The Choice Benefit of Communion with God in his House, Sermon · Directions
Take a few Directions.
1. Be well acquainted with the Being, Nature, Worth, and Need of your souls.
Know that you have souls, how many live as if they had none? Consider also they are immortal Existences and must live for ever. Theu … your selves with their Needs, listen to their Gravings, and think of what a necessity they are in, of a Supply.
Your souls are a Thousand times better than your bodies, and therefore Providing for them of a Thousand times more Concernment. Oh, an immortal Soul, eternal Estate, and endless Life are momentous Considerations, and should be attended accordingly.
2. This being supposed, it will necessarily follow that you are indispensibly bound to attend all meanes that God has appointed for the Salvation of your Souls. Neglecting means for outward Subsistence, or bodily Maintenance will bring you to Penury; then neglecting meanes for your soul's maintenance will issue in Ruin and Misery.
3. Press on your souls the stamp of Divine Authority that is upon the Ordinances of his House. Here God will be found, & if you slight these wayes of his appointing, he will not be found else where. And be assured that God will not deceive you. Here, he hath recorded his Name, and if you wait here, you wait under a Promise of a Blessing, and shall not wait for nothing.
Then come to the House of God out of Conscience, not out of Custom, nor for any byEnds, and if you come conscientiously, you will come constantly, I mean as often as God gives you an opportunity.
To omit one Duty does but make way for our omitting another. Once give way to Hindrances and you will never be without them, but they will come in upon you like a flood: Make but a Gap once, and you will scarce know how or when to stop it. And who can tel but that season which you lose might have been for your Everlasting Advantage? The diseased persons not knowing when the Angel would come down and move the waters, lay there alwayes waiting to prevent the loss of an opportunity; and so should we.
A pious soul if providentially detained from God's House growes the more hungry after it, the want of one meal sharpens his stomach and encreases his Appetite for the next; but a carnal heart who out of sloth and slightiness neglects it; will grow every day more carless and unconcern'd than other, like a weak stomach; the more it fasts the more it may.
4. Get suitable preparations for such a Solemnity. When Jacob was commanded by God to goe to Bethel to worship, he advises his people to put away the strange Gods; wash their garments and be clean Gen. 35. 1, 2, 3. Every busi… … moment and Importance bespeaks Preparation. A Journy by land, a Voyage by Sea, Entertainment of a great friend call for Preparation; much more then when our work … to meet with and entertain the Lord of Glory at his House which is appointed for a place of meeting with God Exod. 20. 23. Hence that charge Eccl. 5. 1. Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear &c. When there we must be ready, then there must be some time taken to make ready, and that on penalty of offering the sacrifices of fools. He that has so great a work to do, and does not prepare for it, does egregiously play the fool. They that observe their own Hearts will find that they are not ordinarily so ready for so great a work of drawing near to God as they ought to be; then either … must prepare, or rush in without preparation, and what ill musick must that needs be in God's ear where the Instrument is out of tune? the danger of which we had better believe and prevent than experience.
6. Goe thither with answerable Expectations: We fare no better in the House God because we expect no better. Ayming too low is the way to miss the mark. If after humble Preparation our hearts are big with Exqectation the Lord will not suffer our Hopes to be abortive. The expectation of the poor shall not perish Psal. 9. 18. Such profit as you have heard of is to be had in God's House, believe it, prepare for it, carry your empty vessels, open your mouthes wide, expect to have them filled and they shall be filled. Look what you need and God promises, and you shall not look in vain▪
7. Let your attendance when there, be proportionable to your expectations in going thither. Serious Preparation and great Expectation will occasion vigorous Attendance. To come with a sence of great need to a place of full supply, with up-raised Expectations, will oblige a man to look diligently lest he goe away without his Errand.
The servants of Benhadad (1. King. 20. 31, 32, 33.) saw what an ill case there master was in, & had heard that Israel's Kings were merciful, this gave them encouragement, they prepared themselves accordingly, in the capacity of humble, perishing, self-judging Suppliants, and in most submissive Language presented their Request before Ahab, and then it's said they did diligently observe whether any thing would come from him, and did hastily catch it, and accordinly obtained their Desire. Why know that we have far greater encourragement to wait upon God in his House, we have an Invitation which they had not, we have a Promise to goe upon, wheras they went at a Peradventure, upon an it may be only: Our necessities also are greater viz. not for the saveing of our bodily lives, but for preservation of the lives of our immortal Souls, that should be ten Thousand times more dear to us; then let us prepare thoroughly, come expectingly; and then attend diligently, and catch up every word greedily, withal waiting for the breatheing of the Spirit in an Ordinance, and we shall find that the King of Heaven is far more gracious and bountiful than the Kings of Israel were merciful.
8. Beware how you spend your Time afterward. When men have been warmed in an Ordinance they had need see that they do not catch cold. Watching after Hearing is as needful as Watching unto Hearing. It's noted of the Thorny Hearers Luk. 8. 14. that when they have heard they go forth, and are choak… with cares and riches and pleasures. Many a precious Sermon is thus lost. As they are like to get but little good by coming to the House of God who come reaking out of their worldly occasions without any prae-consideration or preparation; so they are like to lose or lessen what they have got who rush into the world again without after-consideration of or meditation on what they have mett with. The World was ever a great Enemy to the Word. Communing with our own Hearts and Discoursing one with another about what we have heard and seen in God's House, will notably promote our proficiency under the same.
When the Lord spake so loud to Pharaoh in that dreadful Judgment of the turning the Water into Bloud, it is said, Exod. 7. 23. that he turned and went into the house, and so it never went to his Heart. Had he not turned away his eyes from, but kept them fixed on that solemn object, it might have reached his Heart. And thus often it proves; many a word, many a Conviction, many a good Beginning is lost in the House. From God's House men turn into their own, and there in the Business of the House, in the Cares and Pleasures of the House, in the Company of the House, in the various Diversions that they meet with there and elsewhere, all is lost as tho' it had never been.