_Direct._ XV. Stir up your hearts in an especial manner to the greatest alacrity and joy, in speaking and singing the praises of God. The Lord's day is a day of joy and thanksgiving, and the praises of God are the highest and holiest employment upon earth. And if ever you should do any thing with all your might, and with a joyful and triumphing frame of soul, it is this. Be glad that you may join with the sacred assemblies, in heart and voice, in so heavenly a work. And do not as some humoursome, peevish persons (that know not the danger of that proud disease) fall to quarrelling with David's Psalms, as unsuitable to some of the hearers, or to nauseate every failing in the metre, so as to turn so holy a duty into neglect or scorn; (for alas! such there are near me where I dwell;) nor let prejudice against melody, or church music (if you dwell where it is used) possess you with a splenetic disgust of that which should be your most joyful work. And if you know how much the incorporate soul must make use of the body in harmony, and in the joyful praises of Jehovah, do not then quarrel with lawful helps, because they are sensible and corporeal.
_Direct._ XVI. Be very considerate and serious in sacramental renewings of your covenant with God.[184] O think what great things you come thither to receive! And think what a holy work you have to do! And think what a life it is that you must promise! So solemn a covenanting with God, and of so great importance, requireth a most holy, reverent, and serious frame of soul. But yet let not the unwarrantable differencing this ordinance from God's praises and the rest, seduce you into the common errors of the times: I mean, 1. Of those that hence are brought to think that the sacrament should never be received without a preparatory day of humiliation, above the preparation for an ordinary Lord's day's work. 2. And therefore receive it seldom; whereas the primitive churches never spent a Lord's day together without it. 3. Those that turn it into a perplexing, terrifying thing, for fear of being unprepared, when it should be their greatest comfort, and when they are not so perplexed about their unpreparedness to any other duty. 4. Those that make so great a difference betwixt this and church prayers, praises, and other church worship, as that they take this sacrament only for the proper work and privilege of church members; and thereupon turn it into an occasion of our great contentions and divisions, while they fly from sacramental communion with others, more than from communion in the other church worship. Oh what hath our subtle enemy done against the love, peace, and unity of christians, especially in England, under pretence of sacramental purity!
_Direct._ XVII. Perform all your worship to God, as in heart-communion with all Christ's churches upon earth; even those that are faulty, though not with their faults. Though you can be present but with one, yet consent as present in spirit with all, and separate not in heart from any one, any further than they separate from Christ.
_Direct._ XVIII. Accordingly let the interest of the church of Christ be very much upon your heart, and pray as hard for it as for yourself.
_Direct._ XIX. Yea, remember in all, what relation you have to the heavenly society and choir, and think how they worship God in heaven, that you may strive to imitate them in your degree. Of which more anon.
_Direct._ XX. Let your whole course of life after, savour of a church frame; live as the servants of that God whom you worship, and as ever before him. Live in the love of those christians with whom you have communion, and do not quarrel with them at home; nor despise, nor persecute them with whom you join in the worshipping of God. And do not needlessly open the weaknesses of the minister to prejudice others against him and the worship. And be not religious at the church alone, for then you are not truly religious at all.
[174] See my "Treatise of the Lord's Day," and my "Cure of Church Divisions."
[175] Eccl. v. 1-4; 1 Pet. ii. 1, 2; Prov. i. 20, to the end.
[176] Psal. i. 2, 3; xii. 6, 7; xix. 7-9.
[177] Acts x. 33; 1 Sam. iii. 9, 10; Prov. viii. 34; Ezek. xxxiii. 4; Psal. lxvi. 18; v. 5.
[178] Dan. iv. 27; Prov. x. 29; xxviii. 9; Psal. l. 16-18; cxxv. 5; 1 Sam. xv. 22; 2 Tim. ii. 19; Matt. vii. 23; Luke xiii. 27; John x. 3, 4, 27; Eccles. v. 1-4.
[179] Isa. lviii. 1-3.
[180] Isa. i. 10-20.
[181] Gen. iv. 7; Prov. xiv. 34; Numb. xxxii. 23.
[182] James i. 22; Rom. ii. 13.
[183] Ezek. vii. 19; Jer. vii. 23; xi. 4, 7; xxvi. 13; Matt. xxiii. 14; Mark xii. 40; Exod. vi. 30; Deut. vii. 12; xi. 13; xiii. 18; xv. 5; xxvi. 17; xxviii. 1; Psal. lxxi. 8-12.
[184] See Mr. Rawlet's Book of Sacramental Covenanting.