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a steady trust in him; amidst all the tumultuous waves of life, and distracted wanderings of the soul.

And, whilst these right notions of God are thus useful to us in the common conduct of life, they will be no less useful to us in our religious speculations and opinions: for where the foundation of religious inquiry is once firmly laid, upon the well-grounded basis of a just apprehension of God and his attributes, we shall neither be in danger of falling into the blind errors of superstition, on the one hand, nor the wild phrenzies of enthusiasm, on the other; we shall neither implicitly believe every thing that is offered to us by the credulity of mistaken zeal, nor wantonly reject the clear evidences of revelation, because we cannot comprehend those mysteries, which infinite wisdom has wrapped up in inscrutable darkness: for, whilst our idea of the divine perfections will teach us not to believe every spirit, it will also guard us against denying the spirits that be of God.

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Secondly, Having formed in our minds right conceptions of God and his perfections, our next care should be to hallow his name, by a strict and constant attention to the worship of

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him,

him, and also by endeavouring to worship him aright.

With regard to the former of these, it is a duty so clearly deducible from our ideas of God; --so consonant, though under different modifications, to the practice of all ages and nations; ----so expressly commanded every where in scripture; and, lastly, so essential to the preservation of a sense of God and religion in the world; -that it would be a mere loss of labour to go about to prove that it is a duty, and a most im portant one too.

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I can only lament, and, with much sincerity I do lament, that what is so plain, and reasonable, and important, should be so generally neg lected and disregarded ;-that neither a respect for the laws of God and man, nor a regard for the welfare of themselves, their children, their servants, and the community in general, all of which are deeply interested in this point, can prevail upon much the greater part of almost every christian parish to pay even a tolerable attention to the divine worship of Almighty God, though they both see and experimentally feel the bitter fruits of that overflowing iniquity, which is, and ever must be, the necessary consequence of a neglect of it.

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As to the latter duty, that of endeavouring to worship God aright, we cannot have a clearer direction, than that which is given us, in few words, by our divine Master himself:-" God," says he, is a spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in "truth;" that is, with unfeigned sincerity, and in a manner suitable to his refined and spiritual nature. We are not, however, vainly to imagine from hence, as the Quietists would idly persuade us, that our intercourse with God either can or must be spiritual alone, abstracted from all corporeal sense for though God be a spirit, man is not so; he is a compound of spirit and sense, and the feelings of the former cannot be expressed without the organs of the latter. He, therefore, that would worship God aright, must first impress a just and awful sense upon his mind of his majesty and perfections, and then endeavour to express that sense by proper and decent language, accompanied with such postures and gestures as are either productive, or expressive, of humility and devotion ;-provided always they are such as do not contradict the established order of public worship, or, by their singularity or excess, interrupt the attention of those who are engaged in the service of the same God with himself. And here we may justly remark the péculiar happiness of our established church,

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church, which has guarded us against the danger of approaching God in an improper manner, either in our words or gestures, by furnishing us with the excellent language of our liturgy, and by directing, in our ritual, such decent changes of posture as are suitable to the several parts of divine worship in which we are employed; in every part of her public services; keeping equally clear of the crude effusions and ridiculous gesticulations of enthusiasm, and the ostentatious pomp and mummery of papal super

stition.

Thirdly, Are we sincere in offering up this petition, it will become us to shew our sincerity by carefully avoiding all profane thoughts and words, all irreverent jesting on things sacred, and by shewing a decent respect to every thing which bears a peculiar relation to the Almighty, -to his word, to his sabbaths, to his sanctuary, and to his ministers.

Nor are these things trifles, however the spirit of a licentious age may deem them so. They are, indeed, the common subjects of merriment in scenes of dissipation and festivity, and he is often thought the brightest wit who can most successfully turn them to ridicule, and, with too many, ridicule is considered as the infallible test

of

of truth. I well know, therefore, the ground on which I stand in attempting to defend them:

I well know the charges of ignorant weakness, or bigotted credulity, which will recoil on the head of every man who attempts to defend them. But it would ill become a minister of the Gospel of truth to be deterred by such arguments from defending truth. Sooner, therefore, shall my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, than either a criminal silence, or a cowardly concéssion, shall betray the interests of that Master in heaven, whose servant I am, and in whose presence I stand. Nor will I scruple to repeat, even in this age of licentious irreverence, when things sacred and profane are treated with equal contempt, that a just reverence is due from every man, not only to God himself, but also to every thing, which, by his special appointment, bears an immediate relation to his service, such as the time, the place, and the ministers of his worship.

These things are not, indeed, we freely confess, the soul and spirit of religion itself; but they are the necessary guards with which infinite wisdom thought necessary to fence it: and, we may safely say, has done so on the best grounds; for, if these fences be once broken down, the more important parts of religion will soon follow. -God's name despised, will soon lead to a contempt

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