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SERMON nevertheless contribute by their behaviour to defeat the end of public religion, and to annihilate that importance which they ascribe to it? They are employed in framing laws and statutes for preventing crimes, and keeping the disorderly multitude within bounds; and at the same time, by personally 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 servants, of the insolence of mobs, of the attacks of the highwayman. To all these disorders they have themselves been accessory. By their own disregard of sacred institutions, they have disseminated profligacy among the' people. They have broken down the floodgates which served to restrain the torrent; they have let it loose 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

III. To set forth the importance of the public worship of God to every individual in every rank of life. Whatever his station be, he is still 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 salutary institution, this alone would render it his duty. But moreover, we assert it to be his duty on his own account; if it be the duty of every man to use the proper means of preserving and fortifying his virtue. All the Christian institutions have a direct tendency to this end. They all serve to give warmth to piety, and to add solemnity 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 needof no assistance 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 places of public worship? The great principles of piety and morality are obvious and easily known; and we shall readily

SERMON

XI.

SERMON admit, that there are many to whom no

XI.

new instruction 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 suggested; to have good dispositions raised; to have the heart adjusted to a composed and tranquil frame. Is there any man of reason and reflection, who will not acknowledge such effects, as far as they follow from attendance on religious ordinances, to be of the most beneficial nature? These occasional cessations from the cares and anxieties of life, these interruptions to the bustle and the passions of the world, in order to think and hear of eternity, are both a relief and an improvement to the mind. By this retreat from its ordinary circle of thoughts, it is enabled to return, with more clearness and more vigour, to the business of the world, after a serious and proper pause.

But I must ask the persons with whom I now reason, whether there be no other call to come to God's house, than to hear instruction there? Is not the devout ado

XI.

ration of the God of heaven the principal SERMON object of our religious assemblies; and is this what any man of reflection, and of sober mind, dare to make light of? In the temple of the Lord, the rich and the poor, the prince and the peasant, appear as suppliants alike for the protection and favour of the Almighty.-Great and flourishing as thou mayest 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 sun of prosperity shines at present on thy head, and the favourable gale carries thee softly along the stream of life. But, the Almighty needs only to give the word, and instantly the tempest shall rise; and thy frail bark shall be driven into the ocean, and whelmed in the deep. In my prosperity, I said I shall never be moved. Thou, Lord, didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. Look up, with dread to that awful hand of Providence which is stretched over your heads. Remember the instability of all human things; remember it, and tremble, ye who despise the devout acknowledgment of him who disposes

9

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live

SERMON disposes of the human fate! Though ye many years and rejoice in them all, remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many

*

But after all that has been urged on this subject, I am sensible it may be objected, that many who make conscience of paying strict regard to the institutions of religion, do not appear to have derived much benefit from them. They are not, it will be said, more improved in moral conduct, and in the proper discharge of the several duties of life, than others who have been apparently negligent of the services of the church. On the contrary, a formal regard to these appears to be substituted by many, in the room of the weightier matters of the law.Though this should be admitted, it goes no farther than to shew that human weakness, or corruption, may defeat the purpose of the most promising means of moral improvement. That a superstitious attention to external worship, has too often usurped the character and supplanted the place, of real virtue, will not be denied. Admonitions against so dangerous an errour cannot

Eccles. xi. 8.

be