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"And approvest the things that are more excel"lent, being instructed out of the law."-We, who know the height to which we are to aspire, and the advances we are expected to make, under the blessings of the gospel, the vices we are to renounce, and the virtues we are to practise, we are more attached to the earth, to sordid interests, more the slaves of sense; we live less by faith, than those ignorant men, who scarce distinguish good from evil; but in whom a love of religion, and a fear of God, supply the absence of knowledge, and the defect of instruction. Ignorance, indeed, oftens lead them to superstition; but this very superstition is no other than an excess of religion their simplicity will plead before God, in excuse for their weakness: they carry religion too far, because their minds are not sufficiently enlightened with knowledge; whereas we, although instructed in the word and doctrine, discharge imperfectly our several duties; enforced as they are, upon our consciences, by the conviction, that God will demand them of us, in proportion to the light we have, and the opportunities we possess.

"And art confident, that thou thyself art a guide "of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness.”—That is to say, what encreases our confidence, ought to become the continual motive of our most reasonable apprehensions. We are the light of the blind-but do we guide, do we enlighten them? Does it appear, in the conduct of the people committed to our care, that they have a leader and

a guide? Are they not as sheep without a shepherd? Do we instruct them? Do our examples support our instructions? Are we not blind leaders of the blind? And will not both fall into the same ditch, either by the careleṣness with which our instructions are impressed on them, or by the degeneracy which we exhibit to them? We are the light of them that walk in darkness; but prayer and study are the means which render us the light of men prayer is the science of the heart study that of the mind; the one derives its utility from the other. Now, how associate the habit, and the consequent delight, of prayer, with the dissipated life which many lead? Our preparatory years are devoted to study; the priesthood obtained, books disappear, and study is neglected: the moment that some men are ordained to the pastoral office, which supposes them capable of instructing mankind, they cease to acquire knowledge; and often, when they are so situated, as to have no occasion to exercise it, they forget what they had previously acquired.

"An instructor of the foolish."-The Sacred Writings style those men fools, who "set their affec"tions on things of the earth, and not on things "above." It is, then, peculiarly incumbent on us to teach men, that the fear of God is the only true wisdom, that every thing besides, is "vanity and " vexation of spirit ;" that, to devote reason, prudence, judgment, diligence, understanding, merely to obtain the perishable things of this life, and to build here, upon the sand, an abiding city,

without thinking of that which is prepared for us in heaven, is no other than the prudence of fools, and the grossest of follies. Notwithstanding, far from undeceiving them, our solicitude, our anxiety, to lay up treasures, our views confined solely to the earth, our low and sordid avarice-do they not confirm mankind in this deplorable error? The avarice of the Clergy has become so common, that it has almost passed into a proverb: it is a reproach, however undeservedly, cast upon the whole order*.

"A teacher of babes."

The innocence of chil

dren is entrusted to us; their faith and their Religion, as an holy treasure, which God hath committed to our care: they derive from us the title which makes them Christianst; it is our duty then to teach them to what this high title engages them; to cultivate those young plants, which we ourselves

* This reflection cannot be applied to the Clergy of the Church of England, who are, very many of them, the most humane and charitable of men.

↑ "Besides our general Instructions, it is very needful, that we give the Youth under our Care, in particular, an early Knowledge of our Religion, that may abide with them; and stand the Trials to which their riper Years will of course be exposed. I hope you are diligent in that most useful work of Catechizing and have done your utmost to prepare for Confirmation, those whom you present to me. And I earnestly recommend it to you, that the good Impressions, which may well be supposed to be made upon their Minds at this Season, be not suffered to wear off again; but be improved into settled Habits of Religion and Virtue, by still farther Exhortations, and leading them as soon as possible to the Holy Communion.” -Abp. SECKER,

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have planted in the Lord's vineyard. You have given them a Christian birth-right, by baptism; but immediately forsaking them, they become like those children who are, by the inhumanity of their parents, exposed, and live, and die, alas! ignorant of their titles, of their origin, that “ they are heirs "of God, and joint heirs with Christ;" the profligacy of their life is generally correspondent to their neglected situation. Can you have them continually under your eyes, and not reproach your insensibility towards those innocent victims, who have, it should seem, received at your hands the sacrament of regeneration, merely for the purpose of depriving them, as far as in your power, of its efficacy, and of stifling them, if I may be allowed the expression, in the cradle, by not supporting them with the milk of the doctrine of the Gospel? You are shocked at the barbarity of a mother, who, after having given life to a child, exposes and abandons it; but is not this a natural image of the hard-heartedness of a Pastor, who, after having given the life of faith to his children, exposes, abandons them, and delivers them to a total ignorance of the faith they have received, infinitely more pernicious, than the evils of hunger, and the calamities of indigence. They will, it is true, carry into the presence of God, the high and unavailing title of Christianity; but it will be a title of condemnation to you, rather than to them; it will rise up in judgment against you: you will have made Christians, without Religion, and without a knowledge of its Blessed Author; how then

shall you ever be able to repair, as far as they are concerned, the fault you have committed against them? How shall you be able to raise an edifice, when you have laid no other foundation, than in dreadful ruins ?

But what is the most lamentable is, that you involve your successors in the same shame; you leave, after your departure, a curse in the midst of you parishes, to which the zeal of the most faithful Ministers can scarce apply a remedy. For what advantage can be derived from the ministry of the most vigilant Pastor, after your decease in a parish in which he will find no knowledge of Religion; where he must have recourse to the first instructions of childhood, in order to inform the minds of them that arrived at years of maturity? Shame alone, at becoming children, will always impose an invincible obstacle to the soli

* It is not improbable, that the extreme ignorance of Christianity, which generally pervades our parishes, arises from the little instructions given to children in their early days. How greatly is it to be wished that, not only in Lent, but at other seasons of the year, the children in every parish were taught the Church Catechism; and that familiar lectures were given upon the several parts of it! The observation of Massillon, is strikingly just that little good can be done by the most zealous Minister, through the negligence of his predecessors, in not having taught the children the elements of christianity, May I presume, without offence, to recommend it to the Clergy, individually, to give, where it is practicable, to every, family in their several parishes, that most useful of all tracts, the Church Catechism, broke into short questions?

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