ourselves open before God in all integrity of heart, nothing can be more comfortable than the blessing which God graciously gives to quiet, cheer, and support us. This being, as it were, God's answer of acceptance to our faithful prayers, must be received with all reverence, the people in the primitive church being directed to bow their heads when it was pronounced unto them. Let us then receive this prayer of benediction with all joy and thankfulness, and let us add our hearty Amen, thereby to make it our own, so that the grace' purchased for us by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ' may procure our pardon, the love of the Father may put his seal of acceptance to that sacrifice, and the fellowship,' and communication of the graces of the Holy Ghost,' may perfect our sanctification; and that all these may be with us now,' and continue with us all evermore.' Το which ever blessed Trinity, even the Father, Son, and Spirit, be ascribed all honour and obedience, 'world without end Amen.""

6

The effect of this exposition of the daily church service, delivered with all the power and energy peculiar to its author, and subsequently lent for private reading to the associate Christians of Truro, must have been incalculably beneficial in promoting that union of heart and feeling in worship, on which our reformers set so just a value, and so well knew how to excite and cherish. Ministers too seldom devote their thoughts to the elucidation of the ritual in which they are engaged; and the people, untaught to

appreciate the forms of their prayer book, do not understand, and therefore cannot fully enter into the nature of its admirable adaptation to the various uses for which it was compiled. Perhaps a more spiritual flock than Mr. Walker's never existed, and the cause of this may be in a great measure traced to their enlightened acquaintance with a series of spiritual services, so well calculated to keep alive a frame of true piety. Wherever those who adhere to the forms of our church, are wisely instructed by devout teachers in their nature and design, an effect may be expected similar to that produced at Truro. A high tone of spiritual feeling will rest upon ministers and people, while a neglect of this necessary instruction will generate the flat and unprofitable condition of congregations, so often justly complained of. The indiscreet manner in which some clergymen of eminent zeal, unquestionable piety, and certainly of extensive, but not of unmixed usefulness, overlooked the value of the forms, and despised the discipline of our establishment, during the days of the revival of religion in this country, produced evils only to be remedied by the line pursued at the present time, by men not less devout in heart but more judicious in practice. If any thing can restore the primitive affection for our establishment, it will be the consistent and enlightened churchmanship of those who now form its brightest ornaments, but who desire not to move out of their own orbit, though they are anxious to shed their light as far beyond it as possible.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LITANY-BAPTISM-THE LORD'S SUPPER

MATRIMONY.

The Litany.

BISHOP BRAMHALL Well observes in his answer to Milton, that they who do not use forms in public prayers, direct them more to their hearers than to God; while others that read a liturgy, have their affection more at liberty, not being yoked to the search of words. We have already seen in Mr. Walker's excellent treatise on the Morning and Evening Prayers, how admirably our Reformers provided for this important part of congregational worship; but he was not less successful in directing his followers to understand and appreciate the most affecting service in the world

THE LITANY.

"A Litany is said [in the rubric] to be a general supplication—i. e. of all the people under the pressing sense of some evil. The litany now under consideration is chiefly taken from an old office of this kind, which was drawn up at a time when sickness, war,

and universal calamity overran the church; and it is evident at first view, that this service is altogether expressive of the earnestness and importunity with which a nation, under the visitation of God's hand, would with one voice call upon him to compassionate their miseries, and turn away his wrathful displeasure from them. The impatience for deliverance naturally expresses itself in broken sentences, at every turn interrupted by the loud cries of the distressed. Were you one of a miserable multitude, ready to sink down into the depth of the sea, what, think you, would be your general address to God, but 'Save Lord, we perish! Would you not contend with each other in calling upon God, and in the very expressions of this litany, beseech God to hear you, to deliver you, and spare you from the dreadful ruin? But now, if every Christian be in more imminent danger than one in a sinking vessel, or in the midst of flames, or shut up in a city where the plague, pestilence, or famine raged, and death spreading resistless dismay, was ready to lay hold of him-if the Christian's danger be not only more imminent, but his deliverance of incomparably higher importance to his happiness, there may be seasons when the litany before us may be exceedingly proper. And doubtless there are seasons when, although public calamity ceaseth, and all things are calm and at quiet without, yet within is an insupportable weight of misery, humble dread of God's vengeance, and despair of escaping it. The soul [being thus] compassed with the sorrows of death, and the pains of hell having already laid hold upon it, with what vehemence will it call upon

the name and power of the Lord, in the words of the psalmist and of this supplication, O Lord, I beseech thee deliver my soul, thou gracious, righteous, and merciful God!'

Again, there are seasons of security yet more to be feared, when the soul feels nothing of its danger, and the heart is so obstinately hard as to go down without any sensibility, and as it were willingly and triumphantly to its utter destruction; a state of all others the most dreadful, and which we cannot too earnestly nor too devoutly beseech God to preserve us from, and to deliver others out of. Should the grace of God, as it sometimes does, at one glance open the eyes of such a miserable man, when he had now begun his last step; should the first notice of eternity be given him, when he was now already falling into everlasting damnation, how loudly, how passionately would he cry 'good Lord deliver me!'

There are seasons also wherein, through the especial goodness of God, with a full assurance of faith, we lay hold of eternal life, and in a manner take possession of immortality; so lively are our hopes, so sanguine our expectations, [that we feel] as if all opposition from the enemies of our salvation were in vain, and we were now past all danger of falling or coming short of the prize, we seem even now to have laid our hand upon. But anon1 all this exultation of heart may be utterly excluded; we may find ourselves shamefully giving way to the meanest temptation—

1 A good old fashioned word, which it is a pity should have been superseded by the unmeaning expression by and bye.