XI.

SER M. behaviour to defeat the end of publie religion, and to annihilate that impor→ tance which they afcribe to it?

They are employed in framing laws and statutes for preventing crimes, and keeping the disorderly multitude within bounds; and at the fame time, by perfonally discountenancing public worship, they are weakening, they are even abolishing, among the multitude, that moral restraint, which is of more general influence upon manners than all the laws they frame. In vain they complain of the dishonesty of fervants, of the infolence of mobs, of the attacks of the highwayman. To all these diforders they have themselves been acceffory. By their open difregard of facred inftitutions, they have diffeminated profligacy among the people. They have broken down the floodgates which ferved to reftrain the torrent; they have let it loofe to overflow the land; and by the growing deluge may themselves be swept away. But I must next argue upon a different ground; and proceed. III. To

XI.

III. To fet forth the importance of S ER M. the public worship of God to every individual, in every rank of life. Whatever his ftation be, he is ftill a man; and has the duties of a man to perform. Were his attendance on divine worship of no other effect, than to add countenance to a falutary inftitution, this alone would render it his duty. But moreover, we affert it to be his duty on his own account; if it be the duty of every man to use the proper means of preferving and fortifying his virtue. All the Christian inftitutions have a direct tendency to this end. They all ferve to give warmth to piety, and to add folemnity to moral virtue. A very high opinion, indeed, that man must have of his own character, who imagines that, amidst all the follies and corruptions of the world, he stands in need of no affif-tance for enabling him to act his part with propriety and dignity.

The question is not, whether persons of rank and education are to learn any thing that is new to them, by frequenting

the

XI.

SER M. the places of public worship. The great principles of piety and morality are obvious and eafily known; and we shall readily admit, that there are many to whom no new inftruction is communicated in the house of God. But, my

friends, the purpose of
your going there
is to have known truths recalled to your
mind, and their dormant influence
awakened; is to have serious meditations
fuggefted; to have good difpofitions
raised; to have the heart adjusted to a
composed and tranquil frame. Is there
any man of reafon and reflection, who
will not acknowledge fuch effects, as
far as they follow from attendance on re-
ligious ordinances, to be of the most be-
neficial nature? Thefe occafional ceffa-
tions from the cares and anxieties of life,
these interruptions to the bustle and the
paffions of the world, in order to think
and hear of eternity, are both a relief and
an improvement to the mind. By this re-
treat from its ordinary circle of thoughts,
it is enabled to return, with more clearness

and

and more vigour, to the bufinefs of the SER M. world, after a ferious and proper pause.

But I must ask the perfons with whom 'I now reason whether there be no other call to come to God's house, than to hear inftruction there? Is not the devout adoration of the God of heaven the principal object of our religious affemblies; and is this what any man of reflection, and of fober mind, dare to make light of? In the temple of the Lord, the rich and the poor, the prince and the peafant, appear as fuppliants alike for the protection and favour of the Almighty.Great and flourishing as thou mayst think thyself, know that thou standest as much in need of that protection, as the meanest of the crowd whom thou beholdest worshipping, with lowly reverence, the God of their fathers. The fun of profperity shines at prefent on thy head, and the favourable gale carries thee foftly along the ftream of life. But the Almighty needs only to give the word, and instantly the tempeft fhall rife; and thy frail bark shall be driven into the

VOL. IV.

е

ocean,

XI.

XI.

SER M. ocean, and whelmed in the deep. In my profperity I faid I fhall never be moved. Thou, Lord, didft hide thy face, and I was troubled.-Look up, with dread, to that awful hand of providence which is ftretched over your heads. Remember the inftability of all human things; Remember it, and tremble, ye who defpife the devout acknowledgment of him who disposes of the human fate! Though ye live many years and rejoice in them all, remember the days of darkness; for they · fhall be many.*

But after all that has been urged on this fubject, I am fenfible it may be objected, that many who make confcience of paying ftrict regard to the inftitutions of religion, do not appear to have derived much benefit from them. They are not, it will be faid, more improved in moral conduct, and in the proper discharge of the feveral duties of life, than others who have been apparently negligent of the fervices of the church. On the contrary, a formal regard

* Ecclef. ii. 8.