in any private exercise of our discretion, but to trust in the mercies of the Lord and in the blood of Christ that cleanseth us from all sin. Ours is not an Absolution given in private separately to a particular person, in positive assurance and in the name of the Priest: ours is given in public to all persons at once, conditionally on their true penitence, in the name of the Lord. God, who is mentioned at the commencement of the form under the qualities which give us the comforting hope of pardon, is specially declared in the continuation as conferring that pardon; "He pardoneth and absolveth." To his prophet the Lord says "say unto them as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his ways and live."* To his Apostles the Lord Jesus gives command, "to go into all the world and preach the Gospel unto every creature, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always even unto the ends of the world."t Under our high commission we baptize with the baptism of repentance: we preach the blood of Christ shed for the remission of sins: the word of faith which we are charged to deliver is, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, † Matthew xxviii. 20.

* Ezekiel xxxiii. 2.

H

thou shalt be saved."* Far be it from us to arrogate a power to forgive sins: the Lord claims this as his own prerogative. "I, even I," saith the Lord by the mouth of the prophet "am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." Unable to try the reins and the heart, we can but declare the conditions on which alone pardon is promised of the Lord; we proclaim to our flocks that "the Almighty God pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel."

As every good and perfect gift cometh from above, our Church calls on the Congregation to beseech the Lord to grant them the blessed gifts of true repentance, thus necessary to our being absolved, and of his Holy Spirit, without which a pure and holy life, the proof of that true repentance, would be utterly beyond our hopes. The Congregation had indeed already professed their contrition for their past offences, but as none can tell how oft he offendeth, a renewal of that repentance every day of their future life is equally necessary to their pleasing him, who can have no pleasure in wickedness, and with whom what is evil shall not dwell. Let us then, my beloved brethren, follow the instruction of our Church, and beseech him to grant

*Romans x. 9. † Isaiah xliii. 25.

us what alone can make the services we have at present been performing here to be pleasing in his sight: what alone can guide us into those paths where our future lives may be pure and holy and what alone can secure to us that everlasting happiness which our blessed Redeemer has promised to those who hold the faith in righteousness. 66 As he that hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation."*

The rubrick desires that here and at the end of all the other prayers the word Amen be said by the people. This word in the Hebrew denotes constancy or steadiness. It was used as a particle of consent or affirmation in the Jewish worship as in ours; and from St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians we find it so used in the early ages of the Christian Church. After the Creed it expresses the firm belief of the congregation in its several clauses: after any prayer it expresses their joining earnestly in its several parts. It is retained in the original language perhaps because it has the effect of intimating that the same God is the object both of Jewish and Christian worship. Where it is only desired that the people say Amen at the conclusion, you must see that it is evidently implied, that in what was recited by the Minister they should keep silence. For particular reasons some parts are ap

* 1 Peter i. 15.

pointed for him only to pronounce: and were it otherwise, confusion certainly would arise in prayers of considerable length, as persons speaking with different degrees of quickness might be repeating different parts at the same time, in the hearing and to the interruption of each other. The responses therefore for the people are always short, as are the verses of the Psalms, which are repeated alternately, and the distinct petitions of the Lord's prayer, which, as the prayer was composed by our Lord for general use, all are desired in the Church service to pronounce. And now prepared by penitence, and, it may be hoped, admitted to pardon, we proceed to offer up prayers to our Heavenly Father, and we begin by offering that which he who knew the infirmity of our nature and the weakness of our faculty gave us as a model for our addresses to the throne of grace. This shall be the subject of our next discourse.

From the discourse just delivered you cannot but perceive in what a genuine Spirit of Gospel piety our Liturgy has been composed, and how faithfully it has sought to clothe its devotions in the impressive language of the Scriptures. The explanations now submitted to you were but laying before you the passages in holy writ, which in it for brevity had been only alluded to or abridged. Was I in error when in a former discourse, I considered

this Liturgy as the beauty of holiness? When I gave it the preference to any effusion offered up at the instant even by the pious and the talented? And if a service were not specially set down, but the service in matter and in words were left to the discretion of those who should minister, would you be always sure of finding such as were pious and talented? This Liturgy was composed by the collective labour of many persons eminent for piety and talents: and they took time and pains for deliberation, to guard against error and to restrain extravagance. Who will say that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were kept back from them in the execution of their most important work, to be bestowed on individual devotions in spheres more limited? No: we can have no doubt that they prayed with the Spirit, and they prayed with the Understanding also. The object of these discourses, my. beloved brethren, is that you may follow their prayers with understanding: that he who occupieth the place of the unlearned may say Amen with a perfect understanding of their giving of thanks. God grant that you may partake of that Spirit which guided them into the knowledge of the truth, and that you may "receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls."*

* James i. 21.