CHAP. XY.] DELIGHT IN THE DUTIES OF DIVINE WORSHIP. 439
not, nor do ever examine themselves whether they have done so or no? It is not for persons who walk in such ways ever to attain a due delight in the ordinances of divine worship.
Believers have other designs herein; and among the rest this in the first place, that they may be afresh made partakers of refresh- ing, comforting pledges of the love of God in Christ, and thereby of their adoption, of the pardon of their sins, and acceptance of their persons. According as they meet with these things in the duties of holy worship, public or private, so will they love, value, and adhere unto them, Some men are full of other thoughts and affections, so as that these things are not their principal design or desire, or are contented with that measure of them which they suppose themselves to have attained, or at least are not sensible of the need they stand in to have fresh communications of them made unto their souls, sup- posing that they can do well enough without a renewed sense of divine love every day. Some are so ignorant of what they ought to design, to look after, in the duties of gospel worship, as that it is im- possible they should have any real design in them. Many of the better sort of professors are too negligent in this matter. They do not long and pant in the inward man after renewed pledges of the love of God; they do not consider how much need they have of them, that they may be encouraged and strengthened unto all other duties of obedience; they do not prepare their minds for the reception of them, nor come with expectation of their communication unto them; they do not rightly fix their faith on this truth,—namely, that these holy administrations and duties are appointed of God in the first place as the ways and means of conveying his love and a sense of it unto our souls. From hence spring all that lukewarmness, coldness, and indifferency in and unto the duties of holy worship, that are growing among us; for if men have lost the principal design of faith in them, and disesteem the chiefest benefit which is to be obtained by them, whence should zeal for them, delight in them, or diligence in attendance unto them, arise? Let not any please themselves under the power of such decays; they are indications of their inward frame, and those infallible! Such persons will grow cold, careless, and negligent, as unto the duties of public worship; they will put themselves neither to charge nor trouble about them; every occasion of life diverts them, and finds ready entertainment in their minds; and when they do attend upon them, it is with great indifference and unconcernedness. Yet would they have it thought that all is still as well within as ever it was; they have as good a respect unto religion as any! But these things openly discover an ulcerous disease in the very souls of men, as evidently as if it were written on their foreheads. Whatever they pretend unto the contrary, they are under the power
440 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. ' [PART IL
of woful decays from all due regard unto spiritual and eternal things. And I would avoid the society of such persons as those who carry an infectious disease about them, unless it were to help on their cure.
But herein it is that affections spiritually renewed do manifest themselves: When we do delight in and value the duties of God’s worship, because we find by experience that they are and have been unto us means of communicating a sense and renewed pledges of the love of God in Christ, with all the benefits and privileges which depend thereon, then are our affections renewed in and by the Holy Ghost.
(2.) They come for supplies of internal, sanctifying, strengthen- ang grace. ‘This is the second great design of believers in their ap- proaches unto God in his worship. The want hereof, as unto measures and degrees, they find in themselves, and are sensible of it; yea, herein lies the great burden of the souls of believers in this world. All that we do in the life of God may be referred unto two heads:— [1.] The observance of all duties of obedience; and, [2.] The conflict with and conquest over temptations.
About these things are we continually exercised. Hence the great thing which we desire, labour for, and pant after, is spiritual strength and ability for the discharge of ourselves in a due manner with re- spect unto these things. This is that which every true believer groaneth after in the inward man, and which he preferreth infinitely above all earthly things. So he may have grace sufficient in any competent measure for these ends, let what will befall him, he de- sireth no more in this world. God in Christ is the only fountain of all this grace; there is not one drachm of it to be obtained but from him alone. And as he doth communicate it unto us of his own sovereign goodness and pleasure, so the ordinary way and means whereby he will do it are the duties of his worship: Isa. xl. 28-31, “ Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lorn, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he in- creaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lorp shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint,”