Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

Reason 2. We cannot else act towards God according to the nature of rational Creatures. Spiritual worship is due to God, because of his nature; and due from us, because of our nature. As we are to adore God, so we are to adore him as men: The nature of a rational Creature makes this impression upon him: He cannot view his own nature without having this duty striking upon his mind. As he knows by inspection into himself, that there was a God that made him; so, that he is made to be in subjection to God; subjection to him in his Spirit as well as his Body, and ought morally to testify this natural dependence on him: His constitution informs him, that he hath a capacity to converse with God; that he cannot converse with him, but by those inward faculties: If it could be managed by his Body without his Spirit, Beasts might as well converse with God as Men. It can never be a reasonable service as it ought to be^*, unless the reasonable faculties be employed in the management of it: It must be a worship prodigiously lame, without the concurrence of the chiefest part of Man with it. As we are to act conformably to the nature of the object, so also to the nature of our own faculties. Our faculties in the very gift of them to us were destined to be exercised; about what? What? All other things but the Author ⟨p. 157⟩of them: 'Tis a conceit cannot enter into the heart of a rational Creature, that he should act as such a Creature in other things, and as a stone in things relating to the Donor of them; as a man, with his mind about him in the affairs of the world, as a Beast without reason in his acts towards God. If a man did not employ his reason in other things, he would be an unprofitable Creature in the world: If he do not employ his spiritual faculties in worship, he denies them the proper end and use for which they were given him; 'tis a practical denial that God hath given him a Soul, and that God hath any right to the exercise of it. If there were no worship appointed by God in the world, the natural inclination of man to some kind of Religion would be in vain; and if our inward faculties were not employed in the duties of Religion, they would be in vain: The true end of God in the endowment of us with them would be defeated by us, as much as lies in us, if we did not serve him with that which we have from him solely at his own cost.

Reason 2. We cannot else act towards God according to the nature of rational Creatures. Spiritual worship is due to God, because of his nature; and due from us, because of our nature. As we are to adore God, so we are to adore him as men: The nature of a rational Creature makes this impression upon him: He cannot view his own nature without having this duty striking upon his mind. As he knows by inspection into himself, that there was a God that made him; so, that he is made to be in subjection to God; subjection to him in his Spirit as well as his Body, and ought morally to testifie this natural dependance on him: His constitution informs him, that he hath a capacity to converse with God; that he cannot converse with him, but by those inward faculties: If it could be managed by his Body without his Spirit, Beasts might as well converse with God as Men. It can never be a reasonable service as it ought to be