The texts for all his sermons were constantly taken out of the Gospel for the day; and he as constantly declared why the church appointed that portion of Scripture to be that day read, and in what manner the Collect for every Sunday refers to the Gospel or to the Epistle then read to them. And, that they might pray with understanding, he usually took occasion to explain, not only the Collect for every particular day, but the reasons of all the other Collects and Responses in our service; and made it plainly appear to them, that the whole service of the church was a reasonable, and therefore an acceptable sacrifice to GoD; as, namely, that we begin with confession of ourselves to be vile miserable sinners; and that we begin so, because, till we have confessed ourselves to be such, we are not capable of that mercy which we acknowledge we need, and pray for; but having in the Prayer of our Lord begged pardon for those sins which we have confessed, and hoping, that as the priest hath declared our absolution, so by our public confession and real repentance we have obtained that pardon, then we dare proceed to beg of the Lord to open our lips, that our mouths may shew forth his praise; for, till then we are neither able nor worthy to praise him: But this being supposed, we are then fit to say, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, and fit to proceed to a further service of our GOD, in the Collects, and Psalms, and Lauds, that follow in the service.

And as to these Psalms and Lauds, he proceeded to inform them why they were so often, and some of them daily repeated in our church-service; namely, the Psalms every month, because they are an historical and thankful repetition of mercies past, and such a composition of prayers and praises, as ought to be repeated often, and publicly; for with such sacrifices GoD is honoured and well pleased. This for the Psalms.

And for the Hymns and Lauds, appointed to be daily repeated or sung after the first and second lessons were read to the congregation, he proceeded to inform them, that it was most reasonable, after they have heard the will and goodness of GOD declared or preached by the minister in his reading the two chapters, that it was then a seasonable duty to rise up and express their gratitude to Almighty God for those his mercies to them, and to all mankind; and say with the blessed virgin, That their souls do magnify the Lord, and that their spirits do also rejoice in GoD, their Saviour: And that it was their duty

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also to rejoice with Simeon in his song, and say with him, That their eyes have seen their salvation; for they have seen that salvation, which was but prophesied till his time: And he then broke out in expressions of joy to see it; but they live to see it daily in the history of it, and therefore ought daily to rejoice, and daily to offer up their sacrifices of praise to their God for that and all his mercies. A service, which is now the constant employment of that blessed virgin and Simeon, and all those blessed saints that are possessed of heaven, and where they are at this time interchangeably and constantly singing, Holy, holy, holy Lord God; glory be to GoD on high, and on earth peace. And he taught them, that to do this was an acceptable service to GOD, because the prophet David says in his Psalms, He that praiseth the Lord, honoureth him.

He made them to understand, how happy they be that are freed from the incumbrances of that law which our forefathers groaned under, namely, from the legal sacrifices, and from the many ceremonies of the Levitical law; freed from circumcision, and from the strict observation of the Jewish Sabbath, and the like. And he made them know, that having received so many and so great blessings, by being born since the days of our Saviour, it must be an acceptable sacrifice to Almighty GOD for them to acknowledge those blessings, and stand up and worship, and say as Zacharias did, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath (in our days) visited and redeemed his people; and (he hath in our days) remembered and shewed his mercy, which by the mouth of the prophets he promised to our forefathers: And this he hath done, according to his holy covenant made with them; and we live to see and enjoy the benefit of it in his birth, in his life, his passion, his resurrection, and ascension into heaven, where he now sits, sensible of all our temptations and infirmities, and where he is at this present time making intercession for us to his and our Father; and, therefore, they ought daily to express their public gratulations, and say daily with Zacharias, Blessed be the Lord GOD of Israel, that hath thus visited and thus redeemed his people. These were some of the reasons by which Mr. Herbert instructed his congregation for the use of the Psalms and Hymns appointed to be daily sung or said in the church service.

He informed them, when the priest prayed only for the congregation, and not for himself, and when they

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only prayed for him, as (namely) after the repetition of the Creed, before he proceeds to pray the Lord's Prayer, or any of the appointed Collects, the priest is directed to kneel down and pray for them, saying, The Lord be with you: And then they pray for him, saying, And with thy spirit. And he assured them, that when there is such mutual love, a Christian congregation, calling thus upon GoD with one heart and one voice, and in one reverend and humble posture, look as beautifully as Jerusalem, that is at peace with itself..

He instructed them why the prayer of our Lord was prayed often in every full service of the church, namely, at the conclusion of the several parts of that service; and prayed them, not only because it was composed and commanded by our Jesus that made it, but as a perfect pattern for our less perfect forms of prayer, and therefore fittest to sum up and conclude all our imperfect petitions.

He instructed them, that as by the second commandment we are required not to bow down or worship any idol or false god, so by the contrary rule we are to bow down and kneel, or stand up and worship the true God. And he instructed them why the church required the congregation to stand up at the repetition of the Creeds; namely, because they did thereby declare both their obedience to the church, and an assent into that faith into which they had been baptized. And he taught them, that in the Shorter Creed or Doxology, so often repeated daily, they also stood up, to testify their belief to be, that the GOD that they trusted in was one God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to whom the priest gave glory; and because there had been heretics that had denied some of these three persons to be GOD, therefore the congregation stood up and honoured him, by confessing and saying, It was so in the beginning, is now so, and shall ever be so, world without end: And all gave their assent to this belief, by saying Amen.

He instructed them what benefit they had by the church's appointing the celebration of holidays, and the excellent use of them, namely, that they were set apart for particular commemorations of particular mercies received from Almighty GoD, and (as the Rev. Mr. Hooker says) to be the land-marks to distinguish times; for, by them we are taught to take notice how the years pass by us, and that we ought not to let them pass without a celebration of praise for those mercies which they give us occasion

occasion to remember; and therefore the year is appointed to begin on the 25th day of March, a day in which we commemorate the angel's appearing to the blessed virgin, with the joyful tidings, that she should conceive and bear a son that should be the Redeemer of mankind; and she did so forty weeks after this joyful salutation, namely, at our Christmas, a day on which we commemorate his birth with joy and praise; and that, eight days after this happy birth, we celebrate his circumcision, namely, on that which we call New Year's Day; and that upon what we call Twelfth Day, we commemorate the manifestation of the unsearchable riches of Jesus to the Gentiles; and that day we also celebrate the memory of his goodness in sending a star to guide the three Wise Men from the East to Bethlehem, that they might there worship and present him with their oblations of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And he (Mr. Herbert) instructed them that Jesus was, forty days after his birth, presented by his blessed mother in the Temple, namely, on that day which we call The Purification of the Blessed Virgin, Mary. And he instructed them, that by the Lent Fast we imitate and commemorate our Saviour's humiliation in fasting forty days, and that we ought to endeavour to be like him in purity; and that on Good Friday we commemorate and condole his crucifixion, and at Easter commemorate his glorious resurrection. And he taught them, that after Jesus had manifested himself to his disciples to be that Christ that was crucified, dead, and buried, by his appearing and conversing with them for the space of forty days after his resurrection, he then, and not till then, ascended into heaven, in the sight of his disciples, namely, on that day which we call The Ascension, or Holy Thursday; and that we then celebrate the performance of the promise which he made to his disciples at or before his Ascension, namely, That though he left them, yet he would send them the Holy Ghost to be their comforter; and he did so, on that day which the church calls Whitsunday.Thus the church keeps an historical and circular commemoration of times as they pass by us; of such times as ought to incline us to occasional praises for the particular blessings, which we do or might receive at those seasons.

He made them know why the church hath appointed Ember Weeks, and the reason why the Commandments and the Epistles and Gospels were to be read at the altar or communion-table; why the priest was to pray the Litany kneeling, and why to pray some Collects stand

ing; and he gave them many other observations, fit for his plain congregation, but not fit for me now to mention; for I must set limits to my pen, and not to make that a treatise which I intended to be a much shorter account than I have made it; but I have done when I have told the reader, that he was constant in catechizing every Sunday in the afternoon, and that his catechizing was after his second lesson, and in the pulpit, and that he never exceeded his half hour, and was always so happy as to have a full congregation.

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But to this I must add, that if he were at any time too zealous in his sermons, it was in reproving the indecencies of the people's behaviour in the time of divine service; and of those ministers that huddled up the church prayers, without a visible reverence and affection; namely, such as seemed to say the Lord's Prayer or a Collect in a breath; but for himself, his custom was, to stop betwixt every Collect, and give the people time to consider what they had prayed, and to force their desires affectionately to GOD, before he engaged them into new petitions.

He appeared constantly with his wife and three nieces (the daughters of a deceased sister) and his whole family, twice a-day at the church-prayers in the chapel, which almost joined to his parsonage-house. And for the time of his appearing, it was strictly at the canonical hours of ten and four; and then and there, he lifted up holy hands to God in the midst of the congregation. And he would joy to have spent that time in that place, where the honour of his master Jesus dwelleth; and there, by that inward devotion which he testified constantly by an humble behaviour and visible adoration, he, like David, brought not only his own household thus to serve the Lord, but brought most of his parishioners, and many gentlemen in the neighbourhood, constantly to make a part of his congregation twice a-day; and some of the meaner sort of his parish did so love and reverence Mr. Herbert, that they would let their plough rest when Mr. Herbert's bell rung to prayers, that they might also offer their devotions to GOD with him, and would then return back to their plough. And his most holy life was such, that it begot such reverence to GoD, and to him, that they thought themselves the happier when they carried Mr. Herbert's blessing back with them to their labour. Thus powerful was his reason and example, to persuade others to a practical piety.

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