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SERM. said, that good part, which should not be taken from her. But, allowing the justice. of this excuse, that some care must be taken of household affairs, and that it is impossible this should not break in upon your attendance at church, surely, when you consider how short is the time which you are detained there, one in a family might be sufficient to answer these household concerns, and the remainder might by turns employ themselves in serving their Maker. I speak this in general; it will not perhaps suit all cases; but I leave it to each man's conscience to tell him whether the excuse, on which he absents himself from ́ public worship, be a just one.

I will dismiss this subject with one caution-that none of you stay away from church, on the supposition that you do yourselves no service by coming thither; your devotion, perhaps, you have found to be cold, your thoughts will wander to

worldly

XVIII.

worldly affairs, you do not hear, or you SERM. do not understand the preacher; but be not discouraged, come again and again; endeavour to be devout, and strive to be instructed, and it may, nay it will, please God, that by degrees your understandings will be enlightened, and your hearts corrected and improved; and if it should, how cheaply, with only one hour in seven days, will you have acquired the wisdom which is unto salvation!

To proceed; we will suppose then that a man knows his duty; it remains, to make his future condition happy, that he add, to his knowledge, practice; -for knowledge without practice, and faith without works, are of no value. "As the body without the

spirit is dead, so faith without works is "dead also." In order then, to the effectually securing the one thing needful, we must live in the habitual and constant performance of all those graces and virtues

SERM. which the voice of our own consciences,

XVIII.

the perusal of the holy scriptures, the ex-
hortation of our spiritual instructors, the
advice of our pious friends, convince us
to be absolutely necessary. Our devotion
to God must not only be hearty, but regu-
lar; it must not be by fits and starts, and
only when the humour is upon us (for the
most abandoned, I suppose, are devout
sometimes) it must not be confined to the
moments of affliction, danger, sickness,
and terror; it must not only be at the ap-
proach of the hour of death, and under ap-
prehensions of the day of judgment, but in
the seasons of health also, and prosperity;
it must be constant and unremitted in all
times, and under all circumstances.
I am
the more particular in dwelling on this re
gularity of devotion, because I fear there
is no mistake into which we are more apt
to fall, than that of thinking a few single
fits of piety, at different times of our

lives, will confer on us the character of SERM. XVIII.

good Christians, and recommend us to the acceptance of God:-it is not so, it is the habit of piety which is alone valuable, it is the habit which alone denotes the principle; and without it we may certainly conclude, that the virtue has taken no root in our hearts. Let us then cultivate this habit of piety; let us never omit, on slight objections, to join with our brethren in public worship; and let us also be equally constant in our own private devotions; let no hurry of business, no call of pleasure, prevail on us to neglect them: we may not at first be sensible of the benefit, but our hearts by degrees will be softened, and our prayers will be registered in heaven against that day, when we shall be amply convinced of our prudence and wisdom, in having taken care of the one thing needful. But, besides this performance of our duty towards God, there is, in order to

our

SERM. our attainment of the kingdom of heaven,
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form. This

a duty towards our neighbour also to perThis duty is briefly summed up in that most excellent and comprehensive precept―" Thou shalt do unto others, as

thou wouldest they should do unto thee." The time will not admit that I should enter into an explanation of this rule, but it is of so simple a nature that it is the less necessary; and though some difficulties are pretended about it, yet I will venture to say that a man's own conscience is the best interpreter of it, and will almost universally tell him when he observes, and when he transgresses it.

Let us then be attentive, in. all our concerns with our neighbour, to this rule; let let us ever carry it in our eye, for without it all our piety to God will avail us nothing; whatever prayers and praises, and however often we may put them up to the throne of grace, we shall become but as sounding

brass