And although it is alike the blessed privilege and the imperative duty of the Christian, to communicate on every available occasion, the one is heightened, and the other strengthened at the holy festival of Easter, of which this solemn week is the harbinger. And in the case of those who, heedless alike of privilege and duty, begin to make excuse* when they are summoned to their LORD's Table, it is prescribed by the Church, in her Rubric, that one of the three occasions on which they are to communicate within the year, shall be the Feast of our LORD'S Resurrection.

Seeing, then, that the Holy Communion is, on this "day of days," invested with more than usual solemnity, let us prepare ourselves to come with more than usual devotion. "But I do not mean by devotion, only some transient thoughts and passions, arising at certain seasons, when we more solemnly address ourselves to GOD our SAVIOUR; but a settled love to HIM, disposing us to present HIM alway with an heart humble, pure, just, and charitable, which is the oblation that all our other sacrifices are to prepare for

*Luke xiv. 18.

HIM, and the greatest honour that we are capable to do HIM."* In this spirit let us draw near to that Holy Table, presenting (as we shall then profess to do) ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice. Let the rich come, that their wealth may be blessed; the poor, that their poverty may be sweetened: let those in prosperity seek grace to receive their blessings gratefully, and those in adversity to bear their afflictions meekly: and let all unite in "praising GOD for the glorious resurrection of HIS SON JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD; for HE is the very Paschal Lamb which was offered for us, and hath taken away the sin of the world; who, by His death, hath destroyed Death, and by His rising to life again, hath restored us to everlasting life.” I bid you come on Sunday next. If you are Christians in earnest, you will communicate often; if you are loyal children of the Church of England, you will communicate at Easter.

* Bishop Patrick's Christian Sacrifice.

Ix.]

LECTURE IX.

REVERENCE IN THE SANCTUARY.*

ECCLESIASTES v. 1.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the House of GOD, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools.

AMONG the many advantages which accrue to a Church from the possession of a prescribed form of public service, in the vernacular of those for whose use it is intended, this is not the least: namely, that her members are thereby in possession of a sure indication of the general conduct required of them, and of the particular disposition of mind and heart which it is necessary for them to cultivate and cherish, in order that

* This Lecture should have been printed No. VI. in

this series.

they may worship GOD in spirit and in truth,* and pray with an understanding heart,† and a hearty will. This proposition holds good in its measure and degree, of all religious communities, whether abiding in the doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles, or deviating from either one or the other, or from both. For there is no such sure guarantee for an enlightened and conscientious reception of Scripture truths, as held by particular sections of professing Christians, as is to be found in the adoption and practice of a settled form of public service, "In the tongue understanded of the people."§ Particular dogmas may be laid up in confessions of faith, to which the teachers of the sect may be required to subscribe; but unless these confessions of the faith be simple and elementary in their form, and interwoven with a constantly recurring worship in strict unison with themselves, it is idle to hope that they will obtain any such hold upon the members of that sect at large, as shall ensure, or even invite that uniformity of action amongst themselves, as

*John iv. 24.
Acts ii. 42.

+ 1 Corinthians xiv. 15. § Article xxiv.

members of a religious community, in the performance of the essential duties of religion, or that agreement between their public prayers and their privately received principles and motives of action as individuals, for which it is the especial province of a settled Liturgy to provide. And if a public and authorized form of worship be so important an element in the preservation of the cardinal principles of those who use it, and that it is so who will deny that knows the history of German Latitudinarianism, or of the Calvinistic congregations in this country, which have degenerated into Socinianism?—if, I repeat, a public and authorized form of worship be so important an element in the preservation of the cardinal principles of those who use it, it is not easy to estimate the value of that Liturgy, whose agreement in form and substance with the primitive manuals of devotion, at once attests, and helps to perpetuate in the Church by which it is adopted, an abiding continuance in the doctrine and the fellowship of the Apostles.* If a form of public service in unison with the authorita

*Acts ii. 42.