Private prayer is generally more devout and earnest than the share we are capable of taking in joint acts of worship; because it affords leisure and opportunity for the circumstantial recollection of those personal wants, by the remembrance and ideas of which the warmth and earnestness of prayer are chiefly excited.

Private prayer, in proportion as it is usually accompanied with more actual thought and reflection of the petitioner's own, has a greater tendency than other modes of devotion to revive and fasten upon the mind the general impressions of religion. Solitude powerfully assists this effect. When a man finds himself alone in communication with his Creator, his imagination becomes filled with a conflux of awful ideas concerning the universal agency, and invisible presence, of that Being; concerning what is likely to become of himself: and of the superlative importance of providing for the happiness of his future existence by endeavours to please him who is the arbiter of his destiny reflections which, whenever they gain admittance, for a season overwhelm all others; and leave, when they depart, a solemnity upon the thoughts, that will seldom fail, in some degree, to affect the conduct of life.

:

Private prayer, thus recommended by its own propriety and by advantages not attainable in any form of religious communion, receives a superior sanction from the authority and example of Christ: "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly."-" And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray." Matt. vi. 6;

xiv. 23.

general diffusion of religious knowledge amongst all orders of Christians, which will appear a great thing when compared with the intellectual condition of barbarous nations, can fairly, I think, be ascribed to no other cause than the regular establishment of assemblies for divine worship; in which, either portions of Scripture are recited and explained, or the principles of Christian erudition are so constantly taught in sermons, incorporated with liturgies, or expressed in extempore prayer, as to imprint, by the very repetition, some knowledge and memory of these subjects upon the most unqualified and careless hearer.

The two reasons above stated, bind all the members of a community to uphold public worship, by their presence and example, although the helps and opportunities which it affords may not be necessary to the devotion or edification of all; and to some may be useless: for it is easily foreseen, how soon religious assemblies would fall into contempt and disuse, if that class of mankind who are above seeking instruction in them, and want not that their own piety should be assisted by either forms or society in devotion, were to withdraw their attendance; especially when it is considered, that all who please, are at liberty to rank themselves of this class. This argument meets the only serious apology that can be made for the absenting of ourselves from public worship.-"Surely (some will say) I may be excused from going to church, so long as I pray at home: and have no reason to doubt that my prayers are as acceptable and efficacious in my closet, as in a cathedral; still less can I think myself obliged to sit out a tedious sermon, in order to hear what is known already, what is better learnt from books, or suggested by meditation."-They, whose qualifications and habits II. Family Prayer. best supply to themselves all the effect of public The peculiar use of family piety consists in its ordinances, will be the last to prefer this excuse, influence upon servants, and the young members when they advert to the general consequence of of a family, who want sufficient seriousness and setting up such an exemption, as well as when reflection to retire of their own accord to the ex- they consider the turn which is sure to be given ercise of private devotion, and whose attention you in the neighbourhood to their absence from public cannot easily command in public worship. The worship. You stay from church, to employ the example also and authority of a father and master Sabbath at home in exercises and studies suited to act in this way with the greatest force; for his its proper business: your next neighbour stays private prayers, to which his children and servants from church to spend the seventh day less reliare not witnesses, act not at all upon them as ex-giously than he passed any of the six, in a sleepy, amples; and his attendance upon public worship they will readily impute to fashion, to a care to preserve appearances, to a concern for decency and character, and to many motives besides a sense of duty to God. Add to this, that forms of public worship, in proportion as they are more comprehensive, are always less interesting, than family prayers; and that the ardour of devotion is better supported, and the sympathy more easily propagated, through a small assembly, connected by the affections of domestic society, than in the presence of a mixed congregation.

III. Public Worship.

If the worship of God be a duty of religion, public worship is a necessary institution; forasmuch as without it, the greater part of mankind would exercise no religious worship at all.

These assemblies afford also, at the same time, opportunities for moral and religious instruction to those who otherwise would receive none. In all protestant, and in most Christian countries, the elements of natural religion, and the important parts of the Evangelic history, are familiar to the lowest of the people. This competent degree and

stupid rest, or at some rendezvous of drunkenness and debauchery, and yet thinks that he is only imitating you, because you both agree in not going to church. The same consideration should overrule many small scruples concerning the rigorous propriety of some things, which may be contained in the forms, or admitted into the administration, of the public worship of our communion: for it seems impossible that even "two or three should be gathered together" in any act of social worship, if each one require from the rest an implicit submission to his objections, and if no man will attend upon a religious service which in any point contradicts his opinion of truth, or falls short of his ideas of perfection.

Beside the direct necessity of public worship to the greater part of every Christian community, (supposing worship at all to be a Christian duty,) there are other valuable advantages growing out of the use of religious assemblies, without being designed in the institution or thought of by the individuals who compose them.

1. Joining in prayer and praises to their common Creator and Governor, has a sensible ten

OF FORMS OF PRAYER.

dency to unite mankind together, and to cherish and enlarge the generous affections.

So many pathetic reflections are awakened by every exercise of social devotion, that most men, I believe, carry away from public worship a better temper towards the rest of mankind, than they brought with them. Sprung from the same extraction, preparing together for the period of all worldly distinctions, reminded of their mutual infirmities and common dependency, imploring and receiving support and supplies from the same great source of power and bounty, having all one interest to secure, one Lord to serve, one judgment, the supreme object to all of their hopes and fears, to look towards; it is hardly possible, in this position, to behold mankind as strangers, competitors, or enemies; or not to regard them as children of the same family, assembled before their common parent, and with some portion of the tenderness which belongs to the most endearing of our domestic relations. It is not to be expected, that any single effect of this kind should be considerable or lasting; but the frequent return of such sentiments as the presence of a devout congregation naturally suggests, will gradually melt down the ruggedness of many unkind passions, and may generate, in time, a permanent and productive benevolence. 2. Assemblies for the purpose of divine worship, placing men under impressions by which they are taught to consider their relation to the Deity, and to contemplate those around them with a view to that relation, force upon their thoughts the natural equality of the human species, and thereby promote humility and condescension in the highest orders of the community, and inspire the lowest with a sense of their rights. The distinctions of civil life are almost always insisted upon too much, and urged too far. Whatever, therefore, conduces to restore the level, by qualifying the dispositions which grow out of great elevation or depression of rank, improves the character on both sides. Now things are made to appear little, by being placed beside what is great. In which manner, superiorities, that occupy the whole field of imagination, will vanish or shrink to their proper diminutiveness, when compared with the distance by which even the highest of men are removed from the Supreme Being; and this comparison is naturally introduced by all acts of joint worship. If ever the poor man holds up his head, it is at church: if ever the rich man views him with respect, it is there: and both will be the better, and the public profited, the oftener they meet in a situation, in which the consciousness of dignity in the one is tempered and mitigated, and the spirit of the other erected and confirmed. We recommend nothing adverse to subordinations which are established and necessary: but then it should be remembered, that subordination itself is an evil, being an evil to the subordinate, who are the majority, and therefore ought not to be carried a tittle beyond what the greater good, the peaceable government of the community, requires.

The public worship of Christians is a duty of Divine appointment. Where two or three," says Christ, "are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." This invitation will want nothing of the force of a command with those who respect the person and authority

*Matt. xviii. 20.

from which it proceeds. Again, in the Epistle to
the Hebrews; "not forsaking the assembling of
ourselves together, as the manner of some is;"*
which reproof seems as applicable to the desertion
of our public worship at this day, as to the for-
saking the religious assemblies of Christians in
the age of the apostle. Independently of these
passages of Scripture, a disciple of Christianity
will hardly think himself at liberty to dispute a
practice set on foot by the inspired preachers of
his religion, coeval with its institution, and re-
tained by every sect into which it has been since
divided.'

CHAPTER V.

Of Forms of Prayer in Public Worship. LITURGIES, or preconcerted forms of public devotion, being neither enjoined in Scripture, nor forbidden, there can be no good reason for either receiving or rejecting them, but that of expediency; which expediency is to be gathered from a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages attending upon this mode of worship, with those which usually accompany extemporary prayer. The advantages of a liturgy are these:

I. That it prevents absurd, extravagant, or impious addresses to God, which, in an order of men so numerous as the sacerdotal, the folly and enthusiasm of many must always be in danger of producing, where the conduct of the public wor ship is entrusted, without restraint or assistance, to the discretion and abilities of the officiating minister.

II. That it prevents the confusion of extemporary prayer, in which the congregation, being ignorant of each petition before they hear it, and having little or no time to join in it after they have heard it, are confounded between their attention to the minister, and to their own devotion. The devotion of the hearer is necessarily suspended, until a petition be concluded; and before he can assent to it, or properly adopt it, that is, before he can address the same request to God for himself, and from himself, his attention is called off to keep pace with what succeeds. Add to this, that the mind of the hearer is held in continual expectation, and detained from its proper business, by the very novelty with which it is gratified. A congregation may be pleased and affected with the prayers and devotion of their minister, without joining in them; in like manner as an audience oftentimes are with the representation of devotion upon the stage, who, nevertheless, come away without being conscious of having exercised any act of devotion themselves. Joint prayer, which amongst all denominations of Christians is the declared design of "coming together," is prayer in which all join; and not that which one alone in the congregation conceives and delivers, and of which the rest are merely hearers. This objection seems fundamental, and holds even where the minister's office is discharged with every possible advantage and accomplishment. The labouring recollection, and embarrassed or tumultuous delivery, of many extempore speakers, form an additional objection to this mode of public worship: for these imperfections are very general, and give

* Heb. x. 25.

100

great pain to the serious part of a congregation, as
well as afford a profane diversion to the levity of
the other part.

These advantages of a liturgy are connected with two principal inconveniences: first, that forins of prayer composed in one age become unfit for another, by the unavoidable change of language, circumstances, and opinions: secondly, that the perpetual repetition of the same form of words produces weariness and inattentiveness in the congregation. However, both these inconveniences are in their nature vincible. Occasional revisions of a liturgy may obviate the first, and devotion will supply a remedy for the second: or they may both subsist in a considerable degree, and yet be out-weighed by the objections which are inseparable from extemporary prayer.

The Lord's Prayer is a precedent, as well as a pattern, for forms of prayer. Our Lord appears, if not to have prescribed, at least to have authorized, the use of fixed forms, when he complied with the request of the disciple, who said unto him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." Luke xi. 1.

The properties required in a public liturgy are, that it be compendious; that it express just conceptions of the Divine Attributes; that it recite such wants as a congregation are likely to feel, and no other; and that it contain as few controverted propositions as possible.

I. That it be compendious.

fect is in general to be looked for, but that in-
dolence will find in it an excuse, and piety be dis-
concerted by impatience.

our liturgy, are not so much the fault of the comThe length and repetitions complained of in pilers, as the effect of uniting into one service what was originally, but with very little regard to the conveniency of the people, distributed into three. Notwithstanding that dread of innovations in religion, which seems to have become the panic of the age, few, I should suppose, would be displeased with such omissions, abridgements, or change in the arrangement, as the combination of separate services must necessarily require, even supposing each to have been faultless in itself. If, together with these alterations, the Epistles and Gospels, and Collects which precede them, unity of subject and design; and the Psalms and were composed and selected with more regard to Lessons either left to the choice of the minister, dience, and the edification of modern life; the or better accommodated to the capacity of the auchurch of England would be in possession of a would have little to blame, and the most disliturgy, in which those who assent to her doctrines satisfied must acknowledge many beauties. The style throughout is excellent; calm, without coldness; and, though every where sedate, oftentimes affecting. The pauses in the service are disposed at proper intervals. The transitions from one It were no difficult task to contract the liturgies prayer, from prayer to thanksgiving, from thanksoffice of devotion to another, from confession to of most churches into half their present compass, giving to "hearing of the word," are contrived and yet retain every distinct petition, as well as like scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with the substance of every sentiment which can be a succession of diversified engagements. As much found in them. But brevity may be studied too variety is introduced also in the form of praying, much. The composer of a liturgy must not sit as this kind of composition seems capable of addown to his work with the hope, that the devotion mitting. The prayer at one time is continued; of the congregation will be uniformly sustained at another, broken by responses, or cast into short throughout, or that every part will be attended to articulate ejaculations: and sometimes the conby every hearer. If this could be depended upon,gregation is called upon to take its share in the a very short service would be sufficient for every purpose that can be answered or designed by social worship: but seeing the attention of most men is apt to wander and return at intervals, and by starts, he will admit a certain degree of amplification and repetition, of diversity of expression upon the same subject, and variety of phrase and form with little addition to the sense, to the end that the attention, which has been slumbering or ab-vine Attributes. sent during one part of the service, may be excited and recalled by another; and the assembly great. The popular notions of God are formed, This is an article in which no care can be too kept together until may reasonably be presumed, in a great measure, from the accounts which the that the most heedless and inadvertent have per- people receive of his nature and character in their formed some act of devotion, and the most de-religious assemblies. An error here becomes the sultory attention been caught by some part or error of multitudes: and as it is a subject in which other of the public service. On the other hand, almost every opinion leads the way to some practhe too great length of church-services is more tical consequence, the purity or depravation of unfavourable to piety, than almost any fault of public manners will be affected, amongst other composition can be. It begets, in many, an early causes, by the truth or corruption of the public and unconquerable dislike to the public worship forms of worship. of their country or communion. They come to church seldom, and enter the doors, when they do come, under the apprehension of a tedious attendance, which they prepare for at first, or soon after relieve, by composing themselves to a drowsy forgetfulness of the place and duty, or by sending abroad their thoughts in search of more amusing occupation. Although there may be some few of a disposition not to be wearied with religious exercises; yet, where a ritual is prolix, and the celebration of divine service long, no ef

service, by being left to complete a sentence
which the minister had begun. The enumeration
of human wants and sufferings in the Litany, is
almost complete. A Christian petitioner can have
few things to ask of God, or to deprecate, which
he will not find there expressed, and for the most
part with inimitable tenderness and simplicity.
II. That it express just conceptions of the Di-

tion are likely to feel, and no other.
III. That it recite such wants as the congrega-

against truth and decency, that has the most
Of forms of prayer which offend not egregiously
merit, which is best calculated to keep alive the
devotion of the assembly. It were to be wished,
therefore, that every part of a liturgy were per-
sonally applicable to every individual in the con-
gregation; and that nothing were introduced to
interrupt the passion, or damp the flame, which it
is not easy to rekindle. Upon this principle, the

state prayers in our liturgy should be fewer and | mere rest from the ordinary occupations of civil shorter-Whatever may be pretended, the con- life: and he who would defend the institution, as gregation do not feel that concern in the subject it is required by law to be observed in Christian of these prayers, which must be felt, ere ever countries, unless he can produce a command for prayers be made to God with earnestness. The a Christian Sabbath, must point out the uses of state style likewise seems unseasonably introduced it in that view. into these prayers, as ill according with that annihilation of human greatness, of which every act that carries the mind to God, presents the idea. IV. That it contain as few controverted propositions as possible.

First, then, that interval of relaxation which Sunday affords to the laborious part of mankind, contributes greatly to the comfort and satisfaction of their lives, both as it refreshes them for the time, and as it relieves their six days' labour by the prospect of a day of rest always approaching; which could not be said of casual indulgences of leisure and rest, even were they more frequent than there is reason to expect they would be if left to the discretion or humanity of interested task-masters. To this difference it may be added, that holy-days which come seldom and unexpected, are unprovided, when they do come, with any duty or employment; and the manner of spending them being regulated by no public decency or established usage, they are commonly consumed in rude, if not criminal pastimes, in stupid sloth, or brutish intemperance. Whoever considers how much sabbatical institutions conduce, in this rebouring classes of mankind, and reflects how great a majority of the human species these classes compose, will acknowledge the utility, whatever he may believe of the origin, of this distinction; and will consequently perceive it to be every man's duty to uphold the observation of Sunday when once established, let the establishment have proceeded from whom or from what authority it will.

We allow to each church the truth of its peculiar tenets, and all the importance which zeal can ascribe to them. We dispute not here the right or the expediency of framing creeds, or of imposing subscriptions. But why should every position which a church maintains, be woven with so much industry into her forms of public worship? Some are offended, and some are excluded; this is an evil of itself, at least to them: and what advantage or satisfaction can be derived to the rest, from the separation of their brethren, it is difficult to imagine; unless it were a duty to publish our system of polemic divinity, under the name of making confession of our faith, every time we worship God; or a sin to agree in respect, to the happiness and civilization of the laligious exercises with those from whom we differ in some religious opinions. Indeed, where one man thinks it his duty constantly to worship a being, whom another cannot, with the assent of his conscience, permit himself to worship at all, there seems to be no place for comprehension, or any expedient left but a quiet secession. All other differences may be compromised by silence. If sects and schisms be an evil, they are as much to be avoided by one side as the other. If sectaries are blamed for taking unnecessary offence, established churches are no less culpable for unnecessarily giving it; they are bound at least to produce a command, or a reason of equivalent utility, for shutting out any from their communion, by mixing with divine worship doctrines, which, whether true or false, are unconnected in their nature with devotion.

CHAPTER VI.

Nor is there any thing lost to the community by the intermission of public industry one day in the week. For, in countries tolerably advanced in population and the arts of civil life, there is always enough of human labour, and to spare. The difficulty is not so much to procure, as to employ it. The addition of the seventh day's labour to that of the other six, would have no other effect than to reduce the price. The labourer himself, who deserved and suffered most by the change, would gain nothing.

2. Sunday, by suspending many public diversions, and the ordinary rotation of employment, leaves to men of all ranks and professions sufficient leisure, and not more than what is sufficient, both for the external offices of Christianity, and the retired, but equally necessary duties of religious meditation and inquiry. It is true, that many do not convert their leisure to this purpose; but it is of moment, and is all which a public constitution can effect, that to every one be allowed the opportunity.

3. They, whose humanity embraces the whole sensitive creation, will esteem it no inconsiderable recommendation of a weekly return of public rest, that it affords a respite to the toil of brutes. Nor can we omit to recount this among the uses which the Divine Founder of the Jewish Sabbath expressly appointed a law of the institution.

Of the Use of Sabbatical Institutions. AN assembly cannot be collected, unless the time of assembling be fixed and known beforehand: and if the design of the assembly require that it be holden frequently, it is easiest that it should return at stated intervals. This produces a necessity of appropriating set seasons to the social offices of religion. It is also highly convenient that the same seasons be observed throughout the country, that all may be employed, or all at leisure, together; for if the recess from worldly occupation be not general, one man's business will perpetually interfere with another man's devotion; the buyer will be calling at the shop when the seller is gone to church. This part, therefore, of the religious We admit, that none of these reasons show distinction of seasons, namely, a general inter- why Sunday should be preferred to any other day mission of labour and business during times pre-in the week, or one day in seven to one day in six, viously set apart for the exercise of public wor- or eight but these points, which in their nature ship, is founded in the reasons which make public are of arbitrary determination, being established to worship itself a duty. But the celebration of di- our hands, our obligation applies to the subsisting vine service never occupies the whole day. What establishment, so long as we confess that some such remains, therefore, of Sunday, beside the part of institution is necessary, and are neither able nor it employed at church, must be considered as a attempt to substitute any other in its place.

CHAPTER VII.

been instituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sight to im

Of the Scripture Account of Sabbatical Institu- port; and if it had been observed all along from

tions.

THE subject, so far as it makes any part of Christian morality, is contained in two questions: I. Whether the command, by which the Jewish Sabbath was instituted, extends to Christians? II. Whether any new command was delivered by Christ; or any other day substituted in the place of the Jewish Sabbath by the authority or example of his apostles?

In treating of the first question, it will be necessary to collect the accounts which are preserved of the institution, in the Jewish history: for the seeing these accounts together, and in one point of view, will be the best preparation for the discussing or judging of any arguments on one side or the other.

that time to the departure of the Jews out of dred years; it appears unaccountable that no menEgypt, a period of about two thousand five huntion of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, should occur, either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the in many parts of the account, is sufficiently cirlives of the first three Jewish patriarchs, which, cumstantial and domestic. Nor is there, in the passage above quoted from the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the Sabbath, when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of an ancient institution, which had been neglected, imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, forgotten, or suspended; nor is any such neglect or to any part of the family of Noah; nor, lastly, is any permission recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.

In the second chapter of Genesis, the historian, having concluded his account of the six days' creation, proceeds thus: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made; and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had which creates the whole controversy upon the The passage in the second chapter of Genesis, rested from all his work which God created and subject, is not inconsistent with this opinion: for made." After this, we hear no more of the Sab- as the seventh day was erected into a Sabbath, on bath, or of the seventh day, as in any manner account of God's resting upon that day from the distinguished from the other six, until the history work of the creation, it was natural in the histobrings us down to the sojourning of the Jews in rian, when he had related the history of the creathe wilderness, when the following remarkable tion, and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh passage occurs. Upon the complaint of the peo-day, to add; "And God blessed the seventh day, ple for want of food, God was pleased to provide for their relief by a miraculous supply of manna, which was found every morning upon the ground about the camp: "and they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun waxed hot, it melted: and it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses: and he said unto them, this is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the Holy-Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over, lay up for you, to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink [as it had done before, when some of them left it till the morning,] neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day: for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days: abide ye every man in his place: let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day." Exodus xvi.

and sanctified it, because that on it he had rested from all his work which God created and made;" although the blessing and sanctification, i. e. the religious distinction and appropriation of that day, were not actually made till many ages afterwards. The words do not assert that God then "blessed" end "sanctified" the seventh day, but that he blessed and sanctified it for that reason; and if any ask, why the Sabbath, or sanctification of the seventh day, was then mentioned, if it was not then appointed, the answer is at hand: the order of connexion, and not of time, introduced the mention of the Sabbath, in the history of the subject which it was ordained to commemorate.

Not long after this, the Sabbath, as is well known, was established with great solemnity, in the fourth commandment.

Now, in my opinion, the transaction in the wilderness above recited, was the first actual institution of the Sabbath. For if the Sabbath had

passage in the prophet Ezekiel, where the Sab This interpretation is strongly supported by a bath is plainly spoken of as given, (and what else can that mean, but as first instituted?) in the wilderness. go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought "Wherefore I caused them to them into the wilderness: and I gave them my statutes and showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them: moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Ezek. xx. 10, 11, 12.

the sabbatical law amongst the transactions in the Nehemiah also recounts the promulgation of wilderness; which supplies another considerable argument in aid of our opinion:-" Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the way wherein they should go. Thou camest the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with ments and true laws, good statutes and them from heaven, and gavest them right judgmandments, and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts,

com