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

II. I am to speak of the Exercise of Godliness. 1 Tim. 4.7. Exercise thy self to Godliness. It must be exercised both in Worship and Conversation; 2 Pet. 3.11. What manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness?

First; In Worship. What is the part and office of Godliness in Worship?

1. There must be a care that it be right. God will not be at the Creature's carving; his Honour is best kept up by his own Institutions, and therefore he will accept nothing but what he requires. The Woman of Samaria, as soon as she was converted, enquired after the right Worship: Christ had convinced her of Lewdness, and living in Adultery; John 4.18. The Man thou now hast, is not thy Husband. The great thing that troubled her, was her present standing, and the Superstition she was nuzzled and brought up in; ver. 20. Our Fathers worshipped in this Mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the Place where Men ought to worship. As soon as Men are awakened, that is the question; they can no longer be content with their ignorant, senseless, careless, ceremonial worshipping of God, and say, Thus our Fathers did: this will not serve the Conscience when it is a little stirred. It is said of the People of God, Jer. 50.5. They shall ask the way to Zion, with their Faces thitherward. Zion was the place of God's Residence and solemn Worship, and it is the disposition of his People still to be inquisitive after the way to Zion, how God is worshipped. I speak not this to unsettle Men, and to draw them to Scepticism and Irresolution, but partly that they might settle upon better grounds than Tradition, public Consent, and the Example of Men. Cyprian observes, that this is the reason Men are so fickle, so inconstant, so soon off and on, they do not practise those things upon good grounds. None so unconstant as they that practise things right and good, but not upon Principles. And partly that Men may not content themselves with a cheap Worship, such as costs them nothing, as when they do not enquire about the grounds and reasons of what they do, or when they do but even as others do. We should be still searching and proving what is acceptable unto the Lord,