[A " knowledge of God," and a delight in the exercise of " mercy" to the bodies and the souls of men, renders us con- formable to the image of Christ: it constitutes our meetness for heaven, where both our knowledge and our love will be perfected. But the performance of ceremonies, as has already been shewn, is worthless, if it be not instrumental to the pro- duction of humiliation and affiance, of purity and zeal. Duties which do not bring us to God, and God to us, are good for nothing.]
2. This argues real conversion ; whereas they will consist with the most ungodly state —
[No man can know God as reconciled to him in Christ Jesus, or love his fellow-creatures for Christ's sake, unless he be renewed in the spirit of his mind. He may possess carnal wisdom, together with humanity and compassion, while he is yet unregenerate : but, if he have that faith and that love which are the essential constituents of vital godliness, he must have been born again ; because he could not have these things, if they had not been given him from above. But any man may be observant of ceremonies ; as the Pharisees themselves were, at the very same time that they were slaves of pride, of covet- ousness, and of hypocrisy.]
3. This invariably honours God ; whereas they are often the means of greatly dishonouring him —
[The exercises of faith and love are but very partially seen by mortal eyes : their sublimer operations are known only to Him who beholds the secret desires of the soul. But that which is seen, compels men to acknowledge the excellence of true religion. Even the enemies of God are constrained to reverence the godly, and to admire the grace of God in them. But an attendance on ordinances is often substituted for the whole of religion ; as though God were no better than an idol, either not discerning, or at least not regarding, the dispositions of the heart. Can a greater insult than this be offered to Je- hovah ? or can any thing reflect more dishonour upon him in the world1?
Let vital godliness be thus contrasted with outward ob- servances, and the text will be seen in its full import.]
Address —
1. Those who are regardless of even the forms of religion —
[It is grievous to see how the Sabbaths are profaned, and the ordinances of the Gospel neglected. But consider,
i Ps.l. 13, 14.