I might here go over all the particulars that have been insisted on, and try our obedience by them. But, —
102 OF WALKING HUMBLY WITH GOD.
Use 2. For others, I shall only ask over the heads of what have been delivered. Would you be thought to walk with God?—
(1.) What evidence have you that you are in covenant with him? that your covenant with hell and death is broken, and that you are taken into the bond of the covenant of grace? What account can you give to God, others, or your own souls, of this your covenant state and condition? How many are at a loss as to this foundation of all walking with God !
(2.) Is your obedience from faith? What evidence have you there- of ? Go over all the causes, effects, and adjuncts of a justifying faith, and try whether you have this principle of all acceptable obedience. How hath it been wrought in you? What work of the Spirit have you had upon you? What have been your conviction, humiliation, and conversion? When, how, by what means wrought? Are your hearts purified by it, and are you by it baptized into one Spirit with the people of God? or are you still enemies to them?
(3.) Is your walking universal and perfect, according to the tenor of the covenant? Have you no sweet morsel under your tongue, no beloved lust that is indulged to, that you cannot as yet thoroughly part with? no allowed reserve for sin?
(4.) Do you delight in God in that obedience you yield? or are his ways a burden unto you, that you are scarce able to bear them, — weary of private prayer, of Sabbaths, of all the worship of God ? I leave these things with your consciences.
SERMON VII.
WHAT it is to walk with God hath been declared.
II. What is added thereunto of duty, in this qualification, comes nextly to be considered.
Amongst the many eminent qualifications of the obedience of be- lievers, we shall find, in the issue, this to stand in the forefront, among the chiefest (the words in the original are, tn?{ S$y«31) : To " humble thyself in walking/' or, to " walk with God."
A man would think that it is such an honour and advancement, that a poor sinful creature should be taken into the company of the great God, to walk with him, that he had need be exhorted to take upon him great thoughts of himself, that he may be prepared for it. " Is it a light matter," says David, " to be son-in-law to a king? " " Is it a light matter to walk with God? How had the heart of a man
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need to be lifted up, which hath such apprehensions of its condition ! " The matter is quite otherwise. He that would have his heart exalted up to God, must bring it down in itself. There is a pride in every man's heart by nature, lifting him up, and swelling him until he is too high and big for God to walk with.
Now, whereas there are two things in our walking with God con- siderable : — first, The inward power of it ; and, secondly, The outward privilege of it, in an orderly admittance to the duties of it ; — the for- mer alone is that which edifieth us in this duty ; the latter puffeth up. These Jews here, and their successors the Pharisees, having the pri- vilege of performing the outward duty of walking with God, were, as Capernaum, lifted up unto heaven; and, trusting in themselves that they were righteous, they despised others; — of all men, therefore, they were most abhorred of God. This is that which the Holy Ghost beats them from, — resting in the privilege to come up to the power. God tells us of the prince of Tyrus, that he set his heart as the heart of God, Ezek. xxviii. 6 ; — he would be on even terms with him, inde- pendent, the author of his own good, fearless. So, in some measure, is the heart of every man by nature ; which, indeed, is not to be like God, but the devil.
To prevent this evil, I shall inquire, what it is that is here required of us, under these two heads: — 1. What it is in reference whereunto we are to humble ourselves in walking with God ; 2. How we are to do it : —
I. There are two things that we are to humble ourselves unto in our walking with God; — (1.) The law of his grace? (2.) The law of his providence : —
(1.) In all our walking with God, we are to humble ourselves in bowing to the law and rule of his grace; which is the way that he hath revealed wherein he will walk with sinners. The apostle tells us of the Jews in sundry places, that they had a mind to walk with God ; they had " a zeal for God/' So he had himself in his Pharisaism, Phil. iii. 6. He " was zealous towards God," Acts xxii. 3 ; and so were the Jews, Rom. x. 2, " I bear them record, they have a zeal of God." And they followed after righteousness, " the law of righteous- ness," chap. ix. 31 ; they took pains to " establish their righteousness," chap. x. 3. What can be more required to walking with God than a zeal for him, — for his laws and ways, and a diligent endeavour to attain a righteousness before him ? How few do we see attain thus much ! What repute have they in the world that do so ? But yet, saith the apostle, they did not attain to walk with God, nor the righteousness they sought after, chap. ix. 31. But what is the reason of it ? Why, in their attempt to walk with God, they did not bow themselves to the law of his grace. So chap. x. 3 ; they went about