A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

4. If we do not care to please him, it is Ungodliness: If we make it our Work and the Drift of our Lives, to find out what may be pleasing and acceptable to God in order to Practice, and value our Lives for this End only, that we may serve God; it is a sign Grace is planted in the Heart. But now ungodly Men neither care to know the ways of God, nor to walk in them: They that are willingly ignorant, and do not search to know how God will be served and pleased, and make this their Work, they do not count God their chiefest Good: They search not, that they may not practice; they err not in their Mind only, but in their Hearts; Psal. 95.10. ⟨p. 38⟩It is a People that do err in their Hearts, they have not known my ways. To err in the Mind, may be through invincible Ignorance; but a Man errs in his Heart, when he doth not desire to know God, and to know his Will, and what he must do in Worship and Conversation, but saith, I do not desire to know God; Job 21.14. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the Knowledge of thy ways. Therefore he that doth not make it his great Work, and the Business of his Life, to find out what God would have him do, he is ungodly. Usually this is found in Men half convinced, they have not a Mind to know that which they have not a Mind to do; and so they are willingly ignorant. But now a godly Man makes it the Business of his Life still to follow God Foot by Foot, to know more of his Mind and Will: Rom. 12.2. That you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect VVill of God. Ephes. 5.12. Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. A true Christian always practiseth what he knows, and still searcheth, that he may know more; he would be always more useful for God, and more according to his Heart; that is the Study, the great Business and Project of his Life, to find out God's Will, and then practise it. What shall I do more for God?

4. If we do not care to please him, it is Ungodliness: If we make it our Work and the Drift of our Lives, to find out what may be pleasing and acceptable to God in order to Practice, and value our Lives for this End only, that we may serve God; it is a sign Grace is planted in the Heart. But now ungodly Men neither care to know the ways of God, nor to walk in them: They that are willingly ignorant, and do not search to know how God will be served and pleased, and make this their Work, they do not count God their chiefest Good: They search not, that they may not practice; they err not in their Mind only, but in their Hearts;