lical Churches throughout Christendom; if any of you, my brethren, shall have found yourselves confirmed by these observations in your former favourable estimate of the provisions of the Church, or relieved from any scruple or doubtfulness concerning their fitness; I would entreat you in conclusion to consider these reflexions, not only as a justification of her provisions in the particular service now before us, but as an earnest of such arguments as may be pleaded in her favour on other subjects, on which ignorance or prepossession, the inconsiderateness of the ill-informed, or the prejudices of the ill-disposed, may misconceive and misrepresent her. It has been the lot of the Church to make her way, so her Divine Founder hath willed it, "through evil report and good report." Of the latter we trust that she is still esteemed justly intitled to the well-earned meed, in the general estimation of the people of this nation though of the former she has had to encounter no small portion in the present day, even from persons and in places, where better things might have been hoped and expected. It is only where her provisions are ill-understood or construed amiss, that we need fear any thing that can be said of her or her provisions. Where her character is properly understood, and correctly estimated, we shrink not from examination: for she will be found in other cases, as I trust she has

appeared in this which has now occupied our attention, distinguished for her faithful attachment to scriptural truth, and for her piety, her charity, and withal her careful moderation, in enforcing it.

Thus much has been thought desirable to be said concerning the provision which the Church has made for the service of the first day of Lent, in relation to the Church herself. In relation to ourselves let me observe, that the purposes of this Discourse will by no means have been answered, unless the reflexions, which have been offered upon her intent and her provisions in the service for that day, shall tend to produce in some at least of my hearers the effects, which she is anxious to produce by that service in our hearts and lives. To this end the whole of that service is wonderfully well adapted: not the introduction only, and the sentences, which the tenour of my argument has required me to examine; but the same is the case also with that scriptural, most impressive, and most affecting exhortation, wherein application is made to our consciences of the terrors of God's wrath; with the penitential psalm, in which we are then directed to pour forth the sorrows of a troubled spirit, a broken and contrite heart; and finally with the concluding devotions, in which the congregation, partly by the mouth of the minister, and partly in conjunction with him, make confes

sion of their own unworthiness, and implore mercy and forgiveness from that gracious God, "whose property is always to have mercy, to whom only it appertaineth to forgive sins."

But this admirable service, excellent as it is, being but rarely used in our publick devotions, I would advise you to peruse and consider it before you come hither, and to bear your parts in it with attention and fervency, whilst you are here. At the same time, as many of the present congregation will probably be prevented by their secular engagements, and by that general indifference which prevails concerning such services of the Church as are not appropriated to the Lord's day, from attending the service on the first day of Lent, them let me intreat to suffer one additional word of exhortation; whilst I admonish them to make the provision in question the subject of their private study and meditation in the course of the approaching solemn and penitential season. So may the pious and charitable intent of the Church be fulfilled; and may we all be led to earnest and true repentance, and to walk more warily in these dangerous days! And do thou, "Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that Thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent; create and make in us new and contrite hearts: that we worthily lamenting our

sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

DISCOURSE XX.

THE CHURCH'S PLACES OF WORSHIP, GOD'S PRESENCE IN THEM, AND OUR DUTY.

GEN. xxviii. 16, 17.

And he was

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. THE circumstances, immediately connected with this exclamation of the patriarch Jacob, are few, and need not detain us long in the recital. Partly to avoid persecution from his brother Esau, and partly to form a matrimonial engagement more agreeable to the religious privileges which his family enjoyed than his own neighbourhood would furnish, Jacob with the blessing of his father Isaac had quitted their residence in Canaan, and was travelling towards Haran in Mesopotamia whence Abraham had come. On his journey it pleased God to vouchsafe him a mark of his favour, and a promise of his protection in a very memorable vi

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