have been affecting; and, as long as there was reason to believe that the penitence was as sincere as the penance was open, and that the clergy, who imposed it, were more solicitous for the amendment of their erring brethren than for their own authority and power; so long was it an edifying and profitable ceremony. But it is plain that this could not long continue to be the case; scarcely, indeed, after the very first age of the Church; for even so early had the purity of both the Christian doctrine and discipline been corrupted, and godly ordinances and institutions perverted by ungodly men.

When, therefore, our own Church expresses a pious wish, that such discipline may be restored again, we must understand it to be a wish, that the Christian community itself may be restored, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, to such a state of sincerity and integrity, that the practice in question might be revived, to the promotion of true repentance and piety. At present, I am afraid, there is far too little seriousness in the world, to make such a revival desirable. Indeed, all such institutions are very liable to be so abused, as to produce effects, the very opposite to those ends which they were at first intended to answer. The Christian religion is

spiritual, a religion of the heart and affections; and it sanctions and requires outward and visible ordinances, only as they are the means of grace, or helps to edification. Our blessed Lord himself appointed only two; and of those, which the piety of the early believers added, for the ends of decency, and order, and instruction, some were soon abused to the purposes of hypocrisy and superstition. That, for instance, of public penance, in itself a proper exercise and expression of humility, and an appropriate token of sorrow for sin, came by degrees to be regarded as a meritorious act. The outward form was substituted for the inward grace; bodily humiliation for spiritual contrition; the garments were rent, but the heart was untouched.

In fact, it is so much easier a task to practise any degree of bodily mortification, than it is to subdue our natural pride, and to control our passions, that we are at all times too apt to overrate the value and importance of outward acts of penitence and piety, and to overlook the great end to which they are only subsidiary. Oral confession of sins, and bodily mortification, and outward acts of humiliation, do not constitute repentance. External discipline may so far have a good effect, as it tends to rectify what is

wrong, and to reduce the irregularities of natural passion; but is so far from being repentance, that although it is sometimes a help, it is oftentimes a hindrance, and at all times an uncertain sign.

Our blessed Saviour, who knew what was in man, cautioned his disciples against an error, into which the ceremonial nature of the law of Moses was too likely to lead them; When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast: a caution, signally neglected and set at nought by the Romish Church, which erected the salutary discipline of penance into a necessary sacrament, and made the outward act of humiliation and confession to be, not only a mark of repentance, but a means Where so of procuring the remission of sins. great an importance is attached to the outward act, the inward affection of the heart is apt to be but little thought of; and thus, instead of assisting the process of conversion and amendment, this branch of discipline has too often effectually impeded it, made men hypocrites, confirmed them in sin, and brought the genuine grace of repentance into disrepute.

One unfortunate consequence of this, and

similar errors of the Romish Church, is, that amongst many of those who have purified themselves from her corruptions, the outward ordinances of religion have been unduly depreciated, and religion has been stripped, not only of the useless and burthensome ceremonies, by which the real beauty and simplicity of holiness had been overlaid, but of her decent and edifying rites. On this point the language, which is held by our own Church, is no less remarkable for its moderation than its wisdom; "Of such ceremonies as be used in the Church, and have had their beginning by the institution of man, some at the first were of godly intent and purpose devised, and yet at length turned to vanity and superstition. Some entered into the Church by indiscreet devotion, and such zeal as was without knowledge; and for because they were winked at in the beginning, they grew daily to more and more abuses, which, not only for their unprofitableness, but also because they have much blinded the people, and obscured the glory of God, are worthy to be cut away and clean rejected. Other there be, which, although they have been devised by man, yet it is thought good to reserve them still, as well for a decent order in the Church, as because they pertain to

edification, whereunto all things done in the Church, as the Apostle teacheth, ought to be referred. Christ's Gospel is not a ceremonial law; but is a religion to serve God, not in bondage of the figure or shadow, but in the freedom of the Spirit; being content only with those ceremonies which do serve to a decent order and godly discipline, and such as be apt to stir up the dull mind to the remembrance of his duty to God, by some notable and special signification, whereby he might be edified.""

To apply these observations to the present occasion; if the Christian religion be spiritual in all its requirements and its promises; if great caution be necessary, in setting a value upon outward observances, lest by degrees they should be considered the one thing needful; the Church has perhaps done wisely, in laying aside that outward discipline which was formerly exercised upon penitent sinners, and which, in proportion to its strictness, was likely to be regarded as a commutation for sin. But there can be no doubt as to the propriety, not only of appointing a public and general confession of sins in the daily service of the sanctuary; but of setting apart a certain season of the year, for the more 2 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer.

X