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know, enjoy and imitate the creator, the grandest

of all beings.

Man is the image, likeness and glory of God. His exiftence is the laft and most weighty article in the scale of creation; the boast and delight of his maker.

The glory of God and man require publick worship. For if it is a glory for thee to poffefs fuch a state of existence, it is God's glory to make thee fuch; for his credit therefore and thine own, adore, thereby to confefs the glory of the work. This is a debt of honor due to God and man equally. If God has proved himself to be great and glorious in giving us our ftate of exiftence, and worthy to be adored for it, that proves that this ftate is honorable and glorious in its nature. He therefore who adores, honors God and himself at once; and he that does not, reproaches God and himself equally. He may expect man to honor him, but he has no right to any degree of it. He difhonors himself, and fets the example for others to do the fame. He makes himself a brute from whom no adoration is expected, because his ftate of exiftence and rank in the scale of being is below it. He that will

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not worship God for his being and existence, levels himself with thefe mean claffes of beings. He robs God of the glory of his work, and himself of the honor due to his rank as a reasonable being.

But fome will fay, why muft it be publick? Why may not private devotion answer the end and please as well? I am efpecially concerned to return a direct answer to this objection; because, being once accidentally prefent where it was afferted, that private devotion without the publick, would conftitute a religious character, and be equally acceptable, gave rife to this piece upon the fubject. The prevalence of this error, the ignorance it betrays, and its ill confequences, called upon me I thought, to do fomething to prevent it, or render the advocates for it inexcufable.

I fay then then that private devotion, let it be thought ever fo fincere, will not be acceptable if the person is able to appear in publick. For the benefits and obligations which God has made the ground and reafon of divine worship, are of an

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●pen and publick nature, and therefore the homage must be so too. Will any man be willing to have no bleffings or favors but fuch as are invifible. Then perhaps he may worship invifibly also. But if he wishes for favors of a publick nature, and enjoys them, why muft they be acknowledged only in private? Is not thy exiftence O man, is not thy rank in the creation, and thy place in the scale of being, a vifible honor and favor, and an open obligation? Why then muft the acknowledgment and homage be private and clandeftine ? If thou art willing to be, to live, to exist and be favored only invifibly, then there might be fome fort of reafon that thou fhouldft worship fo. But thou art made by nature to fupport the ftate and condition of a publick being, and art therefore bound to fhow thy face, and present thy person, and join in the publick praises and adorations.

Turn in upon thyfelf O man, and contemplate and view thyself, and confider that God has put thee in poffeffion of the marvellous and eternal power of thought, reafon, judgment, comparifon, recollection and difcernment; capable of rumaging

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the universe in its vifible and invifible regions: thou art poffeffed of a foul deep and infathomable; capable of counfels, decrees, determination and refolves; of choice and rejection; of love and hatred; of election and reprobation; and many other properties, by which thou standeft forth as the glory and resemblance of thy creator: thou carrieft a visible body marvellously framed with parts and members, and endowed with fpeech, fight, hearing, touch, tafte and fmell; furrounded with innumerable creatures above and beneath, that ferve thee publickly. And is all this to be owned fculkingly in hidden corners and behind doors?. Will any man fay that this is just and reasonable? It is impoffible.

Many, indeed moft, give themselves little or no trouble about any worship at all, either publick or private. They spend the fabbath partly working and partly loitering, neither at their business, nor off it, but between both. But he that worships and adores in private only, yea he that worfhips in publick only now and then, as humor and fancy leads, and not conftantly and zealously, is a thief and a robber, let his private devotions be

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as conftant and fervent as you are pleased to fancy them. He is worthy of no honor, for he dif honors himself. He robs God of his glory in making him to be what he is; and in fact declares to the world by his own conduct, that no respect or honor is due to himself. He efteems his personal existence not worth publick thanks and praise, but only fomething private and clandeftine. He therefore who offers up only private adorations, offers up offences to heaven, and by his religion reproaches both his creator and himself.

Every man then is bound to adore the creator publickly by every principle of honor and honesty. Why, O vain man wilt thou lull thyfelf to fleep, or faunter, or gad about the streets on the great day of God? The day is confecrated and made facred that thou mayeft pay the debt due to God and thyself. Thy open exiftence, and the glory of thy rank in the creation, witness against thee that thou art under great

in debt. Thou wilt fay,

obligations and deeply what need? And how nothing that He can

is it poffible? There is receive, or that I can give. That is the very thing that involves thee in debt, and binds thee.

Thou

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