life permit their withdrawing of a small portion of their time from their worldly occupations, for an attendance on the strictly speaking devotional services of the sanctuary." SECTION XXII. Of Holy Days and their Observance. "The memory of the just is blessed.”—Prov. x. 7. "Then the Minister shall declare unto the people what Holy days, or Fasting days, are in the week following to be observed."—Rubric in the Prayer Book. There appeareth at these days great slackness and negligence of a great sort of people, in resorting to the Church, there to serve God their Heavenly Father, according to their most bounden duty.”—Homilies, p. 151. Q. Is there superstition in the observance of our Church's festival days? A. Bishop White, in a sermon on the festival of the Holy Innocents, says,* *P. 3, 4, Although there is danger in the laying of undue stress on any observances which religious discretion has prescribed; yet if there be wisdom in the appointment of occasional days for the acknowledging of local and temporal benefits, there cannot be superstition in the annual commemoration of events, in which the whole Christian world is interested, and which are connected with all our spiritual interèsts and hopes." Q. Does the Church provide that the holy days shall be celebrated? A. Bishop White says, "The Church has provided, that the slaughter of the babes of Bethlehem shall be annually recollected in our devotions." Q. Are the Epistles and Gospels, especially those for the holy days, most valuable ? A. Bishop White says, "It may be * Sermon on the Festival of the Holy Innocents, p. 1. † Memoirs, p. 246. questioned, whether their judicious selection had not the effect, in the middle ages, in preventing the corruptions of Christianity from being greater than we find them to have been; for when it was rare to find a Bible in the hands even of men of education, those precious portions of it must have had some effect, although in Latin. At the Reformation, they were retained by the most respectable of the Protestant Churches; the English, the Lutheran in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and America; all which, with the addition of the American, continue the use of them to the present day; and with so high an esteem of them, that in some of these Churches, the preacher is expected to take his subject from this selection." Q. Can the observance of the principal Holy Days be safely omitted? A. Bishop White sayst, "They can * Commentaries, p. 159. hardly be overlooked by any minister, without his giving of cause to suspect the soundness of his faith. SECTION XXIII. Of the Object of Religious Assemblies, and of Novelty in Sermons. "It is written, My House is the House of Prayer." -St. Luke, xix. 46. "But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness."-1 Tim. iv. 7. "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing."-The Acts, xvii. 21. Q. What is the consistent Churchman's view of religious assemblies ? A. Bishop White says,* "It is a remark frequent in the mouths of consistent members of our communion, * Comment. p. 135. that the chief design of holding religious assemblies, should be the engaging in the exercises of worship," (as distinguished from preaching.) Q. What is the end of religious assembling? * A. Bishop White says, "The end of religious assembling, is for the worship of Almighty God, which is proof that the due ordering of this, ought to be the principal concern of those who have the conducting of it, and the principal object of the attendants." Q. May "the principal object" of religious assembling be lost sight of by an incorrect view of preaching? A. Bishop White says, "There are many, however, who are ardent in their desires for the hearing of sermons; while by their late coming to the pray *Gen, Theol, Sem. Address, 1829, p. 14. |