endure this light. But the majesty of God is not there formidable, but comfortable ; for we shall behold the glorious God in a glorified estate, both of soul and bod3^