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SERMON

XLIII.

PSALM XCV. 6, 7.

O come let us worship and fall down before him: for he is the Lord our GOD.

IN

N this pfalm we find holy David taken up with the pious contemplation of GOD's infinite power, majefty, and greatnefs-he confiders him as the fovereign Lord of the whole earth, the maker and fupporter of all things;that by him the heavens were created, and all the hoft of them; that the earth was wifely fashioned by his hands;-he had founded it upon the feas, and established it upon the floods-that we likewife, the people of his pasture, were raifed up by the fame creating hand, from nothing, to the dignity of rational creatures, made, with refpect to our reafon and understanding, after his own moft perfect image.

It was natural to imagine that fuch a contemplation would light up a flame of devotion in any grateful man's breast; and accordingly we find it break forth in the words of the text, in a kind of religious rapture :

O come let us worship and fall down before him: for he is the Lord our GOD.

Sure never exhortation to prayer and worship can be better enforced than upon this principle, that GOD is the cause and creator of all things ;-that each individual being is upheld in the station it was first placed, by the fame hand which first formed it ;-that all the bleffings and advantages, which are neceffary to the happiness and welfare of beings on earth, are only to be derived from the fame fountain;-and that the only way to do it, is to fecure an intereft in his favour, by a grateful expreffion of our fenfe for the benefits we have received, and a humble dependance upon him for those we expect and stand in want of.-Whom have we in heaven,

fays the Pfalmift, but thee, O God, to look unto or depend on; to whom shall we pour out our complaints, and speak of all our wants and neceffities, but to thy goodness, which is ever willing to confer upon us whatever becomes us to afk, and thee to grant;-because thou haft promised to be nigh nuto all that call upon thee,-yea, unto all fuch as call upon thee faithfully;that thou wilt fulfil the defire of them that fear thee, that thou wilt alfo hear their cry, and help them.

Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest and most easy.-There are some duties which may feem to occafion a troublesome oppofition to the natural workings of flesh and blood;-fuch as the forgiveness of injuries, and the love of our enemies ;-others, which will force us unavoidably into a perpetual ftruggle with our paffions,-which war against the foul;-fuch as chastity,temperance,-humility.-There are other virtues, which feem to bid us forget our prefent intereft for a while,

fuch as charity and generofity ;-others, that teach us to forget it at all times, and wholly to fix our affections on things above, and in no circumstance to act like men that look for a continuing city here, but upon one to come, whofe builder and maker is GOD.-But this duty of prayer and thanksgiving to GoD -has no fuch oppofitions to encounter; -it takes no bullock out of thy field,no horfe out of thy ftable,-nor he-goat out of thy fold;-it costeth no wearinefs of bones, no untimely watchings;-it requireth no ftrength of parts, or painful ftudy, but just to know and have a true sense of our dependence, and of the mercies by which we are upheld :-and with this, in every place and posture of body, a good man may lift up his foul unto the Lord his God.

Indeed, as to the frequency of putting this duty formally in practice, as the precept must neceffarily have varied according to the different ftations in which GOD has placed us;-fo he has been pleafed to determine nothing precifely

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