194 APPEARANCE BEFORE corr. in to morning and evening prayer, what is your end ? Do you come with hope and desire to appearbefore God? Or is it merely to obey the orders of the house, and comply with the custom of the family, for the sake of your temporal interest? Ask your- selves, my friends, what is it that brings you in constantly at the seasons of reading and praying ? . Is it a design to get near to God. Shall Iask the children, when youcome in at the hour of worship, do you set yourselves asbefore God ? Do your thoughts go along with the words of him who prays ? Do ye attend to the word read, as the word of God, whereby you must be judged ? Or do you satisfy yourselves to wear out the quarter of an hour, in sitting still, or in kneeling as òthers do, without thoughts of God ? Shalleach of us askour own hearts, how do we pass the time of daily worship ? Arewe careful to lay aside all our thoughts of the world, that we may be at leisure for God ? Re- member, that not only in the morning and evening devotion, but at every meal we appear before God : Now, do we join inprayer for a blessing on our food and in giving thanks ? Or do we think theword of one who speaks sufficientlysanctifiesìnd blesses the meat for all who taste it ? Let us farther ask our consciences this one question, do we remember God all the day, as those who have appeared before him at worship in the morning ? Do we walk among men as those who dwell in a house of God ? Do we .eat, and drink, and speak, and live, as those who profess so much religion and wor- ship. Let us think on these things, and consider who there is among us that ventures to trifle with the great and dreadful God in such appearances before him ? Orprovoke him with a couver- ,sation unsuitable to such professions ? Blessed be God, there is more than the form of Godliness found in the governing parts of this family ! And I am persua- ded, that not the parlour only, but the meaner rooms are witnesses of devotion and pious discourse : But we are none of us above the need of self-enquiry ; and as we all 'appear with our bodies toworship God daily, methinks I would not have one soul among us absent from God in thisdaily worship. Thus have I finished the first generalhead of my discourse. Secondly, The words of the text discover to us an earnest longing after divine ordinances, and the presence of God in them. Thisabundantly appears also inseveral parts of this psalm : How mournfully dpth the Psalmist complain, and what a painful sense he expressesof his long absence from the house of God ! verses 3, 4. What a sweet and sorrowfulrecollection he makes of past seasons of delight in worship? My tearshave been my meat and night,my soul is cast down and disquieted, I remember when Iwent with the multitude to the house of God, with the voiceofjoy
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