So far should we be from thus getting ease and comfort, that I believe we should on the contrary soon find by our experience the truth of what a hermit himself once told me, that a tree which stands by itself, is most exposed and liable to the strongest blasts. When our Saviour was to be tempted by the devil, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. How contrary this to their practice, who go into a wilderness to avoid temptation! Surely such are unmindful of the petition put up for us by our blessed LORD, “Father, I pray not that thou wouldst take them out of the world, but that thou wouldst keep them from the evil.” This then is to be a christian indeed; to be in the world, and yet not of it; to have our hands, according to our respective stations in life, employed on earth, and our hearts at the same time fixed on things above. Then, indeed, are we “temples of the living GOD,” when with a humble boldness, we can say with a great and good soldier of JESUS CHRIST, we are the same in the parlour, as we are in the closet; and can at night throw off our cares, as we throw off our cloaths; and being at peace with the world, ourselves, and GOD, are indifferent whether we sleep or die.
Farther, the Jewish temple was a house of prayer. “My house (says the Great GOD) shall be called a house of prayer:” and implies that the hearts of true believers are the seats of prayer. For this end was it built, and adorned with such furniture. _Solomon_, in that admirable prayer which he put up to GOD at the dedication of the temple, saith, “Hearken therefore unto the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people _Israel_, which they shall make towards this place.” And hence I suppose it was that _Daniel_, that man greatly beloved, in the time of captivity, “prayed as aforetime three times a day with his face towards the temple.” And what was said of the first, our LORD applies to the second temple, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” On this account also, true believers may be stiled, “the temple of the living GOD.” For being wholly devoted and dedicated to GOD, even a GOD in CHRIST, their heart becomes the seats of prayer, from whence, as so many living altars, a perpetual sacrifice of prayer and praise (like unto, tho’ infinitely superior to the perpetual oblation under the Mosaic dispensation) is continually ascending, and offered up, to the Father of Mercies, the GOD of all Consolations. Such, and such only, who thus worship GOD in the temple of their hearts, can truly be said to be made priests unto GOD, or be stiled a royal priesthood; such, and such only, can truly be stiled, “the temple of the living GOD,” because such only pray to him, as one expresses it, in the temple of their hearts, and consequently worship him in spirit and in truth.
Let no one say that such a devotion is impracticable, or at least only practicable by a few, and those such who have nothing to do with the common affairs of life; for this is the common duty and privilege of all true christians. “To pray without ceasing,” and “to rejoice in the LORD always,” are precepts equally obligatory on all that name the name of CHRIST. And though it must be owned, that it is hard for persons that are immersed in the world, to serve the LORD without distraction; and though we must confess, that the lamp of devotion, even in the best of saints, sometimes burns too dimly, yet those who are the temple of the living GOD, find prayer to be their very element: And when those who make this objection, once come to love prayer, as some unhappy men love swearing, they will find no more difficulty in praying to, and praising GOD always, than these unhappy creatures do in cursing and swearing always. What hath been advanced, is far from being a state peculiar to persons wholly retired from the world.
My brethren, the love of GOD is all in all. When once possessed of this, as we certainly must be, if we are “the temple of the living GOD,” meditation, prayer, praise, and other spiritual exercises, become habitual and delightful. When once touched with this divine magnet, for ever after the soul feels a divine attraction, and continually turns to its centre, GOD; and if diverted therefrom, by any sudden or violent temptation, yet when that obstruction is removed, like as a needle touched by a loadstone when your finger is taken away, turns to its rest, its centre, its GOD, its All, again.