I show the salvation of God." The woman of Samaria too, in a spirit very similar, thought that it was matter of great moment whether God were to be worshipped on Mount Gerizim, or at Jerusalem but that--though, for the time, there was a right and a wrong in it was a question our Lord lets her know, which, comparatively, was very little worth debating: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father." That is, not as if the mere place signified at all. But "the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The spiritual

sacrifice then is the devotion of the heart and affections, and the dedication of the life to God: this, and not any mere outward observance, or precision, or exactness in ceremonies of any sort, though they may for some purposes be useful and necessary, is what God requires; and the whole our church has, in more places than one, in the very acts of worship, taught us; directing us to pray, "Give us that due sense of thy mercies that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we may show forth thy praise not only with our lips, but in our lives; by

*John iv. 21-24.

giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days." And again, with special reference to my text: "Here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee and although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer to thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

And this brings me to the last particular of this head. The spiritual sacrifices of the Lord's people are acceptable sacrifices. Not indeed because they are perfectly what they ought to be in themselves, for that they are far from being; but as the text, and our church following it, lays down the doctrine: "Albeit that good works," so it stands in our 12th Article, "which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins and endure the severity of God's judgment, yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ." As of "God's only gift it cometh that his faithful people do unto him true and laudable service;" so of his only gift it cometh also, that such service comes up with acceptance on his altar. But yet in truth it is so "Thy prayers and thine alms,"

:

is said to Cornelius, "are come up for a memorial before God." And "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life."+ "And God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love." + "The sacrifices of God are a broken

spirit." § "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." ¶ Every part and act of spiritual worship, to the penny which the poor man puts upon the sacramental plate in testimony of gratitude to Him whom he is come to feed upon, and of love to his people, and unity of purpose with them,-it is, I say, all accepted when the Lord comes to "make his people joyful in his house of prayer," and none of it shall by any means lose its reward; because, though worthless in itself, and worse-the worshipper is Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Then what a glorious thing, my brethren, it would be, if every christian congregation were what it ought to be, and what grace can make it; if "the whole building, fitly framed together, were grown up into an holy temple of the Lord;" if it were become indeed "an habitation of God through the Spirit ;" ** and " to the praise of the glory of his grace," God had made us "accepted in his Beloved."

* Acts x. 4.

Psal. li. 17.

+ Rev. xxii. 14.

Heb. vi. 10.

James v. 16. ** See Eph. ii. 21, 22.

Then let

every

individual look to himself, that there may be no obstacle on his part. And so I

come to,

III. The last matter which I purposed to inquire into-namely: What are the qualifications and the frame of spirit which every one ought to bring with him to the house of God, in order to the christian discharge of his duty, and the actual attainment of his christian privileges. 'Laying

aside all malice," says the apostle, "and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evilspeakings as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." Here are four things intimated, and every one of them indispensable,-humility, honesty, faith, and charity.

1. And first, humility. Christians are called by St. Peter "new-born babes ;" and he adopts that similitude to instruct them. Such therefore, in the spiritual sense, you must take yourselves to be. When Jesus would show his disciples the road to honour in his kingdom, he took a little child and set him in the midst of them. * And advanced in the divine life as the Psalmist was, My soul," he says, "is even as a weaned child." It is no matter, then, how high ye seem to stand among the disciples of Christ at

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present; when your humility ceases, your growth in grace must cease; and when, accordingly, ye leave off advancing, ye will certainly go backward. There is no part indeed of the service of God's house which a proud or self-sufficient person can be fit for. The Pharisee in the temple could neither confess nor pray, nor do any one thing which might have become a creature in his Maker's presence, much less any one thing which might have become a sinner before his Judge, or a penitent before his Saviour. He acknowledged nothing; he asked for nothing. He had no sympathy at all with his fellow worshipper; and if he thanked God, it was hypocrisy: what he meant, was to glorify himself; and if Paul had been there to preach to him, he could have taught him nothing. But the publican could pray, and did pray. Howbeit he little thought he could and could be accepted in prayer moreand go over, down to his house justified, though he condemned himself; for he could cast himself upon mercy; he could speak to God therefore: and had the least preacher of the Gospel been there, "his bodily presence mean, and his speech contemptible," he could and would have heard, and been edified, when, by so poor an instrument, God spake to him. The child is lowly, knowing his own weakness; a hearer of his instructors, and not a judge and the babe in Christ is like

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