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APPEARANCE BEFORE
GOD
tSERM. XII?.
How solicitously would
you
watch over
your
minds, lest
they wander from
worship
!
How carefully would
you
keep your hearts
!
Or
suppose you
saw
the
holy angels
there
which
attend
the churches
in worship, would you
not
be
ashamed
to trifle in
their presence? And
has
not
the
spiritual presence
of
the
great God
as
much real,
though
invisible awfulness
and
majesty in
it
!
How
do
persons/both
of
the polite
and
the
vulgar
world)
all
agree
:to(
dress
fine
and gay,' and
}make
the best figure
of
all
the
we
k,
to
appear
before nlen on the day
of
the
Lord? But let
us
remember
that
we
come
not
only.be-
fore
men,
but before
the
living
God,
in whose sight,
ornaments
of
the
body
are
of
no
account, and,
O,
what
pains
ought
we
to take,
to
put
on
our
best
ornaments
of
the mind!
To
see
that our
graces all shine, when
we
are
to
stand before God
!
And
not
to
suffer
one vain
thought,
one
corrupt
affection, to work in
us
;
nor a
spot
or blemish,
if
possible, to be
found
upon
us
!
Alas
!
what
millions
of
hypocrites have
we
in
the
world
?
How
many
may
we
fear
in every
congregation?
Iow many come to
attend
at
prayers,
but
never
seek to
join
their
own wishes
and desires
with
the
words
of
him
who
speaks
?
How
many voices
follow
the
tune
in
a
psalm,
but their
souls
feel no
joy,
no
inward elevations
of
praise
?J
How many
hear the
word
as
the word
of
man,
and
their hearts
have
no sense
of God
speaking
to
them
?
They sit before
God
as his
people,
but
their
heart
goes
after
their
covetousness,
Ezek.
xxxiii.
31.
after their
idols
of
business,
or carnal pleasure, after
every vain object
of their
eyes,
or
vainer
images
of
the
fancy.
Let
us
take heed, therefore,
how
we
shut
our
eyes,
or
harden our hearts against a present
and
a
speaking
God;
for the word
of
the
Lord
is
quick and powerful
;
God
speaking
by
his
eternal
word,
Or
by
his
ministers
in
the
sanctuary, pierces the secret recesses
of
the soul
and
spirit:
God
sits
there, discerning the
intents
and
thoughts
of
the
heart; all
things
are naked
and open before
his
eyes
with
whom
we
have to
do,
Heb.
iv.
13.
II.
R
emark.
In
attendance
on
public
worship,
we
should
fix
all
our hope
and
expectation
of
profit
upon
the presence
of God
in
it;
for the
design
Of
ordinances
is
to bring
us
to
appear
before God. Now,
if
in things