cording to the conveniency of cohabitation. We must not be rude, nor do any thing that is naturally undecent in the worship of God; this authority fhould reftrain; but farther than this, I doubt not but the gofpel hath left us free; and to this end, that the lefs we are tied to external obfervances, the more intent we fhould be upon the fpiritual and fubftantial parts of religion, the conforming of ourfelves to the mind and will of God, endeavouring to be like unto God, and to have our fouls and spirits engaged in those duties we perform to him. So that our Saviour's argument is this; God is a Spirit, that is, the most excellent nature and being, and therefore must be ferved with the beft. We confift of body and foul, it is true, and we must serve him with our whole man, but principally with our fouls, which are the most excellent part of ourselves; the fervice of our mind and fpirit is the beft we can perform, and therefore most agreeable to God, who is a fpirit, and the best and most perfect being.

So that the inference is this, that if God be a spirit, we must worship him in spirit and in truth; our religion must be real, and inward, and fincere, and substantial: we must not think to put off God with external obfervances, and with bodily reverence and attendance; this we must give him, but we muft principally regard that our service of him be reasonable, that is, directed by our understandings, and accompanied with our affecti

ons.

Our religion must confift principally in a fincere love and affection to God, which expreffeth itself in a real conformity of our lives and actions to his will; and when we make our folemn approaches to him, in the duties of his worship and fervice, we muft perform all acts of outward worship to God with a pure and fincere mind: whatever we do in the fervice of God, we must do it heartily as to the Lord. God is a pure fpirit, prefent to our fpirits, intimate to our fouls, and conscious to the moft fecret and retired motions of our hearts: now because we ferve the fearcher of hearts, we must ferve him with our hearts.

Indeed if we did worship God only to be feen of men, a pompous and external worship would be very fuitable to fuch an end; but religion is not intended to please

men,

men, but God, and therefore it must be spiritual, and inward, and real.

And where-ever the external part of religion is principally regarded, and men are more careful to worship God with outward pomp and ceremony, than in fpirit and in truth, religion degenerates into fuperftition, and men embrace the fhadow of religion, and let go the fubftance. And this the church of Rome hath done, almoft to the utter ruin of Chriftianity: fhe hath clogged religion and the worship of God, with fo many rites and ceremonies, under one pretence or other, that the yoke of Chrift is become heavier than that of Mofes; and they have made the gospel a more carnal commandment than the law; and whatever Chriftians or churches are intent upon external rites and obfervances, to the neglect of the weightier parts of religion, regarding meats and drinks, &c. to the prejudice of righteoufnefs and peace, wherein the kingdom of God confifts, they advance a religion as contrary to the nature of God, and as unfuitable to the genius and temper of the gospel, as can be imagined.

It is an obfervation of Sir Edwin Sands, that as children are pleased with toys, fo, faith he, it is a pitiful and childish spirit that is predominant in the contrivers and zealots of a ceremonious religion. I deny not, but that very honest and devout men may be this way addicted; but the wifer any man is, the better he understands the nature of God and of religion, the farther he will be from this temper.

A religion, that confifts in external and little things, doth most easily gain upon and poffefs the weakest minds; and whoever entertain it, it will enfeeble their fpirits, and unfit them for the more generous and excellent duties of Chriftianity. We have but a finite heat, and zeal, and activity; and if we let out much of it upon fmall things, there will be too little left for those parts of religion which are of greatest moment and concernment: if our heat evaporate in externals, the heart and vitals of religion will infenfibly cool and decline.

How fhould we blufh, who are Chriftians, that we have not learnt this eafy truth from the gofpel, which even the light of nature taught the Heathen? Cultus au

tem

tem deorum eft optimus itemque fanétiffimus atque caftifimus, pleniffimufque pietatis, ut eos femper pura, integra & incorrupta mente & voce veneremur, Tully. "The best,

"the fureft, the most chaste, and most devout worship "of the Gods, is that which is paid them with a pure, "fincere, and uncorrupt mind, and words truly repre"fenting the thoughts of the heart." Compofitum jus fafque animi, &c. "Serve God with a pure, honest, holy frame of fpirit; bring a heart that is but generously honest, and he will accept of the plainest facri"fice."

66

And let me tell you, that the ceremonious worship of the Jews was never a thing in itself acceptable to God, or which he did delight in; and though God was pleased with their obedience to the ceremonial law after it was commanded, yet antecedently he did not defire it; but that which our Saviour faith concerning the law of divorce, is true likewife of the ceremonial, that it was permitted to the Jews for the hardness of their hearts, and for their proneness to idolatry. God did not command it fo much by way of approbation, as by way of condefcenfion to their weaknefs; it was because of the hardnefs of their carnal hearts, that God brought them under the law of a carnal commandment, as the Apostle calls it. See Pfal. li. 16. 17. Jer. vii. 21.

The reason why I have infifted fo long upon this, is, to let you understand what is the true nature of Chrift's religion, and to abate the intemperate heat and zeal which men are apt to have for external indifferent things in religion. The facrifices and rites of the Jews were very unagreeable and unfuitable to the nature of God. Pfal. 1. 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Spirits neither eat nor drink; it was a very unfuitable way of fervice to kill oxen and sheep for God; and there is the fame reason for all other rites, which either natural neceffity or decency doth not require. Can any man in earnest think, that God, who is a fpirit, is pleased with the pompous bravery and pageantry which affects our fenfes? So little doth God value indifferent rites, that even the neceffary external fervice of God, and outward reverence, where they are feparated from Spirit and truth, from real holiness and

obedience to the indifpenfible laws of Chrift, are fo far from being acceptable to God, that they are abominable; nay, if they be used for a cloak of fin, or in oppofition to real religion, and with a design to undermine it, God accounts fuch service in the number of the most heinous fins.

You, who fpend the ftrength and vigour of your fpirits about external things, whofe zeal for or against ceremonies is ready to eat you up; you who hate and perfecute one another because of these things, and break the neceffary and indifpenfible commands of love, as an indifferent and unneceffary ceremony, go and learn what that means, I will have mercy, and not facrifice, which our Saviour doth fo often inculcate; and that, Rom. xiv. 17. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, &c. And ftudy the meaning of this, God is a spirit, and they that worship him, muft worship him in fpirit and in truth.

SERMON

CLIV.

The Immensity of the divine nature.

PSAL. CXXXIX. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Whither shall I go from thy fpirit? or whither fhall I flee from thy prefence? If I afcend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermoft parts of the fea, even there fhall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand fhall hold me.

T

tere.

Hat attribute of God which I laft difcourfed of, is moft abfolute, and declares his effence most immediately; the fpirituality of the divine na

I fhall in the next place fpeak of those which relate to the manner of his being, immenfity and eternity, that is, the infinitenefs of his effence, both in refpect of fpace and duration; that the divine nature hath no limits of its being, nor bounds of its duration. I fhall at

the

་

the prefent fpeak to the first of these, his immenfity, and that from these words which I here read to you, Whither fball I go from thy fpirit, &c. The meaning of which is this, that God is a spirit infinitely diffusing himself, prefent in all places, fo that where-ever I go, God is there; we cannot flee from his prefence. If I afcend into heaven, he is there; if I go down into the grave, the place of filence and obfcurity, he is there; (for that is the meaning of the expreffion) if I make my bed in hell; if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the fea, even there fhall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand Jhall hold me; that is, if my motion fhould be as fwift as that of the light, which, when the fun rifeth, darts itself in an instant from one part of the world to another, over the earth and the fea, the remoteft parts of the world which are unknown to us, yet would God be prefent to me in the motion, and all along as I go mult I be led and upholden by him; fo that all thefe expreffions do but fignify to us the immenfity of God's cffence, that his being is infinitely dif fufed and present in all places.

In fpeaking to this attribute of God's immenfity, IX fhall,

1. Explain it to you a little.

2. Prove that it doth belong to him.

3. Anfwer an objection or two that may be made against it..

4. Draw fome doctrinal inferences from it.

5. Make fome use and improvement of it.

First, For the explication of it. By the immenfity of God, I mean, that his being hath no bounds or limits, but doth every way spread and diffuse itself beyond what we can imagine; fo that you cannot define the prefence of God by any certain place; fo as to fay, here he is, but not there; nor by any limits, so as to fay, thus far his being reacheth, and no farther; but he is every where present after a most infinite manner, in the darkest corners and moft private receffes; the most fecret closet that is in the whole world, the heart of man, darkness and privacy cannot keep him out; the prefence of another being, even of a body, which is the groffeft fubftance, doth not exclude him; the whole world doth

not