call your attention to the negligence of many with respect to the forms and customs prescribed by the church for her worshippers. We have already noticed her design respecting the responsive portions of the service. The priest is enjoined to read a sentence, while the people preserve an attentive silence, and then the people read a portion in their turn with an audible voice, the priest remaining silent. But the whole beauty and effect of this interesting interchange of solemn worship is often lost, by the idle and inattentive habits of many who appear to think it beneath their notice to join in the service of God, much less to respond audibly. Such persons assume the character of idle and indifferent spectators, who have no particular interest in the proceedings of the place, their hearts are elsewhere, their treasure is on earth, and therefore they abstract themselves from God's service in spirit, though they are present in body. The words of the lips do not indeed

prove a corresponding interest of the heart; but the silence of the lips on such solemn occasions strongly indicates an indifferent spirit and a wandering heart. Nothing could be more foreign to the intention of our church than that the service should be performed by two individuals; and we can scarcely form a conception how inspiring a mode of worship ours would be, if the hearts and tongues of all united in prayer and praise. A whole multitude of believers assembled to confess their sins, to implore pardon, and to celebrate redeeming love with one heart and one voice, would be the most sublime contemplation that the human mind could grasp on this side of eternity.

And let no one think that it is unimportant to observe the reverential postures in which we are directed by our church to place our bodies when engaged in the public service of God. Outward gestures indeed are no sure criterion of the state of the heart; the mind may

wander when the body appears to be absorbed in devotion; the outward man may be prostrated in a lowly attitude. when the heart is unhumbled, yet surely in the public worship of the Lord, there should be a visible appearance of devotion. Is not this very natural? We rise to an equal, we bow to a superior, and we kneel to an earthly sovereign; and when we come into the immediate presence of the Almighty, shall we not fall low on our knees before his footstool, to express our own unworthiness and necessities? The custom is highly scriptural;* most of the servants of God, mentioned in his word, are recorded to have fallen on their knees in his presence. Indeed, it scarcely seems to come within the limits of that charity which " hopeth all things," to believe that persons who have not the slightest appearance of piety in their demeanour during divine service, who take little

* 2 Chron. vi. 13. Ezra ix. 5. Ps. xcv. 6. Isaiah xlv. 23. Acts ix. 40; xx. 36; xxi. 5.

external share in the duties of the sanctuary, are nevertheless feeling the presence of God in their hearts, and are humbling their souls before him. It is very common to be devout in appearance, and to comply with the externals of religion without any feeling of it in the heart, but it is quite impossible that any one can be worshipping God in the spirit, who takes little or no share in the outward forms of his church. When indolence and vacuity are obvious in every gesture and look, it is hard to conceive that the soul is rapt in devotion, or entering into the spirit of its occupation.

Finally, my brethren, suffer me earnestly and affectionately to exhort you to bring your professed devotions to the criterion afforded us by the apostle in the text. Whatever our outward form may be, whether we pray according to the rule of one church or of another, this is the great, the condemning or ac

"Do we

quitting subject of inquiry, pray with the spirit, and do we pray with the understanding also?" Let each of us apply this to his own conscience. We have been using the formularies of the church of England perhaps for many years, we are much attached to them, and admire them exceedingly, but have we UNDERSTOOD and FELT them? Have we considered their spiritual import? This is a most solemn and serious question! We may unconsciously fall under the condemnation of those of whom the apostle says, "They have the form, but they deny the power of godliness." We may have been making confessions which we have never felt, and adopting language, the import of which we may have wholly neglected.

But "God is a Spirit," and he will have them who worship him, "worship him in spirit and in truth." If then, while in the forcible language of the church we have been calling for mercy,