Page:Two Sermons on the Duty and Joy of Frequent Public Worship.djvu/17

Rh lessons He taught us was to seek to realize the blessed presence of our Heavenly Father in every place, and in all common life. But He did not therefore set us an example of neglecting Divine ordinances, or of thinking lightly of the House of God. On the contrary, in His whole life on earth, He was most attentive to all such ordinances. While He was living at Nazareth, "it was His custom," we are told, "to go into the Synagogue on the Sabbath days," —the only day when the Synagogues were open for any Divine service. Several times we read of his going up to Jerusalem on the great feast days, to keep the feasts there. Continually we read, not only on Sabbath days, but on common days, of His going up into "the Temple." Some might, perhaps, say, "We have no proof that it was on common days that our Lord went up into the Temple—perhaps it was only on the Sabbath days." But this would be a great mistake: for as there was the "daily sacrifice" in the Temple, so we are told distinctly that our Lord "taught daily in the Temple." And that He did not intend this to be only a practice of His own, and not of the disciples afterwards, is certain; for we find that the Apostles and first Christians "continued daily in the Temple; "—or, as it is in my text, "were continually in the Temple,"—and evidently had the habit of going thither at "hours of prayer."

Will any one of us say that he is wiser in the ways of godliness than inspired Apostles, and those first disciples of the Lord, who had learned the ways of God by inspiration from Himself? As I have before said, it is a peculiarly English prejudice, not existing to anything like the same extent in other countries, which leads any one to suppose that Christians ought to gather together for public worship only on Sundays. Tho doubt, to an attentive reader of the Bible, and particularly of the texts I have quoted, rather is, whether we are right in