The sinner may flatter himself, as our nature is apt to do, Mens sibi sæpe mentitur, with a vain hope of better; but he, that is truth itself, hath said it, There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Tribulation and anguish on every soul that doth evil. He, that har dens his heart, shall fall into evil.

And, as he is aloof off from grace as the way, so from Glory as the end. Here is indeed péya xáspa, a great gulf and unmeasurable, betwixt the sinner and heaven. One is not so much as within the ken of the other. Without holiness there is no seeing of God; saith St. Paul; Heb. xii. 14: no, not so much as afar off; unless it be for an aggravation of torment: much less may any unclean thing enter there. Look, as impossible as it is for a man that hath this clog of flesh about him, to leap into the sky; so impossible it is, for the soul that is clogged with sin, ever to come within the verge, within the view of the third heaven, which is the presence of the Lord of Glory.

(2.) This for the distance, in respect of God: will ye see it, in respect of the Sinner himself? He is aloof off from God in his

Thoughts; in his Affections; in his Carriage and Actions. - In his Thoughts, first: which are only evil, continually. He never thinks of God, but when he feels him punishing; and, then, not without a murmuring kind of regret and indignation: no, not even while he swears by him, doth he think of him; God is not in all his thoughts, saith the Psalmist; Psalm x. 4: that is, by a usual Hebraism, God is not at all in his thoughts; for, otherwise, unless it be virtually and reductively, there is no man, whose thoughts are altogether taken up with the Almighty; the sinner's, never: nay, he strives to forget God; and, when the notion of a God is forced upon him, he struggles against it; and says to the Almighty, Depart from me.

And even this alone shews how he stands in respect of his Affections. He loves not God; no, not while be promerits him with his favours. It is the title, that St. Paul gives to wicked men, Rom. i. 30. that they are, SEOSEυYES, God-haters. One would think this should not be incident into a man; for nothing but evil is the object of hatred, and God is absolute goodness itself: yet, such is the cankered and corrupt nature of the sinner, that, apprehending God sub ratione mali, he hates him, who is in himself infinitely amiable; and, as he says in his heart There is no God, so he wishes in his heart there were no God. He is never well therefore, while he hath any thing to do with God; while he is in his company; or in the company of those, that he thinks belong to him, his conscionable servants; and while he is employed in any of his services, he stands upon thorns. Thus the sinner is in his affections aloof off from God.

And, for his Carriage and Actions, they are answerable to both the other. All his life is nothing else, but a departing from the Living God; and, therefore, he must needs, at last, be far off. Look to all his ways, you shall find how diametrically contrary they

are to God's. God's ways are direct ones; the sinner's are oblique and crooked: God hath chalked out his ways in the Ten Words of his Royal Law; the sinner turns his back upon every one of them, and walks point-blank opposite: God commands a holy and religious disposition towards his Majesty; the sinner gives himself over to a wild and loose profaneness; to a lawless course of godlessness; and walks as without God in the world: God commands all reverent and awful usage of his name; the sinner tears it in pieces with his oaths and blasphemies: God commands all dutiful obedience to authority; not for fear only, but for conscience sake: the sinner is ready to say, Disrumpamus vincula; Let us break their bonds, and cast their cords from us: God commands all sobriety, chastity, temperance; the sinner runs into all excess of riot: finally, God commands all charity and justice to our neighbour: the wicked heart is merciless, and cares not upon whose ruins he raiseth his own advantages.

So, every way, both in his Thoughts, Affections, and Actions, the sinner is afar off from God.

we

Now the moral and civil man hears this, and turns it off, as nothing concerning him. He is as near to God as the best: and indeed, in some sense, he is so. St. Paul could say to his Athenians, He is not far from every one of us: every creature hath equally his living, moving, being from God: but, as for any relation to God, in respect of holiness, of grace and mercy, of glory; this man is as far off as earth is from heaven, yea as heaven is from hell. For, even by nature, we are, the best of us, the sons of wrath. And, if had no more than even our birth sin, this alone would estrange us sufficiently from God; but, besides this, our actual sins set us off yet further: and, if we had no sins of commission, as we have numberless, for in many things we sin all, yea in all things we sin all; yet those of omission cannot but put us into an utter distance. For, if the moral man could be supposed to do nothing actually against God's will, yet his thoughts are not upon him, being wholly taken up with the world; his affections are not towards him, being wholly set upon the world, and these earthly things; his best actions are not regulated by the royal law of righteousness, but by the rules of civility and common humanity; and the end, which he proposeth to himself in them, is, not the glory of God, but his own honour or advantage.

And, therefore, both the wicked man and the mere moral man are aloof off from God; and, therefore, out of the benefit of God's favour and protection: even as we know that those, which live under the two poles, are out of the comfortable reach of the sunbeams; or those Antichthones, which are on the other side of the globe of the earth, are now, while it is day with us.

Please yourselves, therefore, ye Sinful and Natural Men, with the spiritual condition wherein ye stand: God is no otherwise near to you, but to plague and punish you. Ye can never receive any glimpse of true comfort in your souls, while you so continue; and,

therefore, as ye tender your own present and eternal welfare, stir up yourselves, to take this divine counsel of the Apostle, Draw nigh unto God.

2. And so from the Distance Implied, we descend to the APPROACH ENJOINED. Which we shall consider, as it hath respect to the Presence of God; and to the Motion of Man.

(1.) To the Presence of God; in relation to his Ordinances, and to his Spirit.

First, then, we draw nigh un'o God, when we attend upon him in his Worship and Service; for God is where he is worshipped, and where he reveals himself. In this regard, when Cain was banished from the presence of God, it was not so much an exile, as an excommunication. Hence, is all the legal service called, appearing before the Lord: so David, When shall I appear in thy sight? Psalm xiii. 2; and can find in his heart, for this cause, to envy the sparrows and swallows, as herein happier than himself: thus Jacob, of his Bethel, God was here and I knew it not! Then, therefore, do we draw nigh unto God, when we come into his house; when we present ourselves to him in our prayers, whether private or public; when we attend upon him in his word whether read or preached, in his holy sacraments, in all religious exercises: and those, that do willingly neglect these holy services, they are no other than aloof off from God; and, certainly, whatsoever they may think of it, this estate of theirs is very dangerous: for, if the worst piece of hellish torment be that of loss and utter departing from the presence of God; then, surely, our voluntary elongation of ourselves from his presence must needs be a fearful introduction to an everlasting distance from him. Let our Recusants, whether out of heresy or faction, make what slight account they please of these holy assemblies, surely the keeping away from the Church is the way to keep out of heaven. Auditus aspectum restituit, as Bernard well; "It is our hearing, that must restore us to the sight of God."

This in relation to his ordinances: that to his Spirit follows. We do then, Secondly, draw nigh to God, when, upon our conversion to him, we become the receptacles and entertainers of his good Spirit. For God is undoubtedly, where he breathes into the soul holy desires, where he works heavenly grace in the heart. This presence follows upon the other, or accompanies it: for, when we do carefully and conscionably wait upon God's ordinances, then his Spirit offers and conveys itself into the heart: these are Vehiculum gratiæ, "the carriage of grace" into the soul. Never any scorner, or profane person, hath any sense of this presence. This is that, David speaks so passionately of; Oh, cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. It troubled him, as before, to be kept from God's ordinances; but it troubled him a hundred times more, to be cast out from this, more entire, presence. The Church in the Canticles, Cant. v. 6, 7. when she misses her well-beloved, how impatient she is! how she runs about the city!

how she hazards herself to the blows of the watchmen; and will take no rest, till she have recovered him! These spiritual desertions are the saddest things, that can befal to a man; for there is a spiritual familiarity of sweet conversation betwixt God and his, which it is a death to forego: they enjoy each other; live in each others' sight; impart their counsels each to other. So then, we draw near to God, when, repenting us of our former aberrations from him, we renew our covenants with him; and put ourselves into an awful acknowledgement of him, still seeing him that is invisible: when we grow into dear, though trembling, acquaintance with him; taking pleasure in his company; interchanging our dulce susurrium cum Deo, as Bernard speaks; and endeavouring to be in all things approved of him. This must needs be a very comfortable and blessed condition. Oh happy, thrice happy are they, that ever they were born, who have truly attained to it! It is a true rule in philosophy, that every natural agent works by a contaction, whether bodily or virtual; which the weaker or further off it is, the efficacy of the operation is so much the less: as, when we are cold, the fire heats us; but not except we come within the reach of it: if we stand aloof off, it warms us so feebly, that we are little the better for it; but if we draw close to the hearth, now it sensibly refresheth us: even thus also doth God himself please to impart himself to us. However there is infinite virtue in the Almighty, not confinable to any limits; yet he will not put it forth to our benefit, unless we thus draw near to him, Who touched me? saith our Saviour, Luke viii. 45. when the bloody-fluxed woman fingered but the hem of his garment. Lo, many thronged him; but there was but one, that touched him: and, upon that touch, virtue went out from him to her cure. He might have diffused his virtue, as the sun doth his beams, at a distance, to the farthest man; but, as good old Isaac, that could have blessed his Esau in the field or in the forest, yet would have him to come close to him for his benediction; so will God have us to draw nigh to him, if ever we look for any blessing at his hands; according to the charge here given, Draw nigh unto God.

(2.) Now, then, that, from the respect to the presence of God, descend to consider the Motion of Man:

we may

There are many ways of our appropinquation to God. This people, saith God, draws nigh me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. This is an approach, that God cannot abide. This lipwalk may advance us to hell, for our hypocrisy; but it can never promove us one step towards heaven. God cannot abide mere talkers of religion: let them say Lord, Lord; he shall answer them, I know you not; Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.

There are three ways of our drawing nigh to God, which he accepts of from us: on our Feet; on our Hands; and on our

Knees.

On our Feet, first. Keep thy foot, saith Solomon, Eccl. v. i. when thou goest into the house of God. What are the feet of the

soul, but the Affections? Then do we, therefore, draw nigh to God, when we are so affected to him as we ought; when we come to him with the foot of Fear. Fear the Lord, all his saints; saith the Psalmist: Serve the Lord in fear; Psalm ii. 11. Fear God, and depart from evil; saith his son Solomon; Prov. iii. 7. When we come to him with the foot of Love: I sought him, whom my soul loveth; saith the Spouse; Cant. iii. 1. When with the foot of Desire: As the embossed hart panteth for the rivers of waters, so doth my soul for thee, O God; Psalm xlii. 1. With the foot of Joy: I rejoiced when they said, Come, let us go up to the house of the Lord. With the foot of Confidence: In the Lord put I my trust: how then do ye say to my soul, Flee hence as a bird to the hills?

And, as we must draw nigh to God on the feet of our affections, so also upon the Hands of our Actions: even as Jonathan and his armour-bearer climbed up the rock with feet and hands. This is done, when we perform to God all holy obedience; when we serve him as we ought, both in our devotions and our carriage. And this is the best and truest approximation to God: Walk before me, saith God to Abraham, and be upright. Master, saith Peter, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee; John xxi. 7. and, after that, when he heard it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat to him, and cast himself into the sea, to come to Christ. Without this reality of action, all our profession is but idle pretence. I remember our countryman Bromiard tells us of one, who, meeting his neighbour coming out of the Church, asked him; "What! is the sermon done?" "Done!" said the other, "No; it is said; it is ended: but it is not so soon done." And, surely, so it is with us: we have good store of sermons said, but we have but a few done; and one sermon done, is worth a thousand said and heard: for, not the hearers of the law, but the doers of it are justified; and, if ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them: Glory, honour, and peace to every one that worketh good; Rom. ii. 10.

Now, that we may supply both those other approaches on our feet and hands, we must, in the third place, draw nigh to God on our Knees; in our earnest supplications to him, for his enabling us to them both. Doth any man want wisdom, and this is the best improvement of wisdom that may be, to shelter ourselves under the wings of the Almighty, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally, and upbraideth no man, James i. 4. Let us sue to him, with ali holy importunity: Oh, that my ways were made so direct, that I might keep thy statutes: Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it to the end: O stablish thy word in thy servant, that I may fear thee: Psalm cxix. 5, 33, 38. Thus let us seek the Lord early and fervently; and pour out our hearts before him. It is not for us to fear, that we can offend in an over-bold access to the Throne of Grace, in bouncing too hard at his mercy-gate; for, lo, his goodness hath invited us, and animated our bashfulness. When Moses approached to the burning bush, he heareth Come not near; for he came out of curiosity and wonder, not out of devotion; but