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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.
While
we
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
himself
so
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
of
worship;
1
Kings
viii.
E27.'
But
will
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