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us to fall down and worship the Lord, who is a great God, in whose hands are all the corners of the earth, and the strength of the hills also.

The Psalmist likewise bids us approach our Almighty God, not merely with the reverence due to the omnipotent Creator and Ruler of the world, but with all those delightful feelings of affection with which children regard the fondest parent; to rely on Him as our benefactor, our guardian and our friend; we are taught to consider ourselves as his people and the sheep of his pasture and we are warned against grieving the Almighty by hypocrisy, and provoking Him by praying with our lips whilst our hearts are far from Him. It is to-day that we must hear his voice, because if we venture to delay, if we tempt Him with the hardness of our hearts, and dissemble with our double tongues, He may swear in his wrath that we shall not enter into his rest. David therefore offers to our consideration the various incentives of love and fear, when he invites us in the words of my text, to worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

In further discoursing on these words, I would notice the temper of mind and heart with which we should attend to the several parts of our public worship, and would point out some of the various excellencies of our admirable Liturgy, and the valuable treasure we possess in the book of Common Prayer, which I cannot too earnestly recommend you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. But, to enter fully upon this subject, to dwell upon its numerous beauties, and the wisdom of its arrangements, would far exceed the limits of a Lecture. Oh, that its excellence were more generally perceived! that its value were more deeply felt! then it would again be, as it was at first, the order of daily, rather than of weekly prayer-then would our Church become a praying, rather than a preaching Church-then would her pews be no longer empty on the festivals of the Saints and other days of public prayer-then would our people enter into the feelings of holy David, when he exclaimed, "One day in thy courts is better than a thousand: yea, I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of ungodli

ness" then would the people understand that the foundations of the Church are upon the holy hills, and that the Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob-and then would dissent be done away, and the Church of England would contain within her bosom all the children of the soil. Is it not, therefore, the duty of the ministers of our Church to unfold her doctrines, and explain her Liturgy? Alas! to the neglect of some of them in displaying the beauty, piety, and the spirituality of the Services, and to their omitting to illustrate the scriptural foundation of her Articles, it may in some measure be attributed that our Church has had the hedge of her vineyard broken down, that the wild boar of the wood doth root it up, and the wild beasts of the field devour it; that the Christian sectarians withdraw her children from the fold; and that the Socinian, the Deist, and the Atheist lead our weaker brethren to destruction.

But woe, my Christian friends, woe be to us if we preach not the Gospel; we are the Ambassadors of Christ, we speak to you in Christ's stead; we beseech you, in the name of Christ, be ye reconciled to God;

and we tell you, as we are bound to tell you, that, although you may look for reconciliation elsewhere, "and earnestly do we pray that your search may not be in vain," yet the best and safest ground on which to rest your hopes, will be found within the pale of the Apostolic Church.

I have already said that to explain the Liturgy, and to describe the dispositions with which we ought to attend to its several parts, will occupy much time: I will therefore confine myself this evening to reminding you of the son of Sirach's excellent advice contained in my second text: "Before thou prayest, prepare thyself, and be not as one that tempteth the Lord." To assist you in following this advice, I will point out how your Sundays ought to be employed before you come to Church; for there is no foundation to expect that you will be enabled to worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord your Maker, in a proper frame of mind, and in an acceptable manner, if the previous portion of the day has been improperly spent. The due observance of the sabbath has the promise of a peculiar blessing: "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing

thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Notwithstanding this explicit promise of reward for obedience to the command, how often, alas! do we prefer our own ways, our own pleasure, our own words! how many are there who do not appreciate the sabbath, nor call it a delight! how few, who by their practice evince any sense of the gracious designs of the Almighty in instituting this day of holy rest! The ascetic vainly imagines himself meritorious by observing it as a season of privation and gloomy seclusion; whilst the worldling converts it into a day of gaiety and sensual gratification; but our Church, on the authority of the Scriptures, instructs us to keep it, as a holy and a joyful festival, as a day on which to rest from the vanities, and frivolities, as well as from the business,

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