never venture to come to the house of God in a thoughtless or irreverent manner, but would reflect on the holiness and majesty of the Supreme Being, and endeavour to approve themselves to him in all the services they offered0 Beloved Bre- thren, it is no legal argument which we offer, when we remind you that God is jealous of his own honour, and exhort you from that consideration to take heed to yourselves whensoever you approach his house, his altar, or his throne of grace : it is the very argument urged by an inspired Apostle, and that too in reference to the history before us ; " Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear ; for our God is a consuming fire .d"]
2. To submit to his dispensations —
[It pleases God sometimes to try in a peculiar manner his most favoured saints. But from whatever quarter our trials come, we should view the hand of God in them, and say, " It is the Lord, let him do what seemethhim good6." It becomes not us to " reply against God ;" or " the clay to strive with the potter." As a Sovereign, he has a right to do with us as he will : and, if only he be glorified, we should be content, what- ever we may suffer for the attainment of that end. The recol- lection of our own deserts should always stop our mouths, or rather prevent even the rising disposition to murmur against him. He never did, nor can in this world, punish us more than our iniquities deserve : and therefore a living man can never have occasion to complain f. Let us then, whatever our afflictions be, submit with meekness to his chastising hand : " let us be still, and know that he is God:" yea, let us be thankful that " he is magnified in our body, whether it be by life or by death g."]
c Ps. lxxxix. 7. d Heb. xii. 28, 29. e 1 Sam. iii. 18. See
also Ps. xxxviii. 13. and Job i. 21. f Lam. iii. 39. s Phil. i. 20.