OF SPIRITtTAL MINDEDNESS. 171 2. " That they may be accompainedwith godly fear and reverence." These are required of us, in all wherein we have to do with God, Heb. xii. 28, 29. And as the scripture doth not more abound with pre- cepts to any duty, so the nature of God and our own, with the infinite distance between them, make it indis- pensably necessary, even in the light of the natural conscience. Infinite greatness, infinite holiness, infinite power, all which God is, command the uttermost re- verential fear that our natures are capable of. The want hereof is the spring of innumerable evils, yea, in- deed, of all that is so. Hence are blasphemous abuses of the holy name of God, in cursed oaths and execra- tions ; hence it is taken in vain, in ordinary exclama- tions ; hence is all formality in religion. It is the spiritual mind alone that can reconcile those things which are prescribed us as our duty towards God. To delight and rejoice in him always, to tri- umph in the remembrance of him, to draw nigh to him with boldness and confidence, are on the one handpre- scribed to us; and on the other it is so, that we fear and tremble before him, that we " fear that great and dreadful name, the Lord our God ;" that we have grace to serve himwith reverence and godly fear, be- cause he is a consuming fire. These things carnal rea- son can .comprehend no consistency in ; what it is afraid of, it cannot delight in ; and what it delights in, it will not long fear. But the consideration of faith ( concerning what God is in himself, and what he will be to us) gives these different graces their distinct operations, and a blessed reconciliation in our souls. Wherefore all our thoughts of God ought to be accom- panied with an holy awe and reverence, from a due sense of his greatness, holiness, and power. Two
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