2dly. There is no other way or means whereby men may yield any obedience or worship unto God but only by the gospel, and so no other way whereby men may express their subjection unto him or dependence upon him; and where this is not done, he is necessarily forsaken. Whatever men may say, or do, or pretend, as to the worship of God, if it be not in and by the name of Christ, if it be not appointed and revealed in the gospel, it is not performed unto the living God, but to an idol of their own hearts; for the only true God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore by what act or acts soever men may design to give honour
132 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. III.
unto God, and to own their dependence on him, if it be not done in Christ, according to the gospel, it is all an abomination unto him. He says of all such worship, as he did of the sacrifices of the Is- raelites, when their hearts went after their idols, Amos v. 26, it is all to Moloch and Chiun, and not to him. Such, I say, is all the worship that men design to offer unto the living God, when not ac- cording to the gospel; such was the worship of the Samaritans of old, as our Saviour testified; and such is the worship of the Jews and Mohammedans at present. Their pretence of owning one God will not free them from offering their sacred services to Moloch and Chiun, images and stars of gods which they have framed unto them- selves. When, therefore, any depart from the gospel, they depart from the living God; because they have no way left unto them whereby they may glorify him as God, and he that doth not so renounceth him. And therefore our apostle, speaking of those heathens who had those notions of one God which some boast of at this day and choose to rest in, affirms plainly that they were ééeos éyv ro xéouw, Eph. ii 12,—“ atheists whilst they were in the world.” They knew not how to glorify God by any acceptable worship: and as good not to own God at all as not to glorify him as God; for after God in the first precept hath required that we should have him for our God, and none else, that we may do so, and know how to do so, he required in the second, with the same authority, that: we worship and glorify him according unto his own mind and pre- scription.
3dly. There is no other way whereby we may obtain the least encouraging intimation of the favour or good-will of God towards us, no way whereby his grace or his acceptance of us may be firmed and assured unto us, but this only; and where there is not a suffi- cient ground hereof, no man can abide with God in a due manner. If men have not a stable foundation to apprehend God to be good, and gracious, and willing to receive them, they will no otherwise respect or esteem him but as the poor Indians do the devil, whom they worship that he may do them no harm. I do know that men have strange presumptions concerning the goodness and inclination of God unto sinners; and according unto them they pretend highly to love God and delight in him, without respect unto the Lord Christ or the gospel: but it were an easy thing to divest their no- tions of all those swelling words of vanity wherewith they dress them, and manifest them to be mere presumptions, inconsistent with the nature of God and all the revelation that he hath made of himself. Whatever may be apprehended in God of this nature or to this purpose is either his ypyorérgs, his natural goodness, kind- ness, benignity, and love; or his giAavdpwaxi«, which includes all the free acts of his will towards mankind for good. And our: apostle
VER, 12-14. ] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 133
affirms that the é:pavz/a, the revelation, declaration, and appearance of both these, is merely from and by the gospel, or the grace of God by Jesus Christ, Tit. iii, 4-7; and without this it is impossible but that men will abide in their apostasy from God, or return unto it.
4thly. There is no other way wherein we may look for a reward from God, or hope to come unto the enjoyment of him, but only by the gospel. And this also is necessary, that we may honour him as God, as the living God. This is the end whereunto we were made: and if we leave the pursuit hereof, we cast off all regard unto God; for if God be not considered as “a rewarder of them that dili- gently seek him,” as in himself an “exceeding great reward,” he is not considered as God. And whoever doth not pursue a design of coming to the enjoyment of God, he hath forsaken him. Now, there is no direction herein or hereunto but the gospel, as Acts iv. 12.
And this will discover the great multitude of practical atheists that are in the world. Many there are who have been educated in some observance of the gospel, and some who have been brought under great conviction by the word of it, who do yet, by the power of their lusts and temptations in the world, come to renounce and despise all the institutions, ordinances, and worship of the gospel, and consequently the author of it himself; for it is a vain thing to pretend love or honour unto Christ, and not to keep his command- ments. However, they would not be reckoned among atheists, for they still acknowledge one, or the one God. But they do herein but industriously deceive their own souls. Then they forsake the living God, when they forsake the gospel of his Son.