Human reasoning would say, “What, then, is the use of ministry and sacraments?  Let us dispense with them, and be independent of them altogether.”  This is no better than saying that we will continue in sin that grace may abound; and the same answer which the apostle gives will do for this also:  “God forbid!”

It does not follow, because some people make too much of ministry and sacraments, making them absolutely necessary to salvation, that we should, on the other hand, disregard them.  There is another and happier alternative, and that is, to realize they were made for us, not we for them; therefore we should not be subject to them, but rather they should be subject to us, and be used by us, not in order to obtain God’s grace and salvation, but to show that we have already done so.  In our obedience to God’s ordinances, we acknowledge our allegiance to Him, and our submission to His will.

For fear that my people should go off, as too many do, into disregard of the “means of grace,” because sacramental people make too much of them, I began a class for exposition and explanation of the Prayer-book.  I commenced by showing them that the Church of England is the Lord’s candlestick in this country, not the candle, and certainly not the light, but the candlestick which the Lord set up here, possibly even as ’early as the days of the apostles, to show the true light, which is Christ.  And though, Romish corruptions supervened, it pleased God, at; the time of the Reformation, to raise up men to deliver us from them, and to restore true Bible teaching.

Thus I endeavoured to show them, that the system of the Church of England was one which should commend itself to their regard, as quite agreeable to Scripture; and if it is not carried out according to its intention, that is not the fault of the system, but rather of those who administer it.  Next, as to worship.

The object of our assembling in the house of God is not, I said, so much to hear sermons, or get instruction, as in Bible, or other classes, but rather “to render thanks for the great benefits we have received at God’s hands, to set forth His most worthy praise, to hear His most holy word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary as well for the body as the soul.”  That worship is devotion towards God; it consists more in giving than in getting.  Some of the people were greatly interested when I pointed out to them, that the order of our Service was exactly the same as the order of theft spiritual experience, in conviction, conversion, and Christian life.

For example, the Morning Service begins with a sentence such as, “To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him;” then comes the exhortation, which moves us to surrender ourselves; then the confession, which is the act of surrender.  Immediately after this is declared the absolution and forgiveness of sins, “to all who truly repent, and unfeignedly believe the Gospel.”