fonage of a fervant of Jesus Christ. Yes, my brethren, let us, with majefty, fupport the interests of piety, against the fneers of those who defpife it; let us purchase the right of being infenfible to their cenfures, by giving no foundation for them; let us force the world to respect what it cannot love; let us not, of the holy profeffion of piety, make a fordid gain, a vile worldly intereft, a life of ill-nature and caprice, a claim to effeminacy and idleness, a fingularity from which we arrogate honour, a prejudice, a spirit of intolerance which flatters us, and a spirit of divi fion which feparates us from our fellow-creatures; let us make it the price of eternity, the path to heaven, the rule of our duties, and the reparation of our crimes; a fpirit of modesty which makes us unaffuming, a compunction which humbles us, a gentleness which draws us to our brethren, a charity which makes us bear with them, an indulgence which attracts their regard, a spirit of peace which ties us to them; and, laftly, an union of hearts, of defires, of affections, of good and evil on the earth, which shall be the fore-runner and hope of that eternal union which charity is to confummate in heaven.

SERMON

SERMON V.

RESPECT IN THE TEMPLES OF GOD.

MATTHEW Xxi. 12.

And Jefus went into the temple of God, and caft out all them that fold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the feats of them that fold doves.

WHENCE comes this aspect of zeal and of indignation

which Jefus Chrift, on this occafion, allows his countenance to betray? Is this then that King of Peace who was to appear in Sion armed with his meeknefs alone? We have seen him fitting as Judge over an adultrefs, and he hath not even condemned her. We have seen at his feet the prostitute of the city, and he hath graciously forgiven her debaucheries and fcandals. His difciples wanted the fire of heaven to descend upon an ungrateful and perverse city, but he reproached them with being ftill unacquainted with that new spirit of mercy and of charity which he came to fpread throughout the earth. He hath just been lamenting with tears the miferies which threaten Jerufalem, that criminal city, the murderefs of the prophets, which is on the eve of fealing the fentence of her reprobation by the iniquitous death fhe is fo foon to inflict on him whom God had fent to be her Redeemer. On every occafion he hath appeared feeling and merciful; and, in confequence of the excess

of

of his meekness, he hath been called the friend even of publicans and finners.

What then are the outrages which now triumph over all his clemency, and arm his gracious hands with the rod of justice and of wrath? The holy temple is profaned; his Father's house is difhonoured; the place of prayer and the facred asylum of the penitent is turned into a house of traffic and of avarice: this is what calls the lightning into those eyes which would wish to caft only looks of compaffion upon finners. Behold what obliges him to terminate a miniftry of love and of reconciliation, by a step of severity and of wrath fimilar to that with which he had opened it. For remark, that what Jefus Chrift doth here, in terminating his career, he had already done when, after thirty-three years of a private life, he entered for the first time into Jerufalem, there to open his mission, and to do the work of his Father. It might be faid that he had himself forgotten that spirit of meeknefs and of long-fuffering which was to distinguish his miniftry from that of the ancient covenant, and under which he was announced by the prophets.

Many other scandals, befides thofe feen in the temple, doubtless took place in that city, and were perhaps no lefs worthy of the zeal and the chastisement of the Saviour; but, as if his Father's glory had been lefs wounded by them, he can conceal them for a time, and delay their punishment. He bursts not forth at once against the hypocrify of the pharifees, and the corruption of the fcribes and priefts; but the chastisement of the profaners of the tcmple can admit of no delay; his zeal on this occafion admits of no bounds; and scarcely is he entered into Jerufalem when he flies to the holy place, to avenge the honour of his Father there infulted, and the glory of his house which they difhonour. Of

Of all crimes, in effect, by which the greatness of God is infulted, I fee almost none more deferving of his chaf tifements than the profanations of his temples; and they are fo much the more criminal, as the difpofitions required of us by religion, when assisting there, ought to be more holy.

For, my brethren, fince our temples are a new heaven, where God dwelleth with men, they require the fame dispofitions of us as those of the blessed in the heavenly temple; that is to fay, that the earthly altar, being the fame as that of heaven, and the Lamb, who offers himself and is facrificed there, being the fame, the difpofitions of those around him ought to be alike. Now, the firft difpofition of the bleffed before the throne of God and the altar of the

Lamb, is a difpofition of purity and innocence. The fe cond, a difpofition of religion and internal humiliation. Thirdly, and laftly, a difpofition even of decency and of modesty in drefs. Three difpofitions which comprise all the feelings of faith with which we ought to enter the temples of God; a difpofition of purity and innocence; a difposition of adoration and internal humiliation; a difpofition even of external decency and modesty in dress.

PART I. The whole universe is a temple, which God filleth with his glory and with his prefence. Wherever we go, fays the apostle, he is always befide us; in him we live, move, and have our being. If we mount up to the heavens, he is there; if we plunge to the centre, there we shall find him; if we traverse the ocean on the wings of the winds, it is his hand that guides us; and he is alike the God of the diftant ifles which know him not, as of the kingdoms and regions which invoke his name.

Nevertheless,

Nevertheless, in all times, men have confecrated places to him which he hath honoured with a special prefence. The patriarchs erected altars to him on certain spots where he had appeared. The Ifraelites, in the defert confidered the tabernacle as the place in which his glory and his prefence continually refided; and, come afterwards to Jerufalem, they no more invoked him with the folemnity of incense and of victims, but in that auguft temple erected to him by Solomon. It was the first temple confecrated by men to the true God. It was the most holy place in the univerfe; the only one where it was permitted to offer up gifts and facrifices to the Lord. From all quarters of the earth the Ifraelites were obliged to come there to worship him; captives in foreign kingdoms, their eyes, their wishes, and their homages were inceffantly bent towards the holy place; in the midst of Babylon, Jerufalem and her temple were always the source of their delight, of their regrets, and the object of their worship and of their prayers; and Daniel chose to expose himself to all the fury of the lions, rather than to fail in that pious duty, and to deprive himfelf of that consolation. Jerufalem indeed had often seen infidel princes, attracted by the sanctity and the fame of her temple, coming to render homage to a God whom they knew not; and Alexander himself, ftruck with the majesty of that place, and with the august gravity of its venerable pontiff, remembered that he was man, and bowed his proud head before the god of hofts whom they there worshipped.

At the birth of the gospel, the houses of belivers were at first domestic churches. The cruelty of tyrants obliged thofe firft difciples of faith to feek obfcure and hidden places, to conceal them from the rage of the perfecutions, there to celebrate the holy myfteries, and to invoke the name of the Lord. The majesty of the ceremonies enter

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