FOR YOU FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD: GRANT THIS, WE BESEECH THEE, O MERCIFUL FATHER, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, OUR MEDIATOR AND REDEEMER. AMEN] As to our brother departed, we can only exercise our charity and our hope; but for ourselves we had need to pray that we may by holiness here be fitted for happiness hereafter; for in vain do we hope to be found acceptable at the last day, if we do not please God now; that blessing is only to be pronounced on them that love and fear him: God is a holy God, and heaven a holy place, the saints and angels are all holy, nor can any dwell in that society that is not first made holy. If we could suppose an evil man should carry his evil inclinations of pride and envy, malice and revenge, lust and intemperance to that glorious kingdom with him, heaven would be no heaven to such an one, the place would be odious, the company troublesome, the employment ungrateful, and the eternity a burden intolerable; he would be uneasy to holy souls, and they to him; and he that is a good man hath his heaven begun in the peace of his own conscience, and he is going thither, where it will be completed: and now we are looking beyond death, praying it may go well with us there, however it be here; let men condemn us now, so he accept us then; let them curse, if he bless. Who can tell the ravishing delight it shall be to a good man after all his fears and dangers, to hear the sweet and lovely voice of his Redeemer? To be owned and acquitted by this great and glorious Judge; yea, to be blessed and endowed with a kingdom so illustrious and so infinitely glorious, at that time when the whole world shall be dissolved, and the terrors of the great day shall be before us, when the devils shall be ready to accuse us, and hell to gape for us, then one smile of the Judge will be the heaven of heaven. To be thus

regarded and rewarded is above our capacity to apprehend now, but it shall be actually accomplished hereafter; why then do we stand at the grave weeping? Let us go home silently, and study how by holiness we may come to that felicity to which they are gone before us. The Lord pardon and amend us all, and then we shall courageously meet death ourselves, and patiently bear it in others, till they and we be awakened by the voice of Jesus, to receive us to his everlasting kingdom; which being so great a request, we beg it for us all in the name of Jesus Christ, and conclude the whole office with St. Paul's blessing, wishing that the merits of Jesus and the love of the Father, with the aid of the Holy Ghost, may secure us here, and bring us to heaven, our desired end. Amen.

209

THE INTRODUCTION.

CONCERNING

THE THANKSGIVING OF WOMEN

AFTER CHILD-BIRTH.

THE birth of man is so truly wonderful, that it seems to be designed for a constant demonstration of the omnipotence of our Creator: and if the frequency did not abate of our admiration, it could be esteemed no less than a perpetual miracle. However, it is not a meaner act of God's power and mercy in itself, because he often repeats it; and therefore that the number of these providences may not diminish our sense of their true worth, holy church ordains a public and solemn acknowledgment shall be made on every such occasion by the party most concerned, that is, the woman, who still feels the bruises of our first parent's most deplorable fall, and smarts severely for that first sin which gave beginning to all our miseries; so that now she cannot give life to others, without the extremest hazard of her own; after which eminent deliverance, she is enjoined to come into God's house and offer up her praises in this brief but useful office, concerning which we will observe in general these four things: 1st, whence it had its original; 2dly, how it hath been

a Miracula sunt et magna miut jam non sit qui attendat. racula, sed toties hæc vidimus, Bern. Vig. Nat. ser. 4.

practised in the Christian church; 3dly, what are the reasons and ends of the duty; 4thly, what are the parts of the office itself.

1st. The original of this thanksgiving may be allowed to have been that law of Moses which prohibited women for some time after child-bearing to enter into the place of public worship, and commanded them when they did come to bring a sacrifice along with them, Levit. xii. Not that we observe it now by virtue of that precept, which we grant to be ceremonial, and so not directly obligatory to us Christians, and therefore we do not keep to the same time, nor observe the same rites, and, which is the main difference, we do not enjoin it now for the same reason: under the law the woman was forbid the tabernacle, under the notion of being unclean for such a space of time; but under the gospel nothing but sin makes any one unclean or unfit to come into God's house; natural infirmities are our misery, not our fault, and therefore we do not forbid the woman to come at any one set time, only enjoin her when she doth come first abroad to come solemnly to God's house, and offer up her sacrifice of praise. And though ceremonies were observed by the Jews merely because they were insti-210 tuted by God, whether they knew the reason of them or no, and so they did only oblige that people; yet there was often couched under them some moral duty, implied at least by way of analogy, and that duty is obligatory to all people, even when the ceremony is ceased; and so it was in this case, the impurity, the set number of days, and the sacrifice, were ceremonial, but the open and solemn acknowledgment of God's goodness in delivering the mother, and increasing the number of mankind, is a moral duty, and will oblige Christians to the end of the world. And that this is the

main, if not the only thing intended by the church in this office, may thus appear: the ancient canons which did prescribe an abstaining from the house of God in this case for thirty or forty days, do declare they did not enjoin this as necessary, but only as comely and convenient for decency and order's sake; and Dionysius thinketh no command is needful in this matter, because, saith he, "if the woman be a faithful and pious person, she will not presume to come to the altar sooner though she might." And the emperor Leo, who forbids them to receive the sacrament for forty days, acknowledges that in case of necessity they may receive without sine. But more plainly one of the old Roman bishops, who mentions their staying at home so many days, adds this only reason for it," because it is the custom so to dod" Yet the fullest of all other in this point, is St. Gregory the Great, who in his answers to the queries of our Augustin bishop of Canterbury, above a thousand years ago, hath declared it to be no sin for a woman, if she were able, to come and give thanks in the church the next hour after her delivery, mentioning the example of that poor woman whom our Lord admitted to touch him, Matth. ix. 20, and alleging that the miseries of that sex are not to be called sins, nor any to be thought defiled by them. "In the Old Testament indeed," saith he, many outward things were observed; but in the New, it is not these outward things, but the inward affections of the heart are considered and punished: for whereas the law forbids the eating many things as unclean, our Lord in the Gospel saith, Not that which

b Dionys. Alexandr. Can. 2. ap. Bevereg. Concil. tom. 2. pag. 4.

e Novel. Const. Leon. Aug.

Nov. 17. ap. Balsam. in locum Dionysii ap. Bevereg. ut supra. d Can. pœnitent. Greg. 3. cap. 30. Biblioth. Patr. tom. 6.