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O4
NEARNESS
TO GOD
SEAM.
Xt.
and others
that are
visible to
the naked
eye,
yet appear
much
fairer
and
larger
by this help.
Even
so
those glo-
ries
of
God,
which
are unknown to reason, and
to
the
light
of
nature, are
discovered
in
the
ministrations
of
his
word
;
such
are
his
subsistence in
three
persons, and
his
forgiving grace
;
and those
glories
of
his
nature,
which
are traced out
by
human reason, stand
in
a diviner
light,
with all
their splendors
about
them,
in
the
gospel,
and
the sanctuary.
5.
Never
rest
satisfied
without approaching
to
God
in
spirit
and
in
truth,
when
you
attend
on
his
ordinances.
This
is
the goodness
of
his
house
that
must
satisfy
the
holy
soul
of
the
Psalmist,
as he
expresses
if
in the fol-
lowing
words
of
my
text
:
We
shall
be
satisfied
with the
goodness
of
Mine
house.
What
a folly
it
is
to
be
pleased
with
empty ordinances
without God
!
I
Tim.
iv. 8.
Bodily
exercise
profiteth,
'little.
To
make
a
serious
matter
of
mere
external
things,
and to
make nothing
of
spiritual
ones
!
These formal
and
silly
creatures
come to the
palace
of
the
king,
and
turn their
backs on
his
person, to play with
his
shadow
upon
the
wall
:
ridiculous and
childish
folly
!
And
yet
how
often
is
this
the
trifling
practice
of
the men
of
wis-
dom
?
And
sometimes persons
of
true
piety are tempted
to indulge
it.
Let
me
ask my conscience,
"
Did
I
never let
my
curiosity
dwell
upon
the
just
reasoning,
the
correct
style,
the
pretty
similies,
the
flowing
oratory, or
flowery
beauties
of
a
sermon,
while
I
neglected
to seek
my
God
there, and
to raise
my
soul
near
him?
Or
per-
haps
I
was
charmed
with the decency
and
voice
of
the
preacher;
or,
it
may
be, was
better entertained
with
some
zealous
party
flights
which
flattered
my own
bitter
zeal,
and
seemed to sanctify
my
uncharitable
censures
:
and
when
I returned
from the place
of
worship,
I
had
a
pleasant
remembrance
of
all
-
these."
But it
had been
better,
if
conscience had
reproached
my folly,
and made
me
remember,
that I
had forgot
My
God there.
It
is
also
a dreadful abuse
of
gospel- ordinances, and
a
high mockery
of God,
to
come
to
his courts, and
not
draw
near
him
;
.Ier.
xii. 2.
When
.God
is
near
in
our
mouth,
but
far from
our heart. Ordinances
are
an
appointed
medium for man
to come to
God
by
them.
If
we use
them
not
as such, we
either
make idols
of
them,
by