I98 APPEARANCE BEFORE .000. up the loss of the sanctuary : But we should be still breath- ing also after church-worship, and the communion of saints ; for God loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob ; Ps. lxxxvii. 2. III. Remark. O what unhappy clogs these fleshly sinful bodies are to the mind ! How they contradict the best inclina- tions of thesoul, and forbid it to fulfil its spiritual desires ! The soul would appear often before God, but the flesh forbids : The spirit would rejoice to be among christian assemblies, but thebody is too often confined by sickness, or by the necessarycares that relate to this life, this poor animal life, that has so troublesome an influence upon the noblest enjoyments bf the mind. The soul would wait upon God whole hours together in praising, in praying, in hearing theword ; but the body is weak, overwhelmed with a little attention, and can bear no more. The soul wrestles and strives against the infirmities of the flesh, and labours hard to abide with God ; but these very wrestlings and strivings overcome languishing nature ; theimpotence ofthe flesh prevails against the sprightliest efforts and vigour of the mind ; the fleshprevails, and the spirit mustyield. Thus we are dragged down fromthe holy mount of converse with God, and thesoul, who is a-kin to angels, and employed in their work, must de- scend, and lie idle, to refresh the animal. In vain would the spirit raise all its powers into lively and devout exercise, if the fleshgrows faint under a warmaffection, it isforced tolet go the holy thought, and quit the divine pleasures of religion, until a better hour return, Sometimes, through drowsiness, and want of natural spirits, we grow . stupid and heavy in religious duties; and have but little sense of that God before whom we appear. Sometimes, through excess of spirits, our imagination grows vain and flut- tering, and wanders far away from the Gqd whom we worship. Ifwe fix our thoughts one minute upon things of the highest importance and the most awful solemnity ; the next flying idea catches the mind away, and it is lost from God and devotion again. We appear before God, and disappear again ; we wander into the world, and return to God, twenty times in an hour. Our eyes and our ears are constant witnesses of this painful weakness ; and unhappy instruments they are to draw off our souls from the divinest meditation, Every thing around us is readyto disturb and divert our feeble nature in the most heavenly acts of worship : Poor brokenworship ! Poor frailestate of human nature! But there is a blessed assembly of better worshippers above : Awakeour faith and desire tojoin them ! and let each of us say, " O when, shall Igo to that bright company, and appear amongst them before God.".
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