SER M. fufficient Cloathing, it has always ftarved and III. died away. But though this be a Subject that

deserves to be enlarged on, yet Time restrains me from expatiating upon it here; and the more fo, because there is one Office of our Church, which the Tenor of my Difcourfe gives me a particular Opportunity to defend.

For from what has been faid we may learn, Secondly, The Antiquity, as well as the Decency of that publick and folemn Acknowledgment of Praife and Thanksgiving, which the Church expects from Women that have been fafely delivered from the Perils of ChildBirth. Which Rite is not retained by Virtue of the antient Law prescribed to the Jews, (which we grant to have been typical, as most of the Law was, and fo of no longer Obligation or Force, than the Law and Temple itself endured,) but because we apprehend some natural, and moral Duty to have been implied in this particular Law, by way of Analogy, which must consequently be obligatory upon all, even when the Ceremony itself was ceased.

The natural Reason of this Separation of Women enjoined by the Law, was, to allow the Women a Time of Reft and Ease for recovering their Strength; to heal thofe Bruifes

of

of our first Parents Fall, which are ftill upon,s E RM. thefe Occafions felt with Hazard and Grief. III. But the chief and religious Meaning, no doubt, was to be a Restraint upon carnal and wanton Defires; to put Men in mind of that Blemish and Pollution which our Nature is tainted with, and that as David fays, Pfal. li. 5, Every one of us was fhapen in Wickedness, and in Sin did our Mothers conceive us. All which was fhadowed by the Levitical Uncleanness, and the Sacrifices ordained to purge it away. And what the Jewish Women did symbolically then, Chriftians fhould in Reality and Truth do now: They should be ftrict Obfervers of the main Rites and principal Obligations, and not neglect to deprecate the leffer Unhandfomneffes and Offences of too fenfual Appli

cations.

The Legal Uncleanness of the Woman indeed, with the fet Number of Days she is to abstain from the Tabernacle, and the Sacrifices fhe was to offer when the first came abroad, are Rites which are now, wholly abolished, and what we are therefore not at all to regard. But then the open and the folemn Acknowledgment of God's Goodness in delivering the Mother, and increafing the Number of Mankind, will be a Debt always due to

SER M. God, so long as Mankind are brought into the III. World with Anguifh and Pain: If the Peril

be univerful and laft for ever, the Praife for fafe Delivery out of it, fhould be univerfal and laft for ever too. And therefore, though the Mother be no longer obliged to offer the material Sacrifices of the Law; yet fhe is never the lefs bound to offer the Evangelical Sacrifice of Thanksgiving. She is fill publickly to acknowledge the Bleffing vouchfafed her, and to profefs her Senfe of the fresh Obligation it lays her under to Obedience.

And when, I fay, that he is publickly to acknowledge this Bleffing, my Meaning is, that the ought to do it in the publick Congregation of the Church. So the Example in my Text inftructs us, Mary went up to Jerufalem to do it in the Temple of the Lord: Neither the Rigour of the Seafon, nor the Trouble of the Journey, nor the Equity of her own peculiar Exemption from any Obfervance of the Law at all, raised any Difficulty or Excuse in her: But to the Temple fhe went, to the House of the Lord, and there did as it is written in the Law of the Lord. And furely the Performance of publick Duties in the folemn and publick Houfes of God, is as much an Obligation under the Chriftian Law, as

eve

ever it was under the Jewish. How abfurds ER M. therefore, feems the novel Affectation of De- III. licacy and State, which in fome Places has prevailed, of stifling their Acknowledgments in private Houses, and of giving Thanks for their Recovery and Enlargement, in no other Place than, that of their Confinement and Reftraint! A Practice inconfiftent with the very Name of the Office, which is called the Churching of Women, and which confequently implies, a ridiculous Solecism of being Churched at Home. Nor is it any more confiftent with the End and Devotion prescribed by this Office, than it is with the Name of it. For with what Decency or Propriety, can the Woman pretend to pay her Vows in the Prefence of all God's People, in the Courts of the Lord's Houfe, when fhe is only affuming State in a Bed-Chamber or Parlour, and perhaps, only accompanied with her Midwife, and Nurfe. To give Thanks therefore at Home, (for by no Means call it Churching) is not only an unfeemly Difobedience to the Church, but a high Affront to Almighty God, at whose Tribunal it muft one Day be accounted for, if a Difobfervance of religious Inftitutions, and a Difregard of Humility and Decency in Divine Worship, be taken into the Reckoning

SER M. there. For don't they plainly turn a Holy III. Office into Pageantry and Form? They will

1

hear it read, but read as if themselves were the Perfons adored: They will not be at the Trouble of going to God's House, but think that they pay him Honour enough, if fummoned by his Priest to take a formal Acknowledgment at their Home. I can think of no Excufe that can extenuate this. A Woman, it is poffible, may at a Month's End plead, that he is not well enough to come to Church: But to that the Anfwer is very fhort, Let her stay till she is. God does not require any Thanks for a Mercy before he has vouchfafed it; but if fhe comes as foon as her Strength permits, fhe comes foon enough to discharge the Obligation fhe is under, which is to blefs God for reftoring to her again, the Ability of waiting on him in his own House, where in Decency fhe fhould think her first Vifits to be due. But,

Thirdly, From the Offerings which the Women under the Law, were to bring with them to the Temple, when they came to be purified, we may infer the Foundation, and Reasonableness of thofe Offerings which our Church requires of Women, that come now