17

allayed with limitations; and is it fit to approach him without love or fear, hopes or desires, gratitude or admiration? Or is the forgiveness so mean a favour, that it deserves no more hearty applications? Sure enough my hypocrisy hath hindered my pardon, wherefore I begin to detest it, and hereafter I will look more to the dispositions of my heart than the posture of my body. I will set him before me whose love I have abused, and whose patience I have tired; who is so gracious to spare me, and so willing to be reconciled to me a most ungrateful wretch; that so when I come to him, I may have my eyes filled with tears, my cheeks with blushes, and my heart with sorrow. I will remember who I am that go, that I may be humble; what I go for, that I may be earnest; and who I go to, that I may be full of faith and hope: so shall my addresses not be in vain, but all these gracious attributes shall be made good to me. Amen.

SECTION II.

Of the Exhortation after the Sentences.

I. To these sentences of God's word, the church hath annexed a pertinent exhortation, lest any should not sufficiently understand these places, or not carefully practise what they know to be required by them. The words of scripture are first laid down, to shew we impose not this duty of confession upon you, but that God requires it; and then the minister proceeds to this pious exhortation deduced from them; that so what God commands may be rightly understood, particularly applied, and duly practised by all people. And that no man may plead ignorance or forgetfulness, to excuse him from this necessary duty, we are directed in the following words most plainly how to perform it, which is the first and principal use of this exhortation: but some pious souls have found out another, viz. when they use the Common Prayer in their private devotions, to turn it into a preparatory prayer before the Confession, with very little variation, in this or the like

manner: "Almighty God, who hast commanded us in sundry places of thy holy word to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before the face of thy Divine Majesty; give us grace to confess our sins with an humble, lowly, penitent and obedient heart; to the end we may obtain forgiveness of the same, by thy infinite goodness and mercy, and the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen." Which having hinted for their sakes who use the prayers of the church sometimes in private, we proceed to explain this exhortation as it is used in public.

§. II. The parts of this Exhortation are three :

THE ANALYSIS OR DIVISION OF THE EXHORTATION.

1. A loving compellation.

The reason, be-J

cause we are

.1. With a sense

of sin,

2. A sorrow for

it,
3. Resolutions

against it,

For pardon,

1. In general,
always,

2. Especially,
in public,
where we
meet forthese
four ends,

1. The person exhorting, .
2. The parties exhorted,
3. The thing requested,

4. The man-
ner of doing

it,

Internally,
Externally,

ture moveth us in sundry places, To acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, And that we should not dissemble nor cloak them

Before the face of Almighty God our heavenly Father,

But confess them with an humble, lowly,

penitent,

and obedient heart,

To the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same by his infinite goodness and mercy.

Although we ought at all times humbly to acknowledge our sins before God,

Yet ought we most chiefly so to do, when we assemble and meet together,

1. To render thanks for the great benefits we have received at his hands,

2. To set forth his most worthy
praise,

3. To hear his most holy word,
4. To ask those things which are
requisite and necessary, as well
for the body as the soul.
Wherefore I pray and beseech you,
As many as are here present,
To accompany me to the throne of
the heavenly grace,

With a pure heart,

And humble voice, saying after me.

18

A Practical Discourse on the Exhortation.

§. III. DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN.] The minister begins with this affectionate and courteous salutation, after the example of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John, who frequently begin their exhortations in this language, the better to engage attention; for which cause it is used here; nor is it an idle compliment, but a significant indication from whence this admonition proceeds, viz. from love. For he that loves the souls of his people, and hears what God expects from them, and sees the danger of their neglect, cannot in pity suffer them to go on and perish. without warning or instruction; and the people may see we have no ends of our own, but are engaged by love to become their monitors, as they are our dearly beloved brethren. Wherefore the admonitions of ministers should ever be accepted as the effects of their true affection, yet it proves too often otherwise. Flatterers and dissemblers that will extenuate or connive at our faults, are usually listed among our friends; but those who discover our danger, reprove our vices, and advise us to amend, these we hate as Ahab did Micaiah: for men are so foolish or unworthy, as not to distinguish between the reproaches of an enemy and the reproofs of a friend. It is true, when we have done evil there is some disgrace in both, but the management and design are directly contrary ÿ. Now if any reproof proceed from kindness, surely it must be this which comes from him that is your spiritual father, yet salutes you as brethren, and reckons himself under the same obligation, and toucheth your offences with much tenderness; only his Master hath charged that he shall reprove you, and not hate you in

y Probra tam amicus quam inimicus objicit, ὁ μὲν ἐχθρὸς ἐπι

yeλŵv, ó dè píños evvoôv. Clem. Alex. Pædag. lib. 1. cap. 9.

heart, Levit. xix. 17: for the neglect of this duty would argue he cared not to see you perish.

§. IV. THE SCRIPTURE MOVETH US IN SUNDRY PLACES. We may easily foresee if the minister did only by his own authority command us to repent, his words would prevail but little upon many; some might deny their guilt, many despise the summons, and others would think to avoid by recrimination. Wherefore the minister comes armed with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God; that as the prophets of the Old Testament came with verbum Jehova, the word of the Lord, so might also the priests of the New. And though the person may be contemptible, yet it is the voice of God which you hear from him, and whoever be the proclaimer, where the word of a king is, there is power, Eccles. viii. 4. Who dare disobey when the King of heaven commands? He that knows the hearts of all, commands all men every where to repent, not only in the places now read, but in sundry other places2, even throughout the whole scripture: and miserable will their case be, who refuse so many, so plain, and so earnest calls from such a God. We ministers are exhorted as well as you, and we intend to join with you, and if we request you to join with us, it is in obedience to the commission we have from the King of heaven, and he that refuseth, refuseth not man, but God; and that word of God which now moves you so frequently to repent, shall be produced against you to condemn you, if you obey it not.

§. V. TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND CONFESS OUR MANIFOLD SINS AND WICKEDNESS.] We need not here be curious in the difference between these words, though to acknowledge seems to signify the granting something laid to our charge; as David upon Nathan's first accuz Isai. i. 16, 17. lv. 7; Lam. iii. 40, 41; Acts ii. 38. xvii. 30.

sation said, I have sinned, 2 Sam. xii. 13; and to confess may import a voluntary act when no man accuseth us, which indeed is the more acceptable and ingenuous; but it were well if we would but acknowledge our offences; for God in his word, by his ministers, and by our own consciences, doth indict us as guilty, and he that soonest owns the truth thereof shall most easily 19 find mercy. But it may perhaps be more material to take notice of the epithet joined to our sins, manifold, which is borrowed from Amos v. 12, and may denote the variety of our transgressions, like Joseph's coat of many colours; for we are clothed with the redness of anger, the paleness of malice, the yellow of covetousness, the blackness of despair, or the green of presumption; in these changeable garments are our souls attired, when we put off the white garments of our innocence, or else (as the learned translator of the Liturgy) oλAanλarias, multiplicia; those iniquities which are so cunningly twisted and weaved together, by that accursed policy which Satan teacheth us to begin with many small threads of lesser sins, and by uniting these and twining them together, to proceed till we draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and at last sin as it were with a cart rope a. Perhaps we imagine it a piece of commendable craft, to be able thus to contrive our wickedness; but alas! if God's mercy do not unravel it, it will at last be strong enough to draw us into eternal flames. We have used much study and pains to twist our sins together, that one may strengthen the other, and we are now warned by an humble and hearty confession to untwine and separate them again, that so we may not be bound in the bands of death.

a Isai. v. 18. Peccatum trahit retortum, unde signific. multis peccatum. Dict. RR.

b Job v. 13. Heb.

nexibus implicitum consilium. filum LXX. ToλUTλókwy vertit ibid.