TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
BISHOP WILSON'S MEDITATIONS ON HIS SACRED OFFICE.
No. V.— THURSDAY.
CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
Question from the Office of Consecration.—Will you maintain and set forward, as much as in you lieth, quietness, love and peace, among all men; and such as be unquiet, disobedient, and criminous within your diocese, correct and punish, according to such authority as you have by God's word, and as to you shall be committed by the ordinance of this realm[1]?—Ans. I will so do, by the help of God.
O God of peace and love, make me, thy minister, a messenger and instrument of peace to this people to whom I am sent; that by thy gracious assistance I may root out all strife and variance, hatred and malice, and that this Church and Nation may enjoy a blessed tranquillity. Bless the discipline of this Church in my hands, and make it effectual for the conviction of wicked men and gainsayers. Assist me, by thy good Spirit, that I may apply a proper cure to every disorder; that I may reprove with mildness, censure with equity, and punish with compassion.
O merciful God, who wouldest not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live, bring into the right way all such as are gone astray from thy commandments. Vouchsafe unto all penitents, (and especially unto all such as are now under the censures of the Church,) a true sense of their crimes, true
- ↑ This can never be looked upon as any limitation of the power received from Christ, but only as directing the exercise thereof, as to the manner, form, and circumstance.—Bp. Wilson.
