books; for it cannot be more improper to pray with a form than to sing with a form.

The comprehensiveness of the prayers of the church is very remarkable. Does sin oppress us; and does the world and does the flesh assault us? For deliverance we can pray with the "spirit and with the understanding," in the language of the liturgy, "Good Lord deliver us." Does Satan tempt? and do inward conflicts distress? Here we may find language fully expressive of our wants. Are we true patriots; and do we therefore long for the prosperity of our country? Here we are taught to pray for "kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a peaceable life in all godliness." Do we long for peace among all nations; the extension of the kingdom of the Redeemer; the conversion of Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics? Then we can breathe forth the desires of our hearts in the language of the liturgy of our church. Do we ask you brethren to pray for us your ministers? Here words are put into your mouths.

Do we feel our hearts cold and dead, and do we fully know that words will find no entrance into the hearts of men to comfort, to edify, or to convert their souls without the refreshing "dew of the Holy Spirit?" We are instructed to pray that, "that dew" may descend upon all the congregations of the faithful. Do the troubles of life afflict us? Is there some captive or some prisoner bound? Is there some traveller tossed about on the wide ocean? Is there some sick friend? or are there some dear little ones, whose tender years prevent their joining in the assembly of the saints? Or is there a fallen brother, or a tempted brother, whom we wish to bear on our hearts before the throne of grace, and, through the Mediator, to spread their cases before the Lord, as Hezekiah did the letter he received? In the Litany we shall find words suited to each want; so that using them aright, we can pray with the spirit and with the understanding."

Is, there, again, some poor afflicted widow and her fatherless children in the house of prayer; even in his house, "who is the father of the fatherless, and the God of the widow?" Then every praying, feeling heart, can find words to express its desires; "That it may please thee to save and defend the fatherless children and widows, and all that are desolate and oppressed." "We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord."

To sum up all, lest any thing should have been forgotten or asked amiss, we cry, "That it may please the to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances, and to endue us with the Grace of thy Holy Spirit, to amend our lives according to thy holy word." "We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord."

Thus the Church of England follows Apostolical order. 1st. Respecting the Sacraments; 2nd. In regard to the threefold ministry; 3rd. With respect to her public worship.

I have endeavoured, dear brethren, to give you a reason of the hope that is in us, as members of the Church of England. Enough has, I trust, been said, to prove the positions which I undertook to maintain. 1st. That the Church of England teaches Apostolical Doctrine; 2nd. That the Church of England follows Apostolical Order. We, her ministers, therefore, can, with a good conscience, attend to the injunction contained in the text, if only by God's Holy Spirit, we are enabled to teach and act in accordance with what she requires of us. May the words reach every minister's heart. "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." And thus O Lord, "Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout aloud for joy." A few practical observations, by way of application, and I have done.

1st-We, as ministers of the Church of England,

possess this important advantage in our addresses to our people; that we "need write and speak none other things than our people already read and acknowledge, and we trust that they will acknowledge unto the end." But oh! how fearful is our responsibility! We are commanded "to take heed to ourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers," and woe be unto us if we preach not the Gospel. Woe be unto us if any soul should be injured through us. But how can we bear this burden? "Seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not."

to express

But how perilous is the condition of an unfaithful minister! and in such a church as ours! A covetous, worldly, vain, selfish, and unfaithful minister of Christ!! Is such a thing possible? Would that I could find words the horrible guilt which an unfaithful minister incurs; the frightful abyss of woe into which he is every moment in danger of falling headlong. Faithless, unhappy man, whoever thou art! the gnawings of the worm that never dies, will be rendered still more terrible, by the reflection that thy unfaithfulness led to the ruin of immortal souls! Think how many eyes, wild with despair, will glare upon thee-Think how many tongues, envenomed with everlasting torment, will curse thee-Think how many bitter shrieks will harrow up thy soul in the great day of account, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, because souls perished through thy neglect. Think of this, ponder over it, my dear fellow sinner; and may the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see the beauty of Christ-open your heart to receive Christ, and open your mouth to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.

2dly-To you who are in a careless, formal, and selfrighteous state, while enjoying all the means of grace, I would say-There is everything in the teaching of the church to arouse you. The formal hypocrite the man

who trusts in his own heart and to his own works, either

in whole or in part, finds no countenance here. Consider how fearful is your state. Professing the truth, yet uninfluenced by it. In darkness, while light is pouring its beams all around-In a state of death, while life teems in such rich abundance. Like some tree, dried up by the roots, yet still standing in a verdant lawn, studded with trees which are covered with foliage and laden with fruit; but that withered tree in the same soil, wet with the same dew, and beneath the rays of the same sun, yields no fruit, because there is no life in it. So the formalist and the ungodly remain dead though possessed of so many advantages in our beloved church. Awake thou that sleepest, and may Christ give you life and light.

3dly-Let those persons in our church whose hearts are under the influence of gracious principles, but who are waverers, "and who are unsettled in church principles, forsake her not; for a blessing is in her." Keep, brethren, the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Rally round the Church of England; she is a pure apostolical branch of the church catholic (of course I mean the universal_church*.) She is, too, I firmly

⚫ The boast of the Church of Rome that she is the Catholic Church, is truly absurd. What would you think of a man whose arm or leg was in a diseased and mortified state, and who endeavoured to persuade you that the diseased limb was his whole body? You would pity his weakness.

Now the Church of Rome is in a diseased and mortified state, doomed to ruin. If a part at all, only a diseased limb of the professing Church, yet she impudently exhibits the corrupt limb, and uses all her efforts to persuade the ignorant that that limb is the whole (THE Catholic) Church. "Come out of her my people :" "she speaks lies in hypocrisy.' The following extracts on this point from Hooker, may not be without their use in this day;

"As the main body of the sea being one, yet in divers precints hath divers names so the Catholic Church is in like sort divided into a number of distinct societies, every one of which is termed a church within itself," E. G. the Church of Corinth-the Church of England. "In this sense the church is always a visible society."-Hooker. Book iii. paragraph 1st. "But the error of all Popish definitions hitherto, is this-they define not the church by that which the church essentially is, but by that wherein they foolishly imagine their own more perfect than the rest are-but the Apostles every where distinguish from Infidels and Jews; accounting them which call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to be of the Church." I Cor. i. 2Book 5, paragraph 68.

See 1 Cor. x. 32, as another instance-Again Hooker says, "We proved that the doctrine professed in the Church of Rome doth bereave men of comfort, both in their lives and in their deaths. The conclusion whereunto

believe, the great bulwark of Protestantism-not only in this country, but in connexion with the whole world. Stand by her then with mild, tolerant, Christian love, towards those who differ in the non-essentials of religion, but who are sound in the faith, and who hold Christ the Head; yet in no way countenancing needless division. Love the Church of England-Jesus Christ is in her, and exhibited by her. Forsake her not, I say again, " for the ship wherein Christ is, may be weather-beaten, but it shall not be lost." Leighton."

4thly-My dear brethren in Christ- to you who are the spiritual, consistent members of the Church of England, I must say a few words :-"Be constant, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord." "Be valiant for the truth;" "and let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." Let your lives be holy. As parents, children, husbands, wives, masters, servants, rulers, or ruled, exhibit to all around you that sound evangelical doctrine produces practical holiness. Many blindly oppose the doctrines of grace, and the full, free, present salvation of the gospel, and try to justify their opposition to the gospel by a false pretence, that it tends to licentiousness. Shew them that this is a slander; and "that good works do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith may be known as evidently as a tree is discerned by its fruits."(Article 12th.)

"Deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly, ghteously, and godly in this present world, looking for The glorious appearing of the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ.' We live in no common times. There is a

we came was this-the Church of Rome being in faith so corrupt as she is, and refusing to be reformed as she doth, we are to separate ourselves from Fer."(Discourse of Justification, paragraph 9.)

Again: "On our part to hear mass, were an open departure from that incere profession wherein we stand."-Book 5, paragraph 68.

"Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that e receive not of her plagues."-Rev. xviii. 4.