the same worship, and being chosen to preserve the same religion. The outward sign of being members of Abraham's family was not confined to those who were born of him according to the flesh; it was given to those who were adopted into his family by embracing his faith. It was not birth only, but regeneration; it was religion, that enrolled them in one family; it was having one faith and one Lord.

But

Such a people could no more dispense with an institution, so manifestly essential as public worship, to the vital exercise, and demonstration, of their connexion with God, and of the community of religious interest, than the soul could continue its visible functions, and operations on earth, without the body. The acts of public worship noticed in the brief history of the patriarchs, are, from the very nature of that history, few, and recorded with a very scanty statement of circumstances. those notices are precisely such as we might expect upon a subject, on which it was evidently felt by the historian that there could be no kind of doubt. After the giving of the law, the regulations, which the Lord, with a view both to the preparation of the people for the coming of Jesus, and to the peculiar circumstances of the Jewish nation, thought fit to establish, have shown the importance and usefulness of public worship in His sight. And every reader of the Scriptures knows what a firm bond of union the temple service was to that singular people. Their historians, prophets, and priests have left

many and beautiful narratives and proofs how the Jews revered and loved the place, in which they, and their forefathers, joined in worship; how, in the land of their captivity, the desire of the house of their God prevailed over the sense of their degradation and affliction; and how, regardless of the threats of the oppressors, and at the hazard of their lives, they turned in prayer towards the temple of the Lord. Theirs was, indeed, social and national worship. It bound them together, it bound them to their country. By the waters of Babylon they sat down and wept, when they remembered thee, O Zion."

But still more, with still greater power, and in a far more comprehensive bond, does public worship bind us together. It binds the Christian not only to the congregation of the Church on earth, but to the innumerable company of the saints in heaven. It binds us to the eternal Zion, of which the temporal Zion was but a shadow. By the waters of this world, this strange country of our bondage in the flesh, the Christian, in public worship, remembers with his brethren in captivity, the better country, the home, the heavenly Jerusalem, of which they hope hereafter to take possession. Their common interest in this heavenly Zion is the bond which connects each individual member of Christ's Church with his fellows, and leads him to lift up his heart and voice with them, in crying for their common deliverance, and praying for their common

prosperity. Our union of interest, as in the course of these Sermons has been frequently stated, is set forth by the writers of the New Testament under a variety of figures, and in the strongest colours. The Christian community is represented as a house, a kingdom, a body, of which all the members are so inseparably united, that the whole must partake of the sufferings, or of the success, of each. I will not again dwell upon these, but only observe, that any person who has the least knowledge of his relation to his brethren as members of Christ's Church, cannot possibly consider himself as a solitary being, a being who has no prayer to offer but private prayer, who has nothing that he needs in common with others, nothing to be thankful for which concerns the general body, no desire to seek for his brethren as well as himself God's mercy and goodness, no interest in the general confession, repentance, and faith; nothing, in short, which will affect him, as connected with the congregation. Such a selfish notion of prayer would be in utter contradiction to the spirit of the religion of that Lord, who Himself is love, and of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. We have, indeed, private wants to supply, private sins to confess, private blessings to acknowledge; but we have public also, and they must be the subjects of public prayer and thanksgiving. This close connexion and sympathy of Christians with each other, is inseparable from the very notion of their being such, or having any

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union with Christ as their head. "Truly," says St. John, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ 1." And immediately afterwards he speaks of this fellowship with Christ, and with one another, as practically so inseparable, that the one cannot subsist without the other. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin "."

And St. Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, shows public worship to be a necessary consequence of this fellowship, and necessary means of manifesting and maintaining it, when he expressly maintains, that the early Christians continued stedfastly, not only" in the Apostles' doctrine," but in their "fellowship," and "in breaking of bread, and in prayers."

The Church of Christ, as we have observed, is described as a body, and each of us as members of it. While the life and action of each member, in its own sphere, may appear in private prayer, the life and action of the whole body, acting as a body, is in public worship. Here, especially, we act together as one body, with one common object, one interest, one hope. Here each member works with its fellow members for the "perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of

2 Ibid. vi. 7.

1 1 John i. 3.

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Christ1." Here, especially, have we fellowship one with another; here we show, that we are indeed "one body," and have "one spirit;" that we are "called in one hope of our calling;" that we acknowledge "one Lord, one faith." And here we act according to our profession, and avow our reliance in the promises made to us, in the one baptism, which enrols us into the family of the "one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all." Nay more, this fellowship is not confined to the mere branch of Christ's Church, to which his country may attach him, nor to those who live in the same times with him, nor even to those who are of the Church upon earth; his fellowship in congregational worship is with all the members of Christ's holy catholic or true Church; not the mere Church of Rome, which assumes to itself exclusively the title of Catholic, but with the universal true Church; with holy men, and faithful soldiers and servants of Christ, of all ages, countries, and conditions, whether in the body or out of it. The very essence of public worship is its Church character; its being the worship not of individuals, but of the Church, of which the life is in the head, and the interest and safety of each member the common concern of the whole body. Ye are come," says the Apostle to the Hebrews, "ye are come unto Mount Sion, into the city of the living

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