If abuses now and then creep into this part of our worship, they shall not be more ready to point them out, than we will be to own and reform them. If some slight inconveniencies may happen to have arisen from hence, which seem to blemish the performance of our religious service, far be it from us either to cherish, or defend them. The very best things are liable to be misused; and the better the thing, oftentimes the more liable it is to it. However we doubt not, but that, upon a fair balance of profit and loss, it will appear, that the few inconveniencies pretended to have arisen from hence, are not to be compared with the many and mighty advantages, that have certainly sprung from it; and that if one good man has been thrown back in his devotions, hundreds and thousands have been extremely forwarded by it.

And this is what I should now more particularly endeavour to prove under my

III. Third general head, wherein I proposed to shew, that the way of performing divine service in the Church of England is better fitted to fix our attentions, and raise our affections, than any other form of devotions now practised in the Christian world*: that it enjoys this advantage, as in several other respects, so particularly in relation to a solemn and decent use of church music. But the greatest part of the matter that would arise on this head, is foreign to the design of the day; and what is not so, has in part been prevented already; and neither of them can now be insisted upon, without depriving you too long of a better and more sensible conviction of the power of church music, than any I can supply you with. I shall therefore take this whole point for granted; and from thence, in the

IV. Fourth and last place, very briefly, but earnestly, exhort you to make your devotion exemplary, in

See the preceding Discourse on this subject.

propor

tion to those advantages, which you above all others enjoy. In vain will it be for us to boast, that we have extraordinary helps to inward piety, if our outward behaviour plainly declares, that we do not make a due use of them. In vain shall we hope to convince those that differ from us, of the decency and expedience of this part of our worship, and of its great tendency to spiritual edification; if they see that it does not really produce those good effects in us which we ascribe to it: let us reason never so well in this case, they will think they have answered our arguments, if they can but confront them with our practices. Let us take away the strength of this objection, as well as we can that of all the rest; and then, I am sure, our devotions will be altogether blameless. O let all of us, that have any regard for the honour of that church to which we belong, any zeal for the true interests of piety, any real concern of heart on the account of those little niceties and endless scruples that thus unhappily divide us; O let all of us, I say, that are thus affected and disposed (as all of us, I am sure, should be) resolve, from this moment, so to order our external deportment in the house of God, as may best enable it to reach those excellent ends! Let no light and vain motion, no loose and unseemly gestures, be seen upon any of us, when we appear in this great presence! Let our ears then listen to nothing, but to the solemn offerings of prayer and praise that are then put up, and listen to them with no other design, but to affect our souls with a deep sense of them. Let not our eyes lead the way to our naughty hearts, and teach them to wander! But let us be all composed throughout into attention, and awed into a religious respect and silence.

To the sound of words, and the significancy of gestures, let us join all along the sweet melody of our hearts; completing the holy concert, we assist at, by a divine agreement of mind and body in the same acts of adoration, and by making all our worship, both inward and outward, exactly harmonious, and of a piece! So shall we take away every reproach that shall be cast upon our

communion so shall we win the hearts, and convince the judgments, of those that differ from us: so shall we thoroughly recommend our worship to God, and ourselves by the means of it. In a word, so shall we make the devotions of this our church militant here on earth, the lively image of those of the church triumphant in heaven.

To a blessed participation of which, may God of his infinite mercy bring us, &c.

A

SERMON

PREACHED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY, MAY 13, 1714-15.

OF ANXIETY AND SOLICITUDE.

-Take no thought for the morrow.-MATT. vi. 34. THIS is part of our Saviour's sermon on the mount; wherein he proposed a short sum of christian doctrine, in opposition to the false maxims and corrupt notions of morality, that then obtained in the world. And indeed, all the precepts he there laid down, though highly reasonable in themselves, were yet so distant from the common opinions and practice of the Jews, that we are not to wonder, if (as St. Matthew informs us) when he had ended these sayings, the multitude was astonished at his doctrine: Matt. vii. 28. For they had heard nothing like it from their teachers, the scribes and pharisees. And, perhaps, no one branch of it was more surprising to that worldly-minded people, immersed deeply in the cares of life, and in a restless concern for earthly things, than the rule given by him in the text; take no thought for the morrow. A rule, which even to christian ears may seem somewhat harsh at first hearing; and will, therefore, deserve to be a little explained, in order to its becoming a sure foundation of duty, and the proper subject of those reasonings and exhortations, with which I propose to enforce it.

-Take no thought for the morrow.

The meaning of our Saviour in these words, cannot be, that we are to live at random, secure and careless of

whatever may befal us; that we are not to look into the consequences of our own or other men's actions, nor endeavour any ways to foresee and prevent approaching dangers that we are to make no manner of provision for future events, to lay up nothing, and concern ourselves about nothing, but what is present, and immediately before us: for this is no part of the character either of a wise or good man, nor agreeable to many other rules and directions given us in Holy Scripture. Doubtless, sagacity in discerning, and a prudent forecast towards declining evils, are not only allowable, but commendable qualities; frugality and diligence are certainly virtues; and therefore the prudent man is thus described by Solomon, that he foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: Prov. xxii. 3. And the ant is recommended to us, as a pattern of providence and parsimony; go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise. Prov. vi. 6. Even our Saviour had a bag, wherein there was probably a supply for more than one day. And as he allows us to foresee persecutions at a distance, and to escape them by an early flight; so he himself took that method of declining them, and cannot therefore be supposed to condemn what he frequently practised. But his meaning plainly is, to forbid such a care and concern for future accidents, as is attended with uneasiness, distrust and despondency; such a degree of thoughtfulness, as takes up, and dejects, and distracts the mind. We are not too curiously to pry into the remote issues of things, nor to perplex and afflict ourselves with the forethought of imagined dangers. We are not to guard against want, by an eager anxious pursuit of wealth, nor be so careful in providing supplies for the necessities of this life, as to forget that we are designed for another. In this sense we are obliged to take no thought for the morrow. And indeed this is the sense which the original naturally carries: for what our version renders by taking thought, is in the Greek, a word of much greater force and compass, signifying a restless solicitude, and distraction of thought; and by the mor