[Sund. 2. ready to receive the revelations of God's will to mankind, and as careful to practise what he enjoins. It restrains the immoderate desire of honour, by teaching us not to exalt ourselves, nor do any thing through strife or vain-glory. It opposes selflove, which is planted in our nature, and when indulged, will be too apt to deceive us in the judgment we form concerning ourselves. It also makes us ready to believe what God reveals, and to pay our due obedience to him, from the sense of our own weakness and his excellency; and by removing the great hinderance of our faith, which is a vanity to distinguish ourselves from the unthinking crowd. It makes us put our hope and confidence in God; because, being weak and miserable of ourselves, without him we can do nothing. It increases our love to God, by making us sensible how unworthy we are of the least of those many favours we receive from him. It teaches us to rejoice in the prosperity of our neighbour, for infusing the most favourable opinion of his worth. It disposes us to relieve those wants, and compassionate those afflictions, which we ourselves have deserved. It makes us patient under all the troubles and calamities of life; because we have provoked God by our sins. And therefore neither prayers nor fasts will find acceptance, unless they proceed from an humble mind; and our best works will stand us in little stead, if they are stained with pride and boasting of our own strength.

SUNDAY II.

I. Of the honour due to GOD, in his house or church. II. By reverencing and maintaining his ministers with tithes and offerings. III. By keeping the Lord's day. IV. By observ ing the feasts, and V. fasts of the church; whether public, private, or the fast of Lent. VI. In his word, the holy scriptures, or rule of faith; by catechising and preaching. VII. In his sacraments; by receiving baptism, and performing the vows and obligations thereof.

1.

A

SEVENTH duty to God is HONOUR. For as honour is a duty, which in the mature of things is owing to those that are a superior relation to us and as the very notion of it implies its being due to such by how much therefore God is infinitely

greater than those whom we acknowledge to be our superiors upon earth, by so much ought we to have a profounder regard and veneration for him. And they honour God, who serve him in spirit and in truth, in all the ways of his appointed worship, and due obedience to his laws; which command us not only to pay this honour immediately to himself, but to have a due esteem for his house, his ministers, his day, word, and sacraments, and for his name, as things that nearly relate or belong to him.

First, we must honour God in his house, that is, in the church, so called, upon the account of its peculiar relation to him, being solemnly dedicated and set apart for his public wor ship and service; and upon account of God's peculiar presence; in the administration of his word and sacraments. The dedica tion of it to sacred uses makes it properly his own, and the praying to him, praising him, and celebrating the holy mysteries, according to his appointment, are demonstrations of his peculiar presence. And consequently we ought to reverence God's house; by furnishing it with all decency for the worship of God; by re pairing and adorning it; by keeping it from the profane and common use, and applying it wholly to the business of religion; by offering up our prayers in it with fervour and frequency by hearing God's word with attention and resolutions of obeying it; by celebrating the holy mysteries with humility and devotion; and by tising all such outward testimonies of respect as the church enjoins, and are established by the custom of the age we live in, as marks of honour and reverence. This bodily worship is recommended by Solomon, when he charges us to look to our feet when we go to the house of God.

This will correct any whispering or talking about worldly afz fairs, any negligence or light carriage this will suppress any provocations to laughter, or any critical and nice observation of others. And on the contrary excite in us sincere intentions of glorifying God, and making his honour and praise known among men; acknowledging hereby our entire dependence upon his bounty, both for what we enjoy, and what we further expect: and promote hearty endeavours of performing his blessed will, and of being that in our lives and actions, which we beg to be made in our prayers: and teach us to govern our outward be haviour by such measures as the church prescribes, which is to kneel, stand, or sit, as the rubric hath enjoined to be complied with in public. And all these different postures ought to be used with such gravity and seriousness, as may show how intent we are when engaged in the worship of God, and yet avoiding E

such behaviour as may be apt to disturb those that are near us, and to give occasion to others to suspect us of acting a formal hypocritical part.

If we come to church before service begins (which we should always endeavour to do) after we have performed our private devotions, we should recollect ourselves, and dispose our minds by serious thoughts to a due discharge of the ensuing duties: for the discoursing about news and business is improper upon such occasions, God's house being never designed for the carrying on of worldly concerns. And it is still more unbecoming, while we are at our prayers, to observe those rules of ceremony, which in other places are fit to be practised toward one another; because when we are offering our requests to the great God of heaven and earth, our attention should be so fixed, that we should have no leisure to regard any thing else. To this end, when we put our bodies into a praying posture, with which leaning and lolling seem very inconsistent, we should do well to x our eyes downward, that we may not be diverted by any objects near us; and at the same time resolve not to suffer them to gaze about, whereby they do but fetch in matter for wandering thoughts. This attention will be much improved by silence; therefore we should never pray aloud with the minister but where it is enjoined, endeavouring to make his prayer our own by a hearty Amen. Great care must be taken not to repeat after the minister what peculiarly relates to his office; which I mention the rather, because I have frequently observed some people following him that officiates, in the exhortation and absolution, as well as the confession; this, if thoroughly considered, must be judged a very improper expression of the people's devotion, because those are distinguishing parts of the priest's office. Therefore the best preparation of mind for our joining in the public prayers is to abstract our thoughts as much as we can from wordly concerns, that we may call upon God with attention and application of soul: to keep our passions in subjection, that none of them may interrupt us when we approach the throne of grace to possess our minds with such an awful sense of God's presence, that we may behave ourselves with gravity and reverence to work in ourselves such a sense of our own weakness and insufficiency, as may make us earnest for the supplies of divine grace; such a sorrow for our sins, and such a readiness to forgive others, as may prevail upon God, for the sake of Christ's sufferings, to forgive us to recollect those many blessjugs which we have received, that we may show forth his praise,

not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to

his service.

II. Secondly, the Almighty is also to be honoured in his ministers, by that love which is due unto them as the stewards of the mysteries of God, and those that watch over our souls. Therefore we ought to show our love to such as administer to us in holy things, in being ready to assist them in all difficulties, and in vindicating their reputation from those aspersions, which bad men are apt to load them with: in covering their real infirmities, and interpreting all their actions in the best sense; never picking out the faults of a few'and making them a reproach to the whole sacred order. And as ministers are in a peculiar manner servants of God, to whose bounty we owe all tirat we enjoy ; therefore we should dedicate a part of what we receive to his immediate service, as an acknowledgment of his sovereignty and dominion over all. And what makes this duty further reason able is, that, in order to be instruments in God's hand in procuring our eternal welfare, they renounce all ordinary means of advancing their fortunes; they surrender up their pretensions to worldly interests: and therefore it is highly fit that their laborious and difficult employment, purely for God's glory and our salvation, should receive from us the encouragement of a com fortable and honourable subsistence, upon this and the like considerations that parents may be encouraged to devote their children of good parts to the service of the altar; for it is not probable they will sacrifice an expensive education to an em✩ ployment, that is attended with small advantages. And if some persons have zeal enough to engage in the ministry without a respect to the reward of it; yet common prudence ought to put as upon such methods as are most likely to excite men of the best parts and ability to undertake the sacred function; that the best cause may have the best management, and the purest religion the ablest defenders. It is also necessary that their maintenance should bear some proportion to the dignity of their character, and should raise them above the contempt of those who are apt to be influenced by outward appearances; for, though wisdom is better than strength, nevertheless the prok man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. And further, that by this means they may be better enabled not only to provide for their families, which is a duty incumbent upon them as well as the rest of mankind, but to be examples to their flock in charity and in doing good, as well as in all other parts of their office and duty.

The wisdom of our Christian forefathers thought these considerations of such force, that the government has appointed for the maintenance of our ministers the house and glebe*, and the oblations which were the voluntary offerings of the faithful, very considerable in the primitive times; so that the necessities of the church were liberally supplied from the great bounty of the people and when, upon the spreading of Christianity, a more fixed and settled maintenance was required, yet somewhat of the ancient custom was retained in voluntary oblations, beside tithest, which are the main lawful support of the parish minister. The reason of their payment is founded on the law of God, and their settlement among us has been by the ancient and undoubted laws of this nationt. Therefore such as by tricks or shifts keep

* These were the original endowments of a charch, without which it cannot be supplied, and without which it could not be consecrated; and upon which was founded the original right of a patronage. For it appears from lord Coke, that the first kings of the realm had all the lands of England in demesne, and les grand manours and les royalties they reserved to themselves; and with the remnant they enfeoffed the barons of the realm for the defence thereof, with such jurisdictions as the court baron now hath; and about this time it was, when all the lands of England were the king's demesne, that Ethelwolf, almost nine hundred years ago, conferred the tithes of all the kingdom upon the church by his royal charter; which is extant in abbot Ingulf, and in Matthew of Westminster.

↑ We do not read of tithes paid the apostles, because the zeal of Christians in their time was so great, that as many as were possessors of land or houses old them, and laid the price of them at the apostles' feet; and the devotion of the following ages, even to the latter end of the fourth century, was so remarkable for the liberality of their offerings and oblations, that their bounty to the evangelical priesthood exceeded what the tenth would have been, if hey had paid it; so that there was no reason to demand tithes, when men gave a greater proportion of what they possessed; though, even during those ages, there want not testimonies from the fathers of those times, that tithes were due under the gospel as well as before, and under the law: and that they were paid is plain from the apostolical canons, which provide for the disposal of them.

We have shown upon good authority in the preceding note f, that tithes were granted by the bounty and munificence of the first monarchs of this realm to the clergy, out of all the lands in the kingdom, and the perpe tual payment thereof laid as a rent-charge for the church on the same, before any part thereof was demised to others: so here let it be also observed, that if perhaps some of the great men of the realm had then estates in absolute property, as it is certain there were very few, if any, that had, they charged the same with tithes by their own consent, before they did transmit them to the hands of the gentry, or any who now claim from them. So that the land being thus charged with the payment of tithes, came with this clog unto the