"give us this day our daily bread" to the holy sustenance for the soul provided in this sacrament. The Church has always shown her reverence for this Divine compendium of public prayer, by inserting it in every distinct office of the whole liturgy, that by its perfection she might supply the defects and atone for the imperfections of her own supplications. On this account also, as well as in obedience to our Lord's injunction, who commanded it to be said by his disciples whenever they prayed, she has directed it to be said by the whole congregation, whereas to the other prayers they only answer Amen.

THE COLLECT FOR PURITY is an appropriate introduction to the recital of the commandments. The Israelites were to be purified before the first publication of their law, see Exod. xix. 4; and we must have clean hearts before we are fit to hear it; and as the preparation of the heart is from the Lord, we apply to Him for his sanctifying grace to purify ours, that so we may be qualified for his service and approaching his altar.

The Church shows her usual judgment in the titles of God with which this collect is prefaced; for of all the Divine attributes, there are none so likely to make us afraid, in this our nearest approach to God, of coming with an unclean heart, as his omniscience and omnipotence; these two therefore are set before us in Scripture language to remind us that we come before an Almighty and All-seeing Majesty, so that if any wickedness be but imagined in the heart, desired by the will, or acted by the hand, in the darkest night or most secret corner, it is apparent to Him, and He will condemn us for it, unless we first condemn ourselves.

We are not setting up an ideal standard by praying that we may perfectly love God. We cannot love God,

it is true, so much as He deserves; but if we love Him sincerely, that is accounted perfectly. So long as we remain in the body, it is impossible that we should be altogether free from conscious infirmities or unintentional faults; it is inevitable that doubts, and difficulties, and temptations will present themselves; perhaps even in the more advanced stages of our Christian course, there will arise involuntary impulses to evil; nevertheless, through faith, through prayer, through the constant vigilance of a Divine principle within, implanted by the grace of God in Baptism, and keeping always alive in us the sense of the Divine presence, the agency of his holy fear and love, these impulses may be prevented from ever amounting to actual rebellion; on the contrary, if only we are true and faithful to the indwelling grace of the Spirit of Holiness, we may "keep ourselves, so that the wicked one shall not touch us," we may war a good warfare, we may "hold fast faith and a good conscience," unwounded by the voluntary commission of any known sin; we may mortify through the spirit the deeds of the flesh; we may watch unto prayer, so that we shall be divinely enabled to resist the incursions of evil,-to give not only no way to sinful impulses, but no indulgence, no resting-place in our affections to sinful thoughts; but in purity of heart, with fervency of spirit, to live supremely to our God. In a word, we have the strongest scriptural assurances that if we pray without ceasing," if we " quench not the spirit," if we hold fast that which is good, if we abstain from all appearance of evil," the very God of peace will sanctify us wholly," and our whole spirit and soul and body will be "preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." For, as the Apostle beautifully adds, Faithful is He that calleth us, who also will do it." This perfection is spoken of in Hebrews

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vi. 1, and to this state of Christian maturity we are graciously invited in various parts of God's holy word.

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Much benefit is derivable from the rehearsal of the commandments here, and the supplications of the people subjoined to each, in two respects; 1st, with particular regard to the Communion, and next with a general regard to their intrinsic use. As to the Communion, it is an excellent preparation for receiving those holy mysteries, and furnishes a beautiful illustration of the "law being our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," not only from its containing those heads of examination which the Church directs, in her Exhortation for the worthy partaking of it, but also, as the keeping of these commandments is one of the three things which we did promise and vow in our Baptism, the hearing of them must be of use when we are going to renew that vow in the Lord's Supper; and where could the Law be placed in our service more conveniently than immediately before the Gospel, to make that more welcome to us, when the Law had humbled us by its terrors? 2nd, The recital of the commandments is of general advantage to Christians, as it reprints them on the memory, which otherwise would be effaced by the impression of worldly affairs.

During the rehearsal of them, the minister is to turn himself to the people and repeat them with due deliberation, in a manner suitable to the importance of the subject, and the dignity of Him whose commandments they are; pausing between them, to give the people sufficient time to beg pardon for their transgressions. He is not to pronounce them in the same tone of voice with the other parts of the service, much less after the same manner as the prayers, but making such difference that the people may know and be sensible that he is speaking to them in the name

of God, and delivering to them a summary of that duty upon the performance of which their eternal salvation depends.

The people are to receive them with equal reverence and humility, as if God was speaking them from Mount Sinai; and, because we have offended against them all, should kneel down as criminals ought to do, and diligently consider, as God's Ambassador reads them, what they have done against each commandment. They must not, even mentally, repeat them together with the minister; much less must they mutter them over aloud, and thereby disturb each other, but attend to them, as spoken by the minister, with an awful silence, and at the end of each commandment earnestly beg God's pardon, and invoke his preventing and assisting grace to enable them to obey his will in future.

For the better understanding of the perfection and latitude of the Moral Law*, the following rules have been laid down.

1. That the prohibitions of sin contain the commands of the contrary good, and that the commands of any particular good contain the prohibition of the contrary evil, otherwise the number of the precepts would have been too great. For example, God in the 3rd commandment, forbids the taking of his name in vain ; therefore, by consequence, the hallowing and sanctifying his name is therein commanded. The 4th requires the sanctifying of the Sabbath-day; therefore it follows that the profanation of it is thereby forbidden. The 5th commands us to honour our parents; therefore it forbids us to be disobedient or injurious to them.

*For the sake of brevity, I have omitted entering more fully on the subject of the moral law, as an explanation of it is to be found in many approved Catechisms.

2. Under the name of any particular sin, all sins

of the kind are forbidden.

3. All the inducements and occasions of sin are to be avoided. Things that come near a violation of the law must be shunned. Thus the Jewish doctors used to say, "The hedge or fence of the Law must not be broken. They who always go as far as they may, are often tempted to go further."

4. The Law not only restrains external actions, but regulates our inmost thoughts; it has this prerogative above all human laws, that it reaches the heart, and all the motions of it. God alone, whose Law this is, can read our secret desires and imaginations, and He alone is able to punish all such as offend even in thought, and the heart is the spring from which all evil proceeds; from it, according to our Saviour's declaration, proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false-witness, blasphemies.

We next pray FOR THE SOVEREIGN, though having done so in the Morning Prayer. This was formerly a distinct office, used some hours after morning prayer*, and it is right here to do so, after the commandments, as his authority is their support, as they are of that in return; and before the daily collect, that when we have prayed for outward prosperity in the Church, the consequence of the sovereign's welfare, we may, in the collect, pray for inward grace to make it completely happy. Two forms are here inserted; in the latter we pray exclusively for the sovereign, in the former for both sovereign and people, that is for the whole Church. A phrase occurs in it, namely, in thee and for thee. We pray that we may obey the king in the Lord, "namely, so far as his commands do not contradict God's will; and that we may obey him for the Lord," that is, for his sake, on

• See page 74.