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The Curate may assist

the assistance of others: it will therefore be

him by read- come the faithful Minister of Christ frequently to admonish the sick respecting this duty,

ing out the Decalogue and pointing out to him the things

prohibit.

and not unfrequently to assist him by briefly which they citing the Ten Commandments, and by pointing out to him in few words the derelictions they prohibit; and in most cases I would prefer this latter method to the former, because it will teach any illiterate person a method by which he may most easily examine himself, a method which (being deprived of all assistance from others) he can use whenever he pleases.

Thirteenth
Rule.

The fre-
quency and
circum-

The Curate should also advise him to reflect how often he has committed each offence, and what were the circumstances of aggravation. And since the end and design of these selfto be strictly examinations are none other than that he

stances of his transgressions ought

examined.

What should should, with humble and lowly mind before and design of God, bewail and detest his old and hitherto

be the end

this exami

nation.

Fourteenth
Rule.

beloved sins, he ought to supplicate the Almighty to pardon them, and resolve against the same for the future.

He should exhort the sick person that he

should be

order his self

to the end

ought (the examination being completed) The sick to acknowledge his unworthiness, and most exhorted to humbly confess that he laments his sins, that examination he implores God to forgive them, and lastly, that he firmly resolve for the future, as far as he can, to avoid the like. And,

proposed.

Rule.

Since it cannot but happen that some faults Fifteenth even after the closest research will remain un

Pardon should be

asked by the

sick for his

Sixteenth

Rule.

person grieve,

thereof

inquired into.

discovered he should be incited to petition God, as did the Psalmist, to be purged from secret faults. his hidden, and cleansed from his secret faults. If the sick person evince either by his countenance or words any inward grief on If the sick account of his former transgressions, inquiry the cause should be diligently made, whether this grief should be arises from a servile fear of punishment, or in very truth from the circumstance that he has failed in his duty, and that, too, in opposition. to God's infinite mercy; for although the former description of grief ought to be cherished as the most natural entrance upon penitence, yet no one can safely be satisfied therewith; and, therefore, the sick person must be excited to a grief dependent upon

Upon what

principle it should be founded.

Seventeenth
Rule.

A sensitive requisite in

grief not

all.

Eighteenth
Rule.

minations

should be undertaken upon right principles.

a nobler principle; for the sorrow which does not work in repentance not to be repented of, has a peculiar bitterness by reason of our ungrateful contempt of divine mercy.

If the sick shall be constituted of a rougher temperament, so that he less bewails his transgressions, it may conveniently be told him, to his comfort, that a sensitive grief is not required in all, and that it will be sufficient for those who know not how to weep, if they heartily and sincerely turn from the things forbidden by the law of God, and carefully shun them for the future.

Let not the Curate consider it sufficient to Pious deter- exhort the sick person to enter on a general resolution of obedience to God, but let him take care also that he enter on it with mature deliberation and due attention; for if he act upon a sudden impulse of the mind, and without any previous estimate of the difficulties which must most certainly be endured in persevering in that resolution, it will not be trustworthy, but unexpectedly will yield most readily to any difficulty that presents itself;

stant help

implored.

and if it shall rest upon any unmeet foundation, such as worldly hope and fear, it will prove unstable, and the ground on which it rested be removed, so that it must necessarily come to nought; and to the intent that he may be able and willing to persevere in his holy purpose of mind, the Curate should counsel him to implore the grace and help of God's conGod; for he who (confiding in his own should be strength) shall undertake that in which he can never excel without divine grace, will be taught, by most sad experience, that he had nourished himself with vain hope and if the Curate shall have been witness of faults in which the sick person indulged himself whilst health continued, he should, having caused all present to go out, and bespoken the good will of the sick, discourse with him in an especial manner respecting those faults, and exhort him, being guilty, to resolve against a repetition thereof; he should also be to him an adviser, as well concerning the means, as the extent of the remedy, and should admonish him, in the most friendly manner, to bear in

Mention should be

mind and firmly determine diligently to perform all those things which tend to establish his undertaking, and carefully to avoid all those which are apt to unsettle the same; for he who either neglects those, or indulges in these, cannot upon better grounds entertain any hope that he shall accomplish his design, than the person who has never diligently studied can hope to be learned. It will also made of those be proper to make mention of those things which are apt to render us resolute and firm, scription of of which kind are right apprehensions of the Deity, true notions respecting the nature of virtue and vice, frequent meditation upon death, diligence in our calling, daily prayer, the society of good men, frequent examination of life, a devout stedfastness with respect to the purity of all our motives, and a pious re

things which

promote

piety. A de

them given.

which hinder

newal, every day, of the resolutions entered Those things on; it will be advantageous also to point out piety should those things which render us inclined to pointed out. transgress, such, for instance, as idleness and description of bad company, and, that I may be brief, that

also be

A brief

them given.

inconstancy and levity of mind by which we,

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