"To help our infirmities": the Absolution at Morning and Evening Prayer

On this third day of Lent, final words on the Absolution at the daily office from A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), by clergyman John Shepherd.

Here Shepherd turns to one of the most beautiful aspects of this Absolution, when it prays for and sets before us the path of restoration and renewal. Hearing these words week by week, receiving them in penitence and faith, is to experience to the restoration of the Prodigal:

In the second part of the Absolution the minister proceeds to remind us of the means by which the blessings of pardon and reconciliation may be obtained. He exhorts us, to beseech God to grant us "true repentance," repentance unto salvation, which he alone can give, and "his Holy Spirit," to deliver us from all deadly sin, to help our infirmities, to invigorate our faith, to excite our hope, to purify our hearts, and to engage our obedience.

For our encouragement he adds that if we thus apply to God, and to our prayers join our own best endeavours, the result will be, 1. present acceptance, 2. future assistance, And, 3. everlasting happiness. 1. "Those things which we do at this present," our Confession, Absolution, Prayers, Praises, Thanksgivings, and all the services we perform in the house of God, will be well pleasing in his fight. 2. Our lives hereafter, directed by the guidance of his holy Spirit, will be pure from their former sins, and in all respects, virtuous and holy. And, 3. at the last, we shall receive the reward of our faith and obedience, "his eternal joy," through the merits of our blessed Redeemer, who by his precious death has purchased for us pardon, and Absolution from all our sins, is now a prevailing intercessor with the Father for the blessings we implore, and will, at his return to judge the world, receive us into those heavenly mansions, which he is gone before, to prepare, for every true penitent, and sincere believer.

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