that does not well know, that, however excellent it is to contemplate as a system, and that amidst the general neglect of devotional duties, one of the most unfailing proofs of a genuine piety has been the establishment and regular maintenance of Family Prayer in an house-yet who does not know that the carrying out of what has been described is in the far greater number of our houses-in the houses of our working poor-well nigh an impossibility? That in the houses of another very large class, viz., of persons actively engaged in trade-it is of necessity a very short, often an interrupted, occasionally an omitted act of worship: that the positive comfort and benefit of Family Prayer is very much confined to the houses of those who are affluent and at ease amongst us, with whom a place set apart, a moderate space of time, no great pressure of business, works with a good will to make it good unto edifying? And this I say in a place, whose praise it once was that you could find scarce an house on the side of a street where there was not Family Prayer.* But in those days men rather sought at home what their spirits longed for, but found not, in the church. For that which is so essential unto true devotion, tranquillity, a fixed hour, uninterruptedness, associations of divine and heavenly things, the absence of all other associations; these advantages the Sanctuary of God-the place set apart from all secular uses, consecrated to Divine-secures alike to the affluent, the poor, the busy, to all men. Is it not then good for us to be here,† rejoicing in the restoration of the Sanctuary of the Lord-let me say of the Sanctuaries of the Lord-for the same work is going on through the length and breadth of the land? Our forefathers, in a misguided spirit, defiled the dwelling places of • See Baxter's Life and Times. † Matth. xvii. 4. God's Name: They brake down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers :* and too long truly it seemed as though we allowed the deeds of our Fathers.† But is not the present restoration of the Houses of God in the land an earnest of their being resorted to more generally and more constantly than they have been? As through disuse they fell into decay, is not their universal restoration, to say the least of it, a presage that men shall once more resort unto them for comfort, for instruction, for the nourishment and refreshment of their souls? Doth it not seem preparatory to some merciful design of God toward us, that so far as the assembling of ourselves together hath a tendency to provoke unto love and to good works, and generally to preparation for that day which all men see approaching—that so far as this can profit, there has been in our days an invitation to come into the House of the Lord, which the deaf cannot choose but hear? And it were consistent no less with sound reason than with charity, to take this view of the great efforts which are being made on every side to repair the desolations of many generations.§ When our Blessed Saviour foretold that thereafter men should neither on that mountain where He stood, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father, but that the true worshippers should worship Him in spirit and in truth,¶ He spake beforehand of the day when His House should be called a House of Prayer for all people: He foretold in truth these very days in which we live; these very services in which we are engaged; He foresaw the Time when the Isles afar off, that had not heard His fame, nor had seen His Glory,tt should offer up pure spiritual sacrifices, acceptable unto God through Him;‡‡ when in • Ps. lxxiv. 6. ¶ John iv. 21, 23. † Luke xi. 48. Heb. x. 24, 25. § Is. lxi. 4. every city and every village His people asking faithfully should obtain effectually; yea, should see God's Power and Glory, as David saw it, as the saints under the New as well as under the Old Dispensation have seen it—in the Sanctuary!+ How much He foresaw, that should be derogatory to His honour in those ages to come, as in the past had been, it importeth not now to surmise. Side by side with the true and spiritual worship will ever be found, in corrupt beings such as we are, the deflexions from it. And if we can see and lament, how must He have foreknown and lamented! But on the whole it is not to be doubted, He foresaw the day of His power‡-the day when The Son of Man should be made Lord of the Sabbath,|| and be reverenced in the Sanctuary; and when the People should offer their freewill offerings with an holy worship*— as we do (I trust through God's grace and mercy) this very day. But it will be said: "we are not only restoring the breaches which time, or a vain fanaticism, hath made in our Holy Places; we are decorating and adorning them.” To this I can but think that the illustrious defender of our Ecclesiastical Polity gave a sufficient answer when he said, "Were it not strange that God should have made such store of glorious creatures on earth; and leave them all to be consumed in secular vanity; allowing none but the baser sort to be employed in His own Service." But if people must consider adornment of Churches twin-sister with superstition, and their uncomeliness a symptom of spirituality; all that can be said is, that this philosophy of theirs is wholly of human origin: it is not founded upon any warranty of God's word. For true devotion, though it † Ps. lxiii. 2. Ps. cx. 3. || Luke vi. 5. * Ps. cx. 3. Prayer Book. § Hooker's Eccl. Pol. Lib. v. ch. xv. 4. B is of spiritual birth and spiritual growth, yet, being the the devotion of men, is not independent of those outward things with which men are conversant. If it were so, God would have made some things in vain-in vain as regards the best and highest uses. The glories of Nature, which are from His Hand immediately, of Art, which only mediately are of Him, would be in a very material degree done in vain; if they were for this world's uses only, if they did not minister to true devotion. Nor are we to suppose that this is a present condition only of our nature, while the corruptible body weigheth down the soul, and therefore, as fanatics maintain, a weakness culpable and sinful, to be utterly eradicated and put away as an unclean thing: but I think it can be unanswerably proved from the Inspired Volume, that such influences in our glorified state will continue, and may be instrumental even unto heavenly joy. Sun and Moon indeed shall not lighten the Eternal City, the New Jerusalem, the Lamb's wife, in Heaven; for the Glory of God shall lighten it, and the Lamb be the Light thereof. But as of pure gold, and as of most precious stones, and pearls, and as it were of transparent glass, was the appearance of it unto St. John in the Apocalypse. Our glorified bodies, having like faculties and powers to those which now they have, only changed, refined, renewed, purified from corruption, shall find there, as they found here in their imperfect state, congenial objects. Things temporal are types of things eternal. The beauty and order of earthly worship are emblematic of the beauty and order of Heavenly: and whosoever despiseth external order and harmony, because it may be abused to evil purposes, doth in truth resist God who created it for good. If indeed, as the learned Hooker warns us, "there be great pains to build and beautify these corruptible sanctuaries, little or none that the living temples of the Holy Ghost, the dearly redeemed souls of the people of God, may be edified; great expense upon timber and stone, but toward the relief of the poor small devotion; cost this way infinite, but mean while charity cold," then indeed ought such works to be rather discouraged; and Justice, Mercy, and Truth insisted on.|| And this is a thing so needful to be well and truly weighed-not only in regard of the present occasion, but also in regard of what is going on generally throughout the land-that I shall trespass on your attention yet a short time longer to consider it. That they who are at pains to build and beautify these corruptible sanctuaries, and to re-establish the order and harmony of God's service, are generally persons who are at no pains to build up souls in the Faith, this cannot I think be asserted without such lack of truth and charity, as few will incur the shame of by deliberate assertion. But in regard of its being said that the money thus expended had better have been expended in works of mercy and charity, this I think demands a grave and a severe rebuke. For the very nature of the observation shews it to be made by those who stand aloof from the work; who are judging other men's actions and motives; who, however great sacrifices they themselves may make in the cause of what they deem to be mercy and charity, have no right whatever to say, " To what purpose is this waste? for this might have been sold for much and given to the poor."* They have no right whatever to speak thus of Eccl. Pol. xv. 5. *Matt. xxvi. 8, 9. |