DISCOURSE III. The Holiness of Places of Worship, considered in a Sermon at theopening of a new Meeting-house, October 20th, 1737. Exod. xx. 24.--In all places where I record my name, I will come unto r thee, and I will bless thee. THESE words were spoken to Moses at mount Sinai, and sent by him to the nation of Israel, just after the great Godhad pronounced the law of the ten commandments from heaven in lightning and thunder : And while the people lay under awful impressions of thisfiery law, God takes further care to secure the honours of his own name and worship, and to appoint some of the earliest' modes and ceremonies of it. Verses 23, 21. Ye shall not make with niegods of silver, neither shallyou make to you gods of gold: An altar of earth shalt thou make onto me, and shalt sacrJice thereon thy burnt -offeringsand thy peace- offerings, and I will meet thee and bless thee. But before I cone to explain or improve this promise, I ask leave to make these three remarks on the connexion of these words with the context. I. As the preface to those ten commands which God spoke to the people in thunder was this, I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the house of bondage; Exod. xx. 2. therefore hear and obey; so the preface to those following commands which he sent to them by Moses ; verse 22. was this, I the Lord your God have talked withyoufrom heaven, therefore attend and practise. A God of such mercy and ofsuchMajesty, who brings his people out of a long and painful bondage, and then pro- nounces his own laws in fire and thunder, ought to be heard and obeyed by sinful feeble creatures. Divine Majesty and divine mercy united, carry with them a powerful demand of attention andobedience. II. As the blessed God begins his orders to his people by his own voice, with securing his own honour and worship in the first and secondcommandments ; hi the same manner he begins his message to them, by Moses, by a sort of explication or com- ment on these two first"commands; Ye shall have no other gods with me, or besicles me; no sods of gold or silver: and ye shall worship me by sacrifices upon an altar made , of earth. Though God was just going to direct them to build a glorious tabernacle with altars of brass and gold, yet, while ye are in this moving and travelling state, before I have built me a house or
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