A BREATHING AFTER GOD. 233
to God's people. Thus you see in this respect, of the ordinance of the ministry, God is beautiful in his house.
2. Then likewise for the other ordinance, tJie sacrament, it is a sweet and dslightful thing. There is a wondrous beauty in the sacrament ; for there- in we taste the love of God, and the love of Christ. That they would condescend so low, as to seal our faith with the sacrament, to help our souls by our bodies, by outward things ; to help our souls by that that feeds our bodies, to teach us what feeds our souls, namely, the death of Christ, as satis- fying divine justice, — the thinking and digesting of this is wondrous com- fortable, as any food is to the body, and incomparably more sweet, considering cm- continual necessity to relish that spmtual food, and our daily sins and breaches, that enforce a daily necessity to relish Christ. That God should appoint such means, that he should in the sacrament feed us with his own body and blood. He thought he could not manifest his love enough, unless he had told us that he would give himself to us, and make over himself wholly to us : You shall have me, my body and blood ; as in the sacrament we are as verily partakers of the body and blood of Christ, as we are of the bread and wine. Our souls have as much spiritual growth by Christ, and his benefits, as our bodies have by the outward elements. He feeds us with himself ; he esteems and prizeth our souls that are bought with his blood, so that he thinks no food good enough but his own body and blood. What a gracious sweet love is this ! He is both the inviter and the banquet, and all. He invites us to himself.
3. There is a loveliness likewise in all other ordinances that belong to the church ; as in the good order and government of the church, in purging the church of offenders; the discipline that is in the church, which is as the snuffers in the sanctuary to purge the Hghts ; so that there should be a casting out of persons that are openly scandalous. The lights should be purged, the temple should be cleansed, scandals should be removed, that God's house might be the more beautiful. They are blemishes of God's house, open sweai'ers and blasphemers. Those that hve in scandalous gins, they are spots in the assembly, they are leaven, and this leaven should be purged out ; and where there is the vigour of this, there is a great beauty of the church. Where these things are looked to as they should be, they are the bonds, and nerves, and sinews that knit and tie a church together. It makes a church wondrous lovely, the neglect of which makes the church as a garden overgrown. So you see how, in respect of the ordinances of the word, and of the sacrament, and this government that should be, that the house of God is a beautiful place.
4. Then again, it is a comfortable, a sweet and delightful thing, the praises of God. It is a marvellous sweet thing, when all as one man hear together, pray together, sing together hymns, and spiritual songs, and praise God together, and receive the sacrament together, all as one man, — what a comely thing is this to a spiritual eye ! Every Chiistian hath a beauty severed ia himself ; but when all meet together, this is more excellent. As we say of the via lactea, or milky way in the heavens (we call it so), it is nothing but a deal of light fi-om a company of little stars, that makes a glorious lustre. So if there be a beauty ia every poor Christian, what a beauty is there when all meet together ! A beauty, nay, strength too ; for the prayer and the praise of such, they offer a holy violence to God, they can obtain anything at his hands. We see burning glasses, when there is a confluence, and meeting of divers beams in one point, it strengthens the heat, and inflames a thing ; so when there are many sweet desires meet
234 A BKEATHING AFTER GOD.
together, many strong desires of spiritual things, they bind God. There is not only beauty but strength in the prayers of the church. They are in Christ's own esteem comeliness. He loves to see his church, especially when they are together. ' Let me see thy face, and hear thy voice, thou that hidest thyself in the clefts of the rock,' Cant. ii. 14. He marvellously desires to see his children, and to hear them speak, especially when they present themselves before him. Hannony is a sweet and pleasant thing. The comparing of the state of the church in former times with the present, is a harmonious thing. David, he lived under the Old Testament, and yet he saw under that the New, so we should see the Old in the New, compare them together, to see shadows in substances, types in truths. So that there is nothing in the church, but it gives special delight.
5. God's beauty likewise appears, his gracious, amiable, sweet beauty, in his house, his church in regard of the evidences of his love that he bears to his church, in 2)>'otccting it, and jnvvidinrf for it. ' They shall not need a wall,' saith he in Zechariah, ' I will be a wall of fire,' Zech. ii. 5. God hath a special care of his congi-egation. ' God dwells in the congregation of the righteous,' Ps. Ixxxii. 1. He hath his dwelUng, his special residence there, where his name is called on. This will appear more if we see all the sweet privileges and comforts that are in the house of God. God is not only beautiful in himself, but in regard of the privileges that the church hath from him. For all our beauty and excellency is borrowed. The church shines in the beams and beauty of Christ. Now these privileges that the church hath by Christ, to name a few, (1.) We see in the golden chain of salvation, what sweet, amiable love is in all those links; as what a wondrous sweet love of God is it. (2.) To call men out of the wilderness of the u-orld, out of the kingdom of Satan, to be his children ! A marvellous love to single us out of the rest of mankind to be Christians, and being Christians, to be professors of the trath, and being so, to be true professors of the truth. What a wondrous love of God was it to call us, and thereby to have the eternal pui'pose of God opened to us. As when we are drawn to God by his Spirit and by the ministry, then the good pleasure of God, that was hid from eternity, is discovered to the soul. Here is the amiable love of God.