only holy seasons and holy exercises, but all the common actions of daily life? Then shall we feel attracted towards a frequent reception of the Holy Communion, as one great means of furthering our object.

But in the feeling of reluctance to frequent Communion, there is one decidedly good element, which we must not pass over without notice. Persons think it beneficial to have certain solemn and stated periods, at which they may look into the affairs of their souls more narrowly, wind up their spiritual accounts more at leisure, and make a fresh start, as it were, upon their Christian course. These periods have been with them hitherto their Communions; each of which has thus become a sort of era in their inner life. But, if they are now to communicate every week or every fortnight, this solemn scrutiny and preparation, if it be not an actual impossibility, will become an unreality. Special devotional exercises are good at special seasons, but the mind cannot profitably be under such a strain every week or every fortnight. Sundays are great helps to a holy life; but only one day in every seven is appointed to be a Sunday.

In all this there is great force and reason. And he who is minded to live the Devout Life must on no account abandon the excellent practice of periodically examining his conscience on every department of duty, and seeking from God in prayer, and retirement from the world, that fresh spring of holy energy which is to be found for all of us in the Blood and Grace of Jesus Christ. But why must this necessarily be done before every Communion? Why might it not be done only before the three great Communions of Christmas, Easter, and Whit-Sunday? Or if even this be found impracticable, as with persons heavily engaged will very likely be the case, why should not these special devotions be limited to one Communion in the year, that of Christmas or that of Easter? Assuredly, a thorough and sifting Self-examination, once satisfactorily performed, is better than three or four cursory inspections of the conscience: Self-examination being a matter in

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which to be cursory and superficial is usually to deceive oneself. Then for ordinary Communions, assuming, of course, and I am assuming all through,-that the conscience is kept clear of wilful sin,-our usual evening retrospect of the day, with some very trifling addition to our evening prayer on Friday and Saturday, the eighty-fourth Psalm, for example, and the prayer of access in the Communion Office, "We do not presume to come to this Thy table," &c., would abundantly suffice.

Have we now reached and met in any mind the objections which are felt to a frequent Communion? Or does there remain still a lurking mistrust of such a practice, under the suspicion, perhaps, of which Englishmen are at all times so susceptible, that it is popish? Such a suspicion is, in the first place, not borne out by the facts. Romanists, as a general rule, although they constantly assist at the Mass, (that is, are present at the celebration, and follow what is being done mentally,) communicate much seldomer than English Churchmen. Their unscriptural tenet of Transubstantiation, giving as it does a false awfulness and a superstitious mysteriousness to the Ordinance, frightens them away and holds them back from frequent Communion. So much for the real state of the case among them. And as regards the theory of frequent Communion, by way of showing that it is by no means exclusively Romanist, let me close this Chapter with an extract from those touching and edifying addresses published under the title of the Adieux of Adolphe Monod. The speaker was The speaker was a French Protestant pastor, eminent for piety and for his extraordinary abilities as a preacher. The pulpit from which he spoke,—and it is sometimes the most effective of all pulpits, was a death-bed, around which, Sunday by Sunday, (for he lingered long,) he gathered as many members of his little flock as the sick-room would hold, and received with them the Holy Communion, and spoke to them of such subjects as the "Regrets of a Dying Man." One of these addresses is headed "Fre

quent Communion." While guarding myself against being understood to recommend, as he does, a daily Communion, I willingly quote him as an advocate of frequent celebrations. Thus he speaks to the little flock at his bed-side, the words being taken down from his lips by his children :-"My dear friends, I wish you to know that in the frequent reception of the Communion during my illness I find much comfort, and I hope also much fruit. It is a great evil that the Communion should be celebrated so rarely in our Church, an evil which people on all sides are now applying themselves to remedy. Our Reformers, in establishing this order of things, have taken care to explain that they did it only for a time, and to prevent certain very grave abuses, which had crept into the primitive Church. But what they did as a temporary precaution has remained for ages in the greater number of our churches. At length we reach the time when we may expect to have frequent Communion restored to us. Calvin says somewhere, that the Communion ought to be celebrated at least every Sunday. Remark this at least. If it should be every Sunday at least, what should it be at most? At most must be, to take it as the early Christians did, according to Calvin (and that comes out, too, clearly enough from the Acts of the Apostles), every day from house to house, at the close of the family repast. Each of you may have remarked that rare Communion gives I know not what strange and extraordinary idea of the Communion,-of the preparation which ought to precede, and of the emotions which follow it. On the contrary, frequent Communion makes us understand much better the true character of this Sacrament; and it is impossible that daily Communion should fail to put us in perfect possession of that true character; for it teaches us to connect the Communion with all that there is most simple in Christian life, just as a repast is one of the simplest things in ordinary life. But whether there should be a daily celebration or not, certainly in seeing in the Communion the simplest expression of our faith,

we shall profit by it most, we shall gather from it the greatest fruit, and it is thus that it will nourish our souls most effectually with the Flesh and with the Blood of Jesus Christ."

CHAPTER X.

OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE OF THE CHURCH,

"If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.”—Matt. xviii. 19. It would be well if, in considering the various Ordinances of Religion, we began by narrowly examining their charter, as it exists in God's Holy Word. How shall we ascertain their true character? how shall we know what we may expect from them, and what we may not expect? how, in short, shall we secure ourselves, against a false estimate of them, otherwise than by looking into their original constitution? The exact limits of a patent or prerogative, granted by the government of a country to any individual, can only be ascertained by consulting the terms of the patent. Let the holder abstract from the public records, and hide away the parchment on which those terms are written, and there are then no powers which he may not assume, on the general vague representation that the patent is his.

The passage which stands at the head of this Lecture contains the charter of Public Worship. The Church has given to Public Worship divers forms of its own devising; but here we have, if I may so say, the raw material, out of which all forms are manufactured. Now, from the examination of this charter, we will seek, first, to ascertain the true theory of Public Worship; and then draw from that theory some practical hints for the conduct of this devotional exercise.

It is not with any controversial object, for controversy is seldom edifying, but by way of clearly defining the idea, that we say, at the outset, that in the practice both of the Church of Rome, and of the Protestant sects in this country, we trace a degeneracy from the Scriptural theory of Public Worship. Extremes continually meet; and it is not a little remarkable that both by Romanists and Dissenters the functions of Public Worship are all devolved upon the clergy,—whether priest or officiating minister,—and the people take, I do not say no part, but no common part with him. The Mass is the chief office of the Roman Church; at which even those who do not communicate assist, as it is called, every Sunday. In what does this assistance consist? The question may be answered by examining the books of devotion recommended and used at the Mass. It will be found, on looking into such books, that the idea of the congregation's praying as one body,-using the minister as their mouthpiece, and signifying their assent to him by occasional responds, is, if not eliminated, very much obscured. The priest is doing one act, supposed to be sacrificial, to the effectiveness of which the congregation can contribute nothing; and while he is doing it, the people are furnished with separate devotions appropriate to the several stages of it, which each person recites secretly. The priest and they are not asking the same thing at the same time; and the only agreement which there is in their petitions stands in place and time,—in the fact that they are offered in the same church at the same hour. Nay it might happen that several of the worshippers should use different books of devotions on the Mass, even as with us different members of the congregation bring with them different books of devotion on the Holy Communion; and that thus two persons, kneeling side by side, might be so far from agreeing in what they ask, as to be offering two different petitions at the same moment. If the principle were carried out to an extreme, no two members of the congregation would be