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spirits of just men made perfect; that is, reunited to their bodies, and entering into glory. The beginning of the contrary opinion brought some new practices and appendant persuasions into the church, or at least promoted them much. For those doctors who, receding from the primitive belief of this article, taught that the glories of heaven are fully communicated to the souls before the day of judgment, did also, upon that stock, teach the invocation of saints, whom they believed to be received into glory; and insensibly also brought in the opinion of purgatory, that the less perfect souls might be glorified in the time that they assigned them. But the safer opinion and more agreeable to piety, is that which I have now described from Scripture and the purest ages of the church.

16. When Jesus appeared to the apostles, he gave them his peace for a benediction; and when he departed, he left them peace for a legacy; and gave them, according to two former promises, the power of making peace, and reconciling souls to God by a ministerial act; so conveying his Father's mercy, which himself procured by his passion, and actuates by his intercession and the giving of his grace, that he might comply with our infirmities, and minister to our needs by instruments even and proportionate to ourselves; making our brethren the conduits of his grace, that the excellent effect of the Spirit might not descend upon us, as the law upon Mount Sinai, in expresses of greatness and terror, but in earthen vessels, and images of infirmity; so God manifesting his power in the

1 Heb. xii. 22, 23.

smallness of the instrument, and descending to our needs, not only in giving the grace of pardon, but also in the manner of its ministration... And I meditate upon the greatness of this mercy, by comparing this grace of God, and the blessing of the judgment and sentence we receive at the hand of the church, with the judgment which God makes at the hour of death upon them who have despised this mercy, and neglected all the... other parts of their duty. The one is a judgment of mercy, the other of vengeance: in the one the devil is the accuser, and heaven and earth bear Witness; in the other the penitent sinner accuses himself: in that the sinner gets a pardon, in the other he finds no remedy: in that all his good deeds are remembered and returned, and his sins are blotted out; in the other all his evil deeds are represented with horror and a sting, and remain for ever in the first the sinner changes his state for a state of grace, and only smarts in some temporal austerities and acts of exterior mortification; in the second his temporal estate is changed. to an eternity of pain: in the first the sinner suffers the shame of one man or one society, which is sweetened by consolation, and homilies of mercy and health; in the latter, all his sins are laid open before all the world, and himself, confounded in eternal amazement and confusions; in the judg ment of the church, the sinner is honoured by all for returning to the bosom of his mother, and the embraces of his heavenly Father; in the judgment of vengeance he is laughed at by God, and mocked by accursed spirits, and perishes without pity: in this he is prayed for by none, helped by none, comforted by none, and he makes himself a companion

VOL. III.

of devils to everlasting ages; but in the judgment of repentance and tribunal of the church, the penitent sinner is prayed for by the whole army of militant saints, and causes joy to all the church triumphant. And to establish this tribunal in the church, and to transmit pardon to penitent sinners, and a salutary judgment upon the person and the crime, and to appoint physicians and guardians of the soul, was one of the designs and mercies of the resurrection of Jesus. And let not any Christian man, either by falsė opinion or an unbelieving spirit, or an incurious apprehension, undervalue or neglect this ministry, which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established. Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the church is built, that the church gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck, and the shivers of the broken heart, may reunite them; pouring oil into the wounds made by the blows of sin, and restoring, with meekness, gentleness, care, counsel, and authority, persons overtaken in a fault. "For that act of ministry is not ineffectual which God hath promised shall be ratified in heaven; and that authority is' not contemptible which the holy Jesus conveyed, by breathing upon his church the Holy Ghost. But Christ intended that those whom he had made guides of our souls, and judges of our consciences, in order to counsel and ministerial pardon, should also be used by us in all cases of our souls; and that we go to heaven the way he hath appointed; that is, by offices and ministries ecclesiastical.

17. When our blessed Lord had so confirmed the faith of the church, and appointed an ecclesiastical ministry, he had but one work more to do

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upon earth, and that was the institution of the holy sacrament of baptism; which he ordained as a solemn initiation and mysterious profession of the faith upon which the church is built; making it a solemn publication of our profession, the rite of stipulation or entering covenant with our Lord, and the solemnity of the paction evangelical, in which we undertake to be disciples to the holy Jesus; that is, to believe his doctrine, to fear his threatenings, to rely upon his promises, and to obey his commandments all the days of our life. ' And he for his part actually performs much, and promises more; he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days, purging our souls and making them clean as in the day of innocence; promising withal, that if we perform our undertaking, and remain in the state in which he now puts us, he will continually assist us with his Spirit, prevent and attend us with his grace; he will deliver us from the power of the devil; he will keep our souls in merciful, joyful, and safe custody, till the great day of the Lord; he will then raise our bodies from the grave, he will make them to be spiritual and immortal, he will re-unite them to our souls, and beatify both bodies and souls in his own kingdom, admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories. All which that he might verify and prepare respectively, in the presence of his disciples he ascended into the bosom of God, and the eternal comprehensions of celestial glory.

1 Mark, xvi. 16; Acts, ii. 38; xxii. 16; Rom. vi. 3, 4; Eph. iv. 5, &c.; 1 Cor. xii. 13; Col. ii. 13; Gal. iii. 27; 1 Pet. iii. 21.

2 Matt. xxviii. 20.

THE PRAYER.

O holy and eternal Jesus, who hast overcome death, and triumphed over all the powers of hell, darkness, sin, and the grave, manifesting the truth of thy promises, the power of thy divinity," the majesty of thy person, the rewards of thy glory, and the mercies and excellent designs of thy evangelical kingdom, by thy glorious and powerful resurrection, preserve my soul from eternal death, and make me to rise from the death of sin, and to live the life of grace; loving thy perfections, adoring thy mercy, pursuing the interest of thy kingdom, being united to the church under thee our head, conforming to thy holy laws, established in faith, entertained and confirmed with a modest, humble, and certain hope, and sanctified by charity; that I, engraving thee in my heart, and submitting to thee in my spirit, and imitating thee in thy glorious example, may be partaker of thy resurrection, which is my hope and my desire, the support of my faith, the object of my joy, and the strength of my confidence. In thee, holy Jesus, do I trust: I confess thy faith, I believe all that thou hast taught; I desire to perform all thy injunctions, and my own undertaking. My soul is in thy hand, do thou support and guide it, and pity my infirmities: and when thou shalt reveal thy great day, show to me the mercies and effects of thy advocation, and intercession, and redemption. Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God; for in thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded. Thou art just, thou art merciful, thou art gracious and compassionate, thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour to me and all the world. Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective, but make me capable and receptive of thy mercies, and then I am certain to receive them. I am thine, O save me thou art mine, O holy Jesus; O dwell with me for ever; and let me dwell with thee, adoring and praising the eternal glories of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

THE END.

J. Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn Lane.