DISCOURSES, &c. DISCOURSE I. ISAIAH LIII. 6. All we like sheep have gone astray-we have turned every one to his own way. As the season of Lent invites us to the exercise of humiliation and self-abasement, I cannot, perhaps, more profitably employ this solemn and interesting period, than by directing your attention to the CONFESSION of our Church, and endeavouring to point out to those, who, from Sabbath to Sabbath, address their Maker, agreeably to the form of this confession, both what it acknowledges, and what it professes to seek, at a B throne of grace. The most important and edifying part of divine worship is prayer, and one of the most solemn, and interesting, parts of prayer, is confession. On this account, the Church of England, very properly, places her confession nearly at the commencement of the public service. In this arrangement of her daily offices, as we learn from the books of Ezra and Daniel,1 the example of devout men, who lived under the Mosaic dispensation, is imitated, as well as the practice of the purer ages of the Christian Church. "With us," says St. Basil, the Bishop of Cæsarea, "all the people come early in the morning, while it is yet dark, to the house of prayer, and with sorrow, and with affliction, and with profusion of tears, make confession of their sins to God."2 It is, moreover, directed by the rubric, that the confession should be repeated after the minister, by the whole congregation; Ezra ix. 5, etc.; and Daniel ix. 3, etc. |