THE COLLECT. secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy holy Name, through Christ our Lord. Amen. OBSERVATIONS. hearts by faith, that we may love and fear Him, and keep His commandments, upon which all our happiness depends. RUBRIC. Then 1 shall the Priest, turning to the people, rehearse distinctly all the TEN COMMANDMENTS; and the people still kneeling shall, after every Commandment, ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time past; and grace to keep the same for the time to come, as followeth. We see with what great judgment these COMMANDMENTS were appointed to be read in this service, since "by the law is the knowledge of sin."2 And when we are convinced in our own conscience, that we have not kept a law which is "holy, just, and good," 3 we shall 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. Minister. GOD spake these words, and said; I am the Lord thy God: Thou shalt have none other gods but Me.' OBSERVATIONS. WHEN you consider how apt every man is to have his idol,-something which he admires, or loves, or fears, or trusts in, or adores, more than the God who made and redeemed him,-you will see 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. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them: for I the Lord thy God am jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and show mercy unto thousands in them that love Me, and keep My commandments. а COMMUNION. the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it. People, Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law. OBSERVATIONS. mand; which obliges every man, who loves and fears God, to keep one day in seven holy to the Lord; in order to preserve the knowledge of the true God, and His glorious perfections, and of our creation and redemp tion, that we may fear, and love, and adore Him as we ought to do. The neglect of this duty, commanded from the beginning, having, in all probability, been the occasion of that deplorable state of ignorance and idol-. atry in the heathen world; as it has been of very re markable judgments upon many of those among Christians, that have profaned this day. And, indeed, to profane the Lord's-day, is, in a manner, to deny the God that made us, and the world. Minister. Honour thy father and thy mother; that The infinite mischiefs oc casioned by undutiful children, by rebellious subjects, |