tation of this book, were martyrs, why do we condemn the book for which they died? If we will not call them martyrs, it is clear we have changed our religion since then. And then it would be considered whether we are fallen; for the reformers in king Edward's time died for it, in queen Elizabeth's time they avowed it under the protection of an excellent princess; but, in that sad interval of queen Mary's reign, it suffered persecution: and if it shall do so again, it is but an unhandsome compliance for reformers to be unlike their brethren, and to be like their enemies, to do as do the papists, and only to speak great words against them; and it will be sad for a zealous protestant to live in an age that should disavow king Edward's and queen Elizabeth's religion and manner of worshipping God, and in an age that shall do as did queen Mary's bishops, persecute the book of commonprayer, and the religion contained in it. God help the poor protestants in such times: but let it do its worst; if God please to give his grace, the worst that can come is but a crown, and that was never denied to martyrs.

42. In the mean time I can but with joy and eucharist consider with what advantages and blessings the pious protestant is entertained, and blessed, and armed against all his needs, by the constant and religious usage of the commonprayer-book: for besides the direct advantages of the prayers and devotions, some whereof are already instanced,—and the experience of holy persons will furnish them with more,there are also forms of solemn benediction and absolution in the offices; and if they be not highly considerable, there is nothing sacred in the evangelical ministry, but all is a vast plain, and the altars themselves are made of unhallowed turf.

43. Concerning benediction (of which there are four more solemn forms in the whole office, two in the canon of the communion, one in confirmation, one in the office of marriage) I shall give this short account, that "without all question, the less is blessed of the greater," and it being an issue spiritual, is rather to be verified in spiritual relation than in natural or political. And, therefore, if there be any such thing as 'regeneration' by the ministry of the word, and 'begetting in Christ,' and fathers, and sons after the common faith (as the expressions of the apostles make us to believe),

6

certain it is, the blessings of religion do descend most properly from our spiritual fathers, and with most plentiful emanation. And this hath been the religion of all the world, to derive very much of their blessings by the priest's particular and signal ministration: Melchisedech blessed Abraham, Isaac blessed Jacob, and Moses and Aaron blessed the people. So that here is benediction from a prince, from a father, from the Aaronical priest, from Melchisedech, of whose order is the Christian, in whose law it is a sanction, that, in great needs especially, "the elders of the church be sent for, and let them pray over him that is distressed." That is the great remedy' for the great necessity.' And it was ever much valued in the church, insomuch that Nectarius would, by no means, take investiture of his patriarchal see, until he had obtained the benediction of Diodorus, the bishop of Cilicia. Eudoxia, the empress, brought her son Theodosius to St. Chrysostom, for his blessing; and St. Austin and all his company received it of Innocentius, bishop of Carthage. It was so solemn in all marriages, that the marrying of persons was called benediction.' So it was in the fourth council of Carthage; "Sponsus et sponsa cum benedicendi sunt à sacerdote," &c. benedicendi for married. And in all church offices it was so solemn, that, by a decree of the council of Agatho, A. D. 380, it was decreed, "Ante benedictionem sacerdotis populus egredi non præsumat." By the way only, here is alevrix for two parts of the English liturgy for the benediction in the office of marriage, by the authority of the council of Carthage; and for concluding the office of communion with the priest's or bishop's benediction, by warrant of the council of Agatho; which decrees, having been de rived into the practice of the universal church for very many ages, is in no hand to be undervalued, lest we become like Esau, and we miss it when we most need it. For my own particular, I shall still press on to receive the benediction of holy church, till at last I shall hear a "Venite, benedicti," and that I be reckoned amongst those blessed souls, who come to God by the ministries of his own appointment, and will not venture upon that neglect, against which the piety and wisdom of all religions in the world infinitely do prescribe.

44. Now the advantages of confidence, which I have upon the forms of benediction in the common-prayer-book, are

therefore considerable, because God himself prescribed a set form of blessing the people, appointing it to be done, not in the priest's extempore, but in an established form of words; and because, as the authority of a prescript form is from God, so that this form may be also highly warranted, the solemn blessing, at the end of the communion, is in the very words of St. Paul.

45. For the forms of absolution in the liturgy, though I shall not enter into consideration of the question concerning the quality of the priest's power, which is certainly a very great ministry; yet I shall observe the rare temper and proportion, which the church of England uses in commensurating the forms of absolution to the degrees of preparation and necessity. At the beginning of the morning and evening prayer, after a general confession, usually recited before the devotion is high and pregnant, whose parts like fire enkindle one another, there is a form of absolution in general, declarative, and by way of proposition. In the office of the communion, because there are more acts of piety and repentance previous and presupposed, there the church's form of absolution is optative and by way of intercession. But in the visitation of the sick, when it is supposed and enjoined that the penitent shall disburden himself of all the clamorous loads upon his conscience, the church prescribes a medicinal form by way of delegate authority, that the parts of justification may answer to the parts of good life. For as the penitent proceeds, so does the church; pardon and repentance being terms of relation, they grow up together till they be complete this the church, with the greatest wisdom, supposes to be at the end of our life, grace by that time having all its growth that it will have here; and, therefore, then also the pardon of sins is of another nature than it ever was before, it being now more actual and complete; whereas, before, it was in fieri,' in the beginnings and smaller increases, and upon more accidents apt to be made imperfect and revocable. So that the church of England, in these manners of dispensing the power of the keys, does cut off all disputings and impertinent wranglings, whether the priest's power were judicial or declarative; for possibly it is both, and it is

e Num. vi. 28,

optative too; and something else yet, for it is an emanation from all the parts of his ministry, and he never absolves, but he preaches or prays, or administers a sacrament; for this power of remission is a transcendent, passing through all the parts of the priestly offices; for the keys of the kingdom of heaven are the promises and the threatenings of the Scripture, and the prayers of the church, and the word, and the sacraments, and all these are to be dispensed by the priest, and these keys are committed to his ministry, and by the operation of them all, he opens and shuts heaven's gates ministerially; and, therefore, St. Paul calls it 'verbum reconciliationis,' and says it is dispensed by ministers, as by 'ambassadors' or delegates: and, therefore, it is an excellent temper of the church, so to prescribe her forms of absolution, as to show them to be results of the whole priestly office, of preaching, of dispensating sacraments, of spiritual cure, and authoritative deprecation. And the benefit which pious and well disposed persons receive by these public ministries, as it lies ready formed in our blessed Saviour's promise erit solutum in cœlis,' so men will then truly understand, when they are taught to value, every instrument of grace or comfort by the exigence of a present need, as in a sadness of spirit, in an unquiet conscience, in the arrest of death.

46. I shall not need to procure advantages to the reputation of the common-prayer, by considering the imperfections of whatsoever hath been offered in its stead: but yet', 1. A form of worship, composed to the dishonour of the reformation, accusing it of darkness, and intolerable inconvenience: 2. A direction without a rule: 3. A rule without restraint: 4. A prescription leaving an indifferency to a possibility of licentiousness: 5. An office without any injunction of external acts of worship, not prescribing so much as kneeling: 6. An office that only once names reverence, but forbids it in the ordinary instance, and enjoins it in no particular: 7. An office that leaves the form of ministration of sacraments so indifferently, that if there be any form of words essential, the sacrament is in much danger to become invalid, for want of provision of due forms of ministration: 8. An office that complies with no precedent

f Directory.

of Scripture, nor of any ancient church: 9. That must of necessity either want authority, or it must prefer novelty before antiquity: 10. That accuses all the primitive church of indiscretion, at the least: 11. That may be abused by the indiscretion, or ignorance, or malice of any man that uses it: 12. Into which, heresy or blasphemy may creep without possibility of prevention: 13. That hath no external forms to entertain the fancy of the more common spirits: 14. Nor any allurement to persuade and entice its adversaries: 15. Nor any means of adunation and uniformity amongst its confidents: 16. An office that still permits children, in many cases of necessity, to be unbaptized, making no provision for them in sudden cases: 17. That will not suffer them to be confirmed at all, Ut utroque sacramento renascantur,' as St. Cyprian's phrase is, that they may be advantaged by a double rite: 18. That joins in marriage as Cacus did his oxen, in rude, inform, and unhallowed yokes : 19. That will not do piety to the dead, nor comfort to the living, by solemn and honorary offices of funeral: 20. That hath no forms of blessing the people, any more 21. than described forms of blessing God, which are just none at all : 22. An office that never thinks of absolving penitents, or exercising the power of the keys, after the custom and rites of priests: 23. A liturgy that recites no creed, no confession of faith, so, not declaring, either to angels or man, according to what religion they worship God; but entertaining, though indeed without a symbol, Arians, Macedonians, Nestorians, Manichees, or any other sect, for ought there appears to the contrary: 24. That consigns no public canon of communion, but leaves that as casual and fantastic as any of the lesser offices: 25. An office that takes no more care than chance does, for the reading the holy Scriptures: 26. That never commemorates a departed saint: 27. That hath no communion with the church triumphant, any more than with the other parts of the militant: 28. That never thanks God for the redemption of the world by the nativity, and passion, resurrection, and ascension, of our blessed Saviour Jesus; but condemns the memorial even of the Scripture-saints, and the memorial of the miraculous blessings of redemption of mankind by Christ himself; with the same accusation it condemns the legends and portentous stories of