I have before, in the course of these Sermons, availed myself.

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Every creature ought to do homage to his Creator; he ought to pay the tribute of honour, where honour is due. Now the honour of God is more promoted by his being worshipped publicly, than privately; because private prayer is piety confined within our breasts; but public prayer is piety exemplified and displayed in our outward actions: it is the beauty of holiness made visible; our light shines out before men, and in the eye of the world; it enlarges the interests of godliness, and keeps up a face and sense of religion among mankind. Were men only to repair to their devotion, as the disciple o quality did to his Lord and Master, secretly and by night, for fear of the Jews; religion, thus lonely and unfriended, would soon decay for want of public countenance and encouragement. For, what would be the consequence, if religion sought the shades, and lived a recluse entirely immured in closets; while irreligion audaciously appears abroad, like the pestilence that destroyeth at noon day? It requires no great depth of penetration to perceive, nor expense of argument to prove, that the want of a public national religion, or a general absenting from that national religion, must end in a general national irreverence to the Deity; and an irreverence to the Deity in an universal dissolution of morals, and all the overflowings of ungodliness. The Service of the Church, and the Word of God read and ex

pounded, must awaken those reflections, which it is the business of bad men to lay fast asleep, and let in upon the soul some unwelcome beams of light: but, when these constant calls to virtue are neglected, men will become gradually more and more estranged from all seriousness and goodness; till at last they end in a professed disregard to all fixed principles. The fear of that Being, whose judgments no power can fence off, no skill elude, being absolutely necessary, it is the duty of every man, not only to cultivate this reverence in himself, but to promote it as far as he can in others. Now he, that would promote a sacred regard to the Deity, must do it by such actions as are most significant of that regard: he must express and exemplify to others, that awful serious sense of the Deity, which is impressed upon his own mind, by a solemn and avowed acknowledgment of his power and glory in assemblies set apart for that purpose. Whoever thinks justly, must be sensible, that private religion never did in fact subsist, but where some public profession of it was regularly kept up. He must be sensible, that if public worship were once discontinued, an universal forgetfulness of that God would ensue, whom to remember is the strongest fence and preservative against vice: and that the bulk of mankind would soon degenerate into mere savages and barbarians, if there were not stated days to call them off from the common business of life, to attend to what is the most important business of all, their

salvation in the next. But I need not labour this point, since it is allowed even by those who are declared enemies to religion. They look upon religion, and public worship, as a political engine, to awe the common herd into a sense of their duty, not founded on reason, yet necessary to the good of mankind. How absurd this scheme is, may easily be shown for if they do not admit the existence of the Deity, they may be without much difficulty confuted, the existence of God being one of the most obvious truths. But if they do admit it, they must grant likewise, that an infinitely good Being must will whatever is for the good of his creatures; and consequently religion, and public worship, which they own to be conducive to the good of mankind, must be his will: but, what is the will of the Deity, must be founded on truth and reason. What is necessary to the public happiness, is therefore true. For though our private interest, and truth, may not always coincide, yet there is always a strict correspondence, harmony, and alliance, between truth and the general happiness."

III. The duty is enjoined by positive precept in the Word of God, and its obligation testified and sanctioned by the continued practice, and authority, of the Church, in every age down to the present time. "Lift up," said David, "your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord."-" When two or three are gathered together in my name, there,"

declared the Lord Himself, "am I in the midst of them."-" Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together," is the counsel of St. Paul. The Church has never been without public worship, though at first compelled to meet in upper rooms, and sometimes in caves, sometimes in the midnight hour. Yet the sacraments, and the public worship of the Church, never were allowed to fail. The fellowship" of Christians continued to be manifested in the breaking of bread, and in prayer.” The voice of supplication, and the hymn of praise, arose in defiance of the yells of insult and persecution, and sank not at the approach of torture, or of death itself. No excuses were admitted, no separation from the public worship allowed or claimed.

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Indeed, had there been no direct precept, no clear evidence of the practice of public worship among the first Christians, the necessity of it might have been inferred from the very nature of Christianity. Our religion is not a mere profession of a severer or more perfect morality; neither, though a religion of motives, is it a religion only of motives to holiness and safety: it is a religion of means, as well as motives. It offers the means, and the only means of salvation. Whereas, through the weakness of our mortal nature and our corruption, we cannot of ourselves turn to God, He ordains means of grace, through which we shall be aided by the all-sufficient power of the Spirit. The very essence of Christianity is faith-a belief, that we are all

guilty sinners, all condemned in the sight of God, all given over to death, and redeemed only by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. His Church is set before us, as the ark into which we are to take refuge from the universal destruction that threatens us. We believe that it is our only safety, and that, cast off from it, we perish. By baptism we are admitted into it; and "the same reasons," observes the author before quoted, "that oblige us to be admitted into the Church by baptism, lay us under a necessity of continuing in a constant communion with it for by forsaking this communion, we forfeit those privileges, to which our admission into the Church gives us a title. The Church is called the body of Christ; and a member, when cut off from the body of Christ, must lose those vital influences, which were imparted to it from the Head; as not holding the Head, from which all the body, by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. Whatever pretensions to morality we may make, we are cut off from all those graces and benefits, here and hereafter, which are to be had by virtue of that union 2. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,

1 Seed.

2 << Where the Church is, there also is the Spirit of God.”— IRENEUS.

"He cannot have God as his father, who has not the Church as his mother."-CYPRIAN.