SERM. X. by his being worshipped publickly, than privately: Because private Prayer is Piety confined within our Breasts; but publick Prayer is Piety exemplified and displayed in our outward Actions: It is the Beauty of Holiness made vifible; our Light Shines out before Men, and in the Eye of the World; it enlarges the Interefts of Godliness, and keeps up a Face and Senfe of Religion among Mankind.

Were Men only to repair to their Devotion, as the Disciple of Quality did to his Lord and Mafter, fecretly and by Night for Fear of the Jews; Religion thus lonely and unfriended would foon decay for want of publick Countenance and Encouragement. For, what would be the Confequence, if Religion fought the Shades, and lived a Reclufe entirely immured in Closets; while Irreligion audaciously appears abroad, like the Peftilence that deftroyeth at Noon Day? It requires no great Depth of Penetration to perceive, nor Expence of Argument to prove; that the want of a publick national Religion, or a general absenting from that national Religion, muft end in a general national Irreverence to the Deity; and an Irreverence to the Deity in an univerfal Diffolution of Morals, and all the Overflowings

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Overflowings of Ungodliness. The Service SERM X. of the Church, and the Word of God read and expounded, muft awaken those Reflections, which it is the Business of bad Men to lay faft afleep, and let in upon the Soul fome unwelcome Beams of Light; But, when these conftant Calls to Virtue are neglected; Men will become gradually more and more eftranged from all Serioufnefs and Goodness; till at last they end in a profeffed Disregard to all fixed Principles.

The Fear of that Being, whofe Judgments no Power can fence off, no Skill elude, being abfolutely neceffary; it is the Duty of every Man, not only to cultivate this Reverence in himself, but to promote it as far as he can in others. Now he, that would promote a facred Regard to the Deity, must do it by such Actions, as are most fignificant of that Regard: He must exprefs and exemplify to others, that awful serious Sense of the Deity, which is impreft upon his own Mind, by a folemn and avowed Acknowledgment of his Power and Glory in Affemblies fet apart for that Purpose. Whoever thinks juftly, muft be fenfible, that private Religion never did in Fact fubfift; but where some publick Profeffion

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SERM. X. feffion of it was regularly kept up: He

must be fenfible, that if publick Worship were once difcontinued, an univerfal Forgetfulness of that God would enfue, whom to remember is the strongest Fence and Prefervative against Vice: And that the Bulk of Mankind would foon degenerate into mere Savages and Barbarians, if there were not stated Days to call them off from the common Bufinefs of Life, to attend to what is the most important Bufinefs of all, their Salvation in the next.

But I need not labour this Point: Since it is allowed even by those who are declared Enemies to Religion. They look upon Religion, and publick Worship, as a political Engine, to awe the common Herd into a Senfe of their Duty, not founded on Reason, yet neceffary to the Good of Mankind. How abfurd this Scheme is, may eafily be fhewn. For if they do not admit the Existence of the Deity; they may be, without much Difficulty, confuted; the Exiftence of God being one of the most obvious Truths. But if they do admit it; they must grant likewise, that an infinitely good Being muft will, whatever is for the Good of his Creatures; and confequently

confequently Religion and publick Worship, SERM. X. which they own to be conducive to the Good of Mankind, must be his Will: But, what is the Will of the Deity, must be founded on Truth and Reafon. What is neceffary to the publick Happiness, is therefore true. For though our private Interest and Truth may not alway coincide; yet there is alway a ftrict Correfpondence, Harmony, and Alliance, between Truth and the general Happiness.

Religion being once fet afide; there will be nothing left to reftrain the better Sort, but a Fear of Shame and Difgrace; and nothing to restrain the lower Sort, but the Dread of temporal Punishments; which yet will be of little Avail. For he who is weary of Life, who wants to lay it down as a Burthen, may command yours, or mine, or any Body's elfe. And what should hinder him? The Fear of the World to come? That will be out of the Question, when once a Senfe of Religion is extinct. The Fear of this World of an ignominious or a lingring Death? Alas! temporal Punishments derive their chief Efficacy from the Dread of divine Vengeance. For, without that, a Man may evade them, by be

SERM. X. ing his own Executioner. There are a thousand Avenues to Death; and though the Vigilance of the Magistrate may secure fome of them; yet others will stand open to receive the determined and refolved, and place them beyond the Reach of the impotent Power of their Fellow-Creatures. To destroy Religion therefore, is to let loose the wretched and the defperate (a formidable Body) upon the easy, affluent and the happy. One would not chufe to live in a World, which has no Notion or Belief of another. For however advantageous one's Circumftances may be, we fhould lye at the Mercy of those, who defpair of bettering their own, but by Violence or Fraud: There being nothing in this Life to check that Man, to whom Life itself, as it is circumstanced, is an infupportable Load.

We may obferve, that a Difregard to all Authority is the diftinguishing Character of the Age: Children are undutiful to Parents, Servants are difobedient to their Masters, and Subjects to those that are set over them. And can they wonder at it, who seldom or never recognize, in the most open and cogfpicuous Manner, the Authority of that Being, in whom all Authority, in the last