SERMON XXXIV.

The true worshipping of God.

GOD,

we are here met together, to be occupied in thy worship and in thy fervice.

What a noble, what a blissful employment! How it ele vates our foul! How it enlarges and gladdens our heart, to draw nigh unto thee, the fupreme, allperfect mind, thee, our creator and father, to know and experience our inward, ftrict alliance with thee! Oh might we but conftantly honour thee with our hearts as well as with our words and geftures, approach thee conftantly with filial love and confi. dence, adore thee conftantly in spirit and in truth, and in the fentiment of thy nearer prefence enjoy the invigoration and the felicity, which it never fails to procure thy fincere and upright worfhippers! Oh might but our whole lives be devoted to thy worfhip and to thy fervice! Might all that we think and speak and do, attest that reverence, that love, that obedience, that truft and confidence which we for ever owe thee! Might all who fhould happen to know our difpofitions and to fee our works, be thereby incited and stimulated to glorify thee, our father in heaven! Are not all the moments of our lives, are not all the capacities, all the endowments, all the faculties that we have, all the fatisfactions that we

enjoy,

Af

enjoy, thy gift, thy property! Are and continue we not at all times and in all places thy creatures, thy children, thy fubjects! Doft thou ceafe at any time and in any place to watch over us and to provide for us, to blefs us and to do us good! Oh might then our zeal and our efforts to please thee and to do thy will, be as uniform, as constant, as unwearied! Might ever increafing truth and order and harmony reign in all our fentiments, and between all the parts of our conduct! Yes, fuch is now our wifh from the bottom of our hearts. fift us mightily by thy grace and heavenly benediction, o God of our falvation and hope, in doing that which the accomplishment of this pious wifh demands. Bless in that view our reflections on thofe doctrines of religion that are now to be delivered to us. Let their effulgence difpel our errors, and lead us on the path of chriftian perfection. Graciously hear these our requests, prefented to thy di vine majesty by votaries of thy fon Jefus, in whose name we farther address thee, faying: Our father, &c.

JAMES i. 27.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

EVERY one accounts it his duty to worship God

and to ferve him. That is, every man who is not deftitute of all knowledge of God and of all be

lief in him; every one who conceives of the deity as a being, that ftands in certain relations to the vifible world, and particularly towards mankind, that he is their creator, their preferver, their fovereign, their judge, on whose will their lives and their happiness depend. Nobody moreover abfolutely refufes to fulfil this duty of the worship and the service of God. Every one is prompt to do or to omit in this refpect fomething, now more, now lefs, now this, now somewhat else. Many people put themselves to great expense of money, of time, of exertion in this worship and in this fervice of God, impofe on themfelves many inconvenient restraints, prescribe them. felves auftere rules and practices, facrifice fome plea. fures and advantages, neglect perhaps important affairs on that account, and poftpone other no less facred or even more facred duties. Little doubt however as the generality of mankind entertain of their obligation to worship God and to ferve him, and ready as they are for the most part in complying with it, yet comparatively but few fulfil this duty in a reasonable manner, agreeable to God and falutary to themselves, because but few form juft conceptions of it, because the generality confine the worship and the service of God to certain outward folemn acts, confidering them as matters that belong merely to particular times and places, and entirely detached from the general life and conduct of mankind. Let us endeavour to rectify this opinion, my

pious hearers, and that with the greater care, fince the influence of any mistake on this head is fo extremely injurious to our virtue and happiness. What is therefore to worship God and to serve him? How can, how should this be our daily, our unceasing occupation? Wherein confists the perpetual divine worship, the perpetual divine fervice of the christian? To the answering of these questions I have devoted my present difcourfe; and the answering of them will fhew us how true and how important the declaration of the apostle in our text is: the proper and acceptable divine fervice is this, to affift widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep unspotted from the world, or confists in leading a beneficent, harmless, virtuous life.

Of this we are perfectly fure, my pious hearers, that we cannot ferve God, as we serve one another. We mutually serve each other, by affifting and relieving one another, bearing one another's burdens, eafing one another in our businesses or our troubles, by lending or imparting to one another our credit, our property, our fagacity, our abilities, by working and providing for others, bearing and fuffering for others, by promoting the perfection and happinefs of one another. But now, o man, what canst, what wouldst thou do, in order to affift the Almighty? Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counfellor hath taught him? With whom took he counfel, and who inftructed him,

brought

brought him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and fhewed to him the way of under, standing? What wouldft, what canft thou do, o man, to make the fupremely perfect ftill more perfect, him who is alone and unalterably happy, ftill more happy? What wouldft, what canft thou give him, that is not his, that he did not first give thee? Is not every beast of the foreft, are not the fowls of the mountains, and the cattle upon a thoufand hills, whence thou mightest be induced to bring him an offering, already his? Is not the earth, are not all the fruits which it produces and treasure it contains, his? Of whom does he need any thing, the All-fufficient? Dwells he, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, in temples made with hands? Does he, who gave to all men life and breath and everything, want the service and the attendance of man? And can a man, as it is faid in the book of Job, be profitable unto God, as he that is wife may be profitable unto himself? Is it any gain to the Almighty, that thou art righteous, that thou makeft thy ways perfect? If thou finneft, what doft thou against him? If thou be righteous, what giveft thou him? What receiveth he therefrom at thy hand?

Not lefs certain however is it, my pious hearers, that to worship God and pay him due fervice, does not imply, cannot merely confift in, what is fo called in regard to the great and powerful of the earth. Thefe

we