punctual. If the minister attends at the appointed hour, why cannot his congregation? If some of his congregation do, why cannot the rest? It is not however against occasional failures that the foregoing animadversions have been directed; but against a general indifference which is sometimes found to prevail about the time of coming to church; against an habitual and systematick custom of coming after the service is begun, and often when it is considerably advanced.

You

I have brought the question forward upon the strongest ground, that of its being a matter of religious obligation, affecting your duty to Almighty God, to your brethren, and to yourselves; if you accord with my reasoning, you will endeavour, I trust, with God's grace, to avoid, or, if necessary, to amend, what you cannot but condemn. call yourselves Christians: as such it is your duty to glorify your Father which is in heaven, as by other works of piety, so by publickly uniting in his true and spiritual worship; to contribute to the edification of your brethren, as by other acts of charity, so also by exciting and encouraging them to the like practice of devotion; and to work out your own salvation in these, as in all other exercises, of a holy and religious life. You call yourselves Protestants; members of the reformed Church established by the good providence of God in this country: as such it is your duty, and be

lieve me, my brethren, I esteem it your highest privilege, to unite in that form of worship, which the Church hath provided for the regulation of the devotions of her members, purified from every corruption of human imagination, and modelled and constructed upon the principles of that holy Scripture, which containeth all things necessary to salvation. But, whatever you may call yourselves, be assured of this; that you are neither Christians to any profitable purpose, nor are you consistent Protestants and true members of our reformed Church, unless you conscientiously offer to God that reasonable service which your profession pledges you to perform.

To one particular in that service your thoughts have at this time been directed. The considerations, on which they have been fixed, are calculated, I trust, to preserve you, if you are already, or, if you are not now, to induce you to become in future, by God's blessing, early attendants on his publick worship. I think also, that the like considerations, if duly applied, will induce you to be regular, and constant, and attentive, and devout in your attendance: that is, they will cause you, not to come occasionally only to church, but habitually and systematically: not to be present at one only of the publick devotions of the Lord's day, but at both; at the evening as well as at the morning service: not to be present only in person,

but to take your part in the devotions of the congregation, to follow the minister with your minds and thoughts through those portions of the service, which are appropriated to him, and to repeat with your lips those portions which the Church allows and directs you to repeat: lastly, not to join in the service with your lips only, but with your hearts; not to worship God with your bodies only but with your souls, as becomes the worshippers of that Spiritual Being, who requires those who worship Him to "worship him in spirit and in truth." All these effects, my brethren, may reasonably be expected to result from a due regard to such considerations as have been this day laid before you. I pray God that they may so. And with that prayer I leave the subject to your meditations; trusting that, if seriously and humbly pursued, it will by God's grace excite in your minds sentiments and desires correspondent to those, which the royal psalmist expressed in the text, and which ought to actuate the practice of every sincere Christian: "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even panteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."

Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; pour

down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen'.

'Collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.

DISCOURSE XVIII.

THE CHURCH'S PRACTICE OF PSALMODY, ITS ORIGIN, AND RULES FOR IT.

COL. iii. 16.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

It is a well known fact, that the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians was written at the same place, and about the same time, with that to the Ephesians circumstances which account for a remarkable resemblance between the two in respect both of sentiment and of expression. Of this resemblance we have a striking example in the passage just recited to you from the Epistle to the Colossians, and in another which occurs in the fifth chapter of that to the Ephesians. This coincidence is natural in two compositions, addressed under the circumstances mentioned, to different