the whole Happiness of the Saints there is to enjoy God, and their whole business is to praise him. And they who are to live in another Country, will be more solicitous to learn the language, and foreacquaint themselves with the manners and usages of that country, than they who have no hopes nor assurance of coming thither. As they who have hope to be like Christ in glory, will purify themselves, that they may in the mean time be like him in grace, 1 John 3.2, 3. So they that have hope to praise him for ever in heaven, will study the Song of Moses and of the Lamb before they come thither. And indeed none can praise God but they that can abase & deny themselves; wicked men in all duties serve and seek themselves. But the very formality of praise is to seek God, and to make him the End of our so doing. The Apostle exhorts us to offer our selves a living ⟨p. 25⟩sacrifice, Rom. 12.1. that is to say, to separate our selves for God, and for his uses. The sacrifice we know was Gods, for his sake it was burnt and broken, and destroyed. We must be such Sacrifices, deny our selves, be lost to our selves; not serve, nor seek, nor aim at our selves: but resolve to esteem nothing dear in comparison of Gods honour, and to be willing any way whether by life or by death that he may be magnified in us, Acts. 21.13. Phil. 1.20. Love of Communion in natural creatures is stronger then self-love; Stones will move upward, fire downward, to preserve the universe from a vacuity, and to keep the compages of nature together. How much more is, and ought the love of God himself in the new creature to be stronger then self-love whereby it seeks and serves it self? And without this, all other services are but Ananias hi• lye, lies to the holy Ghost, keeping to our selves what we would seem to bestow upon him. Lifting up the eyes, beating the breast, spreading the hands, bending the knee, hanging down the head, levelling the countenance, sighing, sobbing, fasting, howling, all, nothing else but mocking of God. And we may say of such men, as the Emperor of him that sold the glasses for pearl (though in a sadder sense) Imposturam faciunt & patientur. They deceive God, and fail in his precepts, and they shall be themselves deceived, and fail in their own expectation. For the hope of the wicked shall perish.
the whole Happinesse of the Saints there is to enjoy God, and their whole busin•sse is to praise him. And they who are to live in another Countrey, will be more solicitous to learn the language, and foreacquaint themselves with the manners and usages of that countrey, than they who have no hopes nor assurance of comming thither. As they who have hope to be like Christ in glory, will purifie themselves, that they may in the meane time be like him in grace, 1 John 3.2, 3. So they that have hope to praise him for ever in heaven, will study the Song of Moses and of the Lamb before they come thither. And indeed none can praise God but they that can abase & deny themselves; wicked men in all duties serve and seeke themselves. But the very formality of praise is to seek God, and to make him the End of our so doing. The Apostle exhorts us to offer our selves a living ⟨p. 25⟩sacrifice, Rom. 12.1. that is to say, to separate our selves for God, and for his uses. The sacrifice we know was Gods, for his sake it was burnt and broken, and destroyed. We must be such Sacrifices, deny our selves, be lost to our selves; not serve, nor seek, nor aime at our selves: but resolve to esteeme nothing dear in comparison of Gods honour, and to be willing any way whether by life or by death that hee may be magnified in us, Acts. 21.13. Phil. 1.20. Love of Communion in naturall creatures is stronger then self-love; Stones will move upward, fire downward, to preserve the universe from a vacuity, and to keep the compages of nature together. How much more is, and ought the love of God himself in the new creature to be stronger then selfe-love whereby it seeks and serves it self? And without this, all other services are but Ananias hi• lye, lies to the holy Ghost, keeping to our selves what we would seem to bestow upon him. Lifting up the eyes, beating the breast, spreading the hands, bending the knee, hanging down the head, levelling the countenance, sighing, sobbing, fasting, howling, all, nothing else but mocking of God. And we may say of such men, as the Emperor of him that sold the glasses for pearl (though in a sadder sense) Imposturam faciunt & patientur. They deceive God, and fail in his precepts, and they shall be themselves deceived, and faile in their owne expectation. For the hope of the wicked shall perish.
