to climb these heights of heavenly contemplation, and breathe a purer, freer air; to hearken to the far off strains and breathing melodies of angels; and catch some faint and distant glimpses of his everlasting home. Such has been the character of true piety, since the day that God gave His irrevocable promise: "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee1." Such, undoubtedly, is the character of that piety which is held up to our imitation in Holy Scripture. Read the Psalms of David, and observe the unaffected joy with which he looks forward to the hour, when he is to come and appear before God: how he recals, in solitude, the memory of the happy moments he had passed with the assembled multitude: how he longs, as the tired panting hart, for the streams of divine refreshment that flow from the oracle of God. It was that one thing which he had desired of the Lord, that he might dwell in His house all the days of his life. Nay, if

1 Exod. xx. 24.

need were, he was willing even to be a door keeper in the house of his God, for, in his reckoning, one day in that house is better than a thousand'.

That the temple was used for the purpose of public prayer, is not likely to be questioned by any one acquainted with Holy Scripture. It is emphatically called "an house of prayer 2" In the time of our Saviour, it is evident that it was the custom to have morning and evening prayers every day in the temple at the hours when the daily sacrifice was offered, and the incense burned before the Lord 3, There can be little doubt, that it was from this beginning the Christian Church established the daily worship, and the daily celebration of the Holy Eucharist, that incense and pure offering which the Prophet foretold, should be offered in every place unto the name of the Lord of Hosts *.

1 Ps, xlii. 2, 4, 5. xxvii. 4. lxxxiv. 10, 11, Is. lvi. 7. comp. 1 Kings viii. 29, &c. 2 Chron. vi. 21, &c.

Luke i. 10. Acts ii. 46. iii, 1,

↑ Malachi i. 11.

And no less certain it is, that, in the Primitive Church, this daily service was always accompanied by the use of the Lord's Prayer. Nor can I conclude otherwise than this, that, in commanding His Disciples to use this prayer, our blessed Redeemer has intimated His will that the offering of daily public prayers, which had always been customary in the Jewish Church, and which, for any thing we can learn to the contrary, was not peculiar to the Mosaic institution', should be continued in His Church: the form itself implying its daily repetition, while “the very petitions of the prayer, running all along in the plural number, do evidently show, that it was primarily designed for the joint use of a congregation 2." But for our parts, my brethren, one thing is undeniable: that the whole construction of the formularies of our Church, (to say nothing of more express directions,) goes upon the supposition; that the morning and evening services are

2

1 Job i. 5.

Wheatly on the Book of Com. Prayer. Introd. 5

constantly performed every day of the week. Our Church knows nothing of one day's piety, as a substitute for six days of secularity. It professes to have reformed religion; not to have struck out an easier mode of saving our souls. It holds out no encouragement to the notion, that the daily public worship of God, which Romanists, nay, which Jews and even Mahometans, consider obligatory, is unnecessary to Christians of the reformed faith. It gives no countenance to the delusion, that a Church can long flourish in inward and spiritual piety, without using, with diligence and regularity, those external acts of religion which are demanded, not more by our allegiance to our Creator, than by the necessities of human nature. The constitution of this Church goes at once to the formation of the highest class of piety: and that, in the greatest possible number of her children. It sets out on the supposition, that, being buried with Christ in baptism, we are risen together with Christ, and made to sit together in heavenly places

in Christ Jesus'. On this supposition it acts. Its discipline is directed to this one end: to the formation and perfection of the heavenly life within us; to the enriching of our souls with the treasures of the Holy Scripture; to the habituating of our spirits to the daily oblation of that sacrifice of praise, which is destined to be our employ ment in heaven. Its services are a daily ablution and cleansing of our hearts, from the daily pollutions of the world and the flesh. They are a daily preparation and girding on of divine armour, against the daily assaults and surprises of our enemy. They are a daily summons to watchfulness and prayer, lest at any time the hearts of her little ones be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so, even before this sun has set or risen, that day come upon them unawares 2. It is utterly impossible for any really devout mind to make fair trial of this heavenly rule, and not to love it and delight in it. Nor could it have fallen into such

1 Eph. ii. 6. Col. ii. 12.

2 Luke xxi. 34.