time, and their appetite for knowledge increases, it will be no small advantage that they have the words and sentences ready stored up for use; for they will easily put sense to them hereafter, and then it is that a more copious exposition becomes seasonable and necessary: however, no pains should be spared for enlightening them at present according to their capacities.

And I am afraid that too many of your parishioners who are of mature age, and even some who are advanced in years, have need to be taught what are the first principles of the oracles of God. Shame will hinder such from coming to be catechised like children, but that shame will be covered by your putting in practice the method I am recommending; for light and knowledge will be obliquely conveyed into their minds, and you will, by instructing chil dren in their presence, instruct them at the same time, without exposing their ignorance.

In such parishes as afford a sufficient auditory at the evening service, this work may be then most conveniently performed, till the short days come in; but where the parishioners lie remote from the church, the morning will be the fittest time. It will indeed prolong the service for half an hour; but they who come to worship God but once in seven days may look upon this as an easy composition; and if the minister should not grudge his pains, it will be hard if they should grudge their time, when they have no worldly business upon their hands.

If you should at the same time take occasion to explain and enforce the doctrines of protestantism, and of the established church, it might be of great use to fortify your people, and prevent apostasies, and perhaps to bring over such as may have the curiosity to be your hearers. And to speak the truth, there is no other way of effecting this properly upon reasonable creatures and Christians, than the way of reasoning and conviction. Coercive laws may restrain and disable those who avow principles that are destructive to the church and state, and coercion in those cases is wise and necessary; but they can never convince any body: they may tie up men's hands and tongues, but never reach their hearts; this is only to be done by enlightening the mind, and working properly upon

the conscience.

I must therefore, my reverend brethren, most earnestly press you to be assiduous in the discharge of this part of your office; declaring at the same time, that I shall dis

tinguish with my regards such ministers and curates, as shall distinguish themselves by their diligence upon this and the following head;

Which is, fourthly, the reviving of that almost antiquated exercise of expounding the holy scriptures to your congregations.

I am afraid the bulk of your people are very little acquainted with this divine book; some for want of inclina tion to read it, and others for want of proper helps for understanding it; and yet this is the book that is able to make them wise unto salvation. This book is the great rule of their faith and practice, and according to this book they must be judged at the last day.

Who then should teach them to understand it but their pastors, who are called by that honourable name, because they are to feed their people with knowledge and understanding? For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hostsc.

By this means you will by degrees lead those into the knowledge of the holy scriptures, who will not be at the pains, or may want leisure, to read them at home; or if they do read, yet, for want of commentators, are sometimes at a loss for the true sense.

Let me add, that this exercise will be of no small advantage even to yourselves, as it will lay you under a necessity of studying the word of God, which you are by profession, and promise at your ordination, bound to do: for a clergyman can no more be unskilful in the holy scriptures, without great shame and reproach, than a lawyer in the law.

The Epistles and Gospels, and Lessons for the day, will furnish you with choice of subjects for this work, which will become easy and familiar to the minister, after he has once made himself master of the sense and connection. And the same notes will generally serve, as the same portions return in an annual rotation.

But let me not be misunderstood: I am not recommending this as an additional task, over and above the sermon, but to be substituted sometimes in the place of it; and which, in my judgment, will be more profitable; especially if care be taken to make such practical inferences and applications in the course of the exposition, as may naturally arise out of the text. This will indeed make

a 2 Tim. iii. 15.

b Jer. iii. 15.

c Mal. ii. 7.

it a sermon in another shape; with this difference only, that the variety of subjects and incidents will enliven the attention, and give a more agreeable, as well as instructive entertainment to the audience; who, I dare say, will come with a better appetite to this exercise, when judiciously performed, and fill your churches better.

It will remain in the minister's discretion to interpose a sermon when he pleases; but he will do well to note down those Sundays, in order to expound in the following year those portions of holy scripture, which by this means were omitted.

And if the people were admonished to bring their Bibles with them, according to the good old practice of our ancestors, and to accompany the minister as he reads and expounds, they would understand and retain it better, and be enabled to spend an hour most profitably in recollecting and repeating to their families what they had heard at

church.

If this custom, practised in the times of puritanism, was laid aside in a licentious age, when all seriousness in religion grew out of fashion, let us not be ashamed to revive it; for it is no shame to learn that which is good from any body. After all, if a sermon in form should, in compliance with custom, be found indispensable, it may however be shortened to allow for the time that had been spent in the exposition.

I come now to the second general head I proposed to speak to, viz. your duty at large, and out of the house of God.

The first I should mention is the visitation of the sick. And let me assure you, that this is a very critical office at certain conjunctures, and that great discretion is required for the right discharge of it; for there may be danger in administering either too much fear or too much hope.

To awaken a sick man to reflect upon his past life, and to call his sins to remembrance, in order to a particular repentance, will be of great use to him; but care must be taken, not to throw him into despair of God's mercy and forgiveness; for this will prevent his repentance, and shut the door of mercy against him.

On the other hand, to set only the mercy of God before him, and deal out hope too liberally, will be the way to make him secure at a time when his soul is in the utmost danger, and when repentance is all that he has for it. And by-standers will be too apt to lay hold of such sweet doctrine to their own undoing.

I am afraid it is too frequent for wicked livers, when they apprehend the approaches of death, to send for the minister, in order to receive the communion and absolution as a kind of passport, which they hope will do their business at once, and carry them by a short way to heaven; and indeed this is a very short way, if it would do. But alas! we do not find in the holy scriptures that the way is quite so easy; on the contrary, we find that repentance and a good life are the only sure foundation of hope and comfort at the hour of death. For this reason a minister ought not to be too ready with his absolutions; nor has he any warrant for it, unless the proofs of repentance be strong, and the sick person humbly and earnestly desire it; in which case only, the rubric directs absolution to be given.

And even then, it will be very proper for the minister to observe, that he has no power to forgive sins absolutely; but that all that he can do is to declare, for the comfort of the sick, that God forgives him, in case his repentance be sincere, and his heart thoroughly changed.

I confess, that when things are come to the last extremity, repentance is all that is in the power of a dying man, after a bad life: but God only knows, whether it be the mere effect of terror, or whether the heart be so changed as, in case of recovery, would have operated to a virtuous life. Charity, which hopeth all things, will make the best of it; but it is a very poor refuge; and as it would be cruel to refuse a dying man that little comfort which his case may possibly admit, so it would encourage presumption in the living to give too much.

But the case is quite otherwise with regard to a virtuous and godly man in his last moments; here none of these cautions are necessary, but the minister may safely pour the oil of joy and hope with profusion into his soul.

But the visitation of the sick is only an occasional branch of a pastor's duty, and there is another of much greater importance and extent, and that is,

Secondly, His visiting all his parishioners at their houses in a stated and a regular course. By this means only can he learn the true state of their souls, and all their spiritual wants. In the church he is to speak, and they to hear only; but his familiar conversation will give them an opportunity of speaking in their turns, and of opening to him their doubts and scruples of conscience; their fears, their temptations, and their ignorance; and he will take fit occasions to admonish and reprove them privately, without

exposing them to shame, according to our Saviour's advice. The tenderness and regard to the character and credit of an offender must naturally tend to soften and reclaim him; but if after repeated admonitions he should prove obstinate and incorrigible, then, and not till then, is he to be put to open shame. Presentments, excommunications, judicial censures, and penances, are always to be the last resort, when private admonitions and expostulations have been repeated without effect.

If there be domestic quarrels and dissensions, the discreet advice of the minister may heal them, and restore unity and peace, and mutual affection between husband and wife, parents and children, brethren and sisters. If reciprocal passions, or ill offices, have set neighbours and friends at variance, and given rise to vexatious prosecutions and lawsuits, which are often occasioned by a mere misunderstanding of one another, (or by malicious whispers and insinuations,) he will set things in a better light, and mollify them to a better temper; and bring them to decide their differences by the cheap and Christian way of arbitration, to the saving of families from utter ruin. And indeed I have observed, that when once a minister has, by his discreet, peaceable, and upright behaviour, established himself in the good opinion and confidence of his parishioners, he becomes from that time a general arbiter and judge among them, and all their little strifes are readily submitted to his decision.

By the same means also he will learn if the worship of God be kept up in families, as it ought; he will discover what good books are used among them, and what bad ones, which may tend to corrupt their principles and manners. He will find if seducers have been privately at work in his parish, to practise on the ignorant and unstable, and lead them astray; and this will give him an opportunity to set them right, and fortify them. And I fear there was never more occasion for the vigilance of ministers in this case, than in these days, when the flock of Christ is beset with wolves of various denominations.

To name no more, he will learn from his own eyesight the distresses and wants of the poor families in his parish, which will move him both to extend his own charity, and to solicit that of others, for their relief.

These and a thousand other good ends are to be obtained only by the diligence of a pastor in visiting his parishioners at their houses; so that if he should content himself with officiating in the church only, and having