No intention can sanctify an unholy and unlawful action. King Saul disobeyed God's commandment, and spared the cattle of Amalek, to reserve the best for sacrifice. When there is both truth in the choice and charity in the intention, when we go to God in ways of his own choosing, or approving, then our eye is single, and our hands are clean, and our hearts are pure. PRESENCE OF GOD. (Holy Living, ch. i. § 3.) That God is present in all places, that he sees every action, hears all discourses, and understands every thought, is no strange thing to a Christian's ear, who hath been taught this doctrine, not only by right reason, and the consent of all wise men in the world, but also by God himself in holy Scripture. "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? Saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth1?" "Neither is there any creature that is not open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do?." 66 For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." God 1 Jer. xxiii. 23, 24. 2 Heb. iv. 13. 3 Acts vii. 28. is wholly in every place, not bound with cords (except those of love,) not divided into parts, not changeable into several shapes, filling heaven and earth with His present power, and with His neverabsent nature. So that we may imagine God to be as the air, and the sea, and we all enclosed in his circle, wrapt up in the lap of his infinite nature, or as infants in the wombs of their pregnant mothers and we can no more be removed from the presence of God, than from our own being. : They that die in the Lord, may be properly said to be gone to God, with whom although they were before, yet now they enter into His courts, into the secret of his Tabernacle, into the retinue and splendour of His glory. That is called "walking with God," but this is dwelling or being with him. I desire to depart and to be with Christ, said St. Paul. But this is reserved for the elect people of God, and for their portion in their country. Let every thing you see represent to your spirit the presence, the excellency, and the power of God, and let your conversation with the creatures, lead you unto the Creator, for so shall your actions be done more frequently with an actual eye to God's presence, by your often seeing him in the glass of the creation. In the face of the sun you may see God's beauty; in the fire you may feel His heat warming you; in the water His gentleness to refresh you: He it is that comforts your spirits when you have taken cordials: it is the dew of heaven, that makes your field give you bread; and the breasts of God, are the bottles that minister drink to your necessities. God is in the bowels of thy brother; refresh them when he needs it, and then you give your alms in the presence of God, and to God, and he feels the relief which thou providest for thy poor brother. : God is in every place; suppose it therefore to be a church and that decency of deportment, and piety of carriage, which you are taught by religion, or by custom, or by civility, and public manners, to use in churches, the same use in all places. He walks as in the presence of God that converses with Him in frequent prayer, and frequent communion, that runs to Him in all his necessities, that asks counsel of Him in all his doubtings, that opens all his wants to Him, that weeps before Him for his sins, that asks remedy and support for his weakness, that fears Him as a judge, reverences Him as a Lord, obeys Him as a Father, and loves Him as a Patron. A PRAYER. In mercy remember the Queen; preserve her person in health and honour, her crown in wealth and dignity, her kingdoms in peace and plenty, the churches under her protection in piety and knowledge, and a strict and holy religion keep her perfectly in thy fear and favour, and crown her with glory and immortality. SENSUALITY. A longing after sensual pleasures, is a dissolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft and wandering, unapt for noble, wise and spiritual employments; because the principles upon which pleasure is chosen and pursued, are sottish, weak and unlearned, such as prefer the body before the soul, the appetite before reason, sense before the spirit, the pleasures of a short abode, before the pleasures of eternity. The nature of sensual pleasure is vain, empty, and unsatisfying, biggest always in expectation, and a mere vanity in the enjoying, and leaves a sting and thorn behind it, when it goes off. Our laughing, if it be loud and high, commonly ends in a deep sigh; and all the instances of pleasure have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty on the face and sweetness on the lip. Sensuality is most contrary to the state of a Christian, whose life is a perpetual exercise, a wrestling and warfare, to which sensual pleasure disables him, by yielding to that enemy, with whom he must strive if ever he will be crowned. "He that striveth for the mastery must be temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible '." SOBRIETY. (Holy Living, ch. 2. § 1.) Sobriety is opposed to sensuality in three degrees: 1. A resolving against all entertainment of the instances and temptations of sensuality: and it consists in the internal faculties of will and 1 1 Cor. ix. 25. |