194 A 6VIDE TO PIrAYEtt. Where worship is performed by immediate inspiration, ra natural'order of things, and a becoming behaviour is required in him especially who leads the worship. This is the design of the apostle in his advice to the Corinthians ; 1 Cor. xiv. 40. Let all things be done decently and in order, i. e. Let such a prudent conduct, such a regular and rational management in all the parts of worship be found among you, as gives a natural beauty to human actions, and will give a visible glory to the acts of religion. Where this advice is followed, if the unlearned and unbeliever, i. , e. ignorant and profane, come into the assembly, they will fall down and worship God, and report God is in you of a truth; ver. 25. But if ye are, guilty of disorder in speaking, and break the rules of natural light and reason in uttering your inspirations, the unlearned and unbelievers will say, ye are mad, though your words may be.the dictates of the holy Spirit. Much more is this applicable to our common and ordinary performance of worship. When an unskilful person speaks in prayer with a heaviness and penury of thought, with mean and improper language, with a false and offensive tone of voice, or accompanies his words with aukward motions, what slanders are thrown upon our practice? A whole party of christians is ridi- culed, and the scoffer saith, we are mad. But when a minister or master of a family, with a fluency of devout sentiments and language, offers his petitions and praises to God in the name of all that are present, andobserves all the rules of natural decency in his voice and gesture ; how much credit is done to our profes- sion hereby, even in the opinion of those who have no kindness for our way of worship ? And how effectually Both such a per- formance confute the pretended necessity of imposing forms ? How gloriously doth it triumph over the slanders of the adversary, and force a conviction upon the mind, that there is something divine and heavenly among us ? I cannot represent this in a better manner than is done by an ingenious author of the last age, who being a courtier in the reigns of the two brothers, Charles and James the second, can never lie under the suspicion of being a dissenter ; and that is the late Marquis of Halifax: This noble writer in a little book under a borrowed character, gives his own sentiments of things. He tells us that, f0 He is far from relishing the impertinent wan- derings of these, who pour out long prayers upon the congrega- tion, and all from their own stock ; a barren soil, which produces weeds instead of flowers ; and by this means they expose religion itself, rather than promote men's devotions. On the other side, there may be too great restraint put upon men, whom Gad and nature have distinguished from their fellow-labourers, by blessing them with a happier talent, and by giving them not only good
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