For For. givenela of our Sins. For the Comforts of Grace. we can never make any confiderable Breaches upon it without being alarmed with fevere Reproaches. It wings our Prayers with Reverence and Devotion, and increases our Importunity, by impreffing a lively Sense of the Neceffity and Importance of those Things we beg of God. It habituates our Minds to spiritual Objects, and raifes them above the perifhing Things of this Life. It ftrengthens our holy Purposes, arms us against Temptations, and inflames all the Faculties of our Souls with earnest Defires of attaining and enjoying our chiefeft Good. Q. How ought we to conclude our Meditation? A. By begging God to affect our Minds with a conftant Sense of our Duty in all the Particulars of it; chiefly that he would enable us to perform those Refolutions we have made of advancing in Piety and Virtue; that he would not leave us to ourfelves, but fo affift us with his Grace, that what we perceive and know to be our Duty, we may faithfully fulfil all the Days of our Life. The PRAYERS. I. ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and are wont to give more than either we defire or deferve; pour down upon me the Abundance of thy Mercy, forgiving me thofe Things whereof my Confcience is afraid, and giving me thofe good Things which I am not worthy to afk, but through the Merits and Mediation of Jefus Chrift thy Son, our Lord. Amen. II. RANT, I beseech thee, Almighty God, that GR ferve to be punifhed, by the Comfort of thy Grace may mercifully be relieved, through our Lord and Saviour Jefus Chrift. Amen. A III. Mortifica LMIGHTY God, give me Grace to ufe For Abstifuch Abftinence during this Seafon dedica- nence and ted to the Exercife of Repentance, that my Flefh tion. may be subdued to the Spirit, and my Mind left free to approach thee with Ardour and Fervency of Affection. Inure me by Self-denial to bring my Body into Subjection, and to punish all thofe Exceffes I have been guilty of, in the Ufe of thy Creatures. Let my Retirement from the World make me fee the Vanity and Emptinefs of it, and teach me to relifh the Pleafures of fpiritual Enjoyments. Let me fpend thofe folitary Hours in the improving my Chriftian Knowledge, and do thou open my Eyes that I may fee the wondrous Things of thy Law. Make me heartily to bewail my Sins, and do thou work in me that godly Sorrow not to be repented of. Grant that I Grant that I may fincerely examine the State of my own Mind, and do thou fearch and try me, and lead me into the Way everlasting: That perceiving how bitter a Thing it is to depart from the living God, I may no longer continue at a Distance from the Fountain of all Joy and Happinefs; but that by confeffing and forfaking my Sins, I may be entirely converted unto thee, and that they may be blotted out, when the Times of refreshing fhall come from the Prefence of the Lord, through Jefus Chrift my only Saviour. Amen. IV. ALMIGHTY God, who art the fupreme for the Happiness of a rational Creature, whom to Meditati know is eternal Life; fix my Thoughts, my heavenly on of Hopes, Things. Hopes, and my Defires upon Heaven and heavenly Things; let me remember thee upon my Bed, and meditate on thee in the Night-watches. Grant that I may fo confider thy Precepts, I may understand the Measures of my Duty, and govern all my Actions by thofe Rules thou haft prefcribed me; may fo apply thy Promises, that I may adore that infinite Goodness, that hath prepared fuch glorious Rewards for those that love thee, and never forfeit my Title to them by confenting to any known Iniquity; may fo recollect my Infirmities, that I may watch against them; my own Follies, that I may amend them; may fo call to Mind thy wonderful Deliverances, both in refpect of my Body and of my Soul, that I may be convinced that I am preserved, not by my own Strength, but by thy Almighty Power, that thy Name may have the Glory. Make my Heart the Seat of Prayer and holy Meditation; that my Mind, being inured to fpiritual Objects, I may defpife and contemn this World, and be prepared in the Difpofition of my Soul to pafs Eternity in contemplating thy glorious Excellencies, through Jefus Christ our Lord; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all Honour and Glory, World without End. Amen. CHA P. II. Ash-Wednesday, or the first Day of Lent. QWHY doth the Faft of Forty Days, called Lent, begin on Afh-Wednesday? A. Because the four Days of this Week complete the forty Days, it being never the Custom of the Church to faft on Sundays, whereon we commemorate so great a Bleffing as our Saviour's Refurrection; Resurrection; the fix Sundays in Lent, being deducted, and these four Days being added, make the Number entire. Q. Why is the first day of Lent called Afh-Wednesday? A. From the Cuftom that prevailed in the ancient Church, for Penitents at this Time to express their Humiliation by lying in Sackcloth and Ashes ; by the Coarfenefs of Sackcloth they ranked themfelves, as it were, among the meaneft and lowest Condition of Men; by Athes, and fometimes Earth, cast upon their Heads, they made themselves lower than the lowest of the Creatures of God, and put themselves in Mind of their Mortality, which would reduce them to Duft and Afhes. Q. What was the Difcipline of the Primitive Church at the Beginning of Lent? A. That fuch Perfons as ftood convicted of notorious Crimes, were put to open Penance. For, according to the ancient Difcipline, those who after Baptifm fell into any great and notorious Sins, if they were Penitents, were admitted to Penance, and to the Prayers of the Church for their Reconciliation with God. But if they were refractory Sinners, or their Crimes of a deep Dye, they were excommunicated, and not admitted to Reconciliation with the Church; but after a long and tedious Course of Penance, after the most public Teftimonies of Sorrow and Repentance, and the greatest Signs of Humiliation that can be imagined. For Tertullian tells us, They lay in Sackcloth and Afbes; De Panit. they disfigured their Bodies with a neglected Uncleanness, and dejected their Minds with Grief; they used no other Food but what was necessary to keep up Life, and frequently nourished their Prayers with rigorous Fafting; they groaned, they wept to the Lord their God Day and Night; they fell down at the Feet of the Prefbyters, they kneeled to the Friends of God, and begged of all Cypr. E pift. xvii. 18. Edit. Oxon. their Fellow Chriftians to pray for them. Thefe Seve rities they willingly fubmitted to, as Tokens of their Sorrow, and Evidences of their Reformation, and thought themfelves happy upon any Terms to be admitted to the Peace of God and the Church. Q. How were Penitents re-admitted into the Church? A. When they had finifhed the Time prefcribed P for the undergoing thefe Severities, if their Repentance upon Examination was found to be real, they were re-admitted into the Church by the Impofition of the Hands of the Clergy, the Party to be abfolved kneeling before the Bishop, or, in his Abfence, before the Prefbyter, who laying his Hand upon his Head, folemnly bleffed and abfolved him; whereupon he was received with univerfal Joy, and reftored to a Participation of the Holy Sacrament, and to all other Acts of Church Communion. Mat. xvi. 17. John xx. 23. Q. What Method has the Church of England taken to fupply the Want of ancient Difcipline at this Time? A. Till our Spiritual Fathers can be fo happy as to fucceed in difcharging thofe Obligations they lie under of reftoring to the Church that Discipline the has a Right to; being founded upon the exprefs Laws of Chrift and his Apostles, fuf3 4 5 ficiently explained to us by the Practice of the 2 Cor. ii. Primitive and Apoftolical Church, very useful to recover thofe that have erred from the Truth and 1 Cor. v. ver. 12, 13. 6. ch. xii. 10. Tim. vi. xiii. 2, 1C. Piety, and abfolutely neceffary to preferve Religion 19 in its greatest Purity; till, I fay, this bleffed Time 3, and 5. fhall come, which good Men with for, and bad Men fear, the Church of England, to fupply this Want, fets before her Members the Curfes due to all Sin, and puts them in Mind of God's dreadful Tribunal, where the Impenitent fhall be moft certainly condemned; thereby endeavouring to bring |