Now, more particularly, this ' service ' of the will of God, it is either immediate, inward ' service ' of the will of God, or outward service.
(1.) Imcard service is the obedience of the first commandment, when upon the knowledge of God we set him up in our souls, and cleave to him in our affections of trust, and joy, and love, and delight, to give him the supremacy of all these. Then we serve him with inward worship and service. And this indeed is to set the crown upon God's head, and to make him king and God in our hearts. He must have the prime of our
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inward service. When we love God above all, and fear him above all, and delight in him above all, and cleave to him when all things else fail us, this is the immediate * service' of God in our hearts, when we give God his own in our hearts. Hence comes all other ' service' whatsoever, or else it is but the eye-service, that is not enlivened with the inward worship of God.
(2.) Now, besides this inward, there is a 'service' of God that comes from this imcard service, ivhich is of the outivard man; that is, when we pray- to God, and that requires our words, when we praise God in thanksgiving, when we come to hear the word and to receive the sacrament. And so all outward holy actions are the ' service ' of God, and are drawn from the inward immediate worship of God that I spake of before.
(3.) Besides these (which come more immediately from a sanctified spirit), there is a service of God that is the obedience of the second table, ■when we do good to men with an eye to serve God> as we say. There is an elicit, proper service of God, and a commanded service of God, cnltus imperatus. All duties to men are a ' service ' of God, when we do them as commanded of God, as because I love God, therefore I honour my parents, and magistrates ; and therefore I will not commit adultery : as Joseph, ' Shall I do this, and offend God' ? Gen. xxxiv. 9. So the Scrip- ture allegeth reasons out of the first table, when we are tempted to sins against the second table ; and then the duties of the second table are a worship and ' service ' of God, when they are commanded by the first. And this is the difference between a mere formal man and a Christian in his outward performances. A civil man is altogether for- the second table, but he hath not his rise from the first. He gives every man his due, &c., but it is not in obedience to God, because God hath commanded him to do it ; but because he sees it is a deformed thing to be unjust. Out of the light of nature he condemns the sin, but not out of religious respects. It is not a service of God all this while. Ay, but when it is from love to God, when that great command, ' Thou sbalt love God above all,' sets him upon this, then all the duties he performs to man are a service of the will of God, for God commands them. Even the basest works are a service of God when they are done in obedience to God, as Saint Paul tells them in Col. iii. 22, and Eph. vi. 5, the poor servant ' serves the Lord Christ.' When a poor servant is at his work, employed in the business of man, poor, common things, yet he serves the Lord all the while. For God hath set them that calling, and he doth the second table in obedience to the first ; and he serves men, those that are his governors, with an eye to the great Governor and Master that is above all, that will reward them for their poor service, however their master reward them, Eph. vi. 8. This is to serve the will of God then ; to yield to him the immediate service of the soul, and the outward expressions of it ; and to go through all other duties as they spring from the first. Then we are moulded, as I said before, answerable to the word of God.
To apply this to our blessed man David, and then to make use of it to ourselves.
Thus did David serve the will of God in his time ; for you may see what he was. He is anatomised and laid open to our ej^es in the Psalms. You may see his care of 'serving' God in his own writings. See how he cleaved to God in his affections in Ps. xviii. 30, seq., how he loved God, and joyed in God, and in the word of God above all things in the world. He esteemed the Yisihi of ' God's countenance more than corn, or wine, or
506 KING David's epitaph.
oil,' Ps. iv. 7. I give but a touch, to shew how this description is true of this blessed man, ' that he served the will of God.'
And for the expression of it in praise and praj-er, he was ' a man after God's own heart ;' especially in this, ho was ready upon all occasions to bless and praise God. He kept his communion with God, as wo see ; though he were a king, yet his main care was to ' serve' God, as we see in Ps. i. 2, ' He meditated in the word of God day and night.' What time had he to rule his kingdom then ? The meaning is, that all the spare time that he had it was to think of God ; to look to the rule, the word of God, how to guide his life.