SEAM. XI.] THE FELICITY ÓF CREATURES. 201 VII. Reflection. Wanderings, and vain thoughts in the time' of religious worship, are, and will be, the great burdens of a child of God ;- for they clog him, and keep him down, when he would rise to his heavenly Father; they are bars in his way to blessedness; for they hinder his approach to-God. But what wretched creatures are we, if we indulge vain thoughts, and worldly images and idols in the house of God, without complaint, and with- out mourning ! What holy-shame and repentance should it work in us, to think, that even in the place where the great and blessed God comes to spew his fáce, we should be building up walls and partitions to hide his face from us! that we should turn away our faces from, him in the hour when he comes on purpose to meet us. I might add, as a concluding reflection, that it is a tiresome bondage to a saint, in a devout frame, to dwell so long in this body of flesh and blood. This mortal state prevents our complete happiness every hour that we ..tarry in it. Whilewe sojourn in this tabernacle, we are so much the farther from God; while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, Q' Cor. v. 6. This mortal flesh is a painful veil to the lively christian, for it divides him from the sight and full enjoyment of his chosen blessedness. At the best we see God but darkly through a glass while we dwell here; the moment of release places us in the region of spirits, where we shall see him face to face, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. Though all these reflections may afford us many useful rules for our practice, yet I will not finish the discourse without a few inferences which are more expressly prac- tical PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS. I. Give all glory to God for ever, who brings himselfso near to us: He puts us thus far in the road to happiness, when he builds his houses amongst us, when he ap- proaches to us in his holy ordinances, when he calls, and causes, us to approach to him, and gives us kind and sure promises of eternal blessedness abòve in his im- mediate presence. Let each of usjoin with Solomon in that noble piece ofworship; 1 Kingsviii. E27.' Butwill God indeed dwell on earth ? Behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less any house that is guilt for thee ? Yet the Lord is near to the churches of
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