ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

IN putting forth a second edition of the following work it seems needful, after expressing all thanks and praise to Almighty GoD for His goodness in as far as He may have blessed our labours either to the comfort and strengthening of His sick or dying children, or to the help and ease of any of His Ministers in their ministration to them, and much thankfulness to our brethren for their reception and use of our Manual, and for the many kind and (we fear) undeserved opinions expressed concerning it, to state briefly in what particulars the present differs from the former edition.

Our first intention was to have reprinted it without other change than the correction of verbal inaccuracies; but as we had seemed in our Preface (and had indeed intended) to invite the candid expression of the opinion of the Clergy, it seemed uncourteous not to defer to the opinions thus called forth. Many important and valuable suggestions have been made. to us, and carefully considered by us; and we re

solved in as far as we could to supply any direct want which our brethren had communicated to us, or which we had ourselves experienced in the use of the Visitatio Infirmorum.

It seemed then that an Office ought to be framed for the case of a Sick Man in Unbelief, as well as for those under the influence of other hindrances to the direct ministration of the Church, which we had provided for. This we have now attempted to supply.

Many of our brethren remarked to us that a case of most frequent occurrence in their ministrations to the sick was quite unprovided for in our work: viz., that in which the Sick Person is not so notoriously bad or hardened as to justify the use of our Office for one Impenitent, and yet so careless and unconvinced of sin as to require distinct and separate ministration before the use of the Visitation Office. We have endeavoured to combine an exhortation to convince, and prayers for God's blessing to arouse such a person in the Office for a Careless Sick Person.

We felt on consideration that we ought to have supplied our brethren with some more distinct form for the Spiritual Communion of the Sick than the suggestions in a note to the Introduction of the former edition. We have therefore compiled an Office for this purpose, and have inserted a short exhortation on the nature and comfort of Spiritual Communion, in the second part.

In the use of Dr. Assheton's and Sir James Stonehouse's Expositions of the Creed, given in the first edition, we found the former scarcely more explanatory than the Creed itself, and the latter (however excellent in design) wanting in definite teaching on

the Faith, and in conciseness and clearness of expression. These seemed serious imperfections in expositions to be used at a time when, if ever, distinct and definite teaching on the all-important subject of faith is required; and when the mind is often incapacitated from mastering obscurity or tediousness of language. We have therefore omitted these forms, and supplied their place by an exposition of the Creed, compiled mainly from the short summaries which Bishop Pearson has appended, in his great work on the Creed, to his arguments on each article, rendered occasionally into simpler language, with additions from other learned Bishops of our Church.*

Having discovered that the Church of Ireland in convocation assembled had authorized a form for the Visitation of Prisoners, and Communion of Condemned Criminals (printed with the Irish Book of Common Prayer), we considered that great deference was due to the authority of a Church in close communion with our own. We have accordingly adopted an important rubric and prayer from that form in the Office we had compiled for a Condemned Criminal, and have appended the Communion Office which the Irish Church prescribes in such a case.

Bishop Wilson having in his Parochialia given the heads of a short address to be made to a penitent before the ministry of Absolution, we have put them into such a form as may be at once used, and prefixed

* In the Article of the Descent into Hell additions have been made from the interpretations of Bishops Bull, Horsley, and other eminent Divines; and a slight alteration has been made in the form of Examination of Faith, p. 455, to make it harmonize with their expositions.

them to his Questions before Absolution, given in our former edition.

In order that our brethren who so kindly adopted and who now use our Manual might not be without these additions and substitutions, we have published them also in a separate form.

We have also carefully revised the work throughout, and have made verbal corrections wherever the language seemed indistinct or ambiguous. The Scripture Lections have been carefully re-arranged, and a few added or substituted, so as to make each set of Lections bear upon a distinct and definite subject, of which a list will be found in the Table of Contents. A few additions have been made to the Introduction to explain the use of the Offices and Forms now added. In all other respects the work is identical with the former edition.

With humble prayers that God may be pleased to continue His blessing on this our work, on those who use it, and on all (whether afflicted in mind, body, or estate,) to whom its words or suggestions may minister, we commend it once more to the hands of our brethren, and desire their prayers.

W. H. C.

H. S.

Ascension, 1850.