whatsover perfect virtue groweth from us, is a right opinion touching things divine, this kind of knowledge we may justly set down for the first and chiefest thing which God imparteth unto his people, and our duty of receiving this at his merciful hands, for the first of those religious offices wherewith we publicly honour him on earth. For the instruction therefore of all sorts of men to eternal life it is necessary, that the sacred and saving truth of God be openly published upon them.

26. On the fulness of the text.

Whereas in a manner the whole book of God is by reading every year published', a small part thereof, in comparison of the whole, may hold very well the readiest interpreter of Scripture occupied many years.

27. Preaching.

So worthy a part of divine service we should greatly wrong, if we did not esteem preaching as the blessed ordinance of God, sermons as keys to the kingdom of heaven, as wings to the soul, as spurs to the good affections of man, unto the sound and healthy as food, as physic unto diseased minds.

28. The subject of preaching.

That which must save believers is the knowledge of the cross of Christ, the only subject of all our preaching.

29. The sacraments.

Sacraments are the powerful instruments of God to eternal life. For as our natural life consisteth in the union of the body with the soul, so our life supernatural in the union of the soul with God.

1 “Published;" i. e. by means of the daily lessons.

30. Their uses and ends.

Let respect be had to the duty which every communicant doth undertake, and we may well determine concerning the use of sacraments, that they serve as bonds of obedience to God, strict obligations to the mutual exercise of Christian charity, provocations to godliness, preservations from sin, memorials of the principal benefits of Christ: respect the time of their institution, and it thereby appeareth that God hath annexed them for ever unto the New Testament, as other rites were before with the Old: regard the weakness which is in us, and they are warrants for the more security of our belief: compare the receivers of them with such as receive them not, and sacraments are marks of distinction to separate God's own from strangers; so that in all these respects, they are found to be most necessary. But their chiefest force and virtue consisteth not herein, so much as in that they are heavenly ceremonies which God hath sanctified and ordained to be administered in his Church; first, as marks whereby to know when God doth impart the vital or saving grace of Christ unto all that are capable thereof; and secondly, as means conditional, which God requireth in them unto whom he imparteth grace.

Sacraments serve as the instruments of God, to that end and purpose; moral instruments, the use whereof is in our own hands, the effect in his; for the use we have his express commandment; for the effect, his conditional promise: so that without our obedience to the one, there is of the other no apparent assurance; as contrariwise, where the signs and sacraments of his grace are not either through contempt unreceived, or received with contempt, we are not to doubt, but that they really give what they promise, and are what they signify.

31. Sacraments are instruments of God's grace.

Grace is a consequent of sacraments, a thing which accompanieth them as their end, a benefit which they have received from God himself, the Author of sacraments, and not from any other natural or supernatural quality in them; it may be hereby both understood, that sacraments are necessary, and that the manner of their necessity to life supernatural is not in all respects as food unto natural life, because they contain in themselves no vital force or efficacy; they are not physical, but moral instruments of salvation, duties of service and worship; which unless we perform as the Author of Grace requireth, they are unprofitable: for, all receive not the grace of God which receive the sacraments of his grace. Neither is it ordinarily his will to bestow the grace of sacraments on any but by the sacraments; which grace also, they that receive by sacraments or with sacraments, receive it from him, and not from them. For of sacraments, the very same is true which Solomon's wisdom observeth in the brazen serpent, He that turned towards it, was not healed by the thing he saw, but by thee, O Saviour of all.

32. Baptism.

Baptism is a sacrament which God hath instituted in his Church, to the end that they which receive the same might thereby be incorporated into Christ; and so through his most precious merit obtain, as well that saving grace of imputation which taketh away all former guiltiness, as also that infused divine virtue of the Holy Ghost which giveth to the powers of the soul their first disposition towards future newness of life.

33. Godfathers and Godmothers.

It savoureth of piety to give them their old accustomed name of fathers and mothers in God, whereby they are well put in mind what affection they ought to bear towards those innocents for whose religious education the Church accepteth them as pledges.

That which a guardian doth in the name of his guard or pupil, standeth by natural equity forcible for his benefit, though it be done without his knowledge; and shall we judge it a thing unreasonable, or in any respect unfit, that infants by words which others utter should, though unwittingly, yet truly and forcibly bind themselves to that whereby their estate is so assuredly bettered?

34. Design of the cross in baptism.

The cross is for us an admonition no less necessary than for them, to glory in the service of Jesus Christ, and not to hang down our heads as men ashamed thereof, although it procure us reproach and obloquy at the hands of this wretched world. Shame is a kind of fear to incur disgrace and ignominy.

35. The moral perfection of Baptism.

The greatest moral perfection of baptism consisteth in men's devout obedience to the law of God, which law requireth both the outward act, or thing done, and also that religious affection which God doth so much regard, that without it whatsoever we do is hateful in his sight.

36. Baptism begins, the Eucharist continues divine life.

The grace which we have by the holy Eucharist doth not begin but continues life. No man there

fore receiveth this sacrament before baptism, because no dead thing is capable of nourishment.

But as long as the days of our warfare last, during the time that we are both subject to diminution and capable of augmentation in grace, the words of our Lord and Saviour Christ will remain forcible; Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Life being therefore proposed unto all men as their end, they, which by baptism have laid the foundation and attained the first beginning of a new life, have here their nourishment and food prescribed for continuance of life in them.

37. Institution of the Lord's Supper.

Being assembled for no other cause which they could imagine but to have eaten the passover only, that Moses appointed, when they saw their Lord and Master, with hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, first bless and consecrate, for the endless good of all generations till the world's end, the chosen elements of bread and wine; which elements, made for ever the instruments of life by virtue of his divine benediction, they being the first that were commanded to receive from him, the first which were warranted by his promise, that not only unto them at the present time, but to whomsoever they and their successors after them did duly administer the same, those mysteries should serve as conducts of life, and conveyances of his body and blood unto them; was it possible they should hear that voice, Take, eat, this is my body; drink ye all of this, this is my blood; possible, that doing what was required, and believing what was promised, the same should have present effect in them, and not fill them with a kind of fearful admiration at the heaven which they saw in themselves? They had at that time a sea of comfort and joy to wade in, and we by that which they