The Existence and Attributes of God. Stephen Charnock

of our own vileness and weakness, and therefore is proper to engender humility; the more spiritual and evangelical therefore any service is, the more humble it is. That is a spiritual service that doth most manifest the glory of God; and this cannot be manifested by us, without manifesting our own emptiness and nothingness. The heathens were sensible of the necessity of humility by the light of nature;518 after the name of God, signified by Εἶ inscribed on the temple at Delphos, followed Γνῶθί σεαυτον, whereby was insinuated, that when we have to do with God, who is the only Ens, we should behave ourselves with a sense of our own infirmity, and infinite distance from him. As a person, so a duty leavened with pride, hath nothing of sincerity, and therefore nothing of spirituality in it (Hab. ii. 4): “His soul which is lifted up, is not upright in him.” The elders that were crowned by God to be kings and priests, to offer spiritual sacrifices, uncrown themselves in their worship of him, and cast down their ornaments at “his feet”519 the Greek word to worship, προσκυνεῖν, signifies to creep like a dog upon his belly before his master; to lie low. How deep should our sense be of the privilege of God’s admitting us to his worship, and affording us such a mercy under our deserts of wrath! How mean should be our thoughts, both of our persons and performances! How patiently should we wait upon God for the success of worship! How did Abraham, the father of the faithful, equal himself to the earth, when he supplicated the God of heaven, and devote himself to him under the title of very “dust and ashes!” (Gen. xviii. 27.) Isaiah did but behold an evangelical apparition of God and the angels worshipping him, and presently reflects upon his “own uncleanness” (Isa. vi. 5). God’s presence both requires and causes humility. How lowly is David in his own opinion, after a magnificent duty performed by himself and his people (1 Chron. xxix. 14): “Who am I? and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly?” The more spiritual the soul is in its carriage to God, the more humble it is; and the more gracious God is in his communications to the soul, the lower it lies. God commanded not the fiercer creatures to be offered to him in sacrifices, but lambs and kids, meek and lowly creatures; none that had stings in their tails, or venom in their tongues520 The meek lamb was the daily sacrifice; the doves were to be offered by pairs; God would not have honey mixed with any sacrifice (Lev. ii. 11), that breeds choler, and choler pride; but oil he commanded to be used, that supples and mollifies the parts. Swelling pride and boiling passions render our services carnal; they cannot be spiritual, without a humble sweetness and an innocent sincerity; one grain of this transcends the most costly sacrifices: a contrite heart puts a gloss upon worship (Psalm li. 16, 17). The departure of men and angels from God, began in pride; our approaches and return to him must begin in humility; and therefore all those graces, which are bottomed on humility, must be acted in worship, as faith, and a sense of our own indigence. Our blessed Saviour, the most spiritual worshipper, prostrated himself in the garden with the greatest lowliness, and offered himself upon the cross a sacrifice with the greatest humility. Melted souls in worship have the most spiritual conformity to the person of Christ in the state of humiliation, and his design in that state; as worship without it is not suitable to God, so neither is it advantageous for us. A time of worship is a time of God’s communication. The vessel must be melted to receive the mould it is designed for; softened wax is fittest to receive a stamp, and a spiritually melted soul fittest to receive a spiritual impression. We cannot perform duty in an evangelical and spiritual strain, without the meltingness and meanness in ourselves which the gospel requires.

      9. Spiritual worship is to be performed with holiness. God is a holy Spirit; a likeness to God must attend the worshipping of God as he is; holiness is alway in season; “It becomes his house forever” (Psalm xci. 5). We can never serve the living God till we “have consciences purged from dead works” (Heb. ix. 14). Dead works in our consciences are unsuitable to God, an eternal living Spirit. The more mortified the heart, the more quickened the service. Nothing can please an infinite purity but that which is pure; since God is in his glory, in his ordinances, we must not be in our filthiness. The holiness of his Spirit doth sparkle in his ordinances; the holiness of our spirits ought also to sparkle in our observance of them. The holiness of God is most celebrated in the worship of angels;521 spiritual worship ought to be like angelical; that cannot be with souls totally impure. As there must be perfect holiness to make a worship perfectly spiritual; so there must be some degree of holiness to make it in any measure spiritual. God would have all the utensils of the sanctuary employed about his service to be holy; the inwards of the sacrifice were to be rinsed thrice.522 The crop and feathers of sacrificed doves were to be hung eastward towards the entrance of the temple, at a distance from the holy of holies, where the presence of God was most eminent (Lev. i. 16). When Aaron was to go into the holy of holies, he was to “sanctify himself” in an extraordinary manner (Lev. xvi. 4). The priests were to be bare‑footed in the temple, in the exercise of their office; shoes alway were to be put off upon holy ground: “Look to thy foot when thou goest to the house of God,” saith the wise man (Eccles. v. 1). Strip the affections, the feet of the soul, of all the dirt contracted; discard all earthly and base thoughts from the heart. A beast was not to touch the Mount Sinai, without losing his life; nor can we come near the throne with brutish affections, without losing the life and fruit of the worship. An unholy soul degrades himself from a spirit to a brute, and the worship from spiritual to brutish. If any unmortified sin be found in the life, as it was in the comers to the temple, it taints and pollutes the worship (Isa. i. 15). All worship is an acknowledgment of the excellency of God as he is holy; hence it is called, a “sanctifying God’s name” (Jer. vii. 9, 10); how can any person sanctify God’s name that hath not a holy resemblance to his nature? If he be not holy as he is holy, he cannot worship him according to his excellency in spirit and in truth; no worship is spiritual wherein we have not a communion with God. But what intercourse can there be between a holy God, and an impure creature; between light and darkness? We have no fellowship with him in any service, unless “we walk in the light,” in service and out of service, as he is light (1 John i. 7). The heathen thought not their sacrifices agreeable to God without washing their hands; whereby they signified the preparation of their hearts, before they made the oblation: clean hands without a pure heart, signify nothing; the frame of our hearts must answer the purity of the outward symbols (Psalm xxvi. 6): “I will wash my hands in innocence, so will I compass thine altar, O Lord;” he would observe the appointed ceremonies, but not without “cleansing his heart as well as his hands.” Vain man is apt to rest upon outward acts and rites of worship; but this must alway be practised; the words are in the present tense, “I wash,” “I compass.” Purity in worship ought to be our continual care. If we would perform a spiritual service, wherein we would have communion with God, it must be in holiness; if we would walk with Christ, it must be in “white” (Rev. iii. 4), alluding to the white garments the priests put on, when they went to perform their service; as without this we cannot see God in heaven, so neither can we see the beauty of God in his own ordinances.

      10. Spiritual worship is performed with spiritual ends, with raised aims at the glory of God. No duty can be spiritual that hath a carnal aim; where God is the sole object, he ought to be the principal end; in all our actions he is to be our end, as he is the principle of our being; much more in religious acts, as he is the object of our worship. The worship of God in Scripture is expressed by the “seeking of him” (Heb. xi. 6); him, not ourselves; all is to be referred to God. As we are “not to live to ourselves, that being the sign of a carnal state, so we are not to worship for ourselves” (Rom. xiv. 7, 8). As all actions are denominated good from their end, as well as their object, so upon the same account they are denominated spiritual. The end spiritualizeth our natural actions, much more our religious; then are our faculties devoted to him when they centre in him. If the intention be evil, there is nothing but darkness in the whole service (Luke xi. 34). The first institution of the Sabbath, the solemn day for worship, was to contemplate the glory of God in his stupendous works of creation, and render him a homage for them (Rev. iv. 11): “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive honor, glory, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” No worship can be returned without a glorifying of God; and we cannot actually glorify him, without direct aims at the promoting his honor. As we have immediately to do with God, so we are immediately to mind the praise of God. As we are not to content ourselves with habitual grace, but be rich in the exercise of it in worship, so we are not to acquiesce in the habitual aims at the glory of God, without the actual overflowings of