*God created men and angels solely for the _glory of his love_; and therefore angels and men can give no other glory to God, but that of yielding themselves up to the work of his creating love, manifesting itself in the several powers of their natural life, so that the first creating love, which brought them into being, may go on creating, and working in them, according to its own never-ceasing will, to communicate good for ever and ever. This is their living to the praise and glory of God, namely by owning themselves, in all that they are, and have, and do, to be mere instruments of his power, presence, and goodness in them, and to them; which is all the glory they can return to their Creator, and all the glory for which he created them.
We can no otherwise worship God in spirit and in truth, than as our spirit seeks only to, depends only upon, and in all things adores, the life-giving power of his universal Spirit; as the creator, upholder, and doer of all that is or can be good, either in time or eternity. For nothing can be good, but that which is according to the will of God, and nothing can be according to the will of God, but that which is done by his own Spirit. This is unchangeable, whether in heaven, or in earth. And this is the one end of all the dispensations of God, however various, towards fallen man, _viz._ to bring man into an union with God. Comply with all the outward modes and institutions of religion, believe the letter, own the meaning of scripture facts, symbols, and doctrines; but if you seek to gain some other good from them, than that of being led from your own will, and own spirit, that the will of God, and the Spirit of God may do all that is willed, and done by you; however steadily you may adhere to such a religion, you stand as fixed and steadily in your own fallen state. For the restoration of fallen man, is nothing else but the restoration of him to his first state, under the will and Spirit of God, in and for which he was created.
You may here perhaps think that I am speaking too much at large, and not closely to the particular matter of your enquiry. But my intention hath been, so to speak to you on this occasion, as to lay a ground for a proper behaviour, under every circumstance of the outward work of your ministry. All things must be set right in yourself first, before you can rightly assist others.
I do not mean, that you must be first in a state of perfection, before you can be fitted to teach others. But I mean that you must first see, _in what_ to place your own perfection, before you can rightly direct others in the way to it.
For this reason I have said all that is said above, to help you to set out under a right sense of all that religion is to do for yourself. When these things are not notionally, but practically known, then are you enabled, according to your measure, to speak of the truths of religion, to those that are ignorant, or insensible of them.
Your work is, to call every one home to himself, and help every heart to know its own state, to seek and find, and feel his inward life and death, which have their birth, and growth, and strife, against one another, in every son of _Adam_.
And as this is the one good way of preaching, so it is, of all others, the most powerful and penetrating into the hearts of all men, let their condition be what it will.
Their _hearing ears_, though ever so sunk into dullness, will be forced more or less, to feel the power of that voice which speaks nothing but what is, and must be in some sort within themselves.
And this is the great end of outward preaching, to give loud notice of the call of God in their souls, which though unheard, or neglected by them, is yet always subsisting within them. It is to make such outward sounds, as may reach and stir up the inward hearing of the heart. It is so to strike all the outward senses of the soul, that from sleeping in an inward insensibility of its own life and death, it may be brought into an awakened perception of itself, and be forced to know, that the evil of death which is in it, will be its eternal master, unless it seeks for victory in the name, and power, and mediation of Christ, the only Prince of life, and Lord of glory, and who only hath the keys of heaven, of death and hell, in his hands.
Hence you will be qualified, to open in your hearers, a right knowledge of the reality of every virtue and vice you are discoursing upon.