256 A CAVEAT AGAINST INFIDELITY. he will avenge himself of those that dare to worship him in un- appointed or forbidden ways, even to the third andfourth genera- tions. It is worthy of our notice, that when he charges the Jews of old, with some of their idolatrous abominations, he' mentions this as the reason of his anger, that they practised things which he commanded not, neither came they into his heart; Jer. vii. 31. When God designed his own worship to be attended with a variety of pomp and ceremony, he prescribed every part of it to Moses with great exactness : And when he had given an account how the tabernacle, and table, and thecandlesticks, and the altars should be made, he gives him a charge that he should precisely follow the divine directions ; Ex. xxv. 9, 40. Look that thou make them after theirpattern, which was;shewed thee in the mount. Now if the great God requires such accuracy, and such exact conformity to his rules in matters merely external, typical, and ceremonial, howmuch more may we suppose that hewill be strict and severe in demanding aconformity to his own appointed me- thods of salvation in things of more solemn, more spiritual, and everlasting concernment ? Suppose a traitor guilty of death, should have orders from the king his sovereign to enter into his presence, dressed in the borrowed ornaments of the prince his son, and to be introduced by his hand in order to obtain pardon ; now if this condemned criminal should resolve rather to come and appear before the king in some bright ornament of his own preparing, and without the mediation, of the prince; would he not deserve to be frowned awayfrom the throne, and sent directly to execution ? Would not this be a new indignity.offered to the king himself, and á fresh instance ofrebellion and disobedience ? So when we con- , sider ourselves as rebels and traitors against the majesty of hea- ven, if we will refuse the methods of God's own appointment in order to obtainhis favour, and will walk in the devices ofour own hearts, this will be. justly construed a continuance in our rebel- lion ; and we must expect the sentence of death to be executed -upon us ; Is. I. 11. Beholdall ye that kindleafire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light ofyourfire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled ; thisshall ye have ofmyhand, ye shall lie dozen in sorrow. II. " All the ways of recovering the favour of God, that proud vain rnau would contrive for himself, arb evidently fruit- less and ineffectual, and if we consider them distinctly, each of them will appear to be insufficient. Shall we come to God in the way of innocency, and pretend that we have done no harm? But we have before proved that all men are guilty. There is none righteous, no not one ; Rom. iii. 15. Shall we come in the way of hope and reliance upon the
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