RELIGIOUSNESS, OR A REVERENT FEAR OF GOD, IS THE BEST WISDOM. Because it brings a man to acquaintance with God. It teaches us how to converse with God rightly by true worship and obedience, and how to come to live with God for ever. II. THINGS OF GREATEST WORTH SHOULD BE OF GREATEST ACCOUNT WITH US. The affections should ever follow the judgment well informed. III. Irreligious persons are in God’s account the fools of the world. They want God’s fear, as natural fools want wisdom. IV. NONE DESPISE HEAVENLY WISDOM BUT SUCH AS KNOW NOT THE VALUE OF IT. The excellency of it is so great, that it would allure men to look after it, had they spiritual eyes to see it. Knowledge hath no enemy but an ignorant man. V. THEY THAT SLIGHT THE MEANS OF KNOWLEDGE SLIGHT KNOWLEDGE ITSELF. We account so in outward things. We ask sick men refusing physic if they make no account of their lives. Neglect of the means of grace is a real slighting of wisdom. (Francis Taylor.)
"Heaven is my throne...Isaiah 63"
GOD'S REJECTION OF ALL MATERIAL TEMPLES. There was a time when it could be said that there was a house of God on earth. That was a time of symbols, when as yet the Church of God was in her childhood. She was being taught her A B C, reading her picture-book, for she could not as yet read the Word of God, as it were in letters. She had need to have pictures put before her, patterns of the heavenly things. Even then, the enlightened amongst the Jews knew well that God did not dwell between curtains, and that it was not possible that He could be encompassed in the most holy place within the veil It was only a symbol of His presence. But the time of symbols is now passed altogether. In that moment when the Saviour bowed His head, and said "It is finished! " the veil of the temple was rent in twain, so that the mysteries were laid open. So, one reason why God saith He dwelleth not in temples made with hands, is, because He would have us know that the symbolical worship is ended...
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