tion, our Confeffions and Prayers will fignify nothing; but will only tend to aggravate our Guilt, and encrease our Condemnation.

Having now finished our Supplications for Pardon, and Grace, we conclude with expreffing the End of our offering them up; to wit, the promoting of God's Honour and Glory: "To the Glory of thy holy Name." Strictly and properly fpeaking, the Glory of God is in itself perfect and complete, and abfolutely independent of all created Beings: Not all the Adoration and Obedience of the highest Angels, much lefs the imperfect Services or Praises of finful Men, can make any Addition to the Glory of the great Creator 3 neither can their Difobedience diminish or detract from it; but the Manifeftation of his Glory does, in fome Senfe, depend on the willing Obedience of rational Creatures; on the right Ufe they make of the Faculties He endows them with, and on their grateful Return for all his undeferved Bounty and Goodnefs: For fo God himself is pleased to affure. us: Whofo offereth Praife, glorifieth me. Pf. 1. 23. and to offer it acceptably, it must be not with our Lips only, but in our Lives.

For,

For, as it follows in the Pfalm now referred to, To him that ordereth HIS CONVERSATION aright, will I fhew the Salvation of God. The Glory of God, therefore, should be the End of all our Actions: Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the Glory of God. 1 Cor. x. 31. Not that we are forbidden to have any View to our own Happiness; (for even of Mofes it is recorded, with seeming Approbation, that He had ReSpect unto the RECOMPENCE of the Reward. Heb. xi. 26; and of our bleffed Saviour himself, that for the Jox that was fet before him, he endured the Cross. Heb. xii. 2.) but the Truth is, that our Happiness, and the Glory of God, fhould be confidered by us in one Point of View, as infeparably connected; fince our promoting the one will infallibly fecure us the other. For if we make the Advancement of his Glory the conftant and ultimate End of all our Actions bere, we fhall not fail to receive from Him a Crown of Glory bereafter; even that Crown of Life, that fadeth not away, which the Lord bath promised to them that love Him. Jam. i. 12. Thus ends this excellent. Confeffion;

after

after which, as well as after all our Prayers. we are directed to fay "Amen!" or, So be it!

The Abfolution, or Remiffion of Sins, to be pronounced by the Prieft alone, ftanding; the People ftill kneeling.

There is no Part of the Church-Service, perhaps, that is lefs understood, or attended to, and confequently that wants more to be explained, than the Abfolution: And this, I conceive, is not fo much owing to any real Difficulty or Obfcurity in the Thing itself, as to our Careleffness, or Prejudices; in not thinking at all, or in thinking very abfurdly concerning it: For while fome Perfons have carried their Notions of the Dignity of the Chriftian Priesthood, and of their Authority in this particular Branch of their Office, much too high ; others have degraded them as much too low while fome have profanely afcribed to the Prieft an abfolute or discretionary Power of forgiving Sins (which is the Prerogative of God only) others have denied him any Power at all in proclaiming the divine

For

Forgiveness: While fome have confidered the Abfolution he pronounces, as certainly conveying a Pardon; others have looked upon it as nothing more than an empty Declaration, a mere infignificant Form or Ceremony, not worth attending to.The Church of Rome has run into the former Extreme; in which he has grofsly erred; and that, not merely in a Matter of Speculation, but in a Doctrine greatly affecting Christian Practice; and, as fhe has interpreted it, fubverfive of all true Virtue and Holinefs. For while She teaches, that Contrition and Confeffion to the Prieft entitle Men to Abfolution, and that Abfolution is fully and certainly effectual to their Pardon; what is this in Effect, but encouraging them to continue in Sin, that Grace abound? to reft in a bare formal, periodical, Confeffion; and fo to go on in a continual Circle of finning, and repenting, falfely so called? Some Protestant Divines, it must be owned, have inclined, or feemed at leaft to incline, too much to this Doctrine of the Papifts; and though they have not run fuch Lengths, yet, by their indiscreet Expreffions on this Subject, have given Coun

may

tenance

tenance to fome very dangerous Notions relating to it: While others, and perhaps the greater Part, have gone haftily into the contrary Extreme, and have difclaimed that Authority, and renounced thofe Privileges, with which Chrift has invested them for the Good of his Church. This latter Extreme, I grant, is not of fo dangerous. Confequence as the other; but in fo plain a Case (as to every unprejudiced Perfon this, I think, must appear) why fhould we run into either ?-Our Church has wifely guarded against both Errors in the Abfolution now before us; which is formed upon the only true Foundation, the unerring Word of God, to which it is in every Re fpect perfectly agreeable; as I hope to make appear to you very clearly in the following Obfervations:It is called, -It is called, "The Abfolution, or Remiffion of Sins," that is, a Declaration, and Affurance of God's Forgivepefs, on certain Conditions to be performed by us, and it is to be pronounced by the PRIEST," as God's commiffioned Officer or Herald; it being a peculiar Part of his high Office for which Reafon a Deacon, when he officiates, is never to use it, but is to offer