Page:Two Sermons on the Duty and Joy of Frequent Public Worship.djvu/28

16 the pleasure of worshipping God with His people, and then you will see how the very regularity and monotony, as some might think it, of Daily Service, has a blessed meaning. The bread of life is the same always. Every day we need confession and absolution;—to tell out to our Father our sins, and listen to His promise of forgiveness. Every day of our pilgrimage it is a joy to think of our great home above, that changes not. And so we shall be able to understand David's enthusiastic song,—"O, how amiable are Thy dwellings, Thou Lord of Hosts! my soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord." For all these are shadows of the true joys of eternity, the actual presence of God, the satisfying of all desires, the joy of a victory won once for all.

All these thoughts show the pleasure of public worship; not to all men, but to those who really believe in heaven, and rejoice in the thoughts and hopes of it, and do not only coldly acknowledge that there is such a state. Last Sunday I showed you the authority in Scripture for the practice of frequent or daily public worship; to-day I have shown you, though very imperfectly, some of the pleasures of it. No one who considers these things can possibly deny that the Bible sanctions and encourages frequent public worship; and that the Apostles and inspired men, and a Greater than Apostles, practised it. They may say that they cannot go with the Bible in this respect; or that they do not mean to be guided by it; but they cannot say that it does not teach these things.

What, then, is the practical conclusion? I do not say that attendance at daily service is the positive duty of all men. Doubtless, there are very many who cannot possibly attend it. Their duties in life call them elsewhere; or there are circumstances that make it difficult, or impossible for them to attend. And there are Christians, very devout, warm-hearted Christians, who do not find they can make it profitable to them; their devotion is of another sort. But what I say is, that if they are dutiful