THE COLLECT. OBSERVATIONS. secrets are hid ; Cleanse hearts by faith, that we may the thoughts of our love and fear Him, and keep hearts by the inspira- which all our happiness de His commandments, upon tion of Thy Holy Spirit, pends. that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy holy Name, through Christ our Lord. Amen. RUBRIC. We see with what great turning to the people, re judgment these COMMANDhearse distinctly all the TEN MENTS were appointed to be COMMANDMENTS ; and the read in this service, since people still kneeling shall, “by the law is the knowafter every Commandment, ledge of sin.” 2 And when we are convinced in our own ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time conscience, that we have not past; and grace to keep the kept a law which is “holy, same for the time to come, as just, and good,” 3 we shall followeth. then see the NEED and the BLESSING of a REDEEMER ; and how earnestly we ought to beg God, for His sake, to have mercy upon us; and to incline our hearts to keep these laws. (1) When it is considered how many people there are who have no other way of coming to the knowledge of their duty; it will appear with what great reason the Priest is required to read these commands of God distinctly ; and how religiously this Rubric ought to be observed. (2) Rom. iii. 20. (3) Rom. vii. 12. OBSERVATIONS AND DIRECTIONS. That you may obey the following commands of God with cheerfulness, you ought to be firmly persuaded That God, who standeth in no need of our obedience and service, hath given us these laws merely for our own good, to restrain the disorders we are subject to, and to hinder us from ruining ourselves. Consider these commands in this view, and as they are the effect of the great love of God for His poor creatures : or else you will look upon them as a burden, and obey them with an unwilling mind. Prepare, therefore, to hear them with an attention and reverence suitable to Him whose commands they are ; and then you will be more sensible what a blessing it is, that Jesus Christ hath by His death delivered us from the curse and punishment due to those that break them; having prevailed with God to accept of our repentance, and to "enable us by His grace to observe them better for the time to come. COMMUNION. OBSERVATIONS. Minister. WHEN you consider how apt every man is to have God spake these words, his idol, --something which and said ; I am the Lord he admires, or loves, or fears, thy God: Thou shalt or trusts in, or adores, more than the God who made and have none other gods redeemed him,-you will see but Me.' the reason and the necessity (1) The law of nature and right reason, being the law of man in the state of innocence, would still have been a sufficient guide, had it not been much obscured, and almost blotted out, and rendered ineffectual, by the transgression of our first parents, and the wickedness of their posterity. It was then that God republished these laws by Moses in writing, to awaken men, and to be a standing witness against all such as would not consult their own consciences, and the law written in their hearts. COMMUNION. OBSERVATIONS, People. of this command; and will most heartily beg of God to Lord, have mercy keep you froin such idolatry, upon us, and incline and that you may love Him our hearts to keep this with all your heart, and above all things. law. Minister. Thou shalt not make The proneness of all nato thyself any graven tions to the vile idolatry of making and worshipping imimage, nor the likeness ages, and the creatures they of any thing that is in represent, shows the absoheaven above, or in the lute necessity of the auearth beneath, or in the thority of God, to prevent water under the earth. so great a sin and contempt of the Divine Majesty, and Thou shalt not bow the judgments that would down to them, nor wor- follow. ship them : for I the At the same time, God Lord thy God am has given us the greatest encouragement to obey this, jealous God, and visit and all His commands; asthe sins of the fathers suring us, that both we and upon the children, unto our children's children shall the third and fourth reap the blessing of our obedience. generation of them that hate Me, and show mercy unto thousands in them that love Me, and keep My commandments. a COMMUNION. OBSERVATIONS. People. Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law. Minister. Happy it is for the world the Name of the Lord that men are restrained (as thy God in vain; for the far as a command, and the Lord will not hold him ments will restrain them) fear of God, and His judgguiltless, that taketh from profaning His Name His Name in vain. to idle and wicked purposes. -Were it not for this, all reverence for oaths, and for People. God Himself would be lost among men. Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law. Minister. Remember that thou When we consider how keep holy the Sabbath- backward we are to learn day. Six days shalt our duty, how apt to forget thou labour, and do all it, and unwilling to put it that thou hast to do; acknowledge the necessity in practice, we cannot but but the seventh day is and kindness of this com COMMUNION. OBSERVATIONS, the Sabbath of the Lord mand; which obliges every thy God. In it thou man, who loves and fears shalt do no manner of God, to keep one day in seven holy to the Lord ; in work, thou, and thy order to preserve the knowson, and thy daughter, ledge of the true God, and thy man-servant, and His glorious perfections, and of our creation and redempthy maid-servant, thy tion, that we may fear, and cattle, and the stranger love, and adore Him as we that is within thy gates. ought to do. The neglect For in six days the Lord of this duty, commanded made heaven and earth, in all probability, been the from the beginning, having, the sea, and all that in occasion of that deplorablethem is, and rested the state of ignorance and idol-. seventh day : wherefore atry in the heathen world; as it has been of very rethe Lord blessed the markable judgments upon seventh day, and hal- many of those among Chrislowed it. tians, that have profaned this day. And, indeed, to profane the Lord's-day, is, in a inanner, People. to deny the God that made Lord, have upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law. mercy us, and the world. Minister. The infinite mischiefs ocHonour thy father casioned by undutiful chiland thy mother; that dren, by rebellious subjects, |