Haggai 1:8

Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.

Ver. 8. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, &c.] Set upon the work, and be serious; build the temple with like zeal as Baruch repaired the wall, Nehemiah 3:20, accendit seipsum, he burst out into a heat, being angry with his own and others' sloth; and so finished his task in a short time. It must be an earnest, upright, and constant endeavour of reformation that must follow upon our sense of sin and fear of wrath; or else all will be but motus aliquis evanidus (as Calvin on the text hath it), a very flash; it will be but as prints made on water; as soon as finger is off all is out. It was certainly, therefore, an excellent saying of Luther (though condemned for heretical by Pope Leo X), Optima et aptissima poenitentia est nova vita. Amendment of life is the best repentance; neither is there any wiser way to break off our sins than to practise the contrary duties. He that repents with a contradiction (saith Tertullian), God will pardon him with a contradiction. Thou repentest and yet continuest in thy sin. God will pardon thee and yet send thee to hell. Those that will have God to take pleasure in them, as in his temple, to love them and come unto them, and make his abode with them, John 14:23, to dwell in them, and walk in them, 2 Corinthians 6:16 (as they did in Solomon's porch, and other walks and galleries about the temple, Zec 3:7), to be glorified in them (accounting himself to receive, as it were, a new being, by those inward conceptions of his glory, and those outward honours we do to his name), they must go up to the mountain, not of Lebanon (though that was a pleasant and plentiful place, Deu 3:25), but of heaven, that hill from whence comes their help, and bring wood (growing wood, Song of Solomon 1:17, living stones, 1Pe 2:5), and build the house, 1 Corinthians 3:9 Ephesians 2:22, laying faith for a foundation, love for a covering, having hope for a pinnacle, humility for a pavement, washing it with tears, sweeping it by repentance, beautifying it with holiness, perfuming it with prayers, hanging it with sincerity. So shall Christ the King be held in the galleries, Song of Solomon 7:5, he shall covet their beauty, Psalms 45:12, and be held fast bound to them in the bands of pure affection and spiritual wedlock. He will take pleasure in them, as he did in those that prayed in or toward the temple, Deuteronomy 12:11 1 Kings 8:29, as he did in Daniel, that man of desires, Daniel 9:23, in David, God's corculum, or darling, 1 Samuel 13:14, in his Hephzibah, or sweetheart, the Church, Isaiah 62:4, called elsewhere the beloved of his soul, or his beloved soul: and he will be glorified in them by their spiritual sacrifices, 1 Peter 2:5, reasonable services, Romans 12:1, performed in spirit and in truth, John 4:24, by some one of which God is more glorified than by all the actions of unreasonable or unregenerate creatures.