_Direct._ X. See that you perform every part of worship to the proper end to which it is appointed; both as to the ultimate, remote, and nearest end. The end is essential to these relative duties. If you intend not the right end, you make another thing of it: as the preaching of a sermon to edify the church, or putting up a prayer to procure God's blessings, is not the same thing as a stage-player's profane repeating the same words in scorn of godliness, or an hypocrite's using them for commodity or applause. The ultimate end of all worship and all moral actions is the same, even the pleasing and glorifying God, 1 Cor. x. 31; 2 Tim. ii. 4.[10] Besides which every part of worship hath its proper, nearest end. These must not only be distinctly known, but actually intended. It is God in Christ that a holy worshipper thirsteth after and seeketh for in every part of worship, either to know more of God, and of his will, and blessings; or to have some more communion with him, or some further grace communicated from him, to receive his pardoning, or cleansing, or quickening, or confirming, or comforting, or exalting grace; to be honoured or delighted in his holy service, or to make known his grace and glory for the good of others, and the honour of his name.[11] Here it is that God proclaimeth his name, as Exod. xxxiv. 6. The ordinances of God's worship are like the tree in which Zaccheus climbed up (being of himself too low) to have a sight of Christ. Here we come to learn the will of God for our salvation; and must enter the assembly with such resolutions as Cornelius and his company met, Acts x. 33, "We are all here met to hear all things commanded thee of God:" and as Acts ii. 37, and Acts xvi. 30, to learn what we must do to be saved. Hither we come for that holy light, which may show us our sin, and show us the grace which we have received, and show us the unspeakable love of God, till we are humbled for sin, and lifted up by faith in Christ, and can with Thomas, as it were, put our fingers into his wounds, and say in assurance, "My Lord and my God:" and as Psal. xlviii. 14, "This God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death." Here we do as it were with Mary sit at the feet of Jesus, to hear his word, Luke x. 39, that fire from heaven may come down upon our hearts, and we may say, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he spake to us, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?" Luke xxiv. 32. Here we cry to him as the blind man, Mark x. 51, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." We cry here to the watchmen, Cant. iii. 3, "Saw ye him whom my soul loveth." Here we are in his "banqueting house," under the "banner of his love," Cant. ii. 4. We have here the sealing and quickenings of his Spirit, the mortification of our sin, the increase of grace, and a prospect into eternal life, and a foresight of the endless happiness there. See then that you come to the worship of God with these intentions and expectations; that if God or conscience call to you, (as God did sometime to Elias,) "What dost thou here?" you may truly answer, I came to seek the Lord my God, and to learn his will that I might do it. And that your sweet delights may make you say, Psal. lxxxiv. 4, "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, they will be still praising thee." If thou come to the worship of God in mere custom, or to make thy carnal heart believe that God will forgive thee because thou so far servest him, or to quiet thy conscience with the doing of a formal task of duty, or to be seen of men, or that thou mayst not be thought ungodly, if these be thy ends, thou wilt speed accordingly. A holy soul cannot live upon the air of man's applause, nor upon the shell of ordinances, without God who is the kernel and the life of all: it is the love of God that brings them thither, and it is love that they are exercising there, and the end of love, even the nearer approach of the soul to God, which they desire and intend. Be sure then that these be the true and real intentions of thy heart.
[Sidenote: How to know that we have the right ends in worship.]
_Quest._ But how shall I know whether indeed it be God himself that I am seeking, and that I perform his worship to the appointed ends?