Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/405

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TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.

necessary, and would have inserted as such. They are good words; still they are not those which our Church considers the words for a sick-bed examination. She does not give them the prominence which is now given them. She adopts a manner of address which savours of what is now called formality. That our Church was no stranger to the more solemn kind of language, which persons now use on every occasion, is evident from the prayer "for a sick person, when there appeareth small hope of recovery," and "the commendatory prayer;" still she adopts the other as her ordinary manner.

L. I can corroborate what you just now observed about the Creed, by what I lately read in some book or books, advocating a revision of the Liturgy. It was vehemently objected to the Apostles' Creed, that it contained no confession of the doctrine of the atonement, nor (I think) of original sin!

C. It is well to see persons consistent. When they go full lengths, they startle others, and, perhaps (please God) themselves. Indeed, I wish men would stop a while, and seriously reflect whether the mere verbal opposition which exists between their own language and the language of services (to say nothing to the difference of spirit), is not a sort of warning to them, if they would take it, against inconsiderately proceeding in their present course. But nothing is more rare at this day than quiet thought. Every one is in a bustle, being bent to do a great deal. We preach, and run from house to house; we do not pray or meditate. But, to return. Next, consider the first exhortation to the Communion: would it not be called, if I said it in discourse of my own, dark, cold, and formal? "The way and means thereto [to receive worthily] is,—First, to examine your lives and conversations by the rule of God's Commandments, &c.… Therefore, if any of you be a blasphemer of God, an hinderer or slanderer of His word, an adulterer, or be in malice, or envy, or any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins," &c. Now this is what is called, in some quarters, by a great abuse of terms, "mere morality."

L. If I understand you, the Liturgy, all along, speaks of the Gospel dispensation, under which it is our blessedness to live, as being, at the same time, a moral law; that this is its prominent