You tell me you are not a little nervous at the idea of reading and preaching for the first time before an assembled parish; that you are convinced you have not sufficient modulation of voice to give effect to the prayers of our admirable liturgy, nor sufficient talent so to frame your compositions as to rouse the consciences and impress the hearts of your hearers. Believe me, I honour your misgivings, and the diffidence of your own powers, which these conscientious scruples betray, holds out to me the best security you can offer for your ultimate

success.

The doctrines and discipline of the Church of England-the excellencies of her liturgy, that beautiful formula of devotion, wanting only the impress of divinity to make it a finished and a faultless work, the energy and beauty of its language-the piety of its prayersand the close conformity of its service with the hallowed page of revelation, have been made the theme of learned argument and persuasive eloquence, by men, whose arguments and eloquence would prosper whatever cause they might undertake to plead. You have not yet to learn the value of a national pre-composed liturgy; the obvious advantages to the whole congregation of prayers offered to the throne of grace in language understood by all. It would be foreign to my present purpose to cite here the numerous learned concurring authorities in evidence of ancient usage of Apostolic practice; to point your attention to the labours of a later age, the Reformation of the sixteenth century, when the services of Christianity were cleansed from the pollutions of Romish superstition, and re-arrayed in that simple and beautiful garb which they had worn in the days of her infancy, the purest age of Christianity. I will, therefore, make some few observations on the peculiar beauties of our Church service as they are embodied in the liturgy, such as may give you a more perfect acquaintance with them; for, be assured that, unless you perfectly comprehend the meaning of what you read, you can never give effect to the prayers, nor make them intelligible to your auditors.

You will naturally ask, where can be the energy, the earnestness of devotion, the confession of sin, or the petition for pardon, when the congregation is ignorant of the prayers to be offered the nature of the sacrifice to be paid? When, on the other hand, the attention is previously awakened to the necessity, the duty of a confession, whose every petition is understood by every one who utters it, when the understanding and heart of the auditor move in unison with the zeal and earnestness of his minister, there seems a rational probability that the ends of public prayer will be answered, the life of the individual reformed, and the character of the nation established. Whether it be to exercise our faith, to influence and animate our love, to uphold our patience, or to revive our hope; the supplications we offer to our God whenever we are assembled together to keep his Sabbath, and publicly to express our adoration of the mercies of his providence, are the fittest, we may presume to assert, for sinful man to use; the worthiest sacrifice finite can make to Infinite, the creature to his Creator.

That lowly acknowledgement of self-unworthiness, that deep and unqualified contrition for the sins of the past, that confession of guilt, -the resolutions of repentance, the devout prayer for mercy, the firm reliance on the promises revealed by the world's Redeemer, and that lively hope of them through his merits and for his sake;

-in a word, that solemn general confession with which, fearfully and tremblingly, we approach the Present God, cannot but be as acceptable an offering to the throne of mercy as fallen and fallible man can prefer to the fountain of all purity, the God of all perfection. Here, then, you will contend for the superiority of an established form of prayer, for which the whole congregation is prepared, the meaning of which the whole congregation may comprehend, of the necessity for which the whole congregation must be convinced, - and the objects of which the whole congregation cannot but foresee. I dwell upon the advantages of a liturgy intelligible to the whole congregation, because there is not an individual in any of those numerous Christian assemblies which mark the revolving Sabbath-there is not one, be his rank or station what it mayprince or peasant, man in authority or man dependant,-high or low, rich or poor