_Direct._ V. Look carefully to the state of thy soul, that thou bring not an unholy heart to worship the most holy God. Come not in the love of sin, nor in the hatred of holiness; for otherwise thou hatest God, and art hated of him, as bringing that before him which he cannot but hate. And it is easy to judge how unfit they are to worship God, that hate him; and how unlike they are to be accepted by him whom he hateth. Psal. v. 3-7, "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord: in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up: for thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight; thou hatest all the workers of iniquity.--Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercies, and in thy fear will I worship towards thy holy temple." Psal. lxvi. 18, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Psal. xv. 1, 2, "Who shall abide in God's tabernacle, but he that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness?" God will be sanctified in them that come nigh him, Lev. x. 3; and are unsanctioned persons fit for this? And can the unholy offer him holy worship? "The carnal mind is enmity against God;" is it fit then to serve and honour him? Rom. i. 7, 8. See 2 Cor. vi. 15-18. "Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity," 2 Tim. ii. 19. It is a purified, peculiar, holy people that Christ hath redeemed to be the worshippers of God, and as priests to "offer him acceptable sacrifice," Tit. ii. 14; 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9. If you will "receive the kingdom that cannot be moved, you must have grace in your hearts to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire," Heb. xii. 28, 29. I know an ungodly person, as soon as he hath any repenting thoughts, must express them in confession and prayer to God. But as no prayers of an ungodly man are profitable to him, but those which are acts of his penitent return towards God; so no worship of God hath a promise of divine acceptance, but that which is performed by such as sincerely return to God (and such are not ungodly). "The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight," Prov. xv. 8. I know the wicked must "seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near;" but it must be in "forsaking his way and thoughts, and turning to the Lord," Isa. lv. 6, 7. Simon Magus must first "repent of his wickedness," and then pray that the thoughts of his heart may be forgiven him, Acts viii. 22. O come not in thy unholy, carnal state to worship God, unless it be as a penitent returner to him, to lament first thy sin and misery, that thou mayst be sanctified and reconciled, and fit to worship him.
_Direct._ VI. Yet take it not as sufficient that thou art in a state of sanctification, but also particularly sanctify thyself to every particular address to God in holy worship. Even the child of a king will not go rudely in dirt and filthiness into his father's presence. Who would not search his heart and life, and cleanse his soul from his particular pollution, by renewed repentance and purposes of reformation, before he venture to speak to God? Particular sins have made sad breaches between God and his children, and made foul work in souls that the blood of Christ had cleansed. Search therefore with fear, lest there should be any reviving sin, or any hidden root of bitterness, or any transgression which thou winkest at or wilfully cherishest in thyself; that, if there be such, thou mayst bewail and hate it, and not come to God as if he had laid by his hatred of sin.