What a mistake, my brethren, to banish yourselves from these holy assemblies, under pretence that you already know enough, and likewise that you are already sufficiently versed in all the duties of piety, which you have long professed; and that Christian reading, and a small degree of reflection in private, go a greater way, and are attended with more benefit, than all our discourses! But, my dear hearer, if you profess piety and righteousness, what sweeter consolation can you enjoy, than that of hearing the wonders of the Lord published, the ordinances of his holy law, truths which you love and practise, and of which you ought to wish the knowledge to be given to all men? What sight more soothing and consoling to you than that of your brethren assembled here at the foot of the altar, attentive to the words of life, absent from the spectacles of the world, and removed from the occasions of sin, forming holy desires, opening their hearts to the voice of God, perhaps conceiving the promises of the Holy Spirit, and the commencement of their penitence, and to be enabled to join yourself with them, in order to obtain from the Father of mercies, the completion in their soul of the work of salvation, which he hath begun to operate within them?
Not but that the most consolatory resources are furnished to Christian piety, by the meditation of the divine writings. But the Lord hath attached graces to the power of our ministry, and to the legitimate calling, which you will not find elsewhere. The most simple truths in the mouths of the pastors, or of those who speak to you in their place, draw an efficacy from the grace of their mission, which is not inherent to them. The same book of Isaiah, which, when read from a chariot by that officer of the queen of Ethiopia, was to him as a book sealed up, and only amused his leisure without enlightening his faith, — explained by Philip, instantly became to him a word of life, and of salvation. And, lastly, you owe that example to your brethren, that edification to the church, that respect to the word of Jesus Christ, that uniformity to the spirit of peace and of unity, which binds us together. O, banish yourselves, and so much the better, from those profane and criminal assemblies, where piety, alas! is always a stranger, suffering, and constrained: but here is its place, and its home; this is the assembly of the holy, seeing it is only toward their formation that our ministry hath been established, and still continues to endure in the church.
I have said, in the second place, a spirit of faith; and in this disposition, two others are comprised: — a love of the holy word, independent of the talents of the man who announces it to you; a taste, formed by religion, which comes not here in search of vain ornaments, but of the solid truths of salvation; that is to say, to listen to it, neither with a spirit of censure nor with a spirit of curiosity.
And, in effect, your love of the word of Jesus Christ ought to render you blind, as I may say, to the defects of those who announce it to you: in a mouth even rude and unpolished, you ought to find it lovely, divine, and worthy of all your homage; in whatever shape
