doctrines, are heterodox, they are shall receive his pay. They who not free from the sins which they reprove in others. Plutarch's servant upbraided him, " It is not as my master Plutarch saith; he hath written a book against wrath, anger, et ipse mihi irascitur,-yet he falls into a passion of anger with me:" So this minister preacheth against drunkenness, yet he will be drunk; he preacheth against swearing,-yet he will swear; this reproacheth God, and makes the offering of the Lord to be abhorred. 3. Masters of families, do ye glorify God, season your children and servants with the knowledge of the Lord; your houses should be little churches: to the 2d. Gen. xviii. 19., "I know that God.' Abraham will command his children that they may keep the way of the Lord." You that are masters, know you have a charge of souls under you; for want of the bridle of family-discipline, youth runs wild. Well, let me lay down some motives to glorify God. have lived, and brought no glory to God, how can they think of dying with comfort? They cannot expect an harvest; they never sowed any seed. How can they expect glory from God, that never brought any glory to him? O in what horror will they be at death! the worm of conscience will gnaw their souls, before the worms are gnawing their bodies. 2 Mot. If we glorify God, he will glorify our souls for ever; by raising God's glory, we increase our own; by glorifying God, we come at last to the blessed enjoying of him. And that brings me 'The enjoying of II. Man's chief end is to enjoy God for ever, Ps. lxxiii. 25., "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" that is, What is there in heaven I desire to enjoy but thee? There is twofold fruition or enjoying of God; the one is in this life, the other in the life to come. 1st. An enjoying of God here in this life: The enjoying of God's presence; it is a great matter to enjoy God's ordinances (a mercy that some do envy us), but to enjoy God's presence in the 1. Mot. It will be a great comfort in a dying hour to think we have glorified God in our lives. It was Christ's comfort before his death: John xvii. 4., "I have glorified thee on the earth." At ordinances, is that which a grathe hour of death, all your earthly cious heart aspires after, Ps. lxiii. comforts will vanish. If you 2., "To see thy glory so as I think how rich you have been, - have seen thee in the sanctuary." what pleasures you have had on This sweet enjoying of God is, earth, this will be so far from when we feel his Spirit co-opercomforting you, that it will but ating with the ordinance, and torment you the more. What is distilling grace upon our hearts: one the better for an estate that 1. When in the word the Spirit is spent ? But now, to have doth quicken and raise the affec tions, Luke xxiv. 32., ' Did not our hearts burn within us?' 2. When the Spirit doth transform the heart, leaving an impress of conscience telling you that you have glorified God on earth, what sweet comfort and peace will this let in to your soul! How will this make you long for death! holiness upon it, 2 Cor. iii. 18., The servant that hath been all "We are changed into the same day working in the vineyard, image, from glory to glory." longs till evening comes when he When the Spirit doth revive the heart with comfort, it comes not is violent, reason or conscience only with its anointing, but its cannot be heard, the beast rides seal; it sheds God's love abroad the man. These lusts, when in the heart, Rom. v. 5. This is they are enjoyed, do besot and to enjoy God in an ordinance, 1 dispirit persons, Hos. iv. 11., John i. 3. Our fellowship is "Whoredom and wine take away with the Father, and with his the heart," they have no heart Son Jesus Christ." In the word, for any thing that is good. How we hear God's voice, and in the many make it their chief end not sacrament we have his kiss; this to enjoy God, but to enjoy their is enjoying of God, and what in- lusts! As that cardinal said, finite content doth a gracious soul "Let him but keep his cardinalfind in this! The heart being ship of Paris, and he was content warmed and inflamed in a duty, to lose his part in Paradise." this is God's answering by fire. When a Christian hath the sweet illapses of God's Spirit, these are the first-fruits of glory, when God comes down to the soul in an ordinance; now, Christ hath pulled off his vail, and showed his smiling face; now, he hath led a believer into the banquetinghouse, and given him of the 'spiced wine' of his love to drink; he hath put in his finger at the hole of the door; he hath touched the heart, and made it leap for joy. O how sweet is it thus to enjoy God! The godly have, in the use of the ordinances, had such divine raptures of joy, and soul-transfigurations, that they have been carried above the world, and have despised all things here below. Lust first bewitcheth with pleasure, and then comes the fatal dart, Prov. vii. 23., "Till a dart strike through his liver." This should be as a flaming sword to stop men in the way of their carnal delights. Who would for a drop of pleasure drink a sea of wrath? Use 2. Let it be our great care to enjoy God's sweet presence here, which is the beauty and comfort of the ordinances. Enjoying spiritual communion with God, is a riddle and mystery to most people: every one that hangs about the court doth not speak with the king. We may approach to God in ordinances, and, as it were, hang about the court of heaven, yet not enjoy communion with God; we may have the letter without the Spirit, the visible sign without the invisible grace; it is the enjoying of God Use 1. Is the enjoying of God in this life so sweet? How prodigiously wicked are they that prefer the enjoying of their lusts, in a duty we should chiefly look before the enjoying of God! 1 at, Ps. xlii. 2, "My soul thirstJohn ii. 16., "The lust of the eth for God, for the living God." flesh, the lust of the eye, the Alas! what are all our worldly pride of life," is the Trinity they enjoyments without the enjoying worship. Lust is an inordinate of God? What is it to enjoy a desire or impulse, provoking the soul to that which is evil. There is the revengeful lust, and the wanton lust. Lust is like a feverish heat, it puts the soul into a flame. Aristotle calls sensual lusts brutish, because, when any lust great deal of health, a brave estate, and not to enjoy God? Job xxx. 28., " I went mourning without the sun." So mayest thou say in the enjoyment of all creatures without God, "I went mourning without the sun." I have the star-light of outward | bosom; only "the pure in heart enjoyments, but I cannot enjoy shall see God;" we must first be, God, I want the Sun of Right- as the king's daughter, glorious eousness. " I went mourning within, before we are clothed with the robes of glory. As king Ahasuerus first caused the virgins to be purified and anointed, and they had their sweet odours to perfume them, and then they went to stand before the king, without the sun." This should be our great design, not only to have the ordinances of God, but the God of the ordinances. The enjoying of God's sweet presence with us here, is the most contented life: he is an hive of Esth. ii. 12., so must we; we sweetness, a magazine of riches, must have the anointing of God, a fountain of delight, Ps. xxxvi. and be perfumed with the graces 8,9. The higher the lark flies, of the Spirit, those sweet odours, the sweeter it sings; and the and then we shall stand before higher we fly by the wing of the King of heaven. Now, being faith, the more of God we enjoy, thus divinely qualified by grace, the sweeter delight we feel in we shall be taken up to the our souls. How is the heart in-mount of vision, and enjoy God flamed in prayer and meditation! for ever. This enjoying God for What joy and peace in believing! ever is nothing else but to be Is it not comfortable being in heaven? He that enjoys much of God in this life, carries heaven about him. O let this be the thing we are chiefly ambitious of, the enjoying of God in his ordinances; remember, the enjoying of God's sweet presence here is an earnest of our enjoying him in heaven. And that brings us to the second thing, viz. put in a state of happiness. As the body cannot have life but by having communion with the soul, so the soul cannot have blessedness, but by having immediate communion with God. God is the summum bonum, the chief good; therefore the enjoying of him is the highest felicity. He is, I say, the chief good. "a 1. He is an universal good,bonum in quo omnia bona, good, in which are all goods." 2d. The enjoying of God in the life to come: Man's chief The excellencies of the creature end is to enjoy God for ever. are limited. A man may have Before this plenary fruition of health, not beauty; learning, not God in heaven, there must be parentage; riches, not wisdom; something previous and antece- but in God are eminently condent; and that is, our being in a state of grace. We must have conformity to him in grace, before we can have communion with him in glory; grace and glory are linked and chained together; grace precedes glory, as the morning-star ushers in the sun. God will have us qualified and fitted for a state of blessedness. Drunk- who gave himself to find out this ards and swearers are not fit to philosopher's stone, -to search enjoy God in glory; the Lord out for an happiness here below, will not lay such vipers in his -he found vanity and vexation, tained all excellencies. He is a good, commensurate fully to the soul; he is a sun, a portion, an horn of salvation; in him dwells "all fulness," Col. i. 19.-2. God is an unmixed good. No condition in this life but hath its mixture; for every drop of honey there is a drop of gall. Solomon Eccl. i. 2. But God is a perfect, Other things maintain life,-he quintessential good. He is sweet- gives life. But who would go to ness in the flower.-3. God is a put any thing in balance with the satisfying good; The soul cries Deity? Who would weigh a out, I have enough, Ps. xvii. 15., feather with a mountain of gold? "I shall be satisfied with thy God excels all other things more likeness." A man that is thirsty, infinitely than the sun the light bring him to the ocean, and he of a taper.-6. God is an eternal hath enough. If there be enough good. He is "the ancient of in God to satisfy the angels, then days," Dan. vii. 9., yet never sure, enough to satisfy us. The decays, nor waxes old. The joy soul is but finite, but God is an he gives is eternal, the crown uncreated infinite good. And yet fadeth not away, 1 Peter v. 4. though God be such a good as The glorified soul shall be ever doth satisfy; yet not surfeit. solacing itself in God; it shall Fresh joys spring continually be feasting on his love, and sunfrom God's face; and God is as ning itself in the light of his much to be desired after millions countenance. We read of " the of years by glorified souls, as at river of pleasure at God's right the first moment. There is so hand;" but will not this in time be dried up? No, there is a fountain at the bottom which feeds it, Ps. xxxvi. 9., " With the Lord is the fountain of life." Thus God is the chief good, and the enjoying God for ever is the supreinest felicity the soul is capable of. much fulness in God as satisfies, yet so much sweetness, that the soul still desires; it is satisfaction without surfeit.-4. God is a delicious good. That which is the chief good must ravish the soul with pleasure; there must be in it spirits of delight and quintessence of joy, and this is to be enjoyed only in God, In Deo quadam dulcedine delectatur animo, immo rapitur: The love of God drops such infinite suavity into the soul as is unspeakable and full of glory. If there be so much delight in God, when we see him only by faith, 1 Peter i. 8., what will the joy of vision be when we shall see him face to face? If the saints have found so much delight in God while they were suffering, O then what joy and delight will they have in the compass, and is never at when they are crowning! If rest till it comes to God. 1st. Use of Exhortation. Let it be the chief end of our living to enjoy this chief good hereafter; this is that which will crown us with happiness. Austin reckons up 288 opinions among the philosophers about happiness, but all did shoot short of the mark. The highest elevation of a reasonable soul is to enjoy God for ever. is the enjoying God that makes heaven, 1 Thess. iv. 17., " Then shall we ever be with the Lord." The soul trembles, as the needle It flames are beds of roses, O then To set out this excellent state what will it be to lean on the of a glorified soul's enjoying God: bosom of Jesus! What a bed of 1. This enjoying of God must roses will that be!-5. God is a not be understood in a sensual superlative good. He is better manner; we must not conceive than any thing you can put in any carnal pleasures in heaven. competition with him; he is bet- The Turks, in their Alcoran, ter than health, riches, honour. speak of a paradise of pleasure, Through our blessed rock, Christ, we shall behold the beatifical sight of God.-5. This enjoyment of God shall be more than a bare contemplation of him. Some of the learned move the question, Whether the enjoyment of God where they have riches in abun-vision of God. Moses in a cleft dance, and red wine served in of the rock saw the glory of God golden chalices. Here is an hea- passing by, Exod. xxxiii. 21. ven, consisting of pleasures for the body; the epicures of this age would like such an heaven when they die. Though indeed the state of glory be compared to a feast, and is set out by pearls and precious stones, yet these metaphors are only to be helps shall be only by way of contemto our faith, and to shew us that plation? Ans. That is somethere is superabundant joy and thing, but it is but one half of felicity in the empyrean heaven; heaven; there shall be a loving but those are not carnal, but of God, an acquiescence in him, sacred delights, -as our employ--a tasting his sweetness, -not ment shall be spiritual, it will only inspection but possession : consist in adoring and praising John xvii. 24., "That they may of God; so our enjoyment shall behold my glory," - there be spiritual, it shall consist in inspection; V. 22., "And the is glory thou hast given me, I have given them," there is possession. "Glory shall be revealed in us, Rom. viii. 18; not only revealed to us, but in us. To behold God's glory, there is glory revealed to us; but, to partake of his glory, there is glory revealed in us. As the spunge sucks in the wine, so shall we suck in glory.-5. There having the perfection of holiness, in seeing the pure face of Christ, in feeling the love of God, in conversing with heavenly spirits. These delights will be more adequate and proper for the soul, and infinitely exceed all carnal and voluptuous delights.-2. We shall have a lively sense of this glorious estate. A man in a lethargy, though he be alive, yet he is as is no intermission in this state of good as dead, because he is not glory. We shall not only have sensible, nor doth he take any God's glorious presence at certain pleasure in his life: we shall special seasons, but we shall be have a quick and lively sense of continually in his presence, conthe infinite pleasure which ariseth tinually under divine raptures of from enjoyment of God, we joy. There shall not be one shall know ourselves to be happy, minute in heaven wherein a glori-we shall reflect with joy upon fied soul may say, I do not enjoy our dignity and felicity, we shall happiness. The streams of glory taste every crumb of that sweet- are not, like the water of a conduit, ness, every drop of that pleasure which flows from God.-3. We shall be made able to bear a sight of that glory. We could not now bear that glory, it would overwhelm us, as a weak eye cannot behold the sun; but God mount of transfiguration ! How often stopped, that we cannot have one drop of water; but those heavenly streams of joy are continually running. O how should we despise this valley of tears, where we now are, for the will capacitate us for glory; our souls shall be so heavenly and perfected with holiness, that they may be able to enjoy the blessed should we long for the full enjoyment of God in paradise! Had we a sight of that land of promise, we should need patience |