Leviticus 10:3
Meeting God—Samuel Bolton
To have to do with any matter which concerns the worship and service of God is to draw near to God. And in other places it is called a coming before God, a treading His courts, an approaching to God, a meeting of God, all which languages imply thus much: that who ever has to do with God in any ordinance, draws near to God.
You tread His courts, you come into His presence, you approach unto God, you meet God, you have communion with God; no, you have to do with God’s Name. God’s ordinances are part of His name. No, you have to do with God Himself. He that has to do with any ordinance, with any part of His worship, has to do with God Himself.
When you have to do with the Word, when you go to prayer, when you have to do with the sacraments, you have to do with God Himself in them. What could the Word do, either in commands to engage us, in promises to comfort us, in threatening to terrify us, if we had not to do with God in them? What is prayer, but a distracted seriousness, a religious madness, if we had not to do with God in it? What were the sacraments, but gaudy pageants, no, empty fancies, beggarly elements, if we had not to do with God in them?
It is God that we have to do with in the ordinances, that sheds a glory, casts a majesty, and puts an efficacy unto all the ordinances we have to do withal. It is God who makes the promises of the Word rocks of stay and support, that makes the commands of the Word full of authority, that makes the threatening of the Word exceeding terrible. It is God that makes a little handful of water, a little bit if bread, and sup of wine, exceeding glorious and efficacious.
What empty, what poor, what contemptible things would these be (and are to unbelieving men) if we had not to do with God in them?
Readings taken from Day by Day with the English Puritans
Meeting God—Samuel Bolton
To have to do with any matter which concerns the worship and service of God is to draw near to God. And in other places it is called a coming before God, a treading His courts, an approaching to God, a meeting of God, all which languages imply thus much: that who ever has to do with God in any ordinance, draws near to God.
You tread His courts, you come into His presence, you approach unto God, you meet God, you have communion with God; no, you have to do with God’s Name. God’s ordinances are part of His name. No, you have to do with God Himself. He that has to do with any ordinance, with any part of His worship, has to do with God Himself.
When you have to do with the Word, when you go to prayer, when you have to do with the sacraments, you have to do with God Himself in them. What could the Word do, either in commands to engage us, in promises to comfort us, in threatening to terrify us, if we had not to do with God in them? What is prayer, but a distracted seriousness, a religious madness, if we had not to do with God in it? What were the sacraments, but gaudy pageants, no, empty fancies, beggarly elements, if we had not to do with God in them?
It is God that we have to do with in the ordinances, that sheds a glory, casts a majesty, and puts an efficacy unto all the ordinances we have to do withal. It is God who makes the promises of the Word rocks of stay and support, that makes the commands of the Word full of authority, that makes the threatening of the Word exceeding terrible. It is God that makes a little handful of water, a little bit if bread, and sup of wine, exceeding glorious and efficacious.
What empty, what poor, what contemptible things would these be (and are to unbelieving men) if we had not to do with God in them?
Readings taken from Day by Day with the English Puritans
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment