brings you there? Is it custom; or the example of your neighbours; or the fear of being singular? Or, is it, as it ought to be, a belief in Christ as the life of the world; and a desire to partake of that life? Do you go, as the Hebrews went, out in the wilderness to gather manna for their life; knowing that your spiritual life cannot be supported in this wilderness without bread from heaven? Do you go for the strengthening and refreshing of your souls, as the Catechism properly expresses it; that like labouring men you may be better enabled to work out your own salvation; and,, together with your spiritual strength, receive a pledge of a blessed resurrection and a glori ous immortality?:

I have hitherto said nothing of the duty of prayer. But here the Church most eminently leads the way, in appointing a form of morning and evening service for every day of the year; and particular forms for every season of the year. But does it give us only the form? Does it not also teach us the sense and spirit of prayer: that prayer is an evidence of the Christian life, as breathing is the evidence of our natural life: that we are under dangers and necessities, out of which nothing but the right hand of God, stretched out to

those

those that cry unto him, can possibly save and deliver us? It therefore supposes that Churchmen pray every day-twice a-day-as they certainly ought, either at the Church, or in their families, or both. What must (or rather what does) become of families who do not pray together? What must become of single persons who do not pray for themselves by themselves? By disuse they become more and more averse to the duty, and farther from God in their lives and conversations; and he, of course, is farther from them. Such persons therefore as do not accustom themselves to pray; what are they? Are they true members of the Church of England? If they do not pray, they are not Christians; and cannot be said to be members of any Church they cast themselves out of all Churches. Their life is a passage through storms and tempests over a dangerous sea: what will become of them in life? What will become of them in death? What will become of them after death? For the soul will continue in such a state after death, as it lives and dies in. If it dies without prayer, it will continue without God. The souls of the righteous are represented to us in the Revelation as still continuing in prayer, and uttering to God what

was the petition of their lives, how long, O Lord, holy and true*, &c. In this language do they cry unto God to fulfil that righteous judgment upon the world, which the Church of the living prayeth for; particularly in the Burial Service, where we call upon God to accomplish the number of his elect, and to hasten his kingdom.

Enough has been said, I hope, to convince you, what it is, in propriety of speech, to hear the Church: that it is not to hear with your ears only, but to understand with your heart; to keep up to the sense of her doctrines, and the life and spirit of her forms. When our blessed Saviour described in few words the character of Nathaniel, he said, behold an Israelite indeed: for all were not Israel in spirit, that were of Israel by their birth and education. So may we now say of him, that keeps up to the life, while he follows the forms of the Church; behold a Churchman indeed; and it is devoutly to be wished, that the portrait I have drawn were more frequently verified. But as there were not many Nathaniels when Christ visited the Church of Israel; so it is to be feared, that of the Nathaniels of the

* Rev, vi, 10,

present

present day there is no great number: and there will be fewer every day; if the delusions and deceptions, with which mankind are so easily drawn away, should increase upon us as they have of late years. I have shewn you plainly how the character is to be attained; and instead of blaming me, as if I had brought up a new doctrine to disturb your consciences, you are to examine yourselves impartially by this plain rule of hearing the Church. You may have persuaded yourselves that if you believe the facts of Christianity, you have the religion of the Church; and that nothing more is necessary. But the facts of the Christian history are all without you: what is it that happens within you? Do you believe the inward distempered state of your nature; and that the Gospel is a remedy, sent from Heaven to those who are poor and blind, and naked? To believe the Gospel truly, is not to believe that there is such a thing as the Gospel, (for the Devils know that;) but that it is the power of God for the salvation. of man that there is no life without the spirit of it; no teaching without the light of it; that the wisdom of nature can never shew

us the will of God; and the works of nature never render us acceptable to Him: that if laws are written in the heart, they are God's laws, transferred to the heart, according to his promise, by the power of his Grace. If this be your religion, we may then truly say that you are a Churchman; and every good man will allow it. But if you take the outside of Christianity, Christianity will never be more than the outside of you your religion will be a form, and you yourself will be a lifeless Christian. On this subject, no rule is so worthy to be remembered, as that short and plain rule of the Apostle he is a Jew, which is one inwardly. For all the gifts of God's religion are inward: nothing but signs are outward; and if the Churchman is an outward Christian, he is nothing but the sign of a Christian; with no more true life in him, than the sign of a man's head, which is painted on a board and how bright and glaring soever the colours may be, it is but a board at last.

I do not say these things with design to reflect upon any person in particular: my design is to stir up the minds of you all by way

* Rom. ii. 29,

of