dation of our habitual nearness to God, our actual approaches to him, and our comfortable hopes of the future enjoyment of him. He suffered for our sins, that he might bring us to God. He took on him our nature, that we might partake of the divine. In our nature he ascended to heaven, that we might follow him thither. He appears in the presence of God for us, that we may draw near in the full assurance of faith.

Let none despise the word dispensed, and the ordinances administered in the church. These are the means by which believers come near to God, receive the communications of his grace, and obtain a preparation for glory. However lightly some may esteem these means, pious souls find them highly useful to warm their holy affections, strengthen their good resolutions, improve their virtuous tempers, and bring them nearer to heaven.

Let none imagine, that they are above the need of divine ordinances; nor yet let any suppose, that religion mainly consists in the observance of them; but let all regard them as the means of holiness, and attend upon them, with a view to bring their souls nearer to God in the love of his character, and in the practice of every duty.

Our subject instructs us, when we may be said to enjoy God's presence in religious worship. It is, when we draw near to him in such a manner, that the true end of worship is answered-when a holy temper is increased, holy resolutions confirmed, an aversion to sin strengthened, and faith and humility promoted. It is not merely the elevation of affection in God's wor ship, which indicates his presence with us: A better proof is the correspondence of our hearts to the design of his worship, which is the promotion of knowledge, faith, holiness, charity, heavenliness, and constancy in duty. In a word, when we find, that God's ordinances make us better, we may conclude that we have been with him.

How great is the evil of sin! It is this which separates the soul from God. In nearness to him consists the felicity of rational beings: Distance from him is their misery; all pretences to happiness are vain, while Iman is a stranger to God. Let him be surrounded with all the riches, honors and joys that the world can give; still, if he is far from God, he is far from happiness. He who is without God, has no hope. Do the sensual and profane boast of pleasures, when God is not in all their thoughts?-How vain are these pleasures! How unsatisfying-how transient! In the moment of death they will vanish forever, and leave the soul overwhelmed with sorrow.

Let us be afraid of every thing that tends to draw us away from God; and love every thing, which brings us nearer to him. Let us seek him with our whole hearts; preserve daily communion with him ; choose his favor as our happiness, his service as our employment, his word as our guide, his ordinances as our refreshment, his house as the gate of heaven, and heaven as our eternal home.

SERMON XV.

The Nature, Foundation and Design of the Christian

Church.

EPHESIANS ii. 19-99.

Now therefore ye are no more strangers, but fellow citizens with the Saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

THESE Ephesian Gentiles, as the Apostle observes, had in times past been aliens from the commonwealth or citizenship of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, without Christ, and afar off from God. But by the gospel there was a great change made in their condition. They were brought near to God, and the enmity between the Jews and them was abolished by the blood of the cross, so that both were now reconciled to God in one body, and were become one new man. "Therefore," says the Apostle in the text, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners," as ye were formerly, "but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."

He describes the Christian church as a city or household-He teaches us the nature of that foundation on which the building stands-He signifies that the build. ing, for its permanence and security, must be united to the foundation-and, finally, that it may grow into an holy temple, and become an habitation of God; all the parts must be framed into, and incorporated with

one another.

I. The Apostle represents the church of God under the figure of a city, and a household.

1. A church must resemble a family or city, in respect of order and government; for without these a religious society can no more subsist, than a civil community, or a household.

The

In a city there must be laws to regulate the manners of the citizens, and officers to publish and administer the laws. So it must be in the church of God. laws of this sacred community are immediately insti tuted by God himself; and by him officers are appointed to explain these laws, inculcate obedience to them, reprove the violations of them, and hold up to general view the solemn sanctions annexed to them. Though he does not directly indigitate the persons, who are to act as officers in his church, yet he has prescribed the necessary qualifications for, and the mode of introduction to the instituted office; and without a regular call and induction, no man has a right to assume a sacred, any more than a civil function. As in a civil community every appointment to office must be agreeable to the constitution; so in the church, every appointment must be agreeable to the gospel, which is the great charter of its privileges. If in a state every man, who pleased, might usurp the powers of magistracy, and demand obedience from his fellow citizens, there would be nothing but riot and confusion: So it would be in the church, if every person, at his option, might officiate as a public ruler or teacher. In this case, a church would resemble Babel, rather than a

well regulated city. Officers in Christ's church are to act, not as having dominion over the faith and conscience, but as being helpers of the knowledge and comfort of their fellow Christians. They are to apply the threatenings, and, in some cases, the censures of Christ their Lord, for the conviction and reformation of the unruly; but they are not to act as Lords over Christ's heritage: Whatever authority they have, they are to use it only for edification, not for destruction.

Now as God has instituted government in his church, for the promotion of holiness and good works, so to this government every one is bound to submit. What would you think of a man, who should profess himself a citizen of the state, and yet should claim an exemption from its jurisdiction ?-Just the same must you think of a man, who professes to be a Christian, and yet lives at large, without subjecting himself to the discipline of any Christian church.

There are those who pretend to believe the gospel, and who have much to say about the church, and yet never own themselves subject to Christ's authority in it. They never have explicitly covenanted to walk in communion with this, or that, or any other church of Christ. They consider themselves as totally exempt from Christian jurisdiction. Now why is not this as great an inconsistency in the religious, as the same conduct would be in the civil life. The truth is, every man who believes the gospel is bound to submit to all its plain institutions; and since Christ has ordained, that his diciples shall unite in societies for mutual watchfulness, edification and comfort, every man is obliged to comply with this institution, by walking in fellowship with some Christian church. And they who imagine, they are not under the same obligations as others, or are not subjects of Christian discipline equally with others, because they never have joined themselves to any particular church, should consider, that they have no right to live in this loose and discon