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therefore to fulfil the design of this work, by affording some useful helps towards securing that men may no longer be suffered "most unchristianly to depart this world, and to go out of their lives without order," it will be the aim of the writer to turn the sick man's thoughts to the value of the ministrations of the Church in the hour of his visitation and trial, and to induce him systematically to avail himself of them. This work will thus serve the important purpose of pointing out to the sick those duties and that line of conduct which their minister may not easily have opportunities afforded him of intimating to them, and in many cases might shrink from suggesting, especially when he might wish to insist on the great advantage, and indeed almost necessity to the sick, of his own personal ministrations. Not that its use will be confined solely to the sick, though designed principally for that purpose. The lessons for our conduct on the sick bed may be best learnt while we are still in health, and the pious reader may propose to himself the subject of death, and dress his soul for funeral graces. And to this effect Archbishop Secker well observes: "It is very true, that the best preparation for sickness and death is a good life: and, whilst we neglect this, no other can be effectual. But then too many have neglected it; and there is the utmost necessity for them to think, and to be assisted in thinking, of whatever they can do towards retrieving so fatal an error. Nay, with respect to others, as the rules of a good life extend to our behaviour in all circumstances, so there must be some of them peculiarly appropriate to the nearer prospect of our departure hence. And as every thing should be learnt in the best degree it can, before we want it for practice, and such things especially as are difficult, and

yet of moment; so studying in our health the duties of a sick bed, contriving beforehand to make them as few and easy as possible, and forming ourselves to a disposition of going through them as we ought, is no small part of religious wisdom. If you delay till the time of illness comes, (and who can foresee how soon that may happen ?) for some things it will be too late; of some you will be ignorant; others you will forget; and those about you too commonly will be unable, or unwilling, or afraid to remind you of them. Those whose office it is, will scarce have an opportunity given them of attending you; or, if they have, will scarce know on the sudden, how to make great use of it and upon the whole, but little will be done of what should be done."

Nor will such a volume as this, it is thought, be without its benefits in another point of view. For it is hoped that the Clergy may find, as one effect produced on those who use it, that their spiritual medicines are becoming more and more appreciated, and that some steps have been made towards that state of feeling, so devoutly to be wished for, in which their attendance in the season of sickness shall be accounted, with devout people, as natural an accompaniment to their state of separation as the visits of the physician of the body. Should this prove to be the case, they will be the more encouraged to perform their part and duty with confident alacrity, and to carry out systematically those rules of the Church's Office for the Visitation of the Sick, which, hitherto, there is no little reason to fear they have, in many cases, been deterred from performing, from the evident want of preparation in the parties visited for the appreciation of such a course of treatment as the nature of their ministerial office for the sick pro

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perly obliges them to pursue. It is only too painfully true, that the entire character of the ministerial visit to the sick bed is but too often quite misconceived. A far too indefinite idea is entertained by the sick man of the kind of office to be performed, and the nature of the services which he is to expect; and consequently, the Pastor of souls is seldom received by him in that instructed frame of mind in which it behoves him to receive the priest and ambassador of GOD bringing with him mercy and gifts of reconciliation.

In effect, there is some ground for the belief, that the short office of the Church appointed for the Visitation of the Sick, is seldom made use of by the sick man as furnishing a necessary rule of conduct to him; or, if it falls under his notice, is seldom received by him in an understanding spirit at all proportioned to the comprehensiveness of its ends: its meaning and scope not being so manifest, but that even those instructed in liturgical matters have made serious mistakes as to the necessities it proposes to supply.

It appeared, therefore, to the writer, that much of these hindrances to the due discharge of the functions of the Clergy in this important ministry, and to the thankful reception of a great ministerial blessing, on the part of the laity, might be removed if a manual for the sick were provided, aiming in its construction directly to obviate them. There seemed room for such a work, as by bringing home to the consciences and minds of the members of the Church of England the use, advantage, and necessity of the precepts and directions of the Visitation Office and other subsidiary laws of the Church, might, as far as a due preparation of mind on the part of the recipient is concerned,

For instance, the Communion of the Sick Office, Supplementary Prayers, and the two Canons LXVII and LXXI.

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