SERM, duties of the moral law.

II.

She hath a

vailed herself of every method to dazzle the fenfes and mislead the judgment: The magnificent decorations of her temples, the glittering fplendor of her altars, the confecrated veffels, the fuming incenfe, fix the attention and gain the hearts of the weak and unthinking; while the gaudy trappings of the priests, and their artful practice of repeating the fervice in a language not understood by the congregation, impress the bulk of the people with a fubmiffive respect and blind veneration for their minifters; which must be confiderably increafed by the power they have affumed of giving absolution, and of granting indulgences,

How inconfiftent is all their pomp of devotion, with the plain and admirable inftructions of JESUS to his difciplesWhen ye pray, ufe not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall

be heard for their much speaking: But enter into thy closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in fecret, and thy Father, which feeth in fecret, shall reward thee openly *.-Can we then for a moment doubt, that the filent addrefs of the foul to its Creator, is infinitely more acceptable to the Father of fpirits, than all the pageantry of maffes and proceffions?

But the great charge of idolatry, which has been brought against the Romanists, they have not, with all their skill and fubtlety, been able to refute. We are forbidden to make the likeness of any thing in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or the water under the earth, to bow down to it, and worship it. They may in vain tell us, that when they fall down before an image, or a picture, they do not adore that image, or that picture, but only the invifible per* Matt. vi. 7.

SERM.

II.

II.

SERM. fon it reprefents; fince the heathens of old, who were confeffedly idolaters, were not fo fenfelefs to confider their images of wood and ftone as real gods; but they, equally with the catholics, addressed themfelves to ftatues, as the figures or fymbols of their deities.-Yet though it were not fo, that establishment must be idolatrous, which allows for the object of adoration the foul of a dead man because it hath been canonized by a pontiff, when it is exprefsly declared, by that authority to which we all appeal, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only fhalt thou Serve *.

Thus are we led to conclude, that the various religions which have been embraced by mankind, were either wholly erroneous or fhamefully corrupted. Some nations, uninftructed by the prophet or the fage, have been refigned to intellectual * Matt. iv. 10.

darkness,

II.

darkness, while others have been milled by SERM. falfe guides, who perverted the truth, and taught for doctrines the commandments of men.-We are next to confider the faith which we profefs, that we may be able to determine whether thefe words of Chrift can be applied to the Reformed Church, The bour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers fhall worship the Father in fpirit and in truth, for the Father feeketh fuch to · worship him*.

John iv. 23.