The WOMAN THAT COMES TO GIVE HER THANKS MUST OFFER. Although offerings be always acceptable to God, yet some times there are, in which the Church hath held them more necessary, as hath been shewn formerly about offerings. I. When the Church is in want. II. At the holy Communion. III. When we come to give thanks for some more than ordinary blessing received; then, not only in word but in deed, also to thank God by bringing a present to God, Psalm lxxvi. 10, 11. That this is more than an ordinary blessing, a deliverance that deserves even perpetual thanks: David tells us, "Thou art He that took me out of my mother's womb, my praise shall be always of Thee." This service is to be done betwixt the first and second service, as I have learnt by some Bishops' inquiries at their visitation; the reason perhaps is, because by this means it is no interruption of either of these offices.

THIS

COMMINATION.

THIS office the Church confesses not to be ancient, but appointed instead of AN ANCIENT

GODLY DISCIPLINE OF PUTTING NOTORIOUS SIN

d Rubric after the Thanksgiving.

e Psalm 1xxvi. 6.

NERS TO OPEN PENANCE, WHICH BEING lost with us, HOLY CHURCH WISHES MIGHT BE RESTORED

AGAIN.

Though it be not ancient, yet is it a very useful penitential service, either in public or private, consisting of holy sentences taken out of God's word, fit for the work of repentance; God's holy commandments the glass wherein we see our sins; holy penitential prayers, taken for the most part out of holy Scripture: so that he which prays this form, is sure to pray by the Spirit, both for words

and matter.

Nothing in it seems to need exposition but the Amen, which is to be said after the curses, which being commonly used after prayers, may perhaps here be accounted by some a wish or prayer; and so the people be thought to curse themselves.

For the satisfying of which scrupulosity, it is enough to say, that God Himself commanded these Amens to be said after these curses, Deut. xxvii. and therefore good there may be in saying of them, but harm there can be none, if men when they say them understand them. Now that we may understand them when we use them, let us consider that Amen is not always a wish or prayer. For it signifies no more but verily or truly, or an assent to the truth of that to which it is added. If that to which it is added he a prayer, then this must needs be a joining in the prayer, and is as much as so BE IT;

but if that to which it be added be a Creed, or any affirmative proposition, such as these curses are, then the Amen is only an affirmation, as that is to which it is annexed. In this place, therefore, it is not a wishing that the curses may fall upon our heads, but only an affirming with our own mouths that the curse of God is indeed due to such sins, as the Church here propounds it. The use of it is to make us flee such vices for the future, and earnestly repent of them, if we be guilty; since, as we acknowledge, the curse and vengeance of God doth deservedly follow such sins and sinners.

"Having gone through the several offices in the Book of Common Prayer, we will now speak of the Rubrics, and other matters thereunto belonging."

OF THE

DEDICATION OF CHURCHES AND CHAPELS

THE

TO GOD'S SERVICE.

THE public service and worship is to be offered up in the Church.f

And the Curate that ministereth in every parish church or chapel shall say the same in the parish

Last Rubric of the preface.

church or chapel. And where may it be so fitly done as in the church? which is the house of prayer, "My house shall be called the house of prayer." g Almighty God always had both persons and places set apart for His public service and worship, ὄργανον ἱερουργίας ὁ ναός τε καὶ ὁ ἱερεύς. A temple and a Priest are necessary instruments of public and holy worship. The Priest to offer it up, and the church with an altar to offer it upon. The light of nature taught heathens thus much; and they obeyed that light of nature, and dedicated and set apart to the worship of their gods, priests and temples. The patriarchs, by the same light of nature, and the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, when they could not set apart houses, being themselves in a flitting condition, dedicated altars for God's service, Gen. xxii. 9; xxviii. 22, &c. “Under the Law," God called for a tabernable, Exod. xxv. within which was to be an altar, upon which was to be offered the daily sacrifice, morning and evening, Exod. xxix. 38. David, by the same light of nature and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, without any express direction from God, (as appears 2 Sam. vii. 7, and also by this, that God did not suffer him to build it,) intended and designed an house for God's service and worship; which (though for some reasons, viz. because he had shed much blood,

g St. Matt. xxi. 13.

h Simeon. Thessal. de Templo. ap. Goar. p. 214

being a man of war,) God did not suffer him to build, yet He accepted it highly from him, and for this very intention promised to bless him and his for many generations, 2 Sam. vii. But Solomon built him an house, which God accepted, and our Saviour owns under the Gospel, for His house of prayer, whither the Apostles go up to pray, Acts iii. 1.

Afterwards the Christians set apart and consecrated with great solemnity of religious rites and holy prayers, churches and oratories for the same solemn service and worship. Nor can it with reason be thought needless or superstitious to use solemn religious rites and prayers, at the consecration and setting of those houses apart to religious uses and services. For, as St. Paul argues in another case, "Doth not even nature teach you," that it is unseemly for any man to go about the building of an house to the God of heaven, with no other appearance than if his end were to rear up a kitchen or a parlour for his own use? Did not this light of nature teach the patriarchs in the state of nature, when they erected altars for God's service, to consecrate and set them apart with religious solemnities? Gen. xxviii. 18, &c. And did not Moses, by the direction of the God of nature, consecrate the tabernacle and altar with the like solemnities? Exod. xl. And Solomon afterwards consecrated the temple with religious prayers and rites, O