Page:Two Sermons on the Duty and Joy of Frequent Public Worship.djvu/27

Rh people gathered together for worship in God's House of Prayer, to which God's special blessing, Christ's special presence is promised. Here we look out from the disorder, and misery, and confusion of earth, and think of the order that never changes, in heaven; and see it pictured and imaged in the noble and steadfast order of our services. Here, amid all the many "changes and chances" of our own life—whether we are in sorrow or in joy, in happiness or misery—we still sing the same songs, chant the same glorious hymns. Here, in old age, we still sing, as we did years ago in our childhood,—"To Thee Cherubin and Seraphin continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth."

Does not your soul feel sometimes in this steadfastness of our ancient services—the same from generation to generation, whatever may be the changes of the world about us—an echo and representation of the great truth that "The Lord is King, be the people never so impatient. He sitteth between the Cherubims, be the earth never so unquiet." "The Lord sitteth above the waterflood; and the Lord remaineth a King for ever." Oh, what a refreshment to the weary wanderers of earth, ever tossed in the tempests of time, to remember that! This, indeed, as we "go through the vale of misery," we may "use for a well, and the pools are filled with water;" of which water, "if a man drink, he shall never thirst." And the very order of our assemblies is a shadow of that of heaven; its music a faint earthly echo of the harps of God, and the songs of elect souls, safe for ever with God.

Now, my brethren, learn, I beseech you, to have something of this feeling in the services of the Church; and then I know you will not think them uninteresting, or unattractive. Learn some of that noble dissatisfaction with this world, because of its sin, and misery, and defilement, and with your own spiritual state, which makes a man long for a better and purer world. Learn