seen good reason why we are not to expect,) the | blessings: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”light of nature leaves us to controverted proba-"Ask ye of the Lord rain, in the time of the latter bilities, drawn from the impulse by which man- rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and kind have been almost universally prompted to give them showers of rain, to every one grass in devotion, and from some beneficial purposes, the field."-"I exhort, therefore, that first of all, which, it is conceived, may be better answered by supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of the audience of prayer than by any other mode of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for communicating the same blessings. The revela- all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet tions which we deem authentic, completely supply and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty; this defect of natural religion. They require for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God prayer to God as a duty; and they contain posi- our Saviour." Psalm cxxii. 6; Zech. x. 1; 1 Tim. tive assurance of its efficacy and acceptance. We ii. 1, 2, 3. could have no reasonable motive for the exercise of prayer, without believing that it may avail to the relief of our wants. This belief can only be founded, either in a sensible experience of the effect of prayer, or in promises of acceptance signified by Divine authority. Our knowledge would have come to us in the former way, less capable indeed of doubt, but subjected to the abuses and inconveniences briefly described above; in the latter way, that is, by authorized significations of God's general disposition to hear and answer the devout supplications of his creatures, we are encouraged to pray, but not place such a dependence upon prayer as might relax other obligations, or confound the order of events and of human expectations.

The Scriptures not only affirm the propriety of prayer in general, but furnish precepts or examples which justify some topics and some modes of prayer that have been thought exceptionable. And as the whole subject rests so much upon the foundation of Scripture, I shall put down at length texts applicable to the five following heads: to the duty and efficacy of prayer in general; of prayer for particular favours by name; for public national blessings; of intercession for others; of the repetition of unsuccessful prayers.

4. Examples of intercession, and exhortations to intercede for others:-" And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people? Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.""-" Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him."-" For God is my witness, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers."-" Now I beseech you, bretheren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me, in your prayers for me."— "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed: the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Exod. xxxii. 11; Acts xii. 5; Rom. i. 9. xv. 30; James v. 16.

5. Declarations and examples authorising the repetition of unsuccessful prayer: "And he spake a parable unto them, to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint."-" And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words."-" For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me." Luke xviii. 1; Matt. xxvi. 44; 2 Cor. xii. 8.*

CHAPTER IV.

Of Private Prayer, Family Prayer, and
Public Worship.

CONCERNING these three descriptions of devotion, it is first of all to be observed, that each has its separate and peculiar use; and therefore, that the exercise of one species of worship, however regular it be, does not supersede, or dispense with, the obligation of either of the other two.

1. Texts enjoying prayer in general: "Ask, and It shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find:-If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?"-" Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all those things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.' 26 Serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer."-"Be careful for nothing, but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."-"I will, therefore, that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.""Pray without ceasing." Matt. vii. 7. 11; Luke xxi. 36; Rom. Private wants cannot always be made the subxii. 12; Phil. iv. 6; 1 Thess. v. 17; 1 Tim. ii. 8. ject of public prayer: but whatever reason there Add to these, that Christ's reproof of the ostenta-is for praying at all, there is the same for making tion and prolixity of pharisaical prayers, and his recommendation to his disciples, of retirement and simplicity in theirs, together with his dictating a particular form of prayer, all presuppose prayer to be an acceptable and availing service.

1. Private Prayer is recommended for the sake of the following advantages:

the sore and grief of each man's own heart the business of his application to God. This must be the office of private exercises of devotion, being imperfectly, if at all, practicable in any other.

*The reformed Churches of Christendom, sticking 2. Examples of prayer for particular favours close in this article to their guide, have laid aside pray. by name: "For this thing" (to wit, some bodilyers for the dead, as authorised by no precept or precedent infirmity, which he calls 'a thorn given him in the flesh') "I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me."-" Night and day praying exceedingly, that we might see your face, and perfect that which is lacking in your faith." 2 Cor. xii. 8: 1 Thess. iii. 10.

3. Directions to pray for national or public

found in Scripture. For the same reason they properly reject the invocation of saints; as also because such invocations suppose, in the saints whom they address, a knowledge whichcan perceive what passes in different regions of the earth at the same time. And they deem it too much to take for granted, without the smallest in

timation of such a thing in Scripture, that any created being possesses a faculty little short of that omniscience and omnipresence which they ascribe to the Deity,

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.

II. Family Prayer.

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 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 stupid rest, or at some rendezvous of drunkenness they will readily impute to fashion, to a care to and debauchery, and yet thinks that he is only preserve appearances, to a concern for decency and imitating you, because you both agree in not going character, and to many motives besides a sense of to church. The same consideration should overduty to God. Add to this, that forms of public rule many small scruples concerning the rigorous worship, in proportion as they are more compre-propriety of some things, which may be contained hensive, are always less interesting, than family in the forms, or admitted into the administration, prayers; and that the ardour of devotion is better of the public worship of our communion: for it supported, and the sympathy more easily propaga- seems impossible that even "two or three should ted, through a small assembly, connected by the be gathered together" in any act of social worship, affections of domestic society, than in the presence if each one require from the rest an implicit subof a mixed congregation. mission 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.

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

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

dency to unite mankind together, and to cherish | from which it proceeds. Again, in the Epistle to and enlarge the generous affections.

great pain to the serious part of a congregation, as | fect is in general to be looked for, but that inwell as afford a profane diversion to the levity of dolence will find in it an excuse, and piety be disthe other part. concerted by impatience.

These advantages of a liturgy are connected with two principal inconveniences: first, that forms 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.

The length and repetitions complained of in our liturgy, are not so much the fault of the compilers, 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, were composed and selected with more regard to unity of subject and design; and the Psalms and Lessons either left to the choice of the minister, or better accommodated to the capacity of the audience, and the edification of modern life; the church of England would be in possession of a liturgy, in which those who assent to her doctrines would have little to blame, and the most dissatisfied 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 office of devotion to another, from confession to It were no difficult task to contract the liturgies prayer, from prayer to thanksgiving, from thanksof 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 service, by being left to complete a sentence purpose that can be answered or designed by so- which the minister had begun. The enumeration cial worship: but seeing the attention of most men of human wants and sufferings in the Litany, is is apt to wander and return at intervals, and by almost complete. A Christian petitioner can have starts, he will admit a certain degree of amplifica- few things to ask of God, or to deprecate, which tion and repetition, of diversity of expression upon he will not find there expressed, and for the most the same subject, and variety of phrase and form part with inimitable tenderness and simplicity. with little addition to the sense, to the end that II. That it express just conceptions of the Dithe attention, which has been slumbering or ab-vine Attributes. sent during one part of the service, may be ex- This is an article in which no care can be too cited and recalled by another; and the assembly great. The popular notions of God are formed, kept together until it 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 desultory attention been caught by some part or other of the public service. On the other hand, the too great length of church-services is more unfavourable to piety, than almost any fault of composition can be. It begets, in many, an early and unconquerable dislike to the public 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

religious assemblies. An error here becomes the error of multitudes: and as it is a subject in which almost every opinion leads the way to some prac tical consequence, the purity or depravation of public manners will be affected, amongst other causes, by the truth or corruption of the public forms of worship.

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

Of forms of prayer which offend not egregiously against truth and decency, that has the most 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 personally applicable to every individual in the congregation; 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 shorter.-Whatever may be pretended, the congregation do not feel that concern in the subject of these prayers, which must be felt, ere ever prayers be made to God with earnestness. The state style likewise seems unseasonably introduced 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.

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 religious 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.

mere rest from the ordinary occupations of civil life: and he who would defend the institution, as it is required by law to be observed in Christian countries, unless he can produce a command for a Christian Sabbath, must point out the uses of it in that view.

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 es tablished 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 respect, to the happiness and civilization of the labouring 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.

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.