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Doubtless when Eliezer, having succeeded in his mission, as related in Genesis-" Worshipped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth,"* this faithful servant must have performed his religious service agreeably to the custom of the patriarchal family, in which he had been born and always lived.

When Moses and Aaron announced to the Israelites the purpose of God to deliver them from the bondage of Egypt-" They bowed their heads and worshipped." The same homage is afterwards described, on the enjoining of the ordinance of the Passover. The practice, presumed to accompany divine worship as a matter of course, is sufficiently recognized in that passage of the prophet Micah, in which he says" Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?"{ From the New Testament as from the Old, very few authorities shall suffice. The instances of kneeling to our blessed Saviour, are too many to have been overlooked by any attentive reader. But there is more authority than in these, in his own high example; when he kneeled down and prayed, saying-"Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me." Even unclean spirits paid unwilling homage to the title of the Saviour to divine worship, when They "fell down before him, and cried saying, Thou art the Son of God."¶

St. Paul's kneeling in prayer**—the same outward expression in the instance of St. Peter†† and the same in the instance of St. Stephen‡‡— were mentioned in the Lecture: and perhaps there is no authority more conclusive, for its being thought a tribute which must of course accompany divine worship, than that of the first mentioned of these high characters; where, in a passage also no

* Ch. xxiv. 52. Luke xxii. 41, 42. & xxi. 5. tt ix. 40.

† Exod. iv. 31.

Mark, iii. 11.
‡‡ vii, 60.

+ xii. 27. § vi. 6. ** Acts, xx. 36

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ticed in the Lecture,* he supposes of an accidental witness of a Christian assembly, if the light of divine truth should break in on his mind, so as to induce his joining in the worship, that he would not fail to give the usual evidence of it, in the prostration of his body.

Of the practice of the primitive Christians in this matter, there can be no doubt. Eusebius,† in his narrative of the story of the thundering legion, after describing them in the act of prayer on their knees, adds "as our accustomed manner of prayer is.”. Whatever may be the merits of the story, the testimony is good as to the practice. And Tertullian, in his address to the Roman governour Scapula,‡ represents the prayers of Christians as accompanied by genuflexions. There is the less need to be particular, as the custom introduced at some period within the first two centuries, of a partial suspension of the practice in honour of the resurrection, shows that the general rule was as is here affirmed.

After all; as it was said under the law, concerning sacrifices and burnt-offering, however required, that there was the better sacrifice of a humble and contrite spirit; so we may say concerning the appendage of prayer here discoursed of, that the seat of the spirit of prayer is in the hidden man of the heart. But if from an erroneous manner of reverencing this, the other should be thought a subject of indifference; let it be recollected, that in the imagery of the Apocalypse, the substance and the circumstance, however disjoined on earth, are associated in heaven: for the four and twenty elders representing the whole Christian Church in the persons of their principal pastors, are described as "falling down before the Lamb; having every one of them golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints."

* 1 Cor. xiv. 25. † Lib. v. cap. 5. Cap. 4. § v. 8.

THE END.

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