attending the house of God, or ever learning how to inherit eternal life. Such people should remember, that their horses need rest as well as they; and that their servants have souls as well as themselves.-It is also worthy of our notice, that a great many respectable people, who live in villages contiguous to large towns, instead of staying at home, and promoting, by their presence, the cause of Christ in their own neighbourhood; will drive off to join a more réspectable audience, and to hear a fine looking parson; to the discouragement of the worthy village preacher, and the retarding of the gospel where it is most needed. Such people seek the orator, more than the preacher of Christ; and to please the eye, more than to profit "the heart.

By Neglecting the House of God altogether. -Strange as it may appear, there are many, who call themselves christians, that make very little scruple about neglecting public worship for a whole Sabbath, and some of them for a whole month together. The most trifling indisposition will keep you away. When more disordered on the Saturday and Monday, you can attend to your daily labour with little inconvenience; but a slight indisposition confines you to your room on the Lord's day. You apologize, "We were too poorly to venture out; or the day was cold; or the weather was rainy; our clothes were not fit to wear; or a friend called on us, just as we were coming away; and we read our bibles at home, which

is just as well as going to church or chapel.” Such, and various other excuses, will many professors make, to cloak their neglect of attending divine ordinances. But all of them are weak, and some of them wicked. If you could attend to your business, you might brave the cold and rain to meet your God. As for your apparel, God will examine your hearts and not your garments. If a visitor call on you, bring him to the house of God with you, or bid him call again. And as for reading your bibles at home, as a substitute for attending the house of God; is it not supposing that God and good people have been in an eternal mistake; the former by instituting public worship, and the latter by preferring it to private ? There may be cases when we can not attend ; but we should never plead a necessity for staying at home, when no such necessity exists. Consider the public worship of God a privilege as well as a duty, and you will not neglect. it as often as you are accustomed to do..

LECTURE IV.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE most direct, and, indeed, the only method that we can adopt to reform au immoral person, is first, to exhibit the law by which his life should be regulated; then, to shew him how he has broken it; in the next place, to explain the loss he is likely to sustain on account of his crimes; and finally, to catch the favourable moment of impression to enforce the necessity of becoming a better man.--To the first of these particulars, in connection with the subject under consideration, we formerly attended. Our business, at present, is with the second namely, To make such an exhibition of your Sabbath transgressions, before the eye of your recollection, that you may recognize them for your own, detest them for their enormity, and resolve, in the strength of God, to do so no more. This procedure is warranted, not only by the rules of reason, but also by the word of truth. This was God's method

Y

with the antient Israelites: "To shew thee
what was in thy heart." This was the Saviour's
method with the woman of Samaria :
"He
told me all that ever I did." And this was
the method of the great apostle St. Paul: "But
if all prophesy, and there come in one that
believeth not, or one unlearned; he is convinced
of all, he is judged of all; and thus are the
secrets of his heart made manifest; and so,
falling down on his face, he will worship God;
and report that God is in you of a truth."-
In our last Lecture, we directed your attention
to the profanation of the Lord's day, by the
nation in géneral, and by professors of religion
in particular. We now proceed to notice its
violation by heads of families, by men of busi-
ness, and by people of pleasure. The Sabbath
is profaned-

(2.) By Heads of Families:-In Misemploying the Preceding Night.-It is a very common practice for masters and heads of families, to be engaged themselves, or to employ their children and servants, in cleaning their houses on the Saturday till a very late hour, and often till "it begins to dawn towards the first day of the week." When they lie down, they are uncommonly fatigued with labour; and because they have been deprived of rest half of the night, to make it up, they will sleep half of the following day. Or, if they rise as usually, are quite unfitted for any of those lively services, to which the christian Sabbath invites them. To prepare for the

Sabbath is proper and necessary; but, when this preparation tends to violate what it professes to sanctify, its end is entirely defeated. To prepare for the Lord's day is more than to clean your houses, and to set your temporal affairs in order; it is to prepare your heart, and so to dispose of your thoughts, that the Sabbath may not be abused by ungodly thinking, any more than by ungodly acting. Nor is it considered a phenomenon, by the observers of fashionable amusements, if some of our religious gentry have their balls and card parties on the Saturday evening, and keep up their festive riots, till one, two, or three, o'clock in the morning: and then, perhaps, on the Sabbath, "like nocturnal birds awaked at noon," to attend divine worship, or some other place of public resort, with bloodshot eyes, and other appearances, evidently betraying the hurry and confusion of the preceding night. But, generally, the forenoon is lolled away in painful indolence; and the minds of these modern epicures, are engaged in reflecting on their foolish diversions; and their senses, in snuffing up the fumes of the preceding festivity.

In Dispensing with the Religious Duties of the Morning. The manner in which some of you spend the early part of the christian Sabbath is truly shameful. Single out, in your minds, a family which is not attentive to the concerns of the soul; and see how its members employ the Lord's day morning.

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