The vanity of the highest profession, without this humble walking, which is another deceit, shall be afterward spoken unto.
For the present, let me speak to them of whom I have spoken somewhat already. If many shall cry, " Lord, Lord," and not be heard; if " many shall strive to enter/' and shall not; what will be their lot and portion? Poor creatures! you know not the condition of your souls; you cry "Peace, and sudden destruction is at hand."
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Take heed, lest the multitude of sermons and exhortations you have, make you not, like the men that dwell by the falls of mills, deaf with their continual noise. God sends his messengers some- times to make men deaf, Isa. vi. ]0. If that be your portion, it will be sad with you. Give me leave to ask you two or three ques- tions, and I have done: — ■
1. Do you not please yourselves, some of you, in your ways, and that with contempt of others? Do you not think they are fools, or envious, or hypocrites, or factious, that reprove you ; and scorn them in your hearts? Do you not rather love, honour, imitate, such as never pressed you (nor will) to this business of a new life, — to walk with God ; and so suppose the times ruined, since this new-fangled preaching came up amongst you; — desiring to hear things finely spoken, and fopperies of men ignorant of God and themselves? Or, —
2. Do you not relieve yourselves, with the help of profligate souls, that you will be better, — you will repent when the season is better suited for it, and your present condition is changed ? Or, —
3. Do not some of you labour to put far from you all thoughts of these things? " Amici, dum viviraus, vivamus;" — "It will be well enough with us, though we add drunkenness to thirst." Do not, I say, one or all of these rotten, corrupted principles lie at the bottom of your loose walking with God? Take heed, I beseech you, lest the Lord tear you in pieces !
SERMON VI.
Having told you what things are previously required to our walk- ing with God, —
2. Our next inquiry is, as to the matter or thing itself; — what it is to walk with God.
The expression itself is very frequent in Scripture, both as to the examples of them that did so, and as to precepts for others so to do.
It is said of Enoch, that he "walked with God," Gen. v. 24. And " Noah walked with God," Gen. vi. 9. Hezekiah " walked before God," Isa. xxxviii. 3. Abraham is commanded to walk with God, Gen. xvii. 1 ; yea, and the same thing is almost a hundred times in the Scriptures, with some little variation, so expressed. Sometimes we are said to " walk with God;" sometimes to " walk before him;" sometimes to " follow after him," to "follow hard after him;" some- times " to walk in his ways;" — all to the same purpose.
94 OF WALKING HUMBLY WITH GOD.
The expression, you know, is metaphorical; by an allusion taken from things natural, spiritual things are expressed therein.
Not to press the metaphor beyond its principal intention, nor to insist on all particulars wherein any thing of allusion may be found, nor yet insist on the proof of that which is owned and acknowledged, — walking with God, in general, consisteth in the performance of that obedience, for matter and manner, which God, in the covenant of grace, requires at our hands.
I shall only manifest unto you some few of the chief concernments of this obedience, which give life and significancy to the metaphor, and so pass on : — -
(1.) That our obedience be walking with God, it is required that we be in covenant with him, and that the obedience be required in the tenor of that covenant.
This, as to the matter of it, was spoken to before, under the head of what was required to this walking with God, — namely, that we have peace and agreement with him. Here it is formally considered — from that expression, " with God " — as the spring and rule of our obe- dience. Therefore this expression is comprehensive of the whole duty of the covenant on our part. As, Gen. xvii. 1, " I am God Almighty," or " All-sufficient/' — that is, unto thee I will be so, — as this is comprehensive of the whole of the covenant on the part of God, — that he will be unto us an all-sufficient God; so the words that fol- low are comprehensive of the whole of our duty, — " Walk before me;" which are exegetically explained in the next words, " and be thou perfect." The covenant, — the agreement that is between God and us in Christ, wherein he promises to be our God, and we give up our- selves to be his people, — is the bottom and spring of that obedience which is walking with God ; that is, at an agreement with him, in cove- nant with him, — with whom, out of covenant, we have no commerce.
(2.) It is an obedience according to the tenor of that covenant wherein we are agreed with God. Walking with God according to the tenor of the covenant of works was, " Do this, and live." The state is now changed. The rule now is that of Gen. xvii. 1, " ' Be thou perfect,' or upright, ' before me/ in all the obedience I require at thy hands."