2. How are our hearts fixed upon him, How do they cleave to him in the duty? Do we resign our Spirits to God, and make them an entire Holocaust, a whole burnt-offering in his worship? Or do we not willingly admit carnal thoughts to mix themselves with spiritual duties, and fasten our minds to the Creature, under pretences ⟨p. 163⟩of directing them to the Creator? Do we not pass a mere complement on God, by some superficial act of devotion; while some covetous, envious, ambitious, voluptuous imagination may possess our minds? Do we not invert Gods Order, and worship a Lust instead of God with our Spirits, that should not have the least service, either from our Souls or Bodies, but with a spiritual disdain be sacrificed to the just indignation of God? How often do we fight against his Will, while we cry hail Master; instead of crucifying our own thoughts, crucifying the Lord of our Lives; Our outward carriage plausible, and our inward stark naught? Do we not often regard iniquity more than God in our hearts, in a time of worship? Roll some filthy imagination as a sweet morsel under our tongues, and taste more sweetness in that, than in God? Do not our Spirits smell rank of Earth, while we offer to Heaven, and have we not hearts full of thick Clay, as their hands were full of blood*? When we sacrifice, do we not wrap up our Souls in communion with some sordid fancy, when we should entwine our Spirits about an amiable God? While we have some fear of him, may we not have a love to something else above him? This is to worship, or swear by the Lord, and by Malchom*. How often doth an Apish-fancy render a service inwardly ridiculous, under a grave outward posture; skipping to the Shop, Ware-house, Counting-house in the space of a short Prayer? And we are before God as a Babel, a confusion of internal languages; and this in those parts of worship which are in the right use most agreeable to God; profitable for our selves; ruinous to the Kingdom of Sin and Satan, and means to bring us into a closer communion with the Divine Majesty: Can this be a spiritual worship?
2. How are our hearts fixed upon him, How do they cleave to him in the duty? Do we resign our Spirits to God, and make them an intire Holocaust, a whole burnt-offering in his worship? Or do we not willingly admit carnal thoughts to mix themselves with spiritual duties, and fasten our minds to the Creature, under pretences ⟨p. 163⟩of directing them to the Creator? Do we not pass a meer complement on God, by some superficial act of devotion; while some covetous, envious, ambitious, voluptuous imagination may possess our minds? Do we not invert Gods Order, and worship a Lust instead of God with our Spirits, that should not have the least service, either from our Souls or Bodies, but with a spiritual disdain be sacrificed to the just indignation of God? How often do we fight against his Will, while we cry hail Master; instead of crucifying our own thoughts, crucifying the Lord of our Lives; Our outward carriage plausible, and our inward stark naught? Do we not often regard iniquity more than God in our hearts, in a time of worship? Roul some filthy imagination as a sweet morsel under our tongues, and taste more sweetness in that, than in God? Do not our Spirits smell rank of Earth, while we offer to Heaven, and have we not hearts full of thick Clay, as their hands were full of blood*? When we sacrifice, do we not wrap up our Souls in communion with some sordid fancy, when we should entwine our Spirits about an amiable God? While we have some fear of him, may we not have a love to something else above him? This is to worship, or swear by the Lord, and by Malchom*. How often doth an Apish-fancy render a service inwardly ridiculous, under a grave outward posture; skipping to the Shop, Ware-house, Compting-house in the space of a short Prayer? And we are before God as a Babel, a confusion of internal languages; and this in those parts of worship which are in the right use most agreeable to God; profitable for our selves; ruinous to the Kingdom of Sin and Satan, and means to bring us into a closer communion with the Divine Majesty: Can this be a spiritual worship?
- *Isa. 1.15.
- *Zeph. 1.5.
