I have now, my Hearers, largely argued the duty and beneficial tendency of public worship. Better reasons I cannot offer. More powerful inducements to a constant attendance upon it, unless real necessity may be pleaded, as your excuse, cannot be laid before you, that are contained in those considerations which prove its beneficial tendency, above illustrated. If by those you will not be convinced, and reformed, if heretofore negligent of the duty, you must remain unconvinced and unreformed. Divine power and grace alone can awaken, convince, and reform you. Remember, if you neglect or deny public worship, you provoke God--you neglect a plain duty--you set a bad example--you dishonor Jesus Christ--you injure religion--you disserve the cause of morality--you contribute your proportion of influence to extirpate from the earth the christian religion--and must be responsible for all the evils you are the occasion of. Let us all, then, make conscience of so plain and so important a duty as public worship, that by it, we may be trained up for the worship of heaven, for THERE, they are before the throne of God and serve him, day and night, in his temple.
The Ordinance of the Lord's Supper not a human invention, but a divine Institution.
_And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said take, eat, this is my body.--And he took the Cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sin. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day, when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.--And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives._
It affords peculiar satisfaction to the thinking mind, in attending any duty of Religion, to be well assured that it hath either a divine warrant, as _thus saith the Lord,_ or is supported by the clear light of Reason. If we make that a duty which God hath not enjoined upon us, either taught us by the light of nature, or the light of Revelation, we are guilty of will-worship or superstition. In this case, it may justly be said to us, _who hath required this at your hands: bring no more vain oblations._ To worship God in a way not appointed in his word, or by rites and ceremonies not authorised by him is to presume to interfere with the kingly office of the Saviour. He is king in his Church, and alone had power to make laws and appoint ordinances of worship. It is an infallible mark of an apostate and antichristian Church to pretend to institute sacraments or ordain modes of worship. Our Lord, knowing the proneness of human nature to err, and to adopt modes of worship of their own, has left his people this needful warning and excellent advice. _But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men._ We reject, with abhorrence, all human inventions or commandments in things divine. We glory in being guided solely by plain scripture, and not by the opinions or decrees of any men--body of men, or venerable ecclesiastical councils, however wise, or learned, or pious. Superstition and impiety are two extremes, in Religion, which ought to be shunned with equal care. We are not to turn aside to the right hand or to the left. While we anxiously flee from superstition, we should tremble lest we run to the opposite extreme of irreligion. Excellent is the advice of the wise man on this head. _Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left; remove thy foot from evil._ The right-hand errors of superstition, and the left-hand errors of irreligion are to be avoided with the utmost solicitude.