use and users of it, by a strict and solemn reinforcement of the canon upon all, be rescued from that unjust scorn of the factitious and ignorant, which the tyranny of the contrary, usurping custom, will otherwise expose them to. For surely, it can neither be decency nor order for our clergy to conform to the fanatics, as many in their prayers before sermon now-a-days do.

And thus having accounted for the prayers of our church, according to the great rule in the text, Let thy words be few; let us, according to the same, consider the way of praying, so much applauded by such as have renounced the communion and liturgy of our church; it is but reason, that they should bring us something better in the room of what they have so disdainfully cast off. But, on the contrary, are not all their prayers exactly after the heathenish and pharisaical copy; always notable for those two things, length and tautology? Two whole hours for one prayer, at a fast, used to be reckoned but a moderate dose; and that, for the most part, fraught with such blasphemous expressions, that, to repeat them would profane the place I am speaking in; and indeed they seldom carried on the work of such a day, (as their phrase was,) but they left the church in need of a new consecration. Add to this, the incoherence and confusion, the endless repetitions, and the insufferable nonsense, that never failed to hold out, even with their utmost prolixity; so that in all their long fasts, from first to last, from seven in the morning, to seven in the evening, (which was their measure,) the pulpit. was always the emptiest thing in the church; and I never knew such a fast kept by them, but their hearers had cause to begin a thanksgiving, as soon as they had done. And the truth is, when I consider the matter of their prayers, so full of ramble and inconsequence, and in every respect so very like the language of a dream, and compare it with their carriage of themselves in prayer, with their eyes for the most part shut,

and their arms stretched out in a yawning posture, a man that should hear any of them pray, might, by a very pardonable error, be induced to think, that he was all the time hearing one talking in his sleep; besides the strange virtue which their prayers had to procure sleep in others too. So that he who should be present at all their long cant, would show a greater ability in watching, than ever they could pretend to in praying, if he could forbear sleeping, having so strong a provocation to it, and so fair an excuse for it. In a word, such were their prayers, both for matter and expression, that could any one exactly write them out, it would be the shrewdest and most effectual way of writing against them, that could possibly be thought of.

I should not have thus troubled either you or myself, by raking into the dirt and dunghill of these men's devotions, upon the account of any thing either done or said by them in the late times of confusion; for as they have the king's, so I wish them God's pardon also, whom, I am sure, they have offended much more than they have both kings put together. But that which has provoked me thus to rip up to you their nauseous and ridiculous way of addressing to God, even upon the most solemn occasions, is that intolerably rude and unprovoked insolence and scurrility, with which they are every day scoffing at our Liturgy and the users of it, and thereby alienating the minds of people from it, to such a degree that many thousands are drawn by them into a fatal schism; a schism that, unrepented of, will as infallibly ruin their souls, as theft, whoredom, murther, or any other of the most crying, damning sins whatsoever. But leaving this to the justice of the government, to which it belongs to protect us in our spiritual as well as in our temporal concerns, I shall only say this, that nothing can be more for the honour of our Liturgy, than to find it despised only by those who have made themselves remarkable for despising the Lord's Prayer as much.

In the mean time, for ourselves of the church of England, who, without pretending to any new lights, think it equally a duty and commendation to be wise, and to be devout only to sobriety, and who judge it no dishonour to God himself, to be worshipped according to law and rule. If the directions of Solomon, the precept and example of our Saviour, and lastly, the piety and experience of those excellent men and martyrs, who first composed, and afterwards owned our Liturgy with their dearest blood, may be looked upon as sufficient guides to us in our public worship of God; then, upon the joint authority of all these, we may pronounce our Liturgy the greatest treasure of rational devotion in the Christian world. And I know no prayer necessary, that is not in the Liturgy, but one, which is this; that God would vouchsafe to continue the Liturgy itself in use, honour, and veneration, in this church forever. And I doubt not, but all wise, sober, and good Christians will, with equal judgment and affection, give it their amen.

DISCOURSE VIII.

*

THE VIRTUOUS EDUCATION OF YOUTH.

PROV. xxii. 6.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

WHEN I look back upon the old infamous rebellion and civil war, which like an irresistible torrent broke down the whole frame of our government, both in church and state, together with the principal concerns of private families, and the personal interests of particular men, (as it is not imaginable, that where a deluge overtops the mountains, it should spare the valleys); and when I consider also, how fresh all this

[*The following "Advertisement to the Reader," prefixed to this discourse, gives a diverting picture of the author's chagrin, seeking to relieve itself in affected irony. The cause of his disappointment it might be curious to know, though at this day it will be vain to seek. South's temper, in this notice, rather awkwardly blends with his habitual homage to high birth and station; and that too, in the present instance, in the person of one of the most notorious and detested characters in English history.-ED.]

Whosoever shall judge it worth his time to peruse the following discourse, (if it meets with any such,) he is desired to take notice, that it was penned, and prepared to have been preached at Westminster-Abbey, at a solemn meeting of such as had been bred at Westminster school. But the death of King Charles II. happening in the mean time, the design of this solemnity fell to the ground, together with him, and was never resumed since; though what the reason of this might be, I neither know, nor ever thought it worth while to inquire. It being abundantly enough for me, that I can with great truth affirm, that never offered myself to this service, nor so much as thought of appearing in a post so manifestly above me; but that a very great person, (the

is in the remembrance of many, and how frequent in the discourse of most, and in both carrying the same face of horror (as inseparable from such reflections); I have wondered with myself, and that even to astonishment, how it should be possible, that in the turn of so few years, there should be so numerous a party in these kingdoms, who (as if the remembrance of all those dismal days, between forty and sixty, were utterly erased out of the minds of men, and of the annals of time) are still ready, nay, eager, and impetuously bent to act over the same tragical scene again. Witness, first of all, the many virulent and base libels spread over the whole nation against the king and his government; and next, the design of seizing his royal person, while the parliament was held in Oxford in the year 1682; and likewise the Rye-conspiracy, intended for the assassination of the king, and of the duke his brother, in the year 1683; and lastly, though antecedent in time, the two famous *city cavalcades of clubmen in the years of 1679 and 1680, countenanced under that silly pretence of burnLord Jefferys,) whose word was then law, as well as his profession, was pleased mero motu (to speak in the prerogative style, as best suiting so commanding a genius) to put this task upon me, as well as, afterwards, to supersede the performance of it: The much kinder act this of the two, I must confess, and that in more respects than one, as saving me the trouble of delivering, and at the same time blushing at so mean a discourse, and the congregation also, the greater, of hearing it. But what farther cause there was, or might be, of so much uncertainty in this whole proceeding, I cannot tell; unless possibly, that what his lordship as chief justice had determined, he thought fit as chancellor to

reverse.

Nevertheless, out of an earnest (and I hope very justifiable) desire, partly to pass a due encomium (or such at least as I am able) upon so noble a seat of the Muses, as this renowned school has been always accounted; and partly to own the debt lying upon me to the place of my education, I have at length presumed to publish it. So that, although neither at the time appointed, nor ever since, have I had any opportunity given me to preach this sermon myself; yet now that it is printed, possibly some other may condescend to do it, as before in several such cases the like has been too well known to have been done.

*R. C. said he had tossed up the ball, and his successor, P. W. said he would keep it up. This is to say, extortion began the dance, and perjury would carry it on.