4.  This duty is enforced by the example of holy men of old; but especially of Christ and his apostles.  David took great delight in the public worship of God’s house.  “My soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, to see thy power and glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.” “I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.”  “Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth.” “I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day.”  “We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in company.” “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”  Such were the feelings of the man who has expressed, in strains of sweetest melody, the experience of Christians in all ages.  Delight in the worship of God’s house may be regarded as one of the tokens of the new birth.  If you are destitute of this feeling, you have reason to form sad conclusions respecting the foundation of your hopes.  But, the example of Jesus is very clear on this point.  “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.”  From this it appears that Jesus, even before entering upon his ministry, was in the habit of attending regularly upon the public worship of God in the synagogue of Nazareth, where he had been brought up.  This was the first time he had been there, after the commencement of his ministry; yet he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as his custom was; evidently showing that he had always been in the habit of doing so.  Again; after the crucifixion of our Lord, we find the disciples regularly assembling together upon the first day of the week, which is the Christian Sabbath.  And Jesus himself honored these assemblies by his presence, after his resurrection.  That this practice continued to be observed by the churches founded by the apostles, is evident, from the frequent allusions to it in the Acts, and in the writings of Paul.  Paul preached at Macedonia upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread.  In the sixteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, he gives directions for taking up collections for the poor saints on the first day of the week; which evidently means the time when they were in the habit of meeting for public worship.  And in the eleventh chapter of the same epistle, he tells them how to regulate their conduct when they “come together in the church.”  Again; he exhorts the Hebrews "not to forsake the assembling of themselves together.”  From all these passages, I think the inference is plain, that, under the direction of the apostles, the public worship of God, upon the Sabbath, was observed in the primitive churches.  And this is confirmed by the fact, that the same practice has since been uniformly observed by the church in all ages.