PART SECOND-CONTINUED.

OBJECT PROPOSED TO MAN

AS A SUBJECT OF

THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

ROMANS xii. 11. "Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.”

VOL. II.

A

RELIGIOUS SERVICES,-STRICTLY SO

CALLED.

PSALM XCV. 6.-0 come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. 7.-For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

THE view exhibited in the preceding observations respecting the object proposed to man as a subject of the kingdom of God, is greatly different from that which is commonly taken, and will probably be found to have awakened an entirely new train of thought in the minds of most of those who have submitted to the study of it.

When we speak of the object proposed to man,or of the duty required of him as a subject of the Divine kingdom,-those services which are more

strictly denominated religious services, are apt to present themselves to our minds as, in an especial manner, constituting that duty, or as the appropriate service which we owe to our Creator ;—and it hence becomes necessary to set the true nature of such services in a proper light,-to show what is their essential character, and to mark, more precisely than is commonly done, the relative place which they hold with respect to the other active and social duties which have alone occupied our thoughts in the observations that have hitherto been made.

And this explanation is the more necessary, not only because a full view of the duty required of man could not have been given while these religious services were left unnoticed, but because much confusion of thought seems to prevail not only among the multitude of men,-but even among those who have professedly devoted themselves to the discussion of such topics,-respecting the true nature, and relative place of religious services.