200 NEARNESS TO GOD CSERM. XI. God should be numbered among the instruments of real misery. Does Satan, the fallen angel, solicit our youth with his flatteries; that it is time enough to mind religion yet; let us have, a few more gaudy days first ? Does he frighten the aged sinner with terrible falsehoods, and tempt him to an utter despair of grace ? Let his wicked suggestions be renounced with disdain, and let him never prevail to keep one soul of us at a distance from God ; for his first business was to divide us fromGod, and to ruin our happiness: And it is. his daily employment to hold us fast in the chains of iniquity and death, and thus to prevent our return to God. . Does ..the flesh allure us to pursue sinful delights ? Does it awaken and charm our imagination with the flowery and fatal scenes of luxury and mirth? Do the lusts of the flesh, or the lusts of the eye, persuade us to seek happiness among them? And tempt us, at least for the present, to lay aside the thoughts of God ? Let us set a strict guard upon ourselves, and watch all the avenues of sense and appetite, lest we be drawn off from the practice of piety, and the service, and the love of God, where true happiness is only to be found. Doyou find, O christians, that the world begins to creep into your hearts ? Do you find any creature sit too near your souls, and take up any of that time and room which God should have there ? Awake, betimes, and bestir yourselves, lest it divide you from your hap- piness. When you feel your spirits at any time grow cold in religious worship, when you can pass a day with an indifference about secret converse with God, and be content to be long absent from him, search with dili- gence what enemy it is that has crept in secretly, and in- terposes betwixt God and you; and whenyou have found it, never rest, till by the aids of divine grace, you have removed the idol from your thoughts, and your soul be restored to its holy nearness to God again. I might say in general, concerning all this world, keep your hearts aloof from it, while your hands, and perhaps your heads too, are engaged in the necessary affairs of it. The nearer your souls. are to the creatures, the farther they depart fromGod and blessedness. As a natural con- sequence from this thought, we may raise a is ,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=