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2. The second end God hath appointed divine ordin­ances and religious duties for, is to be a means whereby he may let out himself to his people, and communi­cate the choicest of his blessings into their bosoms.‘There,’ saith the psalmist, speaking of the mountain of Zion, where the temple stood, the place of God's worship, ‘the Lord com­manded the blessing, even life for evermore,’ Ps. 133:3; that is, he hath ap­pointed the blessing of life spiritual, grace, and com­fort, which at last shall swell into life eternal, to issue and stream thence.  The saints ever drew their water out of these wells.  ‘Your heart shall live that seek God,’ Ps. 69:32.  And their souls must needs die that seek not God here.  The husbandman may as well expect a crop where he never plowed and sowed; and the tradesman to grow rich, who never opens his shop-doors to let customers in; as he to thrive in grace, or comfort, that converseth not with the duties of religion.  The great things God doth for his people are got in communion with him.  Now here appears the power of holiness—when a soul makes this his business, which he follows close, and attends to, in duties of religion, viz. to receive some spiritual ad­vantage from God by them.  As a scholar knowing he is sent to the university to get learning himself, gives up to pursue this, and neglects other things (it is not riches, or pleasures he looks after, but learning); thus, too, the gracious soul bestirs him, and flees from one duty to another, as the bee from flower to flower, to store itself with more and more grace.  It is not credit and reputation to be thought a great saint, but to be indeed such, that he takes all this pains for.  The Christian is compared to a merchantman that trades for rich pearls; he is to go to ordinances, as the mer­chant that sails from port to port, not to see places, but to take in his lading, some here, some there.  A Christian should be as much ashamed to return empty from his traffic with ordinances, as the mer­chant to come home without his lading.  But, alas! how little is this looked after by many that pass for great professors, who are like some idle persons that come to the market, not to buy provision, and carry home what they want, but to gaze and look upon what is there to be sold, to no purpose.  O my brethren, take heed of this!  Idleness is bad anywhere, but worst in the market-place, where so many are at work before thy eyes, whose care for their souls both adds to thy sin, and will, another day, to thy shame.  Dost thou not see others grow rich in grace and comfort, by their trading with those ordinances, from which thou comest away poor and beggarly? and canst thou see it without blushing?  If thou hadst but a heart to pro­pound the same end to thy soul, when thou comest, thou mightest speed as well as they.  God allows a free trade to all that value Christ and his grace, according to their preciousness.  ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price,’ Isa. 55:1. The Spirit of God seems, in the judgment of some, to allude to a certain custom in maritime towns.  When a ship comes with commodities to be sold, they use to cry them about the town.  ‘Oh, all that would have such and such commodities, let them come to the waterside, where they are to be had at such a price.’ Thus Christ calls every one that sees his need of him; and of his graces, to the ordinances, where these are to be freely had of all that come to them, for this very end.

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Second. In a close and vigorous pursuance of those ends for which God hath appointed them.  Now there is a double end which God chiefly aims at in duties of his worship.  1. God intends that by them we should do our homage to him as our sovereign Lord. 2. He intends them to be as means through which he may let out himself into the bosoms of his children, and communicate the choicest of his blessings to them.  Now here the power of holiness puts forth it­self, when the Christian attends narrowly to reach these ends in every duty he performs.

1. God appoints them for this end, that we may do our homage to him as our sovereign Lord.Were there not a worship paid to God, how should we de­clare and make it appear that we hold our life and being on him?  One of the first things that God taught Adam, and Adam his children, was in divine worship.  Now if we will do this holily, we must make it our chief care so to perform every duty, that by it we may sanctify his name in it, and give him the glory due unto him.  A subject may offer a present after such a ridiculous fashion to his prince, that he may count himself rather scorned than honoured by him.  The soldiers bowed the knee to Christ, but they ‘mocked him,’ Matt. 27:29, and so does God reckon that many do by him, even while they worship him. By the carriage and behaviour of ourselves in religious duties, we speak what our thoughts are of God him­self.  He that performs them with a holy awe upon his spirit, and comes to them filled with faith and fear, with joy and trembling—he declares plainly that he believes God to be a great God and a good God—a glorious majesty and a gracious.  But he that is care­less and slovenly in them, tells God himself to his face that he hath mean and low thoughts of him.  The misbehaviour of a person in religious duties, ariseth from his misapprehensions of God whom he wor­ships.  What is engraven on the seal, you shall surely see printed on the wax.  And what thoughts the heart hath of God, are stamped on the duties the man per­forms.  Abel showed himself to be a holy man, and Cain appeared a wicked wretch, in their sacrifice. And how? but in this—that Abel aimed at that end which God intends in his worship—the sanctifying {of} his name—but which, Cain minded not at all.  This may appear by comparing Abel’s sacrifice with his, in two particulars.

           (1.) Abel is very choice in the matter of his sac­ri­fice—not any of the flock that comes first to hand, but ‘the firstlings;’ nor does he offer the lean of them to God, and save the fat for himself, but gives God the best of the best.  But of Cain’s offering no such care is recorded to be taken by him.  It is only said, that he, ‘brought of the fruit of the ground, an offering unto the Lord,’ but not a word that it was the first fruit or the best fruit, Gen. 4:3, 4.  Again,

           (2.) Abel did not put God off with a beast or two for a sacrifice; but with them give his heart also.  ‘By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,’ Heb. 11:4.  He gave God the inward wor­ship of his soul; and this was it that God took so kindly at his hands, for which he obtained a testi­mony from God himself that he was ‘righteous.’ Whereas Cain thought it enough—if not too much —to give him a little of the fruit of the ground.  Had the wretch but considered who God was, and what was his end in requiring an offering at his hands, he could not have thought rationally that a handful or two of corn was that which he prized or looked at, any further than to be a sign of that inward and spiritual worship which he expected to come along with the outward ceremony.  But he showed what base and un­worthy thoughts he had of God, and accordingly he dealt with him.  O Christians! remember when you engage in any duty of religion, that you go to do your homage to God, who will be worshipped like himself.  ‘Cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen,’ Mal. 1:14.  This made David so curious about the temple which he had in his heart to build, ‘because this palace is not for man, but for the Lord God,’ I Chr. 29:1; therefore he saith, he ‘prepared with all my might for the house of his God,’ ver. 2.  Thus should the gracious soul say, when going to any duty of religion, ‘It is not man, but the Lord God, I am going to minister unto, and therefore I must be serious and solemn, holy and humble,’ &c.

The Power of Holiness is Expressed in the Duties of God’s Worship

Second Instance.  The Christian must exert the power of holiness in the duties of God’s worship.  The same light that shows us a God, convinceth us he is to be worshipped, and not only so, but that he will be worshipped in a holy manner also.  God was very choice in all that belonged to his worship under the law.  If he hath a tabernacle—the place of worship—it must be made of the choicest materials; the workmen employed to make it must be rarely gifted for the pur­pose; the sacrifices to be offered up, the best in every kind, the males of the flock, the best of the beasts, the fat of the inwards, not the offals.  The persons that at­tend upon the Lord, and minister unto him, they must be peculiarly holy.  What is the gospel of all this? but that God is very wonderful in his worship.  If in any action of our lives we be more holy than in others, sure it is to be, when we have to do with God immediately.  Now this holiness in duties of worship should appear in these particulars.

           First. In making conscience of one duty as well as another.  The Christian must encompass all within his religious walk.  It is dangerous to perform one duty, that we may dispense with ourselves in the neglect of another.  Partiality is hateful to God, espec­ially in the duties of religion—which have all a divine stamp upon them.  There is no ordinance of God’s appointment which he doth not bless to his people; and we must not reject what God owns.  Yea, God communicates himself with great variety to his saints, now in this, anon in that, on purpose to keep up the esteem of all in our hearts.  The spouse seeks her Beloved in secret duty at home, and finds him not; then she goes to the public, and meets ‘him whom her soul loveth,’ Song 3:4.  Daniel, no doubt, had often vis­ited the throne of grace, and been a long trader in that duty; but God reserved the fuller manifestation of his love, and the opening of some secrets to him, till he did, to ordinary prayer, join extraordinary fasting and prayer.  Then the commandment came forth, and a messenger from heaven was despatched to acquaint him with God's mind and heart, Dan. 9:3 compared with ver. 23.  There is no duty, but the saints, at one time or another, find the Spirit of God breath­ing sweetly in, and filling their souls from it, with more than ordinary refreshing. 

Sometimes the child sucks its milk from this breast, sometimes from that.  David, in meditation, while he was ‘musing,’ Ps. 39:3, finds a heavenly heat kindling in his bosom, till at last the fire breaks out.  To the eunuch in ‘reading’ of the word, Acts 8:27, 28, is sent Philip to join his chariot; to the apostles, Christ ‘makes known himself in breaking of bread,’ Luke 24:35; the disciples walking to Emmaus, and conferring together, presently have Christ fall in with them, Luke 24:15, who helps them to untie those knots which they were posed with; Cor­nelius, at duty in his house, has ‘a vision,’ Acts 10:3 from heaven, to direct him in the way he should walk. Take heed, Christian, therefore that thou neglectest not any one duty.  How knowest thou, but that is the door at which Christ stands waiting to enter at into thy soul?  The Spirit is free.  Do not bind him to this or that duty, but wait on him in all.  It is not wisdom to let any water run past thy mill, which may be useful to set thy soul a-going heavenward. 

May be, Chris­tian, thou findest little in those duties thou per­formest; they are empty breasts to thy soul.  It is worth thy inquiry, whether there be not some other thou neglectest?  Thou hearest the word with little profit, may be?  I pray, tell me, dost thou not neglect sacraments?  I am sure too many do, and that upon weak grounds, God knows.  And wilt thou have God meet thee in one ordinance, who dost not meet him in another?  Or, if thou frequentest all public ordin­ances, is not God a great stranger to thee at home, in thy house and closet?  What communion dost thou hold with him in private duties?  Here is a hole wide enough to lose all thou gettest in public, if not timely mended.  Samuel would not sit down to the feast with Jesse and his sons, till David, though the youngest son, was fetched, who was also the only son what was wanting, I Sam. 16:11.  If thou wouldst have God’s company in any ordinance, thou must wait on him in all; he will not have any willingly neglected.  Oh fetch back that duty which thou hast sent away; though least in thy eye, yet, it may be, it is that which God means to crown with his choicest blessing to thy soul.