^gSRV OF MINCER
Logical
BX 5141 .A3 G68 IWI v. 2 Goulburn, Edward Meyrick,
1818-1897 . Collects of the day
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THE
COLLECTS OF THE DAY
tErinitjj SunUSB to ail Saints' jDap
THE
Collect© of tftf
AN EXPOSITION CRITICAL AND DEVOTIONAL OF THE COLLECTS APPOINTED AT THE COMMUNION
With Preliminary Essays on their Structure, Sources, and General Character, and Appendices containing Expositions of the Discarded Collects of the First Prayer Book of 1549, and of the Collects of Morning and Evening Prayer
BY
EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D.D., D.C.L
SOMETIME DEAN OF NORWICH
IN TWO VOLS.
VOL. II.
CONTAINING THE COLLECTS FROM TRINITY SUNDAY TO ALL SAINTS' DAY, TOGETHER WITH THOSE AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE, AND APPENDICES
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET 1894
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAOE
XLII. Trinity Sunday 1
XLIII. The First Sunday after Trinity . . 8
XLIV. The Second Sunday after Trinity .. . 15
XLV. The Third Sunday after Trinity . 22
XL VI. The Fourth Sunday after Trinity . 29
XL VII. The Fifth Sunday after Trinity . . 36
XL VIII. The Sixth Sunday after Trinity . " ^$3
XLIX. The Seventh Sunday after Trinity . . 50
L. The Eighth Sunday after Trinity . . 57
LI. The Ninth Sunday after Trinity . . 64
LII. The Tenth Sunday after Trinity . . 70
LIII. The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (1) . 77
LIV. The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (2) . 83
LV. The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity . . 89
LVI. The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity . 96
LVII. The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity . 104
LVIII. The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (1) . Ill
LIX. The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity (2) . 117
LX. The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity . . 123
LXI. The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity . 130
vi Contents.
CHAPTER PAQB
LXII. The Eiohteenth Sunday after Trinity . 138
LXIII. The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity . 145
LXIV. The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity . 152
LXV. The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity . 159
LXVI. The Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity 166
LXVII. The Twenty-Third Sunday after Trinity 173
LXVIII. The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity 180
LXIX. The Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity 187
LXX. On the Saints' Day Collects . . 194
LXXI. St. Andrew's Day 201
LXXIL St. Thomas the Apostle . . . .210
LXXIII. The Conversion of St. Paul /. . 217
LXXI V. The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called, the Purification of
St. Mary the Virgin .... 225
LXXV. St. Matthias's Day 234
LXXVI. The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin
Mary 242
LXXVII. St. Mark's Day 249
LXXVIII. St. Philip and St. James's Day . . . 256
LXXIX. St. Barnabas the Apostle . . . 265
LXXX. St. John Baptist's Day. (1) 273
LXXXI. St. John Baptist's Day. (2) . . . 281
LXXXII. St. John Baptist's Day. (3) 289
LXXXIII. St. Peter's Day. (1) .... 295
LXXXIV. St. Peter's Day. (2) .... 303
Contents.
Vll
CHAPTER PAGE
LXXXV. St. James the Apostle . . . .311
LXXXVI. St. Bartholomew the Apostle . 320
LXXXVII. St. Matthew the Apostle . . . 328
LXXXVIII. St. Michael and All Angels . 338
LXXX1X. St. Luke the Evangelist .... 349
XC. St. Simon and St. Jode, Apostles . 357
XCI. All Saints' Day 372
BOOK III.
ON THE COLLECTS AFTER THE OFFERTORY . 386
L The First Collect at the End of the Communion / Service (1) 390
II. The First Collect at the End op the Communion
Service (2) 397
III. The Second Collect at the End of the Communion
Service ........ 406
IV. The Third Collect at the End of the Communion
Service .... ... 414
V. The Fourth Collect at the End of the Communion
Service ........ 422
VI. The Fifth Collect at the End of the Communion
Service ........ 430
VII. The Sixth Collect at the End of the Communion
Service ........ 437
viii
Contents.
APPENDIX A.
Collects in the first Reformed Prayer Book of 1549, which were suppressed in 1552.
CHAPTER PAOI
I. The Collect for the First Communion on Christ-
mas Day ........ 445
II. The Collect for St. Mary Magdalene's Day (July 22) 450
APPENDIX B.
Exposition of the Collects of Morning and Evening Prayer.
L The Second Collect at Morning Prayer, for Peace 456
II. The Third Collect at Morning Prayer, for Grace / 463
III. The Second Collect at Evening Prayer, for Peace 471
rV. The Third Collect, at Evening Prayer, for aid
against all Perils . . . . 477
Index ... 483
Chapter XLII.
TRINITY SUNDAY.
aimtgrjl;> ann eberlasting ©on, UjTjo bast giben unto us tbp ser= bants grace by tfje confession of a true fattrj to acltnotoleoge trje glor;> of tTje eternal ^Trinity, «no in tlje potoet of trje Dibine ^ajestp to roorshtp tbe illnitp 3 die beseecb tfjcc, ttjat tbou tooulliest keep us SteofaSt in tbts fattrj, anB eber» more nefenn us from all anbersf* ties, torjo libest ana retgnest, one ©oD, rootlD bjitbout enD. Amen.
SDmnipotens sempftetne 2Deus. qui oebistt famulis tuiS in confeS= stone berae fioet aeternae 3Ertni» tatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia majestatis anotate 2InU tatem ; quaeSumus, ut ejugoem finei firmitate ab omnibus Semper muniamur anbersis. Slut bibis. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
Prov. xviii. 10, 11. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower : the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit."
The Collect for Trinity Sunday, which comes down to us, like most of the other Collects, from the old Ser- vice Books of the Church before the Reformation, has been altered for the worse, not indeed by the Reformers
1 It will be found in Muratoii ii. 381, under a section headed thus ; ''At the foot of the Othobon codex" (of Gregory's Sacramentary) "this addition is found, written in characters of about the eleventh century of the vulgar era. " The date of this MS. , therefore, would be at least four hundred years after Gregory's time, he having sat upon the Papal throne from a.d. 590 to a.d. 604, at the beginning of the seventh century. As given by Muratori, the Collect ends with " Per," etc.
2
Trinity Sunday.
(their alterations of the Collects were almost always very great improvements), but by Bishop Cosin after the Savoy Conference in 1661. His alteration takes away the point which the petition of the Collect had, as it stood formerly ; and it is very difficult to see what was his reason for making it. In both Prayer Books of Edward VI., as in that of Elizabeth, the petition of the Collect ran thus ; " We beseech thee that through the stedfastness of this faith we may evermore be defended from all adversity." This is the exact literal translation of the original Latin ; and the breaking it up into two petitions, "We beseech thee, that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities," only weakens the force of the prayer, with- out really adding anything to it, as I now propose to show.1
The prayer, as it stood originally, was, that through the stedfastness of our faith in the Holy Trinity we might be defended (the Latin word rather means for- tified,— defended, as in a fortress or stronghold, by walls and bars) against all adversity. Now look at the text just cited from the Book of Proverbs. The gist of it is, that what the worldly rich man fancies his wealth to be, that the name of the Lord in reality is to the righteous man, a strong tower into which he runs, when adver- sity threatens him, and is safe. The worldly rich man, when adversity threatens, says to himself ; " Well, I have plenty of money, and money can command everything,
1 Canon Bright says [" Ancient Collects," Appendix, p. 223], "The present English version of this glorious Collect somewhat obscures the thought of the original, ' ut ejusdem fidei firmitate ab omnibus semper nuniamur adversis,' i.e. that by stedfastness in this faith we are to be safe from evil, — that our Creed is to be the shield of our life. This grand thonrrht was manifest in the Collect until the rpvision of 1661."
Trinity Sunday.
3
even friends after a certain fashion ; so, if I am in trouble, there will be always something to beat a retreat upon ; ' Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.' " But his wealth is a high wall, and a strong city, only in his own conceit. The friends his money gets for him are very hollow, fair-weather friends. His money may procure for him alleviations of his illness ; but it cannot give him health. It may stave off death for a few years; but die he must at last ; and then his money is no longer of any good to him ; he can carry nothing away with him when he dieth.1 Now look at the contrast. " The name of the Lord is a strong tower " (in reality, not in a man's own conceit) : " the righteous runneth into it, and is safe" (is set aloft). What is meant by the Lord's Name ? His revealed character ; His nature, so far as it has pleased Him to show it to men. And what is the deepest thing that God has taught us about His nature and character ? That there are, in one single indivisible Godhead, Three Sacred Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Into the faith or belief of this Triune Godhead we were baptized, according to the precept of the Lord Himself ; " Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name" (observe, not into the names, for there is but one God, though within the precinct of His Infinite Nature there be three Persons — but into the name) " of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."2 This is the Name spoken of by Solo- mon, into which the righteous runneth as into a strong tower, and is safe (or set aloft). But how is the Name of the Blessed Trinity a strong tower, or fortification, to the righteous man (the man who has the righteousness which is by faith) against all adversities ? We will suppose that
1 See Psalm xlix. 17, and 1 Tim. vi. 7. 2 St. Matt, xxviii. 19.
4
Trinity Sunday.
sickness threatens him, or poverty, or death, or that dear friends are taken away from him, and his hearth and home are made desolate thereby. Well, if he stedfastly believes that God is His own most tender and loving Father, much wiser, and much more sympathizing, and of course much more helpful, than any human parent can be — " able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think " 1 — and also " always more ready to hear than we to pray, and wont to give more than either we desire or deserve,"2 — if he really believes this, and does not merely say he believes it, do you not see that the glorious truth is an enormous comfort to him, whatever it may please God to take away ; a grand stronghold to fall back upon and run into, when adversity presses ? But perhaps conscience whispers that, though God has been a good Father to him, he has been a bad son to God, ungrateful, undutiful, profligate, no more worthy to be called a son. But God the Father is only one article of his faith. He believes also stedfastly in God the Son ; or, to state the same thing in a different form, he believes, not in an abstract God, but in God " the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." And Jesus Christ, " the first- born of every creature,"3 " begotten of his Father before all worlds,"* who lay in the Father's bosom from all eternity,5 and who in the fulness of time became the offspring of the Virgin's womb, and lay in her bosom, and who also sprang from the dark womb of the grave into life and light eternal, and, as having done so, is " the first-begot- ten of the dead,"0 — He, and He alone of all God's human children, was a perfectly dutiful and submissive Son.
1 Eph. iii. 20. 2 Collect for Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.
3 See Col. L 15. * Nicene Creed. 8 See St. John L 2.
6 Rev i. ft
Trinity Sunday.
5
He submitted to the curse of the law in His death and passion. He fulfilled the righteousness of the la-w- in His life. And God the Father, while Christ was upon earth, twice said from heaven ; " This is my be- loved Son, in whom I am well pleased,"1 and afterwards declared Him with power to be His Son by raising Him from the dead.2 Now, if a man really believes, and does not merely say that he believes, in the Son of God, he lias all the merits and dutifulness of the Son of God laid to his account in his dealings with the Father ; and thus, whatever accusations conscience may lay against him, he has a strong fortress to fall back upon in his stedfast belief in the Son of God. — But is it not a sad and depressing thought, an adverse circumstance indeed, that although God forgives and accepts him for Christ's sake, his nature is so corrupt that he is sure to fall into sin again ? Is it not worse and more dreadful to sin against pardoning love, than merely to sin against the majesty of God ? Well ; but he who is righteous by faith in the Name of God has still his all-sufficient resource in that Ever-Blessed Name. " I believe in the Holy Ghost," the living bond of union between the Father and the Son, who live and reign together (according to the Whitsun Collect) " in the unity of the same Spirit ;" the living bond of union also between God and His human children, shedding His love abroad in their hearts, and making them reciprocate that love ; the living bond of union, finally, between one child of God and another, drawing all hearts together in approach to a common Father through a common Mediator, as the rays of a circle draw near to one another, in drawing near to the centre. If a man really believes, and not merely says he believes, in the
1 See St. Matt. in. 17. ami xvii. 5. 9 See I?niu. i. 4.
6
Trinity Sunday.
Holy Ghost, he believes and confides in, and thus possesses that power, which is the source and principle of all holi- ness, the strength and vitality of all virtue. So that through the firmness of our faith in the Trinity we are indeed fortified against all adversities. The Tri-personal Name is to us a strong tower, into which, when danger and trouble threatens, we may run and be safe.
One more remark on the earlier part of this interest- ing Collect. Our Church prayers imply very much in those who use them, so that, in using them thoughtlessly, it is only too easy to come before God, as did Ananias and Sapphira, with a lie in one's mouth, and to take His Holy Name in vain. " Almighty God, who hast given unto us grace by the confession of a true faith to ac- knowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity," etc. We con- fess the true faith, doubtless, with our lips. Probably no reader of these pages disputes, or questions it, or raises any sort of objection against those definitions of it which are drawn out in our Creeds. But can we say truly that we make the confession by grace; that God has " given us grace " to confess the true faith ? Have we felt our need of this faith, as a support and comfort in the hour of trial ? And under the sense of that need, have we intelligently and affectionately received it ? Or do we merely confess the true faith, because we happen to have been brought up in a country where by God's mercy the true light shineth ; and should we have been Buddhists or Mahometans, if brought up in countries where Buddhism or Mahometanism prevail ? God keep us all from making an insincere profession in His pre- sence, and amid the solemnities of His worship. It is a species of lying to the Holy Ghost. And we know how
Trinity Sunday.
7
awfully He visited that sin when first it showed its hideous head in His holy Church. " Ananias, hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost : and great fear came on all them that heard these things."1
1 Aote f. 5.
Chapter XLIII.
THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.1
2D ©ou, tlje strength of all tbem tbat put their trust in thee, mercU full? accept our prapetjS ; anil be= cause through tlje toeakness of our mortal nature toe can Do no goon thing toithout thee, grant us tfje help of thy grace, that in keeping th;> commandments toe mag please thee, both in totll ano DeeD ; through 3lesus Christ out HLorn. Amen.
Deus, in te speranttum forti* tuno, atiesto propittus inbocationU bus nostris ; et quia sine te nihil potest mortalis infirmitas, praesta auriltum gratiae tuae, ut in erse= qucnois manDatts tuiS, et faofun- tate ttbi et actione placeamus. Per Dominum. — Gel. Sac. — Miss. Sar.
In this short prayer we have a train of consequences traced in the spiritual world ; a golden chain with seve- ral links in it, the first link suspended from the throne of God, and the last link again attached to that throne. We have a sense of human weakness leading to trust in
1 In Gregory's Sacramentary the Sundays of the latter half of the year are reckoned from Pentecost, "Dominica prima post Pcntecoslen," etc. The Roman Missal reckons in the same way, the Sunday after Whitsun Day being called (as we call it) the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and the Sunday following, " the Sunday in the Octave of the Holy Sacrament, or the Second after Pentecost," and the next "the Third after Pentecost." But, in the Sarum Missal, the first Sunday after Whitsun Day is called the Day of the Holy Trinity, and the following Sunday the first Sunday after Trinity, and so on. This then is a distinctively English usage, and is one of the instances in which St. Osmund deviated from the practice of the Roman Church.
The First Stmday after Trinity. 9
God ; trust expressing itself in prayer ; prayer fetching down grace ; grace enabling us to keep the command- ments ; observance of the commandments winning the smile and favour of God.
1. A sense of human weakness leading to trust in God. — This sense of weakness finds expression in the words, " through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee." It will lend force to these words to observe that in a certain sense they might be used of our Blessed Lord's human nature, but that they gain much more point when used of our own. His human nature was certainly " mortal," or subject to death ; for He died. And it was also weak ; for we read that " he was crucified through weakness." 1 He hungered, thirsted, needed to recruit Himself with food and sleep, all which implies infirmity or weakness. Nor could even His human nature (though pure and sin- less), do anything good without God. He tells us ; " The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do."2 ..." I can of mine own self do nothing."3 And St. John Baptist says of Him ; " He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God : for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him."4 How much more, then, must it be true of ourselves, whose human nature is not only weak and mortal, but (as His was not) cor- rupt, and fallen, and full of tendencies to all manner of sin, that through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without God ! Sin has weak- ened us morally, blinded our understandings, debased our affections, depraved our wills, laid us open on every side to the attacks of the devil. When the sense
1 See 2 Cor. xiii. 4. 2 St. John v. 19. 3 St. John v. 30. 4 St. John iii. 34.
io The First Sunday after Trinity.
of this moral weakness becomes deeply rooted in us, as it can only be by our trying to live uprightly and fail- ing over and over again, this throws us back on trust in God, by which trust His strength is made ours ; — " 0 God, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee." Trust in God is a moral leaning upon God according to that beautiful expression in another Collect ; " they who do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace."1 A man, whose legs have been so much injured by a fall that he cannot take a single step without assist- ance, could never reach another room without a strong man to lean upon, a strong arm to support him. And when he leans his whole weight upon that strong man, the strong man's strength becomes his, serves him as if it were really his ; — " 0 God, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee."
2. Trust expressing itself in prayer. — Observe how immediately after the invocation of God, as being the strength of all them that put their trust in Him, follows the mention of prayer, by which we have recourse to that strength, and throw ourselves upon it ; " mercifully accept our prayers." Prayer is the voice of trust. They who in the days of His flesh trusted that the Lord Jesus could and would heal them of their sickness, went to Him, and asked Him to do so. Christ is the well. The Holy Spirit is the water, of which the well is full. Faith (or trust) is the muscular power in the arm, by which a man is enabled to draw up the water. Prayer is the pitcher in which it is drawn up. Remember this illus- tration, and you will understand the close relation which subsists between trust (or faith) and prayer.
3. Prayer fetching down grace. — " Grant us the help
1 Collect for Fifth Sunday after Epiphany.
The First Sunday after Trinity. 1 1
of thy grace." What do we mean by God's grace ? I fear some people think of it as an infused quality, kneaded up into the soul like a chemical ingredient, and producing goodness or virtue therein, just as such an ingredient might give a particular colour, or taste, or smell to that with which it is mixed. But in reality grace is nothing else than the working of God's Holy Spirit in the soul ; it is not a quality ; it is the operation of a Divine Person.1 The coming of grace into the soul is the coming of God into the soul ; which indeed is implied in the opening words of the Collect ; ■ 0 God, the strength " (who art the strength) " of all them that put their trust in thee."
Again ; we ask here for the help of God's grace. In what way may we expect His grace to help us ? The Spirit of God does not force or compel any man to be good (there is no compulsion in the kingdom of God) ; all that He does is to act upon our affections, and through our affec- tions upon our will, which is always free. He appeals to our fears, making us dread the judgment of God ; He appeals to our sense of gratitude, making us devoutly thankful for the mercies of Christ and the blessings of Ee- demption ; He appeals to our natural craving for joy and bliss, and points out that these are to be had nowhere but in communion with God ; He appeals to our hopes, and directs them towards the things which He hath prepared for them that love Him. And then our will moves in the same direction with our affections, choosing or rejecting as the affections incline it ; but it is still strictly free.
1 I am indebted for this thought to a very masterly sermon preached by the present Bishop of London before the University of Oxford, in which he exposes and explodes the Scholastic conception of grace as an infused quality. [See below in this Volume, pp. 132, 145, 140, where the same thought is introduced into our Exposition.]
12
The First Sunday after Trinity.
4. Grace enabling us to keep the commandments. — Grant us the " help of thy grace, that in keeping thy commandments we may please thee." "We beseech you," says St. Paul, " that ye receive not the grace of God in vain!'1 It is received in vain, where the impres- sions made by it are allowed to evaporate, — where they are not acted out in the conduct, and so worked into the texture of the character. " The earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing ; whose end is to be burned."2 And, similarly, the heart which drinketh in the dews of grace that fall upon it, and yet bringeth forth not the fruits of the Spirit, but only thorns and briers, the natural produce of a spiritual soil not tilled or cultivated by self-discipline, watchfulness, and prayer, is rejected of God. See in how vital a relation God's grace stands to the keeping of His commandments.
Do you desire a summary of these commandments, a reduction of them all to one or two heads ? This is given us by our Lord and His Apostles. " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for this is the law and the prophets."3 " He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." " Love is the fulfilling of the law."4 And here is the very real and deep-seated connexion between our Collect and its Epistle and Gospel. The keynote of the Epistle, sounded at its opening and again at its close, is mutual love. " Be- loved, let us love one another : for love is of God." . . . " This commandment have we from him, That he who
1 2 Cor. vi. 1.
» St. Matt. vii. 12.
2 Heb. vi. 7, 8. 4 Rom. xiii. 8, 10.
The First Sunday after Trinity.
15
loveth God love his brother also."1 The Gospel exhibits the horrible doom of the rich man, who, not on account of any vice or crime, but merely because he selfishly wrapped himself in his own comforts, and showed no sympathy with the beggar who was laid at his gate full of sores, was consigned to torments. Dives, though respectable and amiable, free from vice, and affectionate towards his brethren by nature, yet had not the grace of love, and therefore he broke the commandments, which can be fulfilled only by love.
5. Observance of the commandments winning the smile and favour of God ; — " that in keeping thy command- ments we may please thee." There is no way of pleas- ing God but by keeping His commandments, or, in other words, by walking in love. For even if we say that by faith one may please Him (as it is most true that "without faith it is impossible to please Him " -), still, faith is, in one important view of it, a duty ; we are commanded to believe ; " this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."3 Observe how the Apostle Paul implies that God is not otherwise to be pleased than by keeping His commandments ; " "We exhort you . . . that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know," he adds, " what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus." * What an inspiriting, encouraging thought it is, that by a certain course of conduct on our part, we may, like dutiful children, win the smile and approbation of our Heavenly Father !
But mark the important words with which the Col- lect closes ; — " that we may please thee loth in will and
1 1 John iv 7, 21. 2 Heb. xi. 6. 3 St. John vi. 29.
4 1 Thess. iv. 1. 2.
14 The First Sunday after Trinity.
deed." Can we please God in deed, without pleasing Him in will ? Impossible. Not any amount of restraint laid upon our outward conduct will please Him, if we all the while grudge the restriction, and long to be free from it. Balaam dared not say anything but what God put in his mouth,1 dared not go with the princes of Moab until God gave him leave f but Balaam's obedience was not pleasing to God. If Dives had given alms to Lazarus every day of his life, it would not have been pleasing to God, unless he had done it cheerfully, willingly, lovingly ; for " God loveth a cheerful giver." 3 — But can we please God in will, without pleasing Him in deed ? I think we may occa- sionally. God is very apt to take the will for the deed, where there is no opportunity of doing the deed. But where there is the opportunity, there He expects that the will shall be perfected, and, as it were, brought to the birth, by the deed ; as it is said by St. Paul of certain acts of Christian liberality which the Corinthians intended to perform, but had not yet fulfilled their intention ; " Now, therefore, perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have." 4 You must not only put down your name on the subscription-list ; you must give the money.
Gathering up the one great lesson of this Collect, how nobly does it teach us that in order to holiness, man's honest, earnest endeavour must co-operate with the preventing and assisting grace of God !
1 See Num. xxii. 38. 4 See Num. xxii. 18, 19.
5 2 Cor. be. 7. * 2 Cor. viii. 11.
Chapter XLIV.
THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
SD JLorlj, tobo neber failegt to help anu gobetn tbem tobom tbou aoat bring up in tTjp jstebfasst feat ann lose ; Seep us, toe besseech tbee, untiet tbe ptotection of tb? gooD ptobioence, ann make us to babe a petpetual feat ann lobe of tbp holp JBame ; tbtougb Segua GLbttat out JLotD. Amen.
©anctt nomintg tui, Domine, ttmotem patitet et amotem facitos habere petpetuum ; quia nunquam tua gubernatione oegtituig, quod in sJoIiDitate tuae Dilertionis instu tute. Pet Dominant.— Gel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect appeared in the First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI., and also in Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, in a shorter form than it has at present, and in a form much closer to the original Latin, from which it was translated. At the Savoy Conference in 1661, its present form was substituted for its earlier one. Undoubtedly the prayer is now fuller and richer in mean- ing than it was before, though perhaps it has somewhat lost point in consequence. The earlier form was ; " Lord, make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name ; for thou never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast love." Even thus it was not an exact translation of the original Latin
1 In Gel. Sac, as given by Muratori (torn. i. col. 590), we have the future for the present tense in the last clause, " destitues " and " institues " for "destituis" and "instituis;" and the "Dominum" at the end is dropped. It there stands as the Collect for the Sunday after Ascension.
1 6 The Second Sunday after Trinity.
in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, which ran thus ; " Lord, make us to have concurrently (or equally) a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name, because thou never failest to pilot those " (more literally, thou never leavest destitute of thy pilotage those) " whom thou dost bring up " (an admirable translation — train, rear, discipline, educate — there are all these notions in the original word) "in the stedfastness of thy love." In order to exhibit the origi- nal with entire accuracy, I may add that there is a play upon words in the latter part of the prayer, which is un- avoidably lost in translation. If it is borne in mind that the word " to institute " formerly meant to instruct, edu- cate (thus, Calvin's Institutes are instructions in Christian- ity, designed to train people to the knowledge of our religion), the play upon words might be represented thus; " Because never dost thou leave destitute of thy pilotage those, whom thou dost institute in the stedfastness of thy love." You observe that the prayer, as it stood originally, did not directly ask, as it now does, for the protection of God's good providence. It was simply a prayer that, since this protection is never withheld from those whom God brings up in the stedfastness of His love, He would make us to have a perpetual fear and love of His Holy Name, so that we may enjoy the protection. God pilots, — never fails to pilot, — all those whom He brings up in the stedfastness of His love ; this is the doctrine upon which the prayer is built. " Make us " (therefore) " to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name." This is the superstructure, — the prayer built, as all efficacious prayer must be, upon sound doctrine respecting God, and His ways of dealing with men. Uow for a word or two, first, on the foundation, next on the superstructure.
1. " God never fails to pilot those whom He brings
The Second Sunday after Trinity. 1 7
up in the stedfastness of His love." Observe the word " pilot," — that is the exact translation ; " help " brings in another and a different idea, which the translator has inserted to make the Collect a little richer and fuller. To pilot is the act of a steersman, who holds the helm of a boat, and by turning the helm, directs the course of the boat, as she traverses the waters. This brings to our minds that wonderfully beautiful prayer in the Service for the Baptism of Infants, when the little one so baptized is taken on board the ark or ship of Christ's Church, and those who bring it to Baptism are instructed to pray that " being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity " (observe the similarity of language to that used in this Collect ; charity means love ; and to be " rooted in charity " is to have stedfast- ness or firmness of love, — " whom thou dost bring up in the stedfastness of thy love "), he " may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life." But we can only pass the waves of this troublesome world in safety by God's steering us over them, and acting Himself as our pilot. This He does by His Providence, turning us out of the way of those events which would prove really disastrous, and guiding us, not always by any means into smooth waters, or waters easy to navigate, but guiding us to come across such persons, to meet with such a lot, to have such things happen to us, as shall turn out for our everlasting welfare. How easily in the course of our lives a number of distressful and anxious things may happen to us ! How easily may we fall in with bad company ! how may an accident or an unwise speculation make us poor ! how common a thing to breathe an infected atmosphere for half an hour, and bo
1 8 The Second Stinday after Trinity.
brought to the brink of the grave ! How often do our best friends, who have journeyed with us a long distance, drop off from our sides into the arms of death ! So full as life is of hazards, dangers, casualties, troubles, what an immense comfort it must be to feel perfectly assured that God is sitting at the helm of our boat, piloting us with His wisdom and love, so that, although many painful and distressing things may happen to us, nothing really mis- chievous, nothing against our highest interests, can. Now, when may we feel this assurance ? The Prayer Book shall answer ; " God never fails to pilot those whom he brings up in the stedfastness of his love." The Bible, which is better than the Prayer Book, shall answer; " "We know that all things " (however apparently distress- ful) " work together for good to them that love God " (now here is " the stedfastness" of the love, the eternal purpose of grace), " to them who are the called according to his pur- pose."1 Observe how the Scriptures connect the thought of stedfastness with this love. St. Paul prays for the Ephesians ; " that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God;"2 " rooted and grounded in love ; " one image drawn from nature, another from architecture ; but both equally implying stedfast- ness. A tree is rooted in the soil ; a house is grounded in its foundations ; both are stedfast or stable ; they may bend or shake, but cannot be swept away. Observe, too, how both this passage of St. Paul's Epistles and our Collect imply that this stedfast love grows and increases both in strength and discernment. God 1 Rom. viii. 28. 2 Eph. iii. 17, 18, 19.
The Seco?id Sunday after Trinity. 1 9
" brings up " certain persons in the stedfastness of His love. To bring up children is to rear, instruct, train, educate them. And education is a gradual work, one lesson after another, " line upon line, precept upon pre- cept, here a little, and there a little."1 The Christian who is rooted and grounded in love, comprehends more and more of the love of Christ, though he never comprehends the full extent of it, and yields a more and more exact and spiritual obedience to Christ's commandments ; for " this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments : and his commandments are not grievous."2
Is God, then training and schooling us in His love ? Do we gain a greater insight year by year into the ful- ness and freeness of Christ's love ? Do we keep His commandments more strictly than we did a year ago ? Then may we be well assured that God Himself is pilot- ing us over the waves of this troublesome world, and that nothing really amiss can happen to us ; " for he never fails to pilot those whom he brings up in the stedfast- ness of his love."
2. And now for the prayer. " Make us to have concurrently a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name." In the doctrine of the Collect, as it was originally drawn up, fear is not expressed, though it is implied. The word " stedfastness " implies it. A love without fear is like a boat without ballast ; it has no stedfastness ; it is wavering, fluctuating, unstable, uncertain. And observe the word which our translators have dropped altogether, — pariter, — " concurrently." The genuine fear of God and the genuine love of God advance pari passu ; as one grows, the other grows also. The more ardently a man loves God, the more profoundly he fears Him ; by the action of one
1 See Isaiah xxviii. 10. 2 1 John v. 3.
20 The Second Sunday after Trinity.
and the same muscle the heart opens its two valves, the valve of fear and the valve of love. But some one will ask, how this is consistent with what we read in St. John's First Epistle, which seems to say that in proportion as we grow in love, we shall get rid of fear ; — " there is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear ; because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made per- fect in love."1 St. John is speaking, not of the childlike fear of God, which is not only compatible with love, but absolutely essential to its stedfastness, but of that slavish fear which bad men have of God, which devils have, which our forefather Adam entertained after his fall, when, instead of going out to meet his best friend, on hearing His voice in the garden, he slunk away among the bushes, and explained it thus ; " I heard thy voice in the garden, and / was afraid, because I was naked ; and I hid myself."2 When St. Paul reasoned before him of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, " Felix trembled and said, Go thy way for this time;"3 — that was slavish fear. " Thou believest that there is one God," says St. James, " thou doest well ; the devils also believe and tremble."* This also is slavish fear, which will gra- dually vanish as we become perfect in love. But what the Epistle to the Hebrews calls " reverence and godly fear,"5 so far from vanishing, will increase with the increase of love.
But " make us to have a perpetual fear and love." Of what ? Of Thee ? No ; but " of thy holy Name." God's Name means His revealed character. Then what is His revealed character ? It has two great features — infinite love and infinite purity. God will forgive to the
1 1 John iv. 18. 2 Gen. iii. 10. 3 Acts xxiv. 25.
* James ii. 19. 8 Heb. xii. 28.
The Second Sunday after Trinity. 2 1
very uttermost ; this is part of His character. He will not suffer sin upon those whom He accepts. They must put it away, renounce it utterly, consent altogether to have it burnt out of them by the searching fire of His discip- line,— this is another part of it. Keep in view this latter part of His character ; and you will walk before Him in " reverence and godly fear." Keep in view the former part ; and you will walk with Him in affectionate con- fidence and love. And so will He not fail to pilot you over the waves of this troublesome world, until at length you shall come to the land of everlasting life, there to reign with Him world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Chapter XLV.
THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
siD JLorn, toe beseert) tbee metct= full? to beat us ; anD pant tbat toe, to tobom tTjou bast gtben an beartp Desire to ptap, map bp tljp migbtp aiD be DefenDeD anil com* fotteD in all Dangers anD aDnetsU ties j tbrougb 3IeSus Cb"St out JLotD. Amen.
Deprecationem nosttam, quae» Sumtis, IDomine, benignuS ejcauDi: et quibus SuppIicanDi ptaestas af= fectum, ttibue Defensionis aurt* Hum. Pet jDominum. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect is derived from Gregory's Sacramentary. As it stands there, and as it was originally translated by our Reformers, it "was a little bald and bleak, and seemed to demand two or three words of expansion to bring out its full significance. These two or three words Bishop Cosin added at the last Revision in 1661; and the addi- tion is a very happy one. For the additional words represent new thoughts, although these thoughts are wrapped up in embryo in the old prayer.
" 0 Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us." The literal translation of the words in the Sacramentary is ; " 0 Lord, we beseech thee, graciously hear our deprecation." It is to be regretted that we have no good English word
1 The end, as given in Muratori [torn. ii. col. 165], is " Per, etc. ;" and the Collect appears with the heading "Third Sunday after Pentecost." [See above, note to the heading of the First Sunday after Trinity.]
The Third Sunday after Trinity. 23
representing the force of the Latin word deprecatio. Deprecation means prayer against evils which are hanging over our heads, and which we foresee as contingencies not unlikely to arise. The five petitions in the earlier part of the Litany, beginning with " from," are deprecations. Before we ask for God's various blessings, we deprecate, or ask Him to turn away, those evils, both spiritual and temporal, which, as we acknowledge in one of the later prayers of the Litany, " we have most righteously deserved," — " evil and mischief," " blindness of heart," " deceits of " our three great spiritual enemies, " lightning and tempest," "sedition and rebellion," and so forth. The prayer, then, which we beseech God mercifully to hear in this Collect, is specifically, as the latter clause indicates, prayer against impending " dangers and adver- sities." It is the prayer of one who, in walking on the sea, sees the wind boisterous, and in his fear stretches forth his hand to Jesus, saying, " Lord, save me." 1 The Epistle warns us that our " adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,"2 and bids us " humble " ourselves " under the mighty hand of God."3 This Collect is the humble " deprecation," by which we endeavour to put in practice the Apostle's holy precept.
" Grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray," — literally, " to whom thou givest the longing for humble prayer," the word used for " pray " in the Latin being one which properly indicates prayer on bended knee, the prayer of a suppliant. The idea is that, under the pressure of some danger or trouble, we feel irresistibly impelled to go to the footstool of God, and prostrate ourselves there in lowly entreaty. Observe
1 See St. Matt. xiv. 30. 2 1 Pet. v. 8. 3 1 Pet. v. 6.
24 The Third Sunday after Trinity.
that the " hearty desire to pray " must be " given " by God ; the impulse under which we are driven to ap- proach Him comes from Himself. The Collect for the third Sunday in Lent, which is remarkably similar to this, though by no means so rich and full in ideas, also makes mention of hearty desires (" Look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants "), but does not trace them up to their source as this does — " We, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray." In the petition of the Easter Collect, which also is Gregory's, this thought of God's inspiring the desire to pray is forcibly brought out ; " We humbly beseech thee, that, as by thy special grace preventing us, thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect." " Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble," says the Psalmist, — of those who He low at Thy footstool; and why does God hear it ? because He has suggested it; because it is His Spirit of grace and of supplications within the heart which has prompted the desire ; and therefore the passage goes on, " thou wilt pre- pare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear." 1 The really humble suppliant shall receive "grace for grace,"2 that is, a gracious answer to the prayer which grace has prompted. " Good desires," " hearty desires to pray " in earnest, to seek God in close personal interview — these may be said to be the beginning of conscious spiritual life in the heart. St. Francis of Sales, quoting that verse of the Canticles, " The flowers appear on the earth," says, " What are the flowers of our hearts, 0 Philothea, but good desires?"3 And indeed flowers are in nature a very beautiful symbol of what good desires
1 Psalm x. 17. 2 St. John i. 16.
8 " La Vie Devote," Partie i. Chapitre v.
The Third Sunday after Trinity. 25
are in grace; flowers are the produce of spring, and spring will in due time pass into summer and autumn, with their fruits and harvests. So desires to pray are an evidence that God is quickening the sold ; and, if cherished and allowed their due course, those desires will be " brought to good effect," — to the realised result of holy tempers, holy character, holy conduct. These are the fruits and harvests of the sanctified heart, as good desires are its flowers.
" May by thy mighty aid be defended." Here the prayer ends in Gregory's Sacramentary, and here it ended in Cranmer's translation of it. At the last Revision, Cosin, with the admirable literary adroitness of which he was so great a master, added, " and comforted in all dangers and adversities," thus expanding into a blossom what the ori- ginal gives us merely in the bud. " Dangers," of course, correspond to " defended ; " and " adversities " to " com- forted ;" the prayer is, that in all dangers which threaten, God would defend us, and in all adversities which beset, He would comfort us. And pray observe that it is " by " His " mighty aid " that we beseech Him both to defend and comfort us. That He should by His mighty aid " defend " us, requires no explanation. But how does He " comfort " us by His aid ? I answer that, just as His aid is a defence, so the consciousness and sense of His aid is a comfort — the greatest of comforts. A refer- ence to the Old Testament will make this easily under- stood. When the prophet Elisha and his servant were in Dothan, and the Syrian army, bent upon apprehending him, " compassed the city both with horses and chariots," there was an angel host — " horses and chariots of fire " — encircling the mountain on which Elisha sat, and effec- tually protecting him.1 Not seeing this angel host (for it
1 See 2 Kings vi. 17.
26 The Third Sunday after Trinity.
was invisible to the eye of sense), but seeiug clearly enough the host of flesh and blood, the servant was much dismayed, and cried to his master, " Alas, my master ! how shall we do ?"x He was perfectly safe when he thus cried, — " defended " from all danger " by" God's " migbty aid," — but at the same time comfortless. Elisha comforted him by giving him the sense and consciousness of God's mighty aid. " Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; and he saw : and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 2 Thus was the young man " comforted," as well as " defended," by God's mighty aid ; the conviction of it, which he had from the mira- culous assistance to his senses, poured the oil of consola- tion on the troubled waters of his mind. Let us make the reflexion that, when dangers impend, and trouble our hearts by their frowning aspect, if we are of the number of those who fear God, and who, because they fear Him, resort to His throne of grace in distress, and implore Him for deliverance, angel guardianship will be as really and truly vouchsafed to us as it was to Elisha ; for it is written, quite generally, and without any special reference, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them."3
Except so far as we are conscious of this guardianship, we cannot be " comforted," however securely we may be " defended," by God's " mighty aid." God does not now- adays make us conscious of it by miraculously assisting our senses ; we who have had so many assistances granted to us, so many great privileges showered upon our heads — is it a very hard demand that we should be asked to realise
1 Seo 2 Kings vi. 15. 3 Ver. 17. 3 Psalm xxxiv. 7.
The Third Sunday after Trinity. 27
the spiritual world and its agencies by faith, that faith which is " the evidence of things not seen "?1 There is no road to comfort except through faith. God's rule of dealing is, small faith, small comfort; no faith, no comfort. Let us then embrace by faith the precious truth of God's guardianship, through the ministry of angels, of them that fear Him. This is the guardianship which is sued for in another beautiful Collect, also due to Gregory ;2 " Mercifully grant, that as thy holy angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth." But even angels, though they may, and doubtless often do, shield us as to outward circumstance, cannot really touch, any more than men can, the inner springs of our spiritual life. Only God can do this ; and by the word " comforted " we are unavoidably reminded of that Person in the Holy Trinity, to whom we must look for internal consolation by the shedding abroad in our hearts the sense of God's love in Christ.3 It is He who alone can effectually comfort in all adversities. The literal meaning of the word "adver- sities " is, things against us. Jacob gives us the exact notion of it, when he cries out in despair, on the pro- posal to send Benjamin into Egypt, " All these things are against me."4 The things, however, which seemed to be most " against " him were at that very time " working together for good"5 to him ; the way was even then being
1 Heb. xi. 1.
2 It is worthy of notice that Gregory's great Homily for the Third Sunday after Trinity is a homily on the nine orders of angels, and the respective functions of each order. This he draws out of the Gospel, which speaks of the woman who had ten pieces of silver, and lost one piece. The nine orders of unfallen angels still remained to God, after man by the Fall had made a gap in the number of His children and servants. 3 See Rom. v. 5. 4 Gen. xlii. 36. 5 See Rom. viii. 28.
28 The Third Sunday after Trinity.
prepared for his favourite Joseph's restoration to him, for a peaceful old age under Joseph's protection, and a happy, hopeful death in Joseph's arms.
" Ye fainting saints, fresh courage take ; The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head."
And even where the trouble is not removed, it is more than compensated by its results, when Divine grace brings out of it a sanctification of the heart, when " tribulation worketh patience ; and patience, experience ; and experi- ence, hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." 1
Angel guardianship, the sense of God's favour and protection, the comfort, above all, of the Holy Ghost, what glorious fruits are these ! And they are all preceded in the order of the spiritual life by flowers, — that is, by " good desires," " hearty desires," " hearty desires to pray."
1 Rom. v. 3, 4, 5.
Chapter XLVI.
THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
9D ©on, tfie protector of alt rfjat trust in thee, toithout toljom notfiinn; is strong, nothing is holp ; Jncrease anD multiply upon us thj> mere? ; rfjat, thou heinp; our ruler anD guttle, roe map go pass! through trjings temporal, trjat toe finally lose not ttje things eternal : ©rant tljis, 9D tieanenlp .father, for 3IesuS Christ's sahe our ILorD. Amen.
Protector in te sperantium DeuS, Sine quo nit)il est ualiuum, nihil sanctum ; multiplica super nos misericorDtam tuam ; ut te rectore, te Duce, sic transeamus per bona temporalta, ut non amit* tamus aeterna. Per. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect is a faithful translation of the original Latin in the Sacramentary of Gregory, except in one particular. A word is found in the original, which is left out in the translation ; and the omission, if it has its advantages, has also its drawbacks. The last clause runs thus in the Latin ; — " That we may so pass through temporal good things " (or, through the good things of time) " that we lose not eternal good things " (or the good things of eternity). The compilers of our Prayer Book have struck their pen through the word " good," and have thus generalised the aspiration of the Collect ; — " That we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal." There is a certain gain and a certain loss in
1 As given in Muratori [torn. ii. col. 166], the end is " Per Dominum," and it is the Collect for the fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
30 The Fotirth Sunday after Trinity.
this alteration. The prayer gains by it in respect of applicability ; it applies now to a wider range of circum- stances than it did as it stood originally. The phrase " temporal things " embraces both prosperity and adver- sity ; whereas " temporal good things " can only mean temporal prosperity. And the lot of all men has adversity as well as prosperity mingled up in it, and very often adversity in a larger measure than prosperity. So that, by omitting the word " good " our translators have made the prayer applicable to all the circumstances in which men can be placed, and in that respect have improved it. On the other hand, there is some loss of point. For the point in the old petition, which is entirely obscured by the translation was this — that " temporal good things," or the good things of time (of which indeed very few men are utterly deprived, so as to be altogether without any of them) may prove dangers and hindrances in our spiritual course, and that we can only pass through them safely, and in such a manner as to secure eternal good things, under the rule and guidance of God. This a valuable thought, no doubt, and makes the latter clause of the Collect more definite and specific than when the word " good " is omitted.
The doctrine of this Collect is, that in a world of trial and difficulty — a world not less (but rather more) trying and difficult, when things run smooth, than when there are many checks and crosses, — God is the protector of all that trust in Him ; 1 and that without Him there is
1 The original runs thus ; — " 0 God, the protector of them that hope in thee." The word " all " is a gain, as making the sentiment more emphatic, almost equivalent to "Did ever any trust in the Lord, and was con- founded?" (Ecclus. ii. 10). And although hope and trust are very much of a kin, " trust " is the hetter word of the two, as expressing an affection more disinterested than hope, and more persistent under all circumstances
The Fourth Siniday after Trinity. 3 1
no such thing as strength to bear up against trials and temptations, or holiness to pass through them un- scathed. It is entirely the doctrine of that sublime text ; "They that wait upon the Lord" (wait in prayer and expectation ; wait with their eyes fixed upon God's hand, " even as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress,"1 in other words, trust in Him, hope in Him), " shall renew their strength " (their moral and spiritual strength) ; " they shall mount up with wings as eagles" (notwithstanding all the depressing, secularising, earthward influences of " temporal things") ; " they shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint."2 Again, just observe the implication that holiness is moral strength, — " without whom nothing is strong " (as against temptation), " nothing is " (abstractedly and in itself) " holy " and pure. Innocence, too, is moral strength. Innocence was the moral strength of our first parents in the garden. Innocence and ignorance of evil is the moral strength of very young children. But inno- cence cannot any longer be their strength as they advance in years. Holiness must be their moral strength then — that is, not ignorance of evil, and unconsciousness of its presence within and without them, but full and growing consciousness of it, yet with avoidance of it and mastery
and at all seasons. He who trusts in another does not necessarily expect or look for anything from that other, though doubtless, if he be in difficulty or trouble, his trust will lead him to form such expectations. On the other hand, it is conceivable that one might have expectations of relief from another person, without any such confidence in his character as could be called trust. Trust will necessarily carry hope with it under certain circumstances ; but we cannot affirm the converse, that hope will always necessarily carry trust. Trust is a term richer in idea than hope, and more fully represents the attitude of mind of a creature towards the Creator.
1 Psalm cxxiii. 2. P.B.V. 2 Isaiah xl. 31.
32
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity.
over it. And this mastery and avoidance can only be by grace. " From " God " all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed."1 " Without " Him " no- thing is strong, nothing is holy." And His holiness (or moral strength) is drawn into our souls by trust in Him, hope in Him, looking to Him, waiting upon Him.
The prayer .based upon the above doctrine is very orderly and methodical. It traces the work of grace in the heart of man from its very beginning to its very end. The work of grace commences how ? Surely with the pardoning, restoring mercy of God, shown unto us out of mere grace — that is, out of gratuitous favour. This, then, is the first step, — " Increase and multiply2 upon us thy mercy," — that mercy which Thou didst show us at our Baptism, when Thou didst engraft us into the body of Christ, — that mercy which was renewed at our Confirma- tion, in the bestowal upon us of the sevenfold gift of grace, — that mercy which, if it had not been extended to us on many occasions, we should have been now irretrievably lost ; for pray observe that you cannot increase or mul-
1 Second Collect at Evening Prayer. 5 The original has only "mnltiply." The word "increase" is an ad- dition of the translator's, and not an idle or insignificant one. Not only is the rhythm improved by the additional word, but one word adds some- thing to the idea contained in the other, so that the thought is emphasized and rendered more impressive. "Increase" is ratherof something continuous, like the widow's oil (1 Kings xvii. 14, 15) ; " multiply " of detached objects, as in our Saviour's multiplication of loaves and fishes. The idea of in- creased mercy would be rather that of mercy so enlarged as to meet a greater degree of guilt ; that of multiplied mercy would be that of mercy shown on several different occasions of transgression. So that this addition is not chargeable with that meaningless accumulation of words which somewhat disfigures the style of the Exhortation at the beginning of Morning and Evening Prayer, — "acknowledge and confess," "dissemble nor cloke," "humble, lowly," "assemble and meet," "requisite and necessary," etc
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity.
tiply that which does not exist at all, and therefore the persons, into whose mouth this Collect is put, are those who have already received mercy, have tasted a little of God's peace, and of the riches of His love. They are taught to pray that, as God by Elijah's ministry in- creased the widow's oil,1 and as the Son of God multiplied the five loaves and two small fishes,2 so He would " in- crease and multiply " upon them that bread of mercy which strengthens man's heart, and that oil of pure grace which, poured into the wounds of his soul, heals and comforts it. As St. Jude prays for the " preserved in Jesus Christ," to whom he writes, " Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied." 3
But mercy, though the first step, is only the firso step. We must not stop short in mercy, as many do, but go on to build upon this foundation the superstructure of a holy life. And what is a holy life ? A life lived under God's rule and guidance, — " that thou being our ruler and guide." 1st, under His rule. The original word expresses the action of a helmsman in turning the rudder, or of a horseman in turning the rein.4 This word denotes, therefore, rather the outward guidance of God's Provi- dence, the steering and piloting of His people through the dangers and casualties of life, — the " putting away from them all hurtful things, and giving them those things which be profitable for them."6 — But guidance ("that, thou being our guide") brings in a distinct and a deeper idea. Here we have, not so much the direction of God's Providence, as the movements and instigations of His Spirit and His
1 See 1 Kings xvii. 10-17. 2 See St. John vi. 5-15. 3 Jude w. 1, 2.
4 See above, the exposition of the Collect for the Second Sunday after Trinity, p. 17 of this Volume.
5 Collect for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity. VOL. II. D
34 The Fotirth Sunday after Trinity,
Word. " Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel," says the Psalmist, " and afterwards receive me to glory."1 And the counsel is given externally and internally. Externally, in the volume of Holy Scripture. Vain and presumptuous is all hope of receiving counsel from God, unless we listen for His voice in the reverent devout perusal of His lively oracles. We must read our Bible upon our knees, just as if we were in the chamber of an oracle, with listening, obedient, docile spirits, fully prepared to accept and act upon any answer God may give us through His Scriptures. But we are to look for another and a still more comfort- able guidance within, in the depth of our consciences, to all the motions of which we should be very attentive and true. " I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go : I will guide thee with mine eye."2 " Guide thee with mine eye !" What a promise ! What an expressive organ the eye is ! how much is it able to convey, when the lips are silent ! See a mother guid- ing the children with her eye. They are around her in the room, at their play or at their tasks, while she plies her needle. One little one ventures too near the fire ; she looks up, and her eye expresses alarm. Upon another, who is diligently working at the task she has set him, she smiles approvingly ; and her eye speaks approbation. A third loiters when sent on a message ; and her eye indi- cates reproof. We are all God's children ; and, if we are dutiful children and not prodigals, we shall be constantly looking up to Him for guidance through the changes and chances of this troublesome life, begging Him to instruct and teach us in the way wherein we should go, and to counsel us by those instigations, which He is always ready to make in a conscience that has no by-ends, but seeks
1 Psalm lxxiii. 24. 5 Psalm xxxii. 8.
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity. 35
only and purely His will. Moreover, if we be His duti- ful children, we shall seek to realise His presence con- tinually. We shall turn with relief to the thought of Him from time to time, and shall find his eye resting upon us with changeless love. Euled and guided thus, both adversity and prosperity shall further us on our heavenward road. The " Light affliction, which is but for a moment," shall " work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 1 And even amid temporal good things, we shall walk uninjured. So far from deadening and depressing us, and hanging like a clog round our necks, God will use them to lift our hearts up in thank- fulness to the giver. And the end will be, " thou wilt afterwards receive me to glory." We shall not lose the good things eternal, which " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,"2 and of which our Baptism made us inheritors. But what a solemn thought is it that we may lose them, although we have been once, as it were, seized of them ! And what a still more solemn thought, that whether we finally lose or retain them depends entirely on the shape which our character takes in " passing through things tem- poral," and that our character is determined by our conduct ! " Passing through things temporal," — it is what we are doing every instant, whether we are conscious of it or not, — every hour our frail bark is dropping down the tide of life, whether we will or no. But how are we making the passage ? and what shall be the issue ?
1 See 2 Cor. iv. 17. 2 See 1 Cor. ii. 9.
Chapter XLVII.
THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
©rant, 2D ILoro, toe beseech tbee, tbat trjc course of ttjis toorlD map besopeaceablporterebbp tTjp gober= nance, tbat tbp GLburcbmap fopfuflj gerbe tbee in all goulj quietness ; tTjrouffT) 31egua Cfjrist our Horn. Amen.
3Da nobis, quaesumus, Domine, ut et munui cursus paciffce nobis tuo orotne Birtgatur, et ecclegta tua tranquifla bebotione laetetur. Per Dominum.1 — Leo Sac. — Miss. Sar.
A more literal translation of this Collect would be ; " Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, that both the course of this world may be directed peaceably for us by thy ordering, and that thy Church may rejoice in tranquil devotion. Through our Lord." The variations which the translators have made upon the original are, to omit smaller matters of detail, two. First, they have thrown the two petitions of the original Collect into one, welding them together by a " so that." It is now no longer, " Grant that both the course of this world may be ordered peaceably, and that thy Church may joyfully serve thee ; " but, " Grant that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered, . . . that thy Church may joyfully serve," etc. This translation brings out, much more for-
1 In the Sacramentary of Leo, as given by Muratori [torn I. col. 379], "qusesumus" is omitted; "Deus noster" is inserted after "Domine;" and the end is "Per," etc. — It is among the Masses for July, and "seems to have been suggested, like several other Leonine Collects, by the disasters of the dying Western Empire." [See Bright's " Ancient Collects," p. 208.]
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity. 37
cibly than the original, the idea that the great end which God has in His providential governance of the world is the spiritual welfare of His Church. In a word, we are made to ask that Divine Providence may be a handmaid to Divine Grace ; that the Kingdom of Providence may be so administered as to second and further the Kingdom of Grace. — The second variation is the introduction of a new idea, foreign to the original, by the word " serve ;" " that thy Church may serve thee in godly quietness," in the place of, " that thy Church may rejoice in tranquil devo- tion." This is an important variation, and we venture to think a considerable improvement. Joyful and tranquil devotion is only one-half of the Christian's duty to God ; he must also do Him active service. Thus the alteration (a truly English one, and one worthy of an English trans- lator) has given a prominence to work, to the practical service of God, which was entirely wanting in the original prayer. It might be said, perhaps, that if there has been in this way a gain, there has been a counterbalancing loss, for that the idea of devotion (in the limited sense of the term, as meaning the contemplative side of the Christian life) has in the translation dropped out altogether. But this is not quite true. For though the word devotion has not been retained, the thing is there. We pray not simply that the Church may serve God ; but that she may serve Him in a spirit of devotion. And a spirit of devo- tion is defined as having two elements in it ; it is a joyous spirit, and it is a calm spirit, free from perturbations ; — " may joyfully serve thee in all godly qvdetness."
And now upon the two variations which have been pointed out we will comment a little, by way of bringing out the full force and significance of this prayer.
First; God orders the affairs of this world with a view
38 The Fifth Sunday after Trinity.
to the spiritual wellbeing of His Church, — to her increase and edification. This is certainly not what the world and worldly-minded people suppose. To them the rise and fall of empires, nay, the acts of a single government, or a single legislature, are events of absorbing interest, but of an interest which terminates in itself. They would learn with surprise that God orders and controls all these things by His Providence, with a view to serve the interests of His Church, which is to Him at all times " as the apple of His eye."1 Yet this is plainly the teaching of Holy Scripture. The family of Jacob was the Church of God in its day. What strange and wonderful arrange- ments did God's Providence make with a view of preserv- ing alive the family of Jacob, during the famine which ravaged Egypt and Canaan and the neighbouring countries. In order to this preservation it was necessary that a member of the family should attain to great power in Egypt, and that he should have large supplies of corn at his command. This result was brought about by Joseph's being raised to the government of Egypt, as the reward of the wise advice which he had given about the years of plenty foreshown in Pharaoh's dream.2 But how was Joseph, a poor prisoner, brought into any connexion with king Pharaoh ? Entirely by the accident, as we should term it, of the king's chief butler having met with him in prison,3 and remembering at the right moment that he had there interpreted his dream in a way which came to pass.4 And how did Joseph find his way into the prison ? Through a false accusation from a wicked woman,0 which, however, God was overniling all the time to the preser- vation of Joseph's family, which was the Church of that
i See Deut. xxxii. 10, and Psalm xvii. 8. 2 See Gen. xlL 38-45.
5 See Gen. xL 2, 3, 4. 4 See Gen. sli. 9-14. 5 See Gen. xxxix. 17-21.
The Fifth Stinday after Trinity. 39
day. But how did Joseph come into Egypt — the land destined, by the extraordinary fertility, which in the seven years of plenty the Nile gave it, to become the granary and storehouse of all the neighbouring countries ? Through the envy of his brethren,1 and the accident of the Midian- ites passing by, after he had been thrown into the pit.2 And how came it to pass that Joseph was exposed to the malice of his brethren ? By his father's act in sending him to inquire how they were,3 which act separated poor Joseph from the shelter of his home. See how, in every scene of this wonderful drama of Providence, things were so ordered by God's governance, that His Church, the family of Jacob, might serve Him in godly quietness, shielded from harm, and provided with all necessaries, in the land of Egypt. This was a very early exemplifica- tion of that truth, of which there have been thousands of subsequent instances ; " We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."4
But we must not omit to notice that little word in the former clause of the Prayer, — " peaceably;" — " that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered" (as it is in the original, " may be ordered so peaceably for us") " that thy Church may serve thee in all godly quiet- ness,"— that is, in all such quietness, and freedom from harassment and tribulation, as may enable her to serve Thee without distraction. These very old Prayers carry us back a long way in the history of the Church, — they recall to us the days when persecution raged against those who were faithful to their Christian profession ; when they were liable to be hunted and harassed, and were even
1 See Gen. xxxvii. 4, 18. 3 See Gen. xxxvii. 14.
2 Gen. xxxvii. 28. 4 Rom. viiL 28.
40 The FiftJi Sunday after Trinity.
driven sometimes to hold their meetings for worship in dens and caves of the earth.1 How welcome must have been the rest, when the persecution had worn itself out, — how fruitful in good results, in extension very often of the Church's borders, and in quiet service of God done without distraction ! Such was the effect when " the per- secution that arose about Stephen,"2 and which blazed so fiercely at first,3 altogether collapsed with the miraculous conversion of the chief persecutor; "Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified;" (religion was intensified in religious per- sons ; but it never can be intensified without extension ; and so the words proceed), " and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multi- plied."* That was a godly quietness indeed. And people sued for godly quietness with all their hearts, when perse- cution was abroad in the world.
But now for a word on the design with which God orders peaceably the course of this world ; — " that His Church may joyfully serve him in all godly quietness."
The work of the Church, as the Church, — its work as distinct from the secular business, which many of its members may have to do, is, of course, to win souls for Christ, and build them up in Christ. And pray observe that this work may be done " in quietness," and very often, the more quietly, the more efficiently : " The kingdom of God cometh not with observation : neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."5 It is not always where most stir is made that most good is done. Noisy religious movements,
1 See Vol. i. p. 30, and generally Chap. iv. of Book i. " Of the Sacra- mentary of Leo." 2 See Acta xi. 19. 3 See Acts viii. 1, 3, 4. 4 Acts ix. 31. 8 St. Luke xvii. 20, 21.
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity. 4 1
which people are so fond of nowadays, and which are the talk of the town at least for one season, are not the most fruitful movements. Campaigns against the power of the devil, which are placarded upon every wall, and discussed in every company, are not the campaigns in which his power suffers most. Much more real service is done to God, and consequently much more disservice to the evil one, " in godly quietness," by regular, unostentatious, per- severing, consistent efforts to do good, made by each Chris- tian in his own sphere, whether it be a parish, or a Sun- day school, or the circumscribed district of a district visitor. Fish are caught in quiet, not in troubled waters ; even loud tali will frighten the shy creatures away from your bait. It was said of the first great Fisher of men, the first great Sower of the seed of God's Word ; " He shall not strive, nor cry ; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets." 1 Yet that still, small voice has sunk deeper into the heart of humanity, and wrought a greater change there, than any other words before or after. — But all effective service done to God must be done, not only with external, but with internal, " quietness." There must be peace with God in the hearts and consciences of the doers of it ; peace through the blood of the cross in the conscience, peace in the heart through submission to His will, and through casting all care as to issues and events on Him who careth for us ;2 in vain will those preach peace, who have not first themselves experienced it. And another ingredient of the state of mind, in which alone efficient service can be rendered, is joy, — joy in the assurance of God's acceptance, favour, and help, — which alone can give spiritual elasticity, and lift us over those difficulties and obstructions which beset more or less
1 St. Matt. xii. 19. 1 See 1 Pet. v. 7.
42 The Fifth Sunday after Trinity.
all faithful service. Any and every service is feeble which has not joy in it ; for joy is its very moral sinew ; " the joy of the Lord is your strength." 1 The holy angels serve God with joy ; and though they are very diligent in His service, and seek very earnestly His glory and man's salvation, " yet are they not solicitous or anxious," says Francis of Sales,2 " since that would be an interference with their blessedness." And does not the model-Prayer teach us to aim at doing God's will on earth, "as it is done in heaven " ?
1 Neh. viii. 10.
2 " Les Anges procurent notre salut avec autant de soin et de diligence qu'ils peuvent, parce que cela convient a leur charite, et n'est pas incom- patible avec la tranquillite et la paix de leur bienheureux etat ; mais, comme l'empressement et l'inquietude seraient entierement contraires k leur felicite, ils n'en ont jamais pour notre salut, quelque grand que soit leur zele." — " La Vie Devote," Partie iii Chapitre x.
Chapter XLVIII.
THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
SD ©oD, toho hast prepare!! for them that lone thee such goon things as pass man's uniierstanDing; Pour into our hearts gucfj lone totoam thee, ttjat toe, losing thee abobe all things, map obtain thp promises, tohtch erceen all that toe can Desire; through 3leSuS Christ our JLorD. Amen.
SDeus, qui oiltgentibus te bona inbtsibiltapraeparasti,infumie cor* DibuS nostris tui amoris atTectum : ut te in omnibus et super omnia oiligentes, promissiones tuas quae omne Desioerium superant conse* quamur. Per JDominum.1 — Gel. Sac. — Miss. Sar.
The study of the originals of the Collects, and of the different wording which was given to the translation of some of them at the last Review of the Prayer Book in 1661, is interesting merely as a piece of history. It lets us into the minds of the translators and revisers, besides answering the much higher purpose of suggesting, inci- dentally, many edifying thoughts. The doctrine of the Collect now before us is founded on St. Paul's quotation from Isaiah in 1 Cor. ii. 9 ; " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." " Eye hath not seen . . . neither have entered into the heart of man." Now, observe how the original Collect
1 In Muratori [torn. i. col. 687] it ends "Per Dominum nostr. " "Tho first Collect in the third book of Gelasius, which contains the prayers for ordinary Sundays." [" Canon Bright's Ancient Collects," p. 214.]
44
The Sixth Sunday after Trinity.
takes up the first, while the translator (probably Cranmer) takes up the second, of these phrases. The invocation of the original Collect is ; " 0 God, who hast prepared for them that esteem thee invisible good things," — good things which " eye hath not seen." But the invocation in the translation runs thus ; " 0 God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass man's under- standing;" i.e. such good things as "have not entered into the heart of man." — Again ; the petition of the Collect is founded upon another very important text of St. Paul, which is found in Bom. v. 5 ; " Hope maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." It has been much questioned whether by the love of God in this text, we are to understand God's love to us, or ours to Him. Probably we are to understand both ; God's love to us, as the source and essence of our love to Him. I say, the essence as well as the source, because the love which we bear towards God is nothing else than our sense of the love He bears towards us. The Latin of the original Collect, however, seems to speak exclusively of our love towards God ; for, liter- ally translated, it runs thus ; " Pour into our hearts the affection of thy love ;" and our translation leaves no doubt at all that it is our love towards God which is intended ; for it runs thus ; " Pour into our hearts such love toward thee." — Again ; the aspiration of the Collect, as it stands in the Missal of Sarum, runs thus ; — " that we loving thee in all things and above all things." The first translator of these words (probably Cranmer, as I have said) left out "above all things ;" for in King Edward's First Prayer Book the clause runs thus ; " that we, loving thee in all things, may obtain," etc. ; and so it remained in the Second
The Sixth Sunday after Tri)iity.
45
Prayer Book, and in that of Queen Elizabeth. In short, this version of the aspiration continued till the last Eeview, when Bishop Cosin, apparently not wishing to retain both the " in all things" and the " above all things" of the original Latin, and apparently preferring the latter phrase to the former, though Cranmer had not done so, erased the word " in" of the Black Letter Prayer Book, and substituted for it the word " above."
The changes and variations which the Collect has undergone in translation and revision having been thus exhibited, we will now say a word on each part of it, — the doctrine, the petition, the aspiration.
(1.) The doctrine, then, is that " God hath prepared for them that esteem 1 Him such good things as pass man's understanding." Our Saviour, in a well-known passage of His Sermon on the Mount, forbids us to cast our pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot, and turn again and rend us.2 And be quite sure that He will, Himself, act towards us on the principle which He here lays down. Communion with His Father and Himself through the Spirit, such communion brings joy and peace into the soul, — this is the chief of the unseen good things, the things which pass man's understanding, which God hath prepared for them that esteem Him. If we esteem God Himself, we shall esteem communion with Him. And be quite sure that God will not throw His pearls before swine, will not grant us this com-
1 The Latin word diligo, which is used in the Collect, and its Greek representative ayairaw, denote the love which resides in the judgment rather than in the feelings, — the love of moral choice. Thus the word esteem renders it rather more accurately than love. — See Archbishop Trench's "Synonyms of the New Testament."
s See St. Matt vii. 6.
46 The Sixth Sunday after Trinity.
munion, unless we esteem it. The only way of securing the fulfilment to ourselves of God's promises, is to desire their fulfilment ; to have a strong appetite for, and to appreciate the pleasures of, true religion. What then is at present, — I do not say our conduct, but — the state of our desires and affections? Do we know what it is, not merely to pray, and to read Scripture, and to communicate, but to find pleasure in these religious ex- ercises, to delight in them, to taste in them a real satis- faction ? Certainly it is the wildest of all wild dreams to suppose that the dwelling with God and Christ here- after would be a source of enjoyment to us, if we care nothing for the worship of God and Christ upon earth, and often find the services of the Church a very weari- some thing and a great restraint upon our liberty. Pray observe, that it is a great mistake to suppose that the good things which God hath prepared for them that love Him are reserved entirely for another state of existence. No ! the true Christian has many a bright and happy fore- taste of these good things now. So says the context of the passage, from which the doctrine of the Collect is drawn ; " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." We know not these things by the experience of the senses, nor yet can the imagination, in its highest nights, reach them. How then ? are we entirely ignorant of them ? By no means. We have a real experience of them, though it is not an experience drawn from the senses ; for the Apostle con- tinues ; " But God hath revealed them, unto us by his Spirit." " The peace of God, which passeth all under- standing " (to take one specimen of a good thing, which God hath prepared for them that love Him), is not a thing
The Sixth Sunday after Trinity. 47
which we must needs wait for till after we have died ; we may taste it, and are meant to taste it now ; we shall taste it, if casting upon God the burden of our earthly cares, we make known our requests to Him by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, and thus lay up our wishes in the bosom of Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Love.1
(2.) Then, since only those who esteem God and communion with Him, can receive from Him the precious pearl of that communion, the petition is, that He would pour into our hearts love towards Himself, as the ap- pointed way to our receiving the good things. Observe how He will produce this love in us. He will " shed it abroad in our hearts by giving us the Holy Ghost."2 And the Holy Ghost will act upon us as rational, intelligent creatures, making us believe and know and feel how ten- derly and deeply God has loved us, and how He has even given us a part of Himself, in giving us the Son of His love, to be our atonement, and our ransom, and our right- eousness. Observe, too, that it is God Himself, a living Person, who is here held forth to us as the object of our love, — not " the good things which pass understanding," not "the promises which exceed all that we can desire ;" in a word, not the gifts, but the Giver. The great things which God has in store for those who love Him are the peace and joy which flow from communion with Him ; but we are to love Him even above this peace and joy ; even when He withholds them from us, to love Him for what He is in Himself, and not merely for what He gives. How far will our love towards God stand this test ? How far is it only love of our own peace of mind, of our own comfort ? or how far, on the other hand, is it a solid esteem
1 See Philip, iv. 6, 7. 3 See Rom. v. 5.
48 The Sixth Sunday after Trinity.
and veneration of the Divine character, as surpassing in loveliness, and as being, even in its sterner features of jus- tice, holiness, and truth, excellent and admirable ?
(3.) And now for a word on the aspiration. It is, I think, to be regretted, that both the translator, and the reviser of the translation have, in their different ways, mutilated the original. We have lost something by the omission of the words " in all things." For surely it is a valuable thought that " in all things " we should seek to love God. First ; in all good things, whether of time or of eternity. True it is, also, of course, that we must love Him above, all things; that, when other things would dis- pute with Him the supremacy over our hearts, we must dethrone them, and allow Him to reign alone ; " He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,"1 etc. But suppose the love of father or mother, son or daughter, not to come into any collision with the love of Christ. Then what is required of us is to love Him in them, — to recognise in their sympathy, affection, kindness, succour, the tokens of His fatherly regard for us, and of His care for our happiness. And so of other and lower blessings. In landscapes, flowers, and stars, we may see God's beauty ; in breezes and in waters we may feel His refreshment ; in our daily food and drink we may taste His sweetness. There is not a single good thing which His hand deals out to us, which may not lift up our heart, and stimulate our homage to Him, and lend zest to our gratitude. — But, secondly, we must seek to love Him in all evil things, regarding them as fatherly chastisements, designed for our profit, to make us partakers of His holi- ness ;2 and saying of them all, " Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ?"8 By
1 St. Matt x. 37. 2 See Heb. xii. 10. » Job. ii. 10.
The Sixth Sunday after Trinity. 49
taking this view both of the good and evil of our lot, we shall at once avoid the tendency to make idols of our blessings, thereby turning them into curses ; and also, by a spiritual alchemy, which only God's true children under- stand, transmute even the troubles and sorrows of His sending into joy.1
1 See St. John xvi. 20.
vol. n.
E
Chapter XLIX.
THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
lorn of all pomer ano migrjt, torjo art tlje autfiot ann giber of all gooo things ; ©raft in our hearts tlje lobe of tfjp JQame, increase in us true religion, nourish us toitTj all gootiness, ana of tfjp great mercp keep us in tlje same ; ttjrougfi 3IesuS Christ our JLorD. Amen.
Deus birtutum, cujus est totum quoo est optimum : insere pectoris bus nostris amorem tui nominisj et ptaesta in nobis teligionts aug* mentum, ut quae sunt bona nu« trias, ar pietatis Stunio quae sunt nutrita custoDias. Per jDomtnum. — Gel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
Cranmer's rendering of the invocation of this Collect is rather a paraphrase than a translation. But it is a happy- paraphrase, conveying more to English ears than a trans- lation would have done. As it stands in the original Latin, the invocation runs thus ; " 0 God of hosts, to whom belongeth everything that is most excellent." " Deus virtutum," the invocation of the Latin Collect, is the usual rendering in the Latin Vulgate (which is the authorised version of the Scriptures in the Roman, as it was in the mediaeval, Church) of the well-known Scrip- tural phrase, so common in the Psalms, " God of hosts." An army is the great instrument of earthly or secular power, the means by which distant provinces are reduced
1 The latter half of the Collect is thus given in Muratori (torn. i. col. 687); "et praesta ut et nobis religionis augmentum : quae sunt bona nutrias ; ac vigilantia studium, quaesumus, nutrita custodias. Per." (Very difficult to construe. Is there a misprint ?)
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity. 5 1
to subjection, and held in subjection, by a conqueror. God therefore is called the " God of hosts," or armies, as having all the forces of heaven, of nature, and of man under His control. The " innumerable company of angels,"1 which is the host of heaven, executes God's orders the moment they are issued. The sun, moon, and heavenly bodies, which are also called (in a lower sense) " the host of heaven,"2 obey the laws which He has impressed upon them. Swarms of insects, which are most powerful agencies in nature, come and go at God's bidding, and, as moving under His command, are sometimes called the Lord's army.3 And, because it is He who " orders the unruly wills and affections of sinful4 men," and whose Providence controls, and makes use of, and sets aside the conquerors of empires, He calls Himself in the book of the Prophet Isaiah, " the Lord, which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power." 5 The phrase " God of hosts," therefore, is tantamount to the God of all forces in heaven and earth, or, if you please, " the Lord of all might." But Cranmer has expanded this magnificent designation, and given it rather a fuller scope. He has added "power" to "might," — "Lord of all power and might." What is power, as distinct from might (for if you wish to understand your Bible and Prayer Book, you must never suppose that two words are used with exactly the same meaning, where one would have conveyed all that is intended) ? " Power " is authority ; " might " is force. There may be might without authority ; and there may be authority without might. "When an empire is success- fully usurped, the usurper has might on his side ; but the
1 See Heb. xii. 22. 2 See Deut. iv. 19, and Acta vii. 42.
3 See Joel ii. 11, 25. 4 Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Easter,
8 Isaiah xliii. 17.
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authority — the right — remains with the lawful sovereign. God has both right and might in his government, — both authority, and force to carry His authority into effect ; whereforewe address Him as "Lord of all power and might/' — " Who art the author and giver of all good things,'' is surely better, fuller, more forcible, than the Latin, — "to whom belongeth everything that is most excellent." Everything excellent belongs to God ; that ia, of course, most true. But the translation points, not merely to ownership on the part of God ; but also to authorship and munificence — " the author " (originator) " and giver of all good things." And moreover the translation has this advantage over the original, that it recalls, in a way which the original does not, that beautiful passage of St. James, " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."1
The Literal translation of the remainder of the Collect would run as follows ; — " Graft in our breasts the love of thy name, and supply in us an increase of religion, nourishing those things that be good,2 and with fatherly solicitude " (pietatis studio) " keeping (or guarding) what has been nourished." The Latin indicates, what it is difficult to express in a translation, that the increase of religion in us can only be brought about by two processes — one, God's nurturing what he has implanted, the other,
1 James L 17.
2 It is quite possible that the turn of the expression and the use of the word " nourish " may have been suggested by the Gospel of the Day, con- taining the account of the miracle of feeding the four thousand. Our Lord, by miraculously feeding the four thousand, who had been in attendance upon him for three days, nourished not their bodies only, but those things which were good in them, — responded to and encouraged the zeal and earnestness which they had shown in listening to God's word.
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity. 5 3
His guarding and keeping what He has nurtured. The translation is on the whole excellent ; but " of thy great mercy" is rather tame and pointless in comparison of pietatis studio — with the solicitude of fatherly affection.
And now for a few words of practical import upon this noble prayer. " Graft " (or implant) " in our hearts the love of thy name." What an implication that this love is not there originally ! what a testimony to the corruption of our nature ; for, if it lacks the love of God, it must be corrupt ! You cannot have a beautiful rose- tree in your garden, without some one's bringing it in and planting it there. Your garden does not grow rose-trees naturally ; nor, with all your digging and weeding and watering, could you ever make it do so. Then, if the rose-tree of the love of God is to grow in your heart, God must transplant it out of His nursery garden into your heart, which by nature can bring forth nothing but thorns and thistles, or at best poisonous gourds, and wild grapes. — But do not pass over the speciality of the phrase, "love of thy Name" — not of Thee, but of " thy Name." The name of God means, as we have so often had occasion to remark, His manifested or revealed character. And the phrase teaches us this very important lesson, that God's character, as it is revealed to us in the Bible, is to be the object of our love. In loving our fellowmen we often take a fancy to people, of which we cannot give any reasonable account; something in their look, or in their manner, or in the tone of their voice, attracts us ; but not their character ; our love of them does not deserve to be called esteem ; it is a whim. But pray understand that our love for God must be a deliberate and settled esteem, founded upon our sense of the excellence of His character ; it must be a love
54 The Seventh Sunday after Trinity.
of " his Name." Nor is it loving Him truly to feel the attractiveness of certain parts of His Name, while we are averse to other parts. Those only love Him, as He wills to be loved, who love the sterner as well as the milder features of His character, — who not only appreciate His mercy, graciousness, fatherly kindness, but esteem also His holiness, justice, and truth, and feel that these attri- butes are no less essential than the others to the perfect- ness of His character, and the symmetry of His Name.
But does nothing more need to be done, when God has transplanted into the soil of any one's heart the fair slip of His love ? Does this exhaust the work of grace ? Is this all that is necessary ? May that soul feel perfectly sure of itself, because it expands towards God in love and esteem ; and need it care for nothing further ? So speaks many a well-meaning but shallow preacher, — at least this is what he insinuates, — you need care about nothing but conversion ; edification will take care of itself ; it needs no looking after. But so does not speak either the Bible or the Prayer Book. They tell us, as indeed common sense tells us, that plants are planted to grow ; and that if the love of God's name is a living plant, it will show its Life by shooting and blossoming in the heart. " In- crease in us true religion." Observe the practical charac- ter of this petition. Love is a sentiment. But senti- ments are not enough in the service of God. We must not rest in sentiments. "What has to be increased in us is " true religion," that is, fruits of love and works of love. The word " religion," which is of the rarest occurrence in our Authorised Version of the Bible, means, according to its etymology, an obligation, — something which binds us. Now what is it which in the service of God binds us ? Surely His law, which we are to keep out of love and in
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity.
the strength of love. And St. James gives us a brief summary of the obligations under which " true religion " lays us. " If any man among you seems to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue" (here is the obligatory power of religion, — it is a bridling), "but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the father- less and widows in their affliction, and to keep him- self unspotted from the world."1 "Increase in us true religion," then, is equivalent to " Increase in us self- restraint, sympathy, unworldliness, purity." But this in- crease can only be by grace. And at every step in it, grace must guard it, must enable us to preserve our gains, and to maintain our ground. First, the increase is by grace. God must nurture the vine of His love, which he has implanted in our hearts, with the dews and rains of heaven. And secondly, He must guard the plant, as it is reared, and grows towards maturity ; just as we see that valuable and tender plants, when sown in a park or garden, are fenced round with a wire to protect them during the period of growth. In the prophet's image of the vineyard we have both the nurturing and the guard- ing ; " In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it " (here is the keeping) ; " I will water it every moment" (here is the nurturing) : "lest any hurt it, I will keep it day and night"2 (see how con-
1 James i. 26, 27. The word here translated " religion " (dp-rjcrKda) might perhaps be more accurately rendered "devotion." It means form, of worship, the ritual {or external) part of religion. Somewhere in Cole- ridge's works there is a striking thought to this effect, — that sympathy and unworldliness stand to the Gospel in much the same relation as that which the Levitical Ritual bore to the Law. The essence of the Law was its moral code ; the ritual was its external expression. The essence of the Gospel is faith ; love and purity are its external expression.
2 Isaiah xxvii. 2, 3.
56
The Seventh Stmday after Trinity.
tinual both the nurture and keeping must be). And in the Collect we have both the nurturing and the keeping ; " nourish us with all goodness," or (as it was in the original Latin), " nourish those things that be good in us " (this is the nurture), " and of thy great mercy keep us in the same," or (better, and more faithfully to the original) " with fatherly solicitude keep what thou hast nurtured " (here is the guardianship). Surely the affectionate or fatherly solicitude is a great gain to the meaning. Our Heavenly Father knows the momentary risks to which that very delicate plant, the spiritual life of His children, is exposed. The soil in which the slip of His love is set, is the human heart, " deceitful above all things, and des- perately wicked." 1 The climate is the raw, ungenial climate of the world. And there are prowling beasts around, which bark the young trees or root them up — " little foxes " (in the shape of little sins), " that spoil the vines."2 The thought is, that with all the affection of a parent He will watch over the life which He has im- planted, and shield it from harm, and take care that ground gained one day shall not be lost the next. And, if we will but co-operate with Him in this guardianship, all is secure. Therefore, " watch and pray." 3 " If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love."4 " Building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, look- ing for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal
life." 5
1 Jer. xvii. 9. 3 St. Matt. xxvi. 41.
4 St. John xv. 10.
2 Cant. ii. 15.
5 Jude vv. 20, 21.
Chapter L.
THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
3D ©on, tobose tuber failing probtbence orberetf) all things ttotT) in fteaben anb eartb 5 OTe bumblp beseech thee to put atoaj from us all hurtful tbings, ann to gibe us those tbings iotjtctj be profitable for us ; tbrough 3|esus dbrist our HorB. Amen.
Deus, cujus probtbentia in sut bispositione non fallitur, te gup- plices eroramus, ut nojia cuncta submobeas et omnia nobis pro* futura concebas. Per Dominum. Oel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
In the Collect now before us, it is not the translator, but Bishop Cosin, the reviser, who has paraphrased (and very felicitously) the original Latin of the earlier part. The literal translation of that part is, " God, whose Provi- dence, in ordering that which is his own, is not deceived (or mistaken)." The translator of 1549 left out alto- gether the clause, " in ordering that which is his own," and rendered the invocation thus ; " God whose providence is never deceived ; " thus dropping altogether the idea of God's control over events, and retaining only the idea of His providence or foresight of them. And thus the Collect stood in the two Prayer Books of Edward VI., and in that of Elizabeth. In 1661, at the last Eevision, Bishop Cosin, who no doubt compared the English Collects with their originals, saw what a mistake had been made in dropping
1 In Mur. (torn. i. col. 688) the Collect ends with " Per."
58 The Eighth Sunday after Trinity.
the idea of God's control. He would rather have that to be the prominent idea of the clause. So he placed this idea in the direct sentence, and expressed incidentally, by the epithet " never-failing," the idea of God's Provi- dence never being mistaken in its calculations, which had occupied the direct sentence in the original Latin. More- over, he inserted the words, " all things in heaven and earth," which probably he meant to correspond to, and to be a fuller expression of, " that which is his own," in the clause, "in ordering that which is his own." What is God's own ? what is it which belongs to Him ? The answer is, " All things in heaven and earth," including even the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, which seem most to oppose and thwart His designs, nay, which threaten occasionally to frustrate them. Even these belong to Him ; they are in His hand ; and He can over- rule them to His own ends.
The latter part of the Collect, which our present version gives with sufficient faithfulness, might be rendered more exactly thus ; " We implore thee as suppliants that thou wouldst remove out of our way everything hurtful, and grant unto us all things which will do us good." The word which I have represented by " we implore," is a strong one, denoting such fervour and earnestness as carries its point. " Suppliants " is rather feebly rendered in our version by "humbly;" — the idea is that the peti- tioners prostrate themselves at God's footstool. — The word rendered " putting away from us " is one which denotes the removal by marshalmen, or officers of justice, of per- sons who obstruct the way of a magistrate, or refuse to acknowledge him. — Finally, the " hurtful things " to be put away are looked upon, in the phraseology of the original, as a group or whole block taken all together —
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity. 59
" everything " 1 — while the " things which be profitable for us " are looked at as detached, and given to us in succes- sion,— " all things," — one after another.
The great idea, which the whole prayer puts before us, is this, that we are journeying (or making a progress) through life ; that in this progress we know not what may befall us, and that, if we attempted to conjecture our future, we might grievously err in our calculations ; that, even if we knew what might befall us, we might have no control over it, so as to avert what was really evil ; and that, if the choice of what should befall us were left to ourselves, we should often choose amiss, being deceived by the mere outside show of good and evil. Feeling, therefore, utterly blind and powerless as to our future career, we throw ourselves down before God's footstool (whose provi- dence or foresight is infinite, so that He never is out in any of His calculations, and whose control over events, however many complications the human will may intro- duce into them, is absolute), and beseech Him that He would summarily remove out of our path, as we journey through the wilderness of this world, all such impediments as really block our progress to the heavenly Canaan, and give us one after another all such things as may really further us on our road thither.
And now for a word, first on the doctrine, and then on the petition of the Collect.
(1.) It is really a very noble paraphrase, this opening clause, as Cosin has left it to us ; " 0 God, whose never- failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and
1 The "all hurtful things" are cuncta ; the "all things which will do us good," omnia. Cunctas (= conjunctus) indicates a group in its totality ; omnis, the several detailed particulars of which the group is made up.
6o The Eighth Sunday after Trinity.
earth." God's Providence orders " all things in heaven," no less than in " earth." "Well is it that this particular district of God's administration should be alluded to in the translation, though there is no sort of reference to it in the original Collect. I do not suppose the " heaven " here mentioned to be the natural firmament, the sphere of the sun, moon, and stars. There it is the God of Nature who works, rather than the God of Providence. Eather, the heaven here alluded to is the abode of rational and moral creatures, the sphere of the angels, of which sphere Nebu- chadnezzar speaks, when his understanding returned unto him ; " And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing : and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou ? " 1 The angels are superintended and controlled by the same Providence as ourselves, that is to say, God's wisdom and power are equally on the alert in regulating their movements, and fashioning their destinies, as in regulat- ing the movements and fashioning the destinies of men. No doubt, where there is no sin or moral evil, and there- fore no sorrow or suffering. God's Providence must take a very different shape from that which it oftentimes wears here below. God's Providence is more abundantly glori- fied on earth than it is in heaven; because its great triumph is to bring good out of evil, which there is abundant scope for doing on earth ; whereas in heaven there is no evil, out of which the good may be brought. Still the Providence of God, apart from the matters on which it has to operate, consists of His foresight, and of the arrangements which He makes in pursuance of His foresight. And this foresight, and the arrangements made
1 Dan. iv. 35.
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity. 6 1
in pursuance of it, are as busy amongst the angels as amongst ourselves ; and surely it is good for us to have our eyes directed occasionally to the angels, to have it forced upon our thoughts that, however much man may glorify himself, myriads of intelligent creatures throng God's universe, whose powers and whose knowledge greatly transcend his own, and yet who are elder brothers of the same rational family with himself, — beings in comparison of whom " all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing."
And in earth, too, God's Providence " never fails," — nay, in the minutest of earth's affairs, it still " ordereth all things." In human legislation very small matters are avowedly not taken into account. There is a proverb respecting human law, that it has no regard for, does not concern itself with, little trifles (" de minimis non curat lex "). But God's greatness is shown by His condescend- ing to the humblest, as well as by His controlling the loftiest, circumstances. " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father ?" 1 God must sign the death-warrant of the meanest animal, before death can befall it. How much more, then, must we suppose Him to superintend with fatherly solicitude such circumstances as may help or hinder human souls — in a word, the affairs of men !
(2.) The Divine foresight and power of control, which form the doctrine of the Collect, are sued for to be exerted on behalf of ourselves in its petition. We pray God that, as He foresees what things will happen to us, and what effect they will have upon our character, and as He also has a power of controlling all events, He will put away from us, not indeed all things painful, but " all things that may hurt 1 St. Matt. x. '29.
62 The Eight Ji Sunday after Trinity.
us," and give us, not indeed only things which be pleasur- able, but " those things which be profitable for us." The pilgrimage of Israel through the wilderness being typical of the Christian's pilgrimage through the world, we cannot better illustrate the way in which God puts away hurtful things from His people than by a reference to the old story of their journeyings. To take only one or two examples. We are told that when at length " Pharaoh had let the people go, God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near ; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt : but God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Pied Sea." 1 " God led the people about." But why lead them by a circuitous route, when there was a short and straight one ? Because He knew what they would meet with on the short and straight route, and foresaw also that it would operate as a great discouragement. Here was an instance of His foresight being on the alert to secure the interests of His people, and of His so ordering matters as to remove out of their way " hurtful " things. — Again, they had many bitter disappointments in the wilderness, undrink- able water at Marah,2 scantiness of food in the wilderness of Sin,3 no water at Eephidim,4 and so forth. How was this, seeing that they were in the hands of One, who puts away from His people hurtful things, and gives them those things which be profitable for them ? These things were not really " hurtful." Painful as they may have been, they were " profitable." There was a reason, as we have seen, why they should be led through the wilderness ; but they must not be allowed to settle down in the wilder-
1 Exod. xiii. 17, 18. 8 See Exod. xv. 23.
3 See Exod. xvi. 1,3. 4 See Exod. xvii. L
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity. 63
ness as a comfortable home, and to mistake it for the rest and the inheritance which awaited them when they had crossed the Jordan. It was a mercy to them to keep alive their hopes of the land flowing with milk and honey ; and these frequent crosses and ruggednesses would not only sharpen their desires for that land, but increase their appreciation of it, when at length it was reached. And is it not the case that the thorns, with which God has planted life in the world, — its uneasinesses, its crosses, and the unsatisfying and fleeting character of the best happi- ness it has to offer, — make the true Christian anticipate with greater longing, and pursue with more fervent de- sire, the Paradise-rest and the heavenly inheritance, and thus prove " profitable " to him, by quickening faith and hope ?
Chapter LI.
THE NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
•Srant to us, Horn, toe beseecij tbee, tTje spirit to tbinfc anD Do al= toaps sucb tbings as be rightful ; . tbat toe, toho cannot Do an? tbing tfjat is gooD toitbout tbee, mag bj tbee be enabieD to line according to tbp toillj tbrough 3(esus <£b"St our Horn. Amen.
JLatgire nobis, quaesumus, Do- mine, Semper spiritum cogitanDi quae tecta Sunt, propitius et agenDt; ut qui sine te esse non possumus, secunDum te bibere ba= leamuS- Per.— Leo Sac.1— Miss. Sar.
The earlier part of this Collect is a faithful translation of the Latin original, but its latter part has been altered slightly by the translator, more materially by Bishop Cosin at the Revision of 1661. This latter part is excel- lent as it now stands, and withal perfectly plain and in- telligible to English ears, which it may be doubted whether it would have been, had the translation been more Literal The Latin originals of the Collects are so terse, and have
1 The first clause is thus given in Leo's Sacramentary [Mur. L col. 434]; — " Largire nobis, Domine, quaesumus, spiritum cogitaridi quae bona sunt, promtius et agenda," etc. In Gelasius's Sacramentary [i. col. 689] "recta" is substituted for "bona," and (by a mistake, no doubt) "pro- pitius" for "promtius." "Recta" and "propitius" are found also in Gregory's Sacramentary [ii. col. 168]. " Promtius " (jrromptius) is with- out all doubt the right word. We ask for grace, when we have con- ceived a right thought, to put it promptly and without delay into execu- tion ; "I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments" (Ps. cxix. 60). But the Sarum Missal perpetuated the error which Gelasiu6 and Gregory had handed down.
The Ninth Sunday after Trinity. 6
so few words (even fewer than the English), that, if they had always been rendered word for word, it would have been impossible to understand them without an explana- tion, and therefore it was often found necessary to resort to a paraphrase. The latter part of the Collect, quite literally rendered, runs thus ; " That we, who cannot be without thee, may be able to live according to thee." And the first part of this aspiration (" that we, who cannot be without thee ") stood in this form in the two Prayer Books of King Edward VI., and in that of Queen Eliza- beth. At the Eevision of 1661 Cosin, thinking probably that " cannot be " was not very intelligible, substituted for it, " cannot do anything that is good." Cranmer, in the original translation, had substituted for " may be able to live according to thee," " may by thee be able to live accord- ing to thy will." The only alteration which Cosin made in this part was to write " enabled " for " able."
When an opportunity of commenting upon the trans- lation of the Collects is afforded us, it is easy to explain that there has been some loss of force — of what I will call light and shade — in departing from the original. " That we, who cannot even exist without thee, may have strength to live according to thee," — such is the full force of the original. Observe, first, that " existing " and " living " are put in opposition to one another : " that we who " are so utterly powerless and dependent that " with- out thee we cannot exist," may have strength enough (by thy " granting to us the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful") to rise to the altitude of thy Divine life, to live in communion with thee, and after the model of thy life, — all this is implied in the phrase, " live accord- ing to thee." Without God we are just nothing ; without Him we should sink into the abyss of annihilation, from vol. n. f
66 The Ninth Swiday after Trinity.
which His creative power drew us ; for " in him," says the Scripture, " we live, and move, and have our being." 1 With Him — rilled by Him largely with the spirit of think- ing and doing such things as be rightful, — we can be raised so high as to live — and to live not merely the life of the lower animals, — but according to the model of the life which is in Him, in a word, " according to Him." Observe that the principal word which our translators of the New Testament have rendered "living," "life,"2 does not mean, as the English word " living " does, " con- ducting oneself." When we pray God, in one of our Collects at the end of the Communion Service, that " the words which we have heard may bring forth in us the fruit of "good living," we mean simply and solely good conduct, right sentiments and right practice. But the word commonly translated " life, living," in the New Testament never means moral conduct, manner or way of life, — that is expressed by another and totally different word.3 Life is simply the opposite of death, natural life the opposite of natural death, spiritual life the opposite of spiritual death. A passage in the Galatians aptly illus- trates what we are saying ; " If we Live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."4 Here the walking, not the living, expresses the manner or way of life. The meaning of the Apostle clearly is, " If indeed we have the life of God's Spirit dwelling in us, if His Spirit be indeed the moral atmosphere which we breathe, then let us give evidence of this by conducting ourselves in a spiritual manner." And the phraseology of the old Latin Collects is founded on the phraseology of the New Testament. In the case before us, the phrase " to live according to God " is adopted from the New Testament. "We find it in St
1 Acts xviL 28. 5 fu», fwrj. 3 plat. 4 Gal. v. 25.
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Peter's Epistles, — " that they might live according to God in the spirit."1 And St. Paul teaches that " the new man/' which he exhorts us to put on, " after God " (or, according to God) "is created in righteousness and true holiness."2 " To live," therefore, in the original Latin of the Collect, does not mean " to conduct oneself." The life spoken of is the life of man's spirit, when quickened by the Holy Spirit. And this life is " according to God," — not accord- ing to the will of God, though that of course is implied and involved, but " according to God.'- He is the model, the source, the regulating principle of it. The phrase is most strictly Scriptural, although our translators, fearing that it might not be understood, have expressed it in a paraphrase.
Now, how is this life in God, and according to God, of those who are so dependent upon Him that without Him they cannot even exist, to be brought about ? By His bountifully giving to them (" Largire, nobis, Domine") the spirit of thinking those things that be rightful, and, moreover, of promptly doing the same. The order of the words in the original Latin makes a break between the thinking and the doing, which is very suggestive and signi- ficant. Good thoughts are by no means always followed by good actions. Nay, the thought may go beyond a thought, may even pass into a purpose or resolution, without taking any effect outwardly, just as a tree may sprout, may even blossom, and yet bring no fruit to perfection. It is a great thing to strike, while the iron of the heart is hot with a good impression, that so a permanent dint may be made upon the character. How emphatically St. Paul teaches this in the matter of almsgiving ! He had boasted among his Macedonian converts, by way of provoking them to
1 1 Pet. iv. 6. 8 Eph. iv. 21.
6S
The Ninth Sunday after Trinity.
good works of a similar description, that the Corinthians had been very liberal 1 in their contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem,2 and had pledged themselves to a large collection for the purpose " a year ago." Yes ! they had pledged themselves with all the ardour of those, who felt the justice of a claim upon them for temporal relief from those who had sent them spiritual relief.3 But in all matters, and specially in matters of this sort, thinking and willing and purposing is one thing, and doing another. How many a man has been touched by some appeal made in a Charity Sermon, and has only postponed giving under the genuine feeling that he had too Little money about him on the spot, to meet with adequate generosity claims which have been so forcibly urged ; and then has gone away, and on Monday has been absorbed again into the vortex of this world's business and cares, and the appeal, when that first warm gush of good emotion has quite subsided, has appeared in very sober colours compared with those, in which the preacher's discourse had invested it, and in a few days it has quite passed out of mind, has dropped into the limbo of good intentions unfulfilled. The Apostle exhorts his Corinthian converts not to allow their good intentions to drop into that limbo. " Now, therefore," says he, " perform the doing of it ; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a perform- ance also out of that which ye have." 4 And in things wrongful, too, as well as " things rightful," there is a pause between the first thought and its consummation, which may be employed with happiest results. St. James very strikingly traces the generation of an act of sin thus ; " Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his
1 2 Cor. ix. 2.
» See Rom. xv. 27.
'- See Roni. xv. 26. 4 2 Cor. viii. 11.
The Ninth Sunday after Trinity. 69
own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin : and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."1 It was a beautiful prayer of Bishop Andrewes, that we may be enabled :: to bury evil thoughts with good works."2 When assaulted by such thoughts, turn thyself to prayer, or to the study of God's Word, or to any useful employment of the mind. And try to intensify and multiply these actions, that the bad thought may be as it were hidden away under the ground, buried alive, and so stifled. If not so dealt with, the cockatrice' egg will break out into a cockatrice.3
Look now summarily at the three distinct points of the Collect in the original Latin. 1. The Christian not able even to exist without God. " In thee we have our leing." 2. The Christian largely endowed by God with the spirit to think what is rightful, and to consummate it in action. 3. The Christian thus gradually " created after God in righteousness and true holiness,"4 and living the spiritual life, of which God is the model and the source. How is man abased by these reflexions ! How is God exalted !
1 James i. 14, 15.
2 " Sepelire bonis operibus malas cogitationes." — Devotions on the Creed for Sunday.
» See Isaiah lix. 4, 5. * Sec Eph. iv. 24.
Chapter LII.
THE TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TEINITY.
JLet tijp merciful ears, 9D JLoro, be open to t F) c prams of t'fjp bumble serbantSi anrj tbat trjep map obtain tfjeir petitions make tbem to ask sucb tfjinjs as ssTjall please trjee 5 tbrougb JesuS Christ our Horn. Amen.
Pateant aures miSericofoiae tuae, Domine, precious Supplicantium: et ut petentibus Besicerata con* ceDas, fac eos quae tibi placita Sunt postulare. Per Dominum nostrum. — Leo Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect is derived from the earliest of the Sacra- mentaries, that of Leo the Great, whose Pontificate lasted from A.D. 440 to a.d. 461. Gelasius, his successor in the Bishopric of Eome, found time during his short Pontificate of four years, to revise and make a digest of the prayers in Leo's Sacramentary. He re-wrote this
1 We trace back this Collect to Leo, because substantially it is his ; but Gelasius seems to have rewritten it, retaining the sense, but altering the phraseology. Here is Leo's version, and that of Gelasius, side by side : —
Leo [Mur. i. col. 381]. Ad aures misericordiae tuae, Do- mine, supplicum vota perveniant ; et, ut possimus impetrare quae pos- cimus, fac nos semper tibi placita postulare. Per, etc.
Gregory seems to have inserted
Gelasius [Mur. i. 689]. Pateant aures misericordiae, Do- mine, precibus supplicantium ; ut et (et ut ?) petentibus desiderata concedas, fac tibi eos, quaesumus, placita postulare. Per. tuae" after "misericordiae 5" and iu
JIuratori's edition of his Sacramentary [ii. col. 169] the Collect ends " Per Dominum, etc." The version given above, in parallel columns with the English, is that of the Missal of Sarum.
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity. 7 1
Collect, preserving the sentiment, but altering the ex- pression. In the opening of our English version, Cran- ruer has adopted Gelasius's wording in preference to Leo's ; but in what follows, he has fallen back on the original.
" Let thy merciful ears, 0 Lord " — literally, " the ears of thy mercy." God's justice has ears as well as His mercy, and the cry of human wickedness, coming up into those ears, calls down vengeance. " The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground,"1 said He to the first murderer. And again to Abraham respect- ing the cities of the plain ; " Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great .... I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me."2 Since we are all sinners, and if we were placed in the full searching light of the Divine holiness, should see ourselves, though not (it may be) stained either with blood or lust, to be very grievous sinners, what is it which makes God open to us, when we cry, rather the ears of His mercy than those of His justice ? The shedding of atoning blood on our behalf, — " the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."3 It is the blood of Jesus that closes the ear of justice, and opens that of mercy, so that our prayer, offered in the faith of His name, finds immediate entrance and a prompt response.
" Let thy merciful ears be open to the prayers of thy humble servants." Cranmer has done well in drawing out fully and distinctly the thought of humility in the petitioners, which is latent and undeveloped in the Collects of Leo and Gelasius, indicated only by the word suppli- ants, which, according to its derivation, means those who
1 Gen. iv. 10. 2 Gen. xviii. 20, 21. * Heb. xii. 24.
72
The Tenth Stmday after Trinity.
make a petition on bended knees, and thus in a lowly manner. It is said in the Psalms (and, as St. Peter quotes the passage at length, it may be said to be one of those Old Testament texts "which the Holy Ghost, who first inspired them, specially recommends to our notice), " The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry."1 But who are the right- eous ? Certainly not those who, like the Pharisee in the parable,2 thank God that they are not as other men are, and parade their self-denials and their alms with no little self-complacency before the throne of grace. We will cast our eyes over other passages in the Psalms, descriptive of the character of the petitioner whose prayer enters into God's ears. " He forgetteth not the cry of the humble."3 " Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble : thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear."4 " Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly ; but the proud he knoweth afar off."5 What are we to gather from the circumstance that in one passage God's ears are said to be open to the prayers of the righteous, and in others to the prayers of the humble? That by the right- eous are meant not those who endeavour to stand before God on any independent ground of merit in themselves, but those rather who, in despair of self, throw themselves upon His pardoning mercy in Christ, and thus submitting themselves to what the Apostle calls " God's righteous- ness,"6— the righteousness of His providing — are justified by faith. The very first foundations of the Christian's righteousness are laid in that humble petition, " God
1 Ps. xxxiv. 15, and 1 Pet. iii. 12. 2 See St. Luke xviii. 11, 12. 3 Ps. ix. 12. 4 Ps. x. 17. 6 Ps. cxxxviii. 6.
• See Rom. iii. 21, 22, and x. 3.
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity.
73
be merciful to me a sinner."1 Yet, on the other hand, notice the word " servants," as contributing another factor to the idea of the character of those whom God listens to. His ears are not open to the servants of sin and of the world, but to those who in the main tenour of their lives are His servants, having become so by willing self-dedication, yielding themselves " unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and " their " members as instruments of righteousness unto God."2
" And that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things as shall please thee." This is not to be understood as a mere repetition in another form of the earlier clause. The later clause makes a great advance upon the earlier. God's ears may be open to a prayer, and yet the prayer may not be granted, the petition may not be obtained. As a fact, whenever a prayer is breathed to heaven from the humble heart of one who is sincerely endeavouring to serve God, it is always heard, — the ears of Divine mercy are open to it ; but it does not follow that it is granted. Those petitions only do we succeed in obtaining, which are pleasing to God in the exercise of His wisdom and love ; or, as it is more fully expressed in another Collect, only those things which we " faithfully " ask " according to " His " will " are " effectually obtained to the relief of " the " necessity" of His people, and to the setting forth of His " glory."3 Xow there are certain petitions which must be pleasing to God, which cannot fail to be in accordance with His will. All petitions for the advancement of His own cause, for the extension of His kingdom, and the glory of His name — the petitions which form the first section of the
1 St. Luke xviii. 13. 3 See Rom. vi. 13.
3 See last Collect at the end of the Communion Office.
74 The Tenth Sunday after Trinity.
Lord's Prayer — cannot fail to please Him. These petitions, if sincere, are the utterances of Divine love in the heart. The petitioner loves God, and therefore is solicitous for the advancement of His cause. But there are other petitions of a lower grade than these, and yet which cannot fail to he pleasing unto God. These are such peti- tions as flow from rational self-love, from that concern in our own hest interests, which God has implanted in our hearts as a principle to propel us towards our chief good, and of which we can never rid ourselves. The utterances of this self-love are these and such as these ; " Give me the spiritual nourishment of thy word and sacra- ments ;" " Forgive me my sins ;" " Suffer me not to be tempted above that I am able, but with every temptation make away for me to escape ;" " Deliver me from evil — not so much, however, from what is painful, as from what is adverse to my eternal interests." In short, petitions for spiritual blessings to ourselves, or those connected with us, must always be pleasing to God. That He desires with an earnest longing the salvation of souls is evident from His having given His Son to die for all, and from His having sent His Spirit to make His Son's work available. He "will have all men to be saved,"1 says the Apostle, urging on this ground that all men are on that account to be prayed for. Whatever, therefore, is directly or indirectly conducive to our own salvation, or that of others, must be pleasing to God. And in asking such things, therefore, we should have confidence in their being granted, and believe firmly that we receive them, as the beloved disciple intimates ; " This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us " (" hearing " us in this passage
1 1 Tim. ii. 1, 3, i.
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity. 75
involves, as the sequel shows, the granting what we ask for) ; " And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him."1 But God's servants, in virtue of the constitution of their nature, seek other things besides the advancement of God's cause, and their own highest good and ultimate blessedness. They are sensitive creatures, who shrink from pain of mind and body, and covet the good things which life and the world have to offer. We wish for health, resources, a competence, sympathy, to have our friends around us and keep them with us, to have success in our pursuit, to live as long as we can really enjoy life. There is nothing wrong in the mere desire for such things, if it is subordinated to higher aspirations. We are not only encouraged, but bidden, to lay all our innocent desires under God's eye, to commend them to Him in prayer. " Be careful for nothing," says St. Paul ; " but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."2 But the promise made to the faithfid performance of this duty is not that the request shall be granted, but that God's peace shall garrison the heart against disquietude. " And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."3 The burden being cast upon Him, we shall feel an un- speakable relief. That the heavenly King has held out to us the golden sceptre of acceptance is enough ; He does not say to us, as Ahasuerus to Esther, " What is thy request? It shall be even given thee."4 For He who reads both the heart and the future might perchance see that the temporal boon which we covet would be fraught
1 1 John v. 14, 15. See also St. Mark xi. 22, 23, 24. * Philip, iv. 6. 3 Philip, iv. 7. 4 See Esther v. 3
J 6 The Tenth Sttnday after Trinity.
with deadly mischief to our higher interests, or even per- haps come into collision with our earthly welfare in a circuitous way. We ask, absolutely and unconditionally, therefore, only for such things as we know cannot fail to please God — only for the fulfilment of such desires as spring from the love of Him, or from rational self-love. All other desires, while we refer them to Him, we leave in His hands, with this proviso annexed to our prayer, " if it be for Thy glory and my good." And that this is the spirit He approves in petitioners — an entire subor- dination of the lower to the higher aspirations — is forcibly taught us by the story of Solomon, to whom, when God made an unconditional offer, " Ask what I shall give thee," the young prince asked for " an understanding heart to judge " the " people " 1 — in plain words, for grace to do his duty in trying circumstances. Wbiv;h petition, because it showed in one so young such spiritual dis- cernment, fetched down at once a shower of blessing. For He " who " is " always more ready to hear than we to pray, and " is " wont to give more than either we desire or deserve," 2 not only bestowed on Solomon a wise and understanding heart,3 such as none had before or after him, but also, in the copiousness of His bounty, added what he had not asked — " riches and honour"4 — attributes in which he had no parallel among kings, even as in respect of wisdom he had no parallel among men.
See 1 Kings iii. 5, 9. 2 Collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity 3 See 1 Kings iii. 12. 4 See 1 Kings iii. 13.
Chapter LI II.
THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY (i).
2> <©ou, toqo Declarest tTjp &U migfttj; power most cf)ieflj in sTjeiu = ing mercp anD pit;;; ^erctfullp grant unto us sue!) a measure of tTjp grace, tbat toe, running tTje toap of tTjp commannments, mag obtain tbj> gracious promises, anD be mane partakers of tbp geatoenlp treasure; tbrougb 3leSus dbrist out JLorD. Amen.
Deus, qui omnipotentiam tuam parcenoo marime ct miseraubo manifestaS: multiplica super nos gratiam tuam, ut an tua promissa currentcs, coeiesttum bonorum fa* cias esse consortes. Per Do< minum.— Gel. Sac.1— Miss. Sar.
This Collect, derived from the Sacramentary of Gelasius, was in the first instance translated quite literally by our Reformers. At the last Revision Bishop Cosin added a few words to the petition, so as to introduce a reference to God's commandments, which had not found place there previously. The effect of this very judicious addition was to make the prayer fuller and richer in meaning than perhaps any other of our Collects, characterized as all of them are by comprehensiveness of idea.
" 0 God, who declarest thy almighty power most chiefly in shewing mercy and pity." In the original
1 In Gelasius [Slur. i. 690], the Collect ends with "Per." In Gregory [Mur. ii. 169], "Per, etc."
7»S The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (i).
Latin it is " in sparing and compassionating," the relation between the two words being very clear, since God's compassion for a sinner is the attribute which prompts Him to spare. " Shewing mercy and pity " fastens the mind on God's action towards the sinner rather than on His sentiment. Yet even here there is a distinction ; the two words " mercy " and " pity " do not represent exactly the same idea. God's mercy moves Him to pardon sinners ; His pity moves Him to help them ; and thus an interesting connexion is established with the petition, in which both mercy and grace (or spiritual help) are sued for ; " Mercif ully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace."
But how are we to understand this at first sight per- plexing assertion, that God's almighty power is most chiefly declared in showing mercy and pity ? We are reminded by it of a fact in our own criminal jurisprudence, which offers a sort of parallel. When a criminal is doomed to death by the laws of his country, it is the prerogative of the Queen, as first magistrate of the realm, to show him mercy and remit the capital sentence ; and this, affecting as it does the life of a subject, may be said to be the highest exercise of the prerogative of the Crown. This, however, is but an illustration, and offers no explanation of the difficulty, but only a dim analogy. Let us go deeper. We shall find the explanation in this very awful and yet edifying thought, which lies at the foundation of Gospel-truth, that sin presents a real difficulty to God — the greatest of all difficulties — and that, therefore, the overcoming of this difficulty is the chiefest and most signal display of the Divine power, because the greater the difficulty, the greater demand does it make on God's power to overcome it. I can quite understand that the
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity ( i ). 79
most beautiful, sublime, and tremendous effects in Nature tax God's power very little indeed or not at all, because His power is infinite. The hurricane, the tornado, which tears up firmly-rooted oaks, and sweeps them along on the wings of the blast as if they were straws or rushes ; the earthquake, which with a single shock shakes a whole city into a pile of ruins ; the sea, in the very height of its fury, when the bulkiest man-of-war dances upon it like a cork, — " is carried up to the heaven and down again to the deep," the souls of the crew melting away because of the trouble,1 — these are lofty and terrifying displays of God's power ; and yet we must not think of them as if they involved any extraordinary exertion or effort on His part. Effort ! — they are done with a word, with a nod, with a breath. "At his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof."2 " By the word of the Lord were the heavens made " (the magnificent array of the midnight firmament, solar systems innumerable, scattered with lavish hand over all the realms of space — God had only to speak the word, and they were brought into existence) ; " and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth."3 No mere physical effect, however mag- nificent and tremendous, can offer any difficulty to Divine power. Sin, however, or rather the overcoming of sin, by mercy and grace, does offer such a difficulty. Sin is the transgression of God's moral law. We know what God's natural laws are, and we know that He never allows us to break them with impunity. We cannot break God's sanitary laws without suffering for it; we cannot live in foul air and drink contaminated water, and inhale , infected air, and yet retain our health. And if any one attempting to exist under such conditions did retain the
1 Ps. cvii. 26, P.B.V. 8 Ps. cvii. 25. 3 Ps. xxxiii. 6.
So The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (i).
full bloom and vigour of health, we should rightly call the phenomenon a miracle. Now, God's moral laws, seeing that they are laid on rational and accountable creatures, creatures who have a free will and are capable of obeying or disobeying them, must be much more serious and awful things than His natural laws, which are mere arrange- ments made in regard to matter, or in regard to irrational animals, which the creature has no power of resisting. And therefore the consequences of breaking them must be proportionably grave, and the providing of a remedy for breaking them must be proportionably difficult.
But alas! how different is this view of sin and its remedy from that which we naturally take, which (it may be) some of my readers are taking at present. Nothing is easier, it seems to us, nothing more simple, and natural, and obvious, and in the ordinary course of things, than that God, as our loving Father, should forgive sins. When a child has done wrong, and manifests sincere sorrow, what can be easier or more natural than that his father should forgive him, and forgive him freely too, waiving the punishment because sorrow has been expressed for the offence ? How is there any trace of power to be found in such a transaction ? It is simply an outflowing of parental tenderness, which, without effort, and merely because his heart prompts it, the parent exhibits.
The difficulty, therefore, of God's showing mercy and pity to a sinner, seeing it does not naturally approve itself to the thoughts of man, is one which requires to be demonstrated. And it is best demonstrated by facts .which all Christians universally admit, and by irresistible inference from those facts. Let me ask, then, whether it is not through the shedding of the blood of Christ that our sins are forgiven I1 Let me ask whether Christ is not the Son of
1 See Eph. i. 7.
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, (i) Si
God most High, who lay in the bosom of the Father from all eternity,1 whether He is not the Creator of the worlds, 2 " who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,"3 and suffered a cruel and shameful death upon the cross for the expiation of our sins? And let me ask, also, whether any sin can he rooted out of our nature otherwise than by the agency of God's Spirit ? and whether that Spirit also is not a Person in the Godhead, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, who condescends to act with sanctifying efficacy upon the heart of man ? Every professing Christian admits these facts. Advance we then to the irresistible inference from them. Can we suppose that God would employ a tremendous machinery to produce an effect, which might be achieved by a com- paratively trifling effort? Would a wise man act so ? If a very large steam - engine is constructed of several thousand horse -power, who could believe that it is designed merely to pluck up a weed or tear off the branch of a tree ? Who does not immediately conclude that, in the work which that engine has to do, there is some tremendous force to be overcome, which could only be overcome by the power of several thousand horses? If it is an instinct of my reason to argue thus, can I possibly suppose that the blood of the Son of God would have been shed, if it had not needed to be shed ? or that the Spirit of God would have been sent down from heaven to effect a moral change in man's heart, which might have been effected by other and lower influences? I hear Jesus in the garden cry, " Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me."4 Can I suppose that, if it had been possible, consistently with the end of man's salva-
1 See St. John L 18. 2 See Col. i. 16. 3 Nicene Creed.
* St. Matt. xxvi. 30.
vol. ii. a
82 The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, (i)
tion, which He came into the world to work out, the cup would not have been withdrawn from His lips ? I need not go into any rationale of Christ's sufferings, which pro- bably would be entirely beyond me. I need not draw out any theory of the Atonement. It is quite enough for me to know that I cannot be saved from the guilt of sin otherwise than by Christ's blood, nor from its power otherwise than by His Spirit. If so, it was necessary in the nature of things (how necessary, or why necessary, I may not be able to see) that Christ's blood should have been shed, and His Spirit poured out, in order that a blow might be struck at sin in its guilt and power. And therefore, since Christ and the Spirit are Divine, the striking of this blow demanded all the force of an Almighty arm. And thus the " shewing mercy and pity " to sinners is the chiefest (or most eminent) declaration of God's " almighty power."
The remainder of the Collect shall be postponed to another Chapter, more particularly as it is well to let a particularly solemn thought stand alone, with nothing besides itself to claim attention. And oh, how solemn a thought is this, of the difficulty which has to be over- come in the putting away of sin! And how forcibly does it impress upon us the truth of that saying of the wise man, that "Fools make a mock at sin I"1
1 Pro v. xiv. 9.
Chapter LIV.
THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. (2)
2D ©od, toljo oeclarest top almigbtp potoer most cbieflp in Vetoing mercp ant) pitp 3 SJ9ercifull;> grant unto us sucb a measure of trjp grace, tbattoe, running the toa;> of trjp commanliments, map obtain tbp gracious promises, anD be mane partakers of trjp beaoenlp trea= sure 3 through 3IesuS Christ our JLorD. Amen.
The doctrine upon which the petition of this Collect is based was considered in the last Chapter. We now pro- ceed to take up and examine the petition itself, after doing which we shall have to consider the connexion of thought which subsists between the doctrine and the petition.
I. " Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that." This is one of the cases, of which so many occur in our Authorised Version of the Scriptures, in which the translators have rendered by a different English phrase words which in the original are the same. The petition of the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity is ; " Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy." The Latin words here are the same, — " Multiplica super nos;" and, if the translators had rendered them here in the same manner as they have done there, we should have had, " Increase and multiply upon us thy grace."1 This
1 The translation of 1549, which was not altered until the last Revision in 1661, was, " Give unto us abundantly thy grace."
S4 The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. (2)
thought of the increase and multiplication of grace har- monizes very well with the teaching of the Epistle, in which St. Paul speaks of his persecutions of the Church before he became an Apostle, and alludes to the exceed- ingly abundant grace, and the wonderful long-suffering, which were shown in his conversion. And it harmo- nizes equally well with the teaching of the Gospel, where the publican, though devoid of all legal righteous- ness, receives a large shower of mercy in answer to the simple prayer, " God be merciful to me a sinner."1 But the translation, " Grant unto us such ( = so large) a measure of thy grace, that, etc." has its merits and its special signifi- cance. It may remind us that to "the man Christ Jesus,"2 and to Him alone, God giveth the Spirit without measure,3 and that of His fulness must all we receive, and grace for grace,4 just as the high-priest among the" Jews was anointed copiously, so that the precious ointment streamed down upon the beard and went down to the skirts of his raiment,5 whereas the inferior priests were only sprinkled with the oil.6 And the phrase may also teach us that we need not grace only, but grace in a measure suited to our needs,7 a larger grace, therefore, if our diffi- culties are great and our temptations strong ; and that this larger measure of grace is only to be obtained by a larger measure of faith, faith being nothing else than the receptivity of the heart — its capacity for receiving God's blessings ; so that the man whose faith is larger, receives a larger blessing from God, simply because there is more room in his heart, and therefore a stronger craving. " Grant unto us such a measure of thy gTace."
1 St. Luke xviii. 13. 2 1 Tim. ii. 5. 3 See St. John iii. 34. 4 See St. John i. 16. 5 See Ps. cxxxiii. 2, and Lev. viiL 12. 6 See Lev. viii. 30. 7 See James iv. 6.
The Eleventh Stuiday after Trinity. (2) 85
" That we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises." We have already seen that this distinct reference to God's commandments was the insertion of Bishop Cosin. Originally the petition was briefer ; " Give unto us abundantly thy grace, that we, running to thy promises, may be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure." " That we, running to thy promises." The imagery is borrowed from the well-known passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; " Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith."1 Our blessed Lord is the arbiter, who stands at the end of the course, holding out the garland wherewith the con- queror is to be crowned ; and upon Him, therefore, every eye is to be fixed. And this garland is nothing else than the glorious promises made to him that overcometh; " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life"2 . . . . " of the hidden manna;"3 "he that over- cometh shall not be hurt of the second death ;"4 " he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations ;"5 " he that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment ; " 6 " him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God ;"7 " to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne ;"8 " blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."9 These are the gracious and glorious promises upon which the mind's eye of the spiritual runner must
1 Hcb. xii. 1, 2. - Rev. ii. 7. 3 Rev. ii. 17 4 Rev. ii. 11. 8 Rev. ii. 26. 6 Rev. iii. 5. 7 Rev. iii. 12. 8 Rev. iii. 21. 3 James i. 12.
86 The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. (2)
be fixed, if he is to run with patience and alacrity so as to receive the prize. But Cosin did a good work for the old Latin Prayer in importing into it an explicit reference (which indeed was latent there previously) to God's com- mandments. These commandments are the race-course, at the end of which stands the winning-post, and by it the arbiter with the garland in his hand. "What chance would a runner have of winning a race, if he is not upon the course, if he is outside the barrier which parts the competitors from the spectators ? In that case, is he not outside the competition ? — And there is another advantage in the introduction of the phrase " way of thy command- ments," which must not be overlooked. It serves to recall that passage of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm, which is so full of teaching ; " I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart." 1 The heart must first be expanded with a sense of freedom and joy — freedom from the law as a covenant of works, joy in the atonement of Christ and in the consciousness of our acceptance through Him — before we can even walk in the way of God's commandments, much more before we can run with alacrity and zeal therein. And we implicitly ask for this enabling sense of freedom and joy, which strikes off the shackles of the will, and makes God's service a delight, when we say, " Grant us such a measure of thy grace," or " Increase and multiply upon us thy grace."
" And be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure." " Partakers " hardly gives the full force of the original word, which is rather " joint-partakers," " fellow-par- takers." The idea is that which is given by Pom viii. 1 7, " We are the children of God : and if children, then
1 Pa. cxix. 32.
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. (2) 87
heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Joint- heirs with Christ, and therefore also joint-heirs with one another ; for He took into union with His Godhead not any individual person, but the common nature of all. In common, then, with " the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven,"1 and with the " spirits of just men made perfect," as well as " with an innumerable company of angels/' shall we share in God's " heavenly treasure." " Heavenly good things " it is in the original, even " such good things," according to the phrase- ology of the Collect for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity, "as pass man's understanding." But " heavenly treasure " is certainly an improvement upon the original phrase. The idea of treasure is less vague and more definite than that of " good things;" it suggests a heap of gold and silver, jewels, fine raiment, and other valuables, such as Achan secreted in his tent,2 and such as the man in the parable found accidentally in a field, and hid it away again, " and for joy thereof went and sold all that he had, and bought that field." 3 And it refers us, too, to that precept of our Lord's, " Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal,"* thus reminding us that, though on the one hand the inheritance of the treasure is all of grace, not of debt, yet on the other hand there is a sense in which we ourselves must "lay it up," and make sacrifices for the attainment of it. The heavenly treasure, however, is not anything external to us ; it is that increased and increasing appreciation of God's per- fections—of His wisdom, power, and love — which fills the heart with joy and peace, and in which communion with Him consists.
1 See Heb. xii. 22, 23. 2 See Josh. vii. 21. 3 See St. Matt, xiii. 4<L 4 St. Matt. vi. 20
8S The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. (2)
II. And now, having gone through the petition of the Collect, let us observe the sequence of thought, by which it grows out of the doctrine laid down as a basis for it — this being, as we have seen, that " God declares His almighty power most chiefly in shewing mercy and pity." This connexion is to be found in the thought that the conversion and salvation of a sinner, the making him partaker of God's " heavenly treasure," while it is a work of mercy, is, at the same time, God's highest act of power. The forces required to effect His justifica- tion are nothing less than the blood-shedding and obedience unto death of the Son of God ; those required to effect his sanctification are nothing less than the opera- tion of God's Spirit. This mingled miracle of mercy and power is most strikingly seen in the palmary instance, which the Epistle brings before us, of St. Paul. God declared His almighty power most emphatically in reclaiming, subduing, pardoning, and turning into an instrument for the spread of the Gospel, the blaspheming, persecuting, and injurious Saul. But in every instance of conversion and salvation there is, in a lesser degree, the same exhibition of Divine power side by side with Divine mercy ; and the more aggravated the sin of the sinner, and the lower the depths to which he has sunk, the stronger is the emphasis given both to the mercy and power of God in his salvation. The more humili- ating had been the perverseness, the ingratitude, and the provocations of Israel previously recited by the Psalmist, so much the more forcible becomes the " nevertheless " in that conclusion of their deliverance ; " Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known." 1
1 Ps. cvi. 1, 8.
Chapter LV.
THE TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
JUmtgfjtp arm efterlasting ©oft, tobo art altoaps more teaBp to rjear than toe to pray, anli art toont to gifte more than either toe Desire or Deserbe ; Pour Boton upon us the abunnance of tfjp mercp, forgifting us those things tohereof our con* Science is afraio, anD gifting us those gooD things tohtch toe are not toortfjp to asfc, but through tTje merits anD meDiatton of 3!esus Christ, thy %on, our ILorft. Amen.
SDmnipotens sempitcrne Deus, qui abunoantia pietatis tuae et merita supplicum ercetits et ftota, etfunne super nos misertcorniam tuam, ut ftimittas quae conscientia metuit, et aoucias quoo oratio non praesumit. Per IDominum.— Gel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect passed through several hands before it reached its present form. The first draught of it is found in the earliest of the Sacramentaries, that of Leo.2 Gelasius, without materially altering the sentiment, recast the lan- guage, and expanded it a little at the end. Cranmer
1 In Gel. Sac. [Mur. i. 690] it ends with " Per." In Greg. Sac. [ii. 170] with "Per, etc."
2 This draught is as follows [Mur. i. 413] : —
Virtutum coelestium Deus, qui plura praestas quam petimus aut meremur ; tribue, quaesumus, ut tua nobis misericordia conferatur, quod nostrorum non habet fiducia meri- torum. Per, etc.
0 God of the heavenly powers, who bestowest more than we desire or deserve, grant, we beseech thee, that by thy mercy that may be con- ferred upon us, which we have not the confidence in our deserts to ask. Through, etc.
90 The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.
inserted in the earlier part a clause which was not there before. Cosin finally threw the conclusion into a slightly different form, which, while it improved the rhythm, gave rather more prominence to the idea that it is only through our Lord's mediation that we can dare to hope for the outflow of God's goodness towards us.
As Gelasius left the Collect, it opened thus : — " Al- mighty God, who in the abundance of thy fatherly com- passion dost surpass both the desires and deserts of those who pray to thee."1 Cranmer dropped the expression " in the abundance of thy fatherly compassion," and substituted for it this definite statement of the way in which God's fatherly compassion manifests itself, " who art always more ready to hear than we to pray." The two expressions together, neither of which can we well afford to lose, irre- sistibly call to mind the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The compassion of the father yearned over the prodigal son, while he was yet in the far country wasting his substance in riotous living. That son had not yet implored his father to restore him to the household ; he had only formed the resolution of doing so. He had not yet re- turned ; a long space still separated him from his father's house. " But when he was yet a great way of, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."2 The father's readiness to hear the petition he had to make exceeded his readiness to make it. The father saw, from the circumstance of his son's having
1 A writer in the " Literary Churchman " for October 15, 1880, sug- gests that there may be in these words a reference to " the reluctance of the deaf and dumb man in the Gospel to come to Christ, who was there- fore brought by his friends, though his physical ailment did not make him 3tand in need of such constraint." This is very possible ; and the refer- ence calls attention to a feature in the miracle which is not, I think, often commented upon. i St. Luke xv. 20.
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advanced thus far, what his intention was, and he welcomed the intention with an overflow of parental tenderness, dealing with him on the same principle as that on which the Heavenly Father announces His intention of dealing with those who are His children by adoption and grace ; " And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer ; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." 1 In which most gracious words God pledges Himself to promptitude in hearing His suppliants. And because things are best exhibited by contrast, and, if you wish to see the brilliancy of a colour, you cannot do so better than by setting it on a dark ground, our Blessed Lord in two Df His parables, that of the Unjust Judge2 and that of the Friend at Midnight,3 emphasizes this readiness of our Heavenly Father to hear prayer, the argument of those parables being that, if importunity wrings, even from a thoroughly unwilling and grudging heart, the boon it sues for, how much more will it be successful with Him, whose fatherly compassion induces Him to meet us halfway when He sees us struggling back towards Him, — to answer us before we call and to hear us while we are speaking. And if actual human experience is needed to confirm this truth of God's readiness to hear prayer, we have, among many other Scriptural instances, the case of Daniel. " At the beginning of thy supplications," says the angel to him, after he had presented his supplication before the Lord for Jerusalem, " the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee; for thou art greatly beloved."4 And the circumstance is emphasized that, as soon as ever God saw Daniel's purpose of seeking insight into the future by prayer and humiliation, his petition was acceded to, though
1 Isaiah lxv. 24. 2 See St. Luke xviii 1-9.
8 See St. Luke xl 5-9. 4 Dan. ix. 23.
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not yet actually preferred, " Fear not, Daniel ; for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to under- stand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words." And if, with the ingenuity of a self-condemning, and, therefore, a mistrustful heart, it should be alleged that to those who are " greatly beloved " God does indeed show Him- self more ready to hear than they to pray ; but that with those whose lives have been spent in alienation from Him, and with whom prayer is not their habitual practice, but merely a cry wrung out from them by the cravings of a heart which the world has failed to satisfy, He deals by another and sterner rule, — we then fall back upon the parable of the Prodigal, and ask whether God's promptitude in responding to a cry of forgiveness from one who has been long living at a distance from Him could possibly be represented in stronger or more vivid colours. Had the prodigal son been a Daniel, his cry could not have been responded to with greater alacrity.
" And art wont " (accustomed) " to give more than either we desire or deserve." It should be observed that the word " desire " here means, as the Latin both of the Leonine and the Gelasian Collects evidently shows, not " to wish for," but " to ask for." God is accustomed to give to His petitioners more than either they request Him to give, or deserve that He should give. The well-known history of Solomon furnishes, perhaps, the best example of this. In diffidence of his own powers to fill the throne of David, he asked for " an understanding heart to judge " God's " people,"1 that is, for grace " to do " his " duty in that state of life unto which it " had pleased " God to call " him. God granted him a measure of wisdom, larger
1 See 1 Kings iii. 9.
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than that which his predecessors had, or his successors should exhibit, and, not content with this recognition of his prayer, added, " I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour : so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days."1 And, turning to the New Testament, we find the prodigal petitioning only for a place among the hired servants, but receiving a welcome even more than filial, an affectionate embrace, investiture with the best robe, with the ring, with the shoes, while his return is made the occasion of a domestic festivity, celebrated by a ban- quet and by music and song.2 And all this for one who had nothing but profligacy and indesert to show in his past life ; and the sole good point in whose conduct was that, under the pressure of sore distress, he threw himself humbly upon his father's compassion and generosity. The lesson is that no one ever thus threw himself upon our Heavenly Father without experiencing the truth of those gracious promises ; " Let him return to our God, for He will abundantly pardon ;"3 " Let Israel hope in the Lord : for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption."4
And let the word " wont " be weighed, and its full force given to it. This abundant response to prayer, this pouring out of a blessing upon the petitioner, so that he has not room to receive it,5 is not an exceptional favour granted to peculiarly qualified persons, — it is God's wont, his normal method of acting with all petitioners. We are indebted for that word to our Reformers ; for while the corresponding phrases in the old Latin Collects may imply what the word conveys, they do not express it.
1 1 Kings iii. 13. 2 See St Luke xv. 19, 20, 22, 23, 25.
8 Isaiah lv. 7. 4 Psalm cxxx. 7. 8 See Mai. iii. 10.
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" Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy " (as a copious shower saturating the soil of the heart). The passages of Scripture which illustrate the copiousness of God's mercy have been already referred to, so that we may pass on.
" Forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid." What makes us hesitate in our approaches to God, what constitutes our unreadiness, is our sense of guilt. St. John, in a remarkable passage of his first Epistle, speaks of " assuring our hearts before God."1 This is just what an apprehensive conscience, a conscience bur- dened with reminiscences which it fears to face, cannot do. And he intimates that we must go to God with a trusting and assured conscience, not with a hesitating and appre- hensive one, if we desire to draw forth from His bounty those blessings which he is ever more ready to give than we are to seek them " Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatso- ever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his com- mandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight."2 But " if our heart condemn us," if conscience bear an unfavourable testimony, when we are approaching the throne of grace — what then ? The Apostle says (for so his words should be rendered), " this is because God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things,"3 i.e., the verdict of our conscience derives all its force from God's omniscience ; in which words he represents to us the seri- ousness of the verdicts of conscience, not the remedy for them in case they are against us. What is the remedy ? First, of course the blood of Christ. " How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge 1 1 John iii. 19. 2 1 John iii. 21, 22. 3 1 John iii. 20.
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your conscience from dead works to serve the living God ? 'n And, " Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith " (observe that both St. John and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews make this full assurance of the heart essential to the success of the application), " having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience " (bloodsprinkled with the blood of Christ), "and our bodies washed with pure water"2 (here is the Baptismal relationship adduced as a ground of confidence in prayer). And anything more ? Yes ; if the assurance is to be complete and unwavering, there must not only be the Spirit's testimony of the cleansing blood of Christ, and the Church's (or bride's) testimony of the baptismal rela- tionship, but the testimony of our own conscience that we are akin to Him who is Love, because we do deeds of love in the spirit of love. " My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue ; but in deed, and in truth. And. hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him."3 With this assurance, arising from three sources, which we may call summarily " the Spirit, and the water, and the blood " 4 — the Spirit in the conscience, the water of Baptism, the blood of the Cross — we shall touch easily the spring of God's bounty, and draw forth from Him " those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ," — nay, our minds being thus in perfect accordance with His, we shall draw forth whatever we will ; — " Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight."5
1 Heb. ix. 1 i. 2 Heb. x. 22. '■' 1 John iii. 18, 19.
* See 1 John v. 8. 6 1 John iii. 22.
Chapter LVI.
THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
aimigTjtp ann merciful ©on, of tobose onlp gift it comet!) tbat tbp faithful people tio unto tbee true anu launable serbice 5 ©rant, toe beseecb tbee, tbat toe mag so faithfully serbe tbee in rbts life, tbat toe fail not finally to attain tbj beabenlj promises ; tbrougb t'fje merits of Jesus Chrisr our 31 orb. Amen.
2Dmntpotens et miscricors IDeus, De cujus munere benit ut tibi a filielibus tuisnigne et lauuabtlitei serniatur ; tribue nobis, quae* SumuS, ut ao promissiones tuas Sine offensione curramus. Per jDomtnum. — Leo Sac.1— Miss. Sar.
This Collect is derived from the Sacramentary of Leo. It underwent no material alteration at the hand of the original translators ; but in 1661 Bishop Cosin gave one of his happy touches to the petition of it, which made it cohere much better with the earlier and doctrinal part, and altered the usual ending, " through Jesus Christ our Lord," by inserting " the merits of," doubtless in order
1 Leo Sac. [JIur. i. 371] omits the words "nobis, quaesumus," and ends with " Per etc." Gel. Sac. [i. 691] has "quaesumus, nobis," instead of "nobis, quaesumus," and "a promissionibus tuis" instead of "ad promis- siones tuas." (The former is probably a mistake, unless indeed we suppose the promises of grace, which are the starting point of the Christian's obedience, to be meant. But it is clear that the translators understood the promises to be those of glory.) Greg. Sac. [Mux. ii. col. 170] has "quaesumus, nobis," restores "ad promissiones tuas," and ends with "Per Dominum, etc."
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to remind us that the recompence of God's faithful serv- ants is of grace, due to Christ's merits, not their own.
It will greatly help to the understanding of this prayer if, before considering particular words and phrases, we gain a clear notion of the general subject of it. This subject then is the service of God, — "of whose only gift
it cometh that thy people do unto thee service,
Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee." What then is God's service ? Our duty to Him ? Nay, not our whole duty, but only one third part of it. The explanation of the Lord's Prayer given in the Catechism is very helpful to us on this point. We are there taught that, in the three first petitions of the Prayer, we " desire our Heavenly Father to send His grace unto all people that they may worship Him, serve Him, and obey Him, as they ought to do." First ; " that they may worship Him." This is the petition, " Hallowed be thy name," in which are comprised all the devotional exercises of the Christian life. Thirdly ; " that they may obey Him," — allow Him to carry the day in all things, wherein, through the sinfulness of our nature, there is a conflict between our will and His. This is, " Thy will be done," and in it is comprised the whole antagonism of the Christian to temptation. — But what is the second branch of our duty towards God, that branch of duty which the mere contemplative, the man who in- sists, as many members of monastic orders have insisted, that the whole of life shall be given up to exercises of devotion, ignores, or at least throws into the background ? " That we should serve Him as we ought to do." The words must be regarded as throwing into another shape the petition, " Thy kingdom come." The seat of God's kingdom is in heaven, where there is nothing but purity
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and zeal, and love, and harmony, and a blessedness and joy filling all hearts till they overflow. But like the sky which canopies us all, like the sun from the heat of whose quickening, cheering rays nothing is hid, this kingdom reaches to and enfolds the earth. On the earth we see at present sad evidences of a will contrary to God's, a will which sets itself in opposition to His supremacy, and to the happiness of His creatures. There is great room, therefore, on earth to pray, " Thy kingdom come." And not only so to pray, hut to contribute actively to that end. For there is no man, however low down in the social scale, who may not do something to make one little corner of human society the greener and brighter for his existence, who may not use his influence among his fellow- creatures in opposing that which is wrong, advancing that which is right, and relieving a little that sorrow and suffering, which are the dark shadows thrown by sin upon a fallen world. The Samaritan, in the Gospel associated with this Collect, was truly serving God when he had compassion on the poor wounded traveller, " and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him."1 It is bringing God's kingdom very near indeed to men, when, from a pure overflow of kindliness and love, one man soothes the sorrows of another, and sets him on his feet again by sympathy or succour, or both. Still the Samaritan's work of love was a by-work ; it was not, as far as appears, the main business of his life. Perhaps he was journeying on some mercantile business to Jericho ; anyhow he came across the wounded man incidentally, as he was pursuing his own avocations. The system of human society, with all its distinctions of class, and with
1 St. Luke x. 33, Zi.
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all the pursuits, businesses, professions, and trades which are bound up in it, is God's institution, and it is His in- tention that it should continue to the end, when in an- other and a higher state a better system will supersede it. Whatever business then may have fallen to us, we can do God service in it, by pursuing it in a devout and religious spirit, by regarding it as a task allotted to us by Him, and in the conscientious discharge of which it is open to us to please Him. And by way of impressing this upon us in the most forcible way, the duties of slaves are singled out by Holy Scripture as those in which a truly accept- able service maybe rendered to Almighty God. If slaves by obeying their masters in all things, " not with eyeservice as men-pleasers ; but in singleness of heart, fearing God," and by doing things "heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men," are really serving the Lord Christ, and " shall receive " from Him " the reward of the inheritance,"1 in what other bine of life shall we suppose the serving Him, and the receiving of a reward for service, to be im- practicable ?
Briefly then the service of God consists in (1.) the employment of our talents for the good of our fellow-men, and thus for the furtherance of His cause and kingdom ; and (2.) in the doing our work in life, whatever it be, with conscientiousness and an aim to please Him.
" Almighty and merciful God." The title " merciful" as well as " almighty " stands with great propriety in the forefront of a Collect, at the end of which the recompence awarded by God to faithful service is brought out in strong relief. " Grant that we may so faithfully serve . . . that we fail not finally to attain." But the attain- ment (if we make it), is all of grace, and not of debt ; and
1 Col. iii. 22, 23, 24.
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even those saints, for whom it is prepared that they shall sit on the right hand of Christ and on His left in His kingdom,1 were, in the first instance, forgiven sinners, and needed, through the whole of their pilgrimage, a constant fresh outflow of God's mercy to cleanse them from sins of infirmity.
" Of whose only gift it cometh " (the Eeformers added the " only," showing how jealous and how rightfully jealous they were of the doctrine that every good thing in man is wrought in him by the Holy Ghost), — " of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service." In the Latin it is " worthy and laudable service." Let us pause a moment on the word " laudable." It means praiseworthy. The whole Collect is full of moral stimulus. The mere thought that it is open to us to do God service, that by a right intention and honest effort we may do something for His cause, this of itself is stimulating. Again, the thought that what we so do He, though so great and magnificent a Being, will account worthy of Him, if done in the faith of Christ and from the love of His name, this is an additional stimulus. And what shall we say to the doctrine, than which none can have a stronger Scriptural warrant, that by a certain line of sentiment and conduct we may gain God's praise ? " Then," says St. Paul, — at the time of the Lord's Second Advent, — " shall every man have praise of God." 2 And in the Parable of the Talents, the lord of the servants, when he comes to reckon with them, passes a sentence of com- mendation upon those who had brought him the additional moneys which they had gained by trading; " Well done, good and faithful servant." 3 It is generally felt that the
1 See St Matt. xx. 21, 23. 2 1 Cor. iv. 5.
3 See St. Matt. xxv. 21, 23.
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praise of those who are deservedly and universally esteemed is a great stimulus. And if of them, how much more shall the praise of God be felt as a stimulus by those faithful servants who entertain towards Him a boundless and adoring veneration ! — And now, when we ask sum- marily what is " true, and worthy, and laudable service," the only answer which can be given is that God will, in His infinite mercy, esteem all service as such, which is " faithful." If a man has made the most of his opportu- nities of serving God ; if he has been faithful to God's cause, even when it has been unpopular ; if he has fol- lowed God with a whole heart, and without any wavering between Him and the world (for " no man can serve two masters"1), if he has chosen for God resolutely, and been true to Him in the main, though amidst much weakness and shortcoming, such service laid upon the altar of atone- ment, and perfumed with the incense of Christ's interces- sion, will be esteemed by God's fatherly indulgence "worthy and laudable."
" That we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises." The balanced clauses, " in this life," and " heavenly," are both of them due to the translators. " This life " is the period of " service," as the " heavenly " kingdom is of recompence ; " service " is the general characteristic of one, as recompence is of the other ; though it is also true that the Christian has a foretaste even now of " heavenly " joys, and that in all probability (judging from what we know of the condition and occupations of angels), there will be a ministry and a " service " for him in another world. But the general contrast between the life of service here below, and the life of enjoyment above, is
1 See St. Matt. vi. 24 ; St. Luke xvi. 13.
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warranted by our Lord's own teaching in St. Luke xvii. 7, 8. The servant, bidden to gird himself, and wait upon his master, in the first instance, before he can be allowed to " eat and drink " himself, is evidently a parable of the earthly and heavenly states, the one toil- some and laborious, the other restful and refreshing. The " heavenly promises " are the recompence bestowed for " faithful service in this life," and correspond to the cities in the Parable of the Pounds, over which the faithful servants were set as their dominion,1 and to "the joy of the lord" in the Parable of the Talents,2 into which they were bidden to enter. The cities denote, doubtless, an outward position of dignity and honour, in which God's faithful servants shall hereafter be set, in proportion to the fidelity and zeal which they have displayed. The joy of the Lord, on the other hand, is the spiritual recompence of a mind which beats in unison with God's, and thus has a perennial fountain of joy within itself. " Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame."3 He has now entered into this joy, and will bid His servants hereafter, when their warfare also is accomplished, enter into it with Him. And now comes the final stimulating thought, which this Collect brings before us, that there will be a propor- tion between the service and the recompence. " That we may so faithfully . . . that we fail not." The servant whose pound had gained ten pounds was set over ten cities, he whose pound had gained five pounds over five only. Apostles, who " have borne the burden and heat of the day," 4 will be set on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.5 But for lesser and lower services, lesser
1 See St. Luke xix. 17, 19. 2 See St. Matt. xxv. 21, 23.
3 Heb. xiL 2. 4 See St Matt xx. 12. 8 See St. Matt. xix. 28.
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and lower recompences will be given. And yet, even in the case of the Apostles, the talent or the pound, which they put out to interest in the Master's service, " came of His only gift ; " they did but trade with money lent them. And so he among them, who was more abundant in labours than the rest, freely confesses ; " By the grace of God I am what I am : and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain ; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." 1
1 1 Cor. xv. 10.
Chapter LVII.
THE FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
aimigbtp anD ebetlaattno; ©on, gibe unto usi tTje increase of fait?), bope, ann cTjarttp ; ann, tbat toe map obtain tbat toTjicfj tbou Host promise, make ujs to lobe tbat tobicb tbouOostcommanii; tbrougfj 3Iesus CTjrigt out JLotD. Amen.
SDmnipotens gempiteme Deus, Da nobis fioei, spei, et caritatis augmentum : et ut mereamut agge* qui quoD ptomittijS, fac nog amate quoD ptaecipig. Pet Dominum. Leo Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect is derived ultimately from the Sacramentary of Leo, whose pontificate lasted from a.d. 440 to 461. Like all Collects of the earliest type, it is characterized at once by great brevity and great comprehensiveness.
Its connexion with the associated Epistle and Gospel is clearer, and more easily traced, than in many other in- stances. First, as regards the Epistle. The prayer of the Collect is for an increase of faith, and also of hope and love, which are the fruits of faith. The Epistle enume- rates these fruits, calling them the " fruit of the Spirit " (as being the results of His secret working in the hearts of the faithful), and names " love " (or charity) as the first of them.2 Hope is not named at all, the reason of which probably is that faith and hope are so very much of the same kindred, and so indissolubly bound up with one
1 Leo Sac. [Mur. L 374,] ends " Per, etc. ; " Gel. Sac. [i. 691], " Per ; " Greg. Sac. "Per Dominum, etc." s See Gal. v. 22.
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another, that it may be assumed that, where one is, the other exists also. " Faith is the evidence " (the conviction) of things not seen." 1 Hope adds to this conviction of faith the expectation and longing of the heart. — It should be remarked also that the property — the invariable pro- perty— of fruit is to grow. It grows by the secret silent working of that life in the tree, which gave birth to it. Faith and charity in true Christians are said to grow. " We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth." 2 And similarly hope. " Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."3 And the prayer of this Collect is for the growth of these graces, " Give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity," a petition which should lead us into the recesses of our own hearts before we presume to offer it, for it is evident that, unless a thing exists, it cannot grow, and that to ask God to increase our faith, hope, and charity, where we have not these graces even in embryo, must be an awful mockery.
The connexion of the Collect with the Gospel, which is the narrative of the cleansing of the ten lepers, is not so apparent, yet comes to light on a very little reflexion and study of the context. Just before the incident of the cleansing of the lepers, the Apostles had made to the Lord that remarkable request, which the Collect puts into our Hps also, — " the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith." 4 The Lord, as His manner was, gives them an oblique answer. He dwells upon the immense virtue, even
1 Heb. xi. 1. 2 2 Thess. i. 3.
8 Rom. xv. 13. * St. Luke xvii. 5
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of the tiniest grain of real faith, almost as much as to say ; " You ask for an increase of faith ; but know that a very- little goes a long way in that matter." 1 Then He speaks a parable about the servant ploughing or feeding cattle, who, though he has toiled all day in the field, yet has to wait upon his master at table when he comes in, before he can take his own meal.2 The purport of the parable, in connexion with what went before, is probably that we must wait upon God patiently for the increase of faith, which He will give in His own due time, and which, when He does give it, will be like the rest and refreshment of a banquet — not work, but enjoyment. Shortly after oc- curred an incident which illustrated our Lord's teaching. The " ten men that were lepers " must have had a good measure of faith, that is, they must have believed in Christ's power and willingness to heal them, or they would not have cried in accents so loud as to attract His notice at a distance, " Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." 3 But their faith needed to grow, and, in order to its growth, it must be submitted to a trial. The trial was a command to do that which they must have known it was useless to do, unless they were first cleansed. A leper, whom it had pleased God to recover from his leprosy, was directed by the Law, in order to his re-admission into society, to present himself before the priest, who, after examining his person, declared him clean by means of certain ritual ceremonies.4 By bidding these lepers go show themselves unto the priests, our Lord held out to them a lively hope of recovery (for where was the use of going to the priests, unless they were cleansed in the first instance ?), while at the same time He did not cure them immediately, but
1 See St. Luke xvii. 6. a lb. 7-10.
3 lb. xvii. 13. 4 See Lev. xiv. 1-33.
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called upon them to wait upon God first in the way of His commandments, to move their feet and undertake a journey, instead of sitting passive to receive the blessing. " And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed."1 It was exemplifying what He had just said to them in parable, that the servant who should gird himself after coming in from his work, and wait upon his master, should be allowed ere long to sit down and enjoy his own meal ; " Afterwards thou shalt eat and drink."2 The in- gratitude of the nine unthankful lepers after their recovery, brings in a separate lesson, with which we have no con- cern here.
But it is very observable how the latter clause of the Collect, " that we may obtain that which thou dost pro- mise, make us to love that which thou dost command," glances at the order given to the lepers to go to the priests, just as its former clause, " Give unto us the increase," etc., glances back to the request which the disciples recently made to our Lord, " Increase our faith." In bidding the lepers show themselves to the priests, our Lord had led them to expect recovery, had virtually promised it to them. But in order to obtain that which He promised, they must first do, and do cheerfully, what He commanded.3
1 See St. Luke xvii. 14. 2 lb. 8.
3 Faith, hope, and love, are^called the theological, as distinct from the moral, virtues. By this is meant that Revealed Religion, — the revelation which the Holy Scriptures make to us of God as our Father, of Christ as our Saviour, of the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifier, of a world unseen around us, and of a world which lies beyond the grave, — (1) recognises them as virtues ; (2) elicits them in their higher actings ; (3) brings them into prominence, as in fact embracing every other virtue. (1) It recognises them as virtues. Heathen moralists before the appearing of Christ (Aristotle for instance) set forth several of the virtues of the natural man ; such as temperance, courage, fortitude, justice ; but even these were imperfectly enumerated by them. Humility, for example, did not appear among them ; could hardly have done so in the absence of any revealed knowledge as to
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They did so, and in the act of doing so the promise was fulfilled to them. It seems to me, then, that the whole Collect is built upon this Gospel, taken in connexion with its foregoing context, and that both its petitions have this common source.
the fall of man and the divinely ordained method of his recovery. But faith, hope, and love were nowhere ; systems of heathen morality found no place for them ; heathen moralists dreamed not of them as virtues at all. (2.) Revelation first elicited these virtues in their higher actings. I say, their higher actings, for in their lower they were well known, and univer- sally operative, before the light of Revelation shone upon the world. Every form in which man has ever made provision for an anticipated future of time (and observe that such provisions lie at the base of all civilisation) has been due to the activity of faith and hope. Every sower who has cast seed into the ground has done so in the belief that Nature would be con- stant in her processes, and also in the hope of a harvest. Every child that has reposed trust in his parents, and accepted without questioning what they have told him, has exercised faith. And every friendship that has ever been formed, — every preference of one to another, whether arising out of the tie of consanguinity or from fancy, — has borne witness to the power of love. But when an unseen world, an unseen Father, an unseen Saviour, an unseen Sanctifier, were revealed, these faculties of the human mind, paralysed and powerless hitherto as regards everything except what man's senses and experience gave him assurance of, were elicited in their highest actings and fullest power ; adequate objects being supplied to them, they started, as it were, into new life, and made themselves recognised in man's consciousness as they had never done before. (3. ) Revelation gives them a ■prominence, as it sums up all other virtues in them. A man will be brave and enduring, if he trusts in God {i.e., if he believes in what the Scriptures reveal about God's fatherhood, and the relations in which He stands to man) ; temperate, if he hopes for the promises made to the pure in heart, etc. ; just, if he goes out in affection towards all men as being his brethren, children of the same Father, and redeemed by the blood of the same Saviour, etc. ■
"The theological virtues," it has been said, "are the right relation of the reason, the imagination, and the will, to the spiritual world as pre- sented in Revelation. Faith is in the convictions of the understanding ; hope pictures the promised future by an exercise of the imagination ; love is a preference seated in the will." — (Blunt's Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, Art. "Virtues, Theological.")
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But quite independently of any Scriptural passage, and viewed merely as a prayer for Christians of all ages, without any reference to incidents or conversations in the Gospels, the two petitions have a close connexion, which deserves to be pointed out. " Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity" (the trinity of Christian graces). Faith, hope, and love (or charity) have a certain correspondence with the three divisions of time — past, present, and future. Faith, in one of its chief actings, looks back to the past. It is faith in God's revelation of Christ ; faith in what Christ has done and suffered for man, all of which lies behind us in the history of the past. But faith also throws it- self forward into the future, and, when it does so, it takes the complexion of the nearly allied grace of hope ; it is " the substance," we are told (that is, the confident assur- ance), " of things hoped for," — of those things which God hath promised, and which we desire to obtain. But are we to live only in the memories of the past, and the anticipations of the future ? Assuredly no. In order that those bright anticipations may be well founded we must walk now in the way of God's commandments, the " nar- row way," as our Lord calls it, " which leadeth," and which alone leadeth, " unto life."1 God indeed hath " chosen us to salvation;" but it is "through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth,"2 — a living operative belief, that He has done so. And this sanctification and belief are evidenced (and can be evidenced) only by love. We shall never obtain that which God doth promise unless we love that which He commands — not keep His commandments only, but love them. It is quite possible to keep them exter- nally by restraint upon the conduct, and yet to break them
1 See St. Matt. vii. H. 2 See 2 Thess. ii. 13.
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in the heart, because, though we fear the precept, we do not love it, and fervently wish it had been other than it is. Balaam did so. He dared not vary in any particular from the prophetic word which God had put into his mouth;1 he knew too well what the immediate consequences of disobedience would be. What he loved, however, and could not tear himself away from, was the wages of un- righteousness;2 his heart went after his covetousness,3 while his mouth was curbed by the bridle of the divine precept. And this was no true obedience at all, because the heart and the will were not in it. How different was this from the state of mind of the Psalmist ; " The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver."4 " Oh how love I thy law ! it is my meditation all the day."5 The truth is that the commandments, which God lays upon us, are nothing else than the expression of His character and will towards us. And we do not love God Himself, except we love His character and will. What is the true love of a human person but love of his char- acter, tone of mind, disposition ? — And we may observe, in conclusion, that the things which God commands — the expressions of His will towards us — are of two kinds. They are either commands in Revelation, which we have actively to execute, or orderings in Providence, which we have to submit to. And the commands have to be exe- cuted, and the orderings submitted to, in love, — a love which is engendered by faith in what is past, and quick- ened by anticipations of the future. Without this love in the present there is no evidence that our faith really grasps the past, and our hope of a bright future is, in that case, a mere groundless delusion.
1 See Num. xxiL 18, 38. 2 See 2 Peter ii. 15. '
» See Ezek. xxxiii. 31. 4 Ps. cxix. 72. 5 lb. 97
Chapter LVIII.
THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, (i)
Keep, toe beseert) rfjee, 2D lLorD, tbp Cljurrf) tottb tb|> perpetual merq> ; ann because t\z fratltp of man toitbout tTjec cannot but fall, keep us eber bj> tbp Ijetp from alt tbtngS burtful, anD lean us to all tbtngs profitable to our salua* tion ; tbrougb 3Usus Cbrtst our JLorD. Amen.
CEustont, Domine, quaesumus CEcclesiam tuam proptttatione pet> petua : et quia sine te labttur fjumana mortalitaS, tuis Semper auriliis et abstrabatur anortts, et an galutarta nirtgatur. Per.— Gel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect is derived ultimately from the Sacramentary of Gelasius, the second in point of date of the three great Sacramentaries, compiled in the last decade of the fifth century after Christ.
Our Reformers in 1549 altered the Epistle for the day. Previously it had been formed by the last two verses of the fifth Chapter to the Galatians, with the earlier half of the sixth Chapter. The Reformers took the latter half of the sixth Chapter as the Epistle, in preference to the earlier. Archbishop Cranmer being a ripe and judi- cious theologian, we must suppose that he, and the Royal Commission over which he presided, had reasons for what they did. But it must be confessed that it is not very easy to discover the reasons. The petition of the Collect is founded upon the consideration of human frailty ; — " because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall." 1 Greg. Sac. has "Per Dominum, ate.''
1 1 2 The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. ( i )
Now, in the earlier Epistle there were two distinct notices of human frailty. This was the first of them ; " Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."1 We pray in the Collect that our heavenly Father would keep His Church with a perpetual outflow of His mercy, not simply for- giving her members at the outset of their career, on the first exercise of faith, or in the Administration of Bap- tism, but making His forgiveness concurrent with their whole pilgrimage, washing away every day in the blood of Christ the moral defilements which that day have been contracted. Well, this beautiful passage of the older Epistle warned the faithful to be merciful to others, as they desired in the Collect that their Heavenly Father should be merciful to them, restoring in a spirit of meekness, and with an ever fresh outflow of tender- ness, such as by human frailty are " overtaken in a fault." The second reference to human frailty in the Pre -Reformation Epistle is contained in the words of verse nine ; " And let us not be weary in well-doing : for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."2 Weariness in well-doing, — the fatigue incidental to that strain upon the higher faculties of the mind, which is involved in all earnest spiritual life, the fatigue involved in mere watchfulness, as well as in the conflict with our spiritual foes, — this is one of the ways in which " the frailty of " our nature shows itself. To these instances of appropriateness in the Pre-Eeformation Epistle may be added the following verse, which found place in it ; " For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself."3 The Collect is the
1 Gal. vi. 1. 3 GaL vi. 9. 3 GaL vi. 3.
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prayer of one who has found out by experience that even at his best — at his highest reach of spiritual attainment — man " is nothing," and who knows that even the greatest saint, be he as eminent for sanctity as the Apostles them- selves, needs to be shielded under the wings of God's " per- petual mercy," and to have pardon ministered to him day by day. But, while these considerations make it hard to see why the old Epistle was discarded, it must be confessed that the new one is anything but inappropriate. The whole strain of the Collect is against glorying in man. Man needs " perpetual mercy ; " without God his frailty cannot but fall ; he walks in the midst of hurtful things, like a man wandering in a wood, where there are wild beasts, and vipers, and miasma arising from fens and un- drained land, which mischiefs can only be put away from him, or warded off, by a power higher than his own. Well, the foolishness of trusting or glorying in man, on account of his sinful infirmity and the dangers to which he is exposed, is recognised by the Apostle very emphati- cally in our present Epistle, when, in answer to those who gloried in legal privileges, and in having the seal of God's covenant impressed upon their persons by circumcision, he exclaims ; " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."1 The marks which he bore in his body,2 and which he felt it was a real glory to bear, were those resulting from the toils and hard- ships he had undergone for his Master ; not that even these marks constituted any legal claim of merit ; but they were evidences of his belonging to Christ, and of his having a part in Christ's salvation. So that both in the Collect, and in the Epistle which the Prayer Book, as it is
1 GaL vi. 14. 2 See Gal. vi. 17.
VOL. II. I
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at present, associates with it, the nothingness and resource- lessness of man in himself is fully recognised; and this forms quite a sufficient thread of connexion between the two.
We now turn to the Gospel, which has been the same from the earliest times, with the exception that the old Gospel dropped the last verse of St. Matthew vi, which Cranmer very judiciously added. And here the connexion is much more strongly marked, and is very edifying. The Collect, as we have seen, expresses our sense of entire dependence upon God, and this as regards not only our spiritual life, but also our circumstances. " Without " Him " the frailty of man cannot but fall," — fall, that is, into sin ; and, again, He only can so overrule our circum- stances as to make them minister to our eternal welfare, " keeping us ever by His help from all hurtful things, and leading us to all things profitable to our salvation." Now, what is the great theme of the Gospel, — an exquisite passage drawn from the Sermon on the Mount ? Depend- ence upon God for food and raiment. He caters for the fowls of the air without their making any provision for the future, or building any granary;1 He arrays the flowers,2 which cannot do for themselves even as much as the fowls can, in a coat of many colours more lovely far than that which Jacob made for Joseph as a token of his dis- tinguishing love.3 Therefore (these are the moral lessons which Christ draws from God's care for the fowls and the flowers) serve Him in singleness of mind, seeking His will only, and not worldly wealth, ("ye cannot serve God and mammon "4), and serve Him also with no anxiety about the future, in faith that the Lord will provide for all the necessities of the body. " Take no thought, saying
1 See St Matt, vi 26. 2 See St. Matt. vi. 28, 29.
8 See Gen. xxrvii 3. 4 St. Matt. vi. 24.
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What shall we eat V or What shall we drink ? or, Where- withal shall we be clothed ? .... for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." 1 Now see what a depth is given to the Collect and its petitions by the association of this Gospel with it. From our dependence upon God for food and raiment the mind travels on to our still more utter dependence upon Him for the bread of life and the raiment of righteousness, both of which blessings He provides for us in His Son. The frailty of the body is such, that it would collapse without a daily supply of food and without suitable raiment, — it must be constantly fed, and the vital heat in it maintained, if it is to be upheld in existence. And similarly, or rather much more, the frailty of our moral nature is such, that without the bread of life received into our souls by faith (the ordinance for conveying which to us is the holy Supper of the Lord), and without the raiment of Christ's righteousness, which is put on and worn by faith, the soul cannot but droop and fall. And this bread is of God's giving, not of man's making or producing. Like the manna which dropped from the visible sky,2 it came down from heaven, according to that prayer in Isaiah; " Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness : let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up to- gether ; I the Lord have created it ;" 3 and, as you have it in the Nicene Creed, " He came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man." And this raiment is of God's pro- viding, not of man's weaving, — it is the righteousness of His Son, without taint or flaw, imputed through faith to
1 St. Matt. vi. 31, 32. * See St. John vi 33, 48, 49, 50. » Isaiah xly. 8.
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every true believer, and mystically set forth in that verse of the Psalmist ; " Her clothing " (the clothing of the Church, Christ's bride) " is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework." 1
And then, as regards the close of the Collect. " Be- cause we are thus frail in ourselves, and entirely dependent upon Thee, thy providence and grace, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation." In the connexion we are now tracing, the words have reference to external goods, and they ask for such a supply of them (and no more) as God sees to be expedient for us. Poverty might be a snare in many ways, " Give me not poverty," says Agur, " lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain " (by a hypocritical profession of religion, so often made by poor people, to ingratiate themselves with the benevolent who desire to relieve them). On the other hand, wealth might be a great snare, as we are warned in every part of Holy Scripture ; " Give me not riches .... lest I be full, and deny thee, and say who is the Lord ?"2 " It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." 3 " They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." 4 Therefore our prayer is (as Agur's was), that God would "feed" us "with food convenient for " us, would " give us, day by day, our daily bread,"5 would " keep us by his help from all hurtful things, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation."
The explanation of the words and clauses of this Collect must be reserved for another Chapter.
1 Ps. xlv. 13, 14. 2 Prov. xxx. 7, 8, 9. 3 St. Matt. xix. 24.
« 1 Tim. vi. 9. 5 See St. Luke xL 3.
Chapter LIX.
THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. (2)
Keep, toe beseech tbee, SD Horn, tbp <£T)urcb tottT) tbp perpetual mercp ; anD, because trjc frailtjj of man tottbout tbee cannot Bur faU, keep us eber bj> tbp tjclp from all things rjurtful, ann lean us to all things profitable to our salbatton ; tfjtougb Jesus Cfirtst our JLorD. Amen.
" Keep, we beseech thee, 0 Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy." There is something peculiar in this petition, in which God is implored to keep His Church, — not with His fatherly care, not with His watchful Providence, not with the guardianship of His angels, nor even with that of His grace, but with His mercy. What it implies is (as was observed in our last Chap- ter) that, if man is to be secured from the spiritual injuries with which the devil, the world, and the flesh threaten him, it can only be by a continual exercise of God's mercy, — that this mercy must be shown him, not at the beginning of his course merely, but at every stage of it. But here, just as in the Publican's prayer in St. Luke xviii., the translation of the original words is vague ; and an English reader fails to perceive the point. The Latin is, " Custodi Ecclesiam tuam propitiatione perpetua," " Keep thy Church with a perpetual propitiation," just as the true rendering of the publican's prayer is, — not " God be merciful," but — " God be reconciled (or propitiated) to me the sinner." The word " propitiation " implies a great deal more than the word " mercy." Mercy is merely a sentiment in the mind, independent of anything which
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may be done or suffered to procure the outflow of it towards its object. " Propitiation," on the other hand, is not simply mercy, but mercy shown through the accept- ance of atonement ; when God is propitiated towards man, He is reconciled to him, notwithstanding his iniquity, on the ground of what Christ did and suffered for him. Guardianship, therefore, of the Church by propitiation must imply that, at every step in her course the blood and merits of Christ need to be pleaded for her, if she is to be secure. But let us not pass away from this first petition of the Collect, without further observing upon it that God's mercy in Christ is not a mere sentiment of compassion ; it secures, it protects, — nay, it constitutes the security and protection of the Church. "When the hen gathers her chickens under her wings, she does so by the maternal instinct, which binds the parent bird to the young. But this instinct protects her progeny against external injury; and not only that, but maintains in them the vital heat. God's perpetual mercy in Christ both shields His people, and comforts them.
" And, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall," (quite literally it is, " because the mortality of man without thee is apt to fall") It is very interesting to connect the sentiments of these Collects with the period of the Church's history, at which they first made their ap- pearance. Gelasius's Sacramentary, which is the earliest known source of this prayer, was compiled quite at the close of the fifth century. Now it is one of the recorded facts of the life of Gelasius that, finding the Pelagian heresy to be reviving in Picenum, a maritime district of Central Italy, he addressed to the bishops of that district a circular letter (still extant in Baronius) 1 representing the
1 It will be found in the Annates Ecclesiastici, under the date 493 a.d. See also above, voL L pp. 36, 37, "Of the Sacramentary of Gelasius."
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taint of this heresy as a greater calamity than the incur- sions of the barbarians. Pelagius, a monk of Welsh ex- traction, in the earlier part of the fifth century, had taught that death was not, as the Scriptures tell us, and as St. Augustine constantly maintained, the penalty of sin, and that Adam would have died, if he had never sinned.1 He thought that the doctrine of the corruption of human nature, derived to us all from our parents, was a fiction of theologians, and that original sin (to use the phrase adopted to describe this heresy in our ninth Article) stood only " in the following " (i.e. in the imitation) " of Adam," not in any hereditary taint. Further, he maintained that man had by nature the power to will and work what is good, to repent and amend, and arrive at the highest degree of piety and virtue, by the use of his natural faculties, without any internal assistance from Divine grace. — Now see how the controversies of the time underlie the devotions of the time ; and how these devotions borrow a meaning from the controversies, — a fact which shows that the controversies, on the part of the orthodox, were not mere speculations, and that those who earnestly con- tended for " the faith once delivered unto the saints "2 also fed upon it their hearts, and derived spiritual nourishment from it. The moral frailty of man is here called " human mortality " (or liability to death) not without point and force. Pelagius denied altogether the connexion between
1 Celestius, a native of Ireland, was one of Pelagius's chief allies ; and the doctrines charged against Celestius at the Council of Carthage (a.d. 412) were ; " That Adam was created mortal, and would have died whether he had sinned or not. That the sin of Adam hurt only himself, and not all mankind. That infants new born are in the same state as Adam was before his fall. That a man may be without sin and keep God's com- mandments, if he will." — Bishop H. Browne, on Art. ix. " The Pelagian heresy," says the Bishop, "was spread abroad about A.D. 410, the year that Borne was taken by the Goths." 2 Jude, ver. 3.
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death and sin ; Augustine and the orthodox, on the other hand, recognised the intimate connexion between the two ; so that death was in their eyes merely the outcome, the symbol — shall I call it the sacrament ? (yes, I may, for a sacrament is an outward visible sign) of sin in him who undergoes it. And by the association of the two ideas in their mind it was, that " mortality " in this Collect came to mean moral frailty. Observe, too, the express and strong Anti-Pelagian assertion inwoven into the Collect, — that " without God the frailty of man cannot but fall." Gelasius, in his letter to the bishops of Picenum, speaks rather harshly about a miserable old man of the name of Seneca, who, he says, kept croaking out heresy from the quagmire of Pelagianism, like one of the frogs in the book of the Apocalypse ; but when Gelasius is at his devotions, the form, which his horror of Pelagianism takes, is to make him throw himself upon God for the assistance of His grace. He converts the doctrine of liability to fall with- out God into an earnest plea for Divine succour. So much better are men in the Church and in the closet than in the Divinity School.
" Keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation." Here again we come across the history and the current controversies of the time of Gelasius. It was the time of the breaking up of the Eoman Empire by the Goths, Franks, Huns, and Vandals, when the Christians suffered severely from the invaders, who revived against them the obsolete charge of an earlier age, that the troubles and disorders of the times were all due to their having drawn down the anger of the heathen gods by persuading men to forsake their worship. Probably nothing that has occurred since in the world can be paralleled, either for the confusion and calamities it caused, or the alarm and
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dismay it spread, with the going to pieces of a social system so vast, so complicated, and of such long standing as the Eoman Empire. The world seemed coming to an end to those who witnessed the dissolution of this system. " The calamities of the times," says Mosheim,1 " produced pernicious effects upon religious sentiment, and induced many to reject the belief of a superintending Providence, and to exclude the Deity from the government of the universe." This fundamental denial of the truth spread widely in Gaul ; and during the inroads of the barbarians, which gave occasion to so profane and blasphemous a doctrine, Salvian, a presbyter 2 of the Church of Marseilles, a cultivated and influential man, had written a work to expose the error, entitled, " On Providence ; or on the Government of God and on His just and present judg- ment." The treatise is conceived in the spirit of those words of the fifty -eighth Psalm; "Verily there is a reward for the righteous : doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth." 3 And here we see the assurance of true Christians to that effect coming out in the latter part of this Collect, in which God is besought ever to keep His Church from all things really " hurtful " to her spiritual interests, and to lead her to all things " profitable to her salvation." Their earnest prayer for this guardian- ship, this guidance, was the way in which Gelasius, and other good men of the day, recognised the truth that " the Lord is King, be the people never so impatient : he sitteth between the cherubims, be the earth never so unquiet."4 This was their cry to the Saviour, whom they believed to
1 Eccles. EisL vol. i. p. 419. [Ed. Soames, 1845.]
- Salvian was never a bishop, though styled by Gennadius, a biogra- pher of his own times, " the master of bishops." His work " On Provi- dence " was written during the inroads of the barbarians on the empire, A.D- 451-455. He was still alive in A.D. 490.
3 Ver 10, P.B.V. « Ps. xcix. 1, P.B.V.
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be in the Church's fishing-boat, that amid the raging of the winds and the surging of the waves, He would arise and save them.1 And in all similar crises (though no crisis can seem so overwhelming as did the disintegration of the Roman Empire), in the vicissitudes of our own little island Church, which at present seem so alarming, when we are split by hostile factions, raved against by Christian sects, and threatened with disestablishment, these ■ old prayers of fourteen or fifteen hundred years ago adapt them- selves with a wonderful versatility to our circumstances, and furnish us with the exact language which we seem to need.
I must not omit to notice, in conclusion, the altera- tion which the translators have made in the wording of the prayer, which, if it has a little impaired its unity, has considerably added, it appears to me, to its reality. As it stands in the Latin of the Sacramentary, the latter part of it as well as the former is a prayer for the Church ; — " Keep it ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead it, etc. etc." Cranmer and his Committee changed the " it " into " us," — judiciously, it appears to me ; for how often it happens that we speak and think of the Church as an abstraction, forgetting that we ourselves are the Ghurch ! The Church (or body of Christ) is only the aggregate of believing men and women throughout the world ; and in praying that she may be shielded by God's mercy in Christ, kept from spiritual injury, and guided to what is spirit- ually expedient for her, we are putting up a prayer, which indeed travels in the comprehensiveness of its charity to the ends of the earth, but which yet, at the same time, has a reflex influence upon ourselves, returning into our own bosoms, as Noah's dove into the ark,2 with a message of peace, comfort, and benediction.
1 See St. Matt. viii. 25. 2 See Gen. viii. 11.
Chapter LX.
THE SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
2D JLoru, toe begeech tTjee, let top continual pit; cleanse ann Defenrj t?)p tfLburcb ; ann, because it cannat continue in gafetg toith- out tljj guccour, pregerbe it efcer* more bp tbp belp anD goounegg ; tbrougb 3|egug Cljrigt our Lorn. Amen.
CEccIegtam tuam, quaegumug, Domine, migeratio continuata muntiet et muniat, et quia gine te non potegt galtia congigtere, tuo gemper munere gubemetur. Per Domtnum. — Gel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect, like the preceding, to which it bears a close resemblance, traces back to the Sacramentary of Gelasius, which was compiled at the close of the fifth century. In both Collects we find a recognition of the Church's need of cleansing by Divine pardon, and of defence by Divine Providence, — a recognition which must have borrowed great vividness from the circumstances of the times. Heresy respecting the nature of Christ and the freewill of man leavened the minds, and corrupted the religion, of a vast mass of professing Christians, — this was an evil, of which the Church was duly conscious, and from which she prayed to be cleansed. But, over and above this, changes had for a long time been taking place within the Church itself, which were by no means favourable to its purity. " The transfusion of heathen ceremonies into Chris- tian worship " (says Dean Waddington2) " had, to a certain
1 Gel. Sac. omits the " quaesumus," and ends with " Per." Greg. Sac. also omits "quaesumus," and ends with " Per, etc."
8 "History of the Church," vol. i. chnv. ix. p. 248. [London : 1835.1
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extent, paganised the outward form and aspect of religion and that the very idea of true spirituality was depraved and corrupted is clear from the fact that, in the earlier part of the century, the fanaticism of Symeon, a Syrian shepherd, who passed thirty years upon a pillar sixty feet high, where he practised prayer in painful attitudes, while subsisting upon one meal a week, and having no clothing but a wrapper of skin, " excited the admiration of emperors and found no disfavour with theologians."1 It is true that, when the Church of those ages prayed for cleans- ing, she did it in ignorance to a great extent of the deep need she had of it, arising from her internal corruptions ; but this is the case with the Church of all ages, and with individual members of the Church. When we say day by day, " Forgive us our trespasses," we are conscious of some things which need to be forgiven ; but oh ! how much is there really amiss in our spiritual character, in our habits of thought and ways of feeling, of which we are not conscious, but respecting which we hope that our Heavenly Father will regard it as embraced under our prayer for pardon, forgiving us not only the things which we feel to be amiss, but also those which He sees to be amiss in us, in thought, word, and deed.
The special need which the Church of those times had of defence and preservation, owing to the disintegration of the Eoman empire by the eruptions of the barbarians, and the calamities, cruelties, confusions, and disorganization of the social system consequent thereon, was dwelt upon
1 " Our amazement is reasonably excited,' 'when we learn that Theodo- sins II. seriously consulted Symeon the Stylite on the most important concerns of Church and State ; and that the Emperor Leo particularly solicited his advice respecting the Council of Chalcedon. " . . . "This popular fanaticism'' (the enthusiastic admiration of Symeon), " was rather encouraged than disclaimed by the Church, . . . and has descended to posterity without any ecclesiastical stigma of schism or heresy." — Waddington's " History of the Church," vol. L pn 219, 250.
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under the preceding Collect, and needs not to be repeated here.
" 0 Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continued pity " (so it is in the Latin ; and " continued " conveys, perhaps, with more exactness than " continual," that the pity is never intermitted, that it is not broken off for a time to be resumed again, but is carried on through the Church's whole career) " cleanse and defend thy Church." There are two great cleansings of the members of the Church, of which Holy Scripture speaks, one designated by our Lord as a bathing, and the other as a footwashing. The bathing (or total ablution) is by Baptism, the two consti- tuents of which are (as our own Office for Private Bap- tism shows) the application of water, together with the use of the formulary " in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."1 This is what St. Paul calls "the washing" (or rather, the laver) "of regeneration,"2 and, in another place, Christ's sanctification and cleansing of the Church " with the washing of water by the word."3 The footwashing (or partial ablution), which needs to be repeated daily, is that of which our Lord spoke to St. Peter after the Last Supper ; " He that is washed " (it should be " bathed," 4 — whose whole person has received
1 " But if they which bring the Infant to the Church do make such uncertain answers to the Priest's questions, as that it cannot appear that the Child was baptized with Water, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ohost (which are essential parts of Baptism), then let the Priest, etc. etc." — Last Rubric in "The Ministration of Private Bap- tism of Children in Houses."
3 5t4 \ovrpov waXiyyeveatas. Tit. iii. 5.
3 "lea avTTjv ayiiar), Kadaplaat t£ \o\rrpy rod OSaros (v f>^fiaru Eph. v. 26. " The word " here would seem to mean the verbal formulary employed in Baptism.
* '0 \e\ov/j.hoi.
126 The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.
an ablution) " needeth not save to wash 1 his feet, but is clean every whit." This is the cancelling of the guilt contracted in our daily walk, through a renewed appli- cation of Christ's blood to the conscience, which we ask for, when we say, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we for- give them that trespass against us." And, in regard to the association of the " cleansing" of the Church with her " defence," we may observe that defence and continuance in external safety, without such continual cleansing, would be a bane to the Church rather than a boon. Better she went to pieces, and was swallowed up by her enemies, than that unforgiven guilt should accumulate upon her. There is a similar vein of thought in the connective particle, which links together the petition, " Give us day by day our daily bread," with " Forgive us our trespasses." The " and " implies that daily food without daily mercy would be a bane, not a boon.
" Thy Church." The original translators had written " thy congregation," and so it continued down to the last Eevision of the Prayer Book, when Bishop Cosin altered it to " Church." It is true that the words " church " and " congregation " do fundamentally mean the same thing. The Greek word " Ecclesia " means merely an assembly of certain persons, specially called out of a larger body to represent it. It was the name given to the Greek Parlia- ments, or legislative assemblies, and was hence transferred to the assembly of the Church, which is called out of the world by preaching, and constituted by Sacraments. But very different associations have gathered round the two words in the course of their history, which do not reside in their etymology ; and our Authorised Version of the Scriptures has done not a little to form these associations. There " congregation " is the word commonly employed to
1 ov xPc^av ^Xei T0I-'S irflJa* pl\l/a<r6ai. St. John xiii. 10.
The Sixteenth Szmday after Trinity. 127
denote God's people under the Dispensation of the Law (" the tabernacle of the congregation," " all the congregation of the children of Israel," etc.), while the word " church " is used in speaking of the Christian Society, founded by our Lord and His Apostles under Him. It is true that St. Stephen is made to speak of " the church in the wil- derness;"1 but this passage stands almost alone; and we think, therefore, that in view of the very different associa- tions which gather round the two words, Bishop Cosin has done well and wisely in drawing his pen through " congregation," wherever he found it applied in our Ser- vices to the Christian society, and writing over it the word " Church."
"And, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour " (literally " without thee," as in the pre- ceding Collect) " preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness." " Preserve " is a departure from the original Latin of the Sacramentary, which is not altogether happy. The preservation of the Church had been al- ready sued for in the earlier part of the Collect ; for God had been there asked to " defend " His Church, and the result of His defending it must be its preserva- tion. Here the petition of the Latin Collect is, not for preservation, but for government, — that sort of govern- ment which a pilot or helmsman bestows upon a ship, when he turns about the helm, and directs its path through the waters — " may it be governed and guided evermore " gives as nearly as possible the idea in English. And this idea harmonizes admirably with a Scriptural scene, which places before us in a figure, both the circumstances under which the Church invokes God's help, and the form in which she receives it. After feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, our Lord had constrained
1 Acts vii. 38. if rrj {KicXrjcrtg. iv rrj ip-f)H<p.
128 The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.
His disciples to get into a ship, and, after dismissing the multitudes, had gone up into a mountain apart to pray.1 But the good Shepherd did not lose sight of His little flock. From the mountain summit, St. Mark tells us, " he saw them toiling in rowing ; for the wind was con- trary unto them."2 The hours of the night ebbed away in this dreary, fruitless labour ; and in the fourth watch of it (somewhere between three and six in the morning) He went unto them walking on the sea,3 and on His being received into the ship the wind ceased,4 the waves sank, and the voyage seemed to be terminated with miraculous speed ; for " immediately the ship was at the land whither they went."5 It is a beautiful allegory of the Church's danger, as she is tossed to and fro upon " the waves of this troublesome world," and makes her way slowly and with much difficulty towards " the land of everlasting life," 6 thwarted by the malice of evil men and evil spirits, and retarded by the natural corruption of the human heart. It is an allegory which would come home to Christians with special vividness in the times when the Sacrament- aries were compiled, when the old order of society was breaking up all around the Church, and she was " by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed," and which may come home to us now with special vividness amid the divisions of, and the threatened assaults upon, our own island Church. And our safety lies in beseeching our heavenly Intercessor to bend upon us from the heavenly mount of intercession a pitying eye continually, to cleanse His Church by His mercy, and fortify it by His Provi- dential care, " and, because it cannot continue in safety without" Him (I do not say, without His succour, but
1 See St. Mark vi. 45, 46. 2 Ver. 48.
» See St. Mark vi 48. 4 Ver. 51. 5 St. John vi. 21.
6 First prayer in "The Ministration of Pnblick Baptism of Infants."'
The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity. 129
without Himself, without His own Preseuce by the Spirit in the vexed and harassed ship) to come to us in the midst of our fruitless tod, and take the helm in His hand, and by His own living agency in our hearts and souls direct the ship's course through the waves, restrain the blustering elements, and give her a strong and swift im- pulse towards " the haven where she would be."
" By thy help and goodness," — two words in the trans- lation for one in the original. It would be impossible by a single English word to give the full idea of the Latin munus 1 — " tuo semper munere gubernetur." If we were at liberty to use as many words as we please, the translation would be, " may she be governed and guided evermore by the gracious discharge of thine office towards her ! " " Munus " means the office of a public function- ary, the service which this functionary does to the public by the faithful execution of his office, and hence a service generally, a kindness, a favour shown to another at one's own expense, a gift. Now Christ is the Head of His body the Church, — so called, because in the head resides the brain, which directs the movements of the body. When Christ then puts Himself at the helm of the Church, and guides her course over the waves of this troublesome world, this is a fulfilment towards her of His proper function and office ; and yet it is a fulfilment which is all of grace, a free favour, a great service done to the undeserving.
1 Those who have studied the Latin of the Sacramentaries will have little doubt that one reason for the use of the substantive munus here was the fact of its commencing with the same letters as the verbs mundo and munio in the earlier part of the Collect. These plays upon words are quite in accordance with the style of the Sacramentaries. I know not whether it was by design, or accidentally, that Cranmer in translating this Collect has used both the adjective continual, and the verb continue, thus maintaining that recurrence of similar sounds which finds place in the Latin prayer.
VOL. II. K
Chapter LXI.
THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
JLoru, toe pray tbee tbat tbp grace map altoaps prebent ann follota us, ann mafce us conttn= uaHp to be giben to all goon toorks; through 31esuS £hrist our lLorB. Amen.
Cua nos, Domine, quaesumus, gratia semper et praebeniat et Sequatur, ac bonis openbus jugU ter praestct esse iutentos. Per SDominum nostrum. — Greg. Sac. — Miss. Sar.
This Collect, which may be traced up to Gregory's Sacra- mentary, compiled in the last decade of the sixth century, is peculiarly valuable as sketching for us in a few brief words the doctrine of grace. The same may be said of the latter half of the Easter Day Collect, which also traces to Gregory ; " "We humbly beseech thee, that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect." Notwithstanding all the study which in our own Church the Prayer Book has recently received, and all the illustrations and explanations of it which the press has poured forth, it is possible that some may need to be told that the word " Prevent," as used in the prayer before us, does not mean to hinder, but accord- ing to the derivation of the Latin verb from which it comes, to anticipate, forestall, be beforehand with.
1 In Gregory's Sacramentary [Mur. ii. 172], the collect ends, "Per etc."
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. 1 3 1
" Lord, we pray thee that thy grace may always pre- vent." People's notions about the meaning of the word " grace " are very misty ; it would be doing good service to clear and simplify them.1 The Greek word translated " grace " in the New Testament means originally a favour, a free, unmerited, unsolicited gift. Most often it is a favour outside of us, if I may use the expression, some act of kindness, which does not necessarily touch our hearts and characters, — something done for us rather than in us. And thus it is frequently used of the work of Christ, and not — as we almost uniformly use it nowadays — of the work of the Holy Ghost. This use of it we have in the passage; " ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor;"2 in other words, ye know how great a favour and kindness He did us, in leaving for us the throne on which from all
1 The different meanings which the word Grace includes are admirably and tersely summed up in the Rev. J. H. Blunt's " Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology" [Art. "Grace"] : "First, It includes that original goodness and favour by which God inclines to fallen man ; with the con- sequent steps which, in the counsels of God, were necessary for man's salva- tion .... This is the Grace of God's undeserved favour. Secondly, The term Grace includes the revelation of this mystery, the declaring to man the Word of life .... This is the Grace of outward instruction. Thirdly, The term Grace includes that supernatural gift to man, whereby he is enabled to embrace the salvation provided and offered .... And this is nothing else than the working of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of men. This is the Grace of inward sanctification. The first is the well- spring of all good ; the second, the appointed instrument of good ; the third, that which gives effect to the instrument."
The first grace is for all mankind ; the second for those who live under the sound of the gospel ; the third for the " elect people of God," who shall be eventually saved. Of the first it is said, " that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man" (Heb. ii. 9) ; of the second, " I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second grace " ti/a otvrepav x^P1-" ^XVTe (2 Cor. L 15) ; of the third, " Grow in grace " (2 Pet. 3. 18). 8 2 Cor. viii. 9.
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eternity he had been seated by the Father's side, in empty- ing Himself of the attributes and capacities of his God- head, and contracting his powers and actings within the limits of the nature of a man. And observe that, con- formably with this use of the word, grace is connected with the Son, not with the Holy Ghost, in that well-known form of benediction ; " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore."1 — But, because the Holy Spirit is given to all those who embrace by faith the gift of Christ, — flowing forth into their hearts and souls, as the water in the wilderness flowed forth from the smitten rock,2 — the word " grace " is sometimes used (though not nearly so often as we use it in our modern theology) to signify this second favour on the part of God, in ministering to us through Christ the influences of His Spirit ; " Of his fulness," says the Apostle, " have all we received, and grace for grace," 3 — ever higher measures of Divine influence replacing and superseding the lower. In conformity with which passage of St. John's Gospel St. Peter exhorts ; " Grow in grace." 4 — But one more point connected with the common ideas of "grace" demands notice. Grace is commonly thought of merely as an influence from God, a sort of quality physically transfused into the soul, and kneaded up with its powers. It should rather be thought of as the action of God the Holy Spirit within us, moulding the affections and will into conformity with God's law and Christ's image.5
1 End of Morning and Evening Prayer, taken from 2 Cor. xiii. 13, with four variations — (1) "Our Lord Jesus Christ" for "the"; (2) "fellowship" for " communion" (koicoji/io) ; (3) "with us all" for " with you all ;" (4) addition of " evermore."
2 See Exod. xvii. 6, and Num. xx. 11. 3 St. John i. 16.
* 2 Pet. iii. 18. 8 See above, in this Volume, p. 11, and note,
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. 1 33
" Let thy grace always prevent." There is great force in the always. God's grace has already prevented or fore- stalled us, both before we were born, and from our earliest childhood. The true light shone upon our country, the Gospel was preached, and the Church established here, long ages before our birth ; so that, when we appeared in the world, the dispensation of grace was ready to receive us. What account can be given of this having been done for the English and not for the Chinese ? We can give no other account of the matter than that it was God's forestalling favour, — " preventing grace," — which made the difference, ordaining by His counsel, secret to us, that one nation should hear the gospel, and the other not. — But again, " that thy grace may always prevent." God's grace has forestalled us individually no less than nationally. As infants we were brought to the Baptismal font, and there the seal of God's covenant was impressed upon us, and spiritual life was communicated to us in germ. And that germ of spiritual life, anticipating the dawn of conscious- ness and the power of distinguishing between right and wrong, worked within us, when consciousness did dawn, in the shape of good desires. God laid hold of us, or ever the world, the flesh, and the devil could claim their part in us. It has been an enormous advantage to us this forestalling, and will be so to the end of our lives. But we must not rest in it. Those who are regenerate, and " made God's children by adoption and grace," still need to be renewed (ay, and " daily renewed") by His Holy Spirit. That was the teaching of the Christmas Collect. And it is the same here ; — " We beseech thee that thy grace may always" — not in evangelization only, not in Baptism only, but always — "forestall and follow us," as it is said in
1^4 The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.
another Collect ; " Prevent us 0 Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour."1
'•' And folloft- us." In the words of the Collect just quoted, " Further us with thy continual help." Even- man who has an orchard knows what it is to have a mag- nificent promise of fruit in the spring, the trees laden with blossoms like snowflakes, — which promise is frustrated by the nipping frost of a single night. Unless God's grace comes in the rear, as well as the front, and follows up the Tvork which it has begun in us, any promise of spiritual life which we may give is nipped and blighted, and comes to nothing, — the " holy desires" do not expand into " good counsels" (or resolutions), nor the " good counsels " mature themselves and take shape in " just works." 2 The will and the deed are different things, as is seen perhaps most clearly in the matter of almsgiving. How many a man is there, who has been softened by some tale of distress, or impressed by some appeal in a charity sermon, but who, because he has not struck while the iron was hot, but has allowed time and deliberation to intervene, has eventually cooled down altogether, so that the forwardness in good works which he manifested a week ago has come to nothing. St. Paul warns against this snare, which is so ready to obstruct Christian liberality. Ye were " forward," he says, in your purposes and schemes of benevolence " a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it ; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a per- formance also out of that which ye have."3 God must " work in " us, if we are to bring forth fruit to His glory, not only " to will," but " to do" of His good pleasure. Power to consummate is wanted, as well as will to initiate
1 Fourth Collect at the end of the Communion Service. 5 Second Collect 3t Evening Praver. * 2 Cor. viii. 10, 1L
The Seventeenth Sitnday after Trinity. 135
— " continual help " to bring the " good desires " to " good effect," — grace to work with us, when we have the good will, as well as to forestall us, in order that we may have it.1 But observe that the " preventing grace," where it exists, is a pledge that, if we will only be faithful to the guidance of the Spirit, if we will only "make haste and prolong not the time "' to move in the direction he indi- cates, we shall receive the following or co-operating grace, or, in other words, the power, according to that word of St. Paul ; " Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."3
1 See the Tenth Article ; " Of Freewill." 2 See Psalm cxix. 60, P.B. V.
3 Philip, i. 6. — In three of our Collects (that for Easter Day, that for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, and the Fourth at the end of the Communion Service), we have mention of preventing (or anticipating) and also of following Grace (the Latin word is adjuvando prosequere in the first and third cases, and merely sequatur here). I extract a beautiful passage from St. Augustine (Contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, Lib. II. Cap. is.) in which this distinction is founded upon passages of Holy Scripture :
" May God avert from us the madness of representing ourselves as being beforehand with Him in His own gifts, and Him as coming after, since [it is written] The God of my mercy shall prevent me (Ps. lix. 10) ; and He it is to whom [the Psalmist] sings in truth and sincerity of heart, Thou hast prevented him with blessings of sweetness (Ps. xx. [xxi.] 4. — Douay). And what shall we more aptly understand by this expression than that very desire of good, whereof we are speaking? For then good begins to be desired, when it has begun to grow sweet to us. For so long as good is done from fear of punishment, and not from love of righteousness, it is not yet well done ; nor indeed is that done [at all] in the heart, which seemeth to be done in deed, so long as a man would rather not do it, if he might leave it undone with impunity. The blessing of sweetness, therefore, is that grace of God by which it cometh to pass in us that good delighteth us, and that we desire (that is to say, love) what He commandeth us ; in which blessing if God prevents us, not only is the action not perfected of our selves, but neither doth it take its commencement from ourselves. For if without Him we can do nothing, then forsooth we can neither begin nor perfect a good work ; for, in order to our beginning, it is said, The God of my mercy shall prevent me, and in order to our perfecting, it is said, mrely goodness and mercy shall follow me (Psalm xxii. [xxiii.] 6)."
1 36 1 he Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.
" And make us continually to be given to all good works." " Continually " is a lovely word in the original Latin ; and Walter Haddow, Queen Elizabeth's translator of the English Book of Common Prayer into Latin, has made a great omission in leaving it out. " Continually " or "cease- lessly " are the only English words which can be found to represent it ; but the continuance indicated is that of a perennial stream, which glides on day and night with- out intermission. The Christian's good works are not to be done by fits and starts and intermittently, as the natural man takes up an enterprise warmly, and then gets tired of it and throws it up, but jugiter, — ceaselessly, — like the steady, noiseless flow of a river ever fed by a gushing spring. And it gives further point to the simile to consider that the Holy Spirit, whose grace fertilises the soul, is spoken of as a river of living water flowing forth from the smitten rock — which rock is Christ crucified.1
" To be given to all good works." In the original it is, to be intent upon them, to have all the powers of the mind bent upon keeping them up ; very accurately representing the force of St. Paul's words to Titus ; " These things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful " (solicitous and studious) " to maintain" (give sedulous attention to) " good works."2 The Christian is a spiritual gardener. The garden is his own soul, and his task, like Adam's, is " to dress it and to keep it."3 He recognises in this prayer that "a river of Kving water" (even the Spirit of God) must permeate every part of this garden, to make it and keep it fruitful.4 The fruit is " good works " — " all good works " — works of our calling, done as unto the Lord, works belonging to
1 See 1 Cor. x. 4. 2 Tit. iii. 8.
3 See Gen. ii. 15. 4 See Gen. ii. 10.
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. 137
our relations in life, the being good husbands, wives, parents, children, masters, servants, and so forth, — works of piety and philanthropy, and the use of every means in our power to spread the knowledge of Christ and His gospel. But think not that these works will grow up in our lives without solicitude, carefulness, study to main- tain them. A stream, indeed, is essential to a garden's fruitfulness ; and it is the stream which gives life and fertility to the soil. But the work of the gardener can- not be dispensed with. And were an attempt made to dispense with it, and to rely on irrigation alone, the result would be that so graphically described in the Book of Proverbs ; — " I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding ; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down." 1
1 Prov. xxiv. 30, 3L
Chapter LXII.
THE EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
JLovo, hie beseech thee, pant tTbp people grace to hritostanu the temptations of tT)C tootlD, the flesf), anD the Bentl, anB totth pure hearts anu tmnDS to folloto tljee trje onlp ©on j through 3lesus Christ our ILorD. Amen.
Da, quaesumus, Domine, po. pulo tuo Utaboltca bitate contagia, ef te solum Deum pura mente Sectari. Per Dominum. — Gel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
In the Convocation summoned by "William III. in 1689, to consider the report of the Royal Commissioners who had been appointed to revise the Book of Common Prayer, it was made a subject of complaint against the Collects that they were too short, and Patrick, Bishop of Chichester, was entrusted with the task of making them longer. Now, to spin out the language of the Collects, without adding to their stock of ideas, would be a very easy, but a very unsatisfactory, task. It would simply spoil them. On the other hand, to add to their stock of ideas without using more words than are absolutely necessary to convey the addition, does of course enrich and improve them. In the Collect before us, we are indebted to Cranmer for an improvement in this respect, and to Cosin for a very sub-
1 In Gel. Sac. [Mur. i. 693] the Collect ends with "Per;" in Greg. Sac. [ii. 173] we find " te solum Dominum " for "te solum Deum," and the end 's " Per Dominum, etc."
The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. 139
stantial one. The Collect, as it appears for the first time in the Sacramentary of Gelasius (494), was not nearly so full-bodied as our Eeformers and Eevisers between them have made it. For " pure heart," in the latter clause, Cranmer wrote " pure heart and mind" improving the rhythm, and also, as I shall presently show, adding to the sense. In the earlier clause Cranmer had kept close to the original. His translation was, " Grant thy people grace to avoid the contagions of the devil." Instead of, " to avoid the contagions of," Cosin wrote, " to withstand " the temptations of ; " and instead of mentioning only the devil, he inserted by name the two other spiritual enemies of mankind, the world and the flesh. As this is the first alteration of the Collect which meets us, we will notice it first.
" Lord, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to avoid" (so the Collect ran originally) " the contagions of the devil." There is something to be learned from this expression, though our Eevisers have done well to remodel it. " To withstand temptation" is a plainer and better phrase than " to avoid contagion." Still the word "avoid" (or "shun") may teach us a useful lesson. There are some temptations, chiefly those to impurity, which are best withstood (shall I say, which can only be successfully withstood ?), not by fighting, but by running away. Do not look them full in the face, or attempt a hand-to-hand encounter with them, but " shun the conta- gion ;" fly as far and as fast as you can from the in- fected moral atmosphere.1 — Then the word " contagion," too, had its teaching. This word insinuated the tempta- tions arising from the world, though it did not eoypress them. For contagion means the communication of disease
1 See Gen. xxxix. 12, with 1 Cor. vi. 18.
140 The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.
by contact with the people who have it; and hence it comes to mean the moral harm which is received from vicious companionship or intercourse.1 So that the influence of the world is wrapped up in this word, just as the influence of the flesh is seen to be wrapped up in the word " avoid," when you come to ask the question, " What temptations are best resisted by avoiding them?" — And then, as to the mention of no adversary but " the devil" in the original Collect, it is true that the devil brought human sin into the world, and is the prime agent and mover in all sin, so that there is a point of view in which St. Paul sees no other agency enlisted against man than that of the devil and his angels ; " We wrestle not against flesh and blood " (i.e. against human nature ; but surely the world is human nature, and the flesh is human nature ; he is speaking comparatively; we wrestle not so much against human nature as) " against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."2 The devil, as the fountain of all evil in the heart and in society, is doubtless the first person of the unholy Trinity, and thus involves and in- cludes both the other persons. But Cosin has done admirably well to draw out the implications of the original Collect into explicit detail ; and we hail joyfully his " withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil." By the world, speaking roughly, is meant evil men; by the flesh, the corrupt nature which we inherit, or (in other words) evil self; by the devil, evil angels. If, therefore, these three sources of temptation are to be enumerated according to their nearness to us, the order will be the flesh (for nothing is nearer to us than our own selves), the world, and the devil. If they are to
1 See 1 Cor. xv. 33. 1 Eph. vi. 12.
The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. 141
be enumerated according to their power and natural order of priority, it will be " the devil, the world, the flesh," as in the vow at Baptism. But here the order is " the world, the flesh, and the devil ;" — is there any principle or method in it ? Yes ; I think there is. Is. it not the order in which we become acquainted with these foes, and come to have experience of them ? We become conscious of the world first. When we are infants and very young children, long before we detect the evil within, we are conscious of faces around us, persons with whom we have to do, — parents, nurses, brothers, and sisters ; — this is the world in germ. As boyhood advances, we gain the addi- tional consciousness of a strong bias drawing us away from purity and virtue, — of what the Apostle calls " youthful lusts ;"1 — this is the flesh in germ. Later in life, when these temptations become less urgent, they are replaced by others of a different character. Ambition to be eminent in position and power fires the soul. Or, as often happens where there is a low physique, and the passions are not constitutionally strong, and the mind is of a thoughtful cast, sceptical objections are taken up with great eagerness ; — all this is from the devil, who fell by an overweening ambition, and who, as our Lord says, " abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him." 2 And how are these foes, each and all of them, to be subdued ? " Lord, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to witJistand!' " Eesist the devil," says St. James, " and he will flee from you."3 The devil is a coward, and runs away when he sees the soldiers of Christ putting on a bold front, and defying him in their Master's name. "What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted?" said the officers of Israel to their troops before the order 1 2 Tim. 22. 3 St. John viii. ii. 3 James iv. 7.
142 The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.
to charge was given, " let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart." 1 A faint-hearted man will always be worsted by his spiritual foes. The only policy is " withstand however thick the fiery darts fly around thee, oppose to them the shield of faith ;2 " quit you like men, be strong."3 "What examples does God propose to us for our encouragement in this resist- ance ? Three most eminent ones, " Noah, Daniel, and Job."4 Noah suffered from the gibes and scorn of the world, as he went to and fro for a hundred and twenty years5 in the preparation of his ark ; but he withstood the world by faith in God's word of threatening.6 Daniel, a courtier, kving among all the appliances of luxury, was sorely tried by temptations of the flesh, when he was threatened with being thrown to the lions if he went on praying (does the flesh shrink from any death more than that of being torn in pieces by wild beasts ?) ; but he withstood the flesh by faith in God's providential care.7 Job was sorely tried, at the suggestions of the devil, by being stripped bare of every earthly solace, and made over to the foul and loathsome disease called elephantiasis;8 but he withstood the devil by faith in God's ultimate vindication of His ways : " Though he slay me," cried he "yet will I trust in him."9 It was their firmness to principle under the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil, which caused the intercessions of these men to have such potent efficacy with God, as it is said ; "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avail eth
much."
1 Deut. xx. 8.
4 See Ezek. xiv. 14, 20.
7 See Dan. vi. 10-24.
- Eph. vi 16.
8 See Gen. vi. 3. 8 Job. i. and ii. 1-9. 10 James v. 16.
3 1 Cor. xvi. 13. 6 Heb. xL 7. 9 Job xiii. 15.
The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. 143
" And with pure mind." So the words stood in the Latin Collect. Cranmer changed this to " hearts and minds," and very judiciously. Why does the mind find itself filled with those frivolous or worldly, those lustful or fleshly, those ambitious and sceptical (or, in other words, those devilish) thoughts, which constitute our temptations? These thoughts are brewed in the heart, they seethe and simmer there, before they bubble up and boil over into the mind. But what is the connexion between this and the preceding clause ? How does " the pure heart and mind" stand related to the resistance we have been speaking of ? Because the heart and mind is purified, not only by " the blood of Christ purging the con- science from dead works to serve the living God,"1 but also by each separate act of resistance to evil ; " Ye have purified your souls," says St. Peter, — not merely in be- lieving, but — " in obeying the truth."2 " Every man that hath this hope in " Christ (says St. John) " purifieth himself, even as he is pure;"3 and this purification of self, this progressive sanctification, is by resistance. If we yield to the temptation in any measure, it will cer- tainly leave a defiling stain upon the heart and mind.
"To follow thee." An intensified form of the verb " follow" is used in the Latin ; — to follow with devotion and zeal, — go after as a man goes after his pursuit, regard- ing it as the business of his life and giving himself to it. There is here a passage of the thought to something in advance of what has gone before. It is not enough to withstand temptation, to resist evil, to " cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." The Christian's goodness is not negative only, but positive also ; he must " perfect holiness in the fear of God ;"4 " follow God as a
1 See Heb. ix. 14. 2 1 Pet. i. 22. 3 1 John iii. 3. 4 See 2 Cor. vii. 1.
144 Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.
dear child;"1 walk after Him; addict himself to His ser- vice ; make that service the business of his life. And this following of God is achieved by the imitation of Christ, who " left us an example that we should follow His steps." 2 " The only God." What is the force of this " only" in this position ? Doubtless there is an implication here that the objects of pursuit which the world, the flesh, and the devil propose, are idols or false gods. The world holds out pomps and vanities ; the flesh pleasure ; the devil position, influence, or pride of intellectual power. All these disappoint in the end ; they break up and fail ; they do not fill or satisfy the soul. But God is substan- tially good ; and communion with Him stands the soul in stead, when all else fails. And those who withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and purify themselves as He is pure, and walk after Him in this life, shall in the end have that beatific vision which • is assured to the pure in heart ; " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."3
1 Sec Eph. v. l.
2 See 1 Pet. ii 21.
8 St Matt y. 9.
Chapter LXIII.
THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
2D <8oU, forasmuch as toitTjout tfiee toe are not able to please tfiee ; SEkrctfuttp pant, tfjat tfip l^olp 'Spirit map in all tTjingS Direct ano rule outbearts 5 tljrottgrj Jesus CTjriSt out JLorD. Amen.
Dirigat coma nostra, quaesu* mus, Domine, tuae mtseraticmis opetatio ; quia tibt sine teplacere non possumus. Per Dominum. — Gel. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This, like the Collect which immediately follows it, is a Gelasian Collect, the petition of which was in the first instance literally translated by Cranmer, but afterwards so altered by Cosin and his colleagues at the last Revision as more explicitly to affirm the office and agency of the Holy Ghost. The petition ran thus in Cranmer's translation ; " Grant that the working of thy mercy may in all things direct and rule our hearts." Now, God's working in and upon the human heart is, and can only be, by the Holy Ghost. There is a great sermon of one of our present Bishops (which has been already referred to in a previous Chapter), the object of which is to show that what is called " grace," is not an in- fused quality, subtilly kneaded up (almost like a chemical ingredient) with the faculties and powers of the soul,
1 In Gel. Sac. [Mur. i. 693] we have " Domine, quaesumus," and the end is " Per ;" in Greg. Sac. also [ii. 173], we have " Domine, quaesumus " with the end " Per Dominum, etc."
VOL. II. L
146 The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.
but is just the operation of the third Person of the Blessed Trinity upon the heart — the Holy Spirit putting forth His energy.1 And it is in the exercise of Divine mercy that the energy is put forth ; grace flows to us through and out of Christ, the great medium of Divine mercy. Therefore the petition, " Grant that the working of thy mercy may direct and rule our hearts," contains implicitly the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and of His being bestowed upon man through Christ, and in com- passion to human frailty ; but it is wrapped up rather than expressly asserted in the words. Cosin thought it good expressly to assert it ; and so, without dropping the idea of the Divine mercy, he made explicit mention of the great Agent in our sanctification ; it was no longer to be, " Grant that the operation of thy mercy may direct our hearts," but, " Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may direct " them — a most happy change of the word- ing; for by it the Spirit's personality and influence are brought into high relief ; and of these the Church needs continual reminding, both in prayer and preaching. It was just this doctrine of the Holy Spirit's real agency among men nowadays, long after the expiration of His supernatural gifts, which produced such a marvellous revival in our own Church in the early days of Method- ism, and such a reaction from the supineness and dreary moral preaching, which had characterized the Church Life of the last century. — While upon the petition of the Collect, we may notice further that Cranmer's translation of it is an enlargement of, though we can hardly say a deviation from, the original. In the Latin a single word denotes the agency of the Holy Spirit upon the heart ; " Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may direct our
1 See above in this Volume, pp. 11, 132.
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. 147
hearts." Cranmer added, and surely with admirable judgment, " and ride " — " direct and rule our hearts." We recognise immediately a distinction between direction and ruling. They are not the same thing, though they are kindred things. Not every director is a ruler. The steersman is the ship's director ; the captain is its ruler. The executive is the ruling element in a State ; the legis- lative body is its directing power. Direction asks for wisdom ; rule asks for authority and power. And it was particularly fitting that, in speaking of the Holy Spirit, His direction should be distinguished from His rule. For alas ! alas ! how often does He direct, where He is not permitted to rule ! How often does He indicate the right to us, whispering, " This is the way ; walk ye in it,"1 when we perversely turn aside out of the path, along which His silent finger is pointing us. That He should direct the conscience, without being suffered to govern the wdl, would make our case morally worse instead of better, bringing us under the category of servants who, as knowing their lord's will and doing it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.2 We will not, therefore — we dare not — pray for the Spirit's guidance, without at the same time praying for His government ; " Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may direct and ride our hearts." — And then again, "in all things," — these words too are Cranmer's insertion into the original ; and no man can say that they are idle words, or deny that they intro- duce into the Collect an important and valuable idea. It might be thought that in grave and high affairs, in the exercises of devotion, public and private, in reading of holy Scripture, in holy Communion, nay, in serious secular perplexities, in a statesman's deliberations as to
1 See Isaiah xxx. 21. 1 See St. Luke xii. 47.
1 48 The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.
whether a nation should proclaim war, or as to the person on whom should be devolved some very high and responsible office, the agency of the Holy Ghost and subordination to His agency are indeed indispensable ; but that, in the small difficulties and complications of daily and common life, such guidance and subordination are not required, and need not be sought for. But our English Ee formers teach us that the guidance must, and the subordination ought to, extend to the whole of life — that, wherever it is open to us to pursue different lines of action, there is room for God's guidance and control through His Spirit. What a great source of strength and comfort it is to know that in any difficulty, however trifling or inconsequential to any but ourselves, we may refer to God for "the spirit of counsel,"1 and with the full assurance of receiving it, if only the application be sincere, that is, if while we ask guidance of the Holy Ghost, we are entirely willing to be ruled by it when He gives it. " Whatsoever ye do in word or deed," says the Apostle, "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."2 And things cannot be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, except by the operation of His Spirit.
We now come to consider how the earlier clause of the Collect, — " forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee," — hangs together with the petition that " the Holy Spirit may direct and rule our hearts." The connexion of the two clauses is not lax, but strict and close. The English word "without" by no means gives the full meaning which it is intended to convey, either here, or in our Sa- viour's allegory of the Vine, John xv. 5, where the words are ; " I am the vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit :
1 See I-.-uah xi. 2. 8 Col. iii. 17.
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. 140
for without me ye can do nothing." He means, as the Greek most clearly expresses, that in severance from Himself the fruits of the Spirit cannot be brought forth, any more than the vine-branch can bear clusters of grapes, when severed by the pruning-knife from the vine- stock, — " In severance from Me ye can do nothing." So in the prayer before us the sense is, " forasmuch as in severance from Thee we are not able to please Thee." Now what is the bond of union — the connecting link — between God and Christ on the one hand, and man's soul on the other ? There cannot be a moment's doubt as to the answer. It is by the Holy Spirit that man's spirit is held in union with God, with Christ. " He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit."1 To say, then, that in severance from God we are unable to please Him, is exactly the same thing as to say that without His Spirit, in the absence or withdrawal of His Spirit, we cannot please Him, which is just what the Apostle says in Eom. viii. ; " They that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." 2 Hence the singular appositeness of building upon the confession of our own impotency a prayer for the guidance and governance of the Holy Spirit ; " Forasmuch as without thee " (that is, while in the flesh) " we are not able to please thee, and that the link between thee and ourselves is thy Spirit, grant that this Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts. "
One more point in this Collect deserves a word of com- ment,— " We are not able to please thee." But what a, great ennobling thought it is, — a thought which has been brought before us more than once in previous Collects, — 1 1 Cor. vi. 17. 2 1 Cor. vi. 8, 9.
[ 50 The NineteentJi Sunday after Trinity.
that, under certain conditions, we sinful heirs of flesh and blood are able to please God, that we may really win His smile of approbation, and feel the sunshine of that smile beaming in upon our souls. The actuating principle of the conduct which pleases God, and the method which must be pursued in order to please Him, are both exhibited to us very clearly in His Word. As to the actuating prin- ciple, we are expressly told that " without faith it is im- possible to please him,"1 faith being the principle which lifts man out of and above the things of sense, and enables him to apprehend the being and personality of God, and the intimate relation in which He stands to His creatures as their Moral Governor and the Judge of their conscience. And, as to the method to be pursued, the Apostle Paul in the earliest of his writings which has come down to us, describes it -positively as consisting in our sanctifica- tion, and negatively as consisting in the renunciation ol all the sinful lusts of the flesh. " We beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to -phase God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification." 2 Which sanctification is afterwards shown to involve separation from the sins of impurity, which the Apostle elsewhere enumerates first among the works of the flesh.3 It is, then, by the diligent cultivation of purity that we must seek to please God. This is the special form, in which the faith which lifts us above the senses is to be manifested. And, although this purity deals with the body in the way of restraint and discipline, and consists in keeping it under and bringing "it into subjection,'-
1 Heb. xi. 6. 2 1 Thess. iv. 1, 2, 3. 3 See Gal. v. 19.
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity . 1 5 1
yet is the seat of it in the heart, from whence it flows out for the governance of the life. And hence, in pray- ing for the sanctification of the heart, we implicitly pray for the sanctification of our bodies. We shall " yield our members as instruments of righteousness unto God," when we have, in the first instance, " yielded ourselves unto Him, as those that are alive from the dead."1 And to yield our hearts is to yield ourselves. " Grant, therefore, 0 Lord, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts."
1 Roin. vi. IS.
Chapter LXIV.
THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
9D aimijbtp anD most merciful ©oD, of tbp bountiful gooDneSS keep ujs, we beseech tbee, from alt tbtngs that map burt us; tbattoe, being; reaopbotb in bonp anD soul, map cbeerfullp accomplisb tboSe tbings tbat tbou moulnest babe Done ; tbrougb 3!esus Cbrist our Horn. Amen.
SDmnipotens etmisericorsDeus, unibersa nobis aBbersantia propt- tiatus erclune ; ut mente et cor-- pore pariter erpeoiti, quae tua sunt liberis mentibuS ersequamur Per.— Gel. Sac.1— Miss. Sar.
This Collect, which, like that for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, is traced up to the Sacramentary of Gelasius, is one of those which received some finishing touches, prohably from the hand of Bishop Cosin, at the last Revision in 1661. Then it was that " merciful " in the invocation was changed into " most merciful " — the positive into the superlative — and " we beseech thee " inserted — mere verbal alterations, which yet have some value, first, as improving the rhythm of the English trans- lation, and making it run more pleasantly to the ear, and again, as rounding off the rather angular terseness of the Latin. But Cosin made a more important change in Cranmer's translation of this prayer. One of these is certainly an improvement. In the Prayer Book of 1549,
1 Gel. Sac. [Mar. torn. i. col. 694] has ' 1 propitiationis " (a blunder, no doubt) for " propitiatus." Greg. Sac. [ii. 174] ends "Per Dominum, etc."
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity. 153
and down to the time of the Revision, the last clause had stood thus ; " that we being ready both in body and soul, may with free hearts accomplish those things, that thou wouldest have done." This " with free hearts " was too literal a rendering of the Latin, which has " Liberis mentibus," " with free minds." Cosin exchanged the three words " with free hearts " for one most expressive word, " cheerfully," and, though it was only a single and a slight stroke, it was the stroke of a master's hand. " Cheerfully " is just such a translation as catches the spirit, while it disregards the letter, of the original.
Other points in the translation of Gelasius's original deserve a word of comment. Just as in the succeeding Collect, our translators have substituted the word " merci- ful " for " being appeased," so here they have given us the free rendering, " of thy bountiful goodness," as the representative of what is in the Latin " being propitiated." It is interesting and instructive to see how possessed the original framers of these Collects - must have been with the doctrine of the Atonement, as the only sure foundation of our appeals to God and our expectations from Him ; how they seem incapable of conceiving God's mercy and bountiful goodness flowing out towards man except through Christ, "the propitiation for sins ;"x how the idea of a mercy, which put justice out of sight, never seems to have entered their minds. It is quite possible that Cranmer and his Commission may have been influenced, in translating vaguely words which denote propitiation or atonement, by the thought that, whatever the authors may have meant by such words, they would have been understood in their times to refer to " the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the Priest
1 See 1 John ii. 2.
154 The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.
did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt," — sacrifices which our Church justly stigmatizes as " blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits " (Art. xxxi.)
" Keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may- hurt us." Literally rendered, these words are ; " Shut out all things that oppose or withstand us." And although this literal rendering might not have been sufficiently clear to stand alone without some explana- tion, it is full of meaning, and " Keep us from all things that may hurt us " is rather a tame substitute. The things that oppose us in our heavenly course are those hin- drances in " running the race that is set before us/'1 which the devil, the world, and the flesh throw in our way. In a large paraphrase the sense would be something of this kind ; " Throw us not amidst worldly companions, whose tone and influence are spiritually depressing ; nor amidst those sensual snares, which entangle and hamper the soul ; and above all, keep us from those special machina- tions of the evil one, wherewith Job and other holy men have been beset ; so that our feet may run like harts' feet in the way of thy commandments."2 — Lastly ; " the things which thou wouldst have done " is literally " the things which be thine " — God's things, that is, as distinct from the things of the world and the things of the flesh, or if you please, as distinct from " the things that are ours." But in drawing a distinction between the things that are God's and the things that are ours, let it be observed that there is a way in which the things that are ours may become God's things. The most trivial, commonest, humblest work of our calling, if done " as to the Lord and not unto men,"3 if done in dependence upon God, under a
1 Heb. xii. 1. 2 See Ps. xviii. 33, P.B.V., with Ps. cxix. 32.
3 See Col. iii. 23.
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity. 155
consciousness of His presence, and with the intention of pleasing Him thereby, and filling up the station assigned to us by His Providence, becomes a thing that is God's — a part of His service — quite as much as an act of worship is. A holy intention is the Midas' touch, which changes the most common-place of tasks into fine gold of the altar.
Turning now from these verbal criticisms to the great scope of the prayer, we ask, What is the leading idea of it ? And this will be most clearly brought out by taking into consideration its accompanying Epistle and Gospel. The Epistle exhorts to spiritual joyfulness, as the one great means of spiritual strength and progress. " Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess ; but be filled with the Spirit ; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord."1 The Gospel2 is the Parable of the Wedding Garment, rightly so called because the lack of a wedding garment in one of the guests is the leading point in it. And by one of the most eminent theo- logians of our own day the wedding garment has been expounded to signify such a spirit of holy joy, as is suitable for the great solemnity of the marriage supper of the Lamb.3 A wedding garment is a garment which corresponds in character with the occasion on which it is worn. Now observe how beautifully, and in how practi- cal a form, this idea of spiritual joyfulness is expressed in the Collect, — " that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done." The " cheerfully " is just the key-
1 Eph. v. 18, 19. - St. Matt. xxii. 1-15.
3 The late Professor Archer Butler, in the first series of his Posthumous Sermons.
156 The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.
stone of the whole prayer, which locks the different clauses of it together, and keeps them in their places. We pray that obstructions in the race which is set before us may be removed, — that impediments arising from the three great sources of spiritual mischief may be swept out of our path by God's providence and power, so that we may run the way of God's commandments when He has set our hearts at liberty.1 Without this, we shall not " do heartily whatsoever we do ;"2 we shall not serve God, as He wills to be served, " cheerfully." It is in givers especially, (on account of their aptness to give grudgingly), that the grace of cheerfulness is commended ; " God loveth a cheerful giver ;"3 " He that sheweth mercy, with cheerful- ness."4 But the truth is that this cheerfulness is the very life and soul of all good works, that no work is good which is not done in a spirit of alacrity and joy. And the source of this alacrity and joy is the opening of our hearts to receive all the blessings of Redemption, in the first instance, before we attempt to do anything for God. In spiritual as in natural life, receiving must go before giving. " Who hath first given to the Lord, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ?"5 Salvation (or forgive- ness, which is the germ of salvation) must be embraced before we can take a single forward step. We cannot express gratitude without feeling it, and we cannot feel it without a consciousness of being receivers. When the Psalmist raises the question, " What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me ? " he answers it thus j " I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord."6
1 See Psalm cxix. 32, P.B. V. 3 Col. iii. 23.
3 2 Cor. ix. 7. 4 Rom. xii. 8. 9 Rom. xi. 35.
6 Psalm cxvi. 12, 13.
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity. 157
We must not omit to glance at the mention of " the body " which is made in this Collect, and which surely is not its least interesting feature. It has been too much the tendency of religious thought, at all events in the Eeformed Church, to discard the body from all con- sideration, and to regard the soul or immortal part of man as being the exclusive sphere of Keligion. But this is a serious error, contrary alike to reason, to the teaching of the Church, and to Holy Scripture. Contrary to reason ; for our experience teaches that body and mind have a mutual interdependence, and exercise upon one another the subtlest influence, not the less felt because it cannot be traced or philosophically explained. Contrary to the teaching of the Church ; for, to put out of sight this and similar expressions in other prayers, what recurring references to the body do we find in the Canon (or invariable part) of the Communion Office, — " that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, preserve thy body and soul;" "we offer and present unto thee .... our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee." Con- trary, finally, to Holy Scripture, which teaches that " our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost,"1 which bids us yield unto God not ourselves only, but " our members, as instruments of righteousness unto Him ;"2 " glorify God in our body and in our spirit, which are God's ;"3 " present mr bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service;"4 and which exhibits to us the immaculate Body of our Lord Jesus Christ as the neces- sary implement of His sacrificial and redeeming work ; — " Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body 1 1 Cor. vi. 19. 2 Rom. vi. 13. 3 1 Cor. vi. 20. 4 Rom. xii. 1.
158 The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.
hast thou prepared me."1 Lessons, which carry with them the practical inferences that health is to be studied as a religious duty, and that not of the second rank ; that the discipline of the body by self-denial, the keeping it under and bringing it into subjection, is an essential con- dition of success in running the race that is set before us ; and that all honour is to be paid to the body by " keeping it in temperance, soberness, and chastity,"2 — our Church's exposition this of the seventh commandment.
1 Heb. x. 5.
3 Church Catechism ; "Duty towards our neighbour.''
Chapter LXV.
THE TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
©rant, toe begeecb tbee, merct* ful JLoru, to tbp faithful people patuon ann peace, tbat tbep map be cleangeD from all tbetr gtnsi, anu gctbe thee toitb a quiet rntnu j tbrougb. 31eaug Cbttgt out JLotB. Amen.
JLatgire, quaessumuss, Domtne, fiDeltbug tuis inliultjenttam placa* tits et pacem; ut partter ab omni* bus munoentur offenstsi, et secura ttbt mente negerbiant. Per Do» minum.— Gel. Sac.1— Miss. Sar.
In the series of the Communion Collects this is the last which is derived from the Sacramentary of Gelasius. In the brief biographical notice of Pope Gelasius and his times, which is given above [Book i. chap. v. pp. 31-38], it was pointed out that the frequent references found in his Collects, and indeed in the earlier ones of Leo, to the blessing of peace, probably originated in the violent poli- tical convulsions which resulted in the breaking up of the Empire of the West, and the setting up of a barbarian kingdom in Italy. In view of the disturbed and insecure state of society which attended this breaking up, it is no wonder if we find in the prayers of that period fervent breathings after quietness and security.
To speak in the first instance of the words employed.
1 In Gd. Sac. [Mur. i. 694], the words "et secura" are omitted, and the Collect ends with " Per." In Greg. Sac. [ii. 174], the words " et secura " make their appearance, and the end is "Per Dominum, etc."
160 The Twenty -first Sunday after Trinity.
The Latin word for " grant " is " largire," — " grant largely or bountifully." God never does things by halves. He is always a bountiful giver, — " wont to give more than either we desire or deserve."1 When He feeds a famish- ing multitude with bread and fish, there remain of frag- ments twelve baskets full.2 " Open thy mouth wide," says He to the petitioner who draws nigh to His throne of grace — bring me a large void to fill, and a large expectation of its being filled — " and I will fill it."3 Thou art " not straitened in me ; " but thou art " straitened in thine own bowels."4
" Merciful Lord." But the original word correspond- ing to " merciful " has a good deal more idea in it than the English word represents. It is rather, " Do thou, 0 Lord, being appeased or propitiated, grant us pardon and peace." In the story of Jonah, the storm at sea6 figures or typifies God's wrath against sin, and the calm, which ensued after Jonah had been committed to the waves,6 sig- nifies the appeasing of God's wrath as soon as the true Jonah had submitted himself to the curse of the law, " being made a curse for us."7 Surely the teaching of this word is most important in connexion with present con- troversies. For some do not scruple to tell us that God needs not to be propitiated for human sin. The position would be true enough, if they would add, " since Christ hath died." God does need no propitiation beyond — over and above — that which Christ once offered for all. But that propitiation most emphatically was needed. And surely the moral sense, for whose dictates such
1 Collect for Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.
2 See St. Matt. xiv. 20 ; St. Mark vi 43 ; St. Luke ix. 17 ; St. John vi. 13. 3 Psalm lxxxi. 10. 4 See 2 Cor. vi. 12.
5 Jonah i. 4. 8 Ver. 15. 7 Gal. iii. 13.
The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. 161
profound deference is professed by the rationalising school, assures us in no uncertain tones that God must be a righteous Judge, as well as a merciful Father, and that to suppose Him capable of passing over sin, without mani- festing His displeasure against it, would be to call in question the perfectness of His character. His justice must be appeased before His mercy can flow forth.
" Grant to thy faithful ones pardon? Here again a fine shade of the original Latin deserves notice. The word for " pardon " is indulgentia, indulgence — the same word which, in times much later than this Collect, acquired a sense of which every one has heard in connexion with the doctrines of the Church of Rome, — an indulgence, — by which is meant a remission of the temporal penalties of sin and of the pains of Purgatory. No such associa- tions had formed round the word in the time of Pope Gelasius [492-496] ; it simply meant in those days such an overlooking of faults and defects of character as the fondness of a father leads him to exhibit towards his children. The idea is exactly embodied in that promise of God by Malachi ; " I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him."1 And, in the present connexion, the use of this word, as well as the circumstance that the pardon is solicited for God's " faith- ful people," shows that what is meant is not the absolu- tion which God gives, when first a sinner or a worldling sincerely turns to Him, but the outflowing of fatherly compassion towards His children or believing servants, whereby their constantly recurring failures are put away. " He that is washed " (literally, whose whole person is bathed) " needeth not save to wash his feet."2 The pardon asked for in this Collect is not that entire washing in the
1 Mai. iii. 17. 2 St. John xiii. 10.
VOL. IL M
1 62 The Ttuenty-first Sunday after Trinity.
blood of Christ, which is granted in Baptism, and realised in sincere conversion after Baptism, but the washing of the feet from the moral defilement incurred in each day's walk.
" That they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind." The translators have here left out a word which signifies " at the same time," — nor is it essential, although its presence leads the mind into an edifying train of thought. By means of it pardon and peace were sued for together, thus raising in our minds the question, Can one exist without the other ? Can there be pardon without peace ? Wherever there is a spark of genuine faith, pardon is granted ; but faith is not always strong enough to carry with it the sense of pardon, which is peace. Feeling may run very low, although faith is really grappled to the Bock of ages, even as an anchor may hold fast, even when the sea's sur- face is violently agitated. But can there be peace with- out pardon ? Surely; not indeed peace, the fruit of the Spirit, but carnal peace, false security, the lull that comes of the conscience being dead, not of the Saviour's speak- ing peace to it. — " And serve thee with a quiet mind." The word for " serve " expresses devoted service, — the ser- vice which is done to an object, when a man lives for it. And " quiet " is literally " free from care " — a mind free from harassing anxieties, and which has learned the secret of saying under foreseen difficulties, " The Lord will pro- vide."1 A translation not offering anything of the vigorous, terse English of that in the Prayer Book, but bringing out the fine shades of significance, on which 1 have commented, would be as follows ; " Be reconciled, we beseech thee, Lord, to thy faithful ones, and grant
1 Gen. xxii. 14. marg.
The Tivcnty-first Sunday after Trinity. 163
them bountifully indulgence and peace, that they may be cleansed from all offences, and at the same time do thee devoted service without distraction of mind ; through Jesus Christ our Lord."
The Epistle and Gospel, thoughtfully considered, are seen to harmonize with the Collect in the trains of thought which they suggest. The Collect sues for peace. But peace implies and pre-supposes war, and the Epistle speaks of a state of war and lifelong conflict in which the true Christian is engaged, and in the course of which he cannot but occasionally sustain defeats and receive wounds. This is the war against principalities and powers, in which, unless we take to ourselves the whole armour of God, we shall infallibly be worsted.1 Our being worsted implies that we sin ; and sin must be met by pardon; and the sense of pardon shed abroad in the heart gives peace, in the strength of which we may suc- cessfully pursue our warfare. In the Gospel we have the story of the nobleman of Capernaum, whose son was at the point of death. He had a little faith ; for his coming to Christ implied so much, and moreover it is said of him, " the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him ;"2 but it was not a large, generous faith, like that of the Centurion of Capernaum ; he could not rise to the idea that by a word at a distance our Lord could heal the sick ; he fancied that He must be on the spot in order to work the miracle ; " Sir, come down," he exclaims, " ere my child die."3 Which words indicate, not only the scanty measure of his faith, but also that which is the invariable accompaniment of scant faith, scant comfort. His faith does not go far enough to give him peace ; he is worried and anxious about results, grudges every moment that Christ
1 See Eph. vi. 11, 12. 13. 2 St. John iv. 50. 3 Ibid. ver. 49.
164 The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.
delays to follow him, thinking that all would necessarily be over, unless the Lord arrived before the breath wa3 out of the child's body ; he is not free from care. But the prayer of the Collect, as we have seen, is for peace and for " a quiet mind," — the peace which flows from a sense of pardon, — such a sense as can only be engendered by a strong and robust faith.
The Collect is indeed a devotional gem ; and beautiful is the echo made in it to that most gracious invitation in the eleventh Chapter of St. Matthew, with the wording of which we are all so familiar, that its meaning fails to impress us as it ought ; " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 1 The passage itself is a perfect summary of the Gospel ; and the prayer before us is a summary of the passage. To go to God in Christ's name under a sense of our constantly-recurring guilt, and to ask for pardon, is to go to Christ. The result of going is, that Christ bestows on us the sense of pardon, which brings peace into the souL But these wonderfully com- prehensive words speak, not only of a peace given, but of a peace gained. There is a rest, not only in the reception of Christ, but also in the complete submission of the will to His commands and dispensations — in the taking upon us His " easy yoke and light burden." The echo of this second rest, which supervenes upon obedience, is heard in the last clause of the prayer, — " that they may serve thee with a quiet mind." The original peace comes of simply going to Christ, or through Christ to God ; the subsequent
1 St. Matt xi. 28, 29, 30.
The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. 165
peace comes of the devoted service, which after pardon we yield to Him. Be it remembered that, soothing as peace with God is, it implies and can only be realised in war- fare with His enemies, and that no soul can know from experience what it is in its fulness, until he has wrestled with principalities and powers, and, even where not foiled by them, has painfully felt the harassing and weariness of such a conflict. There is a yoke to be carried, a bur- den to be borne ; and rest unto the soul cannot possibly be maintained, however it may be in the first instance tasted, without carrying and bearing it
Chapter LXVI.
THE TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
JLorti, toe beseech thee to keep tfjp houseboln tbe &hurcb in con= tintial gooliness ; tbat tbrough tTjp protection it map be free from all acbcrjsttics, anD Deooutlp gtben to Seine thee in goou tooths, to the glorjof tbj Marat; through Jesus Christ our JLorn. Amen.
JFamiliam tuam, quaesumus, Domine, continua pietate cus* totii 5 ut a cunctis aBSersitatibus te protegente Sit libera, et in bonis actibus tuo nomini sit uebota. Per iDominum. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
The English of this Collect has never been altered, since it was first made in 1549. It is a translation from a Latin original, found in a MS. Sacramentary of the ninth or tenth century, which was given by Leofric, bishop of Exe- ter, to his Church before the Norman Conquest, and traced up to the Sacramentary of Gregory. "We have already come across instances in which the Reformers, in trans- lating a Collect, have improved upon the original This, however, is not the case here. The translation in this instance is not only incorrect, but its incorrectness is of a nature to obliterate the connexion of thought between the Collect and the Gospel. But let us come to the words ; — " Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy household the Church." " Household " is an admirably-chosen word to express the Latin "familia." While it represents the
1 Greg. Sac. [Mur. ii. 175] follows the " Dominum" with " etc."
The Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity. 167
sense quite as accurately as the word " family," and more fully, it has the true Saxon ring about it, — is a good, old-fashioned, English word. A household is an establish- ment consisting of children and servants, dwelling together under one roof, and subject to the rule of a father and master. God's household is an establishment consisting of children and servants, but having this point of distinc- tion from earthly households, that the children and ser- vants are the same people ; he who in one point of view is a child, in another is a servant and domestic. This establishment was founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, and fully set up on the day of Pentecost, on which occasion all the disciples were gathered together into one house,1 symbolical, no doubt, of the one Church of Christ. And the Church is compared by St. Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, to " a great house," in which are different sorts of vessels and articles of furniture, some for base and some for honourable uses.2 Eemember, then, that the aspect under which we are looking at Almighty God in this Collect is that of a Father and Master of a house- hold, the members of which are both His children and His servants. — But to proceed — " to keep thy household the Church in continual godliness." This is a mistaken translation. The Latin, indeed, " continua pietate custodi," might possibly mean this, but as a fact it certainly does not. And it is noticeable that the mistake is repeated in the Collect for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, where the first clause of the original is the same (word for word) as we have here, and where the translation runs thus ; — " We beseech thee to keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion."3 But pietas,
1 See Acts ii. 1,2. 2 See 2 Tim. ii. 20.
3 See above, Vol. L 219, 220.
1 68 The Twenty -second Sunday after Trinity.
the original of our word " piety," does not here mean either " godliness " or " true religion." It might, in- deed, have this sense ; for it does very often mean right sentiments towards God, such as we call " godliness " or " religion." But had the petition been that the Church should be kept in godliness or true religion, the prepo- sition " in " would have been prefixed to the word pietas. And we have only to turn to the Collects for the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Sundays after Trinity to see what the true meaning is. The first of these runs thus : — " Keep, we beseech thee, 0 Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy ; " the second thus : — " 0 Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church." Similarly, the translation here should be ; — " We beseech thee to keep thy household the Church with" (not in, but with — this is to be the instrument of guardianship), " thy continual pity." The truth is that pietas denotes not only man's sentiments towards God (as in our word " piety"), but also God's sentiments towards man, (as in our word " pity"). Pity as well as piety (in French pitU as well %&piAU) is a form of the old Latin word pietas, and ex- presses a full half of the idea conveyed by that old word. In Virgil's JEneiol, when one of Priam's sons is cruelly killed under his father's eyes, the old king is made to cry out upon the murderer ; " May the gods (siqua est cozlo pietas), if there be any tender mercy in heaven, requite thee with a worthy recompence for so unnatural a crime ! " 1 And it is singularly interesting to observe that three
1 "At tibi pro scelere, exclamat, pro talibus ausis, Di, siqua est coelo pietas, quse talia curet, Persolvant grates dignas, et prsemia reddant Debita, qui nati coram me cernere letum Fecisti, et patrios foedasti vulnere voltus. " — ^En. Lib. ii.
The Tiventy-second Sunday after Trinity. 1 69
times in the Collects God's mercy is invoked to keep or defend His Church, though each time a distinct word is used, which gives a distinct aspect of the mercy sued for. In the Collect for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity the word used is propitiatio, which means mercy through atone- ment (and mercy to sinners is to be had in no other way). In the Collect for the Sixteenth Sunday it is miseratio, which means merely compassion excited by a spectacle of suffering. While here (and in the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany) it is pietas — continud pietate custodi — "Keep thy household the Church with thy perpetual fatherly pity." It is not only pity, but pity as it finds place in the breast of a master who is also a father. How beautiful is the promise of this fatherly pity made by the mouth of Malachi to those who fear the Lord and think upon His name ; " I will spare them," says God, "as a man spareth his own son that serveth him ; "l observe the " son that serveth " — the member of God's household, both servant and son. Take the case of a son apprenticed to an affec- tionate father. Observe how the father on every oppor- tunity " spares " the son, makes allowances for backward- ness, slack service, faults of character, and escapades ; is indulgent towards him, as he would hardly be to an apprentice, who is not of his own blood. Well, this is God's mode of dealing with the children of His household who serve Him ; whereas the devil and the world are hard taskmasters, and have no outflowing of tender pity for those apprenticed to them, but rather turn their troubles into ridicule. Judas made a contract with the world to do it service ; and when he came to the world for a morsel of sympathy in his trouble of mind, he found that, though there was hard cash, there was no such thing
1 Mai. iii. 17.
1 70 The Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.
as sympathy, in the world's exchequer. This was all he got ; " What is that to us ? see thou to that"1
But I must not omit to call your attention to the beautiful harmony existing between the Collect, as it stands in the original, and the Gospel. " Keep thy house- hold the Church with thy continual fatherly compassion." Now the Gospel tells us of a king who had a " familia," — a household of servants, one of whom had run up an enormous debt to him of ten thousand talents. And when the day of reckoning came, and the man was in trouble about his debt, and asked for time to discharge it, the king — though he was not a father, but merely a mas- ter who took an interest in his servants — " was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt." 2 Even the best and most faithful of God's servants, even the most dutiful of His children, are daily running up a debt to Him which they cannot pay. This debt, if it were pressed against them, would lay them open to eternal banishment from God's favour and presence. There- fore the prayer of the Collect is that a continual outflow of pietas, — fatherly compassion, — may remit the debt as it accrues ; that God would shelter them under the wings of His mercy, when conscience gives verdict against them, and the devil presses for judgment. In all such crises they are safe, when sheltered by God's fatherly compas- sion, as safe as the brood of a hen when gathered under her wings. And now, what is the issue and result of this sheltering of the Church under the win^s of the Divine Compassion ? First, the Church's safety — " that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities " (not from earthly trials and troubles, but from all influences adverse to its growth in grace, from all drawbacks in its
1 See St. Matt, xxvii. 4. 5 St. Matt, xviii. 27.
The Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity. 1 7 1
heavenly course). But is the Church to be so shielded and sheltered, without making any return ? Are her trans- gressions to be blotted out, and herself secured from the results of them, in vain ? Not so. The Heavenly Father's pity and protection must bear fruit in her. And so the Collect closes, " and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy name" — a very good free translation, but not a close one. " That it may be devoted to thy name in good actions " — this is the literal render- ing of the original. " Devoted " (not to Thee, though it amounts to the same thing, but) " to thy name." God's " name " means, as we have often said before, His charac- ter ; and to be devoted to His name means to be devoted to Him from an intelligent appreciation of the perfections which go to make up His character, His love, His holi- ness, His truth, His power, His wisdom, and so forth. Our devotion to men may be a fancy, of which we can give no reasonable account. Our devotion to God, if sincere, can be on no other ground than a high estimation of His character.1 Now, what form is this devotion to take ? It must take a practical form. It is not a mere fine sentiment, but a living, working principle, which lays hold of the springs of human character, and therefore shapes and models human conduct — " in bonis actibus devota " — devoted to God's name in the path of good actions. St. Paul does not allow the benevolent inten- tions of the Corinthian Church towards the poor saints at Jerusalem to evaporate in a flourish of rhetoric, or to pass off in a fine glow of emotion. " Now, therefore, perform the doing of it," says he ; " that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have." 2 And he prays in the Epistle of the Day for the
1 See above in this Volume, p. 45, and note 1. 3 2 Cor. viii. 11.
LJ2 The Twenty -second Sunday after Trinity.
Philippians, that they " may be filled with the fruits of righteousness " (not with its blossoms and leaves only — the barren fig-tree had a great show of leaves1 — but with its fruits), " which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."2 The Collect, however, while it does not omit these fruits, but, on the other hand, sues for them with all earnestness, places them in their true order, — after, not before, grace. Having first experienced fatherly compas- sion and fatherly protection, the Church then gives her heart to God, and walks in good actions. At least such is the teaching of the original Latin prayer, and you will agree with me that we have lost a valuable truth by the substitution in the translation of a different idea.
1 See St. Mark xi. 13.
4 Philip, i 11.
Chapter LXVII.
THE TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
2D ©on , out refuge ann strength, toTjo art tTje autfiot of all gooli* ness ; TSe teaDp, toe beseecf) tljee, to Jjeat tfje Deoout prayers of tTjp dljutct) ; ano grant tifiat tfjose dungs toTjic^ toe ask fatrtjfullp toe ma; obtain cffec tuallp 3 tfitougl) 3IeSuS Cljriat out Lorn. Amen.
IDeuS, tefugium nostrum et t>it» ttts : aDesto p ttst QScdcsiae tuae pmituig, auctot ipse ptctaug 5 et praesta ut quoD fioeliter pettmus, eflicacitet consequamut. PetlDo= mtnum. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
In one of the visions of the Book of the Revelation, the prayers of saints are symbolically represented as " golden vials full of odours." 2 The odours are the heavenly desires, affections, and aspirations, -which con- stitute the inward spiritual grace of prayer. The vial which contains the odours is the outward part of prayer — the form of words in which it is couched. In all prayers which are to be publicly offered, and indeed in all stated prayers, though the great point to be secured is that there should be heart and fervour in them, attention should be paid also to the form of words, that it should be as grace- ful as we can make it. And hence the compilers and revisers of the Prayer Book, in translating for us the ancient Latin devotions in use before the Reformation, have often inserted two or three words which, while they
1 Greg. Sac. [Mur. ii. 175] adds "etc." to " Per Dominum." 2 Rev. v. 8.
t 74 The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.
do not add much to the meaning, give rhythm to the prayer, and make it sound better in reading it. In the Collect before us, the clause " we beseech thee " was put in at the last Review, and has nothing to represent it in the original Latin. If you read the Collect without this clause, the meaning of it does not suffer, but it is rather bald, and something is lost to the ear — the rhythm and run of it are not so musical as at present.
The prayer, as *it stands, is certainly a noble piece of English. But it is to be regretted that the point of it has been in some measure lost (as so often hap- pens in our translation of the Bible) by using different English words to express one and the same word in the original. To represent the original of this Collect quite accurately either the prayers of the Church should have been called " godly" : — " 0 God . . . who art thyself the author of all godliness, be ready to hear the godly prayers of thy Church ; " or (which perhaps would have been better) God should have been addressed as the author, not of godliness, but of devotion : — " 0 God . . . who art thyself the author of devotion, be ready to hear thy Church's devout prayers." The Latin is so worded as to suggest this most valuable truth, that God will and must be ready to hear the prayers which He Himself inspires, and puts into the minds of His people. This idea is brought out in a lively way in the original, but rather blurred and dimmed in the translation.
• Three points offer themselves for comment in the Collect — the magnificent exordium (or invocation) ; the prayers which God is ready to hear ; and the prayers which He will grant. There is a great distinction between these two classes of prayers. God is ready to hear hun- dreds of prayers which He will not grant, which He could
The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity. 175
not grant consistently with His own perfections, and with the conditions which He has laid down for Himself in administering the kingdoms of Nature, Providence, and Grace.
(1.) The magnificent exordium, taken from the first verse of the forty-sixth Psalm ; — " O God, our refuge and strength." We must look at that Psalm a lit.tle to appreciate the full force of this invocation. Many commentators suppose it to refer to Sennacherib's invasion, and the extreme peril into which the kingdom of Judah was brought thereby. The invader had not only swept the ten tribes into captivity, but had actually taken, one after another, all the fortified cities of Judah which lay in the course of his march to Jerusalem. The flood of invasion, to employ an image adopted by the Prophet Isaiah, had submerged every part of the body politic except the neck and head.1 It is not absolutely certain that the Psalm refers to this particular crisis of the national history, but it certainly does refer to a time of most urgent and imminent distress. This is apparent from the first verse, as well as from the tenor of the Psalm itself. " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Hezekiah sought God as his refuge and strength, and found Him to be a very pre- sent help in trouble, when, after reading Sennacherib's letter, he went up into the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord, and prayed to be saved, for the honour of God's name, from the hand of the invader.2 . . . We gather then that the prayers which are principally (if not exclusively) referred to in this Collect are prayers poured out by the Church when God's chastening is upon her,3 — cries of distress, yea of very sore distress, when men are "pressed out of measure above strength, so that they despair
1 Isaiah viii. 8. 2 See Isaiah xxxvii. 14, 20. 3 See Isaiah xxvi. 16.
176 The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.
even of life."1 Such prayers are specially prescribed, and special promises annexed to them. Witness the following ; — "Call upon me in the day of trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me."2 And the hundred and seventh Psalm is an enumeration of four different kinds of trouble, which make men fly to God as their refuge and strength, and out of which He delivers them. The refrain of it is four times repeated (Oh that it might be written in our hearts!): — "Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses."3 We may play at prayers in sunshine hours ; but when the heaven of our fortunes is " black with clouds and wind," and the torrent flood of trouble reaches up to the neck, then it is — too ofteD, alas ! not till then — that we pray in right earnest, from the very core of our hearts.
(2.) The second point is, the prayers which God is ready to hear. These are called in our translation " devout prayers." And, as I have pointed out, a reason is assigned why God should be " ready to hear " them — that they have, in fact, proceeded from Him ; that He is Himself the author of devotion in the human heart, and therefore must be " ready to hear " the voice of devotion. The course of true prayer may be compared to the course of Noah's dove. Noah put forth the dove out of the win- dow of the ark ; but the dove, after resting a little in the boughs of an olive tree, came back to him in the evening with an olive leaf in her mouth.4 Before a man can be stirred up to offer any true prayer, God's holy Dove, sent down from heaven, must brood over his heart, to quicken in it those holy desires which are the soul of prayer. The desire so quickened mounts again, as it were on the
1 See 2 Cor. i. 8. 2 Ps. L 15.
3 Yv. 6, 13, 19, 28. * See Gen. viii. 8, 9, 10, 11.
The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity. 177
wings of the holy Dove, towards God, and is received at the open window of heaven, and welcomed back there.
But though God may smile upon the offerer of a devout prayer, and indeed smile upon the prayer itself, inasmuch as He loves to have the heart poured out before Him,1 and all the desires of His children made known to Him in submission to His own will,2 He does not pledge Himself to answer every devout prayer, or at least to answer it in the form in which it is offered. The Latin word, which our translators have rendered excellently well, " Be ready to hear," means literally " Be present to the devout prayers " — make some gracious sign of Thy presence and favourable acceptance. St. Paul's prayer that the thorn in the flesh, some natural infirmity (whether short-sightedness, or stuttering, or a painful nervous affec- tion), which greatly impeded his ministry, might depart from him,3 could not fail to be a devout prayer. It was offered by a spiritual man ; the desire for the removal was doubtless prompted by the feeling that the infirmity in question was a serious drawback to his usefulness ; and the fervour with which he made the request is indicated by the fact that he repeated it thrice : — " For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me." And the Lord showed Himself ready to hear the devout prayer. He made His gracious presence felt by the Apostle ; possibly appeared to him in bodily form, and spoke in words which struck upon the outward ear ; cer- tainly whispered to him in his heart, in such a way that he could not mistake who it was that addressed him. But for all that He did not grant the request. He saw that His servant still needed the thorn in the flesh to keep him humble, and to remind him that " the excel-
1 See Ps. lxii. 8. 2 See Philip, iv. 6. 3 See 2 Cor. xiL 7, 8.
VOL. IT. N
i 78 The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.
lency of the power " of his ministry was " of God."1 He gave him supporting grace, but He would not remove the thorn. " He said . . . My grace is sufficient for thee : for my strength is made perfect in weakness." 2 St. Paul had only asked the removal in submission to the wisdom and will of his Master. And he more than acquiesced in the refusal of his petition. Knowing now his Master's wise designs for him, he gloried in his infirmities.3
(3.) The last point is, the prayers which God will grant. " Grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually." In one of the Collects at the end of the Communion Service we find the same request in a rather more expanded form. At the close of our Service we plead God's promise " to hear the petitions of them that ask in " His " Son's name ; " and then say — " We beseech thee mercifully to incline thine ears to us that have made now our prayers and supplications unto thee." This is exactly equivalent to asking God to " be ready to hear the devout prayers of " His " Church." " And/' we continue, " grant that those things which we have faithfully asked according to thy will, may effectually be obtained, to the relief of our necessity, and to the setting forth of thy glory." To " ask faithfully " is to ask in faith. But the faith which is intended in these places must, I apprehend, be something more than a mere gene- ral persuasion that God will give us what it is best for us to have. It must be a specific persuasion that this or that thing is according to His will, and that He means us to ask it, and means in some way or other to give it us. Doubtless there was such a persuasion on the minds of the little flock, who were gathered together praying at the
1 See 2 Cor. iv. 7. 2 2 Cor. xii. 9. 3 Ibid.
The Twenty-third Stinday after Trinity. 1 79
house of Mary the mother of John during the time of St. Peter's imprisonment.1 They were persuaded that it was according to God's mind to deliver their Apostle, in whose life and labours the interests of the Gospel were so bound up. And they knew that their prayers were the means by which the blessing should accrue to them, and therefore offered these prayers without ceasing. It is not necessary to suppose that they expected the extra- ordinary miracle by which the result was brought about (for we are told that when they opened the door and saw the Apostle "they were astonished"2), but they doubtless did expect that St. Peter would be restored to them in some way or other, possibly by God's softening Herod's ani- mosity, or diverting him from his cruel design by some pressing emergency elsewhere. And they had the peti- tions which they desired of God ;3 that which they asked faithfully, according to His will, they obtained effectually.
If God does not nowadays work miracles in the ordi- nary sense of that term, He undoubtedly does work great marvels in the way of His ordinary Providence; and the minds of His people are as fully open to Him, and as accessible to impressions from Him, as they were in the earliest ages ; and we may appeal with some confidence to the experience of real Christians, whether it does not often happen that God sends them a persuasion that such or such an object of desire is according to His mind, and will be granted to earnest prayer, and also whether such a boon has not been granted to such prayers in ways which, if not supernatural, are very wonderful, and quite as effectual to the end as the supernatural itself would have been.
1 See Acts xii. 5, 12. a Ver. 16. 3 See 1 John v. 15.
Chapter LXVIII.
THE TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
2D JLortJ, toe beseecb tbee, ab* golbe tbp people from tTjetr offers ce$-} that tfjroun;!) tbp bountiful goonnegss toe map all be DeUbereD from tbe banns of tbose tine, tobtcfj bp out fratltp toe babe com* mitten : ©rant this, SD beatienip jFatbet, fot 3!essust elitist's sake, out blcsscn JLortJ ano %abtour. Amen.
absolbe, miaesumus, jDomine, tuorum uelicta populotum ; et a peccatotum nostrorum netibus, quae pro nostra fragtlitare con* trattmus, tua bentgnttate Hbete» mur. PerDominum. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
" 0 Lord, we beseech thee, absolve thy people ; " " Stir up, we beseech thee, the wills of thy people.". Such is the strain in which run the two last Collects of the Christian Year. An old strain, the cadences of which are familiar to all of us, but which we may not weary of ; for it needs to be repeated at every break in the Christian
1 Greg. Sac. [Mur. ii. 121] has "nostrum" for " nostrorum, " and ends with "Per, etc." "This is a Sunday Collect for the Seventh Month" (Bright'8 "Ancient Collects," p. 220), and appears to have been said in connexion with St Peter's Festival, whence doubtless its reference to the power of the keys. The Gregorian Sacramentary provides only for twenty- four Sundays after Pentecost, the Collect for the last being " Excita, qua;- sumus" ("Stir up, we beseech thee"). Osmund appears to have postponed " Stir up" to the Twenty-fifth Sunday, which is called in Miss. Sar. " Dominica Proximo, ante Adventum, ' and had therefore to seek for the Twenty-fourth from another part of Gregory's book.
The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity. 1 8 1
Life, when each day closes in, when each month wanes, when each year (as now) falls into the sere and yellow leaf. God's sentence of acquittal for past offences, and the fresh spring of holy energy which the will makes after receiving that sentence ; these are the two thoughts which underlie the ninetieth Psalm, that " prayer of Moses the man of God," which he uttered as one generation of Israel- ites was dropping into the graves of the wilderness, and as another, in the prime of youth and vigour, and with bright auspices, was preparing to enter upon the promised in- heritance. " 0 satisfy us early with thy mercy ; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days this is the petition which the twenty-fourth Collect echoes back, in the formed ecclesiastical language of the Christian Church. " And establish thou the work of our hands upon us ; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it;"2 this is Moses' prayer for a new period of service and activity on the part of the chosen people, corresponding to the petition of the twenty-fifth Collect for the renewal of the will, the plenteous fruit of good works put forth under that renewal, and the plenteous recompence.
"0 Lord, we beseech thee, absolve."3 What is it to absolve ? It is not the same thing as to forgive. To absolve a man is to pronounce his sins forgiven. Abso- lution is acquittal ; and acquittal is the sentence of a court of justice, whereby the prisoner at the bar is declared innocent of the offences charged against him, and set at liberty from his bonds. Abso- lution may be and is, in the order of the Church, dis-
1 Ver. 14. 2 Ver. 17.
3 The old word assoil was used until 1661. Then the Revisers ex- changed it for absolve.
1 82 The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.
pensed by human ministers, and, "when so dispensed, is always understood to be conditional on the repentance and faith of the person on whom the sentence is pro- nounced. I have seen it said that it is God's province to forgive sins, the priest's province to absolve from them ; but here we see that such a distinction by no means uni- formly holds good. It is God, and God in the First Person, — " the God and Father," — who is here called upon to absolve ; " 0 Lord, we beseech thee, absolve." So that it would appear that God not only forgives, but also Himself takes the function of the priest into His own hand, and absolves the sinner, — pronounces him forgivem Where and how does Almighty God do this ? In the man's conscience ; in his heart of hearts ; taking up perhaps some comfortable word of Holy Scripture (for example, " Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee ; " 1 or, " The blood of J esus Christ his Son cleanseth, us from all sin "'*), and bearing it in upon the sinner's mind, so that he feels it to be meant for him. 0 grand consola- tion, to be not forgiven only, but to hear the sentence of forgiveness pronounced by God's voice in the conscience. For God must know infallibly whether the conditions of repentance and faith are fulfilled, and never pronounces His absolution except where they are so. His sentence of forgiveness is the dawn, not only of hope and praise, but of energy in the soul ; just as, when the first yellow streak breaks in the east, and the morning opens her eyelids, birds begin to pipe, and breezes spring up, and leaves rustle, and there is a stir throughout the whole realm of nature.
" Absolve the offences of thy people." There is here something peculiar and observable in the wording of the
1 St. Matt. ix. 2. 3 1 John i. 7.
The Twenty-fotirth Sunday after Trinity. 183
original Latin, the word people being in the plural. If the reading is correct,1 the plural will indicate an enlarged spirit of intercession on the part of the petitioners who offer this Collect. They pray not for a single congrega- tion, but for all congregations of the Universal Church spread over the globe, in whatever language and under whatever forms they may worship, that God would now, when another year of work, opportunity, and responsi- bility is closing in upon us, come and " speak peace to His people"2 in every place, to every assembly of His saints.
" That through " (or by) " thy bountiful goodness we may all be delivered " (the " all " is due to the last Revisers of the Prayer Book, who possibly may have designed it to represent the plural in the word just now commented on ; " peoples," used to denote the people of God all over the world, would at least have been an unusual phrase, and it might occur to them to express the sense of the plural in another form) " from the bands of those sins." 3 First ; of bonds or bands, in the literal sense of the word, — the chains which bind a prisoner, so that he has not the free use of his limbs ; or the grave-clothes wrapped tightly about the hands and feet of Lazarus, which crippled his action, so that
1 The same plural is found in the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Easter. In Du Cange's Glossary (Art. Populus) there is found an observa- tion of Baluze to the effect that in the mediaeval Latin pupilli is sometimes wrongly written populi. Pupillus (from which comes our word pupil) means a ward, a person under tutelage and training, one "under tutors and governors ;" and, if this were the true reading in the Collect before us, the word would indicate the education which God's people are at present receiving from Him, by the discipline of His word, His providence, and His Spirit. 3 See Ps. lxxxv. 8.
3 So stood the translation, as originally made in 1549 ; but in 1552 (in King Edward's Second Book) the word was altered from bands to bomla, though the former word has been since replaced.
184 The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.
before he could walk with freedom and comfort, the Lord had to say, " Loose him and let him go."1 The idea of sins as bonds which cripple the sinner is still more vividly brought out in one of our occasional Collects : — " Though we be tied and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of thy great mercy loose us."2 — Now pray observe the exact force of this part of the prayer. There is no going over the same ground as before. The meaning is not, " 0 Lord, absolve us . . . that through thy bountiful goodness we may be absolved." The meaning is not anything so vapid and trivial as this, but something deeply significant, precious, and edifying. It is as if a prisoner should say to the court, " Pray, acquit me, that I may be released and walk abroad at liberty once more." So the culprit at the heavenly tribunal prays, " Speak pardon and peace to my conscience, 0 Judge of all the earth, that I may be set at liberty to serve thee once more, to walk before thee in the way of thy commandments." The absolution must come first, before there is, and that there may be, this service, this walking. A man whose hands and feet are clogged with a sense of unforgiven sin can do nothing in the way of walking, op working; or free service. He must first have tbe load lifted off his conscience, and then he will be free and able to walk and work, and will do so in the light of God's countenance. So the petition amounts to this — " Speak peace to the consciences of thy people, that the impediments to a holy life may be removed."
But the word nexus, which is here translated " bands," has a second and figurative sense, which is too important
1 See St. John xL 44.
2 In "Prayers and Thanksgivings upon several Occasions," headed — " IT A Prayer that may be said after any of the former."
The Twe?Uy -fourth Sunday after Trinity. 185
to be dropped out of sight. It means a financial entangle- ment ; in other words, a debt. The Eoman law of debt was excessively severe, and gave the creditor power, if his claims were not satisfied after due warning, to sell the debtor into slavery ; and the liability to become a slave, which the debtor incurred by his debt, was called by this word nexus. Now, our Lord in the Lord's Prayer has consecrated for us this figure — sin under the image of a debt. The second petition of the second part, Literally translated, runs thus ; " And remit to us our debts, as we also remit to our debtors theirs."1 According to the language of the Parable which inculcates forgiveness ; " Then the lord of that servant was moved with com- passion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt."2 And observe that the debt which we contract by sin is one which lays us open to slavery. " Whosoever com- mitteth sin " (as a wilful practice and habit) " is the ser- vant " (or slave) " of sin."3 " Ye have yielded your mem- bers servants " (slaves) to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity"4 ..." when ye were the slaves of sin, ye were free from righteousness."5 The prayer then here is, that God would by His voice in their souls assure His people that He remits all their debts to them for Christ's sake, so that by His bountiful goodness they may all be delivered from the bondage into which they have brought themselves by sin, and may thenceforth, under a sense of His bounty, " yield their members servants to righteous- ness unto holiness ;"6 — their hands to do God's work ; their feet to go on His errands ; their eyes to study His works ; their ears to listen to His Word ; their mouth to sing His praises ; their whole will and mind to be an echo
1 St. Matt. vi. 12. 4 Rom. vi. 19.
- St. Matt, xviii. 27. • Rom. vi. 20.
3 St. John viii. 34 6 Rom. vi. 19.
1 86 The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.
of His. If He cancels our debts by His " bountiful good- ness," it is that we may be free thenceforth to yield to Him the loving service of our lives.
" Which by our frailty we have committed." The literal translation is, " which according to our frailty we have contracted" — contracted, in reference to the liabilities under which we have brought ourselves by sin, and which are glanced at, as we have seen, in the word nexus. And " by our frailty " should be rather " in accordance with our frailty." It is not simply that our frailty (our inherit- ance from Adam's fall) causes our sin ; but that sin is the natural result of our frailty, what is to be expected and anticipated from it ; its legitimate outcome ; the evil fruit, which in the course of nature is brought forth by the corrupt tree.1
It only remains to say that there is much significance and propriety in the ending of the Collect, which is more developed and expanded than most of the endings, and was inserted at the last Eeview. God is addressed as " our heavenly Father," an invocation somewhat rare in the Collects, but suited, if only our hearts echo it, to move Him to release us from the misery and entanglement of the bands of sin ; and J esus Christ is called, not our Lord only, but " our Saviour," doubtless to remind us that the release from our debts which we sue for is granted in virtue of His having paid them, and that, while to us it is an act of grace, to Him as our Head and Eepresentative it is an act of justice.
1 See St. Matt. vii. 17.
Chapter LXIX.
THE TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
%tir up, toe beseech tbee, 9D ILotD, the totiljs of th? faitbful people j that thep, ptettteouglp bringing forth the fruit of goon toorfeg, mag of thee be plenteous!? retoameb ; tbtough Jesus Cbtist out Horn. Amen.
<£tcita, quaesumus, Domine, tuotum fineltum boluntates ; ut Bibint opens fructum propensius etSequentes, pietatis tuaetemebia mafota petctptant. Pet Domi» num. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
It would naturally be supposed that the alterations of the originals, which the Reformers made in translating from the old Latin Office books, would be in what is called the evangelical direction, — that the new-fashioned prayer would speak more distinctly the doctrines of grace than the old one had done. But this is by no means always the case. There is a remarkable instance to the contrary in the Collect before us, for the exhibition of which it will be necessary to give a close translation of the original Latin, as it stands in the Sacramentary of Gregory. " Stir up, we beseech thee, 0 Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, more readily following after the effect of [thy]
1 Greg. Sac. [Mur. ii. 176] has " Domine, quaesumus" for " qusesu- mas, Domine," and places " etc." after " Per Dominum." Canon Bright says [" Ancient Collects," p. 220] ; " The word ' Excita,' with which this Collect begins, had been used in the Gelasian Advent Collects in con- nexion both with man's ' heart' and God's 'power.' "
1 88 The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.
divine working, may obtain from thy fatherly goodness larger assistances. Through the Lord." Comparing this with our present Collect, we see at once that the turn given to the aspiration (or latter part of the prayer), while entirely warranted by Holy Scripture, and perfectly sound and good, and withal very pointed and terse, is rather away from than towards the doctrines of grace. Thus the words rendered " fruit of good works," really are " the fruit of the divine work " (divini operis fructum). " Fruit of good works " is a perfectly scriptural,1 and there- fore entirely justifiable phrase; but it does not exhibit the agency of the Holy Ghost in the production of good works so distinctly as " fruit of the divine work." The idea of the original is just this, that as God works in the realm of Nature beneath the soil to produce those fruits which, in their season, become visible above the soil, so in the realm of grace He works secretly and invisibly within the heart, to produce those results in the character of the man, which are called by St. Paul the fruit of the Spirit.2 " Fruit of the divine work," or " effect of God's working," at once leads our thoughts to the text, " It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,"3 and no doubt was intended by the writer of the original Latin to do so. " Fruit of good works " exhibits our side of the production, but leaves out God's. — Again, the prayer that we may " plenteously " bring " forth the fruit of good works " has most abundant and satisfactory Scriptural justification. Our Lord bids us " so let " our " light shine before men that they may see our good works."* Dorcas is commended as having been " full of good works and almsdeeds which she did;"5 we are "created in Christ
1 See St. Luke iii. 8 ; Tit. iii. 14 ; Rom. vi. 22, etc. 2 See Gal. v. 22, 23. 3 Philip, ii. 13. 4 St. Matt. v. 16. « Acts ix. 36.
The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity. 1S9
Jesus," St. Paid tells us, " unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them;"1 Holy Scripture is given to this end, " that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works;"2 Christ " gave himself for us, that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works ;" 3 we are instructed to "consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good works ; " 4 and thrice in a single Chapter does St. Paul urge the Bishop of Crete to " put " his flock " in mind to be ready to every good toork" " to maintain good works," to " be careful to maintain them."5 Add to this that, in making an abundance of good works the object of Christian prayer and effort, our religion is apt to take that sound, healthy, practical, English tone, which St. Paul in the latest period of his life seems so much to have appreciated, and which our Eeformers, as true loyal-hearted Englishmen, sought to impress upon the devotions of the English Church. If a man judge himself only by reli- gious affections and sentiments, there may be much room for deception ; tangible " good works," which others can see, the sacrifice, for instance, of one's means or one's time to do good to others, are a surer and safer test. Thus we have every reason for prizitg the idea of " good works," which the translation bring3 out much more sharply and distinctly than the original does. At the same time, in reference to the term "fruit," it is to be borne in mind that when St. Paul (in Gal. v.) describes " the fruit of the Spirit," or, in other words, divini operis fructum — the fruit of God's operation in man's heart, — he enumerates not works, but only states of mind. He does not say, " The fruit of the Spirit is prayer, fasting, almsgiving, feeding
1 Eph. ii. 10. 3 2 Tim. iii. 17. 3 Tit. ii. 14.
4 Heb. x. 24. 3 Tit. iii. 1, 14, 8.
1 90 The Twenty -fifth Sunday after Trinity.
the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, instruct- ing the ignorant, consoling the downcast, and so forth ;" but " the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffer- ing, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,"1 all which are merely graces of Christian character, though they will, of course, if genuine, transpire in the conduct. This " fruit of the Spirit " is beautifully contrasted with " the works of the flesh," part of the contrast being implied in the dissimilar words " works" and " fruit ;" works giving the idea of that which is toilsome, laborious, and demand- ing an effort ; fruit of that which is the produce of an inner life, — something yielded peaceably, gently, noiselessly, gradually, and in due season. And yet fruit, while there is nothing painful or laborious in the method of its pro- duction, is a very tangible result of the working of natural life in a tree ; fruit can satisfy the appetite, and can be laid up in store as a provision for future years. There can be little doubt that the writer of the Latin Collect, when he wrote " fruit of the divine operation," had in his mind that lovely text about " the fruit of the Spirit," and possibly also those solemn words of our Lord Himself, " He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit."2
But to revert to the translation and our criticism of it. One sees why the translators wrote " bringing forth the fruit," rather than what they found in the original, eccequentes fructum — " following after the fruit." The latter expression would have been in English a confusion of metaphor. An object or end is followed after. Fruit is not followed after, but brought forth. But in Latin the word frwtus, which is the origin of our " fruit," does not necessarily carry our thoughts to trees or vegetable pro-
1 Gal. v. 22, 23. 8 St. John xt. 5.
The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity. 191
duce ; its root-meaning is enjoyment ; and thence it comes to signify the means of any sort of enjoyment, any good result (or effect, or consequence,) of any kind. So here the literal translation would be, " that we, following after the result of the Divine working in the heart " (not content, that is, with the consciousness that such a work is going on, but earnest to see its results and evidences in our own life and conversation), " may obtain from thy fatherly goodness larger assistances " (properly the assistances of medical skill), remedia maj'ora. There is no indication, you see, here of "plenteous reward;" the idea is altogether different. The idea of a plenteous reward for good works is indeed perfectly Scriptural; " Let us not be weary in well doing : for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not;"1 " He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly ; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bounti- fully;"2 "Be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abound- ing in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." 3 But the " larger assistances," of the Latin Collect, which we may obtain by greater and more earnest endeavours after the fruit of the Spirit, are the assistances which our Heavenly Father always gives to His children, when He sees them striving in the pursuit of holiness. These assistances consist in the remedial efficacy of the blood and grace of Christ, constantly applied to the soul ; and the doctrine conveyed in this clause of the Latin Collect is, that they will be applied in larger measure, in proportion as our pursuit of holiness, our cultivation of the fruit of the Spirit, is more earnest, prompt, and diligent. The more energetically we strive after high attainments, the more help we shall receive from God's fatherly goodness.
1 Gal. vi 9. 2 2 Cor. ix. 6. » 1 Cor. xv. 58.
192 The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.
It is the doctrine of St. John the Evangelist ;l "Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace" (a higher grace, in place of and superseding a lower, which has been faithfully corresponded to) ; the doctrine of the Psalmist, " They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God ;"2 the doctrine of the Prophet, " They that wait upon the Lord shall re- new their strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint." 3 It will not be denied, I think, that there is in the old Latin an evangelical fulness and richness of meaning, which, impossible as it would have been to render it into English with sufficient terseness and point, is full as instructive, to say the least of it, as the turn which our translators have given to the idea.
One word, in conclusion, upon the main petition of this admirable prayer " Stir up, we beseech thee, 0 Lord, the wills of thy faithful people." It is a grand, vigorous word, this " Stir up." We read of stirring up a couchant Hon,4 or a crocodile as he basks in the sun ;5 and (in the moral world) of a man's heart stirring him up to make an offering to the Lord,6 of stirring up the grace which comes through ordination,7 and of God's stirring up His strength to come and save His people.8 Who that knows anything of his own heart does not know that the great disease of the will is its lethargy ; that, even when its main bias is right, it is apt to relapse, with fatal facility, into slumber; that there is an uniform tendency in all of us, even with the most hopeful surroundings, to " settle down upon our lees ;"9 to be contented with our present attainments in
1 St. John i. 16. 8 Ps. lxxxiv. 7. 3 Isaiah xl. 31.
4 See Num. xxiv. 9. 8 See Job xli. 10. 6 See Exod. xxxv. 21.
i See 2 Tim. i. 6. 8 See Ps. lxxx. 2. '■> See Zeph. i. 12.
The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity. 193
grace, whatever they are; to count ourselves to have appre- hended, and not to press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus ? 1 And how does God stir up the will under these circumstances ? Observe that He only stirs up or rouses, never forces it. A fire when stirred does not always blaze ; stir it as you may, it is sometimes quenched. A sleeper, when roused, does not always arise ; sometimes he turns on his side, folds his hands, and composes himself to sleep again.2 Man is under no compulsion to move, when God stirs up his will ; whether he shall move or not, is a question which can be decided only by the will itself. It is stirred up whenever, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, the affections of hope, fear, compunction, love, are so quickened as to give right impulses to the moral nature. Which of us can truly say that such right impulses have never been given to him ? Which of us can say that, when they have been given, he ' has uniformly followed after the higher attainments to which they have invited and allured him ?
1 See Philip, iii. 13, 14.
See Prov. vi. 10, and xxiv. 33.
Chapter LXX.
ON THE SAINTS' DAY COLLECTS.
tlhere is one ©ou, anD one meoiator bettoeen ©on anti men, tlje man Christ JejSug.— 1 Tim. iL 5.
The Church of England observes twenty days in all in memory of certain New Testament Saints, who may be called the leading characters of the Gospels and Acts. Three of tbese Festivals are merely satellites of Christmas Day, attending upon that greater Festival, and closely linked to it in thought. Their Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, therefore follow, in our Service Book, immediately after those appointed for Christmas. The remaining seven- teen come all together, in the order of their observance, at the end of the Sundays after Trinity. Those who com- pare our present prayers with their Latin originals in the pre-Beformation Offices of the Church, are struck by the fact, that the large majority of the Saints' Day Collects have no Latin originals ; in other words, that they were made new by the Eeformers. Two of them, indeed (those for the Purification and Annunciation), are drawn from the Sacramentary of Gregory. Two more (those for the Conversion of St. Paul, and for St. Bartholomew), though based on ancient Collects, were materially altered by our Eeformers.1 Of the remaining thirteen, twelve made
1 The three Collects which immediately follow that for Christmas Day, give a specimen of each class. The Collect for St. Stephen was mada at the last revision of the Book of Common Prayer, in 1661 ; that for St. John
On the Saints' Day Collects.
J95
their first appearance in King Edward's First Book of Common Prayer, put forth in 1549, while one (that for the Festival of St. Andrew) appeared first in the Second Prayer Book, three years afterwards, in lieu of an earlier one, which the Beformers indeed had composed, but which they saw reason to discard on more mature deliberation.
Now, why was it that in so large a proportion of these Saints' Day Collects no use was made of the old Latin Offices, which existed before the Beformation ? The reason is, that the Collects of these Latin Offices were for the most part hopelessly corrupt. And their corruptness consisted in this, that almost all of them, though not directly addressed to Saints, yet asked for some Saint's intercession with God. This petition for the intercession of the person commemorated, usually formed the staple of the Collect, which accordingly, very unlike the Sunday Collects, was exceedingly jejune. Take, as a single speci- men, the pre-Beformation Collect for St. Andrew's Day, which is found in the Missal of Sarum. It runs as fol- lows : " We humbly implore thy Majesty, 0 Lord, that as the blessed Apostle Andrew appeared [upon earth] as a preacher and a ruler of thy Church, so he may be for us a perpetual intercessor with thee [in heaven]. Through."
Now, before we take up the Saints' Day Collects one by one, it will be well to show how petitions of this kind can never be justified by what Bomanists allege in favour of them, and what a debt of gratitude, therefore, we owe to our Beformers for sweeping them away.
And first, let it be remarked that the question is not whether departed saints do, as a fact, pray for the Church
is an old prayer, translated from the Sacramentary of Gregory ; that for the Holy Innocents is taken from an ancient model, but was altered by the Revisers in 1661.
196 On the Saints Day Collects.
upon earth, or for particular members of it ; but whether we are justified in formally soliciting their prayers. Very little is revealed to us respecting their state, and that little " in a glass, darkly ; " but whatever it may be, and how- ever at present incomprehensible to us, it is impossible to suppose that death has eradicated from their bosoms all thoughts of and care for the Church upon earth. To take a single example, is it conceivable that St. Paul should not have carried with him out of life his burning love of souls, and his solicitude for the spread of Christ's Gospel, — the master passions which consumed him while he was upon earth ? And his tenderness for his converts and associates, — for Timothy, Epaphroditus, Onesimus, Lydia, and so forth, — is it not inseparable from our idea of him, so that, in whatever condition he now is, we cannot think of him as without it ? We feel assured that he, if any other man ever was, is now with Christ in Paradise, wait- ing for the crown of glory which the Lord, the righteous •Judge, shall give him at that day j1 and that, lying as he does in the Master's bosom, he must have access to the Master's ear. Indeed, it would be an implicit denial of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, to doubt that saints in Paradise pour out their souls to the same Saviour as ourselves, and under the prompting of the same Spirit, only with much more fervour, and with a more sensible nearness of approach than is competent to us in our pre- sent state. But it is a wholly different thing to say, that we are warranted in asking for the intercession of departed Saints, and putting ourselves under their patronage ;2 this
1 See 2 Tim. iv. 8. 1 Urigen, in his work against Celsus (lib. viiL c. 64), argues directly against the propriety of invoking in prayer any one lower than God. But in his Homily on Joshua (xvi. 5) he writes ; "I am of opinion that all those fathers who have fallen asleep before us, fight on our side, and help us
On the Saints Day Collects.
197
last being, indeed, a step beyond asking for their inter- cession, but yet flowing naturally out of it. What possible warrant is there, either in reason or Scripture, for such petitions ? As to the fervent desires entertained by departed Saints for the spread of the Gospel and the advance of Christ's kingdom, it must be superfluous to ask them to utter these ; for assuredly they do utter them before God in such manner as is competent to them, and suitable to their condition. Freed at length from the body of sin and death, there is no longer any drawback in them to the actings of love and sympathy ; and our requests cannot possibly quicken or intensify their zeal for the souls of men and the cause of Christ. And as to the intercessions supposed to be offered by them for par- ticular persons, utterly unknown to them in the flesh, and living long ages after their decease, what reason is there for thinking that they know, or can know, anything of such persons ? It is almost investing St. Paul, St. Peter, and the rest, with the attribute of omniscience, to imagine that they are acquainted with the circumstances, character, and trials of every Christian who, in the nineteenth century, asks to be aided by their intercessions. If, indeed, God's Word anywhere authorised our seeking for the interces- sions of departed Saints on our behalf, then we should be bound to use petitions resembling those in the old Saints' Day Collects, however little our natural reason might go along with them. But there is nowhere a single vestige of any such authorisation. Nay, we find one emphatic text, which, when closely examined, seems to place a bar on the practice of invoking saints and seeking their inter- by their prayers. " But Origen could not see that this opinion of his and other eminent Christians in the least warranted our seeking the interces- sion of the saints.
[98
On the Saints Day Collects.
cessions ; " There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." The oneness of God, and the oneness of the Mediator between God and men, are put on a level, as co-ordinate truths ; if one of them is fundamental, we are led to think that the other is also. And be it observed, that the context shows the Apostle to be speaking of mediation by intercession, and not merely by atonement ; for he is led up to the obser- vation by the precept which he had just given, that " prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks," should " be made for all men." — But the Eomish theologians rest their defence of the practice on this very circumstance, that men are so constantly enjoined in Holy Scripture to pray for one another. The Apostles, they say, frequently ask the prayers of others for them, as (for example) in the passage ; " Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you : and that we may be delivered from un- reasonable and wicked men : for all men have not faith." 1 If, it is argued, we may and ought to seek the prayers of saints now in the flesh, how can it be unlawful still to seek the assistance of their prayers, when they have passed to their rest ? For the Catechism of the Council of Trent2 expressly says ; " That whereas prayer to God is a direct application to Him to bestow blessings upon us, or to deliver us from evil, the invocation of saints, on the other hand, is merely asking the assistance of their prayers, just as we might ask such assistance from a living friend, and therefore always runs in this style ; ' Holy Mary,' or ' Holy Peter,' — not ' have mercy upon us,' ' hear us,' but
1 2 Thess. iii. 1, 2. 2 " Catechismus ex Dec. Cone. Trid." Pars. iv. cap. vi. (Quis orandus sit.) Quaes. III.
On the Saints' Day Collects. 199
— ' pray for us.' " But the slightest reflexion shows that the two cases are wholly different. To ask the prayers of living friends is a practice attended with no moral danger whatever. Our living friends are by our side ; and their manifest faults and frailties, as well as the rubs, frets, and contradictions, which intercourse with them involves, where it is close and carried on daily, are quite sufficient to prevent us from regarding them with any undue veneration. But it is quite otherwise with departed saints. As soon as they are removed from us, we begin to idealize them. " Distance lends enchantment to the view ;" we cease to think of them as men of like passions with our- selves ; we see them as painters represent them, with an aureole round their brow. Then all the idolatrous ten- dencies of the natural heart come into play freely.. , We forget that even the holiest of them, even the Blessed Virgin herself, only entered Paradise as a forgiven sinner, accepted freely on the sole ground of the sacrifice and righteousness of the Son of God. And the eventual result is a clinging to the patronage and intercession of saints ; which, it may be feared, even in well-disposed minds, prejudices the prerogative of the one Mediator, — tends to eclipse that Sun of Kighteousness, from whom alone these planets of the spiritual firmament derive all their lustre.
In conclusion, it needs to be pointed out, that the Reformation of the sixteenth century may justly and pro- perly be termed a profiting of the Church by her past experience. Experience is the best of teachers. An indi- vidual, who has any moral stamina in him, will note how the faults and blunders of his youth have been visited upon him in after life, and will become a wiser man for the future. A statesman will study the past history of his
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country, if he desires to legislate soundly under present emergencies. The Church had much doleful experience, at the time of the Reformation, of the abuses and corrup- tions involved in the Invocation of Saints, and in many other parts of the then religious system. As a simple matter of fact, the homage paid to Mary and the Saints, had obscured in the minds, both of high and low, the one God and the one Mediator. Ten Ave Marias were said for one Pater noster. The Christian Church had gone as near as she could to the heathen practice of raising de- parted men and women to a place among the gods, and had peopled the courts of heaven with a crowd of deities of a lower grade, supposed, forsooth, to be more access- ible, and to have more sympathy with human infirmities, than He who took a sinless manhood into union with His Deity, that He might suffer and die for us all It was a monstrous usurpation and corruption ; but it all sprang from a practice which, in its beginnings, seemed to super- ficial minds harmless enough, and even religious, — the practice of asking the prayers of glorified saints on our behalf. The little leaven thus introduced into the devo- tional system of the Church spread with a frightful rapidity, and soon leavened the whole lump. And our warmest thanks are due to the Reformers for having exter- minated every particle of this leaven, and for having left standing, in the Book of Common Prayer, no other recog- nition of the blessed dead than that which is altogether Scriptural and primitive, — thankfulness for the graces exhibited by them, and prayer that we may be enabled so to follow their example as they followed Christ
Chapter LXXI.
ST. ANDREW'S DAY.
JUmigbtp <55oD, tobo ningt gibe gurt) grace unto tbp tjolp apostle Saint annretn, tbat be reaBtlj? obepelJ tTje calling of tf)j> ©on 3IeSud Christ, anD fottotoeD bim tottrjout Delap ; ©rant unto ujs all, tbat toe, being cafleD bp tbp bolp GBorD, map fortbtoitb gine up ourselses obeBtentlp to fulfil tbp bolj commandments 5 tbrougb tbe Same 3[eSus <2LbrtSt out JLorD. Amen.1 [a.d. 1552.]
The first Prayer Book of the Reformed Church was put forth in 1549. In the course of the three following years the Reformation movement made an advance, and our Reformers, under the influence, and by the suggestion of, foreign divines, came to think that the Service Book of the English Church should be further altered in a Pro- testant direction Whether the Book of 1552 is generally an improvement on that of 1549, is a fair question, and one which will be settled differently according to the theological views of the person who has to settle it ; but I think there can be little doubt that the Collect for St. Andrew's Day in the later book is better than that in the
1 The discarded Collect of the Sarum Missal for St. Andrew's Day was as follows : —
Majestatem tuara, Domine, sup- We humbly implore thy Majesty,
pliciter exorainus, ut sicut Ecclesiae O Lord, that as the blessed Apostle
tuae beatus Andreas apostolus ex- Andrew appeared [upon earth] as a
stitit pradicator et rector, ita apud preacher and a ruler of thy Church,
te sit pro nobis perpetuus inter- so he may be for us a perpetual
cessor. Per. [Col. 660, Ed. intercessor with thee [in heaven].
Burntisland, 1861.] Through.
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earlier ; and it is very interesting to consider why the Reformers discarded their own handiwork of three years ago. The earlier Collect ran thus ; " Almighty God, which hast given such grace to thy Apostle saint Andrew, that he counted the sharp and painful death of the cross to be an high honour, and a. great glory : Grant us to take and esteem all troubles and adversities which shall come unto us for thy sake, as things profitable for us towards the obtaining of everlasting life : through Jesus Christ our Lord." It is a law of prayer, exemplified very beautifully and very copiously in the Collects of the Church, that it must be built upon a foundation. In the Sunday Collects this foundation is usually some doctrine of God's holy Word, as, for example, that God is " always more ready to hear than we to pray or that " He declares His Almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity ;"2 or, that He is " the strength of all them that put their trust in him."3 In the Saints' Day Collects, on the other hand, the foundation on which the prayer is built is almost always some fact connected with the his- tory of the saint, — the fact of his call, or of his endow- ment with manifold gifts of the Holy Ghost, or of his special commission to feed the flock, as the case may be. Now, our Eeformers seem to have felt, that if we are to pray with assured confidence of our prayers being granted, they should be built, not on a sandy foundation, but on a rock ; not on a questionable doctrine or a doubtful fact. And the fact of St. Andrew's crucifixion is doubtful. It is legend rather than regular history. The address with which he saluted his cross, when he first came in sight of
1 Collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. 9 Collect for the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. * Collect for the First Sunday after Trinity.
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it, to the effect, that since the cross had been consecrated by the body of Christ, and of many members of His, it was a high honour and a great glory to hang upon it,1 — is no doubt
1 Videns autem Andreas a longe crucem, salutavit earn, dicens ; " Salve, crux, qua in corpore Christi dedicata est, et ex membris ejus tanquam margaritis 1 ornata ! Antequam inte ascenderet Do-minus, timorem terrenum habuisti, mod6 vero amorem coelestem obtinens pro voto susciperis.2 Securus igitur et gaudens venio ad te, ut3 tu exaltans suscipias me discipulum ejus qui pependit in te ; quia amator tuus semper fui, et desideravi amplecti te. 0 bona crux, quae decorem et pulchritudinem de membris Domini suscepisti, diu desiderata, sollicitfe arnata, sine intermissione quaesita, et4 jam concupiscenti animo prae- parata, accipe me ab hominibus, et redde me magistro meo, ut per te me recipiat, qui per te me redemit." Et haec dicens se exuit, et vesti- menta carnificibus tradidit, sicque eum in cruce, ut jussum fuerat, suspenderunt, in qua biduo vivens viginti millibus hominum astanti- bus praedicavit. — Legenda Aurea. Cap. ii. [Ed. Paris, 1477, printed by Gering.]
The deviations by Surius from the above address are given below.
But Andrew catching sight of his cross in the distance, saluted it, saying ; ' ' Hail, cross, which in the body of Christ didst receive a dedi- cation, and wast adorned with His members as with pearls ! Before the Lord clomb up on thee, thou didst inspire earthly fear ; but now, since thou obtainest [for us] hea- venly love, thou art embraced with devotion. At peace, therefore, and rejoicing unto thee do I come, that, lifting me up [from the earth], thou mayest receive me as a disciple of Him who hung upon thee j for I have ever been thy lover, and have longed to embrace thee. 0 excel- lent cross, which didst receive grace and beauty from the members of the Lord, long desired, earnestly loved, sought incessantly, and now at length made ready for my soul which pants for thee, receive me from among men, and restore me to my Master, that He, who by thee redeemed me, may by thee also take me unto Himself." Saying these words, he stripped himself, and gave his garments to the executioners. And so, in pursuance of their orders, they hung him on the cross, on which he lived for two days, and preached to twenty thousand by- standers.
1 Membrorum ejus margaritis.
2 Surius inserts here, "sciris enim a credentibus, quanta in te gaudla habeas quanta munera pneparata."
3 Surius inserts " ita " before " ut," and " et " after It. * Surius inserts "aliquando" after "et."
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St. Andrew's Day.
very beautiful and edifying ; but who shall say for certain that it was ever uttered ? In the absence of any inspired account of the deaths of the holy Apostles, the imagination of the early Christians sought to supply the void by drawing up apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, which, if they may be supposed to have some foundation in fact, were, at all events, tricked out very largely with fiction. Lipsius, a celebrated Belgian scholar at the time of the Reformation, who wrote a treatise on the cross,1 questioned whether St. Andrew's cross was the X -shaped instrument which tradi- tion has assigned to him. One reason which he alleges for his doubt is, that there was another tradition as to
1 In this little treatise Lipsius divides crosses into two kinds, the crux simplex (the straight pale or stake), and the crux compacta, made of two beams. Of this latter he recognises three varieties, the decussata (or X- shaped cross) ; the commissa (or T-shaped cross) ; and the immissa (an up- right beam, with a bar crossing it towards the top, T). Of the crux decus- sata he says (chap, vii) : —
Haec ilia est quam Andreanam hodie dicimus, valida, et satis veteri fama divum istum in ea cruciatum. Anne vera ? facit me ut ambigam Martyrologium Romanum ; in quo hoc saltern legas, in Cruce suspensum; et magis Hippolytus, qui scribit crucijixum Patris in Achaid, ad ar- borem olivae rectum. Quid magis contra famam ? Atque haec fixio ad simplicem nostram potius abeat, longe a decussata.
This is that species of cross, which we of the present day call St. An- drew's, from a prevalent and suffi- ciently old tradition that that saint suffered on a cross of this descrip- tion. Is the tradition true ? The Roman Martyrology, in which his death is described as a suspension on the cross, and still more Hippo- lytus, who writes that he was cruci- fied at Patrae in Achaia on the straight trunk of an olive tree, dis- pose me to doubt its truth. "What can be more contrary to the legend [than this last account] ? Transfixion to a straight trunk would rather belong to the cross which we have designated simplex, and would be widely different from the punish- ment inflicted by the decussata.
St. Andrews Day.
205
the method of St. Andrew's death, namely, that he was crucified on the straight trunk of an olive tree ; and the beautiful story, harmonizing with this last tradition, of St. Andrew's tomb, on each anniversary of his martyr- dom, sending forth a stream of fragrant oil, which was an infallible specific for such sick persons as were anointed with it,1 has all the flavour of an ecclesiastical fable. Now, the Eeformers felt that our prayers should not be founded upon fables, but upon well-ascertained facts; and in view of the great uncertainty which attaches to the legendary histories of the Apostles, they did well surely in cutting away from the Liturgy all reference to such facts respecting them as are not guaranteed by Holy Scripture.
"Almighty God, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Andrew, that he readily obeyed the
1 " As for that report of Gregory, Bishop of Tours, that on the Anni- versary day of his Martyrdom, there was wont to flow from St. Andrew's tomb a most fragrant and precious oD, which, according to its quantity, denoted the scarceness or plenty of the following year ; and that the sick being anointed with this oil, were restored to their former health, I leave to the Reader's discretion to believe what he please of it. For my part, if any ground of truth in the story, I believe it no more, than that it was an exhalation and sweating forth at some times of those rich costly per- fumes and ointments, wherewith his body was embalmed after his cruci- fixion. But I must confess this conjecture to be impossible, if it be true what my Author adds, that some years the oil burst out in such plenty that the stream arose to the middle of the church." — " Antiquitates Apos- tolic*. " By William Cave, D. D. , Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty. [London : 1678.] The references given by Cave for the tradition of St. Andrew having been crucified upon an olive tree, are (Peter) Chrysologus in St. Andr. Serm. 133, p. 120 ; Hippol. Comment. MS. Gr. ap. Bar. Not. in Martyr, ad 30. Novemb.
The legend of the fragrant oil, and of its giving an indication of the fertility of the year, is also mentioned in the famous Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine.
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Si. Andrew's Day.
calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him without delay." Though the call of Christ, when it was made to St. Andrew, was promptly and instantaneously obeyed, the work of grace had been long progressing in his heart before this crisis was reached. It is St. Matthew who gives us an account of the official call of Simon and Andrew.1 But from St. John we learn that both of them were acquainted with Christ, and were believers in Him,2 before the period of their official call. St. Andrew, he tells us, had been a disciple of the Baptist,3 and had had the way of Christ prepared in his heart by the ministry of the forerunner. Under the influence of this preparatory ministry he had become a serious and earnest man, had broken off bad courses, and given to the needy according to his ability.4 But the next step was greatly in advance of this. One day, as Andrew and another disciple were standing by the Baptist, our Lord passed by. The Bap- tist pointing Him out as the Lamb of God predicted by Isaiah,5 which taketh away the sins of the world, the two disciples were drawn by this attractive testimony to follow Jesus. He saw them following, and invited them to come to His abode. They accepted the invita- tion, slept under the same roof, and were so impressed by all they heard and saw, that repentance, to which God's grace had previously brought them, blossomed into faith, and they believed Him to be the Messiah, — God's Anointed One.6 Andrew's persuasion of this was so strong, that he immediately went in search of his brother and partner Simon, and introduced him to this newly- found Messiah, so that Andrew may reasonably be called
1 St. Matt iv. 18, 19, 20. 2 See St. John L 35-43.
» Ver. 35 with ver. 40. * See St. Luke iii. 8, 13, 14, 11.
6 See Isaiah liii 7, and Acts viiL 30, 32. 6 See St. John L 41.
St. Andrews Day.
207
the first missionary; and accordingly, the portion of Scrip- ture appointed for the Epistle is a great missionary passage of the Epistle to the Eomans ; " How shall they hear without a preacher ? . . . How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace," 1 and so forth. Yes, St. Andrew, as soon as he himself became a believer, acted as a domestic missionary (and how well would it be if every member of a family, who has himself received Christ by faith, would seek to make Him known to the other members !) ; but he was not officially a missionary or Apostle until, on the shore of the lake of Galilee, our Lord called both him and his brother, while fishing, to be fishers of men, and they straightway left their nets and followed him. Yes, they obeyed the calling " readily" and " without delay." Not that this was by any means the first impression which had been made upon -their hearts in connexion with the Lord Jesus. Their hearts had been yearning for Him in the dark, opening towards Him as they gained fresh light about His claims, His mission, His person, some time before this call came. " God gave such grace to His Apostle Andrew, that he eventually obeyed the calling of His Son, Jesus Christ." But the grace worked in St. Andrew's heart as seed works in the soil, — there had been a long hidden underground process, which prepared for the acceptance of the call before it was accepted. It should be added, that in view of the facts of St. Andrew and St. Peter being the first- called of our Lord's Apostles, and of St. Andrew, on a previous occasion, having found our Lord before St. Peter did, and having made his brother known to Christ, — he has always been regarded as the first-called of the dis- ciples. And this circumstance must have added much to
1 Rom. x. 14, 15.
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St. Andrews Day.
the difficulty of obeying the call, and to the measure of grace required in order to induce him to obey it. When all our friends and relations, all the society in which we live, are following Christ with one accord, there is then no great trial in following Him ; we have only to swim with the stream. But to come out from the world and be separate and singular, and to profess oneself His faithful soldier and servant, when the many are indifferent, and some hostile and antagonistic, — this requires deep convic- tions and strong principles : and this, perhaps, is the force of that expression with which the Collect opens ; " Who didst give such grace," — so large a measure of it, — " unto thy holy Apostle Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed him without delay."
" Grant unto us all, that we, being called by thy holy Word." St. Andrew was called by the Personal Word, the Word of whom St. John speaks at the opening of his Gospel ; " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."1 We are called by the written Word, which has many and intimate rela- tions with the Personal Word, and which the Church, — represented by our parents, guardians, and pastors, — places in our hands as soon as we are of an age to under- stand anything of its teaching. But as it was with St. Andrew, so it is with us. Long before this call of the Word reaches us, we are under the guidance of grace. The grace of our Baptism struggles within us for mastery, and endeavours to bring our will and affections into sub- ordination to itself, before we are able to receive instruc- tion in the Holy Scriptures ; or, at all events, before the conscience is so formed and developed that an explicit
1 St. John i. 1.
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209
personal call of God's revealed truth can be made to it. And on the fidelity with which we have followed the movements of Baptismal grace, will depend in great measure the promptitude and alacrity with which we shall respond to the more explicit call, when at length it does reach us.
" May forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments,"- — not " may fulfil thy holy commandments," but " may give up ourselves to fulfil them which surrender of spirit, soul, and body, to the keeping of the commandments, can only be made in the spirit of love, — love to God above all, and love to our neighbour as to ourselves. And " forthwith," — a word full of significance ; " I made haste, and delayed not," says the Psalmist, " to keep thy commandments." 1 The word translated " delayed" is used, in the narrative of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to express the linger- ing of Lot.2 Had not the angels laid hold upon the hands of him and his family while they lingered, and quickened their steps,3 we know what the result must have been. There was no other " difference," says Bishop Cowper (quoted in Neale on the Psalms), " between the wise and foolish virgins, but that the wise did in time what the foolish wished to do out of time, but were not able." " Behold, now is the accepted time ! " 4
1 Psalm cxix. 60.
2 'rinononn (hith-mah-mah-tee), I delayed. From nnD, a verb only found in Hithpahel. It is used not only of Lot's lingering in Gen. xix. 16 ; but also of the lingering of Joseph's brethren (Gen. xliii. 10), and of King David's tarrying in the plain of the wilderness till he should receive intelligence from Jerusalem (2 Sam. xv. 28).
3 See Gen. xix. 15, 16. 1 2 Cor. vi. 2.
VOL. II.
P
Chapter LXXII.
ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE.
aimfgTitp anu esedtbtnp; ©on, tobo Cot tfce mote confitmatfon of tfie fait!) Bftst suffet tljp holp apostle ^TfiomaS to Be Doubtful in tfip Son's tesuttection ; ©tant us so petfectlp, anu toitfiout alt Doubt, to Miebe in tfip Son Jesus Cyttst, tfiat out fattb in thp Sigfit map nebet be teptobeD. J^eat us, 2D JlotD, tbrougb tbe Same 3[esus Cbtist, to tobom, toitb tbee ano tbe J^olp ©bost, be an bonout anD glotp, noto anD fbt ebetmote. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
This Collect made its first appearance in 1549 in place of an earlier one, which spoke of our being assisted by the patronage of St. Thomas,1 in requital of an exulting celebration of his festival. The Epistle and Gospel under- went no change, with the exception of an addition to the latter of the two last verses of St. John xx. These verses generalised the lesson to be learned from the doubting of St. Thomas, and were originally the close of St. John's
1 The discarded Collect of the Sarum Missal [Col. 673, Ed. Burntisland] runs thus : —
Da nobis, qusesumus, Domine, beati Thomse apostoli tui ita solem- nitatibus gloriari, ut ejus semper et patrociniis sublevemur, et fidem congrua devotione sectemur. Per Dominum.
Grant us, Lord, we beseech thee, so to rejoice in the festival of thy blessed apostle St. Thomas, that by his protection we may be assisted, and may follow the steps of his faith with devotion agreeable [thereto], (probably in allusion to the words "my Lord, and my God," with which St. Thomas expressed his convic- tions). Through the Lord.
St. Thomas the Apostle. 21 1
Gospel, the twenty-first Chapter being a postscript added afterwards. The Evangelist having recorded our Lord's interview with St. Thomas — the last incident he proposed to narrate — goes on to say that all he had written was designed to do for Christian people in general what that interview had done for St. Thomas, — confirm them in the faith, — " And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that ye might beHeve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that, believing, ye might have life through his name." The addition of these words to the Gospel is a real improvement.
One object of observing Saints' Days is, doubtless, to do honour to the memory of the saint. And therefore, under ordinary circumstances, the faults and foibles of the person commemorated, however instructive they may be, are not adverted to in the services of the day. We do not read on St. Peter's day of St. Peter's faith giving way when he walked upon the waters, nor, on St. John's day, of St. John's wishing to call down fire from heaven on inhospitable Samaritans. When, on the anniversary of his death, we recall the past career of a dear friend who has walked side by side with us in the journey of life, we think of him tenderly, lovingly, reverently, dwell on the bright parts of his example, and throw a veil over his faults. Nor does it form any real exception to this natural course of proceeding, that Christ's expostulation with St. Thomas for his doubts is read on St. Thomas's day. For not only does the expostulation show great tenderness to hi3 infirmity, and great love for him on our Lord's part ; but, if we consider the confession of faith to which he was eventually brought, we shall see that, as the result of his interview with his Master, he reached eventually a higher platform of Christian belief than pro-
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St. Thomas the Apostle.
bably any other disciple had reached before Pentecost He was one of those " last " who became " first."
" Almighty and everliving God, who for the more confirmation of the faith didst suffer thy holy Apostle Thomas to be doubtful in thy Son's resurrection."
(1.) " To be doubtful." Mark these words as explan- atory of the Apostle's state of mind. St. Thomas was not an unbeliever, but a doubter. There is good evidence that he loved our Lord with a desperate and clinging at- tachment ; for it was he who, when Christ was about to throw Himself, as it seemed, into the jaws of death, said to his fellow-disciples, " Let us also go, that we may die with him."1 And, therefore, we must suppose that it would have been a comfort and joy to Tiim to believe that their lost treasure had been restored to the disciples, that Christ had not been swallowed up by death. Nay, he himself implies that, on receiving what he thought to be sufficient evidence, he would believe ; " Except I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." 2 He never made up his mind that the evi- dence against the Resurrection preponderated over that in favour of it, which would have constituted him an unbe- liever; he merely required more evidence than he had already received (herein being unreasonable and wrong ; for had not his Master said He would rise again?) before giving in bis assent to it. And it should be observed, that the words in 'which Christ reproves him are not accurately translated. They should be, not — " Be not faithless, but believing," but — "Become not faithless, but believing."3 Thomas's mind was poised midway between belief and
1 St John xi. 16. 2 St. John xx 25.
3 Mt) ylvov Atjotos, dXXo viffros. v. 27.
St. Thomas the Apostle. 213
unbelief ; he was a doubter. Our Lord warns him of the danger of doubting, and in effect says to him, " Let not those doubts harden down into unbelief, but thaw away under the light now vouchsafed unto thee, and resolve themselves into faith."
(2.) " Who for the more confirmation of the faith didst suffer thy holy Apostle Thomas to be doubtful in thy Son's resurrection." These words exhibit in the briefest possible compass both God's attitude in regard to sin, and the use which He is pleased to make of it. First, His attitude towards it. It is an attitude of simple sufferance — nothing more. He has nothing to do with originating or producing it ; sin is a defiance of Him, a counteraction of His beneficent designs, and he is always, by the neces- sity of His nature, in direct antipathy to it; but He permits it to take place. And it is easy to see that if there are to be in the world rational and moral agents on probation, creatures with free wills, capable of discerning between good and evil, and of choosing one or the other, sin must enter into the world; for it is hardly conceivable that all such creatures would, when tried, choose to act rightly. And it is easy also to see that if there were in the world no moral and rational creatures on probation, and therefore no room at all for virtue, if there were no- thing in the universe but stars and planets, and landscapes, and animals, the universe would lose mightily in interest, and become a very ignoble place, instead of being, as now, a theatre for moral and rational beings to play their part upon. God being Himself virtue, goodness, and wisdom, seems to have sought for a display of these qualities among His creatures. And He could not have given an oppor- tunity for the display of virtue, without giving at the same time an opportunity for the display of vice. There- fore He " suffered " vice or moral evil. And moral evil
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St. Thomas the Apostle.
brought physical evil, sorrow, and death in its train. — But the words also point at the use which God is pleased to make of sin. From the sinful doubts of St. Thomas He drew a confirmation of the faith. He can, and does, override sin for good. It pleased him to overrule for the greatest possible good the greatest wickedness which man ever had committed, or ever could commit. He overruled the crucifixion of Christ, the act by which man showed the deadliest antagonism to God, to the sal- vation of the human race. It does not in the least excuse sin, or make it one whit less heinous or mischievous, that God in His wisdom and love can and does oftentimes act as an alchemist, and bring golden blessings out of base actions. Sin is not thereby left unvisited. The spilling of the Saviour's blood has been frightfully avenged (one may say) upon every generation of J ews who have lived since it was spilt. St. Thomas lost something considerable, by absenting himself from his brethren in a spirit of doubt and scepticism on the evening of the first Easter Day. He did not at that time (though doubtless this loss was made up to him afterwards) receive the Apostolic mission, nor was his cheek fanned by the breath of the risen Saviour, as He bade His followers receive the Holy Ghost, and sanctioned their sentence in the remission and reten- tion of sins.1 And the ensuing week, which was to his colleagues one of joy and sanguine hope, he must have passed in a moody dogged sullenness, which is the most unhappy of all states of mind.
(3.) But how did God overrule St. Thomas's doubts to the more confirmation of the faith ? It is natural to ask, in reading the accounts ot the stupendous miracle of Christ's Resurrection, " Did none of th disciples at the time ques- tion the fact, or require further evidence to satisfy him of
1 See St. John xx. 19-24.
St. Thomas the Apostle.
215
it ? It would not be very difficult to persuade simple Galilean peasants or fishermen, and a few enthusiastic women, over whose minds Jesus had gained an absolute mastery, to believe anything which He had led them to anticipate. It seems a little suspicious that none of them had any difficulties about it, and that the first person who saw the risen Saviour was solemnly forbidden to touch Him.1 The evidence of sight and hearing was all that was granted to her ; and in the case of a person enthusiastic and somewhat dreamy as she was, this might resolve itself after all into optical and acoustic illusion." So we might have reasoned, had not God " for the more confirmation of the faith suffered St. Thomas to be doubtful in his Son's resurrection." St. Thomas's doubts were so completely swept away by his interview with the Saviour, that he was ashamed, when Christ offered him the proof which he had demanded, to avail himself of the offer ; he neither put his finger into the print of the nails, nor thrust his hand into the Lord's side ; Christ had shown a perfect knowledge of what he had so unworthily said, and that instance of om- niscience was enough to convince him; and being convinced, he made up for his hesitation by avowing further and deeper convictions than any of the others had yet avowed ; he recognised Christ directly and explicitly as his God ; " Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God."2 It was a complete parallel to the case of Nathanael, who, when convinced that Christ's eye had marked him in a place of privacy and an act of self-communing, rendered him this tribute of acknowledgment ; " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel."3
" Grant us so perfectly, and without all doubt, to be- lieve in thy Son Jesus Christ, that our faith in thy sight may never be reproved." " Without all doubt." There
1 See St. John xx. 17. 3 lb. xs. 28. 3 lb. i. 49.
67. Thomas tJie Apostle.
is no merit in doubts, as some who pride themselves on their critical and speculative power seem to fancy. On the contrary, there is sin in doubts, wherever a reasonable amount of evidence for the truth has been vouchsafed to us, and God always gives a reasonable amount of evidence, when He requires belief. Of course He never gives more than a reasonable amount ; for, if He did, faith would pass into sight or into knowledge, and would no longer constitute any test of character, as He designs that it should do. St. Thomas acted culpably in nursing his doubts by separating himself from his brother disciples, because he thought them credulous and enthusiastic ; and he, as we have seen, smarted for it, though he ultimately recovered, and more than recovered, his lost ground. Persons of educated and philosophical minds must strive and pray to be free from that conceit, which so often inclines them to regard objections and difficulties as a mark of intellectual power, and to depreciate approved bines of Christian evidence as obsolete and needing to be abandoned. Some lines of evidence may have been unduly and disproportionately magnified; but if they are in themselves sound, they should not be abandoned. There are many lines of evidence, all of which converge to the great conclusion, and it is their cumulative force which constitutes the strongest argument for our holy religion. To disparage any of them, then, is simply to weaken or cut away one of the props on which the religion rests, and thus to encourage in ourselves and others those doubts, which are clouds on the clear firma- ment of a " perfect " faith, and which shut out the beams of the " Sun of righteousness," 1 and hinder us from having "life through his name."2
1 Malachi iv. 2. 2 St. John xx. 31.
Chapter LXXIII.
THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.
9D ®oD, tofio, tbrougb tbe preacbtng of tbe WeSsieD Sposltle Saint Paul, 1)agt causeD tbe ttgTjt of tbe ©ogpel to sljine tbrougbout tbe toorlD 3 ©rant, toe begeecb tbee, tljat toe, bating Ijfs* toonoet= ful conbersion in remembrance, map stieto fortb our tbankfulneg* unto tbee for tbe same, bp folloto. ing tbe bolp boctrine tobtcb fie taugbt; tbrougb 3Iegus Cfiriat our Loro. Amen.
3Deus, qui uniberssum muniium beati Pauli apogtoli tui ptaentca> ttone Docutgti ; Da nobis, quae* Sumus, ut qui ejus boote conber* Stonem colimus, per ejus an te ejempla grabiamur. Per.— Greg. Sac. — Miss. Sar.1
Saints' Days are usually observed on the day of a saint's martyrdom or death, as being in the Christian point of view the anniversary of his entrance upon a new and better life. In the mediaeval Offices the martyrdom or death of a saint is called his natalitia, that is, his
1 The Sarum Collect has nothing objectionable in it. Bnt the Gregorian Collect for the " Natale Sancti Pauli (Prid. Kal. JuL," that is June 30), has a petition for St. Paul's advocacy [Mur. ii. 104] : —
Deus, qui multitudinem gentium 0 God, who hast taught a multi- beati Pauli Apostoli pnedicatione tude of nations by the preaching of docuisti : da nobis, quassumus, ut the blessed Apostle Paul, grant unto cujus natalitia colimus, ejus apud te us, we beseech thee, that we may patrocinia sentiamus. Per, etc. experience [the blessed results of]
his advocacy with thee, whose en- trance into life we celebrate to-day. Through, etc.
2 1 8 The Conversion of St. Pan/.
birthday-entertainment, the notion being that the passage of his soul into Paradise is truly a birth into a new world, where he is greeted by those who have gone before him, and where, lying in his Master's bosom, he drinks with Him and them the " new wine of the kingdom."1 In the English Calendar, however, there are three exceptions to this general rule. The two facts of the Blessed Virgin's history chosen for commemoration are those which call attention rather to her Divine Son than to herself, — the Annunciation to her of Him, and the Presentation in the Temple by her of Him. St. John Baptist's nativity, as having been not only itself out of the ordinary course of nature, but also a great epoch in the religious history of the world, is observed by us instead of the day of his death. And St. Paul's conversion, as having been effected in a manner so stupendous, and having been pro- ductive of such large results to the future of Christianity, is also observed in lieu of the anniversary of his martyr- dom. It is perhaps to be regretted that, St. Paul being a saint of such eminence, and the association between him and St. Peter, as the Apostles respectively of the Gentiles and the Circumcision, and as having (according to ecclesi- i astical tradition) suffered martyrdom on the same day, being so remarkable, — the commemoration of his death on the twenty-ninth of June should not have been retained. But here, as elsewhere, our good Keformers have used the pruning-knife with stern severity, and have admitted no saint to a double commemoration in the course of the year, unless indeed it be the Blessed Virgin, whose puri- fication, however, they seemed to have preferred to view as one of the Festivals of our Lord, giving it the new name of " The Presentation of Christ in the Temple." 1 See St. Matt xxvi. 29.
The Conversion of St. Paul. 2 1 9
Cranmer's translation of the old Collect for the Con- version of St. Paul is certainly an improvement upon the original, which is found in Gregory's Sacramentary. It has more point, inasmuch as it carries into the petition of the Collect the thought of the teaching of St. Paul, which appears in its earlier part. Thus it ran ; " God, which hast taught all the world, through the preaching of thy blessed Apostle Saint Paul : Grant, we beseech thee, that we, which have his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may follow and fulfil the holy doctrine that he taught : through Jesus Christ our Lord." This "following and fulfilling the holy doctrine which St. Paul taught," is much the same thing as " walking after his example," which the petition of the Latin Collect prayed that we might do. But it hangs to- gether better with the notice of St. Paul's being God's instrument for teaching all the world, than the old peti- tion did. It shoidd be remarked, in connexion with this phraseology, that teaching is recognised by St. Paul liimself as his own great function. Twice does he call himself " a teacher of the Gentiles ; " 1 and when in the mediaeval Latin mention is made of the doctor gentium, as was the case in the old Collect for Sexagesima Sunday (when the account of St. Paul's apostolic labours is read as the Epistle of the day), it is St. Paul who is meant.
In the hands of the Eevisers of 1661 Cranmer's Collect has lost point, while at the same time it has been enriched and enlarged.
" 0 God, who through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul." The great function of St. Paul's ministry was preaching. Of the two great departments of the Christian Ministry, the Word and the Sacraments, the former, not the latter, was his province. " Christ
1 1 Tim. ii. 7 and 2 Tim. i. 11.
220 The Conversion of St. Paul.
sent me not to baptize," says he, " but to preach the Gospel," 1 — an instance of that Scriptural idiom, according to which a thing intended to be denied only comparatively is absolutely denied, as in the words, " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice."2 Christ sent St. Paul not so much to baptize as to preach the Gospel ; admission to membership in the body of Christ might be given quite as effectively by the least gifted deacon of the Church as by St. Paul ; and, had he (as an ordinary rule) baptized his own con- verts, some show of reason might have been given to the charge that he was gathering disciples for himself, not for his Master.3 His line and province was that, for which he had been specially endowed — preaching and teaching. And hence we find that both preaching and teaching are the functions ascribed to him in the Collect for his Festival.
" Hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world." But were not the other Apostles, as well as St. Paul instruments employed by God in bringing about this blessed result ? Was not the commis- sion given to the original eleven a commission to teach all nations,4 to preach the Gospel to every creature ? 5 Un- questionably; but St. Paul, though " born out of due time"0 into the glorious company, is the typical and representa- tive missionary to the heathen ; of the acts of any other Apostles, save him and St. Peter, we have no inspired account, and we are therefore led to believe that his single ministry is a short abstract and summary of all that it
1 1 Cor. i. 17.
2 St. Matt. ix. 13 and xii. 7. In the passage of Hosea, which our Lord on these two occasions cites, the comparative nature of the denial is clearly indicated in the parallel clause ; " I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings " (Hos. vi. 6).
3 See 1 Cor. i. 14, 15. 4 See St. Matt, xxviii. 16, 19.
• St. Mark xvi 14, 15. 6 1 Cor. xv. 8.
The Conversion of St. Paul. 2 2 1
is necessary for us to know, as to the way in which the evangelization of the world was effected. The vastness of the area of his preaching, — due in some measure to his principle of avoiding those fields of missionary labour on which others had entered previously,1 — is often alluded to by himself ; " From Jerusalem, and round about unto Ulyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ;"2 " Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place ; " 3 " the gospel, which was preached to every creature which is under heaven ; whereof I Paul am made a minister." 4 Of course such phrases as these, as to the extent of Apostolic labours, are not to be construed with a matter-of-fact literality, as if there were no human tribe, even of savages, to whom the Gospel had not been preached in St. Paul's time. " Jews out of every nation under heaven " were at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost,5 who would carry the good tidings into the countries of their dispersion, as the Ethiopian, after his interview with St. Philip, carried it into Ethiopia.8 And the history of the Acts carries St. Paul to Eome,7 the mistress of the world, the seat of arts and civilisation, in whose streets from time to time were to be met foreigners from all the provinces of the empire, however remote. When the world was all under one empire, to preach the Gospel in the seat of that one empire was to preach it to the world.
" Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his won- derful conversion in remembrance," — not his death, though we surely believe that Christ was " magnified
1 See Rom. xv. 20, 21 ; and 2 Cor. x. 13-17. 2 Rom. xv. 19. 3 2 Cor. ii. 14. 4 Col. i. 23. 5 Acts ii. 5.
6 Acts viii. 35, 37, 39. 1 See Acts xxviii. 16, 30, 81.
222
The Conversion of St. Paul.
in his body" by the death, as He was by the life and labours, of the Apostle.1 The blood of martyrs, it is said, is the seed of the Church ; and we cannot doubt that St. Paul's martyrdom was no exception to the rule, but that the remarkable testimony which he bore to his Master in dying was the means of adding believers unto the Lord, " multitudes both of men and women." Of his death, however, holy Scripture takes no notice ; the inspired history of his acts is not carried down so far. But of his conversion we have three accounts, one from his compan- ion in travel, St. Luke, and two, which St. Luke has preserved, from his own lips,2 — a circumstance which goes to show the great importance of that event, and how much of God's plan for the salvation of mankind turned upon it. If, therefore, only one day can be assigned for the commemoration of St. Paul, we doubtless do right in choosing the day of his conversion, which the Holy Ghost in Scripture has thought so memorable, in preference to the day of his martyrdom, of which the Scripture has given us no account.
" May shew forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same." These words were inserted by the Eevisers of 1661 ; and a happy insertion they are. What do we owe, or rather what do we not owe, to the conversion of St. Paul ! It was he who, at the midnight entreaty from the man of Macedonia, carried the Gospel across the Archipelago into our own quarter of the globe, and gathered into God's granary the first-fruits of Europe, in the persons of Lydia the proselyte and of the heathen gaoler at Philippi.3 We know that he contemplated a missionary journey to Spain ;4 and there is a tradition
1 See Philip, i. 20. 3 Acts ix. 1-23, xxii. 1-22, xxvi. 1-24.
3 See Acta xvi. 9, 10, 14, 15, 29-35. « See Rom. xv. 24, 28.
The Conversion of St. Paul.
223
that he even penetrated to Britain ;* and, if so, it was through his instrumentality, in the first instance, that the
1 This tradition is discussed by the late Dr. Edward Card well in "A Lecture delivered in the University of Oxford," the title of which is The supposed visit of St. Paul to Britain, [Oxford and London : mdcccxxxvii.] He there says (p. 23) : —
"The first writer who expressly mentions St. Paul as having person- ally been in Britain is Venantius Fortunatus, who, whilst writing on other subjects, says of the Apostle [De Vit& S. Martini, Lib. iii. ] : ' Quid sacer ille simul Paulus, tuba gentibus ampla ? Per mare, per terras, Christi prseconia fundens, Europam, atque Asiam, Libyam sale, dogmate complens ; Et qua Sol radiis tendit, stylus ille cucurrit, Arctos, meridies, hinc plenus vesper et ortua : Transit et Oceanum, vel qua facit insula portum ; Quasque Britannus habet terras, atque ultima Thule.' *' But Venantius lived 600 years after the times in question ; the poem from which the lines are taken is a life of St. Martin, and full of legendary fictions ; and a case, which obtains such testimony aa this, is injured by its own supporters." Those who wish to pursue the subject, will find all the passages, on which the tradition of St. Paul's journey to Britain is founded, in Archbishop Usher's Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates [London : 1687, fol.], and in Bishop Stillingfleet's Origines Britanniaz, [Oxford : 1842, 8vo.]
Southey, in his Book of the Church, vol. i. p. 18 [London : 1824, 8vo.], says ; " It cannot now be ascertained by whom the glad tidings of the Gospel were first brought to Britain. The most probable tradition says that it was Bran, the father of Caractacus, who, having been led into captivity with his son, and hearing the word at Rome, received it, and became on his return the means of delivering his countrymen from a worse bondage."
The Rev. W. E. Buckley, to whom I am indebted for the above refer- ences, sums up thus an able review of the authorities alleged for St. Paul's visit to Britain : " There seems to be evidence of St. Paul's influence, but not of his presence, in this island."
St. Clement, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, speaks of St. Paul as " having" taught righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the boundary of the West," {ko\ M t6 rip/xa ttjs Svaews iKff&p). By this boundary of the West, Usher and Stillingfleet seem to understand Britain ; Schaff takes it to be Rome ; while Pearson thinks that Spain may be meant. The last is probably the safest conjecture.
224 The Conversion of St. Paul.
natives of our remote island were "brought out of darkness and error into the clear light and true knowledge of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ."1 Then how shall we "show forth our thankfulness" for this shining of Gospel light into the heart of Europeans by the ministry of St. Paul ? Surely by " walking in the light," 2 and working under it. If God sends light, and men will not use it to guide their steps and pursue their occupations, that is ingratitude ; such men are like the slothful servant, who, harbouring hard thoughts of his master, wrapped his talent in a napkin and buried it.3 The way to show forth our thankfulness to God for St. Paul's conversion, and for those Apostolic labours which were the fruit of it, is " by following the holy doctrine which he taught." In one not unimportant respect, this expression is more comprehensive than the " following his example " of the Latin Collect. To follow St. Paul's example would indicate Christian practice and nothing more. To follow his doctrine (that is his teach- ing) embraces not only Christian practice, but the recep- tion of the truths which he insisted on as the root and spring of practice. His Epistles embody his doctrine ; and they mostly consist of two parts, a doctrinal and a practical, — an exhibition of Christian truth, and, built upon that, an earnest inculcation of Christian duties. Let us embrace the truth with all simplicity of faith, and fulfil the duties with all earnestness of endeavour ; and then we shall be walking in the light, which God hath caused to shine by St. Paul's ministry throughout the world, — we shall be " following the holy doctrine which he taught."
1 Proper Preface for Whitsun Day. 3 See 1 John L 7.
3 See St. Matt. xxv. 18, 24, 25.
Chapter LXXIV.
THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE, COMMONLY CALLED, THE PURI- FICATION OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN.
aimtgbtp anD eberlibinp; ©on, toe bumblp beseech tTjp fHajestp, that, as thp onIg=bep;otten %on toas this Dap presenteD in the temple in substance of our flesh, So toe map be presenteD unto thee totth pure ano clean hearts, bp the same thg %on 3Iesus Christ our ILorD. Amen.
©mntpotens Sempiterne Deus, mafestatem tuam supplices erora* mus, ut Stcut (Unijrenitus JFiltus tuuS hooierna Die cum nostra rarnis Substantia in templo est praesentatus, ita nos facias puru ficatis tibt mentibus praesentari. Per eunDem.1 — Greg. Sac. — Miss. Sar.
It was Bishop Cosin, who at the last Revision prefixed to this Collect the alternative title, " The Presentation of
1 Greg. Sac. [Mur. ii. 23] adds "etc." to the "eundem." The Gela- sian Collect, the first clause of which Gregory adopted with certain modifi- cations, is as follows [Miir. i. 639] : —
Deus, qui [cujus ?] in hodierna die Unigenitus tuus in nostra came, quam adsumpsit pro nobis, in tem- plo est praesentatus, praesta ut quern Redemptorem nostrum laeti suscipimus ; venientem quoque Ju- dicem securi videamus. Per eun- dem Dominum nostrum."
0 God, whose Only-Begotten was this day presented in the temple in our flesh, which he took for us, grant that as we joyfully receive him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him, when he shall come to be our Judge. — Through the same our Lord."
Our Reformers in 1549 took the beautiful petition of this Gelasian Collect, and availed themselves of it as a petition for the Collect of the First Communion on Christmas Day, changing the early part to suit the Christmas Festival. (See Appendix A, chap. I.)
VOL. II. Q
226
The Purification of St. Mary.
Christ in the Temple." In Gregory's Sacramentary, where the Collect in its present shape is first found, the Festival is called " Hypapante" (or " Meeting"), a title which points to the incident of the meeting between Simeon and Christ, as that which is the leading thought of the day. The Festival of " Hypapante" was reckoned in the Greek Church as a festival of our Lord; and it was not until the ninth century (three hundred years after the first institution of the Day)1 that the Eoman Pontiffs gave it the name of the Purification of St. Mary. Cosin's alternative title, therefore, was more or less a re- currence to the principles of antiquity. And it is also much the best title for more than one reason. First; the Collect to which the title is prefixed makes not the smallest direct mention of the Blessed Virgin, or her puri- fication. Secondly ; the great event commemorated by the Festival — that to which all other incidents of the same day were only subordinate — is the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The first appearance of the Lord of the temple in the temple — that temple which He loved so fondly, that He could not in His boyhood tear Himself away from it,2 and which He honoured so highly as to cleanse it twice from desecration3 — was an event of such importance as to be predicted in prophecy, in the passage appointed for the Epistle of this day : " The Lord, whom ye seek " (Simeon and Anna were seeking Him at the time), "shall suddenly come to his temple ; even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in ; behold,
1 " The Festival of Hypapante dates from the reign of Justinian, 542. The emperor is said to have instituted it on occasion of an earthquake, which destroyed half the city of Pompeiopolis, and of other calamities." — The Prayer Book interleaved.
2 See St. Luke ii. 43, 46. 3 See St. John ii. 13-18 ; and St. Matt. xxi. 12, !3,
The Purification of St. Mary. 227
he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts."1 Thirdly; the rising this title for the Festival rather than the other makes the interest of the day centre in our Blessed Lord (as it should do), not in His Virgin mother. True ; the Virgin's purification according to the law of Moses, by means of the legal sacrifice appointed for poor people (" a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons "),2 was an in- cident of the day, and one by no means uninteresting or that may be dropped out of sight. But even according to the Law, this was an occasion in which the interest cir- cling round the child would rather throw into the shade that attaching to the mother. For this was not only the legal purification of a woman, but purification after the birth of a first-lorn son,3 a fact to which St. Luke calls special attention in his account of the matter.4 It does not appear that there was any presentation of a child to the Lord, unless it was the first child and a boy, though in every case of childbirth there was a legal sacrifice for the purification of the mother. And thus the event commemorated on this Festival, if translated out of the language of the Law into that of the Christian Church, would be not so much the Churching of a woman as a Churching solemnised at the same time with the Baptism of the child, in which case the Baptism would be much the most important and dignified part of the ceremonial of the day. The reason why first-born sons among the Israelites received a consecration to the Lord in infancy, which no other infants did receive, was that God sanctified all the first-born for Himself, when He emote every first-born in the land of Egypt.5 He had
• Mai. iii. 1. 2 Lev. xii. 8 ; St. Luke ii. 24. 3 Exod. xiii. 2, 15. * St. Luke ii. 23, 8 See Exod. xiii. 15.
228 The Purification of St. Mary.
taken the first-born of Egypt unto Himself by death. And, in eternal remembrance thereof, He took the first- born of Israel unto Himself by special consecration.
"Almighty and everliving God, we humbly beseech thy Majesty," — a most august exordium indeed. In the two Prayer Books of Edward, and in that of Elizabeth, the second title of God was " everlasting," not " ever- living." " Everliving," however, appears in- the Black Letter Prayer Book of 1636, in which Cosin entered his emendations and additions at the last Eeview. When " everliving " was substituted for " everlasting " I have been unable to discover — perhaps after the Hampton Court Conference in 1604. Certainly " everliving " is a much more forcible and expressive word than " ever- lasting." Inanimate objects of nature, like hills, may be called "everlasting;"1 but the word "everliving" could never be applied to them. Nor, indeed, could it be pro- perly applied to any but the living God, to Him who hath life in Himself as an independent and inalienable tenure — the lower life of movement and sensibility, the higher life of intellect and will. — " We humbly beseech thy Majesty." Why do we here address God in His Majesty, as the " great King over all the earth ?" 2 Because we are commemorating a temple transaction, and the temple wa3 Jehovah's earthly palace — a little miniature of heaven. " I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train " (train of his robe, not of His attendants) " filled the temple."3 And the prophet, seeing this great vision, is confounded by the sense of his own defilements, which made him unworthy to be the Lord's mouthpiece ; " Woe is me ! for I am undone ;
1 See Deut. xxxiii. 15 ; and Hab. iii. 6. a See Psalm xlvdi. 2. 3 Isaiah vi. 1.
The Purification of St. Mary.
229
because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."1 A peculiar and pro- found reverence is demanded of those who appear before God in His temple, — in His very palace.
" That, as thy only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in substance of our flesh." " God was mani- fested in the flesh,"2 says St. Paul. This Festival will often fall within the Epiphany season, always close upon it. We have not yet lost sight of the manifestations of Christ ; and this was His earliest manifestation in the house of His heavenly Father. There was no outward token of His glory, no transfiguration light streaming from His infant form, no dove with silver wings hovering over His head, to distinguish Him from other children. Yet He was distinguished. The spiritual eye discerned Him. This poor woman's child, clad in a mean dress, was recognised by Simeon as God's salvation, and as the '■' light " which should " lighten the Gentiles,"3 and by Anna as the long-expected Redeemer, the desire of all nations.4 And thus He was manifested and presented unto man in substance of our flesh. But He was also manifested and presented unto God. This was the first occasion (but assuredly not the last) of His appearance "in the presence of God for us;"5 and He appeared as a sinless infant, " the only perfect blossom," as Archbishop Trench beautifully puts it, " which ever unfolded itself out of the stalk of humanity," that He might sanctify sinful infants, and inaugurate the solemn presentation of them to God in His own holy sacrament of Baptism. — " In substance of our flesh." Our flesh here means our
1 Isaiah vi. 6. 2 1 Tim. iii. 16. 3 St. Luke ii. 32.
4 See St. Luke ii. 36-38 ; and Hag. ii. 7. 5 See Heb. ix. 24.
230
The Purification of St. Mary.
whole nature, with every constituent part of it, body, soul, and spirit ; and the word " substance " may usefully remind us of the reality of Christ's humanity — that His life, with all its temptations and trials, and His death, with all its tortures and cruelties, was not a mere phantom or appearance, as the Docetse taught, but a real and true human life, lived by one who " was in all points tempted like as we are."1
" So we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts." It would have been better had the trans- lation been more literal. In the original it is ; " with purified minds ; " and " purified " is better than " pure," inasmuch as the latter does not necessarily imply, as the former does, that the mind or heart is impure originally, and needs to be made pure. In this purification of the heart the efficient cause is the Spirit of Christ, whose Scriptural symbols are fire, water, and wind, the three most cleans- ing agents in nature ; the instrumental cause being faith in the blood of Christ, (" who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,") whereby the con- science is " purged from dead works to serve the living God."2 " Purifying their hearts," it is said, " by faith."3 We were presented to God by the Church in our infancy, and received in our Baptism the first influences of the purifying Spirit. When come to an age to act for our- selves, we must co-operate with the Spirit, and, having experienced God's mercies in the forgiveness of our sins, must " present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is His reasonable service."4 These two presentations will lead on to the third and crowning presentation, in which, as is here intimated, the offerer
1 See Heb. iv. 15. a Acts xv. 9.
J Heb. ix. 14. 4 See Rom. xii. 1.
The Purification of St. Mary.
231
will be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. For it is very observable that, in translating this Collect, our Eeformers have altered the usual concluding clause. It is not "through Jesus Christ our Lord," expressing simply that the prayer is offered through the mediation of Christ, but, "by Jesus Christ our Lord," which words are to be construed, not with the petitionary words, " we humbly beseech thy Majesty," but with the petition itself, " we may be presented unto thee."1 The final presentation of the believer to God is attributed in Holy Scripture to different persons. Sometimes it is the pastor who pre- sents the flock to Christ, as His bride ; " I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy : for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."2 Sometimes it is Christ who presents the
1 It is not, however, certain that "by" in this place is not used for, and does not mean the same as, "through." See vol. i. p. 102, note 1, where Canon Bright himself, though translating the word " ab eodem," yet professes himself " not sure " on the subject. In the Greek Versions of the Prayer Book of 1638 and 1665, the translation is 5id rod auroD I. X. ; and in the Latin Versions of 1670, 1703, and 1727, it is "per eundem Filium tuum." On the whole, however, we strongly incline to think that there is a designed significance in the change from " through" to "by." The Rev. W. E. Buckley, who has given much attention to the subject, thus writes : —
" It is certainly remarkable that the preposition 'by' is introduced here, and here only, in all our English Prayer Books from 1549 to 1662, and in the Scotch of 1637. . . . There may be more meant than meets the eye at first ; and perhaps the words 1 by the same Thy Son,' are directed against the practice of addressing intercession to the Blessed Virgin Mary for her good offices. For fear that any such notion should linger in people's minds, on a day when it was impossible to ignore her altogether, the Purification being a Scriptural fact, not an ecclesiastical o. traditional one only, it had to be made perfectly clear that she could do nothing ; and we were to be presented by our Lord Himself, not by His mother, nor, indeed, by that of which she is a type, our Mother Church." 3 2 Cor. xi. 2.
232 The Purification of St. Mary.
Church to Himself ; " Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."1 Sometimes it is God Him- self who presents the Church to Himself, as in 2 Cor. iv. 14 ; " He which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you." And sometimes, if our English translation of the pass- age be correct, which may be doubted, it is Christ who presents the saints to God, thus fulfilling His high- priestly function for the last time before the laying it down for ever — setting forth the antitypical shewbread, which is the people of God, before the face of Jehovah, and placing upon it the incense2 of His intercession ; " You, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight."3 This presentment of believers by Christ must have been the idea of Cranmer, when he wrote " by" instead of "through" before the Saviour's name. He desired to open a glimpse to us of the last offering made by our great Melchisedec in His capacity of priest, before He lays down the mediatorial kingdom. And a very beautiful glim pap, it is, and one which, instead of barely reminding us that our petitions must be offered through the Mediator, shows that ourselves also must be presented by Him, if we are to find acceptance. We are apt to allow our-
1 Eph. v. 25, 26, 27. 2 See Lev. xxiv. 5, 6, 7.
3 Col. i. 21. Professor Lightfoot, who reads &iroKaTri\\dyrjTe for iiro- KaTrjWa^ev, considers that God the Father is here spoken of as the Presenter of the saints.
The Purification of St. Mary.
233
selves to be drawn off from the question, " Shall I my- self be eventually accepted with God ?" to the much less close and vital question, " Will my prayers be accepted ?" A question which throws us back again on another, " Am I being gradually cleansed by God's Spirit, applying to my conscience the blood of Christ, and blessing to me the discipline of life ? And am I co-operating with the Spirit, by ' cleansing myself from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God '?"x Then may I have a well-grounded hope that the great High Priest will one day present me before the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, and that thereupon will be fulfilled to me the promise of the sixth Beatitude ; u Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God."2
1 2 Cor. rii. 1.
* St. Ma tt. v. 8.
Chapter LXXV.
ST. MATTHIAS'S DAY.
flD adniffbtj) ©on, tobo into tbe place of ttie traitor JuDas BtBSt cfjoose tTjp fattbful serbant SJ9atrbias to be of tbe number of tlje troelne apostles ; ©rant tbat trjp Cburcb, being altoap presertieo from false apostles, map be orDeren ann goiDeD bp faithful ann true pastors 5 tbrougb, 3|esuS Christ our JLorD. Amen.1 [a.d. 1549.]
The Collect for St. Matthias's Day in the Missal of Sarum recited, like our own, as the hasis of its petition, the fact of God's having chosen this saint to a fellowship in the college of the Apostles ; but the petition itself, " Grant, we beseech thee, that by his intercession we may ever experience thy fatherly compassion in what concerns us," was objectionable, as recognising the doctrine of the intercession and patronage of saints, and was exchanged in 1549 for one not only much more suitable to the fact rehearsed, but greatly demanded at all times by the needs of the Church.
" 0 Almighty God, who into the place of the traitor
1 The discarded Collect of the Sarum Missal [Col. 715, Burntisland, 1861] was :—
Dens, qui beatum Matthiam 0 God, who didst unite the
apostolorum tuorum collegio soci- blessed Matthias to the company of asti ; tribue, quaesumus, ut ejus thine Apostles ; grant, we beseech interventione tuae circa nos pietatis thee, that by his intercession we semper viscera sentiamus. Per may ever experience thy fatherly Dominum. compassion in what concerns us.
Through the Lord.
St. Matthias s Day.
235
Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the twelve Apostles." It has been already observed that in the Saints' Day Collects the petitions are mostly built, not on doctrines, like the Sunday ones, but on some fact connected with the history of the saint com- memorated. Either a doctrine or a fact is an equally sure basis for a petition to be built upon. A fact is in Providence what a doctrine is in Eevelation. For a fact is a particular dealing of God in providence, and a revealed doctrine is His announced way of dealing with mankind in grace. Every prayer, to be successful, must be offered in faith and hope ; and faith and hope must have something to found upon. And what they must have to found upon is a dealing of God, either. mani- fested in Providence, or announced in Eevelation. The Syrophcenician woman, a Gentile, founded her hope of help from One, whom His miracles declared to be God's ambassador, on the fact which she had observed in God's Providence that crumbs are thrown to dogs1 — that pro- vision is made for the wants of the meanest creatures. J acob, on the other hand, founds his prayer on a dealing of God announced to bim by special Eevelation, when, in prospect of meeting Esau, he calls God " the Lord which saidst unto me, Eeturn unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee."2
" 0 Almighty God, who into the place of the traitor Judas didst choose," etc. It was the doing of God the Father, then, since the Collect is concluded in the name of the Mediator — it was God the Father's doing — this choice of Matthias into the place of Judas. It is inter- esting to note the various agencies which were at work in this earliest selection of a labourer for the Lord's vine-
1 See St. Matt. xv. 27 ;. St. Mark vii. 28. 5 Gen. xxxii. 9.
236
St. Matthias's Day.
yard. First, the Apostles act under the direction of God's Providence and God's Word. His Providence had made, or perhaps we should say, had permitted to be made, a gap in the number of the Apostles. That number was twelve, the number of the tribes of Israel ; and it had been promised to them that " in the regenera- tion when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory," they " also " should " sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." 1 Judas, like Lucifer in the beginning,2 had forfeited his throne ; and, judging only from those words of the Master, it would seem as if some one were destined to fill it. But there was a word of God in the Old Testament, which seemed not only to con- template, but to enjoin, the filling up of the vacancy. In the hundred and ninth Psalm, in which, under the new light which recent events had thrown upon it,3 St. Peter seems to have seen a prophecy of the awful doom of Judas, it is written, " Let another take his office"4 — the word used for "office" in the Septuagint or Greek translation of the Scriptures being the very word used in the Pastoral Epistles, and in the Apostolic Fathers, to express the office of a bishop, or ecclesiastical superintendent — the word which finds itself represented in our own words episcopate, episcopacy. St. Peter infers, then, both from God's Providence and from God's "Word, that it was His will that into the place of Judas one should be chosen who was qualified for this office, by association with the Lord Jesus from the beginning to the close of His ministry. Then follows the agency of the Church in the matter. God, though His own agency must be supreme in the appointment of His ministers, does not see fit to supersede
1 St. Matt. xix. 28. 2 See Isaiah xiv. 12.
3 Acts L 20. * Ps. cix. 8.
St. Matthias's Day.
237
those faculties of judgment and discernment with which He has endowed His people. The Church could say by the exercise of these faculties, and did say, which of its members it accounted fit, which of them possessed the required qualifications. But, since the original Apostles had been specially chosen by Christ Himself,1 and since as yet He had not come among them by His promised Representative the Comforter, and so they coidd not count positively upon His internal guidance in tho matter, what method of discriminating between the two qualified candidates could they adopt ? They naturally and most properly resorted to that mode of indicating the Divine will, which had the sanction of the old Law; the new Dispensation not having been fully and formally opened by the descent of the Holy Spirit, they fell back upon the lines of the old Dispensation, and worked upon them, according to that word of the prophet ; " Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein."2 The Lord's goat,3 which was to be offered for a sin-offering, was to be dis-' cerned from the scapegoat by lot. And, what was more to the purpose, the particular department of ministration in the Temple, which each priest should take, was determined by lot, as we see in the case of Zacharias, the father of St. John the Baptist, whose lot " was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord."4 But before determining the question in this manner the Apostles (Peter doubtless being their mouth- piece) prayed ; " Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen."5 Possibly this prayer may have been addressed to the
1 See St Mark iii. 13, 14, and St. Luke vi. 13. 3 Jer. vi. 16.
3 See Lev. xvi. 8. 4 St. Luke i. 9. ■ Acta i. 24.
St. Matthias s Day.
Father, to Him whose Providence directs the lot, accord- ing to that word of foregone Scripture ; " The lot is cast into the lap ; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord."1 But more probably, it seems to me, it is addressed to Christ, He having been the chooser of the twelve original Apostles, according to that word of His own, " Have I not chosen you twelve ?"2 and Peter having appealed to bis Master's knowledge of tbe heart on another and a recent occasion ; " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee."3
If, then, we are asked how the choice of Matthias in the place of Judas can be said to have been the choice of the first Person in the Blessed Trinity, the answer is that the intimations, under which this choice was made, were given by His Providence and His Word ; and, more- over, that what is done by His Son is done by Himself, according to that word of the Son's ; " The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do : for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."4 And that, therefore, if Christ chose Matthias, it was God who chose Matthias by Christ, just as we have it in the Collect for St. Peter's Day ; " 0 Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy Apostle St. Peter many excellent gifts, and commandedst him earnestly to feed thy flock."
" Grant that thy Church, being alway preserved from false Apostles." This part of the petition corresponds to the notice of Judas in the earlier part of the Collect — " who into the place of the traitor Judas." Greatly is the prayer enriched by this reference to St. Paul's severe notice of his detractors in 2 Cor. xi. 13, 14, 15; "For such are
1 Prov. xvi. 33. 8 St. John xxL 17.
2 St. John vi. 70. ♦St. John v. 19.
St. Matthias s Day.
239
false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel ; for Satan him- self is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no sjreat thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness ; whose end shall be according to their works."1 "Wherever there is a true coin current, a counterfeit coin is sure to be circulated along with it. St. Paul's Apostleship was so evidently minted by Christ's hand, and bore so manifestly His image and superscription, that numerous forgeries of Apostleship sprang up around the steps of his ministry, some in which he could find nothing but matter for censure, inasmuch as they were purely hindrances and obstructions to his own work, others in which, as there was a real preaching of Christ, although from motives of envy and strife, his large, disinterested heart could rejoice, according to that word of his to the Philippians ; " What then ? notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached ; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."2 And that the grace and work of Apostleship was peculiarly apt to be counterfeited, we may gather from the letter to the angel of the Church of Ephesus in Eev. ii., where this is part of his praise ; " Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars,"3 — tried them, doubtless, both by the doctrinal tests laid down for trying the spirits,4 and by our Lord's test for the discrimi- nation of false prophets ; " By their fruits ye shall know them."5 Bishops represent the Apostles in their ordinary- ministry, though not in their supernatural endowments ; and how awfully critical for the Church is every choice that is made of a bishop ; and how ought the faithful to
1 2 Cor. xi. 13, 14, 15. a See PhiL i. 15-19. » Rev. ii. 1, 2. * 1 John iv. 1, 2, 3. 8 St. Matt. vii. 15-22.
240 St. Matthias's Day.
recognise it as critical, by making the election of each bishop a matter of earnest, persevering prayer ! It was truly but ominously remarked by the preacher (himself a bishop) at the consecration of Bishop Colenso that the most pestilent heresies which have infested the Church have been in the first instance broached by bishops.1
"May be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors " — the faithfulness of Matthias having been glanced at in the earlier part of the prayer. — The words " ordering " and " guidance " yield rather different ideas. " Ordering " denotes rather the normal administration of a diocese by its chief pastor ; " guidance " rather the function of the helmsman, who turns the ship whither- soever he wills, than that of the captain who presides over the internal economy of the crew. The chief pastor should not merely " order " (that is, rule and restrain), but guide the movements which the progress of thought, or the general advance of society, gives rise to in the body politic of the Church.
Nor do the words " faithful " and " true " indicate precisely the same attributes. A " true " pastor is one who has not only received a true mission from the great " Shepherd and Bishop of souls,"2 but one whose exercise of the ministry is prompted by sincere motives, the desire of furthering Christ's cause and the spiritual welfare of men, not ambition, or the desire of human praise. " Faithfulness," on the other hand, rather regards the pastor's relation to the flock than to his Master.3 He is a faithful steward of God's mysteries, who dispenses the
1 " The most awful times of deadly apostasy have been brought on by bishops leading the defection." — Bishop of Oxford's Sermon at the Conse- cration of Bishop Colenso, preached at Lambeth, Nov. 30, 1853, p. 24. * See St. John x. 1, and 1 Pet. ii. 25. 3 See 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2.
St. Matthias's Day.
241
Word and Sacraments faithfully, " rightly dividing the word of truth,"1 to this character the word of warning, to another that of encouragement, to a third that of promise, giving to each his "portion of meat in due season,"2 and ministering discipline also in such a manner that he forgets not mercy, while he is merciful in such a manner as not to he too remiss.3
1 2 Tim. ii. 15. 9 See St. Luke xii. 42.
8 See Form of Consecrating an Archbishop or Bishop.
VOL. II.
ft
Chapter LXXVI.
THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.
Me beseecb tbee, 2D Horn, pour ttjp grace into our hearts 3 tbat, as toe Tjalie Itnoton tbe incarnation of tbp %on 3|esus Christ bp tbe mes* gage of an angel, So bp bis cross anti passion toe map be brougbt unto tbe glorp of bis resurrection ; tbrougb tbe Same Jesus Cfcrist out JLotD. Amen.
©ratiam tuam, quaesumus, Domtne, mentibus nostriS tnfun= He : ut qui angelo nuntiante dbrfsti jFtlit tui tncarnationem cognobtmus, pet passionem ejus et crucem an resurrecttonis gloriam perDucamur. Per eunOem. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
In framing the Book of Common Prayer, our Reformers never made new prayers of their own, where the old ones, which hitherto had been in use, were unobjectionable. The Collect before us, like that for the Purification, is an ancient prayer, found in the Sacramentary of Gregory, and, therefore, dating at least from the end of the sixth cen- tury ; but it was not formerly the Collect of the Festival. Very early in the history of Christian Liturgies there grew up round about the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, certain additional forms of devotion. Thus there was a short anthem after the Epistle, called the Gradual, and when the administration of the Sacrament was ended, a Collect was recited, which went under the name of the Post-
1 Greg. Sac. [Mur. i. 26] omits "queesumus," and adds "etc." to " eundem."
The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. 243
Communion. The Collect for the Feast of the Annuncia- tion being hopelessly corrupt, since it was a prayer that we might be assisted by the intercessions of the Blessed Virgin Mary,1 the Eeformers fell back upon the Post- Communion Collect, which was quite sound, and have given us a translation of it.
" We beseech thee, 0 Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts." God's grace is spoken of under the image of dew or rain, which fertilises the soil, as in that prophecy of Zechariah, " I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications ;"2 and that promise in Hosea, " I will be as the dew unto Israel : he shall grow as the lily."3 It is well, however, in our conceptions of spiritual truth, not to tie ourselves too literally to the figure, not to think of God's grace as an infused quality, subtilly kneaded up, like some chemical ingredient, with the powers and faculties of the soul. His grace, in the sense in which we are now employing the word, is nothing more nor less than the operation of His Holy Spirit in the soul ; and when we say, " Pour thy grace into our hearts," all we mean is, " Let thy Spirit work there." There is, indeed (as I have already had occasion to point out in the Exposition of an earlier Collect), another important meaning, which the
1 Deus, qui de beats Marise vir- 0 God, who didst will thy Word
ginis utero Verbum tuum angelo to take flesh from the womb of the
nuntiante carnem suscipere volu- blessed Virgin Mary, at the an-
isti ; praesta supplicibus tuis, ut qui nouncement of an angel ; grant
vere earn Dei genitricem credimus, nnto us thy suppliants that, as we
ejus apud te intercessionibus adju- believe her to be truly the mother
vemur. Per eundem.— Miss. Sar. of God, so we may be assisted by
[Ed. Burntisland, col. 727.] her intercessions with Thee. Through
the same.
2 Zech. xii. 10. 3 Hos. xiv. 5.
244 The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.
word " grace of God " bears in the New Testament. It is used of the announcement and offer made to us in the Gospel of Christ. Thus in the fifth Chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle, as an ambassador of Christ, in whom the word of reconciliation was lodged, announces to the Corinthians that God hath made Christ, " who knew no sin, to be sin for us,"1 and beseeches them, on the ground of this perfect sin-offering, to be reconciled unto Him, who now no more imputes unto them their trespasses.2 Immediately after which the sixth Chapter opens thus ; " We then, as workers together with him, be- seech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain," where the word " grace " evidently means, not the work of the Holy Spirit, but the atoning, reconciling work of Christ, and the announcement which the Corinthians had received of that work through the embassy of the Apostle. It is possible, he intimates (oh, how possible !), to receive this announcement of pardon through Christ, to embrace it, nay, to have the heart quickened into a momentary life and joy by it, without in the end bringing forth fruit unto holiness. This frustrates altogether the design of the word of reconciliation. It is meant to be a seed, bringing forth in us a spiritual harvest ; and if, while we " anon with joy receive it," 3 our hearts and lives give no evidence of sanctification, this is a receiving of the grace of God in vain. Now what is this Collect, but a prayer that we may not receive in vain the announcement of the Incarnation — the first great act of God's grace to- wards man — but go on to be conformed to Christ's cross and passion, so that in the end we may be conformed to His resurrection ; for only " if we have been planted to- gether in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the 1 2 Cor. v. 21. 2 Ibid. ver. 19. 3 St Matt, xiii 20.
The Anntinciation of the Virgin Mary. 245
likeness of his resurrection."1 It is a prayer for grace, not only to receive God's message of reconciliation, but also to be so established in the belief of it, as to be by it conformed to a suffering and glorified Eedeemer. And so it is written ; " It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace." 2
" That, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel."
(1.) Here we have, first, the bearer of the message — an angel. The particular angel employed on this occasion had, on a previous occasion, given his name. " I am Gabriel," he had said to Zacharias,"that stand in the presence of God,"3 — that is, one of the angels of the Presence, the circle of blessed spirits who stand nearest of all created existences to the throne. And it is remarkable that for the more confir- mation of a truth, upon which the salvation of man hinged, the angel came twice — once to the Blessed Virgin before she had conceived the Holy Child, and once to her hus- band after her conception. What pains has God taken to preclude the cavils of scepticism ! It might reasonably be asked, " Was it never doubted at the time of the birth of Christ whether Mary's Child was indeed God incarnate ? Was no one disposed to question a claim so extraordinary, and to set the mother down among the frailest and the falsest of the children of Eve ?" The answer is that her own husband doubted her, and was casting about how, without open publication of her shame, he might procure a divorce ; but that he, too, was visited in a dream by the angel, who announced to him the Divine paternity of the Child whose birth was impending, and left him with those sweet accents ringing in his ear, and haunting him doubt- less long after he awoke, — accents sweeter (I think) than
1 Rom. vi. 5. 2 Heb. xiiL 9. 3 St. Luke i. 19.
246 The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.
any which St. Mary had been privileged to hear ; " He shall save His people from their sins." 1
Observe, too, how appropriate was the employment of Gabriel on these two missions (I assume that, as it was he who was sent to St. Mary, so it was he also who came on a similar errand to St. Joseph), the angel who had been sent to Daniel with the great prophecy of the seventy weeks, and of the advent of " Messiah the prince," who was " to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting right- eousness,"2 when those weeks were ebbing to their close.
(2.) The next point is the message, — " We have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel."
That the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ is in- deed the foundation-truth of the Christian religion is clear from that passage of St. John's First Epistle, " Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God : And every spirit that confesseth not that J esus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God : and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come."3 Of course the confession that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh involves, and is equivalent to, the con- fession that He is God ; for to say that a man is come in the flesh would be a mere truism. Every man does come in the flesh, when he is born into the world. — And reason confirms the fundamental character of the truth of the In- carnation. For what is the Incarnation but the union of God with man, the coalition of the human nature in one Person with the divine ? And this union evidently pre- pares the way for, and lays the foundation of, the union of man with God in those who truly embrace the Divine message. This is the final design of it — man is destined
1 St. Matt. i. 21. 2 Dan. ix. 21, 24, 25. 3 Chap. iv. 2, 3.
The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. 247
for union with God by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost^ as it is written ; " That by these " (by the promises) " ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." 1
(3.) Lastly, there is in these words the knowledge of the truth, which is gained by the message of the angel, — " As we have known the incarnation by the message."
Our knowledge of the Incarnation, however, is not derived directly, as that of St. Mary and St. Joseph was, from the evidence of our senses. Nor, indeed, was this the case with the Apostles, and the men of that country and generation. No ; the information comes to us through faith, that is, through reasonable belief in a testimony which commends itself to our conscience as a testimony meeting the needs of fallen man, as they have been evidenced by a long experience. If man can pick him- self up from the ruins of the fall, let him do so. But he never has done so. Philosophy has not helped him. Nay, Divine instruction and discipline, the discipline of the law, the instruction of the prophets, did not effectually help him. Then that God Himself, the tenderly loving Father, should interpose in the person of His Son, should come into the precincts of our nature, should become a man, and live a man's life, and die a penal death for our offences, cannot be said to be unnecessary ; it is what the heart and conscience crave, and gladly embrace, when God sends to them an announcement of it. And this faith, from its assurance, is sometimes called knowledge ; " We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." 2
But we must not only know and believe, we must go on to act upon our faith ; for we are told that " faith worketh by love,"3 and that " faith without works is dead."4
1 2 Pet. i. 4. 2 1 John iv. 16. 3 See Gal. v. 6. 4 James ii. 20.
248 The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary.
And, accordingly, we here are taught to pray " that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection." By His cross and passion in two ways. Not only by His cross and passion objectively, as the ransom of our souls, which He paid down for us, and which is altogether external to ourselves and our own endeavours — this, of course, but not this alone — but also by our being con- formed to His cross and passion by the crucifixion of the old man with Him,1 and by the mortification of our mem- bers which are upon the earth,2 according to that word of the Apostle's to the Colossians, " I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh." 3 He means that Christ has left something for His followers to suffer, not, indeed, in the way of expiation and atonement (that cup He hath Himself exhausted and drained to the dregs), but in the way of discipline — discipline received at God's hand, discipline exercised by themselves upon them- selves. If the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering,4 how can we expect to be perfected except through the same ordeal ?
"There should be no greater comfort to Christian persons, than to be made like unto Christ, by suffering patiently adversities, troubles, and sicknesses. For he himself went not up to joy, but first he suffered pain ; he entered not into his glory before he was crucified. So truly our way to eternal joy is to suffer here with Christ ; and our door to enter into eternal life is gladly to die with Christ, that we may rise again from death, and dwell with him in everlasting life." — [Exhortation in the Order for the Visitation of the Sick.]
1 See Rom. vi. 6. a See Col. iii 5. 3 Col. i. 24. 4 See Heb. ii. 10.
Chapter LXXVII.
ST. MARK'S DAY
SD JlImigTjtp <3oU, tobo Tjagt iwstructeD tTjp Ijotj CTjurclj toftb the beaSenl;) Doctrine of tTjp (ZEnangeltiSt Saint S)9ark 3 ©ine us grace, tljat, being not like cfulDren carrien atoap tottrj etjetp blast of Sain Doctrine, toe map be egtablissbetJ in tbe ttutb of tbp Ijolp ©ospel ; tbrougb 3IeguS Christ oitr JLorD. Amen.1 [a.d. 1549.]
This, like most of the other Saints' Day Collects, is the handiwork of our Reformers, and made its first appearance in the Prayer Book of 1549. With the view of weaving into the prayer some passage of Holy Scripture found in the services of the day, they added three verses to the Epistle 2 in the Missal of Sarum, thus embracing the
1 The discarded Collect of Sar. Miss., Col. 737, 8 [Ed. Burntisland], is : —
Deus, qui beatum Marcum evan- 0 God, who hast exalted thy gelistam tuum evangelicse prsedica- blessed evangelist St. Mark by [en- tionis gratia sublimasti ; tribue, dowing him with] the grace of quaesumus, ejus nos semper et eru- preaching the Gospel ; grant, we ditione proficere et oratione defendi. beseech thee, that we may ever both Per Dominum. profit by his instruction, and also
be shielded by his prayers. Through
the Lord.
2 This is one of the instances in which the Reformers have followed the Sarum instead of the Roman Missal. The Epistle for St. Mark's Day in the latter is Ezek. i. 10-14, the description of the four faces of the four living creatures, the faces being those of a man and a lion on the right side, and of an ox and an eagle on the left. These creatures are supposed to represent mystically the four Evangelists, each of whom " reveals Christ as Man, as King (symbolized by the Lion), as a Sacrificial Victim (typified by the Ox), and as the Resurrection and- the Life, "Who mounts on an Eagle's
Si. Mark's Day.
words, " that we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine." 1
The Collect for St. Matthew's Day recites, and is based upon, a fact of his history — his call from the receipt of custom to be an Evangelist. That for St. Luke's Day is in like manner built upon the fact of his call ; " Almighty God, who calledst Luke the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul." But the Collects of the Festivals of the two other Evan- gelists— St. Mark and St. John — do not recite any fact connected with them, but refer only to their doctrine. The Church has received instruction through the doctrine of St. Mark, illumination through the doctrine of St. John. We may be sure that there is a reason for this in both cases. Every one would regard St. John's doctrine as specially characteristic of himself ; his doctrine is distin- guished by marked features from that of all the other Evangelists. It requires a much closer scrutiny of the Gospel of St. Mark to see how his doctrine is specially characteristic. And, if we accept what has been said, on a very superficial view of his Gospel, — that it is only an abridgment of St. Matthew's, — we shall not be able to see
pinions to heaven, and Who carries us thither, as eaglets, on His wings " (Bishop "Wordsworth on Ezek. i. 10). The Gospel for St. Mark's Day, in the Roman Missal, is Luke x. 1-9, which has no special applicability, un- less we suppose St. Mark to have been one of the seventy disciples. The Epistle in the Eastern Church is 1 Peter v. 6-14, which assumes that "Marcus my son" in ver. 13 is St. Mark, St. Peter's son in the faith, — a "younger" who did "submit himself to the elder." The Use of Sarum, compiled by Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury (a.d. 1078-1099), was the most illustrious and most widely spread of all the English Uses until the reign of Queen Mary, when "so many of the clergy obtained particular licences of Cardinal Pole to say the Roman Breviary, that this became universally received." [Butler's "Lives of the Saints," St. Osmund, B. C. Dec. 4.]
1 The three verses added to the old Epistle were verses 14, 15, 16, of Eph. iv.
Si. Mark's Day.
it at all. But that view will not stand the test of exami- nation. The petition of the Collect is that we may not be fickle and nighty in our religion, carried away with every new view of truth, captivated, like children, with the showy and the glittering, and soon tired of " the old paths wherein is the good way,"1 but may be built up on a solid foundation, and " established in the truth of " God's " holy Gospel." And this can only be done by instruction, by our being gradually and patiently led on in the knowledge of God, through a ministry the object of which is to edify as well as convert. But how is St. Mark's doctrine specially adapted to establish us in the truth of God's holy Gospel ?
First, there is undoubtedly a vividness of portraiture about St. Mark's narrative, a lifelike colouring, a minute- ness of detail, a matter-of-factness, if I may use the phrase, which make us feel that he is narrating what really hap- pened, and so tend to establish us in the truth of Gospel facts. And it is upon Gospel facts that Gospel doctrines are built. The Epistles of the New Testament have absolutely no ground to stand upon, if you cut away the Gospels. Let me give only a very few out of the thousand lifelike touches, with which St. Mark's narrative abounds. It is he alone who tells us that our Lord in His tempta- tion was " with the wild beasts," 2 thus furnishing one feature of the contrast between the first Adam in the garden and the second Adam in the wilderness, and also exhibiting to us the lower animals on the same stage with man and with evil and good angels. It is he alone who gives us the information that Zebedee had " hired servants " in his fishing-boat,3 showing us that the social position of Zebe- dee's sons, before their call to the Apostleship, was by no means one of absolute poverty ; they were substantial
1 Jer. vi. 16. 2 St. Mark. i. 13. =» Ibid. ver. 20.
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middleclass people. In the account of the Transfiguration it is he who uses those two lively comparisons — one drawn from nature, the other from art, — and the second being also a humble commonplace comparison, — to express the lustre of our Lord's raiment, " His raiment became shining, ex- ceeding white as snow ; so as no fuller on earth can white them." 1 It is he who notices the jangling controversy which, on His descending from the hill, our Lord found proceeding between His disciples and the scribes, " a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them;"2 the fact, too, of the amazement of the people at our Lord's appearance, of their attraction towards Him (possibly by the mild radiance which still lingered about His features), and of the salutations they addressed to Him ;3 the very significant question, moreover, put by Him to the father of the lunatic child, " How long is it ago since this came unto him ?" ;4 the touching prayers of that father, the tears with which he urged them, and the words in which our Lord assured him that the recovery of the child was a question, not of the extent of Messiah's power, but of the reality and reach of his own faith ;5 the actual words in which our Lord rebuked the spirit, conveying as they do the information that it was a " dumb and deaf spirit ;"6 and the way in which the boy recovered from the effects of the final paroxysm, our Lord giving him his hand, and gently lifting him up.7 Of all these particu- lars we should have known nothing, had it not been for St. Mark. Then, again, it is to St. Mark that we are in- debted for the actual Aramaic words which our Lord used on several occasions, — " Ephphatha," 8 " Talitha cumi," 9 " Abba, Father,"10 — the effect of all these little details being
1 St. Mark ix. 3. 2 Ver. 14. 3 Ver. 15. * Ver. 21.
5 Vv. 23, 24. « Ver. 25. 7 W. 26, 27.
8 Chap. vii. 34. 9 Chap. v. 41. 10 St. Mark xiv. 36.
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to give reality and life to the narrative, to assure us that the " things wherein " we have " been instructed " are not "cunningly devised fables/'1 but facts handed down to us by those who were eyewitnesses of them.
But again, " establishment in the truth of the holy Gospel" may mean not merely conviction of the actual occurrence of things recorded by the Evangelists, but also growth in grace and in experimental knowledge of the truth. This growth is spoken of in the Epistle for the Day ; — " But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things."2 It is beautifully emblematized in the Gospel, which is our Lord's allegory of the true Vine; " I am the vine, ye are the branches : he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for with- out me ye can do nothing."3 It is implied in the Collect, which is a prayer for establishment in the truth ; and how are we to be established in it, but by " growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ"?4 In Nature establishment and growth are contemporaneous processes — one going on beneath, and the other above, the soil. The root grapples itself into the earth, as the plant unfolds itself in bud and blossom. Now, one characteristic feature of St. Mark's doctrine is the emphasis which he lays upon growth. He gives one parable, which no other Evangelist gives, — the parable of the seed growing secretly. Here it is; " So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground ; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he know- eth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he
1 2 Pet. i. 16. 3 Eph. iv. 15. » St. John xv. 5.
4 2 Pet. iii. 18.
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putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." 1 May we venture to infer from this particular instruction, that he, or the Apostle whose testimony to Christ his Gospel repre- sents, gave great prominence to the doctrine of the slow and gradual process, by which the seed of God's Word works in the soil of the heart, until at length it yields " fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life"?2 How interesting would be the coincidence, if it should turn out to be the case, that St. Mark, in recording this parable, was acting under the special instruction of the Apostle, who, in one of his Epistles, exhorts Christians thus ; "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue ; and to virtue knowledge ; and to knowledge ,temperance ; and to temperance patience ; and to patience godliness ; and to godliness brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."3 And, indeed, that St. Mark did write his Gospel under the instructions of St. Peter, is not only the uniform tradition of the Church, but a tradition which derives its chief support from the contents of St. Mark's Gospel. That this Gospel must have been written, if not by, yet under the dictation of an eyewitness, is certain from those minute and graphic touches which are everywhere characteristic of it, and a few of which have been cited. But it also exhibits traces of the authorship of St. Peter, as it records several things which must have had a special interest for him. Thus the record that the cock crowed twice,4 and that the first crowing took place immediately after the first denial, and that thus a warning was given to the Apostle, which had not the effect of immediately
1 St. Mark iv. 26, 27, 28, 29. 2 See Rom. vi. 22.
» Pet. i. 5, 6, 7, 8. 4 See St. Mark xiv. 68, 72.
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255
reclaiming him, so that the sin was something graver than a mere surprise, — all this rests upon St. Mark's authority exclusively. And it is from him also that we learn that Jesus made special mention of Peter in the message winch he sent to the Apostles by the women (" Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee"1), thus not waiting to give the penitent a gleam of hope and comfort till He Himself, later in the day, should appear to him.2 On the whole, we need not hesi- tate to accept the generally received tradition that St. Mark was employed by St. Peter to put on record his testimony to the works and words of Jesus ; and that he was very probably "my son Marcus,"3 — my son in the faith, — who joins in the salutations at the end of the first Epistle of St. Peter. The style of his Gospel being terse, incisive, and Roman — Like Caesar's Commentaries, to which it has often been compared — Dr. Isaac Da Costa conjectures (and, if nothing more, it is an interesting conjecture) that Mark was the devout soldier who waited on Cornelius, and was sent, to Joppa by him ; 4 that he was converted by St. Peter's sermon in the centurion's house, and was one of the group of Gentiles on whom the Holy Ghost fell pre- viously to Baptism.5 But, whoever the Evangelist may have been, he clearly speaks the language put in his mouth by St. Peter ; and in connexion with this Collect, which is a prayer for establishment in the truth of the holy Gospel, we may perhaps be allowed to observe that St. Peter's ministry rather represents to us the ministry of edification, while that of his great colleague, St. Paul, would be mora justly characterized as the ministry of conversion.
1 See St. Mark xvi. 7. % See St. Luke xxiv. 34. 3 1 Pet v. 13. * See Acts x. 7, 8.
5 See Acts x. 44, 45.— Da Costa's "Four Witnesses," pp. 114, 115, [London : 1851].
Chapter LXXVIII.
ST. PHILIP AND ST. JAMES'S DAY.
S> SUmigfitp (Son, tobom ttutp to knoto is everlasting life 3 ©rant us perfectlp to knoto tbp §>on JeSuS <£brist to be tbe toap, tbe ttutTj, ant) tbe life ; tbat, follotointr tbe steps of tbp bolp Apostles, %atnt Philip anD %atnt Jlames, toe map steufastlp toalk in tbe toap tbat leauetb to eternal life ; tbrougb tTjc same tbp §>on 3leSus Cbrist our JlorB. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
The Collect for St. Philip and St. James's Day in the Missal of Sarum,1 besides containing a questionable expression, is somewhat jejune. It is merely a prayer that we may be instructed by the examples of St. Philip and St. James, whose festival we are joyfully celebrat- ing. The Reformers, in the first draught of the English Prayer Book in 1549, wrote a new Collect,2 basing it upon two noble texts of St. John's Gospel. Cosin, at the last Kevision in 1661, gave it still more body, and at the same time a practical turn, by inserting the latter clause about
1 Deus, qui nos annua apostolorum God, who makest us glad with tuorum Philippi et Jacobi solemni- the yearly commemoration of thine tate lsetificas ; prasta, quaesumus, apostles Philip and James ; Grant ut quorum gaudemus meritis, in- us, we beseech thee, that as we re- struamur exemplis. Per Dominum. joice in their merits, so we may be in- structed by their examples. Through the Lord.
2 Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life ; Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ, to be the way, the truth, and the life, as thou hast taught Saint Philip, and other the Apostles : Through Jesus Christ our Lord. [Parker's " First Prayer Book of Edward VI.," d. 196 (1877)].
St. Philip and St. James's Day. 257
" following the steps of the holy Apostles," and " walking in the way that leadeth to eternal life."
But what is the reason for associating St. Philip and St. James, as also, at a later period of the year, St. Simon and St. Jude, in one commemoration ? Probably the only reason that can be given for such an arrangement is that it recalls to mind our Lord's method of securing to His missionaries mutual sympathy and succour, by sending them forth "two and two."1 St. Mark tells us that He adopted this plan with the twelve Apostles ; and St. Luke that He afterwards extended it to the seventy disciples ;2 and though St. Matthew, whose Gospel must be regarded as the mother-gospel of the four, does not expressly mention the circumstance, yet he implies it when he gives us the names of the Apostles in couples, Simon and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, and so forth.3 Man was not made to stand or to work alone. For Adam, when he was first created, " there was not found an help meet for him ;" 4 and a companion, who could yield him sympathy and succour, had to be created. And the wise man gives us the result of human experience on this subject, when he says ; " Two are better than one ; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow : but woe to him that is alone when he falleth ; for he hath not another to help him up."5 The principle is one which has till recently been too much forgotten in the organization of Christian missions. One and one make more than two, when each acts not separately, but in concert, the concert which comes from mutual understanding and sympathy.
It strikes one on the first glance that the exposition
1 See St Mark vi. 7. 2 See St. Luke x. 1.
3 See St. Matt. x. 2, 3, 4. * Gen. ii. 20. 8 Eccles. iv. 9, 10. VOL. II. S
258 Si. Philip and St. Jamess Day.
of this Collect must very much resolve itself into the exposition of those two passages of Holy Scripture which are cited in it. And so it is also, as we have already had occasion to remark, with all the Collects of the Eeforma- tion period. For the most part they actually quote Scripture, which is very rarely done in the Collects trans- lated from the old Latin Offices of the Church. Not that the latter are therefore less Scriptural than the former. In the earlier Collects Scripture has evidently been digested and worked up in the mind of the composer, and comes out in his petition, though not in the very same words which are used in the Bible. We know that a sermon may be very Scriptural, may live, and move, and have its being in the element of Scripture, without quoting Scripture very profusely ; as on the other hand there may be and are sermons, which are mere centos of texts strung together on a very loose thread of thought, not at all organized or methodized by the mind of the preacher, nay, taking from his mind not a single tinge of colour. And so it may be with prayers. A prayer is not necessarily unscriptural, because a text does not happen to be quoted in it, nor necessarily scriptural because it does. Nevertheless it is a good thing when, either in sermon or in prayer, texts are directly cited, which are not only entirely to the point, but are turned to good account and made practically useful.
" Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life," or, as the Second Collect at Morning Prayer has it, " in knowledge of whom standeth " (i.e. consists) " our eternal life." Observe the interchange in these two passages of the Prayer Book, as in so many passages of the Bible, of the two English words " eternal " and " ever-
St. Philip and St. James s Day. 259
lasting." They represent only one word in the Greek of the New Testament ; and it is in my judgment to be regretted that this word is not translated uniformly, either always " eternal " or always " everlasting." But observe also something which goes below the words, and touches the sense of the clause. Though a text is here quoted, it is only half a text. Our Lord, in His great high-priestly prayer, says indeed ; " This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God;" but He does not stop there, as if the knowledge of the only true God were of itself and by itself eternal life ; He immedi- ately adds, "and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."1 Is the Prayer Book then justified in saying that " truly to know God is eternal life," — that " in knowledge of him our eternal life consists" ? The Prayer Book, we are assured, will always be found, by those who study it deeply, very well able to take care of itself, and to give an account of itself. As regards the Collect before us, you will take no- tice that we are now only engaged on the first clause of the prayer, — that there is the petition yet to come. And even independently of the petition, and the light which it throws upon the earlier clause, may we not say that there is a sense, in which it is strictly true that our eternal life con- sists in knowledge of God ? Had Abraham, think you, that knowledge of God in which consists eternal life ? had Moses ? had David and the Psalmists ? Without a doubt they had. Our Lord Himself distinctly tells the Sadducees, on the ground of God's being still called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, after the death of those Patriarchs, that they were then alive unto God.2 And if the writers of many of the Psalms had not the true know- ledge of the true God, — the knowledge wherein stands
1 St. Johu xvii. 3. 2 See St. Matt. xxii. 31, 32.
260 St. Philip and St. James s Day.
everlasting life, — it would be hard indeed to say who has. How then are we to reconcile the fact of Abraham and David, who lived centuries before the birth of Christ, having eternal life, with the assertion of our Lord, " This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent "? The reconciliation is easy, if only it can be shown that Abraham and David knew Jesus Christ, however dim, as compared with our know- ledge, theirs may have been. And they did know Him, perhaps a good deal more clearly than you and I think for. " Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day : and he saw it, and was glad."1 Abraham believed firmly in the Seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head2 (that is, who should crush the power of man's original enemy, and destroy by His manifestation the works of the devil).3 And when G-od said to him, " In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,"4 his mind told him that this seed of his should be the expected Seed of the woman, that the earliest promise to the human race had been treasured up in the Divine memory, and that in the line of his posterity it should be certainly fulfilled ; and then the day of Christ, the day of hope and augury for fallen man, dawned brightly in Abraham's heart ; his spiritual horizon seemed all aglow with the promise of Messiah ; and, as at the dawn of the natural day a light breeze springs up and rustles in the trees, and birds, awaking in their nests, twitter and trill their cheerful notes, so it was in the soul of the faithful Patriarch — " he rejoiced to see the day of Christ ; and he saw it, and was glad." The truth is, it is God, as seen in the face of Jesus Christ,5 whether dimly, as by devout
1 St John viiL 56. s Gen. iii. 15.
s See 1 John iii. 8. * Gen. mi. 18. * See 2 Cor. iv. 6-
St. Philip and St. J antes s Day. 261
Jews under the Old Testament, or lucidly, as by devout Christians under the New, and not God absolutely, whom truly to know is eternal life. And this is intimated very emphatically in what follows.
" Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life," — as much as to say, " Since truly to know Thee is eternal life, grant us perfectly to know the true interpretation of Thee." Now note the exceeding appositeness of this to the occasion. We are commemorating St. Philip the Apostle. Now it was St. Philip who, when the Lord had told His disciples that they knew and had seen the Father, said, "Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Our Lord at once replied ; " Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father ; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?"1 No man can have a right understand- ing or true knowledge of God except in and through the face of His Son Jesus Christ; and thus the prayer of the Collect virtually is, that we may avoid St. Philip's mistake, and not dream of seeing the Father, except through the ordained medium of seeing Him — " the only begotten Son who hath declared (or expounded) Him."2 Suppose that at dead of night a man should say ; " I wish you would show me the sun in the heavens, and then I shall be satisfied that there is a sun." We should reply to such a man ; " In the first place, you can only see the sun in his own light ; and therefore at night it is impos- sible to show him to you. But secondly, even by day- light a difficulty will arise, if you should attempt to scan the sun with your naked eye. You will be dazzled and blinded, and make out nothing about him. But look at
1 St. John xiv. 8, 9. 2 See St. John L 18.
262 St. PJiilip and St. James's Day.
him as his light is refracted in these raindrops, or these dewdrops, or this prism ; and you will make out that in the light, which every instant he is shooting forth, there are seven primary colours, four brilliant, and three sombre." Jesus Christ, as a Person in the Godhead, is " Light of Light,"1 — a ray proceeding from the fountain of rays, which is God the Father. "Without Him there is no revelation of God at all He is the revealer of God in the works of Nature ; " for by Him were all things created."2 He is the revealer of God in the conscience of man ; for He is " the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."3 He is the revealer of God in the Old Testament ; for He was the Angel Jehovah, who on so many occasions appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, as the medium of communication between God and man. But yet a brighter and more exact revelation of God was needed In order fully to understand the nature of sun- light, we must not only have the rays of the sun stream- ing down upon us, but bis ray must be mirrored in the dewdrop or raindrop. This was done by the Incarnation of the Son of God. " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth"4 — exhibiting God to us in a form level to our apprehensions and sympathies. But of what avail would it have been to have exhibited God, without at the same time exhibiting the way by which sinful men might approach Him ? To meet St. Philip's demand, " Lord, shew us the Father, and it suf- ficeth us," would only have shut up the disciples to blank despair, unless our Lord had at the same time solved St. Thomas's perplexity; "How can we know the way?" Indeed, the way to heaven and to the Heavenly Father is
1 Nicene Creed. 2 Col. i. 16. * St John i. 9.
4 St. John i. 14.
,5V. Philip and St. James's Day. 263
the more directly practical of the two questions ; and therefore our Lord addresses Himself to answer that first ; "I am the way, the truth, and the life."1 Christ "hath consecrated for us a new and living way, " whereby " we may enter into the holiest," " through the veil, that is to say, his flesh "2 (or human nature). But observe that the veil must be rent in twain, before we can enter. The two components of the humanity of Christ must be separated (or, in other words, the death of Christ must have taken place) ; for it is through the veil that the way lies. It is only by the atoning blood of Jesus that we can have boldness to enter in.3 And when we do so enter in, we find Him who is " the way " to be also " the truth," in the sense which that word bears in St. John's writings, the truth as distinct from the ritual shadows of the Law, — the true means of access to God, as contrasted with the ceremonial means, which the Law prescribed, and which were only " figures of the true."4 And, moreover, though it is through a rent veil, that is through a dead Christ, that we enter in, (just as troops who carry a fortress by storm sometimes find no access but over the bodies of their slaughtered comrades, which fill up the foss), yet has this dead Christ become to us by His Resurrection a quick- ening Spirit,5 as He says Himself; " I am He that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive for evermore," 6 — nay, it is out of death and through death that His humanity has that risen life, of which He is the source to His people. So much for that part of the Collect, which touches the conversation in which St. Philip was an interlocutor.
As for its final clause, which is from the pen of Bishop Cosin, it corresponds well with the doctrine in-
1 St. John xiv. 5, 6. 2 Heb. x. 19, 20. 3 See Heb. x. 19.
4 See Heb. ix. 24. 5 See 1 Cor. xv. 45. 6 Rev. i. 18.
264
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culcated by St. James the Less, the author of the Epistle of St. James. For that Epistle, as is well known, is eminently practical, insists upon good works as the evidence, nay, as the very animating soul of faith, which without them is dead,1 and upon the aggravated condemna- tion entailed by knowing to do good and doing it not.2 What more appropriate than, that in commemorating such a Saint, we should pray for grace not only to " know the way that leadeth to eternal life," but, " following the steps of the holy Apostles ' St. Philip and St. J ames, stedfastly to walk therein" ?
1 See James ii 14, to the end.
* James iv. 17.
Chapter LXXIX.
ST. BARNABAS THE APOSTLE.
2D JLoru ®on atmtgTitp, toTjo uitist enliue tip Tjotp apostle "BarnaDas tottf) singular gifts of tTje tyol? ©Ijost ; JLeaSe us not, toe Deseeco tljee, Destitute of tl)j> ntanifolD gifts, nor get of grace to use rijem alinap to tfjp honour anD glorp ; tljrougfi 3Iesus Cfirist our JLorD.
Amen.1 [a.d. 1549.]
This Collect stands in quite the first rank of those many gems of devotion which ornament our Book of Common Prayer. It sketches for us, with one or two slight but masterly strokes, the relation which the grace of God bears to His gifts. It is due to Cranmer and those who were his associates in drawing up the first Eeformed Book of Common Prayer, and it shows that they were masters in the art of writing prayers.
" 0 Lord God Almighty, who didst endue thy holy Apostle Barnabas with singular gifts of the Holy Ghost." But why should we commemorate St. Barnabas as endued beyond other Apostles " with singular gifts of the Holy
1 The discarded Collect of the Sarum Missal is as follows : — Ecclesiam tuam, quaesumus, Do- Let thy Church, 0 Lord, we be- mine, beati Barnaboe apostoli tui seech- thee, be commended to thee commendet oratio ; et pro ea inter- by the prayer of thy blessed apostle ventor existat, quam doctrina et Barnabas ; and may he appear as passione illustrat. Per. an intercessor for her, whom he
lighteneth by his doctrine and pas- sion. Through.
266 St. Barnabas the Apostle.
Ghost"? Was not his great colleague St. Paul endued with gifts at least as singular, — probably indeed more eminent, since we find that, when the two were together at Lystra, St. Paul was the chief speaker I1 Must we not suppose St. Peter and St. John to have received gifts, at least equal to those of St. Barnabas ? This may doubt- less well have been the case. And of St. Peter's gifts we do make mention in the Collect for his day ; " 0 Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy Apostle St. Peter many excellent gifts." But as regards St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John, we have something more indi- vidually characteristic of them to record than their endow- ment with gifts of the Holy Ghost. In St. Paul's case, there is the diffusion of the light of the Gospel through- out the world by means of his ministry ; in St. Peter's, there is the solemn charge thrice made to him to feed the sheep,2 which constituted him to the end of time the representative of the Christian ministry; in St. John's, the illuminative doctrine of the great seer of the New Testament,3 the light which went along with the love. — But still we are inclined to ask, " How do you know that St. Barnabas was a man eminent for spiritual gifts ? Natural gifts he must have had ; for we read that by the heathen at Lystra he was called Jupiter,4 doubtless from his venerable, dignified, and commanding appearance ; this world's resources he must have had, for we read of his being a landed proprietor, and laying the proceeds of his property at the Apostles' feet ;5 but how are we led to
1 Acts xiv. 12. 2 See St. John xxi. 15, 16, 17—" who . . . com- mandedst him earnestly to feed thy flock. " (Coll.)
3 "That it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John." (Coll.) 4 Acts xiv. 12.
5 Acts iv. 36, 37.
St. Barnabas the Apostle. 267
suppose that he had ' singular gifts of the Holy Ghost' ? " We are led to this conclusion by holy Scripture. We are told that Barnabas was not the Apostle's original name, that the name given him as an infant at the time of his circumcision was Joses j1 but that the Apostles, after the outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon them at Pentecost — by which outpouring different gifts were given to different members of the Church — had surnamed him Barnabas'2 (in Hebrew Bar-nevooah). " Nevooah " in Hebrew means prophecy, which was one of the miraculous gifts of the early Church. Did I say one of the miraculous gifts ? I should have said, one of the greatest, perhaps the very greatest, of all the miraculous gifts. St. Paul says dis- tinctly that " greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, excepthe interpret, that the church may receive edifying."3 And in the course of that Chapter he so far explains the gift of prophecy to us, that we are enabled to say that it must have been a gift of preaching, — preaching, however, not as the fruit of private study which is the means used in the absence of the super- natural gifts, but preaching as the result of inspiration — inspired preaching. "He that prophesieth," says the Apostle, " speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort;"4 — what is this but preaching, preaching which takes effect upon the mind, and heart, and con- science of the hearers ? This was the form, then, in which the Pentecostal outpouring visited St. Barnabas ; it was in him a gift of prophecy — a gift so remarkable, so eminent, so " singular," that the Apostles characterized him by this gift alone, called him as if by a new baptismal name, which was to supersede the name of his circumcision, —
1 Acts iv. 36 2 Ibid. 3 1 Cor. xir. 5.
4 1 Cor. xiv. 3.
268 St. Barnabas tlie Apostle.
" Bar-nevooah," the son of prophecy. — But we must pay attention also to the Greek word, by which St. Luke trans- lates the Hebrew nevooah. He says of the name Bar- nabas, "which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation." Now the word here translated " consolation" is not always so translated, although usually it is so. Twenty-nine times in all does it occur, and in nineteen out of these twenty- nine times our translators have rendered it " consolation," or " comfort," just as for the kindred adjective, when used to denote the office of the Holy Ghost, they have uni- formly given us the word ■ Comforter." In eight of the remaining cases they have rendered it, as for the most part the context obliged them to do, " exhortation,1 and once it is translated " intreaty."2 Since the Hebrew word nevooah means prophecy, and since prophecy, as St. Paul says, is " unto exhortation," and, moreover, since we read that when Barnabas was sent by the church at Jerusalem to Antioch, to inspect the work which was there going on among the Gentile proselytes, "he exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord,"3 — the more correct translation of St. Barnabas's new name would probably be, " which is, being interpreted, a son of exhortation." But because this is so, we need not there- fore dismiss all the associations which gather round the
1 (1.) " If ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on" (Acta xiii. 15). (2.) "He that exhorteth, [let him wait] on exhortation''' (Rom. xii. 8). (3.) "He that prophesieth speaketh nnto men to edifica- tion, and exhortation, and comfort" (1 Cor. xiv. 3). (4.) " For indeed he accepted the exhortation" (2 Cor. viii. 17). (5.) " Our exhortation was not of deceit " (1 Thess. ii. 3). (6.) " Give attendance to reading, to exhorta- tion, to doctrine" (1 Tim. iv. 13). (7.) "Ye have forgotten the exhorta- tion which speaketh unto you, etc." (Heb. xii. 5). (8.) " I beseech you, brethren, suffer ' ' the word of exhortation " (Heb. xiii. 22).
2 ' ' Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift " (2 Cor. viii. 4). * See Acts xL 23.
St. Barnabas the Apostle. 269
words " son of consolation" and which Keble has so beau- tifully embalmed in his Ode for St. Barnabas's Day. Bar- nabas, we are told, " was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith and the Holy Ghost, of which he was full, is the Paraclete or Comforter. His ministry, too, seems to have been of the efiifying rather than of the stirring and converting kind. He is sent to a place where a great work had already begun ; and what he does there is to fortify the convictions of truth which the Gentiles had already received ; they had joined themselves unto the Lord before he came, and what he did was, to exhort them all that " with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord"2 True it is that afterwards it is said, " and much people was added unto the Lord "3 (people, that is, who had not joined the Lord previously) ; but this is the effect attributed not so much to Barnabas's ministry as to his presence, example, influence, and probably miracles, — " he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith ; and much people was added unto the Lord." To be full of faith is to be full of moral and spiritual power ; and to live among others as a man full of faith is to win them in spite of themselves ; such a man lets the light of his Christian profession so shine before men, that they see his good works, and glorify his heavenly Father.4 The Church was edified by Barnabas's ministry ; and, solemnised and soothed by his example and influence, they walked in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, and thus were multiplied also.6 And were not these " singular " gifts of the Holy Ghost, — the gift of building up souls on their most holy faith,6 of confirming them in the purposes of holy living ; of comforting them, and
1 Acts xi. 24. 2 Ver. 23. » Ver. 24.
* See St. Matt. v. 16. • See Acts ix. 31. 8 See Jude v. 20.
270 St. Barnabas the Apostle.
receiving comfort at the same time, by the mutual faith of the teacher and the taught ? 1 Let us never be tempted to depreciate an edifying ministry, under which growth is to be obtained, because it rather carries on than commences the work of grace.
"Leave us not, we beseech thee, destitute of thy manifold gifts ;" showing that we are to look for gifts of the Holy Ghost, no less than for His grace, and to " covet earnestly the best gifts,"2 even now when the miraculous element, which there once was in these gifts, no longer attaches to them. One man's gift leads him rather to the quiet thoughtful study of the Holy Scriptures ; the Spirit capacitates him in a natural way for " the word of wisdom " and " the word of knowledge." 3 Another has the gift of utterance,4 and those qualifications of a public speaker which go to make up what we call "delivery" — voice, style, gesture, manner, presence — he is capacitated by the Spirit for preaching. And among preachers one has rather the gift of awakening the sinner, the other that of building up the faithful Another is endowed with that insight into human character, and that tact in draw- ing it out, which qualifies him for dealing with individual souls, and also for putting the right man in the right place. Another (and it is as great a gift as any) attracts others to him by mere force of sympathy. Another has the power, and a very important one it is, of organizing and administration, of saving infinite labour by a division of labour — in short, by co-operation and method. Another, without any brilliancy of parts, is a man of strong will and single mind, and carries weaker wills before him by sheer force of character and simplicity of purpose. All
1 See Rom. i. 12. a 1 Cor. xiL 31. 3 See 1 Cor. xiL 8. * See 1 Cor. I 6.
St. Barnabas the Apostle.
271
these may seem to be mere features of natural character ; and so they are, as they exist in the natural man ; but when the Spirit touches them in Baptism, and when He touches them again in the impartation of real faith to the soul, they receive a consecration which fits them for the service of God, and become spiritual gifts, though with a natural basis. Some measure of them is essential, if not to our individual salvation, yet to our usefulness, and we pray accordingly that God " would not leave us destitute of them."
" Nor yet of grace to use them alway." It is grace which alone can give a right direction to gifts, whether material, intellectual, or spiritual ; grace only which can dispose a man to use his wealth in works of piety and benevolence, to use his abilities and mental powers in God's service, and to use his spiritual gifts for G-od's honour. " Grace to use them." Observe that without use every faculty, whether natural or moral, decays. If you keep one of your limbs without exercise, it will become powerless and paralysed ; exercise is necessary to maintain it in efficiency. If a man of good parts never uses his wits, but only vegetates, they will become less and less keen. A fire may be lighted, but it requires stirring and feeding to keep it alight. Whence comes that exhortation respecting the gift bestowed in ordina- tion ; " Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands"?1 The first thing which grace prompts in the heart is the use and cultivation of our gifts, — that we let none of them lie fallow. But to what end ? with what purpose and intention ?
" To use them alway to thy honour and glory? Not
1 2 Tim. L 6.
272 6"/. Barnabas the Apostle.
to our own, but to Thine. And this direction of the gifts is no very easy task, especially if they are mental or moral. Man's heart is naturally so proud that even spiritual gifts of the highest order will only, apart from God's grace, puff him up and breed in him undue elation and vainglory. When the people applauded Herod's eloquence, and " gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man," " immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory." 1 Balaam had the gift of prophecy in an eminent degree ; but because Balaam had not grace to direct this gift to the right end, see how pompously he opens his prophecy, how fulsome is his adulation of himself; "Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said : He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open." 2 " Knowledge puffeth up," saith the Apostle, " but charity edifieth."3 Charity is the love of God, and of man for God's sake. And unless charity administers our gifts to her own ends, which are God's glory and man's salvation, better ten thousand times were it for us that we had never been endowed with them. In that case they will only aggravate our con- demnation.
1 Acts xii. 22, 23. 2 Num. xxiv. 3, 4. 8 1 Cor. viii. L
CHAPTER LXXX.
ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. (i)
aimigbtp ®od, bp toboSe prominence tbp serbant John "Baptist toas toonoerfullp born, anD stent to prepare tbe toap of tbp §*on out %abiour, bp preacbing of repentance 3 39ake us so to folloto bis Doctrine anD botp life, tbat toe map trulp repent arcorDtnjr. to btjj preacbinn;3 anD after fjis erample constantly speak tbe rrutb,boMp rebuke bice, anD patientlp suffer for tbe trutb/S Sake ; tbrougb 3IeSuS Cbrist our ILorD. Amen.1 [a.d. 1549.]
The only word in this Collect, which differs from what our Reformers wrote in 1549, is "repentance." This word was substituted by Bishop Cosin for " penance." The word "penance," you will remember, lingers still among us in the Commination Service, where we are exhorted " to bring forth worthy fruits of penance." But in this connexion no mistake can arise about the meaning of the word. If penance bears fruits, it must be a temper, — a certain state of mind or heart, leading naturally to a certain line of conduct, that is, it must be the exact equivalent of repentance. But the word had undergone
1 The Collect of the Sarum Missal was : — Deus, qui praesentem diem hono- God, who by the nativity of the rabilem nobis in beati Johannis blessed John hast made this day nativitate fecisti ; da populis tuis honourable amongst us ; Grant unto spiritualium gratiam gaudiorum, et thy people the grace of spiritual omnium fidelium mentes dirige in joys, and direct the minds of all the viam salutis seternte. Per Dominium faithful into the way of eternal
salvation. Through the Lord.
VOL. n. T
274 •SV- John Baptises Day. (i)
a deterioration of meaning before the time of the Eeforma- tion, having come to signify the punishment imposed by the priest for sins confessed by a penitent in the so-called Sacrament of Penance. He who went through the actions of self-denial or devotion prescribed in the confessional, and as a condition of the validity of his absolution, was said to " do penance." Penance was something done rather than something felt — a satisfaction for sin rather than a " godly sorrow " for it. It was necessary that this whole circle of unscriptural ideas should be banished from the offices of the Eeformed Church ; and the word " penance," therefore, was never allowed to stand, except in the single instance where the context left no doubt as to its meaning.
" Almighty God, by whose providence thy servant John Baptist was wonderfully born." St. John Baptist's birth had been foretold in prophecy, and was signalised by miracle. First, it had been foretold in prophecy. He was born " by " the " providence " of God. Providence, if we look only at the derivation of the word, means foresight. But words often come to mean much more than their derivation imports. And this is the case with the word " providence." Providence denotes not only foresight, but also a power of administration in the person who foresees, by which he is able to control events wisely and successfully. The foresight of God enabled Him to foretell the birth of the forerunner of His Son, by the mouth of Isaiah, seven hundred years before it came to pass. And His absolute control of events enabled Him to bring it about at the exactly right time, and in exact conformity with the pre- diction ; for it was when the character and the fortunes of the chosen people had sunk to the lowest possible ebb, that the birth of John the Baptist took place ; and thus
St. John Baptist's Day. (i) 275
his birth was like the first bright streak in the East, which precedes the rising of the sun, and the announce- ment of it might well be prefaced, as the Prophet prefaces it, by the cheering accents, " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God."1 But three hundred years elapsed after Isaiah's prophecy of John, and then his career was once more predicted by Malachi,2 and predicted at a most solemn crisis, the closing up of the Canon of the Old Testament. The oracles of God were about to be closed up and sealed, until He should come, to whom all the Law and the Prophets did testify.3 Old Testament prophecy expired with the name of John upon her lips ; for John, says our Lord, "is Elias which was for to come."* It was as if God had said ; " I am about to keep silence for a time, and to break the ordinary course of events by no more divine oracles, by no more supernatural interferences. But the day hastens onward for the coming of the seed of the woman,6 the desire of all nations,6 the messenger of the covenant.7 He shall suddenly come to His temple,8 shall come unawares when people are not expecting Him. Yet think not that I will leave you without due preparation for this crisis of human affairs at
1 The passage which begins thus forms our present Epistle for St. John the Baptist's Day (Isaiah iL 1-12). It was substituted by our Reformers for a cento of texts from Isaiah xlix. (which form the Epistle in the Sarum Missal). The first three verses of the Chapter, half of the fifth, and the latter half of the seventh, formed this disjointed and inappropriate Epistle — inappropriate, because it applies to the Baptist what is really a prophecy of Christ. The Sarum Gospel is the same as our own, except that in our own the whole song of Zacharias (instead of the earlier part of it only) is appointed to be read right through, as well as the beautiful verse at the end of the Chapter about the Baptist's wilderness life in youth.
2 Mai. iii. 1 ; iv. 5. 3 See Rom. iii. 21, and Acts xxvi. 22. 4 Matt. xi. 14, with Mai. iv. 5. 8 See Gen. iii. 15.
• See Hag. ii. 7. 7 See Mai. iii. 1. » Ibid.
276 St. John Baptist's Day. (1)
once so important and so august. As kings do not make military expeditions without pioneers, nor entries into the provinces of their empires without heralds and proclama- tions, so hefore the Advent of the King of kings there shall be a pioneer, a herald, and a proclamation. If you are taken by surprise, it will be your own fault ; for you shall have due warning. ' Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet,' one in the spirit and power of Elijah, one costumed as he was outwardly, and minded as he was inwardly, and whose ministry shall have similar effects to his, ' before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord : and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse,' — he shall effect a recon- ciliation between the degenerate race, in the midst of which he shall appear, and their forefathers in the faith, — the patriarchs and prophets, — disposing the fathers to look down with joy and thankfulness upon their descendants, now converted to the same piety and hope which they themselves displayed, and the children to look up to their fathers with veneration, as a ' great cloud of witnesses ' to God's truth, and to walk in the steps of their faith, and imitate their example."
But John Baptist's birth was to be predicted yet a third and last time, and in a form especially remarkable. It was to be predicted not only in the holy city, but in the temple, which was the very heart and core of the city, nay, in the holy place, which was the very heart and core of the temple. It was predicted at a most critical moment of the service, at the time when the priest of the week drew aside the first veil, and went into the sanctuary to offer the symbolical incense, while all the people with- out the veil were sending up from their hearts those
St. John Baptist's Day. (i) 277
prayers, -which were being symbolized within, and waiting in silence for the return of the priest to give them his benediction.1 For Gabriel at that critical moment came down from heaven, and presented himself on the right side of the altar of incense, and foretold John's birth, and the joy which it should create, and his greatness, and his manner of life and his sanctity, and his work and the success of it, identifying him, moreover, with the subject of Malachi's prophecy by quoting it of him.2 So that there was a miracle, — even the appearance of the angel, and the result of his colloquy with Zacharias, — in the prediction of the birth of St. John as well as in the birth itself. With Isaiah and Malachi it had been simple prophecy, and nothing more. But in Gabriel's case, there was a mingling of the supernatural phenome- non with the supernatural utterance — there was an ele- ment of miracle in it, as well as an element of prophecy. Nor was the miracle confined to the prediction of the event ; the event itself, we are distinctly told, was a miracle. Zacharias and Elizabeth could not have expected a child in the ordinary course of nature. " They had no child," says St. Luke, "because that Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years."3
John Baptist, then, was born by God's providence, and born also in a wonderful way. But it may be asked, and the answer will, I think, tend to bring into higher relief the Baptist's greatness ; " Is not the same thing true of all of us, even of the humblest individual of the human race ? Is not every one born exactly when God's Providence sees fit and arranges that he should be born ? And moreover, is not every one wonderfully born, if the
1 See St. Luke i. 8, 9, 10. 2 See St. Luke L 11-20. 3 St. Luke i. 7.
278 St. John Baptist's Day. (i)
Psalmist's words, confirmed as they are by our own study of the human frame, have any truth in them ; " I will praise thee ; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made : marvellous are thy works : and that my soul knoweth right well"1 Undoubtedly. The birth of the humblest individual in the world, an individual thought unworthy even of a single line in an obituary, was as much foreseen by God from all eternity, and is as much under the control of His Providence, in regard of all its circum- stances, as was St. John the Baptist's birth. Nor can anything more wonderful be conceived, however often it may occur, than the birth into the world of a living soul, with a rational and animal nature kneaded up together in the curiously constructed framework of a human body. The coming of an angel from heaven is not one whit more wonderful than this. No ; not one whit more wonderful ; but very much more rare, and therefore very much more noticeable. And, in like manner, God foresees and previously arranges for every event ; but rarely indeed does He think fit to foreannounce the event He foresees ; and, when He does so, we may be sure that the event so foreannounced has some special dignity and importance in His own eyes, and that He designs by fore- announcing it to call special notice to it. The birth of A. B. may be equally foreseen, equally controlled by Pro- vidence, and equally marvellous with St. John Baptist's ; but it is not equal in importance in God's eyes, and He does not mean it to be of equal importance in ours. And obviously it is not at all of equal importance. Each man doubtless has his own part to play in the social system, as each member of the body has its own function : but
Psalm cxxxix. 14.
St. John Baptist's Day. (i) . 279
each man's part has not an equal bearing on human history and the destinies of man, even as each member of the body is not a vital part. Then by what considerations is the importance and dignity of man in God's estimate, and in the estimate of those who think with God, measured ? " He shall be great in the sight of the Lord." 1 Of course, if Jesus Christ really be what Christians pro- fess to believe Him to be, His advent into the world must be an event which throws all other events utterly into the shade, and the standard for judging of the relative dignity and importance of events must be the closer or remoter relation which they bear to Him. That men should believe in Him and gather round Him when He came, this was the point of supreme importance to the human race, a point involving their salvation. Had the Son of God come to the planet, and found the door of every single heart shut against Him, His advent could not have been a blessing to mankind, but, on the other hand, must have withered them with a curse.2 Hence the man whose ministry God designed to make use of, to prepare the way of Christ in the minds of those to whom He came, occupied a position altogether peculiar, and had the destiny of the human race suspended upon him in a way in which it never yet was suspended upon any mere man. No wonder that Prophecy announced his birth beforehand, and that Prophecy and Miracle together ushered it in ; he was great, not with that factitious greatness with which this world invests its heroes, its statesmen, its rulers, but "great in the eyes of the Lord," and in the eyes of truth ; great, moreover, from the mag- nanimity of his character, no less than from his critical
1 St. Luke i. 15.
2 See Mai. iv. 6.
280 St. John Baptist's Day. (i)
position in the history of the human race ; and although we cannot call him a Christian Saint, inasmuch as it was not his privilege to live under the full blaze of the Gospel Eevelation, he is clearly a far more notable man than many who have won their place in the Church's Calendar, and has, therefore, been numbered together with them from a very early period of the Church's history.
Chapter LXXXI.
ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. (2)
aimigbtp ©on, bp tobose probibence tbg serbant 31obn "Baptist teas toonnerfullp born, ann sent to prepare tbe toap of tbp Son out ■Sabiour, bp pteacbino; of repentance ; SBJalse us so to fofloto bis Doctrine ann bolp life, tbat toe map trulp repent accorDing to bis preacbtng ; ann after big erample constantlp Speak tbe trutb, bolnlp rebuke bice, ann patientlp suffer for tty truth's Sake ; tbrough Jesus CtjriSt our JLorD. Amen.
:< Wonderfully born." We have considered the wonder- ful (or miraculous) circumstances, which attended the Baptist's birth. But it ought to be remarked, before passing from this clause of the Collect, that these miracu- lous circumstances were a kind of compensation for what might be thought to be the disadvantage of his having worked no miracles in his lifetime. "John did no miracle,"1 we are told. Had he been allowed to work miracles, there would have been a risk — perhaps, con- sidering his great popularity, something more than a risk — of his beingr mistaken for Messiah. Yet so errand a Prophet, one who held, as we have pointed out, so critical a position in the history of the human race, could not be permitted to go without God's stamp and signature of miracle. Accordingly his birth is announced by an
1 John x. 41.
282 St. John Baptists Day. (2)
angel standing on the right side of the altar of incense.1 And the birth itself, when it takes place, is out of the ordinary course of nature.2
"And sent to prepare the way of. thy Son our Saviour." That the Baptist fulfilled this mission, that he did by his preaching prepare the way of our Saviour, is shown by the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel, where we read that he pointed out J esus to two of his disciples, who were standing by his side, as " the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world,"3 — the Lamb fore- shadowed by the Paschal Lamb, and foretold by Isaiah as brought to the slaughter.4 The two disciples followed Jesus, and took up their abode under the same roof with Him that night. And the impression made upon them by this interview one of them thus records ; " "We bave found the Messias."5 With these words it was that Andrew brought his brother Simon to Jesus. And he and his brother became afterwards great fishers of men.6 So that some of the most influential of our Lord's disciples had been prepared for the reception of Him by the ministry of St. John the Baptist. And, again, when John's active ministry was terminated by his imprisonment, he sent two of his disciples to Jesus, for their conviction, not for his own satisfaction, to ask whether He was indeed the Coming One, whom Moses and the prophets had predicted.7 This question our Lord answered by healing many sick persons, casting out many devils, and giving sight to many blind folks in their presence, and then warning them not to let His unascetic mode of life, so unlike that of the greater Prophets under the Old
1 See St. Luke i. 11. 2 See St. Luke L 7. 8 St. John i. 29, 36. 4 See Isaiah liii. 7. 8 St. John i. 41. 6 See St. Matt. iv. 19. 7 See St. Matt. xi. 2, 3.
St. John Baptist's Day. (2) 283
Testament, scandalize them, or act as a bar to their believing ; — " Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."1 We can imagine what an effect the sight of these miracles, and the hearing of this warning, must have had upon them They could not indeed, and did not, forsake their old and much-loved master, so long as he lived. But when, by the stroke of Herod's execu- tioner, he had passed to his rest, they, having paid the last tribute of regret and affection to his memory (having taken up the headless body and buried it) " went and told Jesus."2 But the telling Jesus indicates much more, on their parts, than their merely informing Him of what had befallen one whom He esteemed and honoured.
" Prithee, observe," says Chrysostom on the passage,3 " how the disciples of John became for the future more intimate with Jesus ; for it was they who announced to him what had happened [to John] ; for, leaving all things, they betake themselves to Him for the future." They trans- ferred their allegiance to Him as their new Master.
" By preaching of repentance." In speaking of the repentance which the Baptist preached, great care should be taken not to confound it with that repentance, which cannot be attained by any soul of man until it is first acquainted with Christ, and has by faith received Him. The repentance, to which John exhorted, was not that which St. Paul describes as the fruit of " godly sorrow."4 It was eminently practical ; and, if we are to draw up a definition of it from the data which the Gospels furnish, we shoidd say that it was a hearty willingness to put. away all known sin, and to adopt every practice which
1 Seo St. Luke vii. 21, 22, 23 2 St. Matt. xiv. 12.
3 In Matthaeum Horn. xlix. al. h. Tom. vii. p. 504 [Ed. Bened. Parisiis, mdccxxvii.] 4 See 2 Cor. vii. 10, 11.
284 St. JoJm Baptist's Day. (2)
commends itself to the conscience as prescribed by God, and therefore right.1 In short, the repentance which John advocated was nothing more than religious earnest- ness,— having in it as yet no element of sorrow for sin as an offence against a loving and pardoning Father, and a redeeming Saviour ; for how can these higher feelings be found but where pardon has been first received ? The rationale of John's ministry was just this, that without real religious earnestness the Saviour cannot be embraced by faith. This is the first step. See that you have really taken it, before you propose to go on to anything higher.
" Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life." His doctrine and life were both of a piece. He bade people be in earnest about their souls; and he showed his own earnestness by giving himself up unreservedly, first to the preparation for his ministry, and then to the exercise of it. As a child he " was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel," 2 communing with God amid the grand solitudes of Nature, receiving upon his mind the impress of that revelation which the rocks, the streams, the flowers, the skies, the stars, are the means of making, and doubtless also in his hermit's cell poring over the scrolls of the Law and the Prophets, and im- ploring that the dayspring from on high might visit his own soul When asked for general advice as to how people should exhibit their repentance, he answered, " He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise."3 And his example went considerably ahead of his advice ; for as for clothing, he had only the rough camel's hair mantle,
1 See St. Luke iii. 8-15.
2 St. Luke L 80.
8 St. Luke iii. 11.
St. Johti Baptists Day. (2) 285
which formed the prophetical costume,1 with the girdle of skin round his loins ; and as for meat, his sustenance was only of nature's furnishing, and what all had a right to equally with himself, — " his meat was locusts and wild honey."2
But I apprehend that when mention is made of St. John's " doctrine," we are to understand by the term not only the repentance which he inculcated, but also, and more especially, his indication of Christ as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."3 The Baptist did not inculcate repentance as the goal to be reached, but only as the racecourse that led to the goal. The preachers of mere dry morality cannot plead his example as justifying them in their silence on evangelical topics. He pointed his hearers to the holy, harmless, undefiled, atoning Lamb of God, sent them to this Lamb of God on one occasion,4 bequeathed them to Him, before he died, as now to become the disciples of a better Mas- ter. And that he himself had by a personal faith re- ceived that Christ, whom he pointed out to others, we may gather with certainty from the words in which he expresses his joy in the Saviour's success, notwithstand- ing that it was a success which eclipsed and extin- guished his own ; " He that hath the bride is the bride- groom : but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bride- groom's voice : this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease."5
" Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life " — so to walk in the light of the truths which he taught, and of the example which he set, — " that we may truly
1 See Zech. xiii. 4. 2 St. Matt. iii. 4. 3 St. John i. 29.
4 St. Matt. xi. 2, etc. s St. John iii. 29, 30.
286 St. John Baptist's Day. (2)
repent according to his preaching." Observe the implica- tion of the word " truly." There may be a false and spurious repentance, such as was that of Judas Iscariot, which may even lead us to take a step or two in making amends for our faults, as he did, when he said, " I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood," and when he cast down his ill-gotten gains in the temple.1 True repentance, according to John's preaching, must be known by its fruits. The publican must not, with a view of enriching himself, exact more than the regular tax ; the soldier must resist the temptation to violence and oppressiveness, which the having arms in his hand exposes him to, and cease from his murmurs against the government for the smallness of his pay ; the people must loose their tight grasp on superfluities, and let them drop for the benefit of their neighbours.2 All must resist the temptations incident to their calling, and do acts of kindness at the cost of personal self-sacrifice. They must also look in the direction of the Lamb of God to whom the Baptist pointed them, follow the Lamb, inquire of Him, make themselves over to Him. Very practical, indeed, was repentance according to John's preaching.
" And after his example constantly " (that is, with constancy, persevering and persisting in it) " speak the truth." John spoke the truth doctrinally , when he pointed out Christ as the Lamb of God, and said, " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life."3 He spoke the truth morally, and at the greatest risk of giving offence and of alienating his auditors, when he called the Pharisees and Sadducees, who came to his Baptism, a generation of vipers,4 a censure which in so many words
1 St. Matt, xxvii. 3, 4, 5. 2 St. Luke iii. 10-15.
3 St. John iii. 36. 4 St. Matt. iii. 7.
St. John Baptist's Day. (2) 287
our Blessed Lord adopted from his forerunner j1 and again, when he said to Herod respecting his brother Philip's wife, — said plainly and bluntly, and without using courtly phrase or circumlocution, — " It is not lawful for thee to have her."2 This plain speaking entailed on him the deadly enmity of Herodias, and eventually cost him his head.
" Boldly rebuke vice." It is a difficult duty to per- form,— this rebuking of vice ; but yet it is a duty, and recognised as such both in the Old and New Testaments, " Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him;"3 "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."4 Such a reproof, as the passage in Leviticus shows, is involved in the love of our neighbour, and is a part of that love ; and therefore can never be administered pro- perly or successfully except in a genuine spirit of love.
" And patiently suffer for the truth's sake." The word " patiently " shows the view, which in all probability the framers of this prayer took of the Baptist's state of mind during his imprisonment. The modern commentators gener- ally suppose ' that his sending his disciples to our Lord, to ask whether He was the expected Messiah, indicated some doubts which had found place in his own mind on the subject ; that he was disheartened and shaken in his faith, when he found that God allowed him to languish in a prison, and even a little querulous, because Jesus did not put forth His miraculous power to work some deliverance for one who had borne testimony to Him, at
1 See St. Matt. xii. 34, and xxiii. 33. s See St. Matt. xiv. 3, 4.
3 Lev. xix. 17. The verse begins ; "Thou shalt not hate thy brothel in thine heart." You are so to love him as not to fail to rebuke him, when he sins. •» Rph. v. 11.
288 St. John Baptist's Day. (2)
once so brave and so disinterested. Unworthy thoughts of one of the most eminent saints and servants of God, who have ever let their light shine before men ! He suffered patiently for the truth's sake, not querulously; suffered as he had lived, bravely, constantly, joyfully, " a burning and shining light " 1 in the prison, as he had been in the wilderness, " burning " with zeal to finish his work on earth and glorify the Son of God, " shining " with a spiritual radiance borrowed from communion with God, and diffused around him by a holy example even unto the end.
•
1 b b Kai6fiei>os teal (fxdvow (St. John v, 25).
Chapter LXXXII.
ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. (3)
Precious in tlje sigf)t of tfje Horn is tlje Heart) of f)is saints.— Psalm cxvL 15.
The Collect for St. John Baptist's day has proved to be so full of matter that, although two Chapters have been devoted to it, we have not yet found time to explain why it is that this Festival constitutes an exception to other Saints' Days, in the circumstance of the saint's birth being the event commemorated, not his death.
Usually it is the anniversary (or supposed anniversary) of a saint's death, which the Church solemnises by special prayer, prayer in which his name is rehearsed before God, and some of his acts recorded. And in making such an arrangement, she has been guided by a true instinct. Taught by Holy Scripture in Psalm cxvl, she has deeply imbibed the truth that " precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints," and she reproduces this truth, and makes it live again, in her practice as to the com- memorations of her children. The world addresses to its children congratulations and words of affectionate greeting on their birthday ; the Church to hers on the day of their death. And the principle on which this is done is that announced in the words before us, that " precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints ;" that is, as one of our best modern commentators 1 on the Psalms
1 Dr. Kay's Commentary on the Psalms. VOL. IL U
290 St. John Baptist's Day. (3)
puts it ; " Their death is not lightly permitted by Him, and,' when permitted, prized by Him as their final act of self -surrender."
First ; not lightly permitted hy Him. The world may have power over the bodies and earthly fortunes of the saints ; it may have them entirely in its hand, as regards life and property ; and its wrath and malice may be equal to its power, so that Christ's sheep may be ac- counted (as in times of persecution they have often been accounted) " as sheep for the slaughter."1 But still His word stands fast respecting His sheep, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary ; " My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all ; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."2 Our Saviour, in the same breath in which He foretold to His disciples that they should "be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kinsfolks," " hated of all men for " His " name's sake," and " some of " them " put to death," assured them that, notwithstanding all they must endure, they should not for a moment be snatched out of His own protecting power, "but" — a most significant "but" truly — " but there shall not an hair of your head perish."3 How then comes it about that James, the son of Zebedee, is slain with the sword of Herod's executioner,4 and that Stephen, battered to death with stones, is carried to his burial a mutilated and disfigured corpse ? 5 Although treated by wicked men with these indignities, they never passed out of God's shielding, sheltering hand for a moment. Their souls were born into a new world of peace and joy at the moment of their departure, and their bodies, too, were watched over, and are still being watched
1 See Rom. viii. 36. 2 St. John x. 29. 3 St. Luke xxi. 16, 17, 18. 4 See Acts xii. 1, 2. 5 See Acts vii. 59, and viii. 2.
St. John Baptist's Day. (3) 291
over, by the Divine Providence and power, and so are in safe keeping until the Eesurrection Day, when they shall come forth as spiritual and glorified bodies. How em- phatically is this safe keeping of the bodies of the saints, no less than of their souls, taught by the circumstance of our Lord's placing side by side, in the passage just cited, their death with the preservation of the hairs of their head. " Some of you shall they cause to be put to death," — well, and what then ? Death takes effect upon the body, not upon the mind of man ; it is the resolution of the body into its component particles. Are we to suppose, then, that the bodies of those, whom He speaks of as being put to death in the persecutions, were to be annihilated, and their ashes scattered to the winds of heaven ? Nay, in almost immediate juxtaposition^ with the prediction of their being put to death, with only a single short clause interposed, He adds, " and " (so it is in the original, — not the adversative "but," but the con- nective " and,") " there shall not an hair of your head perish." Oh ! the mine of thought which there is in this " AND," — " Ye shall be slain, and not an hair shall perish ;" as much as to say ; " Your slaughter is the necessary con- dition of your perfect restoration ; you too, bike your Lord, must pass through the ordeal of death in order to the resurrection of your bodies, and the reconstitution of your nature in all its integrity. Yes, in all its integrity ; for ' this is the Father's will, which hath sent me, that, as to everything which he hath given me, I should not lose aught of it, but should raise it up at the last day.'1 " The corn of wheat must die,2 must moulder under the soil, before it can, and in order that it may, sprout, and bring forth, " first the blade, then the ear, after that the full
1 St. John vi. 39. 9 See St. John xii. 24.
292
St. John Baptist's Day. (3)
com in the ear." 1 And, therefore, we more justly and accurately say, " It dies and sprouts," than, " It dies, but sprouts."
Secondly ; and, when permitted, prized by Him as their final act of self -surrender. The self-surrender in the case of a martyr, of one who voluntarily resigns his life for the truth's sake, or for Christ's, is evident. St. John the Baptist might have saved his life, if he had been less faithful and outspoken about the sin of Herod and Herodias ; but he chose to die rather than not to speak the truth constantly, not to rebuke vice boldly. But even in cases of death from natural causes, where death is brought about in the order of Divine Providence, and the sufferer has no option but to die, there is abundant scope and opportunity for embracing death, and all the suffer- ings and infirmities which lead up to it, as that which is ruled and determined for us by the blessed will of our loving Father, as the cup which He hath put into our hands, and which, therefore, we must drink thankfully and lovingly,'"' however many bitter drops are mingled up in it. " Precious," indeed, " in the sight of the Lord is the death of" every one, — martyr or ordinary Christian, — who, on the ground of Christ's finished and accepted sacrifice, has given himself up, spirit, soul, and body, to do, and to be, and to endure all that God wills, and therefore who welcomes death, when it comes to him in the course of nature, as his summons to the final act of self-surrender, justifying God in it, and even in its most painful circum- stances, as being here too most righteous and most wise, and taking the preliminary sufferings and distresses in the spirit of the penitent thief ; " We indeed justly ; for we receive the due reward of our deeds."3
1 See St. Mark iv. 28. 2 See St. John xviii. 11. 3 St. Luke xxiii. 41.
St. John Baptist's Day. (3) 293
The Church, then, considering the preciousness in God's eyes of the death of His saints, and placing herself in His point of view, in all ordinary cases commemorates their death, rather than their birth into a world of sin and sorrow. For indeed of the natural birth, even of the holiest of them, defilement must be predicated. It was the man after God's own heart who said of himself; " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me."1 And, indeed, before the Reforma- tion the death of St. John the Baptist, as well as his nativity, was commemorated, the former on the 29th August, as the latter still is on the 24th of June. The Gospel appointed for the former day in the Sarum Missal was St. Mark's graphic account of the Baptist's death, while in the Collect for it he is called " St. John the Baptist, and thy martyr," he having died for the truth's sake, and Christ being " the truth."2 But to have retained two festivals of St. John the Baptist in the Reformed Calendar would have been to place him on a higher level than the Apostles and Evangelists. Our Reformers there- fore wisely discarded the commemoration of his death, which was apparently of later introduction than that of his birth;3 or rather they have banished the second commemoration to a place among the black-letter days of the Calendar, where the words " Beheading of St. John the Baptist" stand against the 29th of August. And, in doing so, they transferred the account of his death from the place which it had held as the Gospel for the Behead- ing, to the second lesson at Evensong on the festival of the Nativity, taking, however, St. Matthew's, not St. Mark's narrative, which ends with the notice of the reference
1 Ps. li. 5. 2 See St. John xiv. 6.
* See Blunt'.*) "Annotated Book of Comtnoo Prayer."
294 John Baptist's Day. (3)
made of their trouble to our Lord by the Baptist's disciples ; " And his disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus."
Thus we have in the Keformed Calendar one festival commemorating the birth of a saint, — a birth distinguished beyond all births of mere men, as we have already shown at large ; one festival commemorating the new birth of a saint — " of water and the Spirit," — the Conversion of Saint Paul ; and many festivals commemorating the birth of saints by death into life eternal, most of them deaths by martyrdom, like those of St. James the Apostle and St. Stephen, but one of them a natural death, that of St. John the Evangelist. For death is the true Jordan, over which the saints pass into the land of promise, and in whose depths they find the footprints of the great High Priest who has preceded them,1 nay, much more than His footprints, His very presence and Himself; for is it not written, " Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me ;"2 " When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not over- flow thee" ?s
1 See Joshua iv. 9. a Ps. xxiii. 4. 8 Isaiah xliiu 2.
Chapter LXXXI1I.
ST. PETER'S DAY. (i)
SD aiirngfitj ©oo, tofio op tTjp %on JesuS <2TT)ctSt DtDSt gine to tTjp apostle St. Peter manj> excellent gifts, ana commanoeDSt fitm ear- nestly to feeB tTjp flock j fl©afte, toe beseech tbee, ad TBisbops ano Pastors oitigenrlp to preacb tbp bolp UIorB, anD tTje people obe= oienttp to folloto the same, that thep map teceibe the croton of euer= lasting glorp ; through 3(esus Christ our Horn. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
The Festivals of St. Peter and St. Paul were formerly combined, chiefly on the ground of the ancient tradition that they suffered martyrdom under Nero, the one by the cross, the other by the sword, on the same day. The tradition is not a very certain one ; it probably originated with Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in the latter part of the second century. Living so near their time, and being bishop of a church to which St. Paul addressed two inspired letters, Dionysius is a good authority. He does not, however, say that the Apostles suffered on the same day, but only about the same time. But independently of the tradition, it must be admitted that there is some reason in the history of the two Apostles for commemorating them together. And the particular period of a commemoration is often ruled by something in the history of the person com- memorated, the real day of his martyrdom being utterly unknown, just as we commemorate St. John the Baptist
Si. Peters Day. (i)
soon after the longest day, because his light began to wane as the Saviour's began to wax, and St. Thomas on the shortest day, to remind us of the gloominess and churlish- ness of scepticism and doubt. As far as external activity went, the Apostles Peter and Paul were evidently the two chiefs of the College of the Apostles. The one was God's instrument for converting the Jew3 ; the other for converting the Gentiles. This division of labour was not only a Providential arrangement, but a mutual understanding between the labourers. " "When they saw," says St. Paul, " that the gospel of the uncir- cumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter,"1 they formally accepted that arrangement, and agreed to proceed upon it. And in the mind of the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, there was evidently a parallel between St. Peter and St, Paul, as co-ordinate characters. The book is styled "Acts of the Apostles;" but the truth is that we hear little or nothing of any Apostles save St. Peter in the early part of the book, and St. Paul in its later half. Each of them restores an impotent man to the use of his limbs ;2 each of them encounters, and smites with withering reproof, a sorcerer who was counteracting the Gospel ;3 each of them raises the dead to life.4 It is as if God had said to us ; " From these specimens of my two chief agents, the one among the Jews, the other among the Gentiles, learn what the acts of all my Apostles were." There was a real propriety, therefore, in the double commemoration, and in the old Collect of the Sarum Missal,5 which traced up the faith and worship of the
1 Gal. ii. 7. 2 Acts iii. 2, 6, 7, 8 ; and xiv. 8, 9, 10.
8 Acts viii. 9, 20-24 ; and xiii. 8-12. 4 Acts ix. 40, 41 ; and xx. 9-13. 5 Deus, qui hodiernam diem apostolorum tuomm Petri et Pauli mar-
St. Peters Day. (i) 297
Christian Church under Christ to St. Peter and St. Paul, as follows ; " 0 God, who hast consecrated this day by the martyrdom of thy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul ;
tyrio consecrasti ; da ecclesiae tuse eorum in omnibus sequi prsceptum, per quos religionis sumpsit exordium. Per Dominum.
This form of the Collect traces up to Greg. Sac. [Mur. torn. ii. Col. 102]. In Leo's Sacramentary, the Collect runs thus [Mur. torn. i. Col. 330] : —
0 God, who hast consecrated this day by the martyrdom of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, grant unto thy Church, which is spread throughout the whole world, that, as her religion took its rise from them, so by their governance she may be ever guided. Through, etc. In Gel. Sac. [Mur. torn. i. Col. 652] we have the following Collect, appropriate to the Festival of St. Peter, by himself : —
Deus, qui Beato Apostolo tuo 0 God, who, by entrusting to
Petro, conlatis clavibus Regni cceles- him the keys of the heavenly king-
Deus, qui hunc diem beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli martyrio consecrasti, da Ecclesiae tus, toto Terrarum orbe diffusae, eorum sem- per magisterio gubernari, per quos sumsit Religionis exordium. Per, etc.
tis, animas ligandi atque solvendi Pontificium tradidisti ; concede ut intercessions ejus auxilio, b. pecca- toruni nostrorum nexibus liberemur. Per.
dom, didst confer upon thy blessed Apostle Peter the high priesthood of binding and loosing souls ; Grant that, by the aid of his intercession, we may be freed from the bands of our sins. Through. Gelasiua' Collect for the double Festival is the same as Leo's, except that the word " terrarum " is omitted. Gregory therefore seems to have altered the petition to that which we find in Miss. Sar.
For the Octave of the double Festival, we find in Gel. Sac. the follow- ing, of which we can only say that it is much to be wished the petition were as Scriptural and admirable as the exordium : —
Deus, cujus dextera Beatum O God, whose right hand did lift
Petrum Apostolum ambulantem in up the Apostle Peter when walking
fluctibu? ne mergeretur, erexit ; et Coapostolum ejus Paulum tertio naufragantem de profundo pelagi liberavit ; concede propitius : ut amborum meritis oeternam Trinita- tis gratiam consequamur. Per.
on the waves, lest he should sink therein ; and who didst deliver from the depths of the sea his brother Apostle Paul, when thrice he suffered shipwreck ; Mercifully grant that by the merits of both we may win the eternal favour of the [Blessed] Trinity. Through.
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Si. Peters Day. (1)
Grant unto thy Church that, as her religion took its rise from them, so she may in all things follow the precepts which they gave ; through Jesus Christ our Lord." But, it being justly considered that two such Saints as St. Peter and Paul deserved separate commemorations, a new Collect of course became necessary, referring to St. Peter alone ; and accordingly that which is now before us made its first appearance in King Edward's First Book of Common Prayer, A.D. 1549.
" 0 Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy Apostle St. Peter many excellent gifts." What are the excellent gifts alluded to ? I have no doubt that the passage chiefly in the thoughts of the writer of the Collect was the promise of Christ to Peter after his confession ; " I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsover thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."1
(1.) The first "excellent gift" here mentioned is this — that upon the rock of the confession, which St. Peter was the first to make — the confession to which, in defiance of all the world's cavils, he led the way — the Christian Church, indestructible by death, all whose true members shall rise again in glory and triumph from the grave, as the great Pyramid is said by the Arabs to have lifted up its head majestically when the waters of Noah's deluge subsided, — is founded. The truth to which Peter first gave utterance, confessed with the mouth in Baptism and
1 St. Matt. xvi. 18, 19.
SV. Peters Day. (i)
299
believed in the heart, is the truth which sanctifies and saves the whole body of those who are sanctified and saved.1
(2.) Then the next " excellent gift," after this dis- tinguishing honour conferred upon St. Peter, is that of the keys, which Christ Himself placed in his hand. The keys are two, the key of the Word, and the key of the Sacraments. And we are allowed in the Acts of the Apostles to have a glimpse of him wielding both these keys, first among the Jews, and then among those proselytes to the Jewish faith, who, though attracted to the chosen people by the evident marks of Divinity in their religious system, were yet by birth and extraction " sinners of the Gentiles." St. Peter it was who preached the first Christian Sermon on the day of Pentecost, which was the means of converting three thousand souls.2 " Thus was the key of the Word most effectively wielded by him. Then "they that gladly received his word were baptized,"3 all of them under his auspices, and in pursuance of his exhortations, many of them doubtless by his hand ; here was the key of the Sacraments, giving formal admission to the kingdom of heaven which had been newly set up among men. Another short Sermon, to which the heal- ing of the man at the Beautiful gate gave occasion, proved to be another successful cast of the fisherman's net, for by means of this second sermon the three thousand souls converted on the day of Pentecost became five.* Then in the house of Cornelius, to which Peter was so pointedly summoned, by the directions which the angel gave to the centurion, by the vision of the vessel let down from heaven and its contents, and by the voice
1 See Rom. x. 9. 2 See Acts ii. 37-41. 3 Acts ii 41.
4 Acts iii. ; and iv. 4.
3oo
Si. Peter 's Day. (i)
of the Holy Spirit, bidding him go' with Cornelius's messengers, he wields the key of the Word with such effect that " the Holy Ghost fell," even before Baptism, " on all them which heard " it ; and, since the outward visible sign of a Sacrament could not possibly be forbidden to those who had thus received its inward grace, he wielded the other key, and "commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord."1
(3.) Then, again, the Lord Jesus Christ granted to St. Peter the promise of ratifying in heaven his sentences of binding and loosing. " Binding " and " loosing," in the phraseology current among the Jewish doctors of the time, meant either laying restrictions upon a particular practice, or, on the other hand, permitting and sanctioning it. At the Apostolic council of Jerusalem, St. Peter, the only member of the council whose speech is given (with the exception of St. James, who was the presiding bishop and summed up the debate), " loosed " the non-observauce by the Gentiles of the ceremonial law, by referring to what had passed in the house of Cornelius and declaring such non-observance to be on that ground perfectly free and admissible. " God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us. . . . Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear ?"2 — And, as to his censures upon the conduct of particular persons, and the ratification of them in heaven, we have his expostulation with Ananias and Sapphira, which was immediately suc- ceeded by their death,3 and also with Simon Magus.4 This latter expostulation opened a door of hope to Simon
1 Acts x. 5, 11, 12, 19, 44, 47, 48. 2 See Acts xv. 7-12.
» See Acts v. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10. 4 See Acts viii. 20-24.
St. Peter's Day. (i)
301
Magus in the words ; " Eepent therefore of this thy wickedness ; and pray God, if perchance the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee," and on that account was not succeeded, like the severer one on Ananias, by instantaneous death. If Simon is to have another moral trial, and to repent and pray, he must have space given him. — Then, finally, as to the power of working those miracles, which were criteria of the mission of an Apostle, so that St. Paul calls them " signs of an apostle," 1 we find St. Peter raising the dead in the person of Dorcas,2 and also a notice of miracles wrought by him in a peculiar and exceptional way, — miracles for the working of which not even contact with his body was necessary ; it was enough that his shadow in passing down the street should just shroud for a moment the sick patients placed in his way ; " They brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them."3 And were not these indeed "many excellent gifts," — the gift of the primary confession of Christ as the Son of God ; the gift of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, both for J ews and Gentiles ; the gift of saying such words of censure and restriction on one hand, of approval and permission on the other, as heaven itself should ratify ; the gift of a power to raise the dead to life, and to throw a shadow which should have in it a healing virtue ? How great an Apostle must St. Peter have been, to have been endowed through Jesus Christ with such gifts as these ! But gifts and endowments of the Holy Ghost, however numerous and excellent, may easily puff up a man in his own conceit. Balaam was puffed up by the
1 2 Cor. xii. 12. 2 See Acts be. 40, 41. 3 Acts v. 15.
302
St. Peters Day. (i)
prophetical gift j1 the Corinthians by the gift of tongues.2 And just in proportion to a man's self-glorification does he sink low in the eyes of God, and of those who think with God ; for " whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased ; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."3 Was St. Peter, then, puffed up in his own conceit? or was he a holy and humble man of heart, such as the heavenly King delighteth to honour ? The answer shall be given in words of his own, in the words which he addressed to his Master, when he declined at first to have his feet washed, and then, as soon as he caught the figurative meaning of the washing, cried, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head ;"4 in the words which he addressed to Cornelius, when that good cen- turion, feeling that one, whom God in a manner so remarkable had indicated as His ambassador, was worthy of all homage, prostrated himself before him ; " Stand up ; I myself also am a man;"5 in the words, moreover, which he, the first in rank of all the Apostles, the representative and spokesman of the rest, addresses to the presbyters of Asia Minor, words which will come before us again in the latter part of the Collect ; " The presbyters which are among you I exhort, who am also a presbyter," (yes, truly ; he might reasonably have claimed to be something more), " Feed the flock of God which is among you . ... not as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock."6 Verily the grace of humility was the most " ex- cellent " of all the gifts, which Almighty God had given to St. Peter by His Son Jesus Christ.
1 See Num. xxiv. 3, 4. 8 St. Luke xir. 11. e Acts x. 26.
2 See 1 Cor. xiv. 27, 28. * St. John xiii. 9. 8 1 Pet. v. 1, 2, 3.
Chapter LXXXIV.
ST. PETER'S DAY. (2)
9D almighty ©on, rorjo lip rfjp %>on Jesus Christ DiDSt gibe to tfop Apostle Saint Peter manp excellent gifts, anD commanDeDSt rjim earnestly to fcen tljp floclt j SI9ake, toe Ijeseeci) tljee, all IBtSljopS arm pastors Diligently to preacT) tljp Ijolp JHort, anD tfje people obenientlp to folloto tlfje same, tfjat tljep map recettie tfje croton of eSerlasting glorp 3 tfjtougfj 3IesuS Christ our Horn. Amen.
" And commandedst him earnestly to feed thy flock." In the preceding clause, as we have seen, the Collect fastened our attention upon the " excellent gifts " promised by our Lord to St. Peter in acknowledgment and requital of his confession, — gifts, which the history of the Acts of the Apostles shows to have been actually conveyed to him, and exercised by him. In this clause reference is made to the thrice-repeated commission addressed to the Apostle after the Resurrection, a com- mission which was actually needed, as without it the Apostle might easily have supposed that any powers of ministry and government, which might have been en- trusted to him in the Lord's lifetime, had been cancelled by his shameful fall. He must have known indeed that he was pardoned personally, from the circumstance of our Lord's having sent a message to him by the women,1 and afterwards having appeared to him on the Resurrec- tion Day.2 But a man may be pardoned, and yet not
1 See St. Mark xvi. 7. 2 See St. Luke xxiv. 34, and 1 Cor. xv. 5.
St. Peter s Day. (2)
reinstated in a high and honourable office. And St Peter probably felt that without explicit reinstatement on our Lord's part, be could not venture to wield those powers of the keys, and of binding and loosing, with which before his fall he had been entrusted.1 Hence, while he is required to profess his love to Christ three times,2 as a counterpoise to his threefold denial, he is thrice bidden to feed the flock, though the word used for " feed "3 on the second occasion is a word of more general signification, and should rather be translated " tend " Feed my lambs ;" " Tend my sheep ;" " Feed my sheep." The three commissions embrace the whole range of pastoral administration ; and it is not a little remarkable that " tend" (or " shepherd") should be the central word, and should have the narrower word "feed"4 standing on either side of it. To "tend" (or "shepherd") Christ's sheep, is not merely to preach to them, not merely to minister Sacraments to them, though it embraces both these; it is also to govern them, to carry on their entire spiritual administration. The visitation of the sick and of the whole ; the conduct of schools for the young ; the organization of a Parish under district visitors or lay helpers, — all this comes under the head of "tending" the sheep, though it cannot strictly be called " feeding " them. Then, again, of " feeding " there are two departments, for which reason perhaps the word " feed " is mentioned twice. There is the feeding with the bread of God's Word, and the feeding by consecration and distribution of the Eucharistic bread. These three things, — Pastoral Administration, Preaching, Sacraments, — cover the whole area of the ministerial office. And with this office St
1 See St. Matt. xvi. 19. * See St. John xxi. 15, 16, 17.
1 TOlfudw. 4 filxiKti).
■5V. Peter s Day. (2)
305
Peter was re-invested in full, by the threefold charge which our Lord made to him after the Resurrection, bidding him " feed," " tend," " feed " His flock. — Observe the word " earnestly," which is used by the framers of the Collect to denote the threefold repetition of the charge. The thrice-repeated prayer of Christ in the garden (" he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time,, saying the same words"1) is thus represented by St. Luke ; " And being in an agony he prayed more, ear- nestly?" And when St. Paul intends us to understand that he prayed earnestly for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, he says ; " For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me."3 Three is a sacied number in Scripture, indicating completeness ; and to do a thing thrice is to do it thoroughly.
" Make, we beseech thee, all Bishops and Pastors." In the Scotch Book of 1637 it is, " Bishops, Presbyters, and Ministers ; " but both Priests and Deacons are embraced under the word " Pastors," the Deacon being authorised to preach, if thereto licensed by the Bishop,4 and it being part of his Office " to assist the Priest in Divine Service, and specially when he ministereth the holy Communion, and to help him in the distribution thereof."5 The Deacon, therefore, in subordination to the Bishop and the Priest, is a Pastor (or feeder) of the flock.
" Diligently to preach thy holy Word." What con- nexion can be traced between this and the earlier clauses
1 St. Matt. xxvi. 44.
2 St. Luke xxii. 44. iKTevtarepov. 3 2 Cor. xii. 8.
* " Take thou Authority to read the Gospel in the Church of God, and to preach the same, if thou be thereto licensed by the Bishop himself." — Second sentence of Ordination in " The Form and Manner of Making of Deacons."
6 Fifth question in " The Form and Manner of Making of Deacons." VOL. IL X
306
St. Peter s Day. (2)
of the Collect ? Possibly the following. The notice of St. Peter's " many excellent gifts," and of the threefold charge to feed the flock, given him by our Lord's own lips, might perhaps raise the idea that no less eminent person should presume to succeed to St. Peter's office, or to execute his functions. But was this St. Peter's own view ? Quite the contrary. He expressly devolves his charge of feeding upon others. " The presbyters which are among you I exhort, who am also a presbyter. . . . Feed" (or "tend"1 — the central and most comprehensive word in the charge which he had himself received from the Lord) " the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but vnllingly ; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." Observe that these words represent the " diligently " of the Collect, just as the " earnestly " of the former clause was meant to ex- press the threefold repetition of the charge. A man who undertakes a thing of his own freewill, and as liking it, is sure to throw his heart into it and to do it " diligently." — And, again, what view did St. Peter's colleague, St. Paul, take of the ministry with which God had entrusted him for the Gentiles ? Clearly that it should not terminate with himself, that it should reproduce itself in those who came after him. Listen to the words which he addresses to the elders of the . Ephesian Church. " Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."8 " Take heed unto yourselves" ; — a precious addition to St. Peter's words indeed ! Those Bishops and Pastors who " take heed unto themselves," 3 as well as to
1 TOi/xavare rb h v/xiv -Kaiy.vi.ov tou Qtov. 1 Pet. v. 2. 2 Acts xx. 28. 3 See 1 Tim. iv. 16
Si. Peters Day. (2)
307
the flock, those keepers of God's vineyard who do not ne- glect their own,1 will indeed preach His holy Word " dili- gently," as knowing the value of their own souls, and no less successfully than diligently, since their preaching will be real and experimental. See what treasures we have found in this word " diligently;" it means " willingly;" it means " promptly and with alacrity;" it means " with reality and experimentally."
"And the people obediently to follow the same." Viewing the Collect as a literary composition, and con- sidering that one great excellence of a literary composi- tion is unity of thought, and that discursiveness is injurious to this unity, we might at first sight be inclined to regret that this allusion to the people's duty in refer- ence to the Word of God found admission into, this beautiful prayer. It ousts something which we feel ought to have been there, — a reference to the feeding of the flock by means of the Sacraments as well as by the Word, a reference which does find place in the Prayer for the Church militant — (" Give grace, 0 heavenly Father, to all Bishops and Curates, that they may both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and lively Word, and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments,") — and which might have been most appropriately and suitably introduced here. And, moreover, it seems as if the clause about the people's duty shows itself to be an interloper by creating a parenthesis. For looking to the text of St. Peter, upon which the latter part of the Collect is based, we find there that the crown of glory is promised to the presbyters who take the oversight of the flock willingly, and are examples to it, not to the people whom they oversee ; " And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye
1 See Cant. i. 6.
3o3
St. Peter s Day. (2)
shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away."1 "We may, however, more than reconcile ourselves to the interloping clause, by considering that a flock who did not follow the "Word of God preached to them by theii Pastor, but were disobedient to it, wovdd by their dis- obedience impair the lustre of his crown, and that thus, in a certain sense, his recompence is dependent upon their docility and compliance with his counsels. For surely thus much is indicated by the passage ; " Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves : for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief : for that is unprofitable for you." 2 And again, what does St. Paul speak of as his joy and crown ? His people, his converts. "Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved."3 "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing ? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming ?" 4 And again ; " Holding forth the word of life ; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain,"5 — intimating surely that, if he were made to feel in that day that he had run in vain and laboured in vain, it would turn his joy into grief, and dash some jewels out of his crown. For some amount of ministerial success must necessarily follow on the diligent employment of ministerial gifts, since God cannot but bless the efforts of such of His ministers as are really faithful and zealous ; and, therefore, if at the last day a man's ministry should show absolutely no increase, the account to be given of the failure must be that there
1 1 Pet. v. 4.
2 Heb. xiii. 17.
3 Philip, ir. 1.
* 1 Thess. ii. 19.
8 Philip, ii. 16.
St Peter s Day. (2)
309
was no spirituality, no heart, no zeal, no diligence in the exercise of the ministry. It is a pregnant thought this, — and I am not sure that it is not worth the sacrifice of a reference to the Sacraments, — that the eternal blessed- ness of ministers and people is so bound up by God together, that the one cannot be consummated without the other. Thank the much-abused Cranmer for importing that thought into this beautiful prayer of his.
" That they may receive the crown of everlasting glory." If we pursue the line of thought just opened out, this " they " will mean " both ministers and people together," — a very legitimate extension to the flock of the promise made in 1 Peter v. 4 to the presbyters. For the crown of glory is by other Scriptures covenanted to all the faithful no less than to the faithful pastor ; " Hence- forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." 1 " Blessed is the man that endureth tempt- ation : for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." 2 The crown of righteousness St. Paul calls it, as being the award made by the righteous Judge to those who have the righteousness of faith,3 " working by love " * towards God and man. The crown of life our Lord5 and St. James the Less call it, because the recompence stands in that vision of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, which is life eternal. Unfading crown of glory St. Peter calls it, per- haps from his lively reminiscences of the Transfiguration, the foretaste of everlasting blessedness enjoyed in which the Apostle had desired to last for ever, and had sued for
1 2 Tim. iv. 8. 2 James i. 12. 3 See Rom. iv. 13.
4 See Gal. v. 6. 5 See Rev. ii. 10.
St. Peter s Day. (2)
its permanence in the words ; " Lord, it is good for us to be here : if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles ; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias."1 But he soon found that the light faded, and the forms of Moses and Elias melted into thin air, and the bright overshadowing cloud dispersed, and the sweet but awful resonance of the Father's voice ceased to thrill on his ear, and the ecstasy gave way to the dull realities of daily life. Not so shall it be, thought he, with " the crown of glory," which the chief Shepherd " in that day " shall award to the under shepherds. Not of fading bays is it made, but of amaranth, of celestial immortelles — it " fadeth not away."
1 St Matt. xvii. i.
Chapter LXXXV.
ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE.
©rant, 2D merciful ©ou, tfjat a* tfjtne fjolp apostle Saint James, leaning his fatfjer anD all tTjat Tie haD, toitfjout Delap mas obeuient unto the calling of tfjp %on 3IesuS Christ, anu follotoeti him ; so toe, forsaking all toorlnlp ano carnal affections, map be enermore reaup to folloto thp hoi? commanoments ; through Jesus Cbrist our JlorB. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
The Collect and Epistle for this Festival date from the First Prayer Book of King Edward the Sixth in~1549. The Sarum Collect had recited no incident of the life of St. James, and withal was disfigured and made unfit for use in the Reformed Church by a petition for the Apostle's guardianship of the Church on earth.1 The Sarum Epistle2 had been that passage of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which describes Christians as having the right of citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem, and as " built
1 Esto, Domine, plebi tuse sancti- We beseech thee, 0 Lord, to ficator et custos : ut, apostoli tui sanctify and keep thy people, that Jacobi munita praesidiis, et conver- they, being defended by the succours satione tibi placeat, et secura mente of thy Apostle James, may both deserviat. Per Dominum. please thee in their conversation,
and devoutly serve thee with a quiet mind. Through the Lord. 2 The modern Roman Epistle is more appropriate than that of Sarum. It is 1 Cor. iv. 9 to the middle of 15. St. James was the first instance of an Apostle being "appointed to death," and "made a spectacle unto the world and to men" on the scaffold ; and he was one of the "not many fathers " whom the Church had in its infancy, in lieu of whom sprang up afterwards "ten thousand instructors. "
312
St. y antes the Apostle.
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets " 1 — a grand passage, but one too general for the occasion, when there was something more specific ready to hand. So the Eeformers substituted for it the brief account of St. James's martyrdom which is given in the Acts — an inci- dent all the more interesting, because it is the only inspired record of the death of any of the Apostles, and because it was a fulfilment of our Lord's prediction in the Gospel of the day that St. James and St. John should drink of His cup, and be baptized with that baptism of suffering, which He had been Himself baptized with.2 And they based their new Collect on the recital of the call of St. James, as recorded by St. Matthew and St. Mark, thus very adroitly contriving that in the course of the Communion Service on this Festival every inspired notice of the Apostle's history should be embraced, with the exception only of his proposal, in concert with his brother, to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritans.3 This was omitted in accordance with the obvious rule not to bring into view the infirmities of saints, when we solemnly commemorate them.
" Grant, 0 merciful God, that as thine holy Apostle St. James, leaving his father and all that he had." The sons of Zebedee, James and John, had something to leave for Christ's sake. In the first place, their father was alive4 (which probably was not the case with the older pair of Apostles, St. Peter and St. Andrew), and they acted as his partners and assistants in the trade of a fisherman. Thus there was, in their obedience to the call, the rupture of a natural tie. These elect souls heard
1 Eph. ii. 19, 20, etc. s St. Matt. xx. 23.
a See St Luke Lx. 54 * See St. Matt i v. 21.
St. James the Apostle.
the Bridegroom's voice, as they were engaged in repairing 1 their nets,2 and it sounded in their ears like that familiar note which had long ago been struck upon the Psalmist's harp ; " Hearken, 0 daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear ; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house."3 And how is a summons of this kind a hardship ? It is a compliance with the first and most fundamental law of marriage, that the contracting parties shall come
1 Karaprifa (from &prios, complete, suitable, full-grown, and — when used of numbers — even) is used in the Greek of the LXX. and New Testa- ment, of
(1) The repair of material objects, as of the nets of St. James and St. John, St. Matt. iv. 21, St. Mark i. 19 ; and of the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem, Ezra iv. 12, 13, 16 ; v. 3, 9, 11 ; vi. 14. In the last of these passages the idea seems to be rather that of finishing (bringing the restora- tion to a close) than of simply restoring. (2) The preparation of natural objects for their function, and their adaptation to that function, "by the Creator's hand ; "a body hast thou prepared me," Ps. xL 6 ; Heb. x. 5 ; "thou hast prepared the light and the sun," Ps. lxxiv. 16 ; " established for ever as the moon, " Ps. lxxxix. 37 (in this passage the notion of crea- tion passes into that of foundation and establishment in perpetuity) ; "we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God," Heb. xi. 3. (3) Moral restoration after a fall ; "Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness," Gal. vi. 1. (4) Moral adaptation to an end; "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," Rom. ix. 22. (5) Moral perfecting ; "every one that is perfect shall be as his master," Luke vi. 40 ; "perfectly joined together in the same mind," 1 Cor. i. 10 (here there is the notion of moral adaptation one to another, as well as of moral perfecting) ; " Be perfect," 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; "that we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith," 1 Thess. iii. 10 ; " Make you perfect in every good work," Heb. xiii. 21 ; " the God of all grace make you perfect," 1 Pet. v. 10 ; " this also we wish, even your perfection" (rjjp v/x&v KarApTKriv), 2 Cor. xiii. 9 ; "for the perfecting of the saints " (irpis rbv Kara.pTi.ap.bv rCiv ayluv), Eph. iv. 12. The celebrated passage of Psalm viii. 2, quoted by our Lord from the LXX. (St. Matt. xxi. 16), "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise," will rather (looking to the Hebrew word which KaTvprlaiJi there represents) meaD, " thou hast founded, laid the founda- tions of, a temple of praise."
2 St. Matt. iv. 21. 3 Ps. xlv. 10.
St. James the Apostle.
out and separate themselves from under the parental roof, according to that word which instituted the ordinance — " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife."1 "He that loveth father or mother more than " the Bridegroom of souls, " is not worthy of"2 Him. — But St. James had this world's goods to leave, as well as this world's ties. " They left their father Zebedee," says St. Mark, "in the ship with the hired servants."3 Since their father had " hired servants," they were probably in better circumstances, and in a some- what higher class of society, than the earlier called pair. But their interest in the boat, in the nets, in the proceeds of the fishing, and in the service of these hired servants — they gave it all up when they heard the Bridegroom's voice.4 " It was not much," perhaps some will say ; " it asks not thousands of gold and silver to buy a good-sized fishing-boat, and to lay in a stock of nets and tackle, and to pay the wages of a few servants in the fishing season." No, it was not much. Yet, like the widow's two mites which make a farthing, it was " all that " they " had, even all " their " living." 5 God looks not to the largeness of our gifts, but only to the proportion which they bear to our possessions, and to the amount of self-sacrifice to which they testify.
" Witlwut delay was obedient unto the calling of thy son Jesus Christ, and followed him." " They immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him," says St. Matthew. It is the same Greek word 6 which is used to denote the instantaneousness of our Lord's cures. "Im- mediately his leprosy was cleansed ;"7 " immediately their
1 Gen. ii. 24.
1 St. Matt. x. 37. 3 St. Mark i. 20. 4 See St. John iii. 29.
8 See St. Mark xii. 44. « eidiut. 7 St. Matt. viii. 3.
St. J antes the Apostle. 315
eyes received sight;"1 "immediately the fever left her;"2 " immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth ; "3 " straightway the damsel arose, and walked." 4 They did not even cast that longing, lingering look towards their home and their natural ties, which Elisha did when " Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him ; " " Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee." 5 There were those who copied Elisha's example — who, when bidden by the Heavenly Bridegroom to follow Him, pleaded for thus much indulgence ; " Lord, I will follow thee ; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house ; " 6 and were sternly answered ; " No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." 7 But St. James and St. John did not dally with the heavenly call in this way. " Without delay they were obedient unto " it. " They immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him." Yet think not that they had no previous knowledge of Jesus, or that they had experienced no previous searchings of heart and self- communings in regard to His mission. They must have heard much of Him from their partners, St. Andrew and St. Peter ; and it is more than probable that St. John was himself the other disciple of St. John the Baptist, who, with St. Andrew, had heard our Lord indicated by the Baptist as the Lamb of God, and had thereupon fol- lowed Him, and spent the night under His roof.8 St. John doubtless had communicated his convictions to his brother, as St. Andrew did to St. Peter,9 and now this
1 St. Matt. xx. 34. 3 St. Mark i. 81. 3 St. Mark ii. 12.
4 St. Mark v. 42. 5 1 Kings xix. 19, 20.
6 St. Luke ix. 61. 7 Ver. 62.
8 See St. John i. 35-41. 9 See St. John i. 41
316 St. James the Apostle.
"immediate" obedience to the heavenly call was the last stage in a process, which had long been going on in their minds.
" So we, forsaking all worldly and carnal affections " — the " worldly affections " corresponding to " all that he had " in the earlier clause of the Collect, the " carnal affections " corresponding to " his father" — each word has its point, as in those ancient models, which our Keformers, when they felt called upon to become composers, set themselves to copy. The skill, with which they have adapted the example of the Apostles to the altered cir- cumstances of Christians in these days, is very noteworthy. Christ has called us, if not with an audible voice, yet as clearly and as certainly as He called St. James ("he which hath called you is holy," wrote St. Peter to those same persons of whom he had just said, " whom having not seen, ye love " *) ; but our obedience to the call — our prompt obedience to it — does not usually necessitate, as it did in the case of the Apostles, the leaving .father and mother and all that we have. I say, not usually, because even now circumstances might, and sometimes do, arise, which would make the sacrifice of property and domestic ties inevitable. It is quite conceivable that a man, who felt himself called and qualified to be a missionary, might be drawn in another direction by his family surroundings, and by the sacrifice of worldly prospects and preferment at home, which a missionary's life would involve. In such cases Christ's call takes nearly the same form as it did with the Apostles ; and whatever form it takes with any of us, and whatever sacrifices it involves, it must be obeyed with promptitude and zeal, and without any longing, lingering look behind. But universally, and in all cases,
1 See 1 Pet. i. 15, 8.
St. jfames the Apostle. 317
there is a necessity for " forsaking all worldly and carnal affections," if the call is to be duly heeded and followed. First, " worldly affections." There is in all of us, and most perhaps in those who least suspect themselves of any such tendency, a disposition to clutch very greedily at, and to hold very tight, the good things of this world, as repre- sented by money. The evil of this disposition — that which constitutes it a " worldly affection " — is a certain rooted persuasion that worldly resources, and the comforts and luxuries, which they are the means of procuring, are all we need to make us happy. Eemove this persuasion, and the worldliness of the affection ceases ; the mere desire of a competence is not " worldly" in any wrong sense of the word, and is merely the legitimate action of self- love, from which we cannot by any possible effort free ourselves. Secondly, " carnal affections." Many, who are not placing their happiness in worldly goods, yet place it, almost unconsciously to themselves, in the free scope and reciprocal exercise of the domestic affections. If in no sense wealth is their God, yet home is to them an earthly Paradise, in which they may entrench themselves against the rebuffs of fortune and the world's unkindness, and find all that is required to content the soul and satisfy its cravings. Such sentiments have a show of beauty and excellence, which they do not justify upon examination ; they are only a more plausible violation of the precept, " Little children, keep yourselves from idols."1 We must forsake " carnal affections," no less than " worldly " ones, if we would follow Christ, and place our happiness on high out of the reach of death and bereavement, — " by purest pleasures unbeguiled, to idolize or wife or child."2
1 1 St. John v. 21. 2 See Keblo's " Christian Year," Wednesday before Easter.
3 1 8 St. James the A postle.
Christ, in return for the love He has showed us, (than which none can be greater, or so great ; " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends "l) will have the first place in our hearts. " He that loveth father or mother," wife or child, " more than Him, is not worthy of Him."2
" May be evermore ready" (the impediment of worldly and carnal affections being removed) " to follow thy holy commandments." In the Baptismal Vow a renunciation precedes the profession of faith and obedience. Here, too, it is intimated that there must be a repulsion, before there is an attraction. A balloon, though filled with gas, cannot rise into the air unless first the shackles which hold it down to the earth are loosed ; and, similarly, we cannot promptly, and with readiness "of body and soul,"3 obey God's commandments, unless we have first forsaken all worldly and carnal affections. The commandments of God are here represented as doing for us what Christ did to the outward ears of His disciples — calling us, bidding us follow them, making a demand upon us to come after them. And who sees not how just and striking an image this is, who has ever felt a command of God visit his inner man, and lay hold upon his conscience ? Hitherto it may have been a dead letter for him in God's statute-book ; his obligations and responsibilities in regard to it have never yet come home to him ; but now it has become to him a Living thing ; it puts on the voice and mien of authority, and, singling him out from the mass of men around him, says to him, in accents which in vain he seeks to drown by this world's business or dissipations, " Come thou after me." God give us grace, when this is
1 St. John zv. 13. 2 St. Matt. x. 3/.
3 See Collect for Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.
St. James the Apostle.
3*9
so with us, to follow the inward movement promptly, zealously, lovingly as holy angels do when God's behests are made known to them. Let us follow with alacrity, according to that word of the Psalmist, " I made haste, and prolonged not the time : to keep thy commandments. " 1 For unless we so follow, what evidence have we of our own sincerity in the prayer which we so often offer, " Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" ?2
• Pa.cxix. 60, P.B.V.
2 St Matt. vi. 10.
Chapter LXXXVI.
ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE.
D <aimtgliti> anD eberlasttng ©od, toho DtDSt gibe to tfifne apostle IBartboiomein grace ttutp to beltene anD to preach tbp IIIorD j ©rant, toe begeecfj tbee, unto tljp GCburch, to lotje tbat JBorD tobtch be be* [team, ana both to preach anD reeeibe tbe same ; through Jlcssus Christ our JLorD. Amen. [a.d. 1549, and Miss. Sar.]
St. Bartholomew is an Apostle of whom Scripture tells us nothing beyond his name. For that the Nathanael mentioned by St. John is the same person as St. Bartholo- mew, is a conjecture which was first started in the twelfth century, and which St. Augustine certainly did not adopt, as he gives reasons to explain why Christ, who speaks so highly in praise of Nathanael, did not call him to the Apostleship.1 This scantiness of information in regard to St. Bartholomew appears in the Collect, Epistle, and
1 See his "In Johannis Evang., cap. i. Tractatus vii. " (Ed. Bened., torn. iii. col. 349a) : " Neither to Andrew, nor to Peter, nor to Philip, was that said which was said of Nathanael, ' Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.' What then do we conclude, brethren? Ought he to have been the first among the Apostles ? Not only is Nathanael not found first among them, but he does not hold even the middle or the last place. Do you ask the cause of this ? It is probably to be found in what the Lord intimates. For we must nnderstand Nathanael to have been learned and skilled in the law, for which reason the Lord would not place him among his disciples, because he chose unlearned persons (idiotas) to confound the world thereby." The same is said of Nathanael again in A.ugustine'3 "Enarratio in Psalmum lxv." (Ed. Bened., torn. iv. col. 642, 643.)
St. Bartholomew the A postle. 3 2 1
Gospel for his day. The Collect speaks of him in very- general terms, which would apply equally well to any other Apostle. And the same observation may be made on the Epistle and Gospel. They are derived from the Missal of Sarum, which, however, does not give them to us under the heading of " The Feast of St. Bartholomew," but refers us for an Epistle and Gospel to the " Commune Sanctorum in die unius Apostoli " — that is to say, to a service which would be equally suitable to any single Apostle. There is, however, a tradition that St. Bartho- lomew was a man of noble birth, which may be supposed to give some special appropriateness to the Gospel. For the strife among the Apostles " which of them should be accounted the greatest,"1 is thought to have taken its rise from the higher rank which Bartholomew had inherited.2 The petition of the Collect, though not its earlier clause, is a translation from the Missal of Sarum — a literal translation, as it stood in King Edward's First Prayer Book ; but the Bevisers of 1661, by one of their happy touches, have greatly added to its significance. The earlier clause of the Collect was made in 1549, and lays a much more appropriate foundation for the petition than the old Collect did ; for that recited nothing respect- ing the saint commemorated, but merely the circumstance that God has given us joy in solemnising his festival.3
1 St. Luke xxii. 24.
2 " By some he" (Bartholomew) " is thought to have been a Syrian, of a noble extract, and to have derived his pedigree from the Ptolemies of Egypt, upon no other ground, I believe, than the mere analogy and sound of the name." — Cave's Antiquitates Apostolicas, p. 128. [London : 1678.]
" The Gospel seems to have been selected with reference to a tradition of the Primitive Church that St. Bartholomew was of noble birth. The strife amongst the Apostles as to who should be the greatest, elicited from our Lord the announcement that in His kingdom the truly noble should be the truly humble." — Rev. John Kyle's Lessons on the Collects.
3 The Collect of the Sarum Missal was as follows : — VOL. II. Y
322 St. Bartholomew the Apostle.
" 0 Almighty and everlasting God, who didst give to thine Apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach thy Word." The point here is, that true or sincere belief of the Word (the Word being the " word of reconciliation"1 through Christ) leads to the utterance of convictions by preaching. In the deeply-grounded faith of the Apostles there was a constraining power which opened their lips. ■ St. Paul, speaking of the per- secutions and hardships which were wasting his outer man, and which he might have escaped had he consented to be silent, and to withhold his testimony to his Master, tells us that his faith constrained him to open his mouth. " We having the same spirit of faith," (the same with that described by the Psalmist), " according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken ; we also believe, and therefore speak."2 His colleagues, St.~ Peter and St. John, when threatened straitly by the council, and bid- den " not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus,"3 say that they cannot refrain ; " We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."4 The prophets
Almighty and everlasting God, Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, who hast given us the solemn and qui hujus diei venerandam sanc- holy joy of this day, on occasion of tamque laetitiam in beati Bartholo- the festive of the blessed Bartholo- msei apostoli tui festivitate tribuisti ; mew thy Apostle ; Grant unto thy da Ecclesise tuse, qusesumus, etamare Church,, we beseech thee, both to quod credidit, et praedicare quod love what he believed, and to preach docuit. Per Dominum. what he taught. Through the Lord.
The Collect of 1549 ran thus :—
"0 Almighty and everlasting God, which hast given grace to thy Apostle Bartholomewe truly to believe and to preach thy word : grant, we beseech thee, unto thy church, both to love that he believed, and to preach that he taught : through Christ our Lord. "
1 See 2 Cor. v. 19. a 2 Cor. iv. 13. » Acts iv. 18. 4 Acts iv. 20.
St. Bartholomew the Apostle. 323
of the Old Dispensation had sometimes come to the reso- lution that they would no more incur reproach and daily derision for the testimony of God's Word ; but it was a resolution which they found it impossible to keep, for the convictions of faith would utter themselves ; " Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbear- ing, and I could not stay."1 Those who hear the roar of the lion in the neighbouring jungle, and call to mind the deadly spring upon flocks and herds, or even upon young children, with which that roar is often accom- panied, cannot but quake ; and those who, with the ear of faith, have heard God speaking, are under a similar constraint to bear testimony to His truth. " The lion hath roared, who will not fear ? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy ? " 2 But is it possible to generalise this truth, that the living convictions of faith, when they lay hold of the soul with a grasp of iron, will utter themselves ? Certainly they will in all cases utter themselves, by impelling those who are actu- ated by them to confess Christ before men. No one who truly believes can wrap up his convictions in his own breast ; for indeed the terms of salvation run thus : — " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."3 And again, living con- victions of faith will utter themselves of necessity in a holy example. They who are under the power of them will " let their light shine before men, that men may see their good works, and glorify their Father which is in
1 Jer. xx. 9. 2 Amos iii. 8. 8 Rom. x. 9,
324
St. Bartholomew the Apostle.
heaven."1 And our light may shine, as did St. Stephen's countenance, even when we have not words to speak. But that these convictions of faith, where they are genuine, will always, under the circumstances of the modern Church, lead to formal preaching and to an in- vasion of the ministerial office without any call to it, and with no more qualifications for it than the convictions themselves imply, this is a notion which, as it ignores the divinely-appointed order of the Church, cannot really have the Divine sanction ; and the Revisers of 1661 have con- trived with wonderful adroitness to insinuate in the petition of the Collect what may be regarded as a protest against it.
" Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church, to love that Word which he believed." The Word of God under the old Dispensation took chiefly the form of precept, — the leading idea of it, which found place in the mind of a pious Jew, was that of a commandment to be obeyed. And yet such Jews professed, and with the utmost sin- cerity, an intense and fervent love of it. " My soul break- eth for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times."2 "I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved."3 " Oh, how love I thy law ! it is my meditation all the day."4 And now, when the Word of God has taken the form of a " word of reconciliation," and the leading idea of it is that " God was in Christ re- conciling the world unto himself, not imputing their tres- passes unto them;"5 can we think that any affection towards the Word short of loving it will meet God's requirements ? We are expressly warned by two Apostles that the love of the truth is a characteristic of all saving
1 St. Matt. v. 16.
2 Ts. cxix. 20.
3 Ibid. ver. 47.
* Ibid. ver. 97.
8 See 2 Cor. v. 19.
St. Bartholomew the Apostle. 325
faith. St. Paul speaks of strong delusions, which will be sent by God in the time of Antichrist upon certain damnable errorists in those days, " because they received not the love, of the truth,, that they might be saved." 1 And in the same connexion he says, " that they all might be damned who believed not the truth ;"2 from which we gather that to " believe the truth " in a profitable or saving manner, and to " receive the love of " it, is one and the same thing. And St. James instructs us that even lost spirits have faith — nay, and a faith which is a mental force and a spiritual impulse, only driving them away from God, not towards Him. " Thou believest that there is one God ; thou doest well : the devils also believe, and tremble."3 In what then does the faith of these lost spirits differ from that of God's true children, which is the result of the operation of His grace in their hearts ? Not in the circumstance that there is in the one case an im- pulse of the mind, which is wanting in the other, but simply in the direction which the impulse takes. In the one case it repels from God, and makes Him to be shunned ; in the other it draws towards Him, and makes Him to be sought. Fear repels ; love attracts. Not but that there is a fear of God which is " the beginning of wisdom,"4 and which contains in it the germ and rudiments of love. There is a fear which, while it is powerfully operative upon the conscience, yet by no means suppresses hope, nor stifles within us the precious persuasion that, notwithstanding all our provocations, God is very " good, and ready to forgive ; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon him."5 So long as this hope and this persuasion exist in the mind, which is not the case with
1 2 Thess. ii. 8, 10. s Ibid. ver. 12.
3 James ii. 19. 4 Ps. cxi. 10 ; and Prov. i. 7. s gee ps_ bucxvi. 5.
326 St. Bartholomew the Apostle.
lost spirits, there is the nucleus of love there. And these sentiments, if their action is not checked, will issue in love.
"And both to preach and receive the same." The word " receive " was added by Bishop Cosin at the last Eevision, and a most pregnant and significant word it is. The petition of the Collect of 1549 was; — " Grant, we beseech thee, unto thy Church, both to love that he be- lieved, and to preach that he taught." The Eevisers, in one of their happiest moods, substituted for the latter clause, " and both to preach and receive the same." The Church is composed of two great classes — pastors and flocks, clergy and laity ; the ambassadors, and those to whom the ambassadors are sent. These classes are, in God's point of view, so distinguished from one another that they are represented in Scripture by totally different images. The first are fellow-workers with God, whether in spiritual husbandry or spiritual architecture ;* the second are the field tilled, or the building reared. The first are stars; the second are candlesticks.2 For both these classes it is equally necessary that they should " love " the Word, which the Apostles believed and preached. But the dis- tinctive duty of the one is the preaching of the Word, with which, as an official function, the other class has nothing whatever to do. And yet the laity, quite as much as the clergy, are members of the Church, bound by the same baptismal vow to aim at the same standard of holi- ness, animated by the same hope, and guided by the same Spirit. What, then, is the special duty of the Christian laity as regards God's Word ? " To receive the same." " Eeceive with meekness," says St. James, " the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." 3 And to receive
1 See 1 Cor. iii 9. 3 See Rev. i. 20. 3 James L 21.
St. Bartholomew the Apostle. 327
it with meekness is to receive it under the deep persua- sion that, although human instruments are employed to announce it, it is not man's word, but God's. To receive, it as God's word, resting on His own authority, is essen- tial to its efficacy, as it is said ; " When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word 0/ men, hit as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."1 Truly a very heart-searching text ; for it shows us that to receive even the word of God on human testimony, to do no more than yield implicit deference to the human authority which proclaims it, is not the way to receive it truly, effectually, savingly. Come through man it may and does ; but it must be regarded as coming from God ; and the heart must yearn and the conscience open towards it, when it is announced, as is said by one who claimed to have received both the Gospel and his commission to preach it directly from heaven, without human instru- mentality, but even so would not have his converts receive it at his mouth, save as a word spoken to their consciences by the Lord of the conscience ; " By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God;"2 "knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men ; but we are made manifest unto God ; and I trust also are made manifest in your con- sciences."3
1 1 Thesa. ii. 13. 3 2 Cor. iv. 2. 3 2 Cor. v. 11
Chapter LXXXVII.
ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE.
SD aimtijfitp ©on, taljo bp t^p blesseD %on DtDSt call CJSattbeto from tf)t receipt of custom to be an 3postIe anD GEnangettst ; ©rant us grace to forsake all cobetous Desires, ano inorDinate lobe of rtcbes, anD to foiloto trje same trjp %on 3Iesus Christ, mho Itbeth anD reigneth with thee anD trje $?olp ©host, one ©oD, tnorlD mithout enD. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
This Collect was substituted in 1549 for the objection- able one which the Keformers found in the Sarum MissaL1 Since it was composed, it has only received two slight verbal alterations.
" 0 A] mighty God, who 2 by thy blessed Son didst call
1 Which was as follows : —
Beati Mathaei apostoli tui et evan- Grant, 0 Lord, that we may be gelistae, Domine, precibus adjuve- assisted by the prayers of thy blessed mur ; ut quod possibilitas nostra Apostle and Evangelist, Matthew ; non obtinet, ejus nobis intercessione so that what we are not able of our- donetur. Per. selves to obtain may be bestowed
upon us by his intercession.
Through.
2 " Who " was substituted for " which " at the last Review, as in every case where " which " referred to a personal antecedent.
In the photo-zincographed facsimile of the Black Letter Prayer Book of 1636, which contains the MS. alterations made by the Commissioners appointed in 1660, the last words of the petition of the Collect are, "to follow thy said Sonne Jesus Christ" This corrected Black Letter Prayer Book is supposed to be the fountain of all the Sealed Books. But in the
St. Matthew the Apostle.
329
Matthew." It is worth a passing observation how things done by our Lord Himself, or by His Church, are in the Collects traced up to God the Father, and ascribed to Him, our Lord and the Church being regarded merely as the instruments of a result, in bringing about which God was the chief agent. Thus, in the Collect for St. Peter's Day, God is regarded as giving St. Peter the keys, and the power of binding and loosing, and as thrice charging him to feed the sheep ; " 0 Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy Apostle Saint Peter many excellent gifts, and commandedst him earnestly to feed thy flock." And in the Collect for St. Matthias's Day the action of St. Peter and the other disciples, in filling up the vacancy made by J udas in the college of the Apostles, is ascribed to God, He having put the step into St. Peter's mind,1 and also having disposed the lot to fall upon the right one of the two selected associates of the Lord Jesus ; 2 " 0 Almighty God, who into the place of the traitor Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the twelve Apostles." Supremely, and in the last resort, everything is God's doing, even when He acts by the Son of His love, co- equal and co-eternal with Himself in the unity of the Godhead. Our Lord most pointedly and emphatically disclaimed all independence of God ; " The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." 3 " The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do :
Sealed Book for the Chancery (edited by Stephens, London, 1850) the words run (as in our present Prayer Books), "to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ. " When was this verbal alteration made ? Are the same and the said of precisely similar import in strictly legal documents ? 1 See Acts i. 15, etc. 3 See Acts L 23-26. 3 St. John xiv. 10.
330 St. Matthew the Apostle.
for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." 1 And the Apostles take care to echo their Master's teaching in this respect, pointing us through Christ to God as the great object of faith ; Christ " was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God;"2 and even carrying the mind's eye forward to a period when, the mediation of Christ having accomplished all its ends, He shall resign the throne to God, as Joseph, when the famine was over, put back the admininstration of Egypt into Pharaoh's hands ; " And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also him- self be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." 3
" Who didst call Matthew." We need not suppose — nay, it would be inconsistent with the history to sup- pose— that St. Matthew knew nothing of our Lord before his call. It would seem as if he resided in or near Capernaum, and, this being the case, he can hardly fail to have heard of the miracle wrought upon the centurion's servant,4 upon Peter's wife's mother,5 and upon multitudes of persons ailing with divers diseases or possessed with devils.6 He may even have been among our Lord's listeners, when He delivered the Sermon on the Mount ; and the warning which he then heard against laying up " treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,"7 may have sunk deep into his mind, unhinged his affec-
1 St. John v. 19. 2 1 Pet. i. 20, 21. 3 1 Cor. xv. 28. * See St. Matt. viii. 5-14. 5 See St. Matt. viii. 14, 15.
6 See St. Matt. viii. 16, 17. 7 See St. Matt. vi. 19, 20, 21. I am indebted to Mr. Kyle's "Lessons on the Collects," for this and several other observations, — a work, the merits of which are enhanced by its unpretentiousness.
St. Matthew the Apostle.
33i
tions from earthly things, and brought him into a state of readiness to obey the call of Christ as soon as it was issued. It is quite clear that St. Peter and St. Andrew had known Christ, and that the former had been presented to Him by the latter,1 before the miraculous draught of fishes riveted their convictions of the Saviour's claims, and led them to forsake all and follow Him.2 And doubtless in St. Matthew's case there had been a similar preparation of the mind. The blade shows itself for the first time above, the soil at a particular moment, but its shooting is a result brought out by a preparatory underground process. And the soil of the heart resembles in this respect the soil of the earth. Religious impressions work there for a long time, before they come to a head in purpose or fixed resolve.
" From the receipt of custom." Those Jews, who condescended to act as tax-gatherers to the Roman Government (levying the public imposts, and keeping for themselves all the proceeds of a particular tax, which were in excess of the sum that it was expected to yield), were naturally odious to their countrymen, as reminding them of their subjection to a Gentile power, and furnish- ing that power with the means of maintaining its supremacy. But the publicans not only bore a bad character, but in the main deserved it. Their temptation — the temptation which St. John the Baptist instructed them to resist3 — was to exact more than that which was appointed them ; and, under the pressure of this tempta- tion, the great majority of them became covetous, grasp- ing, and extortionate. So rare was an upright and faithful discharge of the publican's duty, that in the case of one
1 See St. John i. 40, 41, 42. 3 See St. Luke v. 1-12.
3 See St. Luke iii. 12, 13.
St. Matthew the Apostle.
Sabinus, who held it in Asia, it was acknowledged by the erection to him of an effigy in the cities of his province, with this inscription — " To him who discharged the office of a publican honourably."1 And when our Lord, at St. Matthew's table, is expostulated with for eating and drinkiug with publicans and sinners, he justifies himself, not by denying the sinfulness of the publicans, but simply by alleging that it was just their sinfulness or spiritual malady, which so urgently demanded the care of the spirit- ual physician.2 St. Matthew, indeed, may have been (we have no means of knowing whether he was or not) one of the exceptions to the general character for extortion which the publicans bore ; he may have been a man of integrity and conscientiousness ; but it gives an additional illustra- tion to the great Gospel doctrine of grace abounding to the chief of sinners to adopt the contrary hypothesis, to suppose that he too, before the words and works of the Lord Jesus instilled into his heart a holy aspiration after the kingdom of God, was a slave of filthy lucre, sordid, mean, oppres- sive, and griping ; that, in short, he was the analogue to St. Mary Magdalen in the other sex, who also herself was in some sense an Apostle, the Apostles being " witnesses of the resurrection," 3 and she having been the first per- son to whom the risen Saviour appeared, 4 and who
1 " Yea a faithful Publicane was so rare at Rome itselfe, that one Sabinus for his honest managing of that Office, in an honourable remembrance thereof, had certaine images erected with this superscription — KaXur TeXoivqiTavTi, Far the faithfull Publicane. And therefore no marvell, if in the Gospell Publica.nesa.ni sinners go hand in hand. " — Thomas God- wyn's " Moses and Aaron" [London, 1655].
Sabinus was of the Flavian family, and the story will be found in Suetonius's "Life of Vespasian," cap. 1.
2 See St. Matt. ix. 10, 11, 12. 3 See Acts i. 22, and iv. 33.
* St. John xx. li, etc. ; St. Mark xvi. 9, 10.
St. Matthew the Apostle. 333
announced the glad tidings of the resurrection to His brethren.1 . . . But, be this as it may, there is no doubt great significance in the fact of St. Matthew's having been called from his ledger and his till — from a pursuit so closely connected with " the mammon of unrighteousness," " to be an Apostle and Evangelist." Gideon's call from the threshing-floor;2 David's call from the sheep-fold;3 the call of the Magi from the study of the midnight heavens ;4 the call of St. Peter from the net and the fishing-tackle5 — these passages of sacred story create less surprise ; for the works of Nature suggest many beautiful and edifying thoughts to those who ply their daily occupations in the midst of them ; but in money, and in all the trades which are busied with money, we see nothing ennobling, but rather much that is narrowing, secularising, hardening. But, since such trades are in themselves innocent, and even essential to the wellbeing of society as it is at pre- sent constituted, and since even in the very centre of such pursuits His own elect are here and there to be found, it pleased Almighty God, in the person of His Son, to be entertained by two publicans, St. Matthew and Zacchseus, and to raise the first of these to one of the highest posi- tions in His kingdom, making him both an Apostle and Evangelist, a twofold honour never put upon any other son of man but the beloved disciple himself. Thus would He show us that the city, no less than the country, may have its eminent saints,6 and that no man's circumstances
1 See St. John xx. 17, 18 ; St. Luke xxiv. 9, 10. a Judges vi. 11, 12. 3 See Ps. lxxviii. 70, 71.
♦ St. Matt. ii. 1, 2. 5 St. Luke v. 10, 11.
8 " There are in this loud stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of th' everlasting chime ;
334 St> Matthew the Apostle.
and lot are so unfavourable for the attainment of sanctity, that he may not by grace rise superior to their influence.
" Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires and inordinate love of riches." Here again, as in the Collect for St. James's Day, we find a reference to the renuncia- tion and profession of obedience in the Baptismal Vow. " Dost thou," the candidate for Baptism is asked, " renounce . . . the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, ... so that thou wilt not follow nor be led by them ? " A promise " not to follow nor be led by " " the covetous desires of the world," is a promise " to forsake " them. We do not promise (for that were a rash vow) that such desires shall never rise up in our hearts, but that, when they do, we will not follow them, but go in an opposite direction. And, again, mark the guardedness of the language before us. It is not the desire of a competence which we are to forsake ; food and raiment are a necessary provision ; our " heavenly Father knoweth that " we " have need of " them ; 1 and our Lord has bidden us seek them continually in one of the peti- tions which He has put into our mouths — " Give us day by day our daily bread."2 But it is the craving and anxious effort for more than a competence, the disposi- tion which there is in all of us, while " having food and raiment," not to "be therewith content,"3 to lay up in store for a long time to come, and, when we find our sur- plus multiplying, to " build greater barns," and hug our-
Who carry music in their heart, Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. "
(Keble's ".Christian Year ; " St. Matthew.) 1 See St. Matt. vi. 31, 32. s St. Luke xi. 3 ; St. Matt. vi. II. 3 1 Tim. vi. 8.
St. Matthew the Apostle.
selves in the thought that we have " much goods laid up for many years," 1 — it is this which constitutes a " covet- ous " desire, and which we here ask grace to forsake. The Greek work translated covetousness2 in the New Testa- ment is very expressive and instructive. According to its derivation, it means the habit of one who seeks to have more. Covetousness is not the seeking a sufficiency, but a craving and grasping after more than a sufficiency. And still the appetite for worldly possessions grows with what it feeds upon ; men " join house to house " and " lay field to field," 3 that they " may set " their " nest on high, that" they " may be delivered from the power of evil ; " 4 and every enlargement of their resources becomes a bond to rivet their affections to those good things of this world, which money represents and is the means of procuring.
" And inordinate love of money." By " inordinate " — an adjective only twice used in our Authorised Version, once with the substantive " love " and once with " affec- tion"5— is meant unchastised, — not under the control of the reason, freely allowed to run rampant, and engross to itself all the energies of the soul. Be it observed that the love of money may be " inordinate," without being the miser's love. The miser's mind is morbid, and compara- tively few are infected with his moral malady. He loves his gold, not for what it procures him (for he allows him- self no use of it), but merely for the flattering picture which it presents of an absolute power over this world's goods, which he does not care to assert. But there may be the strongest love of money without a particle of the miser's niggardliness.6 Wherever riches are trusted in to
1 St. Luke xii. 18, 19. 2 irXeo*e{£a. 3 Isaiah v. 8. 4 Hab. ii. 9. 6 " Aholibah was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, Ezek. xxiii. 11 ; " Mortify therefore . . . inordinate affection," Col. iii. 5. * "Take the sublime commentary on the word" (7rXeofff/a), "which
336 St. Mattliew the Apostle.
make us happy, and the possession of them is regarded as giving a security against evil, in that heart exists the " inordinate love of money," in a higher or lower stage of developement. And, wherever riches increase, this tendency to "set our hearts upon them"1 sets in upon us with a steady and deep current. And our Lord's strong (but not unduly strong) words about the exceeding difficulty of a rich man's salvation,2 show us that it requires a very large and special supply of divine grace to resist this tendency. Nevertheless, it has heen resisted by eminent servants of God both under the Old and New Dispensation. Abraham resisted it, and Daniel, and Zacchaeus, and St. Matthew ; nay, Job the Edomite, who was outside the pale of God's covenant altogether, asserts that he resisted it in the days of his prosperity ; " If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence ; if I re- joiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much . . . this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge : for I should have denied the God that is above"3 (because covetousness — the placing our trust in the creatures for happiness, and help, and comfort — is idolatry).4 And what man has done with fewer assistances from above, it is competent for him to do with more of these assistances.
" And to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ."
Plato (Gorg. 493) supplies, where he likens the desire of man to the sieve or pierced vessel of the Danaids, which they were ever filling, but might never fill ; and it is not too much to say that the whole longing of the creature, — as it has itself abandoned God, and by a just retribution is aban- doned by Him, to stay its hunger with the swine's husks, instead of the children's bread which it has left, — is contained in this word." — Trench's "Synonyms of the New Testament" [Cambridge and London, 1S54], sec. xxiv. p. 92.
1 Ps. lxii. 10. 5 See St. Mark x. 23-28. 3 Job xxsi. 24, 25, 28. * See Col. iii. 5 ; Eph. v. 5.
St. Matthew the Apostle.
337
This is a much richer and fuller expression than that which is found in the corresponding clause of the Baptis- mal Vow, and in the Collect for St. James's Day, which speak of keeping or " following " God's " holy command- ments" We may follow Christ with our prayers, refusing to let Him go, except He bless us.1 We may follow Him by proposing Him to ourselves as our model, and copying His example, which in another Collect2 is called " follow- ing the blessed steps of his most holy life." And we may follow Him with the desires and affections of our hearts, as the Apostles at the Ascension did with their eyes,2 seeking " those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God."* Thrice happy are we, if it can be testified of us in all these ways, as is tes- tified of St. Andrew and another ; " Then Jesus turned, and saw them following." 5
1 See Gen. xxxii. 26. 3 Second after Easter.
8 Acts L 10. * Col. iii. 1. 6 St. John i. 38.
VOL. II.
Z
Chapter LXXXVIII. ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS.
2D (fbetlastinp; ©on, farfjo bast oroatneD ann constitute!! tbe get' bices! of angels ann men in a toon* nerful oroer ; QSetcifulIp pant, tbat as ttjp bolp angels altoaj do t^ee serbice in beabeit, go bp rbp appointment tfjep ma; succour ann oefeno us on eartb ; througb 3IeguS Christ our ILorD. Amen.
IDeus, qui miro oroine angel* orum mtntstetta bominumque Bis* pensas; conceDe ptopitiuS, ut a quibus tibf mtnfstrantibus in coelo Semper assistitur, ab %ig fn terra bita nostra muniatur. Per. — Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
This Collect is a translation of that which is found in the Sarum Missal. It may be traced back to the Sacrament- ary of Gregory.
" 0 Everlasting God, who hast ordained and consti- tuted2 the services of Angels and men in a wonderful
1 As it stands in Gregory's Sacramentary [Mur. t. ii. Col. 125], it is headed, " Third of the Kalends of October, — that is, the twenty-ninth day of the month of September. The Dedication of the Basilica of an" [the ?] "holy angel." The Sacramentary has " nostra vita" for "vita nostra."
a The word constituted is added by the translators, who moreover have turned the present tense of the verb into the perfect. In the original it is, "Who ordainest" (disposest, arrangest) "the services of angels and men in a wonderful order." This indicates that it is an arrangement and dis- position of things which, so far from being peculiar to ancient days and the times about which we read in the Bible, is still carried on. The perfect indicates that the arrangement was made once for all, but still continues in its results. This, perhaps, is the simpler notion of the two. God made the arrangement once for all " in the beginning ; " and it still subsists and works on, though of course not independently of His agency.
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order." I have said that this prayer makes its first appear- ance in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory. And it is sin- gular that in one of St. Gregory's works, a homily for the Third Sunday after Trinity, there should be so much that illustrates the first clause of it. Gregory is preaching on the Gospel of the Day, which consisted then, as it does now, of the two parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, the earlier part of the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel. He gets to the subject of the angels in expounding the latter parable. Nine of the pieces of silver represent the nine orders of unfallen angels, while the tenth (or lost) piece represents the human race, which by the fall was lost to God. The notion that there are nine orders of angels is borrowed from the work of Dionysius,1 which was the great source of all mediaeval speculations on Angelology. The only countenance which Holy Scripture lends to the notion is, that there are nine terms which in various parts of the Bible are applied to angels. Each of these terms is supposed to indicate a distinct order of angels ; and the orders are thus grouped by Gregory, beginning from the lowest and rising upwards. In the first group are angels, archangels, and powers ; in the second, authorities, principalities, dominions ; in the third, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim.2 After this
1 Gregory, however, distinctly rests it on Holy Scripture. " Novem vero angelorum ordines esse diximus, quia videlicet esse, testante sacro eloquio, scimus angelos, archangelos, virtutes, potestates, principatus dominationes, thronos, cherubin, atque seraphin." (The Homily is the 34th of the second Book, and will be found in torn. 1, col. 1600-1611 of the Benedictine Edition of Gregory's Works.)
2 Mention of angels is made in 1 Pet. iii. 22 (and often elsewhere) ; of archangels, 1 Thess. iv. 16 ; of powers (Suvd/ieis, the same word which is used for miracles), Rom. viii. 38, 1 Pet. iii. 22, and Eph. i. 21 (in which latter place our translators have rendered the word might) ; of authorities {i^ouaitu), 1 Pet iii. 22, Col. i. 16, and Eph. i. 21 (in which two last
340 St. Michael and All A ngels.
classification of the heavenly hosts, the preacher draws out at great length a parallel between the characters and func- tions of God's servants on earth, and the characters and functions of the angels, founding his observations on the Septuagint translation of a text in Deuteronomy, which runs thus ; " He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God,"1 from which text he in- fers that in the heavenly Jerusalem there will be exactly the same number of saved men as of elect angels. These saved men, therefore, even here below exhibit in their characters and functions some Him resemblance to those angels, into whose society they are to be received, and with whom they have fellowship even now in the Com- munion of Saints. In these and similar passages of the writings of the Fathers, there is much of mere speculation, which we shall do well to discard as a presumptuous in- trusion into things which we have not seen,2 and also as tending to imperil the supremacy, which the Lord of the angels should hold in our hearts and minds.3 All that Scripture gives us to know for certain is, that there is a distinction of ranks and degrees among the angels, a con- stituted order among them, even as there is in human society. And hence it is that Bishop Bull, in his famous Sermon " On the different degrees of bliss in heaven,"
places the word is rendered ■powers in our Authorised Version) ; of princi- palities (apxal), Eph. i. 21, and vi. 12, and Rom. viii. 38, and Col. L 16 ; of dominions (/cvpi/m/jres), Eph. i. 21, and CoL i. 16 ; of thrones, Col. L 16. We have cherubim in Heb. ix. 5, used of the 'angelic figures over the mercy-seat, and seraphim in Isaiah vi. 2.
1 Dent, xxxii. 8. Sanjirep &pia idvwv Kara apidixbv ayytkuv Qeov. In our Authorised Version (as also in the Vulgate and the Douay), it is, " He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel."
2 See Col. ii. 18. • See Col. L 16, and ii. 18, 19.
Si. Michael and AIL Angels.
34 1
infers that there will certainly be such degrees. " Seeing in the angelical polity there are divers orders, ranks, and degrees, can we imagine that the communion of the saints in heaven will be a levelled society ? This is utterly in- credible. Now the antecedent here again is most evident from Scripture ; and though we dare not intrude ourselves into the things we have not seen, or imitate the temerity of that learned and sublime conjecturer Dionysius, who undertakes to reckon up exactly the several orders of the angelical hierarchy, as if he had seen a muster of the heavenly host before his eyes ; yet that there are orders and degrees among the blessed angels, we may with all assurance affirm, having the plainest warrant of the holy text for the assertion." 1
We may also, without indulging any speculation, very reasonably observe that not only every earthly society is made up of different grades and orders of men, but that this is the case with the society which Christ founded, — with the Church, or kingdom of God upon earth. <£ God hath set some in the Church " (says St. Paul, enumerating the different ministries of the Apostolic age) ; " first, apos- tles ; secondarily, prophets ; thirdly, teachers ; after that, miracles ; then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diver- sities of tongues."2 And in the modern Church we have three grades of ministers, bishops, priests, and deacons, for which we believe that we can show Scriptural sanction,3
1 Bishop Bull's Works, vol. i. serm. vii. pp. 181, 182 [Oxford, 1827].
2 1 Cor. xii. 28. The word translated "miracles" in this passage [5vpdfxets), is used to denote one of the orders of angels in Rom. viii. 38, Eph. i. 21, and 1 Pet. iii. 22.
3 " It is evident unto all men diligently reading the holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church ; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. " (Preface to the Ordinal of the Church of England.)
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St. Michael and All A ngels.
and also different gifts in different members of the Church, qualifying for different spheres of service in God's vine- yard. All which shows that there is a certain general correspondence (though we must not press it too far into particulars) between the ranks and orders of the heavenly hierarchy, and those ranks and orders, in which civil society among men, and the society of God's Church, are both of them constituted.
But another observation here suggests itself, which shows emphatically the " wonderfulness " of the " order," in which God hath constituted the societies of angels and men. As it is clear from Holy Scripture that angels con- cern themselves with the interests of man, and are busied in ministrations to men, it might be supposed that the most exalted angels have the care and guardianship of the most eminent individuals assigned to them as their pro- vince. But our Lord teaches us that it is the contrary. The highest angels, He tells us in the Gospel of the day, are the guardians of little children. " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."1 The imagery is borrowed from Oriental courts, in which only the highest courtiers are admitted to the presence of the Sovereign.2 The mother's tender guardianship is most needed for her youngest child. It engrosses more of her thoughts and care than the older ones, who can run about and help themselves. And He who would not have flesh to glory
1 St Matt. xviii. 10. * See an instance of this custom in the Persian Court, in the Book of Esther, where we read ^hap L 10) of " the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king.'' Compare with this Rev. viii. 2 : "I saw the seven angels which stood before God."
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in His presence,1 and who " hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty,"2 appoints the strongest and most glorious escort of angels to wait upon the feeblest members of the human family, thus caring most for those who cannot care for them- selves, and by His heavenly deputies encircling them, as it were, in the arms of His love.
" Mercifully grant, that as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven." The translators have here dropped an idea which is Scriptural and valuable. In the Latin Collect the words are, " Grant that by those who alway stand before thee to minister in heaven, our life on earth may be defended."3 Here again the reference is to the Eastern custom of certain courtiers of exalted rank always standing in the presence of the sovereign and wait- ing on his behests.4 So, after the silence in heaven at the opening of the seventh seal, we read, " I saw the seven angels which stood before God."5 And the angel Gabriel describes himself to Zacharias thus ; "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God."6 " As thy holy angels alway do thee service in heaven." What species of service ? The service of worship and adoring contem- plation. "Are they not all ministering spirits?"7 says St. Paul in that passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews, upon which this latter clause of the Collect is built. The word rendered ministering 8 is that from which our word
1 See 1 Cor. i. 29. 2 1 Cor. i. 27.
3 The Collect itself seems to rebut the notion of Gregory's, which is mentioned in the note on p. 345, that there are orders of angels purely ministrant, and other orders purely contemplative. Those who stand be- fore God in heaven are, according to this prayer, also those who succour and defend men on earth.
4 See Esther i. 10, 14 ; and 2 Kings xxv. 19. s Rev. viii. 2. 6 St. Luke L 19 7 Heb. i. 14. 8 XeiToupyiKd.
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Si. Michael and All Angels.
" liturgy " is derived ; and its cognate substantive is used of the ministrations of Jewish priests in the temple, as in the passages: — "he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry,"1 and, "as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished," 2 and again of Christ, " a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle," 3 .... "now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry."* In short the holy angels (under their Lord and ours) are the priests of the heavenly temple, who carry on there a ceaseless ministry of praise, and who were seen thus engaged both by Isaiah and by St. John, the former of whom saw the six-winged Seraphim, each one of whom covered his face with two of his wings, and his feet with two, in token of lowliest self-abasement; and one cried unto another, and said, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts ; the whole earth is full of his glory," 5 while the latter beheld through the " door opened in heaven" the six- winged living creatures making a similar ascription of praise.6
" So by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth." The words "by thy appointment" are the insertion of the translators, and a most valuable in- sertion they are. The numerous superstitions, which have gathered round and discredited the doctrine of angels, would have been to a great extent precluded, had it always been remembered that the angels act under God's special appointment, are nothing more than subordinate agents, employed to carry into effect our Heavenly Father's purposes of mfinite wisdom and infinite love.
1 tt&vto. to. (tkcvt] TTj% Xeirovpytas, Heb. is. 21. - al Tj/jJpat T7?j \eirovpylas avrov, St Luke L 23. 8 rQni aylwv Xeirovpy&s, Heb. viiL 2. * Sta<popuripas Xeirovpyias, Heb. viii. 6. 5 Isaiah vi 2, 3.
8 Rev. iv. 8.
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The function of worship represents only one-half of the life of the angels. If with twain of their wings they cover their face, and with twain they cover their feet, with twain they fly on the execution of God's behests.1 Gabriel not only stands in the presence of God to worship, but speeds forth to the Temple to announce the birth of the forerunner to Zacharias the priest, and to the grotto at Nazareth, to announce to St. Mary the mystery of the holy Incarnation and the holy Nativity.2 God does not leave even the highest class of His rational creatures without active employment in His service ; and it was one of the most unscriptural and most mischievous parts of the speculations of Dionysius that he held the highest orders of angels to be engaged in ceaseless contemplation, and to have no sphere of active service assigned to them.3
1 See Isaiah vi. 2. 2 See St. Lukei. 19, 11, 13, 26, 31, 32, 35. 3 See the famous Homily of St. Gregory on the Gospel for the Third Sunday after Trinity ("Opp." Ed. Bened. torn. i. col. 1607 D.) : " Fertur vero Dionysius Areopagita, an tiquus videlicet et venerabilis pater, dicere qu6d ex minoribus Angelorum agminibus foras ad explendum ministerium vel visibiliter vel invisibiliter mittuntur ; scilicet quia ad humana solatia aut Angeli aut Archangeli veniunt. Nam superiora ilia agmina ab intimis nunquam recedunt : quoniam ea quae preeminent usum exterioris minis- terii nequaquam habent." From what follows in Gregory's homily, it would seem that Dionysius himself felt some difficulty in reconciling his view of the highest orders being ceaselessly engaged in contemplation with the fact that one of the Seraphim (the highest of all the orders) was commis- sioned to touch the lips of the prophet with a live coal (Isaiah vi. 6, 7). He evades the difficulty by saying that the angel thus employed is only called a Seraph (or " burning one ") to denote his function towards the lips of the prophet, but that we are not to understand him to have been of the order of Seraphim. In the text of Daniel (chap. vii. 10), "Thousand thou- sands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him," Gregory himself makes a distinction between angels minis- trant and angels contemplative. " For it is one thing to minister, another thing to stand before ; since those angels minister to God, who
346
Si. Michael and All Angels.
"They may succour and defend us upon earth." That angels have performed both these services for those who shall be heirs of salvation, is a truth which lies on the surface of the Bible. Independently of their minis- trations to our Lord,1 the Eepresentative, in virtue of His human nature, of the whole human family, they succoured Elijah with heavenly viands and drink after his sleep under the juniper tree, — meat, in the strength of which he " went forty days and forty nights, unto Horeb, the mount of God,"2 — St. Peter, by coming into his prison cell, and opening the doors and causing the chains to fall off from his hands,3 and St. Paul, by appearing to him at night in the hurly burly of the tempest at sea, and assuring him of safety for himself and all them that sailed with him.* They defended Daniel in the Hons' den, God sending His angels and shutting the Lions' mouths, that they should not hurt his servant ;5 they watched over Jacob in the vision of the great, bright ladder, on which he saw them ascending and descending above his stony couch ;6 and again they met him in two bands, to assure him of protection in his dreaded interview with Esau ;7 and, when Elisha was besieged in Dothan, they encircled the mountain on which the city stood with " horses and chariots of fire," to overmatch the great host which the
also go forth upon messages to us ; whereas they stand before him, who so enjoy the nearest contemplation of him, that they are never sent for the exe- cution of any exterior works." It is sufficient to reply that Gabriel, who was clearly sent on the execution of an embassy to the Virgin, speaks of himself as one who stands in the presence of God (St. Luke i. 19, 20).
1 At His temptation (St. Matt. iv. 11 ; St. Mark L 13), and at His agony (St. Luke xxiL 43), and we cannot doubt also on many occasions which are not recorded.
1 1 Kings xix. 4-9. 3 See Acts xii. 7, 10.
* See Acts xxvii. 22, 23, 24. 5 See Dan. vi. 22.
6 See Gen. xxviii. 11, 12. 7 See Gen. xxxii. 1, 2.
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King of Syria had sent thither. 1 And, lest it should be thought that this angel guardianship and succour are the privilege only of eminent saints, and may not be looked for by God's ordinary servants, both the Psalmist and Apostle generalise the truth, of which the Scriptures above referred to furnish particular instances ; " The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them ; " 2 " Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most Sigh, thy habitation .... he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone;"3 "Are they not all spirits ministrant to God, sent forth to do service 4 for their sakes who shall inherit salvation ? " And, because our Lord in His human nature was the great model and archetype of all, who shall inherit salvation, — the only human Servant of God, who ever feared God perfectly, and made God His habitation by an unbroken confidence of heart, — therefore in Him was the truth of angelic guardianship and succour realised to the utmost, and on certain occasions in such a manner as to be visible to the outward eye.5 And so far as we, too, bear upon us the marks of being "heirs of salvation," so far as we,
1 See 2 Kings vi. 14-18. 2 Psalm xxxiv. 7.
3 Psalm xci. 9, 11, 12. 4 Heb. i. 14, els 5ia.Kovlav airou-TeWS/ieva, a different word from Xet- rovpya<&, and giving the other side of angelic functions. They not only minister to God in His temple ; but also are sent forth by Him to do services to man.
3 An instance of the smaller ministrations fulfilled towards our Lord by the angels i3 the orderly composure of the burial linen, when in His resurrection He had laid it aside, — an act which did something to rebut the falsehood that His body had been stolen from the sepulchre. — See St. John xx. 6, 7, 12.
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St. Michael and ALL A ngeLs.
too, fear God,1 and " set our love upon " Him,2 and " put " our "whole trust in Him,"3 so far beyond all doubt will His angels " by " His " appointment " succour and defend us on earth," although in our case their ministrations to us will be matter of faith, not of sight.
1 Psalm xxxiv. 7. a Psalm xcL 14.
3 Church Catechism ; "My duty towards God." — To " make the Lord, even the most High, our refuge and our habitation " (Psalm xci.) is, in plain and unfigurative language, to "put our whole trust in him."
Chapter LXXXIX.
ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST.
atmightp ®od, toho catleDSt Hiike t%e phpsictan, tohose praise is in tfie ©ospel, to be an UEtiangeliSt, anti Physician of the ©oul 3 S0ap it please thee, that, bg the toholesome meDicineS of the Doctrine BelinereD bp him, aU the Diseases of our souls map he healeD ; through the metits of thp %on 3IeSuS Christ our JLorD. Amen. [a.d. 1649.]
The Collect for St. Luke's day, which our Keformers found in the Sarum Missal, was a prayer for the intercession of the Evangelist on our behalf, with a recital of the fact that he was crucified for the honour of God's name,1 — an ecclesiastical tradition which, whether true or not, has no warrant in Holy Scripture. On both these grounds it was discarded, and a new Collect framed in 1549. This Collect received at the last Eevision a few verbal altera- tions, the most important of which was the insertion of the word " Evangelist " before, and in connexion with, the phrase " Physician of the soul," and of the words " the merits of " before " thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord."
1 Jnterveniat pro nobis, Domine, quaesuinus, sanctus Lucas evangel- Lsta ; qui crucis raortificationem jugiter in suo corpore pro tui no- minis honore portavit. Per Do- minum. — Miss. Sar.
Grant, 0 Lord, we beseech thee, that the holy evangelist St. Luke may intercede for us, who in his own body constantly endured the mortification of the cross for the honour of thy name. Through the Lord.
350 St. Luke the Evangelist.
"Almighty God, who calledst Luke." We know neither the time nor the manner of St. Luke's call ; hut the fact of it is certain. Only in three brief passages of St. Paul's writings is the Evangelist named; but these three passages give us to understand respecting him, first, that he was a physician, united to the Apostle in the bonds of Christian fellowship ; 1 secondly, that he was of Gentile extraction, which appears from the fact of his name occurring among those salutations at the end of the Epistle to the Colossians, which do not come from St. Paul's fellow-workers of the circumcision ;2 and, thirdly, that he was St. Paul's " fellow-labourer " during his first imprisonment at Rome,3 and in the second and more severe imprisonment stood by him, when others had for- saken him, or were called away from his side.4 In addi- tion to these particulars, it appears from the Acts that St. Luke joined the Apostle at that, to us, intensely inter- esting and critical period of his career, when the vision of the man of Macedonia, imploring spiritual succour, appeared to him in the night, and in obedience to that indication of the will of God, he and his little band of missionaries carried the Gospel for the first time into the continent of Europe.5 If, from the above data, we might venture on a conjecture respecting the manner in which St. Luke was called to follow Christ, we may very reason- ably suppose that the numerous and marvellous miracles of healing which St. Paul wrought (so far beyond any effects, to which the art of medicine was competent),6
1 See Col. iv. 14. 3 See Col. iv. 14 with ver. 10, 11.
8 See Philem. vera. 9, 23, 24. * See 2 Tim. iv. 9, 10, 11.
5 See Acts xvi. 8, 9, 10 ; and observe the change of person between ver. 8, "they . . . came down to Troas," and.ver. 10, " immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia. "
a See, for example, Acts xix. 11, 12, "God wrought special miracles '
St. Luke the Evangelist. 35 1
had stirred a peculiar interest in the mind of the physician, and that the ministry of St. Paul and Barna- bas for a whole year at Antioch (traditionally said to be St. Luke's native place) had riveted those impressions which the miracles had made. This woidd be quite analo- gous with other recorded instances of a Divine call. The fisherman Peter, by a miraculous draught of fishes, was called to be a fisher of men. The physician Luke, by a profusion of miraculous cures, which his craft in no way enables him to account for, is called to be " an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul."
" Luke the physician." The information that St. Luke was a physician is, as we have seen, given U3 by St. Paul And we find, both in St. Luke's Gospel and his Acts, inci- dental confirmation of the writer's having been acquainted with, and interested in, medicine. The maladies which he mentions are described in their proper technical terms,1 as where he calls the fever with which Simon's wife's mother was taken "a great fever,"2 — fevers being expressly divided by Galen into two classes, the greater and the lesser, — and where he describes the complaint, of which St. Paul cured the father of Publius, as "fevers and dysentery;"3 it is he alone who records that physical concomitant of the Agony, the bloody Sweat,4 a phenomenon not un- known to physicians as apt to ensue under a vehement strain of anguish or apprehension ; 5 it is he alone who
(Svud/ifis ov tAj Tvxovvas) "by the hands of Paul : so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases de- parted from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. "
1 See Da Costa's "Four Witnesses" [London, 1851], pp. 146-8. 2 awexofj^vi} Trvptrf fieyaKy, St. Luke iv. 38. * irvptToli Kal dvaevreplq. awex^^ov, Acts xxviii. 8. 4 St. Luke xxii. 44. 5 See Dr. Stroud's " Physical Cause of the Death of Christ."
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St. Luke the Evangelist.
records the healing of Malchus's ear,1 the only instance on record of our Lord's having dealt in the way of miracle with a surgical case (and be it remembered that the physi- cians of those days were practitioners of surgery rather than of medicine) ; it is he alone who has preserved for us the proverb uttered by our Lord, in which He assumes to Himself the character of the good physician, " Physi- cian, heal thyself;"2 and finally it is he who, in record- ing the commissions to the twelve and to the seventy (the latter incident being peculiar to himself), dwells with emphasis upon the miraculous cures which both those companies were empowered to work ; " He sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick;"* " Into whatsoever city ye enter .... heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."4
"Whose praise is in the GospeL" This is one of the instances in which our Church interprets for us in a certain way a passage of Holy Scripture, which good expositors have interpreted differently. The Church adopts the view of those, who think that the traitor Judas received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper before he left the supper- room, and founds a warning to communicants on the cir- cumstance of his having done so ;5 but this view by no means finds favour with all commentators. And similarly the Church, with Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and other Fathers, holds St. Luke to be the person indicated by St. Paul6 in 2 Cor. viii. 8, as "the brother, whose praise is
1 St. Luke xxii. 51. 1 St. Luke iv. 23. 3 St. Luke ix. 2. 4 St. Luke x. 8, 9.
5 " Lest, after the taking of that holy Sacrament, the devil enter into vou, as he entered into Judas," etc., etc. [First Exhortation in giving warning for the Celebration of the holy Communion.]
6 Some judicious and useful remarks on those passages of the Prayer
St. Luke the Evangelist.
in the Gospel throughout all the Churches." This may very probably be the case, "the brother" in question being further indicated as one who was " chosen of the churches to travel with" St. Paul (ver. 19), and St. Luke having been beyond all question St. Paul's companion in travel. And, in this case/ " the gospel " will be the written Gospel of St. Luke, written doubtless by St. Paul's suggestion, and circulated soon after its publication among the Churches of Christendom ; and the meaning of the Apostle in a large paraphrase will be this ; " We send to you the brother, chosen by the churches to be our associate in travel, and in whose commendation there is no need for us to say anything, inasmuch as the narrative of our Lord's acts and words, which he has written, and which is read publicly in your assemblies, is his sufficient letter of commendation in alf the Churches, wherever the name of Christ is named, and his word preached." Whatever may be said (and much has been said) against this inter- pretation, it certainly gives more point and force to the words1 than to take them as merely meaning that, in the sphere of the Gospel, the labours and services of the person commended were generally known and universally esteemed, just as, in the sphere of political life, or in the
Boole, which seern to determine in a certain way moot points of Holy Scripture, will be found in Webster and Wilkinson's Greek Testament [London, John W. Parker and Son, 1855], Introduction, Part I., pp. xxii. xxiii., "The Book of Common Prayer a practical, not a dogmatical com- mentary. "
1 It is not very deferential to the opinion of our learned Reformers, and of those Christian Fathers whom they followed, to say of this view, as Dean Stanley does (Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians, in loc); " It is a clear misunderstanding of the words eV t<£ c iayyeXlip, and only worth recording as such." The reader should refer to the copious and satisfactory note of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth on the subject.
VOL. II. 2 A
354 St- Luke the Evangelist.
scientific or literary world, some men make themselves famous and attain a celebrity.
" To be an Evangelist and Physician of the soul." It was one of the happy thoughts of the Revisers of 1661 to insert the word " Evangelist." For it was just in virtue of his being an evangelist (or bearer of good tidings) that St. Luke was a spiritual physician.1 He healed souls no otherwise than as setting forth Christ (whether by his written Gospel or by his oral discourse), and ex- plaining the conditions on which His blood and grace may be made available to the recovery of the soul. And accordingly the prayer of the Collect runs ; " Grant that by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by liim all the diseases of our souls may be healed." We have seen that it is St. Luke alone who has preserved for us the proverb, by the apphcation of which to Himself our Lord claims to be the great Physician.2 And in no part of the New Testament are the repentance and faith, by which the spiritual patient resorts to the great Physi- cian, so beautifully illustrated, as in the writings of St. Luke. The repentance of the prodigal son ;3 the repent- ance of the penitent thief ;4 the repentance of the lowly publican with his simple, fervent ejaculation, " God be merciful to me a sinner;"5 the repentance of the woman in Simon's house, who bathed Christ's feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head ; 6 the repent- ance of the Philippian gaoler with its accents of alarm and anxiety;7 the repentance, above all, by which the per- secuting and injurious Saul was converted into St. Paul
1 Canon Bright expresses this idea most happily in his Latin transla- tion of the Collect ; " ut factus Evangelista animarum quoque curara susciperet."
2 St Luke iv. 23. 3 St. Luke xv. 18. * St. Luke xxiii. 40, 41, 42. 8 St. Luke xviii. 13. 0 St. Luke vii. 37, 38. 7 Acts xri. 29, 30.
St. Luke the Evangelist.
355
the Apostle,1 — for the record of all these we are indebted to St. Luke ; they all form an integral part of " the doctrine delivered by him ; " and they one and all furnish instances of grace abounding to the chief of sinners. In all of them, too, is seen, more or less clearly developed, the abandonment of self-righteousness, and the faith which throws itself, in despair of its own resources, on the righteousness which is of God. The prodigal justifies not himself, as the elder son did, but throws himself in trust on the compassion of a father's heart. The thief, so far from justifying himself, pronounces his own sentence to be just, and throws himself upon the Lord for a kind office in the hour of His exaltation. The publican avows himself a sinner, and looks merely to God's mercy, or, as the wording of his prayer in the original rather imports, to the propitiation for sins which God had set forth.2
That the heart should thus open towards the good Physician in repentance and faith is the one secret of spiritual health, into which Luke the Physician was him- self indoctrinated, and into which he would indoctrinate the Church. All the diseases of our souls, however in- veterate, may be healed in this method, — the fever-fit of lust, or pride, or ambition, the paralysis of the will induced by habits of evil-doing, the blindness of the eyes of the understanding, the deafness of the inward ear to God's voice, the proneness of the natural heart to earth and the things of earth, even as the woman possessed with a spirit of infirmity was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.3 We speak of these diseases as various ; and various they are in their forms ; but they have all one root in the corruption of our nature ; sins are many,
1 Acts ix. 6.
5 0 Geos, l\&odr)Ti ifiol ifiapruXy. 3 St Luke xiii. 11.
356 6"/. Luke the Evangelist.
but sin is one. And the remedy for all of them is one and the same. As all trace back to the fall of Adam, and to the depravation and disorganization of human nature in that fall, so does the remedy trace back in all cases to the righteousness of the second Adam, both in His life and His death, and to the reconstitution of humanity in Him, as its new Covenant Head. And therefore it is that we conclude this prayer for the application of the remedies of sin to ourselves, by a rehearsal of this righteousness before the throne of grace ; " through the merits of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."
Chapter XC.
ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE, APOSTLES.
2D aimigfjtp ©on, roho bast built tbp Cburch1 upon tbe founnation of tbe Spostles ann Prophets, 3USUS Cfjrist himself being tbe bean cornet stone ; ©rant us so to be jotneD together in unttp of spirit bp tfjeir Doctrine, tbat roe map be maoe an bolp temple, acceptable unto tbee ; tbrougb 3leSuS Cbrist our Horn. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]2
This Collect is built, not upon its own Epistle, like most of those made new at the Eeformation, but upon a passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians,3 which it recites. But the passage in the Ephesians is itself built upon, and borrows the language of, an Old Testament passage,* to which therefore we must refer back, if we desire to understand it thoroughly. It will be deeply interesting to observe how one of the chiefest Apostles,
1 As the Collect first appeared in 1549, the opening words were, " Almighty God, which hast builded the congregation upon," etc.
2 The Sarum Collect was as follows : —
Deus, qui nos per beatos apostolos 0 God, who hast granted us to tuos Symonem et Judam ad agni- come unto the knowledge of thy tionem tui nominis venire tribuisti ; name through [the ministry of] thy da nobis eorum gloriam sempiter- thy blessed Apostles, Simon and nam et proficiendo celebrare et cele- Jude ; Grant us, while we grow [in brando proficere. Per Dominum grace], to celebrate their eternal nostrum. glory, and also, while we celebrate
[that glory], to grow [in grace].
Through our Lord. We do not think any candid person will hesitate in giving preference to the Collect which in 1549 superseded this.
3 Eph. ii. 20, 21, 22. 4 Isaiah xxviii. 16.
35 8 St. Simon and St. J tide, Apostles.
St. Paul, handles, and, under the brilliant light of his own inspiration, developes, the meaning of words uttered by one of the chiefest of the Prophets, Isaiah.
Since the Apostles almost always quote the Old Testament, not from the Hebrew original, but in the Greek version of it called the Septuagint, and St. Peter, in introducing this very passage, recites it as it is given in the Septuagint,1 we will take that version of it, as probably supplying the exact words which the Apostle had in his mind ; " Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold I cast into the foundations of Zion" (ififiaXkco eh ra defieXia %icov) " a stone of great price, an elect and precious corner stone ; and he that believeth shall not be ashamed." It will be observed that the foundations of Sion are spoken of as having existed previously to the throwing down of the corner stone among them ; a circum- stance which goes far to account for St. Paul's arrange- ment of the imagery, according to which the foundation is spoken of as being that of the Apostles and Prophets, while Christ is called " the chief corner stone," and which also serves to throw light upon the disputed question, who are the prophets intended. So much for the original passage of the Old Testament.
Now let us observe the way in which St. Paul weaves this passage of Isaiah into his argument, the pro- cess of thought by which he gets at it. The Ephesians
1 "We give the version of the LXX. side by side with that of St. Peter : — LXX. (Isaiah xxviii. 16.) 1 Pet. ii. 6.
AiiztoOto ovtw \tyei K^/jios Kuptos, 'I5o£> ridij/xi Iv Siaiv \ldov aKpoyu*
T5oi) iyu tfiGaWu els to. fle/te'Xta viaiov, ixKeKrbv, tvTifxov kolI 6 via-
Ztuv \L6ov iro\vre\rj, frcXfKTbv, ixpo- niiuv £ir' airrf, ov /i7j KaTaHrxwdy. yuviaiov, tvrt/iov, els t(l de/xfKta <xvtt)s, ko.1 6 wKTreiuv ov /xtj Karate-
St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles. 359
were Gentile Christians (" ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands"1). But now, though " aliens " in time past " from the com- monwealth of Israel,"2 they had been made one body with the ancient people of God, owned one and the same Lord, professed one and the same faith, received one and same Baptism.3 Christ was the " peace " of Jew and Gentile, who " made both one,"4 and broke down the middle wall of partition between them, so that there was henceforth neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor un- circumcision, but they were all one in Christ Jesus.5 Though Gentiles, then, they were no longer foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the Jews in the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, — the city built, not upon Sinai, but upon Sion.6 It is at this point that the words of the prophet Isaiah come into the Apostle's mind, as apposite to his argument. Isaiah had spoken of a corner stone cast down among the foundations of Sion. The Apostle, interpreting Isaiah under the light of the Spirit, tells us that the foundation is that of the Apostles and Prophets ; " ye are built upon the foundation of the apo- stles and prophets." The foundation which they laid, and the foundation which (in some sense) they themselves were. First; the foundation which they laid, according to that other word of the same Apostle to the Corinthians ; "As a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation." . . . :' Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid."7 — But the Prophets of the Old Testament, no less than the Apostles of the New, had in a most important sense
1 Eph. ii. 11. 2 Ver. 12. :» See Eph. iv. 4, 5.
4 Eph. ii. 14. 5 See Col. iii. 11, ami Gal. iii. 28.
8 See Heb. xii. 22. 7 1 Cor. iii. 10, 11.
360 St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles.
contributed to the laying of the foundation of Sion. The whole series of them, terminating with St. John the Baptist, had prepared the way before the Saviour's face. All of them had testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow;1 the earlier ones more obscurely, the later ones more explicitly, until the last of them, who was indeed more than a prophet, was privi- leged to point out the person of the Saviour, and to identify Him as the Lamb led to the slaughter, of whom Isaiah had sung ;2 " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."3 It was entirely in keeping with the scope of St. Paul's argument to mention the Prophets as well as the Apostles. For he is, as we have seen, engaged in setting forth the unity between Jew and Gentile which had been brought about by Christ. Now, the Apostles were, by Christ's commis- sion, preachers to the Gentiles ; " Go ye and make disciples of all the nations, by baptizing them."4 But the Prophets had been, as indeed our Lord Himself was, ministers of the circumcision, preachers to the Jews exclusively. There- fore, in reckoning up those who had laid the foundations of the city in which Jew and Gentile were fellow-citizens, he could not possibly pass over the Prophets of the former dispensation ; he could not avoid including them ; " Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets." But why does he mention the Prophets after the Apostles, seeing that historically they preceded them ? Because the fulness of the revelation of Christ was re- served for the Apostles, and because their preaching furnished the clue to that of the Prophets ; it was only under the light shed forth at Pentecost, and caused to
1 See 1 Pet. i. 10, 11. 2 See Isniahiiii. 7. 3 St. John i. 29. 4 St. Matt, xxviii. 19.
St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles. 361
shine throughout the world by the ministry of the Apostles, that the obscurer intimations of the Prophets could be rightly interpreted and understood. Moreover, the spiritual building, though planned and laid out by the Prophets, did not actually begin to rise till the Apostles, under the influences of Pentecost, put their hand to the work. There was indeed a Church before the day of Pentecost, a Church in the family of Abraham, the cementing bond of which was natural kinship or blood ; but it was not yet a " holy Catholic Church." Of this Catholic Church, which embraces barbarian, Scythian, bond and free,1 "a great multitude of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,"2 the Apostles were the earliest builders. The Prophets, though a large debt of gratitude and vener- ation was due to them, had but prepared the soil and laid out the ground for the Apostles. — But secondly ; not only were the Apostles the earliest builders of the Catholic Church, they were also its earliest members. They were themselves, in a certain sense, foundations ; not that the building reposes on them ; but that they, with the faithful of the earlier dispensation, were the first stones laid. A foundation-stone is the earliest stone ; if you dismantle a building stone by stone, so as not to leave one stone upon another, you will at last come to the foundation-stone ; so, if you were to sweep away generation after generation of God's faithful people, you would at length arrive at the Apostles, who were the earliest believers, and after them at the Jewish Prophets, whose testimony to the Saviour their contemporaries received and handed on. And there- fore it is that, in the vision of the new Jerusalem in the Book of the Eevelation, the foundations of the city are
1 See Col. iii. 11.
2 Rev. vii. 9.
362 St. Simon and St. J tide, Apostles.
exhibited as having the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb sculptured in them.1 The Apostles, as they were the first preachers of Christ, so they were also the first believers in Him.
" Jesus Christ himself being the head corner stone." The point of the Apostle's argument being, as we have said, the unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ, it was directly to this point to bring out the Prophet's image of Christ as the corner stone, because it is in the corner stone that the converging lines of a building meet. It is this meeting of the lines, in the stone which stands at the angle, which is the uppermost idea in his mind. For it is in these terms that he describes the spiritual corner stone, " in whom all the building, fitly framed to- gether, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord ; in whom ye also are builded together" together with your Jewish fellow-Christians — (see how thoroughly the idea of the fellowship between Jew and Gentile has taken possession of, and occupies his mind) — " for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Now the difference between Jew and Gentile is a typical difference. No other dis- tinction between man and man was ever so deep-rooted, so far-reaching, so trenchant, ever found so full an echo in mutual sentiments of contempt and antipathy, as this. The barrier which parted them was of God's own erection ; it was " the law of commandments contained in ordin- ances;"2— the moral law, parting off the Jew from the moral abominations, the "revelbngs, banquetings, and abominable idolatries"3 which prevailed among the heathen, — the cere- monial law, which pervaded every district and department of social and political life, and the tendency of which was to isolate the Jew from all other peoples on the face of
1 See Rev. xxi. 10, 14. 2 Eph. ii. 15. 3 See 1 Pet. iv. 3.
St. Simon and St. ytide, Apostles. 363
the earth, and to make him dwell alone, as Balaam had predicted that he should do, so that he was not reckoned among the nations.1 And as to the antipathy and con- tempt, which the parties on either side the barrier enter- tained towards each other, we find them coming out in Pilate's indignant question, "Am I a Jew ?";2 in Gallio's refusal to hear a suit which turned upon Jewish questions, " If it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it ; for I will be no judge of such matters ; "3 in Festus's declaration of Paul's cause to King Agrippa, "They had certain questions against him of their own super- stition, and of one Jesus, which wus dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive;"4 — these on the one side, — and on the other, in the Pharisee's prayer, " God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are ;"5 in the Pharisaic words censured by Isaiah, "Stand by thyself, come not near to me ; for I am holier than thou ;"6 and even in some accents of the prophet's own noble prayer, " We are thine : thou never barest rule over them ; they were not called by thy name."7 If the parties entertaining such feehngs towards one another as these were yet reconciled in Christ, and made in Him one fold under one Shepherd, surely every less-marked separation between man and man will be unable to maintain itself against that solvent of distinc- tions and animosities, which the healing, reconciling Gospel of Christ has brought with it into the world. It was quite necessary to unwrap and display all this train of thought, which lies hid under the first clause of the Col- lect, in order to show how this first clause bears on the petition for unity, and to point out the coherence of the different parts of the prayer.
1 See Num. xxiii. 9. 2 St. John xviii. 35. 3 Acts xviii. 15. 4 Acts xxv. 19.
5 St. Luke xviii. 11. 6 Isaiah lxv. 5. 7 Isaiah lxiii. 19,
364 St. Simon and St. J tide, Apostles.
" Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine." " Grant us so to be joined together." In the preceding clause we have heard of the laying of the "Lively stones"1 of the spiritual building, and of the chief corner stone to which they all converge, and which locks them all together, just as the keystone of an arch keeps the other stones in its place. But before stones can form a secure and stable building, they must not only he laid, but cemented. If bricks were simply placed upon one another, with no plaister between them, and if walls were never bonded together and mortised into one another, the building would soon fall to pieces. Having therefore recited, in the former clause, the laying of the stones by God and His fellow-workers under Him, we here proceed to ask for their cementing and bonding ; " Grant us so to be joined together."
" In unity of spirit." This expression is drawn from another Chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians — the fourth, where it occurs, not in the course of a prayer for, but of an exhortation to, unity ; " Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit." 2 It is to be re- gretted that neither here, nor in the " Prayer for all Conditions of Men," where the same passage is cited, have those who drew up the prayer inserted the definite articles. In our Authorised Version, as also in Cranmer's own version, which was published in 1539, ten years before the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., the words are translated quite rightly, and with strict fidelity to the Greek; "Be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit."3
1 See 1 Pet. ii 5. 5 Eph. iv. 3, 4.
3 " Be diligent to kepe the vnitie of the sprete thorow the bonde of peace." Tyndale, too, whose translation appeared in 1534, five years
St. Simon and St. J tide, Apostles. 365
The definite article before " Spirit," especially when taken in connexion with what follows, " There is one body and one Spirit," shows what Spirit the Apostle is speaking of, — that it is the Holy Spirit, or third Person of the Blessed Trinity. Whereas " unity of spirit " rather points to the spirit of man than to that of God. What it seems to convey is the oneness of affection subsisting between the members of the Church, their being all " perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment."1 However, the two distinct ideas indicated by these expres- sions run into one another, and are easily fused together. In whatever hearts the one Spirit works, He engenders unity of sentiment and affection. And in whatever hearts such mutual affection is manifested, it is, we may be quite sure, " the fruit of the Spirit/"2 the produce and evidence of His operations.
" In unity of spirit." The expression leads us to re- flect that there may be unity of spirit between Christians, where there is no unity of form. Uniformity is not unity. No systems of worship, no forms of teaching, can be more different than those which characterize the Law and the Gospel. And yet we are taught to see a deep - seated unity of spirit between the people of God under these two dispensations, which exhibit features so widely differ- ent. The pious Jew looked forward to Christ, saw Him
before Cranmer's, gives the definite articles ; "That ye be dyligent to kepe the vnitie of the sprete in the bonde of peace." Wiclif (1380), translating from the Vulgate, had indeed left out the articles, as he naturally would, because the Latin has no definite article ; " Bisie to kepe vnyte of spirit : in the boond of pees, o bodi and o spirit." It is likely enough that Cranmer, and men of his day, though acquainted with Greek, and with Tyndale's English version, were so familiarised with the Vulgate, that they could not always disenchant themselves of its influence. 1 1 Cor. i. 10. • " The fruit of the Spirit is love " (Gal. v. 22).
366 St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles.
darkly in the glass of type and prophecy. The pious Christian looks backwards to the same Saviour, and sees Hi'tti with comparative clearness in the word, preached with " great plainness of speech," 1 and in the Sacraments. Abraham was animated by the same faith and hope, which animates the modern believer; he rejoiced to see Christ's day ; he saw it, and was glad ;2 "he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."3 — Now, if even a difference of dispensation, and the mani- fold diversities involved therein, does not preclude unity of spirit, unity of faith and hope, between those who are separated by a chasm of centuries, and brought up in totally different religious associations ; if, when brought into the Church, we were built in upon the foundation, not of the Apostles only, but of the Prophets also, how shall we suppose that diversities of forms among Christians should offer any obstacle to their being joined together in unity of spirit ? There is indeed but one flock of Christ ; but it is folded in many folds. There is but one Church Catholic ; but it has many branches. And as the sap, rising from one root, gives one life to every branch of a tree, so the Holy Spirit, shed forth from the Eock of our salvation, waters every corner of God's vineyard, and knits together the several members of Christ's body " in unity of spirit."
" By their doctrine." Observe that, as in the former clause, the ministry of the Apostles and Prophets, as fellow-workers with God, had been brought out, so it is here also not lost sight of. God, " the author of peace and lover of concord,"4 who "maketh men to be of one mind in an house," 5 is implored to grant unity of spirit
1 See 2 Cor. iii. 12, 13. 3 See St. John viii. 56. 3 Heb. xi. 10. * Second Collect at Morning Prayer. 5 Psalm Ixviii. 6, P.B.V.
St. Simon and Si. J tide, Apostles. 367
to the members of His Church. But we call to mind that here, in the cementing, as in the building of the Church, He works by instrumentality, and by the same instrumentality, — by "the doctrine" of the Apostles and Prophets. The Prayer Book is as harmonious and con- sistent in its teaching as the Bible is ; and in this clause we find an instance of its being so. When we pray for unity in the Daily Service, it is through the acknowledg- ment of the truth on the part of all the Church's various members that we hope to receive it ; the way of truth is one and the same way for all ; and it is through being led into it, and no otherwise, that we hope to reach the goal of unity; "More especially, we pray for the good estate of the Catholick Church ; that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace!' And again, in the Prayer for the Church militant, the agreement which we pray for is not an outward bond of uniformity, covering up from view all sorts of strange and divergent doctrines, but an agree- ment in the truth ; " Grant, that all they that do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love." This point cannot be too earnestly pressed in these days, when we hear such lamentations (only too reasonable) over the Church's want of unity, and people seem disposed to strive and pray that the various jarring sections of Christendom may be brought together again, without always discerning that that most blessed end can only be brought about by a common assent to Scriptural truth on the part of each section, and that every agreement, save that of " agree- ment in the truth," would be a hollow and false agree-
368 St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles.
merit, giving way under the first pressure, and not worth striving for.
The clause of the Collect on which we are now engaged seems to want supplementing by the observation that, if we desire our prayers for unity to be answered, we must add to them our strenuous endeavours after it. " Endea- vouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace;"1 where the word translated "endeavouring" is, as Archbishop Laud remarked, a strong word,2 " being solicitous (careful) to preserve the unity of the spirit," busying ourselves about it, showing a practical interest in it. Unity is compared in the Psalms to dew, " the dew of Hermon, and the dew that descended upon the mouu-
1 Eph. iv. 3.
* crrrovSdfovTef, a word used nowhere else in the New Testament than in St. Paul's Epistles (assuming the Epistle to the Hebrews to be his) and in the Second Epistle of St. Peter, and variously rendered in our Autho- rised Version : " Only they would that we should remember the poor ; the same which I also was forward to do " (Gal. ii. 10) ; " We, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire " (1 Thess. ii. 17) "Study to shew thyself approved unto God" (2 Tim. ii. 15); "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me .... to come before winter" (2 Tim. iv. 9, 21) ; " Be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis" (Tit. iii. 12) ; " Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest" (Heb. iv. 11) ; " Give diligence to make your calling and election sure" (2 Pet. i. 10) ; "1 will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance " (2 Peter L 15) ; " Seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless" (2 Peter iii. 14). Archbishop Laud's words on the text in the Ephesians, quoted by Bishop Wordsworth in loc. , are : 1 ' Keep then the unity of the Spirit ; but know withal (and it follows in the text, Eph. iv. 3) that if you will keep it, you must endeavour to keep it ; for it is not so easy a thing to keep unity in great bodies as it is thought ; there goes much labour and endeavour to it. The word is tnrovSdtovres, study, be careful to keep it. And th<j word implies sxich an endeavour as makes haste to keep ; and indeed no time is to be lost at this work." A very valuable exposition of the word.
St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles.
369
tains of Zion."1 Those who pray for it, without striving and doing what in them lies to ensure it, are like agri- culturists who should pray for the dews of heaven upon their fields, while they dispense themselves from the labour of ploughing and sowing.
" Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit,
that we may be made an holy temple." This is the way in which the prayer expresses the doctrine of the two last verses of Eph. ii. ; " In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord : in whom ye also" (ye, as well as your fellow- Christians of the house of Israel) " are builded togethei for an habitation of God through the Spirit." If there were no cement, no orderly juncture of stone with stone, no building together, there could be no temple. A pile of stones, merely thrown down upon a foundation, with- out arrangement or union, would not be a temple at all. The unity, then, between Christian and Christian is an indispensable condition of their constituting together an acceptable temple. How, then, we may be mclined to ask, can the Church in its present state, rent as it is by schisms into so many different communities, several of which excommunicate the rest, be an acceptable temple to God, meet for His indwelling ? The answer is, first, that in the ideal and intention of the Church's Founder, who, before leaving His disciples, prayed for them thus ; " That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us,"2 the Church is one and indivisible, however rent by schisms through the sin of man. So it was with the earthly Jerusalem. In the design of God it was to be one sacred metropolis, the centre both of worship and of jurisdiction
1 Ps. cxxxiii. 3.
2 St. John xvii. 21.
VOL. II.
2 B
3 jo St. Simon and St. Jiide, Apostles.
for all the tribes of Israel. " Jerusalem is built as a city : that is at unity in itself. For thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord : to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord,"1 — the tribes at the three great festivals, who flocked up from all quarters of the country to the metropolis, representing the different races of men — Jew and Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free,2 — who find their meeting-point in Christ and in the Holy Universal Church, which is His body. But we know that this ideal was shattered into pieces by the schism of the ten tribes, by the formation of a separate kingdom under Jeroboam, and by his appointing, in defiance of God's express ordinance, other places of worship than the mountain of the Temple.3 Tet still God's original plan had been the centralizing at Jeru- salem of the national life of His people, both of their political and ecclesiastical life ; and even after the Capti- vity this hundred and twenty-second Psalm was one of the songs sung by Jewish pilgrims, as they journeyed towards the metropolis at the recurrence of the great fes- tivals, or, in other words, one of the " Songs of Degrees." But, secondly, God's ideal is not really frustrated, nor Mis design defeated, by the unhappy divisions which we see around tis. As St. Paul says of God's ancient people, " They are not all Israel, who are of Israel : neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all child- ren ;"* so may we say of His people at the present time, " All are not Christians, who are externally and by pro- fession so." There are bad fish as well as good in the draw-net of the Church,5 tares as well as wheat in her
1 Ps. cxxii. 3, 4, P.B.V. - See Col. iii. 11. 3 1 Kings xii. 26-30 " Rom. ix. 6, 7. 5 See St. Matt. xiii. 47, 48.
St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles. 371
harvest field ;l and since, where there is nothing amiss in creed or conduct, insincere Christians cannot possibly be detected by the eye of man, we are forbidden to attempt to separate the tares from the wheat until the time arrives for the great harvest.2 But this is certain, that there can never be any real spiritual coherence be- tween a sincere and a mere nominal Christian, although they may be both embraced in the same communion ; and that, on the other hand, so far as any two Chris- tians are sincere in their profession of Christianity, and seek the same Father through the same Mediator, and under the influence of the same Spirit ;3 so far as they are growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ;4 so far they are really and truly (albeit invisibly and unconsciously) approximating to unity with one another. The radii of a circle cannot draw near to the centre without drawing near to one an- other, and souls cannot approach the same Lord without finding in Him a centre of unity, which binds them, not to Him only, but to one another. And thus, as regards each and all of them, the " habitation of God through the Spirit" draws nearer and nearer to completion, and the building, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and having Jesus Christ for its head corner stone, " groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord."
1 See St. Matt. xiii. 24, 25. : 3ee St. Matt. xiii. 28, 29, 30. 3 See Eph. ii. IS. * See 2 Pet. iii. 18.
Chapter XCI.
ALL SAINTS' DAY.
0 aimfgfitp ©on, tofto toast knit together tfiine elect in one communion ann felloiusljtp, in tfie mistical ooDj of tljp %on Christ our ILorD j ©rant us grace so to follotn tt)p fclessen Saints in all birtuous anD goolp Iibing, tfcat toe map come to ttooSe unspeakable Jops taT)tclb tkou fast prepareo for tfjem tfjat unfeigneDlj lobe thee ; through 3leSuS Christ our Horn. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
This Collect was drawn up in 1549, and has received since that time only verbal alterations.
It is in every way appropriate that the series of holy days, on which we commemorate particular saints, should be closed, and as it were crowned, by one comprehensive commemoration of all God's " servants departed this life in his faith and fear,"1 and whose names are written in the book of life,2 however completely they may have dropped out of the memory of man. In vindicating the costly funereal honours which were paid Him by antici- pation in the house of Simon the leper, our Lord said that, wheresoever His gospel should be preached in the whole world, the pious act of the woman who paid them should " be told for a memorial of her." 3 But how many pious acts, done in a precisely similar spirit, have escaped
1 Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth. 5 See Philip, iv. 3. 3 St. Matt. xxvi. 13 ; St. Mark xiv. 9.
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record altogether, although nothing can obliterate them from the book of God's remembrance ! How many mar- tyrs have there been in will and intention, who have only "not resisted unto blood, striving against sin,"1 because they lived in times when, or countries where, persecution had ceased ! How many, whose whole life has been one long course of self-sacrifice, and -whose daily crosses, cheerfully and lovingly taken up and carried through a long series of years, are more than an equivalent of the one short, sharp agony, in which the martyr yields up his soul to God ! As the Christian poet sings, with so true and deep a pathos : —
" Nor deem who to that bliss aspire,2 Must win their way through blood and fire. The writhings of a wounded heart Are fiercer than a foeman's dart. Oft in life's stillest shade reclining, In desolation unrepining, Without an hope on earth to find A mirror in an answering mind, Meek souls there are, who little dream Their daily strife an angel's theme, Or that the rod they take so calm Shall prove in heaven a martyr's palm." 3
It is with the view of preserving some memorial of these " meek souls," who are now with Christ in paradise, that the Church has instituted and annually observes the festival of All Saints. It is on a principle something similar that we conclude our ordinary prayers with the recital of the Lord's Prayer, which, in its vast compre-
1 See Heb. xii. 4. 2 The bliss of " the martyr's diadem."
3 Keble's Christian Year, Wednesday before Easter.
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All Saints Day.
hensiveness, embraces all that we can want or wish for, and supplements our imperfect and fragmentary petitions.1 The relation between the immediately preceding Collect and that which is now before us, should not be overlooked. The subject of the former was " the holy Catholick Church" (" Almighty God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets") ; whereas the subject of this last Collect is " the Commu- nion of Saints," or, in other words, the intercourse sub- sisting between God's elect, whose names are known with certainty only to Him, and whose relation to the visible body is that of the holy place to the outer court of the temple. The " one communion and fellowship" of "the elect" is " IN the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord."
" Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect." The Collect having been originally written in English, we are at liberty to remark upon the word, " knit together," as expressive of a very close and intimate union. The word belongs to the sempstress's art, and expresses the union of threads or strands by interlacing. It is also applied to the union which is given to the different
1 The Sarum Collect, which our Reformers most justly discarded, because in its petition it recognised the intercessions of the saints as a means of procuring the Divine mercy, noticed in its earlier clause this comprehensive feature of the festival.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui Almighty and everlasting God, nos omnium Sanctorum merita sub who hast granted us under one un& tribuisti celebritate venerari ; solemnity to show reverence to the qusesumus, ut desideratam nobis merits of all the Saints ; Pour down tuae propitiationis abundantiam, upon us, we beseech thee, at the multiplicatis intercessoribus, largi- request of these many intercessors, aris. Per Dominum nostrum. that abundance of thy mercy which
we so much need and desire.
Through our Lord.
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members of the human frame by the interlacing of the sinews and muscles — a union which, in the barbarous punishments of other days, it was often found impossible to sever by pulling and straining, however great the force applied, and which made it necessary to apply the knife. And to this union of the bodily members the word " knit" is applied in our Authorised Version of the Epistle to the Colossians ; — " not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together} increaseth with the increase of God." The same word is used higher up in the same Chap- ter, in a passage which shows that the union in question is not corporeal, but one in heart and affection ; " For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh ; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love."2
" Thine elect." The elect (to adopt the language of our Seventeenth Article) are those whom God " hath chosen in Christ out of mankind," and " hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation, and to bring them by Christ to everlast- ing salvation, as vessels made to honour." All these — such is the assertion before us — God has knit together
o
1 Col. ii. 19. The Greek word here used, and in Col. ii. 2, is avp.GiGa.fa, the participle of which, in the parallel passage of the Ephesians (iv. 16), is rendered "compacted." There is no idea of knitting in it ; it simply means, to make to go together, bring together. Hence, it also means to infer, demonstrate ("proving that this is very Christ," Acts ix. 22 ; " assur- edly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them," Acts xvi. 10) ; because he who arrives at a conclusion does so by putting together his premises; and to instruct ("who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him ? " 1 Cor. ii. 16) because, a true teacher is one who developes the mind of the taught by leading it to draw its own inferences. ' Col. ii. 1, 2.
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All Saints Day.
in closest spiritual intercourse, however separated from one another by time, by space, or by separateness of con- dition. By time. Israel of old was called by God His elect ;x and it is of Israel that the Psalmist sings, " Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord ; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance."2 ISTor was Israel only holy by external profession, and separation from the surrounding nations unto the worship and ser- vice of God. There were saints among them : Aaron is called in the Psalms " the saint of the Lord ;3 and those also are designated " saints" whose bodies came out of the graves at our Lord's resurrection.4 And to vindicate the unity of the Old Testament saints with ourselves, it is only necessary to observe that they, through the dark intimations of prophecy and type, looked for and hoped in the same Saviour, who is also our object of faith. By space. God's elect are severed from one another by oceans and mountain ranges ; but the spiritual community, to which they all belong, knows no insurmountable barrier ; two congregations, worshipping in corners of the earth quite remote from one another, are yet in unity, as approaching one and the same Father through one and the same Mediator, and under prompting of one and the same Spirit; "through him" they "both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."5 By separateness of condi- tion. St. Paul, in giving a very solemn charge to Timo- thy, makes mention of " the elect angels ;"6 and in the Epistle to the Hebrews angels are recognised as embraced within the communion of saints ; " Ye are come," it is
1 See Isaiah xlv. 4, " For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name.'1
- Psalm xxxiii. 12. 3 See Psalm cvi. 16. 4 See St. Matt, xxvii. 52. 5 Eph. ii. 18. * 1 Tim. v. 21.
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said, " unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable com- pany of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven."1 And the pass- age goes on to show that the departed righteous are embraced in the same great community. Even death itself is no solvent of the strong bond, which knits together God's elect ; it cannot be. For, to quote the words of Bishop Pearson, " If I have communion with a saint of God, as such, while he liveth here, I must still have communion with him when he is departed hence ; because the foundation of that communion cannot be
removed by death Death, which is nothing else
but the separation of the soul from the body, maketh no separation in the mystical union" [between Christ and His Church] ; " and consequently there must continue the same communion, because there remaineth the same foundation."2 And therefore, in enumerating the various persons with whom the saints to whom he is writing had communion, the Apostle does not omit the servants of God departed out of this life ; " Ye are come," says he, " to the spirits of just men made perfect."
Now, our communion and fellowship with departed saints may be regarded in two aspects. It may be viewed as a fact, quite independently of our consciousness of it. Or it may be viewed as practically recognised by ourselves. First ; let us think of it as a fact. Considered only thus, it may yield us strong consolation, when our hearts are feeling painfully the void in our circle made by the removal of some loved and lost one, of whom, however, we have good hope that he is fallen asleep in
1 Heb. xii. 22-24. 2 Pearson on the Creed, Article ix., " Communion of Saints."
378
A 11 Saints Day.
Jesus. What we yearn for in such moments is to be once again near to our departed friend. Death seems like a cruel yawning gulf, which has broken off all our relations to him. He seems to have no longer any sympathy with us, because we receive no indications of his sympathy. But how do matters really stand in the truth of fact ? A saint departed is nearer to Christ than a saint still in the flesh can be. According to St. Paul, " to depart" is "to be with Christ,"1 consciously and sen- sibly in His presence — with Him as the penitent thief was, after his liberation from the body, amid the still waters and in the green pastures of paradise.2 And the departed soul, being in this conscious nearness to the Saviour, cannot but go out towards Him more devoutly than ever in acts of adoration, thanksgiving, and praise. And therefore, when we seek the same Saviour, as it is open to us at all times to do, when our souls too go forth towards Him in the various exercises of devotion, we thereby draw near to them, who are drinking in happiness and peace from the shining in upon them of the light of His countenance. Our dull and gross senses give us no indication whatever of the nearness of our friends. But none the less does it exist ; none the less is it a great reality. For two radii cannot approach the centre of a circle without approaching one another. And two souls, however separate their conditions, cannot gravitate to- wards Him, who is the sun and centre of the spiritual system, without thereby gravitating in the direction of one another. The very same spiritual force which draws them towards the Saviour, draws them in at the same time to one another. — But our " communion and fellow-
1 See Philip, i. 23. 1 See St. Luke xxiii. 43, with Psalm xxiii. 2.
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ship " with departed saints may be viewed, secondly, as recognised in ■practice by ourselves. How do we recognise it in practice ? " We communicate with them," says Bishop Pearson, " in hope of that happiness which they actually enjoy." And again, a few lines lower down ; " What we ought to perform in reference to them in heaven, besides a reverential respect and study of imitation, is not revealed to us in the Scriptures." Now, in the petition of the Col- lect before us, both these points are brought out. First, the " reverential respect and study of imitation ; " " Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living," or, as the same idea is more briefly expressed in the Prayer for the Church militant, " beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples." The care- fulness and accuracy of the wording of both prayers, is to be observed. We are to follow the saints " in all virtuous and godly living," to " follow their examples " only in so far as they are " good." — The words " virtuous and godly living " yield rather different ideas. A virtue is an ex- cellence of moral character, such as temperance, courage, liberality ; the word does not necessarily imply any regard to God. It is a word more in favour with natural than with revealed religion, more in its own element in treatises of heathen moral philosophy than in the ethics of the Gospel. Yet it is adopted both by St. Peter and St. Paul ; by the first, where he bids us to " add to " our " faith virtue," 1 or moral excellence, by the second, where he exhorts his Philippian converts, " if there be any virtue " (moral excellence), " and if there be any praise " (not as though he doubted of the existence of such things, but exactly equivalent to, " whatsoever things are excellent, whatsoever things are praiseworthy "),2 " think of these
1 2 Pet. i. 5. ; Philip, iv. 8.
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All Saints Day.
things." But the virtues of Christianity differ from, and soar above those of heathenism, inasmuch as they involve a regard to God, His will, His law, His providence, and His promises ; the life of a Christian saint is not only morally excellent in its social aspect, but " godly " 1 also in its religious aspect. — But, to turn to questions more important than verbal ones, where does Holy Scripture bid us follow the good example of the saints, and thus warrant our prayers for grace to imitate them ? In several places ;2 but in none more briefly and pregnantly than this ; " Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ."3 This verse says in the fewest possible words all that can be said upon the subject; and, while it directly prescribes imitation of the Apostle, guards the precept from all possibility of misapprehension. Even St. Paul himself we are to imitate only so far as he imitated his Divine Master ; it is only so far as he repro-
1 Our English word ' 1 godly " expresses directly a regard to God ; but the same idea is indirectly conveyed by the Greek word eveeS^, which is translated "godly " in our Authorised Version of 2 Pet. ii. 9 (" The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations"). This word is applied in the Acts to the centurion Cornelius (Acts x. 2) ; to his soldier- servant (Acts x. 7) ; and to Ananias, the disciple who visited St. Paul after his conversion (Acts xxii. 12) ; in all which places it is translated devout. The kindred verb ev<reG£> is rendered ' ' worship " in Acts xvii. 23 (" whom therefore ye ignorantly worship "), and " show piety " in 1 Tim. v. 4 ("let them learn to sTww piety at home"). Evo-eSeia is frequently "godliness" (see 1 Tim. ii. 2 ; iii. 16 ; iv. 7, 8 ; vi. 3, 5, 6 ; 2 Tim. iii. 5 ; Tit. i. 1 ; 2 Pet. i. 3, 6, and iiL 11).
2 " Be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises," Heb. vi. 12 ; " Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample," Philip, iii. 17 ; "Ye became followers of us, and of the Lord," 1 Thess. i. 6 ; "Yourselves know how ye ought to follow us," 2 Thess. iii. 7 ; " Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do," Philip, iv. 9 ; and "Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock," 1 Pet. v. 3. 3 1 Cor. xi. 1.
All Saints Day.
38i
duced the features of Christ's character, that we are to seek to reproduce the features of his. And a little con- sideration enables us to see that, for those who really desire to tread in the steps of Christ, the examples of the saints are most valuable helps as stepping-stones. " My sheep follow me,"1 said the Good Shepherd. And because they follow him, and in so far as they follow Him, the Church in the Canticles, when she asks the Bridegroom where He feedeth His flock and makes it " to rest at noon," is answered ; " If thou know not, 0 thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock"2 as though to tread in the footsteps of the flock were the surest way to find the Shepherd. And there is a rationale or philosophy in the imitation of the saints, or rather of Christ in the saints, which we should not omit to observe. Our Lord Himself exhibited all graces, and all in the nicest adjustment and equipoise. His human character is for this reason perfectly well balanced, so that it cannot be said that any one particular trait stands out above the rest. It resembles the sunlight, which embraces all the prismatic colours in itself, and yet, because these colours are so beautifully and pro- portionably compounded, is itself white and colourless. Whereas each of the saints is more or less one-sided in his character; he exhibits but one single ray of the manifold and composite excellence of Christ. And the proposing to ourselves this single ray as our model, the concentration of our attention upon a part instead of the whole, upon the remarkable faith of one saint, upon the patience of another, upon the contemplativeness of a third, upon the unwearying activity of a fourth, brings the example of Christ as it were piecemeal within our
1 St. John x. 27. 3 Cant. i. 7, 8.
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All Saints Day.
scope, and renders it more easily imitable than it would be if it stood alone. And yet, be it observed that it is not so much the saint, as Christ in the saint, whom we are to follow ; the excellence was in Him before it was in His disciple, and is only a single ray from the fountain of light, intercepted and exhibited in a merely human and therefore a fallible medium.
But we recognise in practice our communion and fellowship with the departed righteous, not only by tread- ing in their footsteps and imitating their example, but also by looking forward in hope and longing to that happiness which they actually enjoy. And hence this beautiful prayer is winged, as an arrow with its feather, with a fervent aspiration after their blessedness ; " that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly ' love thee." The passage referred to is St. Paul's paraphrastic trans- lation of a verse in the sixty- fourth Chapter of Isaiah;1 " As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."2 Now let us seek to understand the sense in which the joys, which God hath prepared for them that love Him, are " inconceivable," or, which is an equivalent expression, " unspeakable." It is not that no notion at all can be formed of them by any one. The Apostle expressly says, in the context of the passage just quoted, that, although these joys do not enter into the experience of the natural man, yet that to the spiritual man they are revealed ; for the passage proceeds thus ; " But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit : for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."3 Thus, to God's true people
1 Isaiah lxiv. 4. 2 1 Cor. ii. 9. » Ver. 10.
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an inward revelation is made of these joys, which must give some notion of them. And we may say that an outward revelation of them also is made to all men in the vjay of parable and figure. We are taught to think of the souls of the departed righteous as with Christ in paradise,1 a fair and peaceful garden, carpeted with verdure, overhung with beautiful foliage, intersected with silver streams. And of heaven, the final state of blessedness, we are taught to think as of a glorious symmetrical city, with gates of pearl, a street of gold, foundations of precious stones, illuminated with the glory of God and of the Lamb.2 These, of course, are but accommodations of the truth to our limited understanding, and yet it cannot be denied that we derive some ideas from them. But the ideas, though we may, as it were, dip our foot into them, are in their fulness out of our depth. Even what we can at present receive of this joy is so overwhelming and absorbing, that language would break down beneath the burden of it, speech is felt to be too frail a vehicle to convey it. For which reason St. Peter calls it " unspeak- able ; " " in whom, though now ye see him not, yet be- lieving, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."3 How much more unspeakable, then, in respect of their greater nearness to Christ, and their more conscious and intimate communion with Him, must be the joy which the blessed dead experience in paradise ! And accordingly St. Paul, who in an ecstasy was caught up into paradise, and made privy to the blessedness of its inhabitants, could not on his return narrate his ex- periences ; " he heard unspeakable words," he says, " which
1 St. Luke xxiii. 43 ; and Psalm xxiii. 2, 4. 2 Rev. xxi. 16, 19, 20, 21, 23. 3 I Pet. i. 8.
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AIL Saints Day.
it is not lawful (in the margin, ' not possible ') for a man to utter." 1
With this beautiful aspiration of heart towards the society of the blessed dead, whose company and inter- course is itself one of the joys prepared by God for those who unfeignedly love Him — with this, " Oh that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away, and be at rest"2 — this noble series of Collects of the Day comes to an end. It opened with a petition that we might " cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light," with which equipment alone we can hope to fight successfully the good fight of faith. Since that time the Church has led us along with prayers for mercy, grace, and strength, suited to the various stages of our campaign, until, at the end of the Christian Year, she puts into our mouths this one strong and fervent aspiration for, and anticipation of, the rest that remaineth for the people of God, as if she were minded that we too should be able to say with the Apostle ; " I have a desire to
1 2 Cor. xii. 4. The word "unspeakable" occurs three times in our Authorised Version of the New Testament, and each time represents a different Greek word. Christ is God's "unspeakable gift" (2 Cor. is. 1 5). Here the Greek is iveKSLrryrros, something which baffles all descrip- tion, which cannot be rehearsed or told out to the end ; like, " if I should declare them and speak of them, they should be more than I am able to express" (Ps. xL 7, P. B. V.) The "unspeakable words," which St. Paul heard in paradise, are ifipriTa prjfiara, & ovk i%bv ai/Spunrtp \a\rjeat (2 Coi. xii. 4). 'AfiprfTos is rather what must not, than what cannot, be divulged ; and hence the word is applied to the mysteries of heathen religions, and to words unfit to be spoken on account of their badness. The " unspeak- able joy," wherewith Christians rejoice in their Saviour (1 Pet i. 8), is represented by dve/c\dX?)Tor, that which tongue cannot speak out, on account of the fulness of the heart.
J Ps. lv. 6.
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depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better;"1 " Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- ness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."2
1 Philip. L 23. 3 2 Tim. iv. 8.
VOL. n.
20
BOOK III.
Collects to be said after the Offertory, when there is no Communion, every such day one or more ; and the same may be said also, as often as occasion shall serve, after the Collects either of Morning or Evening Prayer, Communion, or Litany, by the discretion of the Minister.
In the first Prayer Book of King Edward VI. (1549), this Eubric ended with the words " every such day one." In the second Book (1552) the rest of the Eubric, as we have it now, was added, except that "Morning and Evening Prayer " has been changed to " Morning or Evening Prayer." In " the Black Letter Prayer Book, containing the alterations and additions made in the year 1661, and annexed to the Act of Uniformity," the " and " still appears. But in the Sealed Book for the Chancery " or " is substituted.
If the term " Offertory," in the above Eubric, is used in the restricted sense of the Offertory Sentences (during the reading of which the Alms are collected), the Eubric seems to be at variance with that which immediately follows the six Collects,1 which prescribes that, if there be
1 Upon the Sundays and other Holy-days (if there be no Communion) shall be said all that is appointed at the Communion, until the end of the general Prayer [For the whole state of Christ's Church militant here in earth], together with one or more of these Collects last before rehearsed, con- cluding with the Blessing.
Collects after the Offertory.
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no Communion, one or more of the Collects shall be said after the Prayer for the Church militant, not after the Offertory. We doubt not that Mr. Shepherd (" Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer," vol. ii. p. 232 [London: 1828]) has given the true solu- tion of this discrepancy ; " The first part of the Eubric stands as it did in Edwaed's first Book, when the Prayer for Christ's Church militant was said only at the Com- munion. But that Prayer being transposed in Edward's second Book, and appointed to be said on Sundays and Hobdays, when there is no Communion, the words of the former Bubric should have been, not ' after the Offertory,' but ' after the Prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth ;' except the Revisers con- sidered that Prayer as a part of the Offertory."
There can be little doubt that the discrepancy is (as here suggested) the result of an oversight. The design of the Bubric in King Edward's first Prayer Book was to prevent the Service (when there was no Communion) from ending abruptly with the Offertory Sentences. In adding to the Bubric in 1552 it was forgotten that the Church Militant Prayer had been transferred to the earlier part of the Service, and annexed to the Sentences ; and thus the former clause of the Bubric was allowed to remain unaltered. But (as Mr. Shepherd also suggests) an easy reconciliation may be effected between the two Bubrics, by simply considering the Church Militant Prayer as part of the Offertory, as we may most reason- ably do ; for are not the Alms and Oblations offered and presented in the Church Militant Prayer ?
The reader, however, will be pleased to see a totally different explanation of the significance of these six Col- lects, and the use which they are designed to serve,
388
Collects after the Offertory.
extracted from the Eev. H. T. Armfield's interesting and valuable work on "The Gradual Psalms," pp. 371, 372. [London, J. T. Hayes, 1874.]
After showing that, according to the Eucharistic Bite of Sarum, an odd number of Collects is always prescribed to be said at Mass (except in the Octave of Christmas only), and also that " there are never said more than seven Collects at Mass, because God only appointed seven peti- tions in the Lord's Prayer," he proceeds thus : —
" It probably has escaped the notice of many that the principle laid down in this ancient rubric is not altogether unrecognised in our existing Book of Common Prayer. At the end of the Order for Holy Communion there is a group of six Collects, which are 'to be said after the Offertory, when there is no Communion, every such day one or more ; and the same may be said also, as often as occasion shall serve, after the Collects either of Morning or Evening Prayer, Communion, or Litany, by the discre- tion of the Minister.' The ' occasion ' referred to here arises probably when the assigned Collects of the Day would, if unsupplemented by one or more of these occa- sional Collects, violate the ancient requirements of the odd and even numbers. Thus, in our own Eeformed Prayer Book, there would be just one day in the year when the tale of Collects would necessarily reach the lawful maximum of seven. That day is Good Friday. There are the three Collects appointed for the day ; these to be followed by the Collect for Ash Wednesday, making four ; the two invariable Collects (for Peace and Grace) at Matins, six ; and one of those occasional Collects added to make the odd number, seven."
Mr. Armfield shows in the same Chapter that an odd number of Psalms, as well as of Collects, was the general,
Collects after the Offertory.
389
though not by any means the universal, rule in the old Offices, and refers to the old pagan principle announced in one of Virgil's Eclogues (viii. 75) " numero Deus impare gaudet," (God delights in the odd number), which he regards as recognised by Christianity, " though transmuted with its own higher purpose and intention." Very pos- sibly ancient Christianity may have taken the idea of the sacredness of odd numbers from the number of Persons in the Blessed Trinity, and the well-known sacredness attached in Holy Scripture to the odd numbers three and seven.
Chapter I.
THE FIRST COLLECT AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE, (i)
assist us mercifully, 2D Horn, in tfjcssc our supplications ana prayers, anu Dispose r&e toap of t bp servants totoarDS the attains men t of eberlasting salbatfon ; tbat, among all rbe changes ann cbances of rbis mortal life, tljep map ener be DefrnlieD bp tbj> most gracious anu reabg belp ; tbrougb 3|eSuS CbttSt our JLorD. Amen.
auesto, jDomine, supplication^ bus nostris, et mam famulorum tuorum in Salutis tuae prosperi* tate Bispone ; ut inter omnes biae et bitae bujus barietates, tuo sent* per protegantur aurilto. Per Dominum.— Gel. Sac. — Miss. Sar.
There are some prayers of the Church, the beauty of which (and even their full meaning) cannot be appreciated without looking at the original connexion in which they stand. I may adduce, as an instance of what I mean, the Bishop's petition for the Catechumens to whom he has just administered the rite of Confirmation ; " Let thy fatherly hand ever be over them ; let thy Holy Spirit ever be with them." These words might be used as a prayer for any one under any circumstances. But by rending them asunder from their original connexion you lose the beauty of them, and enfeeble their meaning. The Bishop's hand has rested upon the heads of the candidates but for a moment, and then has been withdrawn. Most appropriately, therefore, he is directed to pray for an
First Collect at End of Commzinion Service. 391
overshadowing of the heavenly Father's hand, which shall be permanent, not transitory ; " let thy fatherly hand ever be over them." In the prayer which preceded the laying on of his hands, he had invoked for them the gift of the sevenfold Spirit, which, assuming Confirmation to have been received with right dispositions of heart, is undoubtedly bestowed in it. He now is instructed to pray that this gift may not only be shed forth on them once for all, but may abide with them during the whole of their earthly pilgrimage ; " Let thy Holy Spirit ever be with them." The prayer is not properly understood un- less you look at it in what I may call the soil of its birth, the associations which originally gathered round it, and still cling to it.
So it is with the beautiful Collect before us. We must study it in its origin, if we would see its force. It first made its appearance in the Sacramentary of Gelasius,1 where it occurs in a Mass for those who are going a journey. Hence the allusions to " the way," or road, and to the changes of scene, which are incidental to the turn- ings or windings of the road. Change is the great feature of travelling. Who that has travelled for some months, seeing new sights every day, and being thrown across persons whose manners, costume, and language, are strange to him, has not felt a little difficulty in settling down afterwards to the regular and somewhat monotonous occupations of home life ? At home, affairs all run in a groove ; but in travelling there is infinite variety —
1 As it stands there [Mur. torn, i. col. 703], it is under the heading, " Prayers for one going on a journey," and is couched in the singular ; and, moreover, " via? " is omitted : —
Adesto, Domine, supplicationibus nostiis : et viam famuli tui Wilts in salutis tuse prosperitate dispone : ut inter omnes vitee hujus varietates tuo semper protegatur auxilio. Per
392
The First Collect at the End of
changes, surprises, chances, mischances. This, then, was the original reference in the present Collect, of which the following is a balder and somewhat less free and rhyth- mical translation than our Eeformers have presented us with ; " Assist us, 0 Lord, in our supplications ; and favourably dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of thy salvation, that, among all the changes of the way and of this life " [the word for way (or road) in Latin is via ; the word for life is vita ; and accordingly we here have one of those alliterations and plays upon words, which the old Collect writers rather affected, and which our Eeformers by no means despised, " ut inter omnes vice et vitce hujus varietates ;" I say our Eeformers by no means despised these artifices of style, for, while the English language did not allow them to reproduce the resemblance of sound between via and vita, they have given us an alliteration of their own, by introducing the word chances, which has no place in the original (" changes and chances ")], " they may ever be protected by thy help, through the Lord."
But as yet we are only at the beginning of the history of this prayer. It found its way from the Sacramentary of Gelasius into the Missal of Sarum, whence our Eeformers borrowed it. And there it occurs, not merely as a prayer for ordinary travellers, but in the very inter- esting " Order of Service for Pilgrims " — travellers, that is, to certain holy places consecrated by the martyrdom and the monuments of the saints, at which places the pilgrims, when they arrived, were to perform certain devotions. This Service begins with the recitation of certain psalms and prayers over the pilgrims as they lie prostrate before the altar, the first of the prayers being this very Collect. Then they rise, and their scrips and
The Communion Service, (i) 393
staves are blessed by the officiating priest, and the scrips hung round their necks, and the staves placed in their hands with appropriate exhortations. Then the ordinary Mass for travellers is said, at which the pilgrims receive the Communion, and in which the prayer before us serves as the Collect ; the verse of Genesis, in which Abraham assures his servant, who was going into Mesopotamia, that the Lord would send his angel before him,1 as the Epistle ; and our Lord's commission to the Twelve, according to St. Matthew, as the Gospel.2 And thus we gain another idea connected with the Collect ; it was a prayer suited not only to travellers, but to travellers bent upon a voyage to some holy place, some city of God's solemnities, like Jerusalem — in short, to pilgrims. And hence, no doubt, sprang the more general application of the Collect, which we find in " the Psalter, or Seven Hours of Prayer of the Church of Sarum." Human Life is a journey ; there is no more common image, no more commonly employed phrase, than that of " the journey of life." And the life of the true Christian is a sacred journey or pilgrimage, a journey which has for its goal the heavenly Canaan and the Jerusalem which is above. The pilgrims who, under the Old Testament Dispensation, went up to the earthly Jerusalem, to pay their devotions at the three great Festivals,3 and for whose use, at the various stations on the road, those fifteen Psalms which succeed the hundred and nineteenth, and which bear the title of " Songs of degrees," or " Songs of the going up," were designed, represented in type and figure the spiritual pilgrims to the heavenly Jerusalem, which we all profess to be, and which those of us, who have realised our Baptism, and are acting out the condi- tions on which it was granted, really are. And in this
1 See Gen. xxiv. 7. 2 St. Matt. x. 5, etc. 3 Dent. xvi. 16.
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The First Collect at the End of
pilgrimage each day is a separate stage, complete in itself, and beyond which we may not seek to make provision ; for we are bidden to " take no thought for the morrow," since " the morrow will take thought for the things of itself,"1 and directed to ask nothing beyond a supply of the day's needs — " Give us this day our daily bread."2 This little pilgrimage is run between the time of our rising and that of our retiring to rest. Recruited by sleep, we start fresh upon it in the morning ; and, wearied, as it were, with the day's march, we halt and pitch our tents at nightfall.' Following out this idea of a correspondence between life and a pilgrimage, the mediaeval Church found a place for this Collect among the devotions appointed to be used at Prime, or the first hour. The Church recognised seven hours of Prayer,3 for each of which suitable Offices were provided, the observance of seven hours being probably founded on
1 St. Matt. vi. 34. a St. Matt, vi. 11.
3 "This," says Dr. Littledale in his "Continuation of Dr. Neale's Com- mentary on the Psalms," "is one of the classical passages in the Psalter, which has either originated, or else helped to establish, the usage, common to the East and West alike, of dividing the Daily Office into the Seven Canonical Hours, a custom which was gradually developed out of the three stated times of prayer, which, in compliance with Jewish custom, as set by the Prophet Daniel, were adopted by the Early Christians, and seems to have been known at the time when the Apostolical Constitutions were compiled, and certainly at the period when the- Ambrosian hymns were written (vol. iv. p. 150)." In the "Myrroure of our Lady," which Mr. Chambers has given at the beginning of his Edition of the Sarum Psalter (p. 6), the following (with many other) reasons are assigned "why God's service is sayd each day in seven hours ;" "For syth it is so, as Solomon saith, that a rightful man falleth seven times on a day,* and the number of all wyckedness is named under seven deadly sins, against which, in holy church, is ordained seven sacraments, and given seven giftes of the Holy Ghost : therefore, to get remission of our sins, and to thanke God for his gifts, we say praisings to Him in the said hours seven times a day. " * Pro v. xsiv. 16.
The Communion Service, (i) 395
the words of the Psalmist ; " Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments."1 The earliest of these hours was daybreak, and the office to be then recited was called Matins, or (more strictly) Matin- Lauds, or Morning Praises. The idea of the office was that, when the first flush of dawn crimsoned the East, and wakened the birds to sing their morning carol, the Church should awake too, and offer to God a service of praise for the rising of the Sun of righteousness upon the benighted nations with healing in His wings.2 Next after this burst of praise followed Prime, the first hour ; and then, in succession, the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, Vespers (or Evening), and Compline (Com- pletorium), so called from its filling up and making com- plete the day's cycle of devotion. The office for Prime would naturally be an anticipation of the day's duties, responsibilities, and incidents — it was the devotion of the Christian at starting on a new stage of his pilgrimage. And, accordingly, this prayer, the traveller's prayer, the pilgrim's prayer, in which the possible " changes and chances," to which the day might give rise, were glanced at, and, these notwithstanding, God was besought to keep the pilgrim on the narrow way that leadeth unto life,3 and with his face steadfastly set towards the heavenly Zion,4 was appointed to be said at Prime. Such is the early history of this Collect, and such the associations which gathered round it in the mediaeval Service Books. In the place which they have assigned to it in our • own Ritual, the Reformers seem to have looked more to its opening petition for assistance in our prayers than to the pilgrim allusions in the body of it. And, accordingly, it
1 Ps. cxix. 164. a See Malachi iv. 2. » See St. Matt. vii. 14.
* See Jer. L 5.
396 First Collect at End of Communion Service.
stands in our Prayer Books as one of six Collects appointed to be said, when there is no Communion, immediately before the Blessing, the object of which seems to be to take off from the abruptness, with which otherwise the Service would come to an end. But the spirit and full significance, of the prayer cannot be entered into without looking at it in its original connexion ; and those who can truly say of themselves, as Moses said to Jethro, " We are journeying unto the place, of which the Lord said, I will give it you,"1 will be thankful to have words put into their mouths appropriate to the stages of this journey, and will perhaps find comfort in keeping up the earlier character of the Collect in their private use of it, either by offering it before a journey, or by making it part of their devotions in the early morning, before they go forth to the work of the day.
1 Numbers x. 29
Chapter II.
THE FIRST COLLECT AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE (2).
assist us mercifully, 2D JLorD, in tbcse our supplications anD prapers, arm Dispose trje boa? of tbp serbants totoarDS tr)e attain* merit of everlasting saltation ; tljat, among all tbe changes anD cfjances of tbis mottal life, trjep map eber be DefenDeD bp tbp most gracious anD reaDp belp ; rijrougb 31eSuS CfirtSt our JLortj. Amen.
anesto, Domine, supplications bus nostris, et biam famulorum tuorum in salutis tuae prosper!* tate Dispone ; ut inter omnes biae etbitae bujus barietates, tuo son* per protegantur aurilio. PerjDo-- minnm. Gel. Sac. — Miss. Sar.
It is to be regretted that a very useful Concordance to the Book of Common Prayer, put forth some thirty years ago by the Rev. J. Green,1 is, if not actually out of print, so rare as to be accessible but to few. Such a work is a great help in studying the Prayer Book ; for one and the same tone pervades all the Offices of the Church, and therefore one part of them will often be found to throw considerable light upon another. We have seen that this Collect was anciently appointed to be said in a Mass for travellers, or for those who were going on a pilgrimage. Its earliest petition reminds us of a prayer in the Litany, which was originally the Collect2
1 " Concordance to the Liturgy" by the Rev. J. Green. [London : 1851].
s The Epistle in this Mass was the beautiful passage of St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians (ch. i. 3, 4, 5), in which God is called
39s
The First Collect at tJie End of
in a most beautiful Mass appointed to be said for persons in trouble of heart ; " 0 God, merciful Father, that despisest not the sighing of a contrite heart, nor the desire of such as be sorrowful ; Mercifully assist our prayers that we make before thee in all our troubles and adversities whensoever they oppress us." In trouble of heart, as in the uncertain prospect of "the changes and chances of this mortal life," the first thing we need is assistance in our prayers. For the spirit of prayer is the spirit in which we should address ourselves to meet our trials, when we stand on the brink of them and con- template them, as we see by our blessed Lord's example. It was " when Jesus had spoken these words," says St. John — the words of the long prayer in the seventeenth Chapter — that " he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden,"1 to encounter the agony and bloody sweat. We shall meet our trials in calm composure, whatever trials the future may have in store for us, — we shall dip our foot into the stream of an uncertain future in quietness and in confidence, — if we have first fortified ourselves, as our Master did, by com- munion with God. But to hold such fortifying, calming, re-assuring communion with God asks no small amount of Divine assistance. " The spirit of grace and of suppli- cations " is not indigenous in man's heart — it must be " poured upon " 2 him from on high. Our minds are apt at all times to wander in prayer, and at no time more so than when they are distracted by the prospect of possible,
" the Father of Mercies, and the God of all comfort," and " our consola- tion" is said to "abound by Christ ;" and the Gospel, that equally con- solatory passage of St John (ch xvi. 20, 21, 22), in which our Lord assures His disciples that their "sorrow should be turned into joy." Miss Sar. Col. 797 [Burntisland, 1861].
1 See St. John xviiL 1. 5 See Zech. xii. 10.
The Communion Service. (2)
399
or the experience of actual, trials. Therefore our Church, under such circumstances, instructs us to say, " Assist us mercifully, 0 Lord, in these our supplications and prayers;"1 " Mercifully assist our prayers that we make before thee in all our troubles and adversities." " Assist us," stand by us, support us. And this assistance in prayer is of two kinds, just as Moses had a twofold sup- port when he held up his hands in intercession for Israel, the support of Aaron on one side and of Hur on the other.2 There is an external assistance, in the intercession of Him who "ever liveth to make intercession for us."3 And there is the internal assistance of the Spirit, of whom we are assured that He specially aids us in prayer, and supplies the deficiencies arising from wandering thoughts, distracting cares, coldness of spirit, the tendency to become formal and mechanical. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought ; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."4
"And dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation." Here there comes into the prayer the allusion to travellers and pilgrims, for whose use it was in the first instance intended. The hundred
1 The Latin is merely "Adesto, Domine, supplicationibus nostris," Our Reformers have added "prayers" to "supplications." The words occur together in the A. V. of Eph. vi. 18 (" Praying always with all prayer and supplication,") and again in 1 Tim. ii. ("I exhort that first of all supplications, prayers, etc., be made for all men.") "Prayer" (irpoaevxq) is a term of general import, embracing all forms of address to God. " Sup- plication " (6^7}<m) is of a more special character — some definite petition or request. The alternative title given to the Litany, in the rubric which precedes it, is " General Supplication."
2 See Exodus xvii. 11,12. 3 See Heb. viL 25.
4 Rom. viii. 26.
400 The First Collect at the End of
and seventh Psalm sets forth very beautifully God's pro- vidence over travellers, whereby He brings them in safety to their journey's end. Be it remembered that in former times travelling had none of those facilities or securities which attend it now ; for any one setting out on a long and distant journey it was a real uncertainty whether, " through perils of waters, and perils of robbers, perils in the wilderness, and perils in the sea,"1 perils from wild beasts I may add, and from malarious atmosphere ; whether, too, without the mariner's compass, and without a map — without any guidance, in short, but the stars above, and beneath the foot-tracks of mules or camels, or wheel-tracks of caravans, he would ever reach his destina- tion. We must place ourselves in imagination in a state of things similar to that, in which a citizen of Norwich, wandering by night on Mousehold Heath, then covered with a dense wood, so completely lost himself, and felt his danger to be so imminent that, when at length he was enabled by the sound of St. Peter Mancroft's bells to find his way into the city, he bequeathed as a perpetual memorial of his gratitude, and out of charity to persons similarly circumstanced, a sum to be given annually to the sexton for sounding the bell at four every morning and at eight every evening, " for the help and benefit of travellers."2 In days when travelling was attended with such difficulties, the words of the Psalm must have come home with peculiar force and comfort to those about to embark in it ; " they wandered in the wilderness in a
1 See 2 Cor. xL 26. 3 This was Sir Peter Reade, Mayor of Norwich in 1496, who gave his houses in St Giles's to furnish the payment for this ringing. The houses falling into decay, "the ground was leased out, and is built upon, and pays £4 'ground rent.'" — Blomefield's History of Norfolk, vol. iv. p. 200. [London : 1806.]
The Communion Service. (2) 401
solitary way ; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation."1 In such days right heartily would every traveller pray, "Dispose the way of thy servant, 0 Lord." — But our Collect was to be made to convey higher and more spiritual thoughts than any connected with a mere earthly pilgrimage. The land to which the true people of God are journeying is the heavenly Canaan ; the " city of habitation " which they seek, and with whose freedom they were in their Baptism presented, is the " Jerusalem which is above," the " city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."2 And, accordingly, the prayer is that God would so providentially order their way in the voyage of life, that they may ultimately arrive in safety at this goal of their race, this land to which they are journeying ; this city to which they are asking their way " with their faces thitherward."3 And of this providential disposal of the Christian's way " towards the attainment of everlasting salvation " there was a grand type vouchsafed under the Old Dispensation. In Israel's pilgrimage through the wilderness, the Lord " went in the way before " them, " to search " them " out a place to pitch " therr " tents in, in fire by night, to show " them " by what way" they "should go, and in a cloud by day ;"4 "he took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people."5 True Christians, knowing how greatly a move in life may affect their highest interests, will not be too ready to make such a
1 Ps. cvii. 4, 5, 6, 7. 2 Gal. iv. 26 ; Heb. xi. 10.
3 See Jer. 15. « Deut. L 33. 0 Exod. xiii. 22.
VOL. II. 2 I)
4-02 Tlie First Collect at the End of
move of their own accord. They will be apprehensive of taking any step from the dictates of worldly ambition or selfish interests. Lot did not make a good move for himself, though he acted with worldly policy, when he chose him all the plain of Jordan, because " it was well watered everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord," and " dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom." 1 The Christian, instructed by the record of such calamitous moves, will wait for clear indications of God's Providence, before he strikes his tent and makes for another resting-place. And he will pray that such clear indications may be made, when God sees fit to make them — that the pillar of fire and of the cloud may be visibly lifted up, and move forward, and (as it were) beckon him to follow. " Dispose the way of thy servant," he will say, not towards that which is more lucrative, or more honourable, but " towards the attainment of ever- lasting salvation."
" That, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life." The word " chances " was, as we have seen, inserted by our Reformers, probably more to keep up a play upon sounds, which they found in the original Collect, but which the- English language did not allow them to reproduce, than from any great regard for the word. Chance is not a word which finds favour with the writers of Scripture,2 for good reasons. The heathen
1 Gen. xiii. 10, 11, 12. 3 The substantive only occurs four times in the Authorised Version of the Bible — twice in the passages referred to in the text — once in the mouth of the Amalekite who brought David the tidings of Saul's death ( " As I hap- pened by chance upon Mount Gilboa," 2 Sam. i. 6), and again in the Par- able of the Good Samaritan (" By chance there came down a certain priest that way," St. Luke x. 31), where the Greek is /card crvynvpiay, "by a coincidence " — it happened that the priest took a road which threw him across the wounded traveller. TV;^), the Greek word for "chance" or
The Communion Service. (2) 403
recognised the hand and control of God only in certain solemn events, not in all things, great and small. Thus the diviners of the Philistines speak about a " chance that happened to us " 1 as a cause of the calamities which had fallen on their countrymen, altogether distinct from the hand of the Lord, which they confessed must have " done us this great evil." But if the word " chance " be used without any denial of God's control of all events, if it be meant, not to deny the operation of a law, or to exempt particular events from such an operation, but simply to denote our ignorance of the law in a particular case, then it may be innocently used, as it is in the book of Ecclesi- astes ; " I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of under- standing, nor yet favour to men of skill ; but time and chance, happeneth to them all."2
In the passage before us the word " chances " is tantamount to " unexpected occurrences or incidents," things which, when they happen, frustrate anticipations, and take us by surprise. The word " changes," which represents the varietates of the original Latin, contains a reference to the changes of scene in travelling, which a turn or winding in the road will suddenly bring into view ; from austere and frowning crags on each side of us we come at once, it may be, on the prospect of some smiling verdant champaign country, spread out for miles
"fortune," does not occur once in the Greek Testament. Tvxbv, in 1 Cor. xvi. 6, is merely ' ' perhaps. " The Hebrew word mpD (mik-reh) is de- rived from a verb which originally means to meet. The hap or chance is an occurrence — a casual meeting. The word used in Eccles. ix. 11 is yjQ (pe- gang) from a root which also means to " meet with ;" and which has that signification in Ruth ii. 22 ; " that they meet thee not in any other field." 1 See 1 Sam. vi. 9. a Eccles. ix. 11.
404 The First Collect at the End of
away beneath our feet. These resemble the entire change of associations which a critical turn in our lives some- times brings with it.
" They may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help." In this, as in the many similar petitions found in other Collects, " Keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us,"1 " that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities,"2 " We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things,"3 " Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence,"4 " Let thy continual pity . . . defend thy Church ; . . . preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness,"5 it must be understood that the things de- precated not only seem to us to be, but really are, in the judgment of truth and in the judgment of God, noxious and mischievous, the key to all such general expressions being given in the Collect for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, " Keep us ever by thy help from all things hurt- ful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation." To be " taken away from the evil to come,"6 by a death which may strike us as awfully sudden and even shock- ing, is not therefore "hurtful to a man's salvation;" to have a too exuberant health and flow of spirits chastened and toned down by some humbling infirmity may be very " profitable to our salvation," even as St. Paul's thorn in the flesh was.7 — " Gracious and ready " are epithets intro- duced by the translators ; but they are telling and well- chosen epithets. God's help is always graciously given never extorted from Him as a niggard ; He always smiles as He gives. And it is " ready " too, given with a
1 Twentieth after Trinity. 2 Twenty-second after Trinity.
3 Eighth after Trinity. 4 Second after Trinity.
3 Sixteenth after Trinity. 8 See Isaiah lvii. 1. 7 See 2 Cor. xii. 7, 8, 9.
The Communion Service. (2) 405
promptitude of which certain provisions of nature are made in the Bible the symbol. The eye is an organ as precious as it is delicate ; and it therefore demands and receives extraordinary protection. The mobile and sensitive lid, ever ready to close upon it at a moment's notice, and which is fringed with the eyelash, promptly excludes
" A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair, Any annoyance in that precious sense." 1
And, the life of the young and callow brood being ex- tremely precarious, the hen's instinct leads her to fly at any one who approaches them, and to gather her chickens under her wings. When Israel made that long pilgrimage in the wilderness, the norm and model of the journey of Life, God " kept him as the apple of his eye," and watched over him " as an eagle fluttereth over her young."2 And founding his petition upon this foregone scripture, the Psalmist prays, " Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings."3 To be thus kept, thus hidden, is indeed to " be defended by God's most gracious and ready help."
1 Shakspere's " King John," Act iv. Scene 1. 11 See Deut xxxii. 10, 11. 8 Psalm xvll 8
Chapter III.
THE SECOND COLLECT AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE.
2D aimigbtp JLott), anD ebetlast* ing ©oO, boucbsafe, toe beseecb tbee, to Direct, sanctifp, anD gobetn, hot i) our hearts! anD booics, in tbe limps of tbj> Iatos, anD in tlje inorks of tljp commanDments ; tbat tTjroug^ thp most mightp protection, botb bete ano eber, iue map be preserbeD in boDp anD Soul ; tlirougb out Jloro anD <g>at)iour Jesus CljtiSt. Amen.
Dirigere et sanctificate et regere Dignate, Domine Deus, quaesu* mus, corDa et corpora nostra in lege tua, et in operibus manDa* torum tuotum: ut Itjtc et in aeter* num te auriltante sani et salbi esse meteamur j per Dominum nostrum 3lesum, qui tecum bibtt, etc. — Erev. Sar. — Psal. Sar.
This Collect, like the preceding, is found in the Sarum Psalter,1 as part of the devotions for Prime, or the first hour of the day. It there stands as the concluding Collect for the Office of Prime, and thus may be regarded as the final prayer, by which the Christian arms himself to meet the trials and duties of the day.
As to the use of the Collect by the Reformed Church, it is to be remarked that is not found not only here, in a position where the use of it is optional, but also as the last of the prescribed prayers in the Order of Confirmation. It did not hold this place originally, but was transplanted
1 It will be found at p. 124 of Mr. Chambers's "Sarum Psalter or Seven Ordinary Hours of Prayer " (Joseph Masters, 78 New Bond Street,
MDCCCLII.)
Seco?id Collect at End of Communion Service. 407
thither from the end of the Communion Service at the last Eevision of our Offices in 1661. And surely it was a most felicitous and appropriate addition to the Con- firmation Service. Cyril, in one of his Catechetical Lectures, calls Confirmation " the spiritual phylactery of the body and the preservative of the soul."1 The phy- lactery, as is well known, was a leathern case, worn on the left arm, or on the forehead, by devout Jews, and containing strips of parchment, on which were written four passages of the Law.2 It was probably called a phylactery or preservative, because it was regarded super- stitiously as an amulet to ward off harm. Cyril calls Confirmation the spiritual amulet of the body, because the candidate in that rite, making himself spiritually over to God by an act of self-dedication, is formally taken, body and soul, under the shadow of God's wings, — under the shelter of His Providence and Grace, in token of which the bishop momentarily overshadows him with his
1 Mystagogica Catechesis III. p. 318 [Opera, Parisiis, 1720]. St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (315-386), has left two sets of Catechetical Lectures, one for catechumens before Baptism (called Karrixyveis <pwTi$on{i/wv), and another for the newly baptized (called Kar^x^fis fj-vcraywytKal). It is in the latter series that the passage quoted occurs, the lecture being headed Tlepl Xp&Tyttaros, Be Chrismaie, i.e. "Concerning the Unction," Confirma- tion being in those days administered by anointing. The recipients were anointed, says Cyril, 1st, on the brow, to free them from the shame of the guilt inherited from Adam ; 2dly, on the ears, that their ears might be opened to the Divine revelations ; 3dly, on the nostrils, that, smelling the fragrance of the unguent, they might be unto God a sweet savour of Christ (2 Cor. ii. 15) ; and lastly, on the breast, that, having on the breastplate of righteousness, they might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
The participation of the body in the benefits of Confirmation is strongly brought out by the ancient Fathers. Thus Tertullian (quoted by Dean Comber, " Companion to the Temple," vol. iii. 454 [Oxford, 1841] ; "The flesh is sealed, that the so^il may be defended ; the flesh is shadowed by imposition of hands, that the soul may be illuminated by the Spirit. " 2 See St. Matt, xxiii. 5, and Deut. vi. 8.
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hand, praying at the same time that God's " fatherly hand may ever be over " him. What can be more appro- priate to such an occasion than a prayer, the concluding aspiration of which is that both soul and body may be preserved both here and ever, through God's most mighty protection ?
" 0 Almighty Lord, and everlasting God." The epi- thets were inserted by the translators in 1549, the invocation of the Latin. Collect being simply " 0 Lord God ; " but they both have their force and point in reference to the thing petitioned for. It is a " mighty protection " which we sue for, to shield us amid the diffi- culties and dangers of our pilgrimage ; and it is a pro- tection which is to extend itself into that other state of existence, which we glance at when we say "both here and ever!' It is therefore to an ''Almighty Lord, and everlasting God " that we resort for such protection.
" Vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern both our hearts and bodies." To " sanctify " stands midway between the two words to " direct " and to " govern," and embraces the ideas conveyed by both of them. To sanctify, as applied to God, is to shed the influences of the Holy Spirit upon a person. Now, these influences are of two kinds ; the Holy Spirit guides, and the Holy Spirit also governs; He is the pilot of our vessels over the waves of this troublesome world ; and also their captain, who gives orders to the crew. In plain words, the Holy Spirit, by enlightening our minds, shows us what is the path of duty, and by in- fluencing: our will and affections induces us to walk therein.
" Both our hearts and bodies " — in the Latin, " corda
The Communion Service. 409
et corpora nostra," there being here again that alliteration and play upon sounds, of ■which, as we have often seen before, the old Collect writers were so fond. But a mere play upon sounds would be an unworthy artifice, unless it were borne out by the sense. Are our bodies then the subject of sanctification, of Divine direction, of Divine government, as well as our souls ? The body, the mere animal element of our nature, what has it to do with religion, with the influences or exercises of religion, with the worship and service of Almighty God ? Whatever objections of this kind might be raised to the Collect, must be alleged against the Scriptures themselves, not against the Book of Common Prayer, which follows humbly in the footprints of Scripture. St. Paul thus prays for his Thessalonian converts ; " The very God of peace sanctify you wholly" (in every department of your composite nature) ; " and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the com- ing of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 The body, therefore, is to be sanctified no less than the spirit and the soul, and its sanctification is to be made the subject of prayer and Christian effort. And this on several grounds. In the first place ; the body was an original element of human nature, as it came fresh and uncorrupted from the hands of God.2 A disembodied soul is not a man, any more than a corpse is. And therefore, if man is to be saved as man, his body, as well as his soul, must be recovered from the effects of sin. And this cannot be done unless the work of Christ and of the Spirit take effect upon his body as well as his soul. And therefore we ask, in the Prayer of Access, " that our sinful bodies may be made clean by " Christ's " body," as
1 1 Tliess. v. 23. 2 See Gen. ii. 7.
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well as " our souls washed through his most precious blood," and, in the prayer before us, that " our bodies," no less than " our hearts," may be " directed, sanctified, and governed." — Secondly; as a token that the sanctification of man is to extend to his body, God has incorporated into the Christian religion two outward visible signs, the washing of the body with water, and the nourishment of the body with bread and wine. If we were designed to be wholly and merely spiritual beings, these outward visible signs would be impertinent and out of place. Why is the body to receive the stamp of God's consecra- tion upon it, if it is not ultimately to be a sharer in the salvation of the soul ? — Thirdly ; even in our present condition of existence, the members of our bodies, which previously to our conversion had been yielded " as in- struments of unrighteousness unto sin, are to be yielded as instruments of righteousness unto God,"1 our ears to hear His word, our eyes to read His book and survey His works, our feet to travel on His errands, our hands to do His work, our mouth to speak His praises. — And lastly ; it is a truth of Eevelation, and one of its rudimentary truths, since it enters into the Apostles' Creed, that the body of man, infirm though it is in its present state, and a badge of degradation, and ever hastening to corruption and decay, shall be raised again in incorruption, in glory, and in power ; a glorious blossom springing out of a bare grain ; 2 a spiritual body evolved by the mighty power of God from the natural. This resurrection will consum- mate the sanctification of our bodies, which at present can only be inaugurated.
Before passing away from this clause, we should not omit to remark that the word " hearts " comes before
1 See Rom. vi. 13. 3 See 1 Cor. xv. 42, 43, 44.
The Communion Service. 4 1 1
" bodies " in the prayer for direction and sanctification ; and for the best of reasons, because (as good Dean Comber so well says) it is " in the affections of our hearts that sin is wont to begin, and by the members of our bodies it is too often accomplished."1 Our bodies move under the direction of our wills, and our wills are swayed by our affections ; and the seat of the affections is the heart. And therefore the heart is the seat and source of sanctification, from which it flows out to the lower faculties, and to the members of the body. The heart is the spring of the waters of our nature ;2 and if those waters are to be healed, the salt of Divine grace must be cast in at the spring.
" In the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments." " Ways " is inserted by the translators, to correspond with and balance the word " works." In the original the words are merely, " in thy law, and in the works of thy commandments." The heart is to be directed, sanctified, and governed "in the law;" and this is done when God, in pursuance of His new covenant,3 puts His laws into our hearts, and writes them in our minds, which terms of the new covenant we pray Him to fulfil to us, when we say, " Incline our hearts to keep this law;" "Write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee."4 — The body, on the other hand, is to be directed, sanctified, and governed "in the works of God's commandments," because the body is the great organ and instrument of activity, and there can be no activity without it. When the body is laid aside in the grave, the soul no doubt retains its sensibilities ; it has all its susceptibility to
1 " Companion to the Temple," vol. iii. p. 353 [Oxford, 1841].
3 See 2 Kings ii. 20, 21. 3 See Heb. x. 16.
4 Responses after the Commandments in the Communion Service.
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impressions still, only intensified a hundredfold ; but it cannot act, because it has lost the instrument of activity ; God's praise cannot be sung without a mouth, nor His errands carried without feet, nor His work executed without hands.
" That through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul ; " — the very echo this of St. Paul's prayer for his Thessalonian converts, which we recently cited ; " I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The literal trans- lation of the original Latin is, " that by thy help, both here and ever, we may attain to health and salvation." Our rendering is at once free and accurate, " that we may be preserved in body " (there is the " health " of the original Latin) " and soul " (there is the " salvation "). By the words " health and salvation " our thoughts are carried at once to that solemn benediction in the Visita- tion Service, in which the two words are combined, " The Almighty Lord . . . make thee know and feel that there is none other name under heaven given to man, in whom, and through whom, thou mayest receive health and salvation, but only the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." The reference is to St. Peter's apology for the restoration of the cripple at the Beautiful gate to the use of his limbs, in the course of which the same Greek word1 is translated, " made whole," as applied to the bodily cure, and " saved," as applied to the moral and spiritual restora- tion, effected by the power of Christ. The truth is that
1 Ei Tiixeis a-rjptpov 6.va.Kpivbp.e9a M evepyealtf. bvdpdnrov icrdevoCs, ii> rlvt outos <ri<ru<frai
otfre yip 6vopd iarw irepov inrb rbv oipavbv rb beboptvov iv avdpunrois, iv v Sel audrjvai iipas. — Acts iv. 9, 12.
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there is a far more intimate connexion than we are willing to allow, as between the body and soul of man, so be- tween the restoration of the two ; and that the restoration of the soul to spiritual soundness, which is and must be accomplished " here," is a pledge and instalment of that bodily recovery, which awaits God's true people when they awake up after God's likeness,1 and are clothed upon with " the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,"2 " that mortality may be swallowed up of life."3 Our Saviour's miracles, which were chiefly miracles of healing, and His commission to the Apostles " to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick,"4 are indications of this connexion to the thoughtful mind.
! See Fa. xvii. 15. * See 2 Cor. v. 1, 4. 3 See 2 Cor. t. 4. * Sue St. Luke ix. 2.
Chapter IV.
THE THIRD COLLECT AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE.
®rant, toe ItejteecT) tbee, Elmigbtj ©on, tbat tbe toorDS, tobtcb toe babe bearu tTjis Dap tottb out outtoarD ears, map tbrougb tbp grace be so graften intoamlj in our Tjearts, tbat tfjep mag bring forrb in us tbe fruit of goon lining, to tbe bonout ann praise of tbj> J0ame, tbtougb 3IeSuS Christ our ILorD. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
This is a new Collect drawn up by our Reformers. It made its earliest appearance in King Edward's First Prayer Book in 1549.1 It was the great glory of the Reformation that it opened the volume of the Holy Scriptures freely to the laity, and made the oracles of God common property. These Scriptures were for all to read, and for all to hear. They were to be studied in the closet ; they, and the expositions of them given by those who had received authority to preach the word of God, were to be listened to in the Church. Now, as regards these exercises of reading and hearing the word of God, there was an hiatus in the ancient Collects. Little or no reference was found in them to the study of the Scrip- tures, partly because, before the invention of printing, the study was necessarily limited to so very few, and partly
1 It has received no alteration since 1549, unless it can be called an alteration that in two editions of 1596 (as indeed in two of the editions put forth in 1549), the participle "grafted" is printed in its shorter form "graft" (i.e. "graffed," as in Rom. xi. 23, 24).
Third Collect at End of Communion Service. 4 1 5
because the clergy before the Eeformation showed a tend- ency to monopolize the Holy Scriptures, and to let them be known only by such extracts as formed part of the Church Services ; — it was thought injudicious to throw them open, and invite all the world to search them daily. Our Reformers, therefore, had to address themselves to the task of composing new Collects for the right study of the word of God, and for the right hearing of it when read or preached; and nobly have they done their work, and filled the gap which they found in the ancient Offices. The Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent is for a right use of the text of the Holy Scriptures, for grace to read them devoutly and thoughtfully in our closet, and to listen to them devoutly and thoughtfully, when read, either in the services of the Church, or privately, as by some master of a family at Family Prayer, or by some district visitor to those who cannot themselves read. The present Collect is of a rather different scope. Its principal reference is to preaching — that exercise to which the Eeformation gave such prominence, and by which, indeed, the Reformation was brought about; although it does not exclude, but rather distinctly embraces, the Epistle and Gospel, and other Scriptures, which in tbe course of the Church Service have been read in our ears ; both will equally fall under the category of " words which we have heard this day with our outward ears."
" Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the words which we have heard this day with our out- ward ears." The expression " outward ears " is not found in Holy Scripture in so many words ; but it is very significant, and its equivalent is found there. " Let these sayings sink down into your ears," 1 said our Lord to His
1 §t. I^uke ix. 44,
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disciples respecting those predictions of His sufferings and death, which it behoved them so much to lay to heart, lest they should be staggered when the events came to pass. "Lodge them in your ears;" as much as if He would say, " Be not forgetful hearers j1 lay them up in your memories." In the Latin tongue there are two words for hearing, one which denotes the mere reception of sounds into the ear — physical hearing ;2 the other, which signifies a mental act of attention 3 going along with the reception of the sounds — in short, listening to, as well as hearing. A noise or inarticulate sound is merely heard ; but a direction given by the voice (like an order from a captain of a vessel, which the sailors immediately execute) is not heard only but attended to. Something, however, beyond and deeper even than attention, is necessary in order to receive the word of God aright. We receive it not with the mind, but with the heart. And it is, if I may so express it, the object and rationale of the ordinance of preaching to turn God's word into His voice, to bring out in such clear and articulate accents as may reach the sinner's inward ear, and resound in his heart and conscience, those notes of warning, of consolation, of hope, which Lie mute on the pages of Holy Scripture, Like the notes of a harpsichord before the musician strikes it.
" May through thy grace be so grafted inwardly in our hearts." An ancient prayer, in a quite similar vein of thought, and very illustrative of this, is found in the Marriage Service. It is offered for the newly married persons, and is a petition for their spiritual fruitfulness, preceding the prayer for the gift of offspring ; " 0 God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, bless these thy servants, and sow the seed of eternal life in their hearts ;
1 See James i. 25. 2 Audio. 3 Ausculto
The Communion Service. 417
that whatsoever in thy holy Word they shall profitably learn, they may indeed fulfil the same,"1 Here the phraseology adopted is that of the parable of the Sower ; " The seed is the word of God."2 And we are reminded of the whole teaching of that marvellous parable, how the " honest and good heart," which alone will keep the word sown upon it, and bring forth fruit with patience, is a soft and contrite heart, as contrasted with one ren- dered callous by the passage over it of worldly thoughts ; a deep heart, as contrasted with a shallow one, in which impressions are vivid but evanescent ; and a heart cleared by weeding of those " cares and riches and pleasures of this life," which would choke the word and make it unfruitful. If our hearts have not these qualifications, it is in vain for us to submit them to the action of God's word read and preached, just as it would be vain to scatter seed upon the wayside, or on a thin coating of mould overlaying a rock,3 or on ground uncleared of thorns
1 The prayer is from the Sarum Manual, and is given by Sir W. Palmer, Origines Liturgicce, voL ii. p. 216 [Oxford, 1836] : " Deus Abra- ham, Deus Isaac, Deus Jacob, benedic adolescentes istos, et semina semen vitae aeternsB in mentibus eonun, ut quicquid pro utilitate sua didicerint, hoc facere cupiant, per," etc. The translator has judiciously varied from the original in substituting " hearts " for " minds," and still more in turn- ing " may desire to do the same " into the stronger expression " may fulfil the same." Dean Comber's observation on the relation between this and the following prayer is ; " Before you pray for the birth of others to live in this mortal life, take heed to obey God's word, and pray for His blessing on the instructions thereof, that you yourselves may be born again to live the life of glory " (1 Pet. i. 23). — Companion to the Temple, vol. iv. p. 1 38 [Oxford, 1841].
2 St. Luke viii. 11. '0 airbpos iarlv d \6yos rod Qtov. And St. Peter adopts the same phraseology (1 Peter i. 23), " Being born again, not of cor- ruptible seed " (o5/c Ik airopas (pOapriji), but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever."
3 "Some fell upon a rock" (St. Luke viii. 6), showing that the tA ■n-erpwST) of St. Matt. xiii. 5, 20 (erroneously rendered " stony places ") are
VOL. II, 2 E
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and weeds. And how necessary, therefore, it is, both for readers and hearers, to pray, before reading or listening, that the moral soil in them may be brought into a state of receptivity, and be made good ground, such as will foster the seed and bring it to perfection ! — The imagery of our Collect, however, is borrowed not from sowing, but from the cognate process of planting; and hence it is probable that the passage which the writer had in his mind, and on which the Collect is designedly built, was that in the Epistle of St. James ; " Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls."1 We have the image of planting also in St. Paul's Epistles ; " I have planted, Apollos watered ; but God gave the increase,"2 where we may understand by the thing planted the doctrine of the Gospel. And the asser- tion in this last passage, that it is God that giveth the increase, admirably illustrates the Collect, in which God is besought, " through" His " grace," to give " the fruit of good living." According to this arrangement of the image, our Lord Jesus Christ, in His own person while on earth, but now, with and in the commissioned ministers of His Church, is the Sower or Planter ; the words spoken to the outward ear are the plant ; the heart is the soil, in which the plant is planted ; and the grace of God the Father, the
not places were there are stones on the surface soil, which would not inter- fere with the healthy growth of the seed, but a rocky soil covered with sparse and shallow earth.
1 t'ov i/j.<pvrov \6yov (James i. 21). "E/upuros means innate, inborn, and (as regards a vegetable) implanted, rooted in the earth. The verb tfj.<puu is to grow upon, to be rooted in (thus ; h 8' &pa ol 4>v x€lPK she clung to his hand, as if her hand were rooted in his). As for grafting proper — that is, the insertion of a slip cut from one tree into the stock of another — the Greek word for it (which is used in Rom. xi. 23, 24) is ttKcmpLfa.
2 1 Cor. iii. 6.
The Communion Service. 419
heavenly Husbandman,1 is the dew and rain, which descends upon the soil and makes it fruitful. All the ministerial labour in the world, however faithful, however diligent, could no more make a single heart to blossom with a single holy desire and good counsel — much less to bring forth fruit in a single good work — than all the agricultural labour in the world, however skilful and industrious, could make a blade of grass to grow a single inch. And yet without the sowing and planting there could be no harvest. Man's endeavour must concur with God's grace to produce the effect. The words must be spoken to the outward ear ; but it is only " through thy grace " that they can be grafted inwardly in the heart.
" That they may bring forth in us the fruit of good living." The passage of St. James is still in the writer's view, in which, after speaking of receiving the engrafted word with meekness, he adds that pregnant warning; " But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, de- ceiving your own selves."2 " Be ye doers oi it;" there must be something more than the " holy desire," which is the blade, and the " good counsel " (or resolve), which is the blossom ; there must be the " just work," which is the fruit, the full corn in the ear, the realised result. St. Paul is as strong as St. James in insisting upon the neces- sity of realised results, that is, on works, as distinct from: and as the evidence of, sentiments ; " That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work ;" 3 "I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works ;" * That he might redeem us from
1 See St. John xv. 1. 3 James i. 22. 3 Col. i. 10. " Tit. iii. 8.
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all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."1
" To the honour and praise of thy name." Here comes into the thought of the writer another passage of St. Paul ; " Being filled with the fruits of righteousness "2 (the reading of the greater number of MSS. is " fruit ;" compare " The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace"),3 " which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God," — the " glory " of God being His intrinsic excellence, the beauty and blessedness of His character as it is in itself ; His " praise " being the acknowledgment of that excellence by His rational creatures, angels and men. St. Paul in these words merely echoes what our Lord had said in connexion with His allegory of the Vine ; " Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit " (that ye be " filled with the fruits of righteousness"), " so shall ye be my disciples;"4 so shall ye become in deed and in truth disciples of Him, who, by the labours of His life and the expiation of His death, brought a rich harvest of human souls to God, and made the whole earth to resound with His praises. Let us illustrate the subject by a parable. There was in a certain garden a degenerate vine, which brought forth only wild grapes, and upon which every kind of cultivation was tried by way of improving its yield, but in vain. At length a husbandman of great skill, having planted and reared a vine of exactly the same species as this vine belonged to before its degeneracy commenced, cut slips from the degenerate vine, and in- serted them by grafting into the stem of the new vine. The plan was crowned with complete success. The grafts took, and in the season brought forth an abundant crop
1 Tit ii. 13, 14. 2 Philip. L 11. 3 Gal v. 22.
4 St. John xv. 8.
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of the richest grapes, which were the admiration and praise of all beholders. God is the skilful husbandman, who by grafting into the new humanity of the Son of His love, slips taken from the old Adam, that is from corrupt human nature, causes these slips, by the discipline of His providence and grace, to bring forth much fruit of righteousness, fruit in the tempers of the heart and in the conduct of the life. And in this great show of fruit is the heavenly Husbandman glorified. The fruit is " to the honour and praise of His name." The light of Christian example so shines before men, that they, seeing the good works of Christ's disciples, glorify their Father which is in heaven.1
1 See St. Matt v. 16.
Chapter V.
THE FOURTH COLLECT AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE.
present us, flD Horn, in all out HoinctS toith top most gtactous fatiout, anil futtfjet us tuitl) tfjp continual Ijdp ; ttja t in all out toorfcs begun, continues, anB enoeD in tfiee, toe map pjlortfp top tjolp J13ame, ann finallp hp tfjp metcp obtain ebetlastinp; life ; tfitougfj 31. <£. out JLotD. Amen.
9cttones nosttas, quaesumus, Domine, et aspttanoo ptaeoeni, et aojuDanno ptosequete : ut cuncta nostra operatic a te Semper in ca- piat, et pet te coepta finiatitt. Pet Dominum. — Greg. Sac. — Miss Sar.
This Collect traces back to the Sacramentary of Gregory, where it is found as a Prayer to be said on the Ember Saturday in Lent, that is, on the day preceding the Spring Ordination, a place which it retains in the Missal of Sarum. But in that Missal it is found also in a more general connexion. It there stands as the last prayer in the Canon1 of the Mass, and is appointed to be said
1 " The word Canon is used in the service of the Roman Church to signify that part of the Communion Service, or the Mass, which follows immediately after the Sanctus and Hosanna ; corresponding to that part of our Service, which begins at the prayer, ' We do not presume, ' etc. It is so called as being the fixed rule of the Liturgy, which is never altered. Properly speaking, the Canon ends before the Lord's Prayer, which is recited aloud ; the Canon being said in a low voice." [Dean Hook's " Church Dictionary," s.v.] The word Canon is, however, used in a more extended sense. In the Missal of Sarum, under the heading Canon comes
Fourth Collect at End of Communion Service. 423
by the Priest in the Sacristy, when he has finished the office, and has taken off the vestments of the Mass. Now it appears that our Eeformers, in assigning a place to this Collect in the Beformed Book of Common Prayer, had a regard to the arrangements which they found already in existence. In all the three Ordination Services, that for the making of Deacons, the ordering of Priests, and the consecration of Bishops, this Collect is the last prayer, and immediately precedes the Benediction. Our Eeformers therefore thought it well to retain its original connexion with the rite of Ordination. But they have retained its connexion also with the Communion Service. For here it is appended to the end of the Com- munion Service, as one of the Collects appointed " to be said after the Offertory, when there is no Communion." This is worth observing, because it shows the reverent regard with which the Eeformers treated the arrangements of the old Service Books, and the associations which had gathered round the old prayers, even when the purity of the Church's worship demanded that they should apply the pruning knife unsparingly to all superstitious and unprimitive excrescences. We will not then lose sight of these associations in expounding the prayer.
" Prevent us, 0 Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour." It need hardly be said that the word " prevent " has not here the meaning which it so often has in modern usage, that it means the very opposite of " hinder." The word is found again in the Easter Collect,
the communion of the priest, the rinsing of the vessels, his retirement to the sacristy, and the devotions with which the service is there concluded. The final prayer is this " Prevent us, 0 Lord." The word Canon is used in the Communion Service of King Edward's First Book (1549).
424 The Fourth Collect at the End of
a comparison of which with that now before us wil] illustrate both prayers ; " We humbly beseech thee that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires." Just as we are told in Genesis that God " made every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the*neld before it grew,"1 just as the herbs of the field were not indigenous in the field, so good desires are not indigenous in the mind ; they are not found there before God puts them there ; they come " by " His " special grace preventing " (or anticipating) us. We pray therefore, in the Collect before us, that He would " prevent " (or anticipate) " us in all our doings with " His " most gracious favour," — words which, when we come to examine them, are seen to be equivalent to " with thy special grace." The words " with thy favour " are a free, and yet an accurate, rendering of the original Collect. The more literal translation would be " Prevent our actions, 0 Lord, by breathing upon us." Now, to breathe upon a vessel, which is just spreading her sails for a voyage, is to favour her ; we speak in such cases of a favourable gale springing up and propelling the vessel on her course. Thus it is that the Latin word for " breathing upon" comes to have a derivative sense of favouring, prospering, second- ing, smiling on. — The " most gracious favour," however, here spoken of must not be regarded simply as the smile of God resting externally on our undertakings, but rather as His " special grace," prompting and inspiring them within our hearts. It will be remembered that when our Lord on the Eesurrection Day met His disciples, and communicated to them, as if in anticipation of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost, and with it the power of remitting and retaining sins,2 He " breathed on them " as an outward
1 Gen. ii. 5. a See St. John xx. 22, 23.
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visible sign of the grace which was then bestowed. May we not say that the favour of God is never mere favour, — that it is never inoperative, never ineffective ; that, when it is bestowed upon any soul, it always quickens it ; that, inasmuch as " God is a spirit," 1 His favour always shows itself in a spiritual form, is, in short, " special grace " ? God's smile in outward nature, which is the sunshine, is never inoperative ; it always quickens the animal and vegetable worlds. And similarly His smile upon the heart always quickens there " holy desires, and good counsels." — Before we pass to another clause, we may observe that the narrative of our Lord's breathing upon His disciples stands in immediate connexion with His gift to them of ministerial powers. The words " Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost. . . . Whosesoever sins ye remit," which were pre- ceded by breathing on them, are the words which have been used in connexion with Ordination from a very early period, and by which, in our own Church, Priest's Orders are even now conferred. And we have seen that this prayer is in its special use an Ordination Prayer ; a prayer for those who are entering upon that weightiest of all undertakings, the Christian Ministry. How appropriate that they should pray, and that we should pray for them, that the breath of the Eisen Saviour may fill and animate their great enterprise, so that they may fulfil their office " to the glory of " God's " great Name, and the benefit of " His "holy Church."2 And, in reference to the more general connexion of this prayer with the Holy Com- munion, we may perhaps find an appropriateness in the circumstance of the priest's repeating it, as we have seen he used to do, at the close of every Mass. The ministra-
1 St. John iv. 24. ,J See the Second Prayer to be said in the Ember Weeks.
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tion of the Sacraments was one great branch of his work ; and each Eucharist marked, as it were, another stage of it ; and therefore, after each Eucharist he reminded himself once again of the undertaking at his Ordination, by saying again the prayer which was originally said in view of that undertaking.
"And further us with thy continual help." The words of the Tenth Article are the best comment upon this ; " We have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and work- ing with us, when we have that good will." When the candidates for the Priesthood, in the service for the Order- ing of Priests, have publicly professed their " minds and wills" to fulfil the several obligations of their ministry, the Bishop is directed to pray for them thus ; " Almighty God, who hath given you this will to do all these things ; grant also unto you strength and power to perform the same; that he may accomplish his work which he hath begun in you ; through Jesus Christ our Lord." So that, even here, the great enterprise of the Ministry is not quite lost sight of. The words, however, have, of course, a perfectly general as well as a special reference. The cir- cumstance of God's having forestalled or anticipated us, by breathing good counsels into our hearts, and putting good desires into our minds, is a ground for trusting that He will " further us with His help" in bringing the same to good effect ; according to that word of St. Paul's, " Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." 1 If His counsel has directed us, He will not fail to further us with His assistance so long as
1 Philip, i. 6.
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we look to Him for such assistance, and do not trust to ourselves, or to the energy and fervour of our first start to carry us through to the end.
" That in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee ;" literally, " that our every work may ever begin" (take its rise) " from thee, and being begun, may through thee be brought to a conclusion." Our translators repre- sent both the from and the through by the preposition in; and they have done well in making express mention of the continuance of the work, as well as of its beginning and close ; for surely we are more apt to give attention to the beginnings and endings of our works than to their progress ; we mark the beginning and the close of our day with prayer, but are by no means so ready to carry the spirit of prayer with us throughout the day, and to intersperse our actions with holy ejaculations. Therefore the word " continued" is a very valuable enrichment of the ideas of the old Latin Collect; and we are indebted to our Reformers for it. — But let us pause for a moment upon the preposition " in" which embraces, as we have seen, the "from" and the "through" of the original Latin prayer. What is the meaning of beginning, con- tinuing, and ending an action in God ? " In him," it is said of our natural lives, " we live, and move, and have our being;"1 — "in Him," as in an atmosphere, the con- tinuous inhalations and exhalations of which are neces- sary to our existence. And much more is God the spiritual and moral atmosphere, by which the immortal part of us, the soul and spirit, is maintained in Life. He who by faith draws God into his heart, and goes out towards God in constant prayer, which is the utterance of faith, dwells in God and God in him ; and therefore
1 Acts xvii. 28
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St. John speaks of the life of faith, which is a life of re- ception, and the life of love, which is a life of aspiration, as being life in God ; " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."1 To do works in God, then, is to do them in faith, and in the acknowledg- ment of His love ; it is the same thing, for every true believer, as the doing them in His presence and under His eye. For a true believer, when reminded of God's presence, cannot but embrace Him internally, and go forth towards Him by a devout ejaculation of the heart. It would be a happy, peaceful way of doing our work, if we could do it with these recollections, with these eja- culations. Thus would be fulfilled to the Christian soul that precious promise made to Moses in his pilgrimage through the desert ; " My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest."2
" That we may glorify thy holy Name." This latter part of the Collect is entirely wanting in the original. It is an addition made by the Reformers, and a very significant and e(iifying one. Dean Comber entitles the Collect " A Prayer for success in all our actions." But it should be explained that the success petitioned for is not worldly success, but success of the highest pos- sible kind — the end solicited, as that at which the action is aimed, and which it is desired to achieve by it, is " the glory of God's holy Name." In a worldly sense, the undertaking might be an utter failure, and yet, if it should have contributed in any measure to God's glory, the prayer would have been answered. But it is hypocrisy
1 1 John iv. 15, 16. 2 Exod. xxxiii. 14.
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to pray that God's glory may be promoted by our actions, unless we aim them at His glory, — sincerely intend them for that end. Here, then, it is insinuated, that our daily work must be done for, as well as in, God ; that it must be directed towards Him, as well as done under His eye. Happy, thrice happy, is he who has consecrated his actions by such recollections of God and such an aim. Yet, forasmuch as these recollections are not as constant, and this aim not so single, as they ought to be, and as God's law and holiness demand that they shall be, he cannot stand before God on the ground of his doings, but simply and solely on the ground of God's mercy in Christ And therefore the last clause of the prayer is framed with great adroitness to exclude the idea of human merit, even in those who have wrought their works in and for God, and to remind us that, whatever attainments we may have made in the divine life, our salvation is due, from first to last, to grace. Though God's holy name may have been glorified by us in our actions, it is only " by " His " mercy" that any of us can " obtain everlasting life."
Chapter VI.
THE FIFTH COLLECT AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE.
ainrfjjbtp ©on, tbe fountain of all toisoom, tobo knottiest our necessi* ties before toe ask, anD out ignorance in asking ; Wit beseecb tbee to babe compassion upon out infirmities ; anD tbose tbmtrs, tobicb for our untoortbiness toe Bare not, anD for our blinDneSS toe cannot ask, boucbsafe to gibe us, for tbe toortbiness of tbp %on 3U*us CbttSt our LorD. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
This admirable prayer made its first appearance in 1549, and is due to Cranmer and the Committee associated with him in the Revision of the old Latin Offices, and the adaptation of them to the use of the Reformed Church. It is well entitled by Dean Comber, " A Prayer to supply the Defects of our other Devotions f1 for it points out the sources from which those defects arise, and the quarter to which we must look to supply them But it will be well, before entering on our exposition, to draw atten- tion to the fact that our devotions are and must be very defective. Let it be assumed that, in public worship, we use a liturgy like our own, the heritage of ages of piety, and enriched, too, with the experience of more modern times ; a liturgy, on the structure and composi- tion of which minds of great literary power, as well as of fervent piety, have been brought to bear ; and also that in
1 " Companion to the Temple," vol. iii. p. 355 [Oxford : 1841].
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stated private prayer, though the expression may be left to the moment, we carefully arrange and methodize our thoughts, and observe the principle laid down by the wise man for our approaches to God, " Before thou prayest, pre- pare thyself;"1 " Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God : for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth ; therefore let thy words be few."2 Even with these conditions and pre- cautions, our prayers need supplementing and correcting ; they omit, or specify but scantily, some things supremely desirable ; solicit (it may be) what would be undesirable ; are sometimes short-sighted, sometimes presumptuous. And it is from a deep, instinctive feeling of this defec- tiveness that the Church has scrupulously embodied in her every Office the Lord's Prayer, and has sometimes directed it (as at Morning and Evening Prayer) to be more than once said, and that in all acts of stated prayer, public and private, it has been customary for Christians to recite it. For the Lord's Prayer is not only a model of prayer, which therefore we should always have before us when we pray, that we may frame our petitions accord- ing to the tenor of it, but also a perfect form, comprising all that we can want or wish for to make us holy here and happy hereafter ; and therefore, by offering it intelli- gently, we let nothing escape us for which we ought to pray.
" Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom." The expression " fountain" of wisdom," as applied to God, is not found in so many words in Scripture ; but it is none the less Scriptural ; and one is glad to find the Reformers doing what the older Collect writers did — expressing
1 Ecclus. xviii. 23. 3 Eccl. v. 2.
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themselves independently of Scriptural phrase, and care- ful only that the idea shall be Scriptural. " If any of you lack wisdom/' says St. J ames, " let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him."1 And, as an example of this liberal giving, we have the Lord's dealing with Solomon, whose mind, when he asked for " an understanding heart to judge" the "people, that" he might, "discern between good and bad,"2 was flooded with an inundation of wisdom by Him who is the fountain thereof. For we read that " God gave" him " wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea-shore," and that " he was wiser than all men," and that "there came of all people to hear the wis- dom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom."3 — But connecting this first clause with what follows it, and with the petition which is founded upon it, we see that the wisdom here princi- pally intended is a knowledge of man's necessities. And a knowledge of man's necessities presumes an insight into his heart. For his necessities are not only, and not chiefly, those of an animal, but those of a moral and spiritual being. He wants not food and raiment merely, but (even more urgently) forgiveness, and strength, and moral guidance, and moral discipline. And if, in one way more than another, we are apt to go wrong in our prayers, it is by subordinating the higher wants of our nature to the lower. The necessities of the body make themselves known to us through our senses. But the higher necessities of the soul are " naked and opened unto the eyes of him,"4 who is " the fountain of wisdom," and
1 James i. 5. * 1 Kings iii. 9. 3 1 Kings iv. 29, 31, 34.
4 See Heb. iv. 13.
<
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only known to us, so far as He communicates to us of His wisdom.
" Who knowest our necessities before we ask." The words are those of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount ; " Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."1 And it will be found that He uses them there in two distinct connexions, first, as an argument against " vain repetitions" in prayer, and then as an argument against anxieties. God does not need to be informed of our wants ; therefore there is no call for any but few and simple words in prayer. And, again, there is no call for solicitude about bodily necessities, since He who knows our wants will supply them, if we are sincerely bent upon His service. "When, therefore, we call upon God as one who " knoweth our necessities before we ask," it is as if we threw ourselves upon Him with the avowal that we can never sufficiently represent to Him all we need, and with trust that His goodness will furnish us with all that His wisdom sees to be need- ful for us.
" And our ignorance in asking." It is obvious that, in asking for worldly good things, our ignorance might fatally mislead us. What we covet most might, as our Lord insinuates in His great prayer-precept in the Sermon on the Mount, prove to be " a stone,"2 a drawback and hindrance in running " the race that is set before us,"3 or even " a serpent," or " a scorpion," 4 something deadly to the soul, the venom of which would spread itself through our spiritual frame, and poison the life-blood of the higher life, even as the flesh, for which the Israelites craved,5 en-
1 St. Matt. vi. 8 ; and see also ver. 32.
2 See St. Matt. vii. 9, and St. Luke xi. 11.
8 See Heb. xii. 1. * See St. Matt. vii. 10, and St. Luke xi. 11, 12.
5 See Num. xi. 4, 31-35. VOL. II. 2 F
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tailed death upon hundreds of them, and brought " lean- ness" into the souls of all.1 But even as regards spirit- ual blessings, where the thing sued for cannot but be advantageous, it is only in exact proportion as we know our own spiritual state that we can direct our prayers aright. He that does not thoroughly krjow the evil of his own heart, cannot thoroughly know what spiritual blessings he has need to sue for. And although those who live under the discipline of God's Spirit, and in the practice of self-examination, know something of this evil, yet no one knows as much of it as he might ; and there- fore, even when the spiritual man is soliciting spiritual blessings, a certain amount of ignorance and blindness clouds his view of his own necessities.
" "We beseech thee to have compassion upon our in- firmities." The appeal is made to God the Father, as in that touching prayer of the Litany ; " We humbly beseech thee, 0 Father, mercifully to look upon our infirmities." And the words immediately recall to mind the assurance which the Heavenly Father Himself gives us by the mouth of the Psalmist — an assurance, be it observed, which stands in immediate connexion with the free and large removal of our transgressions from us ; " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For he knoweth our frame ; he remembereth that we are dust."2 Nor was this assurance a mere verbal one on God's part. He confirmed it, and gave us evidence of it by act, when, in the person of His Son, He took our nature upon Him, and placed Himself in our circum- stances, and was " in all points tempted like as we are." The Godman so constituted is, we are informed for our great consolation, an high priest who can "be touched
1 See Psalm lxxviii. 13-32, and cvi. 14, 15. • Psalm ciii. 13, 14.
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with the feeling of our infirmities ;"x and thus the com- passion of the Heavenly Father for the infirmities of His human creatures takes definite shape, as it were, in the humanity of His Son, and is guaranteed to us thereby. But does this compassion travel on in the train of the Godhead to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity? We are distinctly informed that it does ; and the diffi- culties under which the Holy Spirit is described as com- passionating and giving us aid, are the difficulties which beset our prayers ; " Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we know not what we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."2 Thus God the Father compassionates our infirmities as a Creator, who, while He made man in His own image,3 formed him at the same time of the dust of the ground.4 God the Son compassionates our infirmities, as One who has taken our nature upon Him and shared our circumstances. While God the Holy- Spirit brings down the Divine sympathy of the Father and the Son to the succour of the individual Christian, and makes it a reality in our experience by the internal assistance which He gives us in our prayers.
" And those things which, for our unworthiness, we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask." Our " blindness " (or " ignorance ") has been already mentioned as a source of the defectiveness of our prayers ; but here is another source, — " our unworthiness," the consciousness of which makes us backward to ask " great things," apt to put our requests at the lowest. " Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof," cried the humble centurion : " wherefore neither thought I myself
1 See Heb. iv. 15. 2 Rom. viii. 26. 3 See Gen. i. 26, 27.
4 See Gen. ii. 7.
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worthy to come unto thee."1 " I only ask, not for the great honour of a visit, but that Thy healing power may reach my poor servant from a distance." " Lord, I am not worthy to be with Thee in those royalties and glories to which Thou art hastening," thought the poor dying thief; " but do not forget me ; let me have but a place in thy memory in the future age, ' when thou comest into thy kingdom.' " 2 And both incidents show us how largely and liberally God responds to such an acknowledgment of unworthiness, how He does for the humble "exceeding abundantly, above all that they ask or think." 3 The cen- turion is rewarded, not only by the instantaneous cure of bis servant, but with a eulogy pronounced upon his faith by the lips of the good Physician.4 The thief is re- warded, not only by being remembered, but by being associated with his Lord, and that not In the remote future, but in the hour then impending ; " Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise."5
" Vouchsafe to give us for the worthiness of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." This is a beautiful finishing touch, completing the cycle of ideas through which the prayer has led our minds. There is justice, after all, in the plea which the penitent and humbled sinner, conscious of his own blindness and indesert, has to put forth with God. Christ, by His life of righteousness, hath earned the blessings for which he pleads, as by His death of expiation He hath averted the penalty which he depre- cates. And if he have " put on Christ"6 by faith, he may believe that God looks on him through the Son of His love, and sees in him no longer his own transgressions and shortcomings, but that Son's worthiness.
1 St. Luke vii. 6, 7. 1 8rav Afltft Iv rg jSaa-tXeJp oov=" when thou comest in" (not into) ' thy kingdom."— St. Luke xxiii. 42. 1 See Eph. iii. 20.
4 See St. Luke vii. 9, 10. 8 St. Luke xxlii. 43. 6 See Gal. iii. 27.
Chapter VII.
THE SIXTH COLLECT AT THE END OF THE COMMUNION SERVICE.
aimigbtp ©on, robo bast promtseB to bear tTje petitions of rtjem tbat ask in tbp %on's Jftame ; Wlz beseecb tbee mercifully to incline tbine eats to us ttjat babe mane note out prayers ano supplications unto tljee 3 ano grant, tTjat tboSe things, tobicb toe babe faitbfully asfcen accorbing to tby toill, map effectually be obtaineo, to tbe relief of our necessity, anD to tbe setting fortb of tby glory ; tbtougb 31esus Cbrist out JLoro. Amen. [a.d. 1549.]
This Collect, like the last, made its first appearance in 1549,1 and is due to Cranmer and the Commissioners associated with him in the adaptation of the old Offices to the use of the Reformed Church. It is evidently designed as a concluding prayer, since it asks for God's acceptance of those " prayers and supplications " which we have " made now unto " Him ; and thus it gives a roundness and logical finish to the Communion Service, at the end of which it stands, or to any series of prayers after which it may be recited. He who drew it up must have drunk deep into the spirit of the early Collect-writers, for, in a very short compass, it embraces all the conditions of suc- cessful prayer, both those which connect themselves with the character of the petitioner, and with the nature of the
1 It has received no alterations since its first composition, with the exception of the substitution of " who " for "which " at the last Review, and the addition of "Amen " in Edward's Second Book (1552).
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petition. Indeed, it is a little homily on prayer; the spirit in which it should he offered, and the results which may he expected from it
" Almighty God, who hast promised to hear the peti- tions of them that ask in thy Son's Name."
The reference, of course, is to certain words of our Lord in His parting discourses with His disciples, the discourses which culminated in the great High-priestly prayer recorded in St. John xvii. ; " Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." 1 . . . " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may he glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." 2 The asking in the Son's name implies something much deeper, and entering much more into the texture of the character, than we are apt to imagine. To close each prayer with the formula " through Jesus Christ our Lord," as we must do, if we use the Church prayers, is not to ask in the name of the Son. To understand that our prayers can only he listened to, and we ourselves only accepted, for Christ's sake, and to give an intelligent assent to this doctrine as a certain religious truth, this is not to ask in the name of the Son. The promises cited ahove must be taken in connexion with that other promise in the same series of discourses ; " If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." 3 We must abide in Christ as the vine branch in the vine, by continued exercises of the same faith which first brought us consciously into the adoption of sons,4 and His words
1 St. John xvi. 23. 3 St. John xiv. 13, 14.
3 St. John xv. 7. 4 See Ga]. iii. 26, and iv. 5.
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must abide in us — be lodged in our memories, cherished in our hearts, exert a practical influence over our wills, before we are entitled to lay claim to the high promise, " Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." To ask in His Name involves the being in Him, the receiving Him by faith into the heart and affections, and by loving submission into the conscience and will. And this is a very high spiritual attainment.
" We beseech thee mercifully to incline thine ears to us, that have made now our prayers and supplications unto thee."
Mark the word " supplications." It is no vain repe- tition,— no idle word, thrust in to make the clause rhyth- mical to the ear, but adding nothing to the sense. A supplication is an earnest prayer, a prayer urged with instancy and fervour, and in the depth of distress. When, after the great defeat of the Syrians in Aphek,1 the ser- vants of the humiliated Ben-hadad came to Ahab with sackcloth on their loins and ropes upon their heads, to entreat for the life of their master, this was a supplica- tion ; they came in the character of suppliants, humbled, prostrate, but bent upon gaining their object by their im- portunity. Our Litany is rightly called not a prayer, but a " General Supplication," on account of the intensity and fervour of its petitions, as well as the deep humiliation and prostration of heart which it contemplates in the petitioners. It is implied then, by the use of this word in this connexion, that if our prayer is to be successful, it must be importunate and persevering ; that it must not be a mere lazy wish, flitting like a summer cloud over the surface of the soul, but must gather into itself all the force of the will and character, — that it must be (to adopt the
1 See 1 Kings xx. 31, 32.
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Saviour's own words) 1 not only an asking but a seeking, as the woman sought her lost coin with solicitude and earnestness ; 2 not a seeking only, but a knocking at Heaven's gate, until He that is within answers; as the friend at midnight knocked until he roused his slumbering neighbour.3 If we would prevail with God, as Jacob did, we must address ourselves to the task in something of Jacob's spirit ; " I will not let thee go except thou bless me." 4
" And grant that those things which we have faithfully asked." Here is a third condition of successful prayer. Prayer is a remedy for our necessities and distresses, in which we must place faith while we use it. " What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." 5 These words of Christ also must be accepted with the qualifications and limita- tions, which other words of His or His Apostles impose upon them. The thing desired and prayed for must be in accordance with God's will,6 which might be by no means the case, if the relief or blessing sought were of a worldly, temporal, or outward character. It must be for our own highest welfare that we should receive it, otherwise our Heavenly Father, who answers prayers in wisdom as well as in love, will withhold it from us, as human parents would withhold from a child any bright object, towards which it might stretch out its tiny hands, — the pebble glistening with sea- water, or the glittering snake that coils itself into graceful folds in the menagerie.7 It must also be useful for others who, in God's system of moral govern-
1 See St. Luke xi. 9. 2 See St. Luke xv. 8.
8 See St. Luke xi. 5, 6, 7. 4 Gen. xxxii. 26, 28.
8 St. Mark xi. 24. 6 See 1 John v. 14.
7 See St. Luke xi. 11, 12, 13.
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ment, are connected with us, that our hearts' desire should be granted us ; for God has to consult for others, as well as for ourselves, in the answers which He gives us. Moses cannot be allowed to see the Promised Land, earnestly as he sues for it,1 nor David to win his child's life, though he beseeches God for the child, and fasts, and lies all night upon the earth,2 because, in both cases, God's moral govern- ment requires that sin shall be made an example of. But, under these and similar limitations, we are bound to believe that God will give us what we ask, or rather that He does give it us, that we carry it away from Him then and there — " If we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." 3 And this condition of success in prayer con- nects itself with the preceding. For it is only in the strength of the persuasion that he will eventually obtain what he asks, that any man can be importunate and fer- vent with God. If he loses belief in prayer's efficacy, that loss of belief paralyses his efforts, cuts the nerve of prayer altogether.
" According to thy will." Here is a condition of suc- cessful prayer connected, not with the character of the petitioner, but with the nature of the thing asked. The thing asked must be according to the will of God. " This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us." Generally speaking, we may freely and without reservation seek for spiritual blessings, such as repentance, faith, love, and the power to resist temptation, because these it must be good for us to have, and therefore it must be according to God's will that we should have them. He gave His Son
1 See Deut. iii. 25, 26. 3 See 2 Sam. xiL 16. s 1 John v. 15.
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to taste death for every man ;l and therefore it cannot hut he according to His will that every man should be saved, and should possess those dispositions of mind which con- tribute to and constitute salvation. And yet even a petition of a spiritual character may be blindly offered ; if we could see what was involved in the co-anting of it, we might shrink back from preferring it. In their aspiring petition to sit, the one on the right hand, and the other on the left hand of Christ in His kingdom,2 St. James and St. John showed that they knew not what they asked. They little thought that the sitting in those high places involved the drinking of a cup of agony, and the submitting to a baptism of fire. The safe and sure rule is to let the keynote of submission to God's will be heard in all our petitions, to ask freely and definitely for whatever we conceive to be advantageous, but to qualify even our strongest and most passionate longings with a spirit of acquiescence in a will infinitely more wise, more farsighted, more considerate of all the circumstances of the case, than our own. " Thy will be done," is to be re- garded not merely as an isolated petition of the Lord's Prayer. It is a keynote which rules the entire strain.
" May be effectually obtained, to the relief of our necessity." "What a protest have we in these words against the notion, which finds so much favour nowadays, that prayer has only a subjective value, that it effects nothing, alters nothing externally, is simply useful as exercising a soothing, healing, sanctifying influence on our own minds. On the contrary, what says our Collect ? We " obtain " things " effectually " thereby ; prayer brings " relief " to " our necessity." "Why should we doubt it ?
1 See St. John iii. 16, and Heb. ii. 9. 2 See St. Matt. xx. 20, 21, 22.
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How can we doubt it, if we believe in the existence of a God, — of a Being, that is, who imposed laws on nature, and works by means of and according to those laws, but yet is not bound by the laws which He Himself imposes, can dis- pense with them if He pleases, or, without dispensing with them, can bring stronger counteractive laws into opera- tion, which, so far as the result is concerned, amounts to the same thing ? A man within certain limits can use the laws of nature in such a manner as to help his friend (as, indeed, one cannot do any action, whether to help or injure others, without calling into play several natural laws) ; and shall we suppose that He, who gave nature her laws, and whose method of working is all that is meant by a law, cannot, if it so pleases Him, give relief by the use of His own machinery ? To deny that prayer can suspend, or direct the application of, the laws of nature, is merely another form of denying the personality and existence of God.
" And to the setting forth of thy glory." "Well and wisely does the Collect end by reminding us that God has an object in granting prayer, beyond the relieving of our necessities, and to which the relieving of our necessities immediately contributes — " the setting forth of " His "glory." God's glory is set forth, when we bless and praise him for the relief which we have experienced. When the lame man at the Beautiful gate of the temple was miraculously recovered from his lameness, he walked and leaped and praised God} And St. Paul thus points out the result of the relief experienced from almsgiving, a relief by no means miraculous, or confined to the earlier ages of the Church ; " The administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant 1 See Acts iii. 8.
444 Sixth Collect at End of Communion Service.
also by many thanksgivings unto God ; whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men." 1
And is not this reminder of thanksgiving, as being the appropriate result of relief experienced from the hand of God, wholesome and necessary ? For are not many reci- pients of God's bounty like the nine unthankful lepers in the Gospels ? Are there not many, " the filling of whose mouths is the stopping of their throats," 2 — many who cry, under the pressure of sickness and adversity, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us," 3 but as soon as they have experienced relief in answer to their prayers, are not found among those who return " to give glory to God " ?
1 2 Cor. ix. 12, 13. * Bishop Sanderson, quoted by Archbishop Trench, " Notes on the Miracles of our Lord," p. 332. [London, 1846.]
8 See St. Luke xvii. 12-19.
APPENDIX A.
Collects in the first Reformed Prayer Book of iJ4p, which were suppressed in 1552.
Chapter I.
THE COLLECT FOR THE FIRST COMMUNION ON CHRISTMAS DAY.
(Son, tofitch makegt wi glau toitlj the pearlp remembrance of trjc birth of thp onlp %on 31esu3 Christ : ©rant tljat as toe joyfully receibe him for our ftetieemer, 00 toe map toith sure confluence beholD him, tohen he ssTjall come ro be our JuOge, toho lisetf) ana reigneth, etc.
Deug, qui noss reBemptionis nog. trae annua ejrpectatione laettficasf, praegta, ur Qnigenitum tuum, quern reflemptorem laeti gusscipi* mua, benientem quoque juDicem gecuti btDeainug, iDominum nojs= trum Jeaum Christum, JFttium tuum ; 2Bui tecum.— Greg. Sac.1 — Miss. Sar.
In the English Church, before the Reformation, provision was made for three Masses in connexion with Christmas Day. In the Sarum Missal are found offices for a Mass at cock-crow (that is, shortly- after midnight), for another at the spring of dawn, and for a third in full day. A distinct train of thought in connexion with the Festival was brought before the mind by the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, used at each of these Masses. The midnight celebration commemorated our Lord's birth ; the mass at dawn His annuncia- tion to the shepherds ; that at midday His eternal Sonship. Our Reformers discarded all these three Collects, but retained that for the Vigil of Christmas, making it the Collect for the First
1 See Mur. Tom. ii. Col. 7. As given there, there is " suscepimus" for " suscijjimus," " Jesum Christum" is omitted, and " vivit, etc." is added aftei the " tecum."
446 Appendix A.
Communion on Christmas Day. It is truly a noble prayer, and runs thus : — " God, which makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of thy only Son Jesus Christ : grant that as we joyfully receive him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him, when he shall come to be our Judge, who liveth," etc.
For what reason this prayer was dropped in the Prayer Book of 1552, having appeared in that of 1549, it is not easy to say. Probably there was no better reason than that, a repetition of the Communion in the same day being considered objectionable, the Collect was dropped simply because it was not wanted. Looking at the matter from our present point of view, we can readily see that, at least in large cities, the number of people desiring to communicate on Christmas Day might make a second (or even a third) celebration extremely desirable, if not necessary. But our Reformers had to consider in all their arrangements the bias towards superstition and false doctrine, which long usage and old associations had given to the minds of men. The idea of the Holy Communion's being a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead clung fast to the Ordinance, and was in great measure connected with its frequent repetition, as, if the Communion were a true propitiatory sacrifice, it could not be too often repeated, since sin is constantly accruing. Hence, no doubt, they felt a necessity of making the Ordinance comparatively rare, not that the frequent celebration, under true views of the Sacrament, is anything but a high blessing and privilege, but by way of applying a strong cor- rective to false views. If a warped stick is to be made straight, it can only be by bending it in the other direction. This is the explanation and justification of our Reformers having dropped or altered many things in the old Offices, which, had they not had to deal with inveterate superstitions, they might profitably, and would probably, have retained.
Although the Collect for the First Communion on Christmas Day is not found in our present Book of Common Prayer, still, as it did appear in the first draught of the Prayer Book, and in tone and style is entirely of a piece with the other translations of ancient Collects which are found there, it may well receive consideration in an Appendix. And good devotional use may be made of it, both in private prayer and before sermons at Christmas-tide.
The first thing which challenges observation in this Collect is the variation from the original, which the translators have made in the first clause. That clause in the Missal of Sarum ran thus ;
Appendix A. 447
" God, which makest us glad with the yearly expectation of our redemption." For this Cranmer wrote, " with the yearly remem- brance of the birth of thy only Son Jesus Christ" These words are plainer and more easy to be understood than those for which they were substituted ; but we doubt whether they are so rich and full, and whether they equally well hang together with the prayer of the Collect. For let us consider the phrase, "which makest us glad with the yearly expectation of our redemption." It is doubtless designed to have two meanings, and to embrace the Second as well as the First Advent of Christ. In the first instance, we place our- selves, by an effort of the imagination, in the position of Simeon, Anna, and other devout Israelites, who, at the time of the Nativity, were " looking for redemption,"1 — " waiting for the consolation of Israel."2 Their expectation made them glad ; like faithful Abraham, they rejoiced to see Christ's Day,3 and saw it by faith before its arrival ; but, unlike Abraham, it was given them also to see it by sight, and thus God gave them before their end the consolation they waited for. Be it remembered that the prayer before us was originally the Collect for Christmas Eve — i.e., for the day preceding Christmas Day ; Christ had not yet arrived in the world, but the Saints were expecting His arrival. We make ourselves one with them in their anticipations of the Redeemer's first Advent, and speak of ourselves, therefore, as gladdened by the expectation of our redemption. But this is not the whole (nor indeed the principal) meaning of the clause. Complete and entire redemption was not effected by the first Advent of Christ ; cannot be effected until His second Advent " We our- selves," says St. Paul, "groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."* And observe that, in enumerating the stages of our salvation, the same Apostle puts redemption last, thus exhibiting it as the crown of sanctification ; " Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteous- ness, and sanctification, and redemption."5 This is no imagina- tive placing ourselves in the position of former believers ; the words, in this sense of them, are a literal matter-of-fact statement of our own position : we are living in expectation of the redemption which the Lord adverted to in those words ; " When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads ; for your redemption draweth nigh."6 This reference in the invocation to both the Advents of Christ makes the opening clause of the prayei
1 St. Luke ii. 38. 2 St. Luke ii. 25. 3 See St. John viii. 56.
* Rom. viii. 23. 8 1 Cor. i. 30. « St. Luke xxi. 28.
448
Appendix A.
quite harmonious with the body of it, in which distinct reference is made both to the first and second Advent.
" Grant that, as we joyfully receive Him," etc. The speaking of our being gladdened by the yearly expectation of redemption may be supposed to stir an ominous doubt in the heart of the petitioner, as to whether the second Advent of Christ would really give him joy. For, though that Advent will be to His saints a consummated redemption, yet will it be to the worldly and the sinner condemna- tion, and to all judgment according to works. We are thankful, or think we are, for the gracious aspects of Christ's mission, for the working out of a perfect righteousness in His life, for the propitia- tion for sin made by His death, for the consolatory record of His dealing with patients and penitents ; but how about the stern aspects of His work, which it appears will predominate at His second Advent 1 Are we prepared to meet Him, when He comes as Judge 1 Are we worthy, not only to escape the catastrophe which shall overtake the ungodly, but " to stand before the Son of Man "?l Let it not be thought that grave questionings of this kind ought to find no place in the renewed heart, — that they are suitable only for those who lack living faith, not for those who have really embraced the offers of the Gospel, and devoted themselves, with more or less of zeal, to the service of God. The Apostle of love himself has warned us that without perfect love, such as comes of dwelling in love, or abiding in Christ, we shall not have boldness or confidence in the day of judgment ; a want of boldness or confidence must characterize all love which is imperfect. " Herein " (tA, by dwelling in love) " is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment : because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear ; because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."3 " And now, little children, abide in him ; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming."3 In entire conformity with these texts, we are here taught to pray that, as we joyfully receive Christ for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold Him, when He shall come to be our Judge.
Behold Him we must ; for it is said that " every eye shall see him." 4 " Every eye." It will be a personal, not a mere public in-
1 See St. Luke xxi. 36. 8 1 St. John iv. 17, 18. 3 1 St. John ii. 2&
4 Rev. i. 7.
Appendix A.
449
terview ; an individual, not a general scrutiny. None will escape notice in a crowd ; all wall have to look Him full in the face, and to feel that His glance, whether of approval or displeasure, is concen- trated upon themselves. And the only method of passing that ordeal tvith sure confidence, or, as the original Latin of the Collect has it, without care (secun), is so to know and believe the love which God hath to us, as to have our whole nature sweetened by the apprehension of it, — sweetened towards God, with whom we must walk ever more closely in filial affection and intercourse, and sweetened also towards our fellow-men, to whom the heart must go forth in sentiments of sympathy, and the will in deeds of love. For we are distinctly warned, by the same Apostle of love, not only that " abiding in Christ " and " dwelling in love " are the secrets of " having confidence when he shall appear " 1 and of " boldness in the day of judgment,"2 but also that professions of love will not pass current for the practice of it ; " My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue ; but in deed and in truth : And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him,"3 — in other words, shall "with sure confidence behold him, when he shall come to be our Judge."
1 1 St. John ii. 28.
8 1 St. Tohn iv. 16, 17.
3 1 St. Jobii iii. 18, 19.
VOL. II.
2o
Chapter II.
THE COLLECT FOR ST. MARY MAGDALENE'S DAY (July 22).
©erctful .fattier, gibe us pace, that toe nebet presume to Sin through tlje erample of anp creature, but if it sball cbance us at anp time to offenu tftp bibine majestp, tbat then toe map trulp repent, ann lament tlje same, after tbe erample of Spatp Sgagoalene, ann bp Itbelp fattTi obtain remfssion of all our sins ; through the onlp merits of tbp Son our %abtour Christ. 1
In the first Prayer Book of the Reformed Church, that of 1549, there appeared two very interesting Collects, — one for the First Communion on Christmas Day, the other for St. Mary Magdalene's Day, — both of which were suppressed in the Prayer Book of 1552. The first of these Collects has been already discussed, and the second may now very properly be noticed in the present Appendix. It is, as we have already observed, somewhat hard to say why the Collect for the First Communion on Christmas Day should have been discarded, except that there was already another Collect for that day, and it was thought unnecessary to make provision for two Celebrations of the Holy Communion. But good reasons suggest themselves for dispensing with the Collect now before us, excellent and edifying as the doctrine of it is ; and it may not be altogether unprofitable, after briefly expounding the prayer, to consider what these reasons may have been.
" Merciful Father, give us grace tbat we may never presume to sin through the example of any creature." The Gospel, with which this Collect was associated in Edward's First Book, was the old Gospel of the Sarum Missal,1 being the account given in the 7th
1 St. Luke viL 36, to end. The Sarum Collect was objectionable for two reasons, first, as containing a wrong theory of justification, and, secondly (a ground of objection which it has in common with almost all the other pre- Reformation Collect") for Saints' Days), as asking for the intercession of the
Appendix A.
45 1
chapter of St. Luke of the " woman which was a sinner," who, as if to make up for the Pharisee's omission of the usual rites of hospitality, washed our Lord's " feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with oint- ment," and of whom our Lord said in acknowledgment of her much love, " Her sins, which are many, are forgiven : for she loved much." It was taken for granted, therefore, that St. Mary Magdalene was the same person with this " woman which was a sinner," and on that assumption the Collect is based. The implication of its first clause is that the free forgiveness of so great a sinner as St. Mary Magdalene had been, might be drawn into an argument for pre- suming on God's mercy, and give a false encouragement to those who would turn His grace into lasciviousness. And this we pray that in our own case it may not do — " Give us grace that we may never pre- sume to sin through the example of any creature." Presumptuous sins, as distinct from sins of ignorance and infirmity, are those done wil- fully and deliberately, and with a distinct foresight of the conse- quences. The sin of Eve was more or less a sin of ignorance ; for St. Paul tells us that " the woman, being deceived, was in the trans- gression." 1 Adam's, on the other hand, was a presumptuous sin ; for " Adam," the Apostle tells us, " was not deceived ;" he was not, like Eve, " beguiled through the serpent's subtilty," 2 but ate of the tree with his eyes open, being emboldened so to do by the example of his wife, to whom as yet no apparent harm had happened. This presumptuous sin of the first man having been so severely visited
saint. The Reformers therefore wrote a new Collect, while they allowed the Epistle and Gospel to stand. The Epistle is Prov. xxxL 10, to the end — the description of the virtuous woman whose "price is far above rubies." The Collect was as follows : —
Largire nobis, clementissime Pater, Grant to us, most merciful Father, quod sicnt beata Maria Magdalena that, as the blessed Mary Magdalene, Unigenitum tuum super omnia dili- by loving thine only begotten Son gendo suorum obtinuit veniam pecca- above all things obtained remission minum,* ita nobis apud misericor- of her sins, so she may procure for iliam tuam sempiternam impetret us at thy mercy - seat everlasting beatitudinera. — Per eundem. blessedness. — Through the same.
* The form peccamen is rare, and does not occur in the Vulgate. It is found in the Apotheosis of the Christian poet Prudentius (a poem on tho divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity), where it is applied to the original sin of Adam, the virus of which is derived to his posterity. 1 1 Tim. ii. 1 4. 2 See 2 Cor. xi. !).
45 2 Appendix A.
that by it death and every form of misery has been entailed on his posterity,1 and no atonement being provided in the Law for the pre- sumptuous sinner, but the awful doom pronounced upon such an one being, " That soul shall utterly be cut off ; his iniquity shall be upon him,"2 it is with good reason that the Psalmist prays, " Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins ; let them not have dominion over me " (presumptuous sins have a tendency to become ruling or domineering sins) ; " then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression." 3 And the Collect is in- valuable, as echoing this inspired prayer of the Psalmist, and also as being the only Collect which bears distinct testimony to the danger of presuming on God's mercy, and solicits the averting of the danger.
" But if it shall chance us at any time to offend thy divine majesty, that then we may truly repent and lament the same, after the example of Mary Magdalene."
God is here besought to give the .grace of repentance, as in that petition of the Litany, " That it may please thee to give us true re- pentance ; " and in the Collect for St. John the Baptist's day, " Make us so to follow his doctrine . . . that we may truly repent according to his preaching ; " and again, in the Collect for Ash Wednesday, " Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins, and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, etc."
The alabaster box, broken over our Saviour's feet by the woman which was a sinner, may well remind us of the necessity of the heart's being broken by compunction and contrition, before it can shed forth the odours of its affections unto the Lord. There are some who imagine that while forgiveness indeed is the gift of God, repentance, on the other hand, is the product of human efforts and endeavours, and that we must look to ourselves and our own powers for it. But the two things are put on a level and mentioned in the same breath by St. Peter as being equally gifts of God, or rather of Christ, " Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." 4 And it is clear that the repentance which flows from the realization of the pardoning love of Christ must be as much His gift as the for- giveness, the sense of which elicits it. If God alone can forgive sins, and if it be the experience of forgiveness which draws forth peniten- 1 See Rom. v. 12.
'l Num. xv. 30, 31. 3 Psalm xix. 13. 4 Acts v. 31.
Appendix A. 453
tial tears (as the touch of Moses' rod turned the flintstone into a springing well), then certainly God holds in His own hand these penitential tears, and bestows them as it pleases Him. And, there- fore, " Give us grace that we may truly repent," is a petition strictly in keeping both with Holy Scripture and with the reason of the case.
" And by lively faith obtain remission of all our sins, through the only merits of thy Son our Saviour Christ." It is curious and interesting to observe this prominence given to lively faith as the instrument for laying hold of the merits of the Saviour, and obtain- ing remission of all our sins. For, in St. Luke's narrative of the woman which was a sinner, controversialists of the Roman school have dwelt much on the fact that her justification seems to be attri- buted to love rather than to faith, " Her sins, which are many, are forgiven : for she loved much." 1 The words which follow, how- ever (" but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little "), clearly show that the forgiveness goes first, and that it is the sense of it which engenders the love ; and that, therefore, the " for," in " for she loved much," must be taken to denote — not the reason or ground, but the evidence of her having been forgiven much, just as when one says, " The sap has risen vigorously in this tree ; for see what an abundance of fruit hangs upon the branches ; " or, " The air is heavily charged with rain ; for the glass has gone down." Nor does our Lord omit, in His closing comment on the incident, to glance at the woman's faith as the instrumentality by which she was saved, His last words to her being, " Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace."
And now, since the Collect is so Scriptural in its doctrine, and so edifying, as we have seen it to be, why was it discarded when the Prayer Book of 1549 was revised and remodelled in 1552 ? and why was the Festival of St. Mary Magdalene consigned to a place among the Black Letter Days, that is, days which are marked as fes- tivals in the Calendar, but for which no special public devotions are appointed ? The answer is that both the Collect, and the observance of a day in commemoration of St. Mary Magdalene, are based on the assumption that St. Mary Magdalene and the fallen but penitent woman of St. Luke vii. are one and the same person. This is doubtful in the highest degree, and has been considered to be doubtful by many great authorities of early and later times, and par- ticularly by the Greek expositors. The Chapter-heading of the 7th of St. Luke, indeed, calls the penitent woman St. Mary Magdalene ; 1 Sti Luke vii. 47.
454 -d. ppendix A .
but this was merely because such was the traditional and usually- received view at the time when the Chapter-heading was drawn up. St. Mary Magdalene is first named in the 8th chapter of St. Luke (ver. 2) ; but there is not one word to identify ber with the penitent woman of the preceding Chapter. We might with equal reason iden- tify Susanna or Joanna with the penitent, for they too are mentioned side by side with Mary Magdalene. And the probabilities are that, as St. Luke has so recently given us the narrative of the penitent woman, he would, had he meant us to understand that she was one of those who followed Christ on His missionary tour, and ministered to Him of their substance, have indicated this directly. It was an interesting fact, if the case were so, and might have been conveyed in very few words. It was Gregory the Great, in the sixth century of the Christian era, who first fixed and stereotyped a tradition which had hitherto floated uncertainly in the Western Church,1 that Mary Magdalene was to be identified with the penitent woman of St. Luke vii, and both, which is a further step into the region of very improbable conjecture, with Mary the sister of Lazarus.2
Well and wisely, then, did our Reformers act, and strictly in accordance with the principles which guided them in their great enterprise of adapting the devotions of the Mediaeval to the use of the Reformed Church, in striking their pen through the Collect which they had themselves composed for St. Mary Magdalene's day. For that Collect, they saw upon more mature consideration, was built — I will not say upon a fiction, but — upon an assumption which was in a high degree questionable and uncertain. Conjecture, even if
1 " Maria Magdalene, quae fuerat in civitate peccatrix, amando veritatem, lavit lacrymis maculas criminis : et vox veritatia impletur, qui dicitur : Dimissa sunt ei peccata multa, quoniam dilexit multum. " — Opp. Homiliarum, Lib. II. Horn. xxv. (on St. John xx. 11-18). Tom. I. Col. 1544 E. [Parisiis, 1705.] The " seven devils, " who had gone out of Mary Magdalene, he takes to signify the whole range of vices; "Quid, per septem daemonia, nisi uni- versa vitia designantur ? " [See his Homily on St. Luke vii. 36, to end. Tom. I. Col. 1592.] See more in Professor Plumptre's valuable article on St. Mary Magdalene, in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
2 The identity of the " woman which was a sinner " with Mary the sister of Lazarus is repudiated by Chrysostom. " In Joannem" Horn. LII. Tom. viii. P. 368 C. [Parisiis, mdcccxxviii.] 'AvayKaiov p.addv 5ti ovx a-fon larlv r\ nbpvr) i] iv rtp Wlardalif), ovSe r\ iv rep Aovkq' iWrj yap airt)' ixeivai ixtv yap trbpvai 5i} rives fjaav, Kal ttoWuiv yip.ovaai KaKuv. aOrv Si ical crep.i>r] Kal cirovSala.
Appendix A. 455
plausible and probable, is not sufficient basis for prayer. Prayer must be built, not upon conjectural expositions, but upon clearly revealed truths of God's word. It is so in all the other Collects. They are built, either upon some doctrine expressly revealed, or some fact expressly narrated, in Holy Scripture. To have introduced among them a prayer founded upon a tradition, and a tradition to which Holy Scripture seems rather adverse than favourable, however firmly that tradition might have rooted itself in the mind of the Church, and even in the nomenclature of Christendom, would have been to connive at the admission into the new Liturgy of a wrong principle, a principle which, harmless as it might seem in a particular case, might be fraught with mischief in other and more extended applications of it. It is not, however, always easy to use the pruning knife, when its effect is to cut away one of our own productions. All honour to our Reformers for having shown this piece of moral courage.
APPENDIX B.
// has been thought well to subjoin in an Appendix an Exposi- tion of the Collects of Morning and Evening Prayer, which have a strong affinity with those of the Communion Office, and are all four of the?n gems in their way.
Chapter I.
THE SECOND COLLECT AT MORNING PRAYER, FOR PEACE
2D @oD, tobo art tTje author of peace ana lober of concorD, in fenotolcbge of inborn gtanlietb our eternal life, ferfjoge gerbice is per* feet freeoomj DefertD us tbpbum= Me servants in all assaults of out enemies, tljat toe, sutelj ttugting in tTjj> Defence, map not fear tbe potoer of an? abbergaries, tbtougb trje migbt of 3Iesus Cfjrist out JLotD. Amen.
Deug, auctot pacis et amatot, quern nosse bibete ; cui gerbtre regnate ; protege ab omnibus im- pugnationibus Suppltces tuos ; ut qui in Defengione tua confiDimug, nullius bostilttatig atma ttmea* mug. Pet, etc. [Sac. Gel— Miss. Sar. — Brev. Sar.]
This noble prayer is derived ultimately from the Sacramentary of Gelasius, the second in order of the three great Sacramentaries, and the date of which is the last decade of the fifth century. It appears there as a Collect to be said at the Post-Communion in a Mass for Peace, the Collect of the Mass being that even more beau- tiful one, which stands in our Prayer Book as the Second Collect at Evening Prayer.1 The Epistle is formed by certain verses culled
1 See Chap. III. of this Appendix,
Appendix B.
457
from different parts of the first Chapter of the Second Book of the Maccabees,1 the only applicability which the passage has in a Mass for Peace seeming to lie in the words of the fourth verse, in which the Jews in Jerusalem wish unto their brethren, the Egyptian Jews, " health and peace ;" " God open your hearts in His law and com- mandments, and send you peace." 2 For the Gospel, the two con- cluding verses of the sixteenth Chapter of St. John serve, the last of them being, " These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer : I have overcome the world."3 The great lesson which this Gospel teaches us, in connexion with the associated Collects, is that the peace which both of them sue for is not so much an external as a spiritual peace, not so much peace in the circumstances as peace in the heart, — a peace which may be had " in Christ," even in the midst of worldly " tribulations." It should be added that the Collect before us appears not only in the Missal (or Communion Office) of Sarum, but also in the Sarum Breviary or Book containing the Daily Offices of the Church, and corresponding to our Matins and Even- song, which indeed were for the most part compiled out of and abridged from these daily Offices. It is found in the Breviary as a Collect for Matins.4
"0 God, who art the author of peace." Eight times in the course of St. Paul's Epistles (reckoning the Epistle to the Hebrews as one of them) is God styled " the God (or Lord) of peace." And in one of these passages our translators have inserted the word " author," which does not appear in the original, being mindful perhaps of the phraseology of this Collect, and not unwilling possibly to establish a connexion in the minds of the people between the language of the Bible and that of the Prayer Book.5 "God is not
1 2 Mace. i. w. 23 and 2-5. 2 Ver. 4. 3 St. John rvi. 33.
4 " In the Portiforium or Breviary of Sarum it is ordered to be said at Matins only, the word Matins here, as of old with St. Benedict, meaning Lauds." Bright " On Ancient Collects " [App. p. 211]. The reference which he gives to the Breviary is " Portif. Sar. fasc. ii. 175, i. 40, 89." The Breviary is so called from "its being a compilation, in an abbreviated form convenient for use, of the various books anciently used in the service, as antiphoners, psalters, etc." (Hook's " Church Dictionary)." It was called Portiforium (from porto and foras, — in French Portehors) from being easily carried with one out of doors.
5 There was an interval of 62 years between the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. (where this Collect first made its appearance) and King James's Transla-
453
Appendix B.
the author of confusion," says St. Paul to the Corinthians, " but of peace,"1 — the peace here contemplated being in the first instance, as will be seen by a reference to the context, that of Church order, since what the Apostle is enjoining is an orderly performance of Divine service without unseemly interruptions, even where the speakers have all of them the supernatural gifts of tongues or pro- phecy.2— But God makes peace in the world as well as in the Church. For how sings the Psalmist ? He " maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder ; he burneth the chariot in the fire."3 — Nor is the peace which God makes, merely or chiefly external. It is not merely peace among the discords and jars wrought by the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, but peace in our conflict with the Evil One, with the charges of an accusing conscience, and with the assaults of temptation. And observe that it is a peace, which consists not in freedom from molestations, but in victory over them. The only true peace for the seed of the woman is through tramp- ling down of the serpent and of the seed of the serpent.4 And therefore St. Paul, after bidding the Romans " mark and avoid those who caused divisions and offences" in the Church, traces these divisions and offences up to their fountainhead, and assigns the source and seat of the mischief, when he says, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." s
" And lover of concord." The words " of concord " are an expan- sion of the original made by the translators, the literal rendering of the Latin words being, " 0 God, the author and lover of peace." And yet the word " concord " is not otiose ; it really contributes to the sense. Peace is with avowed enemies ; but concord is with those who are in the position of friends, with members of the same household, of the same family, of the same class and order as our- selves. God would have His true people " likeminded one towards another,"6 — " perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment."7 Christ, in His great high-priestly prayer, prayed
tion of the Bible, which was published in 1611. So much older is the English of the Prayer Book than that of the Bible. I do not doubt that other instances might be found, in which the translators of the Bible have sought to bring its phraseology into agreement with that of the Prayers of the Reformed Church.
1 1 Cor. xiv. 33. 2 See w. 26-33. 3 Ps. xlvi. 9.
* See Gen. iii. 15. s Rom. xvi. 17, 20. 6 Rom. xv. 5.
7 1 Cor. i. 10.
A ppendix B. 459
for His disciples, " that they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ; " 1 and this concord among believers, therefore, is what gives satisfaction to God and Christ. " Behold, how good and how pleasant it is," says the Spirit, speaking by the Psalmist, " for brethren to dwell together in unity !"a And again ; "Jerusalem is builded as a city that is com- pact together."3
" In knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life." 4 This clause in the original is much terser than in the translation. It runs thus, " whom to know" (or " to have made oneself acquainted with ") " is to live." Which sentiment is, after all, only an echo or reproduction of our Lord's own words, " This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."5 Observe that eternal life in its seed and germ, if not in its expansion and developement, is spoken of as the present possession of God's true people ; " he that believeth on me hath everlasting life."6 And if it be desired to connect tbis life, which consists in the knowledge of God, with the peace for which the Collect sues, this connexion may be established by two texts, u Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace"7 (as the realised
1 St. John xvii. 21. 2 Ps. cxxxiii. 1. 3 Ps. cxxii. 3.
4 This and the succeeding clause are traced by Sir W. Palmer, in his " Origines Liturgicae," to a passage in the (so-called) " Meditations of Augus- tine" (Ch. xxxii. )
"Deus, quern nosse vivere est, cui 0 God, whom to know is to live, servire regnare est, quern laudare, to serve whom is to reign, and to salus et gaudium animae est ; te labiis praise whom is the health and the joy et corde, omnique, qua valeo virtute, of the soul, thee with my lips and my laudo, benedico, atque adoro." heart, and with all the might which
I have, do I praise, bless, and adore. The " Meditations" will be found in an Appendix to the Sixth Volume of the Benedictine Edition, Col. 107, etc. [Paris, 1685] ; but the Prefatory "Admo- nitio " of the Editors shows that the " Meditationes " cannot be Augustine's, though they contain several excerpts from his writings. Some have thought them to be Ansel m's.
6 St. John xvii. 3. For some observations on the circumstance that both here, and in the Collect for St. Philip and St. James's Day, eternal life is said to consist in the knowledge of God only (no explicit mention being made of Christ), see the Commentary on that Collect.
0 St. John vi. 47. 7 Job xxii. 21.
460 Appendix B.
result of that acquaintance) ; " To be spiritually minded is life," and, as following upon life, " peace."1
" "Whose service is perfect freedom," — an excellent, although a free translation. The original is, "cui servire, regnare est," "to whom to be in subjection is to reign." Subjection to God is man's truest nobility, and secures the subjection to him of all other things ;2 it enables him to reign as a king over his own unruly will and affections, puts his lusts under his feet, and makes them do homage to him, and will ultimately lift him to a place in God's everlasting kingdom. But the translation is even more pointedly and explicitly Scriptural than the original. "Whose service is perfect freedom"3 reminds us of the assurance of the Lord Jesus that His yoke is easy and His burden is light,4 and again of those words of His Apostle's, " Now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." 5 The service of Gcd is perfect freedom, because it can only be duly rendered from love and gratitude for forgiveness already bestowed ; because the conscience, while rendering it, feels itself freed from the charge of guilt, and is no longer in dread and apprehension of God's wrath, but is penetrated with a sweet sense of acceptance through the blood of the cross ; and also because the fetters are struck off from the will, and it is made to travel in the path of obedience by the constraint of Christ's love.
Having now run through the very expanded doctrinal statement upon which the prayer of the Collect is built, let us just glance back at it and see how its various members cohere. We have already had occasion to observe that these old prayers took their colour to a great extent from the revolutionary times in which they were drawn up,8 — times when one social order, that of the old Roman empire, was being broken up, and another about to be formed upon its ruins, — when all old landmarks were being swept away,
1 Rom. viii. 6.
3 " Rationalis anima si Creatori suo serviat, a quo facta est, per quem facta est, et ad quem facta est, cuncta ei cetera servient" (Augustine, Lib. de vera Religione, 82, Opp. Tom. i. Col. 777 F. [Parisiis, 1689.])
3 Augustine's authority might be quoted for this sentiment. See his treatise " De quantitate animse," Cap. xxxiv. in fin. Tom. i. 237 A. [Col. Agripp. 1616.] " Ille " [Deus] "ab omnibus liberat, cui servire omnibus utilissimum est, et in cvjus servitio placere per/ecte sola libertas est."
* St. Matt. xi. 30. 8 Rom. vi. 22.
« See above, Book I. Chap. V. Vol. I. pp. 32, 33, 34.
Appendix B.
461
and, to use the Scriptural phrase, " all the foundations of the earth were out of course."1 Peace and security was what men in those days naturally aspired after, and we have here a Collect for Peace. Christians have recourse to God for it ; they know that it is He who is the Author of it, and who would gladly see it established in all parts of His world-wide empire. But — this is the second thought to which the mind passes on — peace on the stage of the world, or even on the stage of the Church, is a very hollow thing without peace in the heart, that peace which comes from acquaintance with God, and which is life as well as peace. Nor let us suppose — here we pass on to a further stage in the sentiment — that this peace con- sists in entire freedom from every yoke. On the contrary, it is only to be experienced in entire subjection to the yoke of Christ ; the Christian, though released from the law as a covenant of works, is "not without law to God, but under the law to Christ."2 And yet this subjection is the truest freedom. The Son of God hath made him free ; and he is free indeed.3
" Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies." The Latin Collect has " Protect us from all assaults." And simi- larly we have in the Catechism, as an explanation of the two last petitions of the Lord's Prayer, " I desire my Lord God, our heavenly Father," .... that it will please him to save and " defend us in all dangers ghostly and bodily." There is a difference, not alto- gether trifling, between being " defended in all assaults " and being " protected from them." He who asks to be protected from them asks merely that the assaults may not be made. And it is often — perhaps more often than not — God's will for us that the assaults should be made. We move by His appointment and providential ordering in the midst of " dangers ghostly and bodily ;" the fiery darts of temptation fly around us on all sides, and we are hourly exposed to bodily risks, such as accident or infection. The prayer is that we may be invisibly shielded in the midst of these perils by His grace and providence, according to that prayer of our Master's for us, " I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil."4
" That we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries," — however numerous, however malignant. A.gain, observe that it is not so much the power of the adversaries
Psalm lxxxii. 5. 2 1 Cor. ix. 21. 3 See St. John viii. 36.
4 St. John xvii. 15.
462
Appendix B.
which we deprecate, and the assaults which in the exercise of that power they make upon us, as that fear of them, wdiich results from want of trust in God, and which, being in truth faithlessness, par- alyses our efforts to resist and subdue them. It is fear which makes us weak. And fear comes from a lack of that confidence in the protecting might and invigorating grace of God, which alone can make us strong. This confidence is a sure augury of our victory, and of the defeat of our adversaries, according to that word of the Apostle's, " In nothing terrified by your adversaries ; which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God."1 They know that they are on the eve of defeat, when they hear us say, " The Lord is my light and my salvation ; whom shall I fear ? The Lord is the strength of my life ; of whom shall I be afraid? . . . Though an host of men should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear ; though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident." 2
" Through the might of Jesus Christ," — a pleasant and edify- ing variation3 made by our Reformers upon the usual mediation- ending, with which in the old Offices this Collect, like most others, terminated, — reminding us that it is only through " Him that loved us " that we can be " conquerors of the forces arrayed against us ; that it His promised succour we must look to in our temptations ; 5 and that we can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us,6 and whose " strength is made perfect in weakness."7
1 Philip, i. 28. s Psalm xxvii. 1, 3.
3 See what is said about this particular termination in the Appendix " Or the Terminations of the Collects and Orisons," Vol. L p. 108.
* See Rom. vui. 37. 5 Heb. ii. 18. 6 Philip, iv. 13.
7 2 Cor. xii. 9.
Chatter II.
THE THIRD COLLECT AT MORNING PRAYER, FOR GRACE.
2D ILorti, out beabenlp JFattiet, aimigbtp anD ebetlasting ©oD, toho bast safelp brought us to tbe beginning of tTjig Dap ; DefenD us in tbe same irtt^fj tbp mfgbtp potoet ; ann grant tbat t\i* Dap toe fall into no gin, neither tun into anpkinD of Danger ; but that all out Doings map be otDeieD bp tbp gobernance, to Do altoaps tbat isrtgbteousin ^Ebpjstgbtj tbtougb Jesus Cbrigt out JLorD. Amen.
Domine Sanrte, patet omm'po* tens, aetetne Deus, qui nos ao ptincipium hujus Dtei petbenire fecijstt ; tua nos boDie salba bit* tute , et conceoe ut in hac Die an nullum Decltnemus peccatum, nec ullum tncutramus peticulum, SeD Semper aD tuam fust in am facien- Dam omntS nostta actio tuo mo-- Deramine Dirigatut. Pet, etc. — Brev. Sar.
The germ of this noble Collect is found in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, where it stands as the first paragraph of a series of short prayers, headed " Prayers at Matins." 1 In the Sacramentary of
1 This series of short Prayers forms an interesting piece of ancient Morning Devotions (though too much harping upon a single string). I subjoin a trans- lation of it. It will be found in L. A. Muratori's edition of the " Liturgia Romana vetus, tria Sacramentaria complectens" [Venetiis, 1748], Tom. I. Col. 743, 744.
Praters at Matins.
We give thee thanks, holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, who hast vouchsafed to bring us, after passing through the period of the night, to the hours of the morning. Grant us, we beseech thee, to pass this day with- out sin, so that at eventide we may return thanks [to thee]. Through.
Rising from our beds, we implore, 0 Lord, in our morning prayers, the
464 Appendix B.
Gregory, as given us by Menard, it is found expanded, and in a form more nearly approaching to that which it bears amongst our- selves,1 while in the Sarum Breviary it appears in its fully deve-
assistance of thy grace, so that, the davkness of our vices being dispersed, we may be enabled to walk in the light of virtues. Through the Lord.
0 Lord, mercifully regard the hearty desires of thy humble servants [which are breathed unto thee] iu the morning, and enlighten the secrets of our hearts with the eyesalve of thy fatherly goodness, so that dark desires may no longer hold [captive] those, whom the light of heavenly grace hath restored. Through our Lord.
0 Lord, we humbly beseech thee, the true Light, and the Author of Light, that thou wouldst vouchsafe to drive away from us the darkness of our vices, and to illuminate us with the light of virtues. Through.
Increase in us, 0 Lord, we beseech thee, faith in thee, and kindle within us the light of thy Holy Spirit evermore. Through.
0 God, who dividest the day from the night, separate our actions from the gloom of darkness, that we, ever meditating things which are holy, may live perpetually in thy praise. Through.
Send forth, we beseech thee, 0 Lord, thy light into our hearts, and grant that we, walking by the constant light of thy commandments, and in thy way, may not in anything be beguiled by error. Through the Lord.
Let thy truth, 0 Lord, we beseech thee, shine in our hearts ; and let every wile of the enemy be brought to nought. Through.
We give unspeakable thanks to thy fatherly goodness, 0 almighty God, who, having chased away the gloom of night, hast brought us to the beginning of this day, and also, having removed the blindness of our ignorance, hast recalled us to the worship and knowledge of thy Name. Illuminate our understandings, Almighty Father, that we, walking in the light of thy precepts, may follow thee as our Guide and King. Through.
God, who dispellest the darkness of ignorance by the light of thy word, increase in our hearts that grace of faith, which thou thyself hast given us ; so that the fire which thy grace hath caused to be kindled [there], may not be by any temptations extinguished. Through.
Graciously pour into our understandings, 0 Lord, thy holy light, that we may be evermore devoted unto thee, by whose wisdom we were created, and by whose providence we are governed. Through.
1 Its early and crude Gelasian form is given in the preceding note (para- graph 1). Here is the Gregorian form : —
Deus, qui nos ad principium hujus 0 God, who hast brought us to the diei pervenire fecisti, da nobis hunc beginning of this day, grant us to diem sine peccato transire ; ut in pass through it without sin, that in uullo a tuis semitis declinemus, sed nothing we may turn aside out oi
Appendix B.
465
loped form, and is appointed to be said at Prime, or the first hour. And one noticeable fact respecting it is, that the Roman Breviary, which also appoints it to be said at Prime, gives a different version of the latter part of it — one of the many little indications that the Church of England had its own use before the Reformation, and that this was not the same as the Roman use.
" 0 Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God." The invocation of the Latin Collect, literally translated, runs thus, " O holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God." The compilers of our Book of Common Prayer have, I think, been somewhat chary of the title " holy " as applied to God in invocations. In that most sacred of all prayers, which our Lord poured forth to His Father on the eve of His Passion, He once calls God "holy Father,"1 a cir- cumstance which gives a special sacredness to the designation. The same title is applied to Almighty God in those two solemn hymns of praise in the Communion Office, the " Sanctus " and the " Gloria in excelsis." In the introduction to the "Sanctus" God is called " holy Father," while in the " Sanctus " itself, as also in that sublime
ad tuam justitiam faciendam nostra thy paths, but that the words which semper procedant eloquia. Per, etc. go forth from us may be always [Menard, as quoted by Canon Bright, directed to do that which is righteous "Ancient Collects." Appendix, p. in thy sight. Through, etc. 222.]
The Roman version of the Collect, referred to a few lines lower down, is still more expanded in the latter clause, and has the adoration ending. Thus it runs : —
Domine Deus omnipotens, qui ad 0 Lord God Almighty, who hast principium hujus diei nos pervenire brought us to the beginning of this fecisti : tua nos hodie salva virtute ; day, defend us to-day by thy mighty ut in hac die ad nullum declinemus power, that in this day we may turn peccatum, sed semper ad tuam justi- aside to no sin, but that our words tiam faciendam nostra procedant may go forth, and our thoughts and eloquia, dirigantur cogitationes et actions be directed to do that which opera. Per Dominum nostrum is righteous in thy sight. Through Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who tecum vivit et regnat in unitate liveth and reignetli with thee in the Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia unity of the Holy Ghost, God for sacula saeculorum. ever and ever.
It is curious to trace the growth of these old prayers. Our Collect sums up both the "thoughts" and "words" of the Roman one under "all our doings." Both thoughts and words are in a moral point of view " doings." 1 St. John xvii. 11.
\TOL. II. 2 a
466 Appendix B.
hymn, the " Te Deum," the very words of the Seraphim, as heard by Isaiah, are recited, and the three Persons are adored as " Holy, holy, holy." In the " Gloria in excelsis " the same attribute is ascribed to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity ; " For thou only art holy ; thou only art the Lord ; thou only, 0 Christ, etc." And in the very earnest and almost impassioned appeal in the Burial Service, appointed to be said " while the corpse is made ready to be laid into the earth," our Lord is addressed as " 0 holy and most merciful Saviour," and again as " 0 holy and merciful Saviour." But the word " holy," being specially reverential, as that wherewith the angels adore God, while they veil their faces and their feet with their wings,1 does not, as far as I remember, occur in the Church prayers of daily usage. Here the compilers of the Prayer Book have exchanged the word for " heavenly," and most suitably, as it ap- pears to me. For the Collect is, as its heading indicates, a prayer " for Grace," that is, for the guidance and help of God's Spirit. And therefore, in asking for this guidance and help, we appropriately remind ourselves, by calling God our heavenly Father, of the beau- tiful promise recorded both by St Matthew and St. Luke ; " If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children ; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him V 2 Add to which that our Lord's own model prayer, which sums up all we can want or wish for, com- mences with this very invocation, " Our Father, which art in heaven,"3 thus drawing a distinction between God and human parents, most of whom are willing enough to confer good things on their children, but have not the power. But our heavenly Father is not only a Father in point of affection, but a Father who
1 See Isaiah vi. 2, 3. 3 St. Luke xi. 13 ; and see St. Matthew vii. 11. 3 Ildrep rjfj.uv 0 iv roh oipavoh, St Matt, vi 9, and St. Luke xi. 2. In the Lord"s Prayer God is called " Our Father who is in the heavens, " as also in St. Matt. vii. 11. In St. Luke xi. 13, the original words are 6 i£ o&parov, " your Father who is from heaven " (the preposition perhaps intimating His condescension and His stooping to human wants). Only once in the Greek Testament is the adjective iirovpdvios applied to God, in St. Matt. xviiL 35, " So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you," etc. Oupdvios, as applied to God, is found in St. Matt. vi. 14, 26, and 32, as also xv. 13. The uncompounded adjective is found as a varia lectio in St. Matt xviii 35 ; and, if this be the true reading, the wcrd tirovpdiiios will never be found applied to God.
Appendix B. 467
has all resources at His command, — He is the " Almighty and everlasting God."
" Everlasting God." From Archdeacon Freeman's " Principles of Divine Service," p. 371 (Oxford and London, 1855), I extract the following observation on the meaning which the word " everlasting" bears in this connexion : — " The third Morning Collect is based on Psalms xc. and xci. From the former (vers. 1, 2) it derives its contrasting of the pre-mundane Eternity — ex forte, ante, as it seem* to mean especially — of God with the days of man (vers. 3-12) ; and its prayer, ' That all our doings may be ordered,' etc. (' Prosper Thou the work,' etc. ver. 17). From the latter Psalm it frames its peti- tions for bodily and spiritual protection on behalf of the mystical members of Him, of whom the Psalm primarily speaks (vers. 11- 16)."
" Who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day." The word " safely " is the addition of the translators, and a very significant and valuable addition it is. One of the promises made to Israel in the Book of the prophet Hosea is ; " I will make them to lie down safely." 1 And here we thank God not merely for having brought us to another morning ; not merely for having sus- tained our life by His power (" I laid me down and slept ; I awaked ; for the Lord sustained me ;" 2 " It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning " *) ; but for having defended us from those " perils and dangers of the night," of which mention is made in the third Evening Collect, and for having raised us up safely, with powers recruited and renewed by rest. We must not pass away from this clause without remarking two new features in it, which make their appearance but rarely in the Collects. The invocation of a Collect is usually succeeded either by the recital of some doctrine (as that "God" is "always more ready to hear than we to pray"4), or of some fact recorded in Holy Scripture 5 (as that " God," at the feast of Pentecost, did " teach the hearts of" His " faithful people by the sending to them the light of" His " Holy Spirit.") 6 Here, however, what we recite after the invocation is a truth of our own present experience, — that God hath " safely brought us to the beginning of
1 Hosea ii. 18. * Psalm iii. 5. 3 Lam. iii. 22, 23.
4 Collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.
5 See above, Vol. L Book L Chap. III. (" On the Structure of a Collect ") P- 18. • Collect for Whitaun Day.
468 Appendix B.
tills day.'' We may regard this as a pregnant intimation to us that we should weave into our private prayers ^as we can but seldom do into our public devotions, where we must of necessity take up com- mon ground with others), some notice of God's dealings with our- selves, or, in other words, the truths of our personal experience. Thus, the patriarch Jacob in private prayer records God's past mer- cies to him, as a ground for hoping that He, who had prospered him so wonderfully in the past, would now shield him from a danger which threatened to overwhelm him ; " I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant ; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan ; and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau." 1 And secondly, there is in this clause, as there is also in Jacob's prayer, a ring of thank- fulness. " "Who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day," is a grateful acknowledgment made to our heavenly Father, no less than an encouragement to our own faith. Shielded during the night from fire, and from the assaults of evil men and evil spirits, we set up our " Ebenezer " in the morning, and say, as Israel said, when the Lord had discomfited the Philistines before them, " Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." 3
"Defend us in the same by thy mighty power,-" — more literally, " Save us to-day by thy power," reminding us of that verse of Psalm cvi., " Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known." 3 But from what do we ask to be saved, preserved, defended ? What follows answers the question.
" And grant that this day we fall into no sin." The first and chief evil, from which we ask to be defended by God's " mighty power," is sin. In the original the words are, " Grant that this day we turn aside into no sin." The image is that very common Scriptural one of a man's conduct being his walk. To conduct oneself according to God's commandments is to walk straightforward in "the narrow way that leadeth unto life ;"* but to break these commandments, or commit sin, is to turn aside out of the way. The Psalmist therefore prays — and the clause before us is only an echo of his inspired petition — " 0 let me not wander from thy command- ments." . . . '• Order my steps in thy word." ..." Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not." *
1 Gen. xxxii. 10, 11. * See 1 Sam. vii. 10, 12. 3 Psalm cvi. 8.
4 See St. Matt. vii. 14. 5 Psalm cxix. 10, 133; and xvii. 5.
Appendix B.
469
"Neither run into any kind of danger." Here we pray to be delivered, not from sin only, but from its occasions. The words are, in the first instance, equivalent to " Lead us not into temptation," as the formar clause was to " Deliver us from evil." We deprecate trial, when we say ; " Lead us not into temptation" ; we pray that God would not bring us, by His Providence, into cir- cumstances of trial. And why 1 Because circumstances of trial are circumstances of danger ; and we should know our own weakness so well that we should dread being placed in such circumstances. Whereas often, — indeed always, when we let go our Father's hand, and forsake His guidance, — we " run into danger," go into company, or read books, which prove a snare to us, or allow ourselves in idle- ness, or let loose our tongues, and so give an occasion to the tempter, and are inveigled into sin. — But " any kind of danger " will of course embrace bodily no less than spiritual risks. We may incur these risks — risks to life, health, and limb — unconsciously and in- deliberately. And we here pray that God would not allow us to incur them, would watch over us, when we are not watching over ourselves. And, if we live in the spirit of the petition, we shall not incur them deliberately, shall not tempt God's Providence by embarking in foolhardy enterprises, when there is little or nothing to be gained by them.
"But that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance." The word rendered " governance " is sometimes employed to denote the guidance of a ship by its helm.1 And we here pray that in passing through the sea of this troublesome world, on which we are now embarking for another day's voyage, we may be piloted by God's Spirit, who uses our conscience as His compass, and as His chart the written word, wherein are laid down all the shoals, hidden rocks, and quicksands, of which we must steer clear, and the bear- ings which we must observe, if we would reach eventually " the land of everlasting life."
" To do always that is righteous in thy sight." " The steps of a good man," says the Psalmist, " are ordered by the Lord " (this is the " governance " of which the former clause speaks), " and he delighteth in his way;" or, as our Prayer-Book Version has it,
1 See Ovid's " Metamorphoses," xv. 726, " innixus moderamine navis." In the later Latin the word " moderamen " came to mean a reservation or quali- fication, such as is introduced into an Act of Parliament with the formula, " Provided always that," etc.
47o
A ppendix B.
" maketh his way acceptable to himself," 1 so that what the man does is " righteous in " God's " sight." It is an incentive to holy living, of which we are too apt to be forgetful, that with actions prompted by His Spirit, and which are the fruit of faith in Christ, God is well pleased. " Albeit," as our twelfth Article says, such " works cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment ; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ" They, and the doers of them, are " righteous in His sight."
1 Psalm xxxvii. 23.
Chapter III.
THE SECOND COLLECT AT EVENING PRAYER, FOR PEACE.
2D <Son, from tobom all holp De* Bircs!, alt gooD counsels, ant) all fust toorks Do proceeD 3 ©ibe unto tbp Serbants tbat peace toljicb trjc toorlD cannot gibe 3 tTjat botb our hearts map be get to obep tbp com* manoments, ann also tbat bp tbee toe being DefenDeD from tbe fear of our enemies map pass our rime in test anD quietness 3 tbrougb. tbe merits of Jesus <£brist our feabiour. Amen.
Deus, a quo sancta nesinerta, recta congilta, et justa sunt opera 3 □a serbis tuis iUam, quam munous Dare non potest, pacem 3 ut et cor= Da nostra, manoatis tuis DeDita et, boSttum subtata formiDine, tempora gfnt tua protectione tran= quilla. Per, etc. — Gel. Sac. — Miss. Sar. — Brev. Sar.
In point of beauty and instructiveness this Collect ranks with the very first of those gems of devotion, which in such profusion adorn our Book of Common Prayer. But, beautiful as it is in the English translation, it is still more beautiful in the original ; for in this, as in two or three other instances, the translation has disjointed the ideas, and broken up the unity of the prayer. We have already said1 that it appears in the Missal of Sarum as the proper Collect of a Mass for Peace,2 the Gospel of which contains those words of our Lord, " These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace," while at the Post-Communion of this Mass the
1 See above, Chapter I. of this Appendix. 2 The Mass will be found at Col. 783*, 784*, of the Burntisland Edition of the Sarum Missal. The Epistle is 2 Mace. i. w. 23-5 ; and the Gospel, St. John xvi. w. 32, 33. The Collect is found again under the Memories Communes, Pro Pace, at Col. 827*, 828*, of the same Edition.
472
Appendix B.
Collect for Peace in our Morning Prayer is appointed to be said. The Latin Collect brackets together under a single aspiration the peace in the heart, which is not otherwise to be experienced than in devotion to God's commandments, and the outward peace of times and circumstances, which comes from the removal of the fear of our enemies. Here is a literal translation ; " 0 God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do pro- ceed ; Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give ; that both our hearts devoted to thy commandments, and our times also, all fear of our enemies being removed, may be tranquil under thy protection." The tranquillity of the times is thus ex- hibited as standing in vital and intimate connexion with the tranquillity of the heart, which connexion is indeed the one thought of the Collect, the keystone which holds together its several ideas, and makes it a compact prayer. Left by their Divine Master in a world in which " tribulation " is to be their appointed lot (" In the world ye shall have tribulation "), 1 and in which they were ex- posed to all manner of assaults from evil men and evil angels, how are the disciples of Christ to find peace 1 The external peace which they should enjoy should result entirely from the internal ; their tranquillity should flow out from the heart into the times. God should touch by His Spirit the springs of their wills — the desires, affections, purposes of their hearts. They, following these move- ments, should find peace in Christ, peace through the blood of the Cross, and peace also in submitting to His easy yoke and light burden. Their hearts, being given up to Him, in acknowledgment of His having given Himself and all that He has and is, for them and to them — are at rest. And, even in a world full of tribula- tions, snares, and dangers, their " time " is passed " in rest and quietness," because — if not all the assaults, yet — all " the fear of" their " enemies " is removed. They are consciously under the pro- tection of God ; and, even when the times on which they are cast are troubled, and their heavenly Father does not see fit to " order the course of this world peaceably by His governance," they are enabled to say ; " Though an host of men were laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid : and though there rose up war against me, yet will I put my trust in Him."2
Such is the outline of the thoughts. But, according to our usual plan, we run through the separate clauses of the prayer.
1 See St. John xvi. 33.
2 Psalm xxvii. 3, P.B.V.
Appendix B.
473
" 0 God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed." The prayer is for peace. But for those who kuow not God there is no true peace. " The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." 1 Let a man give himself up, even be it only for a single day, to live without regard to God and restraint from His law ; let him abandon himself freely to a careless, godless life ; and he will learn the rest- lessness of being without God in the world in the most convin- cing of all methods — by experience. Peace then, in the high and true sense of the term — the peace which alone can satisfy creatures with a moral and spiritual nature — can only come from God's quickening the moral and spiritual powers, touching the affections, the purposes, and the will, inbreathing " holy desires, good counsels, and just works." The successive stages of spiritual growth, which are here marked, are very instructive. In grace, as in nature, there is bud, there is blossom, there is fruit. When the fruit-tree first begins to feel the warm breath of spring, it shoots and bourgeons, and small buds and knots form along the boughs, which may be either thrown back by frosts and hard weather, or gradually unfolded by dews and rains and sun. These correspond to the " holy desires," which God breathes into the heart, and which may either be nipped in the bud by an atmosphere of sin and world- liness, or expanded by the light of God's countenance shining in upon the soul, and by the precious dews of His grace. Unfolded by natural agencies, the bud becomes a beautiful, painted, fragrant blossom. This is a further stage in nature, and it corresponds to the further stage in grace, when the holy desire has expanded into a good counsel, that is, a purpose or deliberate resolve. But there is a third stage in natural growth, and the fruit-tree must reach this stage, if it is to be profitable to its owner. When the blossom falls off, the fruit must form. And there is a similar third stage in grace. Our Lord " ordained," not His Apostles only, but every one of His disciples, " that " they " should go and bring forth fruit,'' the fruit of good works, " and that" their " fruit should remain,"2 — that it should have a substantial value in God's eyes, should set in movement some spring in His kingdom, as all good works, spring- ing out of a lively faith, have and do, although it is true that " they cannot put away our sins, or endure the severity of God's Judg- ment." 3 Let us not think (it were a vain fancy) that without this 1 Isaiah lvii. 20, 21. * See St. John xv. 16. 3 Twelfth Article.
474
Appendix B.
touch of God's hand upon the affections and the will — forming " the holy desire, and the good counsel," and developing out of them " the just work," — there can be any true peace,
" Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give." The reference, of course, is to those words of our Lord, in which allusion is made to the form of valediction customary in Oriental countries, which consists in wishing peace to the person parted from " Peace I leave with you " (yet not after the hollow, heartless manner of a worldly leave-taking, nor yet as a mere good wish, having nothing effective or operative in it), " my peace I give unto you " (not wishing it merely, but actually communicating it) ; " not as the world giveth, give I unto you." 1 We here observe, firstly, that this peace i3 described as Christ's own — " my peace" — the peace of which He was the possessor, even when He was upon earth, the peace which He Himself lived in the enjoyment of. It must therefore be something quite compatible with external menaces, external attacks, external troubles ; for Christ's career was marked by these throughout. And, secondly, observe that both in the passage of Scripture referred to, and in the Collect which echoes this passage, the peace is spoken of, not as earned, but as freely given ; " My peace I give ; " " Give unto thy servants that peace." It is a peace which is freely given in the first instance, given not as the result of human endeavours, but on the earliest application of the sinner to Christ. " Come unto me," says He, " all ye that labour and are heavy laden " — all ye who have the burden of guilt lying upon you (and who is there of us all, who is not embraced under the invitation, so far as this term of it goes f), and who in any measure feel it to be a burden, and are weary of it, and would fain be rid of it, " and I will give you rest,"2 give it you, not at all in the way of recompence, but in the way of grace — give it you simply for the coming. But alas ! that people will not take all the words of Christ together, and that even in this most important context they fail to perceive that Christ recognises and asserts a rest, which has to be subsequently won, as well as a rest which is originally given.
For how does our Collect proceed ? " That both our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments ;" or, more literally, " that both our hearts, being set to obey thy commandments, may be tranquil under thy protection " — at peace under the shadow of Thy wings. And how doe3 the great invitation, upon which it is based, proceed ? " Take my yoke upon you " — submit yourselves cordially
1 St John xiv. 27. 2 St. Matt. xi. 28.
Appendix B. 475
to all the precepts of my new law, and to all the dispensations of my Providence — " and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart ;" — make my submissiveness to the Father's will and com- mandments your model, " and ye shall find rest unto your souls."1 Here is the rest found, as distinct from the rest given. And how found ? That which is found must, in the first instance, be sought. And how is the rest sought ? In the prescribed method of taking the yoke of Christ's precepts and dispensations upon us, and copy- ing into our lives the great trait of Hi3 obedience and submis- siveness. In the words of the Collect, — by " devotion to God's commandments ;" by the steady " setting of our hearts to obey them." In doing so we shall find Christ's own peace, which was a peace realised in submission — even "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding."2 "The work of righteousness shall be peace ; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever." 3
" And also that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness " — in the original, " And that our times also, all fear of our enemies being removed, may be tranquil under thy protection." It is evident that we do not allow ourselves to pray for the tranquillity of our times absolutely and without reserve. Our Lord, when promising peace to His dis- ciples in the Gospel once associated with this Collect, promised that they should find it in Himself and only in Himself, and emphasized this by adding ; " In the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world."4 The Church then may not pray altogether to escape tribulation in the sphere of the world ; for this would be expressly contrary to her Lord's will and design for her. Nor does she so pray in the clause before us. When we carefully examine the wording of that clause, we see that the secret and procuring cause of the " rest and quietness," in which we pray that we may pass our times," is that God defends us, not from the assaults of our enemies, but from the fear of them, and that this fear is removed by our confidence in His protection, and in the overshadowing of His wings, according to those more explicit words of the Morning Collect for Peace ; " that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries." We may use- fully compare with this petition for the tranquillity of our times
1 St. Matt. xi. 29. 3 Isaiah xxxii. 17.
2 Philip, iv. 7. 4 St. John xvi. 33.
4/6
Appendix B.
the cautious, qualified language of the Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity ; " Grant, 0 Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness." All we are justified in asking, all that we are warranted in expecting, is, that God will give such peace in our time, that His Church may be set free to serve Him " joyfully in all godly quietness," 1 — not, that is, in the quietness of spiritual stagnation, which too smooth and uni- form a course of prosperity might breed, but in a quietness favourable and conducive to growth, — a quietness, such as that which is de- scribed as prevailing in the primitive Church, when the persecuting Saul had been turned into the Apostle Paul ; " Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified ; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the com- fort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." 3
- Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity. * Acts ix. 31.
\
Chapter IV.
THE THIRD COLLECT AT EVENING PRAYER, FOR AID AGAINST ALL PERILS.
JLiirbten out Darkness, toe be- Seecb thee, SD Lotti 5 ann bp tbp great metcp DefenD us from all perils arm nangers of this nigbt 3 for the lone of trjp onlp §>on, our %a6tour, 31esus Christ. Amen.
3|llumtna, quaesumus, Domtne Deus, tertebtas nosttas ; et totius hujus noctis irtStoias tu a nobis tepelle ptopitius. Pet Dominum, etc. — Gel. Sac. — Brev. Sar.
This Collect is found in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, not as form- ing a part of any Mass, but as the third of a series of short prayers appointed to be said at Vespers.1 We find it also in the Breviary of Sarum as a prayer to be said at Compline, Compline (or " Comple- torium") being the last of the seven services of the mediaeval Church, so called because it completed the cycle of the Church's daily devo- tions, and was to be said at bedtime. If we desire to trace it back as far as it can be traced, we are told by Mr. Freeman 2 that it is derived from a " prayer-like hymn for illumination and protection " in the Compline Service of the Eastern or Greek Church, and that it is based upon certain verses of the Psalms appointed to be recited at that service.
This prayer consists of two parts, the first, that God would put a period to the night by bringing back the day ; the second, that, while the night lasts, He would defend us from the perils of it
1 It will be found in Muratori, Tom. i. Col. 745, in the Third Book of the Gelasian Sacramentary, which is headed " Orationes et Preces cum Canone pro Dominicis Diebus." In this version of the prayer the words h ujus and tu a nobis (which appear in the Sarum Breviary) are omitted ; and the latter clause runs " ct totius noctis insidias repelle propitius."
2 "Principles of Divine Service" [Oxford and London : 1855], pp. 228, 229.
478 Appendix B.
" Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, 0 Lord." This peti- tion is an echo of one in the thirteenth Psalm ; " Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death ; " 1 and the " lightening " must be understood in the same way both in the Psalm and in the Col- lect. And, first, we are to understand it in a literal or natural sense. When we say, " Lighten our darkness," we ask God, in the first instance, to bring back the day. We put Him in mind, as it were, of His own covenant made with the human race after the flood ; " While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease," 2 and to which He appeals by the mouth of Jeremiah as an inviolable covenant ; " If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season ; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant."3 The great regularity of all Nature's operations, the punctuality with which the seasons recur, and par- ticularly with which day fades into night, and night again gives place to day, has a tendency to deaden the mind to the agency . of a personal God, whose hand brings about each successive revolution of which Time is made up. Surely it is quite well that we should remind ourselves in the course of our devotions of this personal agency of God in the system of Nature. He has not merely set the system agoing once for all, and then left it to work on without interference or control on His own part, just as a watchmaker con- structs a clock to keep the time, and winds it up, and then parts with it to a purchaser ; no — the hand of the great Creator, after constructing the machinery of Nature, gives in the last resort each successive impulse by which the machinery is moved ; His constant agency is the mainspring of the machine. And of this fact He gave assurance to mankind, when, at the bidding of His servant Joshua, He arrested the revolution of the heavenly bodies, caused the sun to stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon.4 Would it not invest the old and familiar petition, " Lighten our darkness," with quite a new significance, if we thought, while we offered it, that it is really and truly the Lord, and not a system of natural laws working on independently of Him, " that turneth the shadow of death into the morning ; and maketh the day dark with night " ? 6
But there is a significance about the " our," in " Lighten oui
1 Ver. 3. a Gen. viii. 22. 3 Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21,
4 See Joshua x. 12, 13. 5 Amos v. 8.
A ppendix B. 479
darkness," which must not be overlooked, and which is more clearly brought out by the phraseology of the Psalm than by that of the Collect. It may please God to " lighten the darkness" and yet it may not please Him to " lighten our eyes." The East may flush with the dawn, as it has flushed hitherto every morning, and as it will flush " while the earth remaineth ; " and yet it may not flush upon us; our darkness may not be lightened. Sleep is an image of death. What if, in our case, sleep should really pass into death 1 What if, according to that commination of the prophet against Babylon, we should "sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake " ? 1 When we say, " Lighten our darkness," we are asking that it may not be so, that God would not allow our bed to become our grave, that He would give us one more day of life, one more day of trial, one more day in which to perfect our repentance, if indeed that repentance has been in earnest begun, and to mature our spiritual characters, if indeed the germ of spiritual character is already formed in our heart. Is it not a very solemn thought that we are asking God to hold out to us further opportunities, — may I not say, is it not a very awful thought, unless we are entirely deter- mined with His help to improve those opportunities, when He gives them, and to live nearer to Him to-morrow than we have done to-day ? See how much profession we virtually make in our prayers, even when we are least conscious of making any ; for cer- tainly the asking God to give us another day must imply that we honestly mean to make the most of it, if He gives it.
" And by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night ; " the word " perils " is somewhat superfluous, since " dangers " expresses exactly the same idea. Neither word gives the entire point of the Latin, which, in a more literal translation, runs thus ; " And do thou by thy mercy repel from us the snares of the whole of this night." There are two methods in which the devil attacks us, which are discriminated in the Litany as " the crafts and assaults of the devil," the " crafts " being also called in a subsequent suffrage, " deceits of the devil." In the two earliest temptations of our Lord, the devil went to work (like the Gibeonites of old) " wilily," 2 by craft3 and deceits ; he quoted holy Scripture, and on the ground of certain passages in it, to which he called our Lord's attention, moved him to trust in the creature, or to presump- tion Finding these crafts and wiles hopeless, he in the last tempt-
1 See Jer. li. 39, 57.
* See Joshua ix. 3, 4, 5.
480
Appendix B.
ation changes his tactics into an assault ; he no longer lies in ambush, but advances undisguisedly to the attack. " Here is a glittering bribe for thee, if thou wilt but commit an act of idolatry to a creature of great power and great intelligence, — all the king- doms of the world and the glory of them, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." 1 Now, what we pray God, in the original Latin, to be shielded from during the whole night, is " insidiae," — the crafts, artifices, stratagems, which either the devil or man, in their subtlety, lay for us during those hours of sleep when we can no longer guard ourselves. It is not perils and dangers merely which we pray against, but concealed perils and dangers, perils and dangers which (as it were) lie in ambuscade. " Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me " 2 (this is the exact idea) ; fulfil to me the gracious promise ; " Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler." 3 . . . " Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers : the snare is broken, and we are escaped." 4 " In the dark," says Job, describing the operations of the house- breaker, which were in those old times much the same as they are now, " they dig through houses, which they had marked for them- selves in the daytime." s And in the night, a small spark lighting on combustible material may raise a conflagration which shall con- sume property and endanger life, and wrap us round in lurid flames, which shall soar up to the sky j " Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth ! " 0 But what are the crafts and subtleties of man, compared with those of the devil ? And what is the rapidity with which fire gains its fatal mastery over a dwelling-house, com- pared with that with which a motion of lust, or discontent, or ambition, falling on the prepared tinder of a " desperately wicked and deceitful heart,"7 kindles up there, and works in a moment mischief incalculable ? It is not a striking fiction of the imagina- tion, but a plain sober truth, which Milton sets forth in a poetical form, when he tells how Adam aud Eve, even when innocent, were assailed in their sleep by Satan, and how his wiles were dispelled by the touch of Ithuriel's spear, which caused him to start up in his own likeness " discovered and surprised ; "
" Him there they found Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,
1 See St. Matt. iv. 8, 9. 3 Ps. xxxi. 4. 3 Ps. xci. 3.
4 Ps. cxxiv. 7. 5 Job xxiv. 16. ■ See St. James iii. 5.
7 See Jer. xvii. 9.
Appendix B.
Assaying by his devilish art to reach
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
Illusions as he list, phantasms, and dreams ;
Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint
Th' animal spirits that from pure blood arise,
Like gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise
At least distempered, discontented thoughts,
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires,
Blown up with high conceits ingend'ring pride. " 1
Wherefore " totius hujus noctis insidias tu a nobis repelle propi- tius," — give thine angels charge over us,2 and let them succour and defend us on earth,3 and grant " that those evils, which the craft and subtUty of the devil or man worketh against us, be brought to nought ; and by the providence of thy goodness they may be dis- persed." 4
" For the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ." Well and wisely have our Reformers done in occasionally vary- ing the usual mediation-ending of the Collects (" through Jesus Christ our Lord ") by other formularies meaning the same thing, but calling our attention to the significance of the termination more than if the form of it were never varied. And what a beautiful and instructive variety5 is this, "/or the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ," — that is, for the love which Thou ever bearest to Him, and to us for His sake, who took our nature upon Him. God can deny Christ nothing. And when we say, " Grant us this, 0 Father, out of Thy love to Him," we seem to hear the voice which fell from heaven at Christ's Baptism, " This is my be- loved Son, in whom I am well pleased " 6 — well pleased with the children of men whom He represents — well pleased to bow My ear to the humblest who- draws near in His name, and by faith pleads His merits and atoning sacrifice.
1 Par. Lost, B. iv. 799-809, 814. 2 See Ps. xci. 11. 3 Collect for St. Michael's Day. 4 Litany. * It is noticed in the Appendix " On the Terminations of the Collects and Orisons," Vol. I. p. 102-104. 8 St. Matt. iii. 17 ; St. Luka hi. 22.
VOL. II.
INDEX.
A_BrB, the first month of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, i. 295 n.
Absolve, meaning of, ii. 180.
Aetius and Albinus, Leo makes peace between them, L 27.
Agilulph the Lombard, i. 44.
Alaric, death of, i. 28.
Alcuin, Sacramentary of, i. 79.
Aless translates Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-book into Latin, i. 367 n.
Alford, Dean, Greek Testament quoted, i. 122, 132, 136.
Almsgiving, when it involves our all, the climax of human doings towards man, i. 250.
Amen in the Lord's Prayer, said by the priest alone, L 86 n.
American Church, the, retains the prayer of oblation from Edward VI. 's first Prayer-book, i. 342 n.
Ananias and Sapphira, the sin of, ii. 7.
Andrew, St., address to his cross, ii. 203 n. ; tradition respecting his crucifixion, ii. 202-205.
Andrewes, Bishop, " Preces Private " quoted, i. 5, 352 ; ii. 69.
Angels, cannot touch the inner springs of the spiritual life, ii. 27 ; Gregory's homily on the nine orders of, ii. 27 n. 339, 343, 345 (see Collect for St. Michael, etc.) ; tutelage of, how re- garded in the Holy Scripture, i. 242.
Anthem a corruption of Antiphon, L 410 n.
Anthems for Advent in the early
Church, i. 140, 141. Antiphona, original meaning of, i.
410 n. Antiphonary, i. 23, 45. dTreid^s, a word used only (among New
Testament writers) by St. Luke and
St. Paul, L 132 n. Apocrypha, the, called Scripture in a
secondary sense in some of the
Homilies, i. 334 n. i-roSodrjifat, St. Matthew, xxvii. 58,
literally "to be given back," i. 317
and n.
Armfield, Rev. H. T., quoted, i. 50 n. ; ii. 388; referred to, L 103.
Articles, the Thirty-nine, quoted, i. 350, 351 ; ii. 135 n., 154, 375, 426, 470.
Ashes, the benediction of, L 256, 257 and n.
Atonement, doctrine of the, strongly impressed on the Collects of the early writers, ii. 153.
Attila, L 27, 29.
Audio, ausculto, difference in meaning of, ii. 416.
Augustine, St., quoted, L 15 and n., 134 n. ; ii. 135 n., 320 n., 460.
Augustine, St. , of Canterbury, festival of, i. 39, 40 ; is sent to England by Gregory, i. 39, 40, 42, 43, 49 ; brings the Roman Liturgy to Eng- land, i. 48.
Augustulus, Emperor, i. 31.
Bacon, Lord, " Advancement of Learn- ing," quoted, i. 118, 119 n.
Baptism, Order of, of infants, i. 9, 45 n. 102, 108, 112, 124, 344; ii. 128 ; of adults, i. 112; private, i. 102 ; assures us that the power, love, etc., of God are centred on us individually, and not only diffused generally, i. 225 ; admits us into communion with Christ, and into the
484
Index.
fellowship of His Church, i. 349 ; of infants, what is received in, i. 350 ; in Primitive Church specially ad- ministered on Easter Eve, i. 347 ; and from Easter to Whitsuntide, 377-379 ; symbolism of death and the resurrection, i. 348 ; ritual of,
i. 378 ; garments of the new -bap- tized, i. 378, 379.
Baptize, meaning of, when it occurs in the New Testament, i. 349 and n.
Baronius, "Annales Ecclesiastici," quoted, i. 29 n., 36 n., 134 n. ; ii 118.
Beatus, meaning of, i. 116 n.
Bede, antiphon sung in his last sick- ness, L 411; "Ecclesiastical His- tory " (Dr. Giles), quoted, i. 40 n.
Benedictus, meaning of, i. 116 n.
Bengel quoted, i. 317.
Bertha Queen, wife of Ethelbert, L 48.
Bingham, " Antiquities of the Chris- tian Church," quoted, i. 256 n., 265, 266, 348, 378, 397 n.
Bishops, Consecration of, prayers in, L 110, 113 ; ii. 241 ; the choosing, a very critical time for the Church,
ii. 239, 240.
Blessed, as applied to God, the trans- lation of two Greek words, i. 115 and n., 116.
Blomefield, "History of Norfolk," quoted, ii. 400 n.
Blunt, Rev. J. H., "Annotated Book of Common Prayer," quoted, L 23, 296 n. ; ii. 293 ; letter from, i. 182 n., 183 n. ; Dictionary of Doc- trinal and Historical Theology, quoted, ii. 108, 131 n.
Body, the, the Prayer-book an echo of the Bible respecting the sanctifica- tion of, i. 299 ; tendency of thought in the Reformed Church to discard it from consideration., and regard the soul exclusively as the subject of sanctification, ii. 157, 158, 409- 411 ; its sanctification consummated in the resurrection, ii. 410.
Bonds, or chains, of sins, ii. 183-185.
Boreel, John, i. 122 n.
Bright, Canon, "Ancient Collects," quoted, i. 14, 24, 34 n., 35, 92, 297 I
n., 355 ; ii. 2, 36 n., 43 n., 180, 187, 231 n., 354 n., 457 n., 465 n. ; letters of, i. 100, 101, 303 n.
Bright and Medd, Latin version of the Book of Common Prayer, i. 107, 113, 116, 234 n., 367 n.
Browne, Bishop Harold, " Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles," quoted, L 58 ; ii. 119 n.
Buckley, Rev. W. E., quoted, ii. 223 n., 231 n.
Bull, Bishop, "Sermon on the differ- ent degrees of bliss in Heaven," quoted, ii. 340, 341.
Burial of the Dead, Office for, i. 8, 17- 22, 45 and n., 102; Holy Com- munion at, i. 18 ; Epistle and Gos- pel for, i. 18.
Burial linen in the Holy Sepulchre, its orderly arrangement by the angels helped to rebut the falsehood of Christ's body having been stolen away, ii. 347 n.
Burton's "Three Primers," quoted, i. 107 n.
Butler, Alban, "Lives of the Saints," quoted, i. 25, 41 n. ; ii. 250 n.
Butler, Professor Archer, " Posthumous Sermons," quoted, ii. 155.
Cesar, quoted, i. 199 n. ; ii. 255. Calvin's "Institutes," quoted, ii. 16. Campbell, Dr. J. M'Leod, "The Nature
of the Atonement," quoted, i. 268 n. Canon, meaning of, in the Roman
Church, ii. 422 n. ; in the Missal
of Sarum, ii 422, 423 n. Canon of the Mass, i. 23, 100 ; ii. 422
and n.
Cardwell, Dr. Edward, his remarks on
the supposed visit of St. Paul to
Britain, ii. 223 n. Carhne, whence derived, i. 235. Carthage, third Council of, L 134 n.,
see Ccelestius and Hippo. Cave, William, D.D., " Antiquitates
Apostolicae," quoted, ii. 205 n.,
321 n.
Chad, St., rhyme about, i. 103 n. Chalcedon, Council of, i. 25-27. Chambers, Mr., "Sarum Psalter," quoted, L 99 ; ii. 394 K
Index.
485
Chance, a word rarely used in Scrip- ture, ii. 402, 403.
Charles I. tries to introduce the Eng- lish Liturgy into Scotland ; his failure results in the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, L 343.
Charlotte, Princess. See Bishop Fisher.
Cheerfulness, the life and soul of good works, ii. 156.
Christ, in the Gospels, constantly represents Himself as the Father's Envoy, i. 136 ; the personal anta- gonist of Satan, i. 228.
"Christ his sake," different explana- tions of this termination by Canon Bright, the Bishop of Chester, and others, i. 102 and n.
Christian, the name of, first given as a term of reproach, L 385 and n.
Christmas Day Collect for the first Communion in Edward VI. 's first Prayer-book, Appendix A., ii. 445- 449 ; suppressed in the second Prayer-book, ii. 446 ; reason for dropping it, ii. 446, 450 ; reference to the First and Second Advents, ii. 447, 448.
Christmas Eve Collect, ii. 447.
Christmas Masses, Collects from the, i. 145 and n. ; ii. 445.
Chrysostom, St., quoted, ii. 283, 454.
Church Catechism, quoted, L 364 ; iL 158, 348 n., 461.
Church of England, the, not new at the Reformation, i. 72, 73.
Cicero quoted, i. 236 n., 300, 301 n.
Classes, two, of Divine perfections, and two of Divine testimonies, L 166.
Clement, St., on the " First Epistle to the Corinthians," quoted, iL 223 n.
Cloveshoo, Council of, decrees the ob- servance of St. Gregory's Day, L 39 and n. ; decrees the keeping up of the Rogation Days, i. 397.
Ccelestius charged with heresy at the Council of Carthage, ii. 119 n.
Colenso, Bishop, sermon at the conse- cration of, ii. 240 and n.
Coleridge quoted, ii. 55.
Colkcta, derivation of, i. 10, 11, 15 ; means "solemn assembly," i. 15 and n.
Collect, a Eucharistic prayer, i. 8 ; origin of the word, i 8-16 ; word used in two senses, i. 8 ; gathers up the prayers of the people, recalls the Jewish ritual, and our Lord's High Priestly office, i. 12 ; a summary of the teaching of the Epistle and Gos- pel, i. 9, 13 ; compression of thought in a, L 13 ; plan and structure of a, i. 17-22 ; constituent parts of a, L 22.
Collect, the Constant, L 75-87 ; its antiquity, i. 78 and n. ; difference between "every" and "all," L 79 ; God's Eye all-seeing, first clause, God's Ear all-hearing, second clause, L 79-81 ; difference between infu- sion and inspiration, L 82-84 ; wind, fire, and water, three purifying agencies in nature, and therefore emblems of the Holy Spirit, i. 83 ; innocence necessary not only in deed and word, but in thought, L 83 ; "our heart" in the Latin in the singular, appropriateness of it, i. 84 ; what the perfect love of God is, i. 84, 85 ; praise the outcome of love, i. 85 ; the Holy Communion a sacri- fice of praise, i. 86 ; only believing prayer crowned with success, i. 86.
Collect for the first Communion at Christmas. See Christmas.
Collect for St. Mary Magdalene's Day. See St. Mary Magdalene.
Collects, the, founded in Scripture (see under Prayer), i. 5, 13, 17, 18 ; the Latin Collects imbued with Scrip- ture, but the exact words more quoted in the Reformers' Collects, L 306 ; ii. 258 ; antithesis in the Latin, i. 90, 170, 175, 202 ; two classes of, constant and variable, i. 75 ; both new and old, i. 70 ; represent the genius of the English Church, i. 69-74 ; terseness of the, mentioned in Author's work on Holy Com- munion Office, i. 4 n. ; of the Roman bishops in their constant supplications for peace show traces of the unquietness of the political world, i. 32, 33 ; ii. 36 n., 39, 120- 122, 124, 159, 460, 461 ; endings
486
Index.
of the, i. 98-113 (see under End- ings) ; three addressed to Christ, i. 265 (see under Prayers).
Collect for First Sunday in Advent, i. 54, 89-98, 113, 127, 133, 240 n. ; compared with the last Collect of the year, L 90 ; re-cast by the Re- formers, i, 91, 92; "time," meaning of, i. 93 ; combines two lines of thought, retrospective and anticipa- tory, i. 95, 96, 144 ; a short Apostles' Creed, i. 98.
Collect for Second Sunday in Advent, i. 54, 61, 108 n., 114-124, 127 ; ii. 415 ; resemblance to the Advent Collect, L 114; its recognition of the unity of Holy Scrip ture, L 115 ; the invocation and conclusion pecu- liar to itself, i. 115, 117; "all" and "our" emphatic, i. 117-119; difference between read, mark, learn, i. 119, 120 ; digest does not occur in the A. V., i. 121 ; significance in connexion with Advent, L 122 ; the expression of faith in Christ changed to hope, i. 124.
Collect for Third Sunday in Advent, L 62, 64, 90 n., Ill, 125-137, 241 n. ; probably by Bishop Cosin, L 127 ; its fundamental idea, i. 128 ; Christian ministers the pioneers of the Second Advent, i. 128-130; who are meant by the " disobedient," i. 133 ; the invocation addressed to our Lord, i. 133, 135-137 (see also under Prayers addressed to Christ).
Collect for Fourth Sunday in Advent, i. 90 n., 109, 134, 138-144; at first almost a literal translation, i. 139 ; the Latin Collect addressed to our Lord, Dr. Neale's criticism on the change made by the transla- tors, i. 138 n. ; reference to the order of the Israelites' march, i. 139 ; appropriateness to both the First and Second Advents, L 140, 141 ; "among us" inserted in 1549, i. 141 ; Bishop Cosin's insertions, i. 143 ; "hinder" refers to Heb. xiii. 1, i. 142, 143; "help" implies effort on our part, L 143 ; its ter- mination, i. 109.
Collect for Christmas Day, L 55, 111, 145-152, 240 n. ; Epistle and Gos- pel taken from the third Christmas Mass, i. 146; "day" changed into "time," L 147 ; practical value of the doctrine of Christ's eternal generation, i. 148 ; "God's Son and the Seed of the woman," i. 149 ; all the baptized regenerate, i. 149 ; grace means free favour, L 150; the new birth a process external to our- selves, i. 150, 151 ; renewal done in and for us, i. 151 ; renewal a daily process, i. 151; "trans- formed" the same word as "trans- figured," i. 151.
Collect for St. Stephen's Day, i. 62 and n., 63, 64 and n., 68, 125, 133, 153-160 ; ii. 194 n. ; Latin Collect addressed to God the Father, i. 154 ; altered by Cranmer, i. 154 ; the worshipper in the mental attitude of St. Stephen, i. 155 ; Bishop Cosin's meaning for "Thy truth," i. 156 ; relation of internal to external glory, i. 157, 158 ; forgiveness of injuries only possible through much grace, i. 158; " learn," meaning of, i. 158; three methods of disciplining our- selves to forgive, i. 158, 159 ; St. Stephen's prayer the echo of Christ's prayer, i. 159 ; explanation of our Lord appearing to St. Stephen standing and not sitting, L 160.
Collect for St. John the Evangelist's Day, i. 114, 161-168, 186 ; ii. 192, 194 n. ; Cranmer's translation in- ferior to Cosin's revised Collect, i. 161 ; three lights — of the Spirit, of the Word, and of Glory, i. 161, 168 ; Christmas a time of Divine gracious- ness, i. 162 ; the disciples at Pen- tecost not scattered units, but a family, i. 163, 164 ; this an argu- ment for united prayer, i. 164 ; the Church spoken of as "it" in the Prayer-book, i. 164; "doctrine" being in the singular expresses the unity of St. John's teaching, i. 165 ; the keystone of St. John's theology, i. 166 ; two classes of rays of light, two classes of Divine perfections and
Index.
487
of Divine testimonies, L 166 ; mean- ing of "walk in light," i. 166. Collect for the Innocents' Day, i. 169- 176 ; ii. 195 n. ; improved by the revision of 1662, i. 170 ; antithesis in the Latin Collect, i. 170, 175 ; application of the words "ordained strength" to the Incarnation, i. 170, 171 ; the Innocents' death to save Christ's earthly life, thus, in a lower sense, He too was "saved by blood," L 172 ; how the Innocents glorified God by their deaths, i. 172 ; differ- ence between "mortify" and "kill,"
i. 174.
Collect for Circumcision of Christ, i. 177-185 ; its interpretation of Rom.
ii. 28, 29, not the true one, i. 177- 180 ; two reasons for the Circum- cision falling on the octave of Christmas, L 178 ; significance of "for us," i. 179 ; the Spirit means the Holy Spirit, L 179, 180 ; "members," not the members al- luded to in Col. iii. 5, L 181; "we," a mistake of the printer, i. 178, 182, 184.
Collect for the Epiphany, i. 186-191 ; an illustration of the terseness of the Collects, i. 4 ; loses point in the translation, i. 186 ; the word for "gaze upon," appropriated to study of the heavens, i. 187 ; the thought of the wise men is carried through the original Collect, i. 1 88 ; the actual leading of the star only from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, i. 188 ; their following the star an emblem of our following Christ by faith, i. 188, 189 ; the omission of "led onwards " a loss in our trans- lation, i. 190.
Collect for First Sunday after the Epiphany, i. 192-197 ; meaning of "vota," L 192, 284 n. ; God is asked not to grant, but to "mercifully re- ceive " the prayer, i. 193; "merci- fully" means "with fatherly com- passion," i. 194 ; "call upon " liter- ally "supplicate," i. 194 ; difference between " perceive " and "know," L 195, 196 ; "grace," and "faith-
fully," expansions by translator, L 197 ; " faithfully " implied more or less in "fulfil," i. 197.
Collect for Second Sunday after the Epiphany, L 198-204 ; original meaning of "govern," i. 199 ; "in heaven and earth " the struggle for mastery between good and evil still going on, i. 200 ; "at once " in the Latin Collect, i. 201 ; "mercifully" clementer, i. 201 ; ' ' hear " should rather be "listen" or " regard," i. 202 ; the Reformers give a more spiritual sense to the last clause, i. 204 ; peace in our hearts not only on our circumstances, i. 202-204.
Collect for Third Sunday after the Epiphany, i. 205-211 ; meaning of "infirmities," i. 207 ; this season a commemoration of the manifesta- tions of Christ, i. 206 ; atgue not "mercifully look," but "actively assist," L 209 ; reference to the cleansing the leper in the Gospel, i. 209 n. ; Christ's human nature at God's right hand, i. 209, 210 ; an infirm Christ full of sympathy, a glorified Christ full of might, L 210 ; Christ's life in us by the power of the Holy Ghost, L 211.
Collect for Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, i. 212-218 ; close con- nexion between the original Collect and the Gospel, i. 213 ; appro- priateness of the Reformers having lengthened the Gospel, i. 215 ; difference between bodily and spirit- ual dangers, L 216 ; silence in danger, with only a cry to our Lord, the best plan, i. 216 ; both internal and external help needed, i. 217 ; while praying to be delivered from temptation, we must not run into it, L 217 ; (see ii. 469) ; force of the word "such," L 217; the Collect, in connexion with the Gospel, re- minds us of the trials of our own Church, i. 217, 218.
Collect for Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, i. 219-225 ; the first part the same in the Latin as the Collect for the Twenty-second Sunday alter
488
Index.
Trinity, i. 219 ; the English render- ing a mistranslation, i. 220 (see ii. 166, 168) ; pietas, its meaning in the Collect, L 220 ; the eye the symbol of God's protection of His Church and people, the vineyard the image of His disciplining His Church by His providence, and fertilising it by His grace, i. 221 ; " with perpetual mercy " occurs in three Collects, i. 221 ; "household," special meaning of, i. 221. 222 ; man's co-operation with God's guardianship, i. 222 ; the same idea in the parable St. Matt. xiii. 34, 35 ; the porters — the ordained ministers, i. 222 ; members of God's household — children, not all dutiful children, i. 222; God's " fatherly goodness " welcomes the prodigal, L 223 ; "Thy heavenly grace," i.e. God's inward assistance ; " walled round with Thy protection " (original), His outward assistance, i. 223, 224 ; the founda- tion of all true religion to "lean only on the hope of God's grace," this cannot be done by our own power, L 224 ; hope well grounded that rests on God's omnipotence, wisdom, love, and the sympathy of the Good Shepherd, i 225 ; our baptism as- sures us that this is centred on us individually, i. 225. Collect for Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, i. 226, 232 ; no Collect for it in Sarum Missal, i. 226 ; Christ the antagonist of Satan, i. 228 ; sin constitutes the devil's hold, and Christ loosens it by His Blood and His Grace, i. 229 ; the death of Chiist instigated by the devil, the means of defeating the devil, i. 229 ; grace undermines our love of Rin, i. 229 ; Christ's manifestation has a twofold aspect, destructive and creative, i. 230 ; man's sonship for- feited by sin, restored through bap- tism, i. 230 ; two elements in Christian purification, cleansing of the flesh, and cleansing of the spirit, i 231 ; " purify ourselves " corre- sponds to the destructive aspect of
Christ's manifestation, "be made like Him " corresponds to the crea- tive aspect, i. 230-232; "for" show- ing that Christ's final manifestation will stand in living relation to our being made like Him, i. 231.
Collect for Septuagesima Sunday, L 233-240 ; its strain of humiliation gives the first note of Lent, i. 235 ; "hear" in Latin a compound word meaning " hear afar off ; " the usual word in Latin offices to denote God's hearing of prayer ; applied by classi- cal writers to the invocation of a deity by a suppliant, i 236 ; sin a bondage of the will and a degrada- tion of the affections, L 238 ; " For the glory of Thy name," a plea that may be urged by those who have fallen, i. 238 ; God's glory more promoted by saving than destroying the sinner, L 239.
Collect for Sexagesima Sunday, i. 241- 247 ; the mention of the "teacher of the Gentiles " in the Latin Collect, seems to regard St. Paul as a guardian angel of the Gentile churches, and shows a connexion of thought with the Epistle and Gospel, i. 241, 242 ; the Reformers rightly altered the petition, i. 241, 242 ; their reason for shortening the Epistle, i. 243 ; special trials com- pensated by special privileges, e.g., Jacob and St. Paul, i. 244, 245 ; two questions to put to ourselves before using this Collect, L 246 ; how the two parts of the Collect hang together, L 247 ; not till a man is beaten out of his own re- sources does he put his trust in God, i. 247.
Collect for Quinquagesima Sunday, i. 54, 60, 248, 255 ; reference in the Latin Collect to the custom of being shriven on Shrove Tuesday, i. 248 ; connexion of thought with the pre- ceding Collect, i. 249 ; martyrdom, the climax of human doings towards God, almsgiving, when it involves our all, the climax towards man, i. 250 ; a man's body and goods not
Index.
489
himself, and therefore no good un- less he give his heart also, i. 250, | 251; asceticism without love, i. 251 ; "the love of God," Rom. v. 5, probably means both God's love to us, and ours to Him, i. 252 ; our love to God the sense of His love to us, L 253.
Collect for Ash Wednesday, L 256- 264 ; God's creation of us a plea for mercy, i. 258, 259 (see 333, 334) ; repentance the special gift of God, i. 260; special meaning of "create" L 260, 261 ; repentance the fruit of sorrow for sin, i. 262 ; meaning of "worthily," L 261; "perfect" answers to " worthily," i. 262 ; dif- ference between remission and for- giveness, i. 263.
Collect for First Sunday in Lent, i. 265-273 ; why fasting is mentioned here rather than in the Ash Wed- nesday Collect, L 256 n. ; possible reason for its being addressed to Christ, L 265-267 ; force of " for our sakes," i. 267, 268; Christ fasted in an exemplary as well as expiatory sense, L 268 ; teaching of the forty days' fast, i. 269 ; inrw- iridfw, literally bruising the body, as a pugilist his antagonist, i. 269 and n. ; "Spirit," whether with capital letter or not, L 269 and n., 270; godly motions are the vibrations of the soul to the touch of Christ through the Holy Spirit, i. 271 ; abstinence a general duty, but the kind and measure left to the conscience of each, i. 272, 273.
Collect for Second Sunday in Lent, i. 274-280 ; reference to the Gospel, i. 275 ; in Lent we commemorate our Lord's conflict with and victory over the devil, L 274 ; "no power ... to help ourselves," reference to the demoniacs, i. 275 ; demo- niacal possession combined both physical and mental evil, i. 277 ; | defence for the body, cleansing for 1 the soul, i. 278-279 ; the devout ! recital of Holy Scripture a great i help against evil thoughts, i. 279. '
Collect for Third Sunday in Lent, i. 281-287 ; glances forward to its own Gospel, and backwards to that of the previous Sunday, i. 282, 283, 286- 287 ; resemblance to Collect for Third Sunday after Epiphany, i. 283 ; "hearty desires" literally vows, i. 284 ; ii. 24; "the right hand of Thy Majesty," an assurance of both power and sympathy for us, because Christ is seated at the right hand of God, i. 285, 286 ; St. Stephen saw Him standing there, L 286.
Collect for Fourth Sunday in Lent, i. 288-294 ; called "Refreshment Sun- day," probably from the miracle in the Gospel, i. 288, 289 ; the Gospel, Epistle, and Collect, a threefold cord, i. 288 ; the Epistle spiritualises the Gospel, the Collect turns the Epistle into a prayer, L 288-291 ; pardon the fundamental meaning of grace, i. 292-293 ; grace comforts not only the feelings and affections, but also the will by strengthening it, i. 294.
Collect for Fifth Sunday in Lent, i. 295 - 301 ; why called Passion Sunday, i. 295, 296 ; does not harmonize with the Epistle and Gospel, i. 296 ; the Prayer-book echoes the Bible in bringing the body into the sphere of religion, i. 299 ; the word God a modified form of "good," The Good One, i. 300.
Collect for Sunday next before Easter, i. 302-310 ; the latter part not ac- curately translated ; it should be " learn the lessons of His patience," i. 303, 304 ; "tender love towards mankind ; " the Incarnation and Death of Christ here traced up to their source in the love of God, i. 305 ; " taking upon Him our flesh " implies the Godhead of Christ, i. 306, 307 ; patience and humility allied graces, patience the outcome of the root humility, i. 308 ; op- portunities for patience in daily life, i. 308 ; if not patient, then not of the mind of Christ, i. 308 ; pride the source of impatience, i. 309.
49Q
Index.
Collect for Good Friday, First, i. 311-318 ; doctrinal error in the Latin Collect, L 312 ; connexion of thought between the three Collects for this day, L 313, 3H ; the first intercedes for the Church as one body, the second for the Church as a system, each part of which has its separate functions, the third for all outside the Church's pale, L 313- 315; "was contented," lit. "did not hesitate," i. 315 ; "betrayed" — ingratitude the first ingredient in Christ's cup of suffering here men- tioned, i. 316; "to suffer death," etc., the Latin is "to undergo the torment of the cross," i. 317 ; its adoration ending, i. 318 ; signifi- cance of the adoration ending, i. 240 n.
Collect for Good Friday, Second, L 319- 325 ; where placed in the old Sacra- mentaries, L 320 ; it regards the Church not as a family, bnt in its Catholic character, L 320 ; the body of the Church distinct from its ani- mating spirit, i. 321 ; one body of Christ, one spirit ruling it, i. 321 ; "prayer" a generic term, supplica- tion and intercession more specific, i. 322 ; "truly," i.e. faithfully, ap- plies to "vocation," "godly" to " ministry," i. 325 ; Christian lay- men have a ministry as well as the clergy, i. 324, 325 ; there must be the ministry of prayer and praise, etc., or the vocation will not have God's blessing, i. 325.
Collect for Good Friday, Third, i. 326- 339 ; eighteen intercessory prayers for Good Friday in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, i. 327 ; prayer for all men appropriate to Good Friday, because Christ gave Himself then " a ransom for all " (see 1 John ii. 2), i. 328-332 ; two answers to our Lord's prayer on the cross for in- fidels and Jews, i. 330; "and hatest nothing," etc., taken from the Apocrypha, L 334 ; the sinning Christian mars God's work of grace, the blind and proud Jew or heathen mars His work in nature, i. 335 ;
on Ash Wednesday we pray for God's mercy to His creations of grace, on Good Friday to His creations of nature and providence, i. 335 ; no mention of conversion in the Ash Wednesday Collect, for conversion is for those without the pale, repent- ance for those within, i. 335-337 ; the four heads of the Collect embrace all forms of religious error, i. 337 ; "ignorance" is in the mind, "hard- ness" in the heart, "contempt" in the will, — these the roots of unbelief, i. 337 ; " one flock " — there may be many folds, i. 338, 339 ; (see under fold) ; significance of the adoration ending, i. 240 n. Collect for Easter Even, i. 62, 125, 340-353 ; Sarum Collect rejected by Reformers and not replaced, i. 340,
341 ; this written by Archbishop Laud for the Scotch Church, i. 341,
342 ; revised by Bishop Cosin for . the English Church, i. 342, 344 ;
its historical memories, 340-343 ; we pray for our sins not to be dead only, but to be buried, never more to haunt us, i. 345, 346, 351, 352 ; Easter Even in the Primitive Church a special time for Baptism, L 347 ; why chosen, L 348 ; "baptized into the death of Christ " is to be ad- mitted into communion with a dying and atoning Saviour, and therefore coming in for the benefits of His atonement, L 349, 350 ; burying the flesh goes beyond morti- fying it, i. 352, 353. Collect for Easter Day, L 45, 46, 240 n. ; view of the mediaeval ritualists of the connexion between the Festi- val and the petition of the Collect, i. 356 n. ; twofold propriety of calling Christ God's "only- begotten Son " in connexion with Easter, i. 356 ; in the first three Easter Col- lects Christ is spoken of as God's " only Son," i. 357 n. ; " opened . . . the gate," etc., refers to Rev. iii. 8, and recalls the Te Deum, i. 358 ; God through Christ not only opened the gate, but prevented us with His grace, i. 358, 359 ; ii. 130 ; all good
Index.
491
longings come from God's " special grace preventing us," i. 359 ; pre- venting grace comes first, then human endeavour with God's con- tinued help, i. 359, 360; ii. 135 n. ; not to rest in good desires like Balaam, i. 360.
Collect for First Sunday after Easter, i. 362-368 ; why sometimes called Quasi modo Sunday, i. 363 ; pro- bable reference in the Collect to the newly baptized, i. 363 ; three features of the Collect — 1, reference to the Epistles rather than the Gospels ; 2, direct citation of Holy Scripture ; 3, balanced clauses for the ear as well as the mind, i. 363, 364 ; the invocation peculiar to itself and very appropriate, i. 364 ; God's acquittal, the first boon brought to man by Christ's resurrec- tion, i. 365 ; four acts in the Jews' putting away of leaven — purging out, searching out, burning out, and cursing out, L 366 ; difference be- tween "malice" and "wickedness," i. 366 ; leaven a type of false doc- trine as well as of sin, i. 368 ; purity, even if attainable, could not be the ground of acceptance, i. 368.
Collect for Second Sunday after Easter, i. 369-376 ; the duty of a Christian consists in reception and imitation, i. 370 ; God gives Christ to man, both at His birth and at His resur- rection, L 370 ; Christ's sacrifice, not only expiatory, i. 372 ; His death a spiritual benefit, His "ensample " a moral benefit to us, i. 372 ; patient endurance of undeserved in- dignities, the particular feature of Christ's example, i. 372, 373 ; faith in Christ's sacrifice a necessary con- dition of following Him, L 374 ; "endeavour ourselves," a reflexive verb, no emphasis on "ourselves," L 375 ; reference to the Eastern custom of the shepherd going before the sheep, i. 375.
Collect for Third Sunday after Easter, i. 377-387; "error" not that of untrue Christians, but the specula- tive error of avowed unbelief, i. 379,
380 ; special reference to the Easter catechumens, i. 380 ; the unevan- gelized are said to "return," because they, with the whole human race, fell in Adam, who was in the " way of righteousness " before his fall, i.
381 ; every man has a moral sense and a religious instinct, and receives a revelation of God through Nature, L 381 ; two contrary errors with regard to the spiritual condition of the heathen, i. 381 ; special force of "fellowship," i. 382, 383 ; signifi- cance of " all," i. 386.
Collect for Fourth Sunday after Easter, i. 388-395 ; change made by the Reformers, L 388-390 ; God's pre- cepts and promise the power that draws Christians into union with each other, and holds them there, i. 389 ; God does not order the will of man by moral compulsion only, He wins the will and not only carries it, i. 391 ; the affections, the motive powers of the will, i. 392 ; this prayer a foretaste- of the Ascension Collect, i. 395.
Collect for Fifth Sunday after Easter, i 396-402 ; Rogation Sunday (see Rogation Days), i. 397 ; reference in the Collect to the Rogation prayer for a good harvest, L 399, 400 ; right thoughts, the spring produce, which should result in a moral harvest of just works, L 400 ; inspiration no longer a miraculous gift, but now a grace, a source of right thought, i. 401 ; we need guidance as well as inspiration, L 401, 402.
Collect for the Ascension Day, i. 403- 409 ; reason for ocular demonstra- tion of the Ascension, i. 404; ocular proof of no avail without intelligent discernment, i. 405 ; this last as open to us as to the Apostles, i. 405 ; Christ passed through the heavens, i.e. the lower heavens, i. 405 ; genuine faith leads to corre- sponding practice, i.e. ascension with Christ in heart and mind, i. 406 ; our minds are little in heaven, be- cause our hearts are little there, i. 407 : the spiritual Pentecost must
492
Index.
come before the spiritual Ascension i 407.
Collect for Sunday after Ascension Day, L 410-417 ; taken from an antiphon for Ascension Day, ex- panded by the Reformers, L 411 ; they did not retain the direct address to our Lord, reasons for regretting this, L 412, 413 ; its harmony with the Epistle and Gospel, i. 413 ; "comfortless" in the original "orphans," i. 415; Greek word for comforter, advocate; two Hebrew words, consoler and medi- ator, i. 416 ; the office of the Holy Spirit to exalt as well as to comfort us, L 416, 417.
Collect for Whitsun Day, i. 77 n., 240 n., 418-423; the petition twofold, L 418 ; the Holy Spirit teaches the mind through the heart, L 419, 420 ; Pentecost light a waxing light, i. 420, 421 ; Holy Scriptures and the Creed are fixed, but the Church's understanding of them increases with her experience, L 421 ; significance of "in all things," L 421 ; "ever- more " and ' ' holy " added by Cran- mer, L 422 ; the ending gives a glimpse of the Holy Spirit as the unifying principle in the God- head leading our minds towards the doctrine of Trinity Sunday, i. 423.
Collect for Trinity Sunday, L 111, 112 ; ii. 1-7 ; altered for the worse by Bishop Cosin, ii. 2 ; the Name of God means His revealed character, ii. 3 ; how the Name of the Holy Trinity is a tower of strength, ii. 2-6 ; our Church prayers imply much in those who use them, ii. 6 ; do we confess the faith by grace 1 ii. 6 ; an insincere profession in God's presence the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, ii 7.
Collect for First Sunday after Trinity, ii. 8-14 ; a sense of human weak- ness leads to trust in God, ii. 8-10 ; trust expresses itself in prayer, ii. 9-11 ; prayer obtains grace, ii. 9-11; grace enables us to obey
I God, ii. 9, 12, 13 ; obedience wins the favour of God, ii. 9, 13, 14 ; Christ the well, the Holy Spirit the water, faith the power to draw it up, prayer the pitcher, ii 10 ; the Holy Spirit does not compel us, but works on our will through our affec- tions, ii. 11 ; connexion between the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, ii. 12 ; man's endeavour must co - operate with God's preventing and assisting grace, ii. 14.
Collect for Second Sunday after Trinity, ii. 15-21 ; "help" is liter- ally "pilot," ii. 17, 33 ; recalls the " Ark of Christ's Church " in the Baptismal Service, ii. 17 > love with- out fear has no steadfastness, ii. 19; as love grows, fear grows also, ii. 19; St. John (1 John iv. 18) is speaking of slavish fear, ii. 20 ; two features in God's character, infinite love and infinite purity, ii. 20.
Collect for Third Sunday after Trinity, ii. 22-28 ; no good English word for " deprecatio," ii. 23 ; " pray " • means "humbly pray," the Latin word for suppliant, ii 23 ; the im- pulse to pray given by God, ii. 24 ; the consciousness of God's aid, our greatest comfort, ii. 25 ; Elisha comforted his servant by giving him this consciousness, ii. 25-26 ; faith the only road to comfort, ii. 27 ; angels cannot touch the inner springs of spiritual life, ii. 27.
Collect for Fourth Sunday after Trinity, ii 29-35 ; its doctrine, ii. 30, 31 ; difference between hope and trust, ii. 30, 31 n. ; traces the whole work of grace in the heart, ii. 32 ; differ- ence between increase and multiply, ii. 32 n. ; God's mercy the founda- tion, a holy life the superstructure, ii. 33 ; what a holy life is, ii. 33- 35 ; " rule " suggests the outward guidance of God's providence, " guidance " a distinct and deeper idea, the instigations of His Spirit and His Word, ii. 34 ; this guid- ance external in Holy Scripture, in- ternal in the conscience, ii. 33, 34 ;
Index.
493
our character determined by our conduct, ii. 35. Collect for Fifth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 36-42 ; active service the Chris- tian's duty as well as devotion, ii. 37 ; God orders the affairs of this world for the well - being of His Church, e.g., the history of Joseph, ii. 37-39 ; " peaceably " reminds us that this was composed for the cir- cumstances of Leo's times, i. 30; ii. 39 ; all effective service to God must be done with quietness, ex- ternal and internal, and with joy, ii. 40-42.
Collect for Sixth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 43 - 49 ; mutilated by Cranmer and Cosin, ii. 45, 48 ; " love " rathef " esteem" — the love of moral choice, ii. 45 and n. ; we must desire the fulfilment of God's promise if we would obtain it, ii. 45, 46 ; God Himself, not His gifts, the object of our love, ii. 47 ; the omission of " in all good things " a loss, ii. 48 ; God must be loved in all things, both good and evil, ii. 48, 49.
Collect for Seventh Sunday after Trinity, ii. 50-56 ; distinction be- tween "power" and "might," ii. 51 ; the word nourish is possibly suggested by the miracle in the Gospel, ii. 52 n. ; "the love of Thy Name," God's character the object of our love, ii. 3, 53, 171 ; two pro- cesses in the increase of religion, God must nurture what He has im- planted, and guard what He has nurtured, ii. 52-56 ; sentiments not enough in the service of God, there must be works of love, ii. 54 ; meaning of "religion" ii. 54.
Collect for Eighth Sunday afterTrinity, ii. 57-63 ; Bishop Cosin replaced the idea of God's control, which had been lost in the translation, ii. 57,
58 ; " hurtful things," cunctus and omnia, exact meaning of, ii. 33, 58,
59 and n. ; our journey through life the main idea of the prayer, ii. 59 ; " heaven " here is the sphere of the angels, ii. 60 ; notice of the Provi-
dential ordering of " heavenly things," i. 201, ii. 60 ; nothing too small for this ordering, ii. 61 ; the doctrine of the Collect, the Divine foresight and control ; the petition that they may be exerted for us, that God, knowing all things, will keep us on our life's journey, ii. 61, 62 ; the pilgrimage of Israel typical of the Christian pilgrimage, ii 62, 63.
Collect for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 64-69 ; difference be- tween existing and living, ii. 65, 66 ; the Latin word translated "live" does not mean conduct, but life as opposed to death, ii. 66 ; right thinking not enough without right doing, ii. 67, 68 ; three points of the Latin Collect — 1, the Christian not able to exist without God ; 2, the Christian endowed by God with the spirit first to think what is right and then to do it ; 3, the Christian living the spiritual life of which God is the model and the source, ii. 69.
Collect for Tenth Sunday after Trinity, ii.70-76; "Thy merciful ears;" God's justice has ears as well as His mercy, ii. 71 ; God hears the prayers of the humble, ii. 72 ; the prayer of the publican the foundation of Christian righteousness, ii. 72, 73 ; God hears the prayers of His servants, not of the servants of sin, ii. 73 ; prayer may be heard but not granted, ii. 73 ; prayers for spiritual blessings must be pleasing to God, ii. 73-76 ; Solomon's choice of wisdom, ii. 76 ; all other blessings should be prayed for conditionally, ii. 75, 76.
Collect for Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, ii. 77-88 ; difference be- tween mercy and pity, ii. 78 ; sin presents a difficulty to God, ii. 78- 82 ; a proof of this the necessity of the atonement, the death of the Son of God, and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, ii. 81, 82, 88 ; the con- version and salvation of a sinner God's highest act of power, ii. 78, 81, 82, 88 ; harmony of the Collect
494
Index.
with the Epistle and Gospel, ii. 84 ; reference to Heb. xiL 1, 2, to the Christian race, ii. 85, 86 ; " par- takers," rather "fellow-partakers," joint-heirs, ii. 86, 87; the "heavenly treasure " not external to us, it is an increasing appreciation of God's perfections, ii. 87.
Collect for Twelfth Sunday after Trin- ity, ii. 89-95 ; possible reference in Gelasius' Collect to the miracle in the Gospel, ii. 90 n. ; God's readi- ness to hear prayer, e.g., the parable of the Prodigal Son, and the history of Daniel ii. 90-93 ; " desire " here means to " ask for," ii. 92 ; force of " wont," ii. 93 ; three sources of the assurance of forgiveness — the Spirit in the conscience, the water of Bap- tism, the Blood of the Cross, ii. 95.
Collect for Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 96-103 ; the subject the service of God, ii 97 ; our duty to God threefold — to worship, to serve, and to obey Him, ii. 97 ; in what the service of God consists, iL 99 ; ' ' laudable service," the thought that our service can be praiseworthy a great moral stimulus, iL 100, 101 ; service the general characteristic of "this life," recompense that of the "heavenly kingdom," ii. 101 ; a proportion between the service and the recompense, " so faithfully . . that we fail not," etc., iL 102.
Collect for Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 104-110; connection with the Epistle and Gospel, ii. 104-107 ; faith, hope, and love called the theological virtues, iL 107, 108 n. ; faith, hope, and love, have a corre- spondence with the past, present, and future, ii. 109 ; it is not enough to keep God's commandments, we must love them, ii. 109 ; His commands of two kinds ; the commands in Revelation v/e must execute, His orderings in Providence we must submit to, ii. 110.
Collect for Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 111-122 ; Cranmer changed the Epistle, iL 111 ; its
connection with the Collect and Gospel, ii. 112-116 ; " propitiation " implies more than mercy, ii. 117, 118 ; God's mercy the security and protection of the Church, iL 118, 169 ; traces of Gelasius' protest against the Pelagian heresy, ii. 118- 120 ; and of the troublous times he lived in, ii. 120-122.
Collect for Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, iL 123-129 ; ii. 169 ; the Church's being cleansed by God's pardon, and defended by His Provi- dence, iL 123 ; vividness given to this from the circumstances of the times of Gelasius, ii. 123, 128 ; two cleansings spoken of in Holy Scrip- ture, designated by our Lord as a bathing (total ablution) and foot- 'washing (partial ablution), ii. 125, 126 ; defence without cleansing, a bane rather than a boon, iL 126 ; " congregation " usually applied to those under the Dispensation of the Law, "Church" to the Christian society, ii. 127 ; "preserve," the Latin word signifies more the guid- ing of a pilot, ii. 127, 128, 129 ; harmonizes with St. John vi. 15-21, iL 127, 128.
Collect for Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, iL 130-137 ; "prevent" means here forestall, iL 130 ; grace, what it is, ii. 131, 132 ; the pre- venting grace a pledge of the co- operating grace, if we follow the Holy Spirit's guidance, i. 359, 360 ; iL 135; "continually" in Latin jugiter, ceaselessly, iL 136.
Collect for Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 138-144; "withstand temptation," in the Latin " avoid contagion," iL 139 ; an unholy Trinity — evil angels, evil men, evil self, iL 140 ; the order in the Collect is the order in which we become acquainted with them, ii. 141 ; purification of self by resisted temptation, ii. 143; "follow" in the Latin Collect in an intensified form, iL 143, 144.
Collect for Nineteenth Sunday aftei
Index.
495
Trinity, ii. 145-151 ; grace not an infused quality, ii. 145 ; difference between direct and rule, ii. 146, 147, 406, 467 ; we dare not pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance with- out praying for His government, ii. 147, 148; the Holy Spirit holds man's spirit in union with God, ii. 149 ; to please God, faith is the actuating principle ; the method consists positively in our sanctifica- tion, negatively in renunciation of the lusts of the flesh, ii. 150 ; sanctification of the heart implies that of the body also, ii. 151.
Collect for Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 152-158 ; of " thy boun- tiful goodness," in Latin, being pro- pitiated, ii. 153, 160 ; "cheerfully," the key-stone of the prayer, ii. 155, 156 ; spiritual joyfulness the lead- ing idea, 155, 156 ; connection with the Epistle and Gospel, it 155 ; the body to be sanctified as well as the soul, iL (see 151) 157, 158 ; the care of health a duty, ii. 158.
Collect for Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, ii. 159-165 ; "grant," in Latin largire, to grant largely, iL 160; "merciful" in Latin is more " being appeased," ii. 160 (see 153) ; indulgentia, simple meaning is an overlooking of faults, ii. 161 ; abso- lution here is for the recurring fail- ures of a believer, not for the first turning of a sinner, ii. 161 ; the pardon asked is the washing of the feet, not the entire washing in Bap- tism, iL 161, 162 (see 125, 126) ; harmony with the Epistle and Gos- pel, ii. 163 ; a summary of St. Matt. zi. 28-30, ii. 164 ; original peace ^itw, subsequentpeace ^remied, iL 164.
Collect for Twenty-second Sundayafter Trinity, ii. 166-172 ; the English not altered since 1549, ii. 166 ; God regarded as the Father and Master of a household, ii. 167 ; (see i. 220, 221) ; mistranslation of pietas, ii. 167, 168 (see i. 220) ; meaning is " fatherly pity," iL 169 ;
the Latin collect's harmony with the Gospel, ii. 170 ; "devoutly given to serve Thee," literally "devoted to Thy Name," God's Name His revealed character, ii. 171 (see ii. 3, 20, 53).
Collect for Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity, ii. 173-179 ; two classes of prayer — those God is ready to hear, and those He will grant, ii. 174- 179 (see ii. 73) ; prayers in distress specially prescribed with special promises, ii. 175, 176; God will hear devout prayers, ii. 176-178; prayers God will grant — those offered with a specific persuasion that the thing asked for is according to His will, ii. 178, 179.
Collect for Twenty-fourth Sundayafter Trinity, iL 180-186 ; difference be- tween absolve and forgiye, ii. 181, 182 ; people in the Latin being plural may indicate an enlarged spirit of intercession, ii. 182, 183 ; nexus means band, and, in a figura- tive sense, a debt ; significance of the latter meaning, ii. 184-186.
Collect for Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, ii. 187-193; the doctrine of grace more distinctly stated in the Latin Collect, the idea of " good work " more prominent in the trans- lation, iL 187-192; St. Paul, de- scribing the "fruit of the Spirit," enumerates states of mind and not works, ii. 189, 190; God stirs up the will, but does not force it, iL 193 (see i. 391).
Collect for St. Andrew's Day, iL 201- 209 ; why the Reformers discarded their first Collect, iL 202 ; St. Andrew's crucifixion, legend rather than history, ii. 202 ; traditions respecting it, 203-205 and n. ; St. Andrew a domestic missionary, ii. 207 ; the first called of the disciples, ii. 207 ; he was called by the Personal Word, we by the written Word, ii. 208 ; under the guidance of grace before the call, ii. 207-209.
Collect for St. Thomas' Day, ii. 210- 1 216 ; the faults of the Saints not
496
Index.
referred to in the services of their festivals, the mention of the denial of St Thomas forms no exception, ii 211, 212 ; he was not an unbe- liever, but a donbter, iL 212; Christ's words not " Be not, " but " Become not faithless," ii. 212, 213 ; God's attitude towards sin one of suffer- ance, iL 213 ; sin not left un visited though overruled for good, iL 214 ; how St. Thomas' doubts helped to establish the fact of the resurrec- tion, ii 214, 215; doxological end- ing, L 110.
Collect for the Conversion of St Paul, ii 217-224 ; an exception to the rule of observing the day of a saint's death, ii 217, 218; two other excep- tions, ii 218 ; tradition that St. Paul and St Peter suffered martyrdom the same day, ii 218 ; preaching and teaching St. Paul's chief func- tion, ii. 219, 220 ; the typical mis- sionary to the heathen, ii 220 ; three accounts of his conversion a proof of its importance, ii 222 ; his supposed visit to Britain, ii 222-224 ; to " follow his doctrine " more comprehensive than to "follow his example," ii. 224.
Collect for the Purification of St Mary the Virgin, L 106, 107n.; iL 225-233; this name of the Purification not given to it till the ninth century, ii. 226 ; the other title the most appro- priate, iL 226, 227; why the first- born son was specially consecrated, ii. 227 ; the words " Thy Majesty " point to the temple (Jehovah's earthly palace) being the scene of the event, ii. 228 ; Christ's earliest manifestation in His Father's house, iL 229 ; presented unto man, but also unto God, ii. 229 ; in the purification of the heart the Spirit of Christ the efficient cause, faith in the blood of Christ the instrumental | cause, iL 230 ; three presentations of Christians, iL 230-232.
ColUct for St Matthias's Day, iL 234- 1 241, 329 ; the various agencies at ! work in his election, iL 235, 236 ;
" office " in the Septuagint the same word as episcopate, ii. 236 ; the choice by lot prescribed in the Law, iL 237, 238 ; false apostles, ii. 239 ; every choice made of a bishop of critical importance for the Church,
11. 239, 240 ; difference between ordered and guided, ii. 240 ; differ- ence between faithful and true, iL 240.
Collect for the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, L 82; iL 242-248; God's Grace, not infused, but the operation of His Holy Spirit in our souls, iL 243, 244 (see also iL 11,
12, 145, 146) ; grace is sometimes used for the atoning work of Christ, iL 244 ; the angel came twice for the more confirmation of the truth of the Incarnation, iL 245 ; Gabriel had been sent to Daniel, ii. 246 ; the Incarnation the foundation truth of the Christian religion, ii. 246 ; our knowledge of the Incarnation through faith, and not from the evidence of the senses, iL 247 ; not faith without works, iL 247 ; we are brought to His resurrection by His cross and passion in two ways — first, objectively, as the ransom of our souls, and secondly, by our crucify- ing the old man in us and mortifying ourselves, iL 248 ; His followers must suffer in the way of discipline, though not of exception, iL 248.
Collect for St Mark's Day, i 114 ; ii 249-255; this and the Collect for St. J ohn's Day refer to the doctrine and not to a fact in the life, ii 250; the Church receives instruction through St Mark's doctrine, illu- mination through St. John's, ii 250 ; life-like touches in St. Mark's Gospel, ii 251, 252 ; gives the Aramaic words used by our Lord, ii. 252 ; lays much emphasis on growth, ii 253, 254 ; one parable given by him alone, ii 253, 254 ; traces in his Gospel of St. Peter's instruction, ii. 254, 255 ; conjecture that St. Mark was the devout soldier who waited on Cornelius, ii. 255.
Index.
497
Collect for St. Philip and St. James's Day, ii. 256-264 ; why associated in one commemoration, ii. 257 ; the knowledge of God, whether by Jews under the Old Testament, or by Christians, is of God, as seen in the face of Christ, and not God abso- lutely, ii. 260-262 (see ii. 459) ; Christ the revealer of God in nature, in the conscience, in the Old Testa- ment, and most fully of all, in the Incarnation, ii. 262.
Collect for St. Barnabas's Day, ii. 265- 272 ; one of his " singular gifts," probably the gift of prophecy, Bar- nabas in Hebrew is Bar-nevooah, " the son of prophecy," ii. 267-270 ; "consolation" sometimes rendered exhortation, ii. 268 ; grace alone can give a right direction to gifts, ii 270-272.
Collect for St. John the Baptist's Day, ii. 273-294 ; Bishop Cosin substi- tutes repentance for penance, 273 ; St. John Baptist's birth foretold three times, ii. 274-277, 281, 282 ; his birth of peculiar importance, as he was to prepare the way of Christ, ii. 279 ; he did no miracle, possibly lest he might be mistaken for the Messiah, ii. 281 ; he points out Christ to his disciples, and prepares them to receive Him, iL 282, 283 ; the repentance preached by John was religious earnestness, ii 284 ; his life and doctrine both of a piece, ii. 284 ; his doctrine includes his indication of Christ as the Lamb of God, iL 285 ; he spoke the truth doctrinally and morally, ii. 286 ; he sent his disciples to question Christ, for their conviction, not for his own, iL 282, 287, 288 ; the beheading of St John Baptist was observed be- fore the Reformation, ii. 293.
Collect for St. Peter's Day, i. 115, it 295-310 ; formerly combined with St. Paul's festival, iL 295 ; tradition if their martyrdom, ii. 295; propriety in the double commemor- ation, ii. 296, 297 ; parallel between St. Peter and St. Paul, ii. 296 ; the VOL. U.
| three "excellent gifts" St Peter had, ii. 298-301 ; he was pardoned, but not reinstated till he had received
| Christ's commission, St. John xxi. 15-17, ii. 304, 305 ; difference be- tween tending and feeding the sheep, ii. 304, 305 ; the three commissions cover the whole range of the minis- terial office — Pastoral Administra- tion, Preaching, Sacraments, ii. 304; three a sacred number in Scripture, indicating completeness, iL 305 ; two departments of " feeding" — the Word and the Holy Sacrament, ii. 304 ; " earnestly," see St. Luke xxii. 44, ii. 305 ; the eternal blessedness of the minister and the people bound up together, ii. 309 ; " unfading crown of glory " may refer to St. Peter's recollection of the Transfigu- ration, iL 309.
Collect for St. James's Day, ii. 311-
319 : the whole of his history con- tained in this Communion -Service except his proposal to call down fire from heaven ; this why omitted, ii. 312 ; he left the goods as well as the ties of this world, iL 314 ; his immediate obedience, the last stage in a mental process that had long been going on, ii. 315, 316 ; differ- ence between wordly and carnal affections, ii. 316, 317.
Collect for St. Bartholomew's Day, L 115, iL 320-327 ; not thought to be Nathanael by St Augustine, ii.
320 and n. ; tradition that he was of noble birth, ii. 321 and n. ; the faith of the Apostles (and Prophets) constrained them to speak, ii. 322 ; preach and receive point to the duties of the clergy and laity, ii. 326.
Collect for St. Matthew's Day, i. 112, 240 n., ii. 328-337 ; things done by Christ Himself or His Church traced up to God the Father, ii. 329-330 ; St. Matthew was doubtless prepared for the call, ii. 330, 331 ; evil repute of the publicans, ii. 331, 332 ; he may have been the analogue to St. Mary Magdalen, ii. 332 ; signifi-
498
Index.
cance of his being called in the midst of such a pursuit, ii. 333 ; special grace needed to resist the love of money, ii. 336. Collect for St. Michael and All Angels, ii. 338-348 ; nine orders of angels according to Dionysius, ii. 339 ; a distinction of rank amongst them in Scripture, ii. 340 ; our Lord tells us that the highest angels are the guardians of children, ii. 342 ; the angels the priests of the heavenly temple, ii. 344 ; Gregory's distinc- tion between ministering and con- templative angels, ii. 345 n. ; angels act by God's appointment in minis- tering to the " heirs of salvation," ii. 344, 346 ; our Lord the archetype, and in Him the tnith of angelic guardianship most fully realised, ii. 347.
Collect for St. Luke the Evangelist, L 114 ; ii. 349-356 ; traces in his writings of his knowledge of and interest in medicine, ii 351, 352 ; meaning of " whose praise is in the gospel," ii. 352, 353 ; "Physician, heal thyself" only given by St. Luke, ii. 354 ; repentance and faith specially illustrated by him, ii. 354.
Collect for St. Simon and St. Jude, i. 115; ii. 357-371 ; the Prophets as well as the Apostles had helped to lay the foundation of Sion, ii. 360 ; the Prophets named after the Apos- tles because the Apostles' teaching and the light of Pentecost gave a clue to the Prophets' utterances, ii. 360, 361 ; the Apostles were foun- dations, being the first stones laid, the first preachers and first believers in Christ, ii. 361, 362 ; Christ the corner-stone where the converging lines meet, ii. 362 ; hatred between Jew and Gentile, ii. 363 ; stones not only laid, but "joined together," ii. 364 ; it should be "the unity of the Spirit," ii. 364, 365 ; uniformity not unity, ii. 365 ; "by their doc- trine " — this the instrumentality for bringing unity, ii. 366, 367 ; if we
pray for unity we must endeavour to keep it, ii. 368, 369. Collect for All Saints' Day, i. 54 ; ii. 372-385 ; its relation with the pre- ceding Collect, ii. 374 ; all the elect knit together, however separated by time, space, or condition, ii. 375-
377 ; the saints departed are in conscious nearness to the Saviour, those in the flesh draw near to them in seeking Him, ii. 378 ; two aspects of our communion and fellowship with the departed saints, ii. 377-
378 ; the examples of the saints our stepping-stones in following Christ, ii. 380, 381 ; the perfection of all graces in Christ, the saints more or less one-sided, ii. 381 ; we are to follow not the saint so much as Christ in the saint, ii. 382 ; the year of Collects closes with a fervent aspiration for the rest of the blessed, ii 384, 385.
Collects at the end of Communion Ser- vice. See under Communion.
Collects at Morning and Evening Prayer. See Morning and Evening Prayer.
Collects in Reformed Prayer-book of
1549 ; suppressed in 1552. See
under Christmas and St. Mary
Magdalene. Comber, Dean, "Companion to the
Temple," quoted, ii. 407 n., 411,
417 n., 428, 430. Come, the key-note to the Advent
Offices, i. 140. Comfort from conforto, to strengthen,
i. 293.
Comforter, Greek word for advocate,
Hebrew words for consoler and
mediator, i. 416. Commands of God, of two kinds — in
Revelation, and the orderings of
Providence, ii. 110. Commination Service, prayers in the,
i. 102, 104, 334, 335. Commission of 1689 to revise the Book
of Common Prayer, i. 14. Communion, Holy, Office for, opening
prayer, L 8, 9, 51 (see the Constant
Collect) ; prayers for the Queen, i.
Index.
499
103, 112 ; responses after the Com- mandments, ii. 411 ; prayer for the Church militant, i. 103 ; ii. 307 ; first exhortation, ii. 352 ; prayer of access, i. 105 ; prayer of consecra- tion, i. 105 ; first post-Communion prayer, i. 109. Communion, Holy, Office for, First Collect at end of, ii. 390-405 ; ori- ginally formed part of a mass for travellers, ii. 391, 397, 399 ; allu- sions to the way, etc., ii. 399 ; a service for pilgrims in the Missal of Sarum, ii. 392 ; the pilgrims to Jerusalem types of the spiritual pilgrims, ii. 393, 394, 401 ; prayer the spirit in which to meet trial, ii. 398 ; external assistance to prayer in our Lord's intercession, internal assistance of the Holy Spirit, ii. 399 ; the true Christian waits for an in- dication of God's providence before making any move in life, ii. 401, 402 ; the eye the symbol in Scrip- ture of God's ready help, iL 405 (see L 220, 221). Communion, Holy, Office for, Second Collect at the end of the, i. 102 ; ii. 406-413 ; also part of the Confirma- tion Service, ii. 406 ; the Holy Spirit both guides and governs, ii. 408 (see iL 147, 469) ; the body as well as the soul the subject of sanctifica- tion, ii. 409-411 (see i. 299; ii. 150, 151, 157, 158) ; the heart the seat and source of sanctification, iL 411. Communion, Holy, Office for, Third Collect at end of the, ii. 414-421 ; its general reference to preaching, ii. 415 ; two Latin words for hearing, to hear and to listen, ii. 416 ; God's word must be received by the heart as well as the mind, iL 416 ; the object of preaching to turn God's word into His voice, ii. 416 ; "holy desires " and ' ' good counsels " (re- solves) must have their realised re- sult, "just works," ii. 419. Communion, Holy, Office of, Fourth Collect at the end of, ii. 134, 422- 429 ; originally an Ember prayer, ii. 422 ; is retained in our ordination
services, ii. 423, 425 ; " prevent our actions by breathing on us," the literal translation, ii. 424 ; reference to St. John xx. 22, 23 ; ii. 424 ; works done in God are done in faith and in the acknowledgment of His love, ii. 428; a prayer not for worldly success, but for the glory of God's Name, iL 428, 429. Communion, Holy, Office for, Fifth Collect at the end of, i. 103 ; ii. 430- 436 ; God's knowledge of our wants used in Sermon on the Mount in two connexions — as an argument against " vain repetitions," and against anxieties, ii. 433 ; the three- fold compassion of the Blessed Trinity for our infirmities, ii. 434, 435.
Communion, Holy, Office for, Sixth Collect at the end of, iL 437-444 ; a homily on prayer, its spirit and results, iL 438 ; what asking in Christ's Name involves, ii. 438, 439 ; conditions of successful prayer, iL 438-442 ; thanksgiving the appro- priate result of God's relief granted, iL 443, 444.
Communion with God consists in an increasing appreciation of His per- fections, iL 87.
Communion of Saints, the, the Saints departed are nearer to Christ than those in the flesh, but they both draw near to each other in seeking the same Saviour, the centre of unity for all, iL 371, 378.
Concordance of the Prayer-book. See Green.
Confirmation Service, prayers in the,
L 105, 112 ; ii. 390. Confirmation, called by Cyril the
"spiritual phylactery of the body,
and the preservative of the soul," ii.
407 ; administered by anointing, ii.
407 n.
Congregation and Church, difference
between, ii. 126, 127. Conscience, the faculty by which we
take cognisance of God, i. 190. Contemplate, originally an augur's word
L 187.
5oo
Index.
Contrition, true, brings with it tender- ness to others, i. 332.
Cosin, Bishop, Librarian to Bishop Overall, i. 66 ; his bequest to Nor- wich Cathedral, i. 66 ; his church- manship and loyalty, i. 66, 67 ; con- tends at Paris against the Jesuits, i. 67 ; is made Dean of Peterborough at the Restoration, and afterwards Dean and Bishop of Durham, i. 67 ; presides at the committee of Bishops in 1661, 1662, to revise the Prayer- book, i. 65 ; his death, i. 68 ; his Collects, i. 125, 127, 143, 147, 157, 158, 159, 166, 175, 227, 342 ; ii. 2, 22, 25, 45, 57, 64, 65, 77, 85, 86, 90, 96, 126, 138-140, 145, 146, 152, 153, 228, 256, 263, 273, 326.
Cranmer, Archbishop, his character, i. 57-59 ; his desire for the free circulation of the Holy Scriptures, i. 60, 61 ; his Collects, i. 3, 54-61, 89, 114, 219, 291, 327, 340, 372, 403, 407, 418, 422 ; ii. 25, 44, 45, 50, 61, 65, 71, 89, 90, 111, 129 n., 138, 139, 143, 145-147, 152, 153, 219, 232, 265, 309, 430, 437, 447 (see also Prayer-book of 1549) ; his version of the Bible quoted, ii. 364, 365 n.
Creation, our, by God, a plea for mercy,
i. 258, 259, 333. Cross, the varieties of, recognised by
Lipsius, ii. 204 and n. Cuthbert, Archbishop, i. 39. Cyril, St., "Mystagogica Catechesis
iii.," quoted, ii. 407 and n.
Da Costa, D., " The Four Witnesses,"
quoted, ii. 255, 351 n. Deacons, making of, prayers in Office
of, i. 110, 113, 375 n. ; ii. 423. Dearth and famine, Prayer in time of,
i. 110.
Belayed, the same Hebrew word used • for the lingering of Lot, Gen. xix.
15, 16, of Joseph's brethren, Gen. xliii. 10, and of David, 2 Sam. xv. 28, ii. 209. Demoniacal possession combines phy- sical and mental evil — what now ex- ists analogous to it, i. 277. >
Deprecatio, no good English word for, ii. 23.
"Digest" does not occur in the Authorised Version, i. 121.
DUigo, ayaTriui, exact meaning of, ii. 45 n.
Dionysius (Bishop of Corinth, a.d.
171), his tradition of the martyrdom
of St. Peter and St. Paul, ii. 295. Dionysius (Pseudo - Areopagita, A.D.
408-520 ?), his views on Angelology,
ii. 339, 341. Dipsomaniac, the word a testimony to
the twofold power of evil, i. 277. Documenlum, meaning of, L 303 n. Dominica Refectionis, i. 288. Douay Version, the, quoted, ii. 135,
340.
Doxological endings, only two found in the original Latin form, i. 100, 101 n., 108-110.
Du Cange, "Glossary," quoted, ii. 183 n.
Duty of a Christian consists in recep- tion and imitation, i. 370.
Ecclesia, meaning of, ii. 126.
Edward VI., First Prayer-book of (see Prayer-book) ; second Prayer-book of (see Prayer-book).
Elizabeth, Queen, Prayer-book of (see Prayer-book) ; Latin translation of (see Prayer-book).
Elizabeth, Queen, " Liturgical Services of the reign of," quoted, i. 233 n.
Ellicott, Bishop, " Commentary on the Ephesians," quoted, i. 253 n.
Emblems of the Holy Spirit, wind, fire, and water, i. 83 ; ii. 230.
(fupavlfa, its meaning when followed by inrtp and Kara, i. 406 n.
ZfupvTos, the meaning distinct from iyicevTpifa, ii. 418.
Endings to Prayers, mediation end- ing, i. 102-111, 123 ; ii. 462, 481 ; clothed mediation, i. 108 - 111 ; doxological, i. 109-111 ; adoration, i. 111-113, 313, 423 ; this a pro- fession of faith in the Holy Trinity, i. 111.
Epiphany, Gospels for the Sundays in, significance of, i. 215.
Index.
iirovpavios, only once applied to God in the Greek Testament, ii. 466.
Eschew, meaning and force of, L 384.
Eternal and everlasting the same word in Greek, ii. 259.
euXoyrrris, ev\oyi^"o,s, used six times of Christ, i. 115 n.
evaeGrjs indirectly conveys the same meaning as " godly," ii. 380 n.
Eutyches, heresy of, i. 26, 27.
Evangelistary, i. 23.
Evangelists, emblems of the, ii. 249, 250 n.; Collects of the, St. Matthew's and St. Luke's, are based on facts in their history ; St. Mark's and St. John's refer only to their doctrine ; we receive instruction through St. Mark's doctrine ; illumination through St. John's, ii. 250.
Evening Prayer, Order for, Second Collect in, i. 9, 12, 33, 34, 37, 104, 202 ; ii. 471 - 476 ; external peace, the result of internal, ii. 472 ; the heart being given up to God is at rest, ii. 472 ; no true peace unless God has touched the affections and will, ii. 473, 474 ; rest found by devotion to God's commandments, distinct from rest given, ii. 475.
Evening Prayer, Third Collect in, L 9, 12, 104 ; ii. 477, 481 ; the regu- larity of the seasons has a tendency to deaden the mind to the agency of God, ii. 478 ; significance of our, ii. 478, 479 ; the devil's two meth- ods of attack, craft and assault, ii. 479, 480 ; we pray to be kept from concealed dangers, ii. 479, 480.
Everlasting, Archdeacon Freeman on, ii 467.
Exposition of Scripture out of place in a prayer, i. 63.
Eye, the provision in nature for its protection an emblem of God's care of His Church, i. 220 ; ii. 404, 405.
Facts in Providence, what doctrines are in Revelation, ii. 235.
Faith, the capacity of the heart to re- ceive God's blessings, ii. 84.
Faith, hope, and love, the theological
virtues, how they are affected by revealed religion, ii. 107, 108 n. Felix III., i. 34.
Fides miraculosa, what it is, i. 83 n. Fisher, Bishop, advises the Princess
Charlotte to repeat the Lord's
Prayer before speaking, as a help to
self-control, i. 216. Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople.
(See Leo.) Fold in St. John x. 16, should be flock — one flock, but there may be
many folds, i. 338 ; ii 366. Forgiveness, assurance of, three sources
of, ii. 95.
Freeman, Archdeacon, "Principles of Divine Service," quoted, L 2 ; ii. 467, 477.
French King, anecdote of, L 203.
Fronde, J. A., " History of England," quoted, i. 58, 60 n.
Fructus, meaning of, ii. 189, 190.
Gabbizl, the Angel, gives a different turn to Mai. iv. 5, 6, L 131, 132 ; appropriateness of his being sent to St. Mary and St. Joseph, being the angel who appeared to Daniel, ii. 246.
Galen divides fevers into two classes, ii. 351.
Gallican liturgy introduced into Eng- land, i. 48, 49.
Gelasius, Pope, his ambition, i. 34 ; recognises the distinctness of Church and State, i. 35 ; his view of the doctrine of the Eucharist differs from that of the Council of Trent, i. 35 ; prohibits the reception of the Lord's Supper in one kind only, i. 36 ; opposes the Manichees and Pelagians, i. 36 and n. ; his letter to the Bishops of Picenum against Pelagius, ii. 118-120.
Gelasius, Sacramentary of, i. 31-38 ; Collects derived from, i. 34 n., 35, 47, 105, 108, 134, 302, 319, 327, 328, 354, 388, 396, 403, 407; ii. 16, 43, 64 n., 70 and n., 71, 77, 89, 90, 96 n., 104 n., Ill, 118, 123, 138 and n., 139, 145, 152, 153, 159, 187 n., 225 n., 297 n., 391,
502
Index.
392, 456, 463, 471, 477 ; prayers at Matins in, ii. 463, 464 n. ; eighteen intercessory prayers in, to be said on Good Friday, i. 327. Generation, the eternal, of Christ, practical value of the doctrine of, i. 148.
Gennadius, ii. 121 n.
Genseric the Vandal, i. 29.
Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," etc.,
quoted, i. 28. God, the word a modified form of
"Good," the Good One, i. 300. Godly motives, the vibrations of the
soul to the touch of Christ through
the Holy Spirit, L 271. Godwyn's "Moses and Aaron," quoted,
i. 366 n. ; ii. 332 n.
Grace means "free favour," i. 150;
ii. 131 ; sometimes means the aton- ing work of Christ, ii. 244 ; its fundamental idea — 1, pardon ; 2, peace ; 3, strength, i. 292, 293 ; not an infused quality, but the opera- tion of a Divine Person, L 149, 150; ii. 243 ; undermines our love of sin, i. 229 ; three meanings of, summed up by Rev. J. H. Blunt, ii. 131 n. ; preventing and following mentioned in three Collects, ii. 135 ; St. Augustine's distinction between, ii. 135 n.
Gradual, the, ii. 242.
Green, Rev. J., Concordance to the Liturgy, quoted, ii. 397 and n.
Gregory the Great, festival of, L 39, 40 ; founds monastery at Rome, i. 40 ; sees English boys at Rome, i. 40, 41 ; sends St. Augustine to England, i. 41 - 43 ; his Pastoral Rule, i. 43 ; his character, i. 44 ; repels the Lombard Agilulpn, i. 44 ; his chants, i. 44, 45 ; re-arranges the older Sacramentaries, i. 45 ; advises Augustine not to insist on the sole use of the Roman liturgy, i. 49.
Gregory the Great, Sacramentary of, i. 39-46 ; Collects and Prayers derived from, i. 45 and n. ; 79 n., 177, 186, 192, 198, 205, 212, 219, 233 n., 241, 274, 275, 281, 288, 295, 297, 311,
319, 327, 354, 377, 403 ; ii. 1 n. 8 n., 22, 25, 27, 29, 64 n., 70 n., 77 n., 89, 96 n., 104 n., Ill n., 123 n., 130, 138 n., 145 n., 152 n., 159 n„ 166 n., 173 n., 180 n., 187 n., 194, 217 n., 219, 225, 226, 242, 297 n., 338, 339, 422, 445, 464 ; Homily quoted, ii. 27 n., 339, 454. Guidance and government of the Holy Spirit, ii. 146, 147, 408, 469.
Haddow, Walter, ii. 136. Hammond, "Liturgies, Eastern and
Western," quoted, L 101 n. Hampton Court Conference, 1604, ii.
228.
Hare, Rev. Julius, " Guesses at Truth,"
quoted, i. 231. Haweis, Rev. H. R., "Speech in
Season," quoted, L 126. Health, the care of, a religious duty,
ii. 158.
" Hear, read, mark, learn, and in- wardly digest, " these terms perhaps suggested by the different versions of the Parable of the Sower, i. 1 1 9 and n.
Heaven (sing.), denotes the highest heaven, (plur.) the lower heavens, i. 406.
Heber, Bishop, hymn for Second Sun- day in Advent, quoted, i. 97 n.
Hefele, "History of the Councils," quoted, i. 134 n.
Hengstenberg, Dr., quoted, on Psalm x. 17, i. 285 n.
Henry VIU.'s Primer, quoted, i. 107 n.
Heylin, "Hist. Ref. 2 Ed. VI., "quoted, i. 57 n.
Hezekiah, meaning of his words in 2 Kings xx. 19, i. 203.
Hilary of Aries, deposed and im- prisoned by Leo I., i. 25.
Hilsey, Bishop, his Primer, i. 107 n.
Hippo, Synod of, canons passed at, i. 134 n.
Holy, being a specially reverential word, does not occur in the Church daily prayers, ii. 465, 466.
Homilies, quoted, i. 334 n.
Hook, Dean, "Church Dictionary," quoted, i. 410 n., ii. 457 ; "Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, "
Index.
503
quoted, i. 41 n., 56 n., 60 n., 61, 342 n.
Hope and trust, different sides of the same grace, ii. 30, 31 and n.
Hours of Prayer. (See Prayer.)
Humility the root of patience, i. 308.
Hypapante, the, when instituted, ii. 226 n. ; reckoned in the Greek Church as a festival of our Lord, ii. 226.
Incense, unkindled, offering of, i. 5,
6 ; an emblem of prayer without
fervour, i. 6. Indulgentia, its meaning in the time
of Gelasius, ii. 161. Infusion and Inspiration, difference
between, i. 82. Inordinate only twice used in the
Authorised Version ; its meaning,
ii. 335.
Intention, a holy, changes common- place tasks into the gold of the altar, ii 155.
Irving, Edward, i. 41.
Israel's Pilgrimage typical of the Chris- tian's, ii. 62, 63.
"It," the Church always so named in the Prayer-book, i. 164.
Jackson, Bishop, sermon preached
before the University of Oxford (on
infused grace), ii. 11, 132, 145, 146. Jacobson, Bishop, quoted, on "His
Sake," i. 103 n. Jaddua, the high-priest, his meeting
with Alexander the Great, L 29 n. John, St. , the Baptist, the pioneer of
the First Advent, i. 128-129 ; his
festival, why fixed about the longest
day, ii. 295, 296. John, St., the Evangelist, keystone of
his theology, i. 166 (see Evangelists). Jonah, symbolism of the tempest and
of the fish in the history of, i. 214. Joy the moral sinew of service, ii. 41,
42.
Judas, our Church adopts the view that he received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper before he left the supper-room, ii. 352.
Jukes, Rev. Andrew, "Law of the i Offerings," quoted, i. 372. Jupiter, called by the Romans "Opti-
mus Maximus," i. 300. Justification a sentence of acquittal, i.
365.
Juxon, Archbishop, crowns Charles EL, L 65 ; prevented by age from taking any part in the Revision of 1661, i. 65.
KarapTlfa, its derivation and meaning, ii. 313 n.
Kay, Dr.," Commentary on the Psalms," quoted, i. 120 n. ; ii. 289.
Kaye, Bishop, "Account of the Exter- nal Government and Discipline oi the Church during the three first Centuries," quoted, L 385.
Keble, Rev. J., "Christian Year," quoted, ii. 269, 317, 333, 373.
Keys of St. Peter, ii. 299, 300.
Kitto, Dr., "Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature," quoted, i. 295- n.
Knox, Alexander, "Remains of," quoted, i. 1.
Kyle, Rev. John, " Lessons on the Collects," quoted, ii. 321 n., 330.
Laktn, Rev. S. M., quoted, i. 183 n.
Laud, Archbishop, wishes to introduce into Scotland the Book of Common Prayer, i. 341 ; forms a commission for revising it, i. 342 ; writes a Collect for Easter Even, i. 342 ; quoted, ii. 368 and n.
Laymen as well as clergy are part of the holy "ministry," consecrated in Baptism and Confirmation to offer spiritual sacrifices, i. 324, 325.
Leaven, four stages in the Jews' putting away of, i. 366 ; a type not only of sin, but of false doctrine, i. 367 n.
Lebonah, a kind of incense never burned. (See Incense.)
Lectionary, the, i. 23.
Legenda Aurea. (See Voragine. )
Lent, first three days of, when added to the fast, i. 256 n., 257 n.
Leo I. (the Great) claims for himself! alone the title of Papa, i. 25 ; his character, i. 24, 25, 29, 30 ; deposes
504
Index.
Hilary of Aries, i. 25 ; protests against the independence of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, i. 25 ; his preaching, i. 25 and n. ; defence of Christian truth against Nestorius and Eutyches, L 26 ; letter to Flavian, i. 26 ; influence at the Council of Chalcedon, i. 27 ; acts as peacemaker in Gaul, L 27 ; inter- view with Attila, i. 27, 28 ; inter- view with Genseric, L 29.
Leo L (the Great), Sacramentary of, L 23-30 ; iL 297 n. ; seven of the Com- munion Collects derived from, i. 24 and n., 377 ; ii. 36 n., 64, 70 and n., 71, 89, 96, 104 ; vestiges in these of the unquiet times in which he lived, i. 30 ; ii. 159.
Leofric, Bishop of Exeter, MS. Sacra- mentary given by him to his church, L 78 ; ii 166 ; his Easter Sermon, L 78 n.
Liddon, Canon, "Lectures on the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ," quoted, L 134, 135.
Lift in the New Testament simply the opposite to death, never means con- duct, ii. 66.
Light, three meanings of, i. 161-168 ; of glory, different from that of grace, L 167.
Lightfoot, Bishop, quoted, on Col. i.
21, ii. 232. Lipsius, his treatise on the Cross,
quoted, iL 204 and n. Litany, the, L 9, 10, 45 and n., 102,
301 ; the title altered, ii 399 n., 439. "Literary Churchman," quoted, L 4
n., ii. 90.
Littledale, Dr., continuation of Neale's "Commentary on the Psalms," quoted, iL 394 n.
Lord, Our, the revealer of God in three ways, ii. 262.
Lord's Prayer, the, why embodied in all our services, ii. 373, 431 ; "Thy will be done," its keynote, ii. 442 ; meaning of "and," which links to- gether the petitions for daily bread and forgiveness," iL 126; "which' art in the heavens," "Thy will be done in heaven," i. 405.
Love of God, the perfect, what it is, L 84, 85 ; whether in Rom. v. 5 St. Paul means God's love to us or ours to Him, i. 252 ; ii. 44 ; our love to God the sense of His love to us, i. 253.
Luidhard, Bishop of Senlis, probably introduced the Gallican Liturgy into England, L 48, 49.
Macaulay, Lord, "History of Eng- land," quoted, i. 14 and n., 56 n., 297 n. ; "Essays," quoted, L 2.
Madge, Rev. F. T., quoted, L 182 n.
fjja.K6.pios, how applied, L 116 n.
Mamertus, Bishop of Vienna, institutes the Rogation Days, L 357 and n., 398.
Marriage Service, prayers in the, ii 416, 417.
Martyrdom, the climax of human doings towards God, L 250.
Mary Magdalene, St., Collect for her festival in Prayer-book of 1549, App. iL 450-455 ; suppressed in 1552, because it is based on a fact which is doubtful, viz. that St. Mary Magdalene is the " woman which was a sinner," ii. 451, 453, 454 ; this tradition fixed by Gregory, ii. 454.
Maskell's "Monumenta Ritualia," quoted, L 101 n., 107 n.
Medd, Mr. (See Canon Bright.)
Mediation ending. (See Ending.)
Meekness, its distinction from humi- lity, L 20.
Memoria technica from the Sarum Psalter, i. 99.
Mereor, its meaning in Ecclesiastical writers, and the instances of its occurrence in the Collects, L 75- 76 n.
Milman, Dean, "History of Latin
Christianity," quoted, i. 32, 35. Milton, his sonnets compared with the
Collects, L 2 a.; " Paradise Lost, "
quoted, iL 480. Minister, derivation of the word, L
129.
Ministers of Christ pioneers for the Second Advent, how they should fulfil their office, L 130-133.
Index.
505
Miseratio. (See Propitiatio.) Missal, Complete or Plenary, i. 23 n. Missal of Sarum. (See Sarum.) Missals of Anglo-Saxon Church. (See Leofric. )
Mockett, Dr. Richard, "Doctrina et Politia Ecclesiae Anglicanse," quoted, i. 367 n.
Mohammed, i. 328.
Money, love of, may exist apart from niggardliness, ii. 335 ; special grace needed t6 resist it, ii. 336.
Morning Prayer, Order for, General Confession, i. 102.
Morning Prayer, Order for, Second Collect, for Peace, i. 9, 11, 12, 33, 108, 126 n., 202 ; ii. 456-462 ; God's peace is not in freedom from molesta- tions, but in victory over them, ii. 458 ; difference between peace and concord, ii. 458 ; subjection to God man's truest nobility, ii. 460 ; God's service perfect freedom, because it is only duly rendered from gratitude for pardon received, ii 460 ; peace only experienced in subjection to Christ's yoke, ii. 461.
Morning Prayer, Order for, Third Col- lect, for Grace, i. 9, 11, 12 ; ii. 463- 470 ; we should weave into our pri- vate prayers the truths of our own experience, " who hast safely brought ns," etc., ii. 467, 468 ; if we pray against danger, we must not be fool- hardy, ii. 469 (see i. 217) ; the Holy Spirit our pilot, our conscience His compass, the written word His chart, ii. 469.
Morning Prayer, Order for, Prayer for the Queen, i. 10, 16 ; for the Clergy and people, i. 1 03 ; of St. Chrysostom, i. 101 n.
Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," quoted, ii. 121.
Munus, meaning of, ii. 129.
Muratori, L. A., "Liturgia Romana vetus, tria Sacramentaria complec- tens," quoted, i. 79 n., 274 n., 302 n., 311 n., 319 n., 327 n., 354 n., 355 n., 369 n., 388 n., 396 n., 403 a., 418 n. ; ii. 1 -a., 15 n., 22 n., 29 n., 36 n., 43 n.,
50 n., 57 n., 64 n., 70 n., 77 n., 89 n., 96 n., 104 n., 138 n., 145 n., 152 n., 159 n., 166 n., 180 n., 225 n., 242 n., 297 n., 391 n., 445 n., 463 n., 477 n. "Myrroure of our Lady," quoted, ii. 394 n.
Name, the, of God, His revealed char- acter, ii 3, 20, 53, 171.
Natalitia, the day of the martyrdom of a saint, ii. 217, 218.
Neale, Dr., "Commentary on the Psalms," quoted, ii. 209 ; "Essays on Liturgiology," quoted, i. 138 n., 210 n., 241 n., 256 n., 356 n.
Nestorius, heresy of, i. 26.
" Nevertheless," in St. Matt. xxvi. 64 ; special force of, i. 96 and n. , 97.
Nexus, its two meanings, literal and figurative, ii. 184, 185.
Odd Number, of Collects and Psalms prescribed in Mediaeval "Service Books, ii 388, 389.
Odoacer, i. 31, 32.
Odours, golden vials full of, symbols of prayer, i. 2, 3 ; ii. 173.
Offertory, Collects after the, ii. 386- 444 (see Communion Office).
Oratio ad CoUectam. (See Collecta. )
"Ordaining of strength," literally "founding of strength," i. 171 (see Collect for the Innocents' Day).
Ordinal of the Church of England, preface to, ii. 341 n.
Origen quoted, ii. 196 n. (See Bishop Ellicott.)
Osmund, St., Bishop of Salisbury, i. 47-53; compiles the "Use of Sarum," i. 50, 51 ; opposes Anselm, but afterwards joins him, i. 52 ; deviates sometimes from the Roman practice, ii. 8, 180 n., 250 n.
oipavlos, applied to God. in St. Mat- thew's Gospel, ii. 466 n.
Overall, Bishop, his memorial tablet in Norwich Cathedral, i. 66.
Ovid's "Metamorphoses," quoted, i. 236 n. ; ii. 469 n.
Palmer, Sir W., "Origines Liturgicae,'
506
Index.
quoted, i. 23 n., 79 n., 397 n. ; ii. 417 n., 459 n.
Parables of our Lord contain the teach- ing with which the Apostles were furnished for their mission, i. 69.
Parker, "First Prayer-book of Edward VI.," quoted, ii. 256 n.
Parliament, Prayer for, L 102.
Pascal, "Pensees de," quoted, i. 421.
Passover, the, corresponds to Easter, L 295.
Patience, the outcome of humility, L 308 ; opportunities for, in daily life,
i. 308 ; if without, then not of the mind of Christ, L 308.
Patrick, Bishop, appointed to revise the Collects in 1689, L 296; ii. 138.
Paul, St., regarded as the guardian angel of the Gentile Churches, i. 242, 243 ; his supposed visit to Britain, ii. 222-224 ; tradition of his martyrdom, ii 218.
"Peace, the God of," occurs eight times in Hebrews, ii. 457.
"Peace I leave with you," a usual Jewish valediction ; our Lord gives it fresh form — "My peace," etc., ii. 474.
Pearson, Bishop, "On the Creed," quoted, i 404 ; ii. 223, 377 ; super- intends a Greek translation of the Prayer-book, L 367 n.
Pelagius, what he taught, ii. 119, 120 ; opposed by Gelasius, L 36 n. ; ii. 120.
Pentecost, Sundays of the latter half of the year reckoned from, in Gre- gory's Sacramentary, ii 8.
Perowne, Dean, "The Book of Psalms," quoted, i. 285 n.
Peter, St., keys of. (See Keys.)
Peter, St., and St. Paul, said to have appeared to Attila, i. 29 ; supposed to have suffered martyrdom together,
ii. 218.
Peterborough Cloister, rhymes in, i. 103 n.
Pietas, meaning of, i. 220 ; ii. 167, 168.
Pilgrims, Service for, in the Missal of Sarum, ii. 392
Pilot, the Holy Spirit our, ii. 17, 33, 127-129, 469.
Plautus, quoted, i. 199 n.
Play upon words in the old Sacramen- taries, ii. 16, 129 n., 392, 409.
"Pope" or "Papa," title first exclu- sively assumed by Leo L , i 25.
Post-Communion, the, ii 242, 243.
Praise, the outcome of love, i. 85.
Prayer, two parts of, L 3, 4 ; symbol of, in the Bible, L 3 ; Christian, based on doctrine, its foundation in Holy Scripture, i. 17, 18, 98, 259, 284, 285 ; ii. 202, 235 ; argument for united, L 164 ; impossible with- out faith, i. 85 ; the spirit in which to meet trials, ii 398 ; may be heard though not granted, ii. 73, 174-179 ; seven canonical hours of, ii. 394 n., 395 ; for rulers and all conditions of men, should not be formal, without sympathy, L 322.
"Prayer that may be said after any of the former," its origin, i. 42, 45 n. ; its ending, i. 104, 234 ; ii. 184.
Prayer for all conditions of men, i. 103 n. ; ii. 364.
Prayer addressed to Christ, why this not the rule, i. 90 n., 133-135, 154, 155, 266, 267, 410 ; Acts i. 24, 25, appears to give special sanc- tion for addressing prayer to our Lord between the Ascension and Pentecost, L 413 n.
Prayer at the altar always addressed to God the Father, i. 18 n. ; or- dered by the Synod of Hippo, and adopted by the Third Council of Carthage, L 134 n.
Prayer-book, the English, has its roots in the pre-existing system of wor- ship, i. 73, 74 ; the language older than that of the Authorised Version, ii. 457, 458 n.
Prayer-book of Anne's reign, in Latin, L 367 n. ; frontispiece, i. 367 n.
Prayer-book, Black Letter, i. 269 n., 362 ; ii. 45, 228, 386 ; revised at the Savoy Conference, i. 181, 182 n. ; discovered in 1867, L 183 n. ; fac- similes of, i. 183 n. ; ii. 328.
Prayer-book of Edward VI., First,
Index.
507
1549, i. 18, 127 n., 248, 256, 342 a., 362, 378 ; ii. 2, 15, 44, 57, 65, 152, 195, 201, 210, 228, 249, 256, 273, 298, 311, 321, 328, 349, 357, 372, 386, 387, 408, 414, 423 n., 430, 450 (see Cranmer).
Prayer-book of Edward VI., Second, of 1552, i. 378 ; ii. 2, 15, 44, 57, 65, 183 n., 195, 201, 228, 386, 437.
Prayer-book of Elizabeth, ii. 2, 15, 45, 57, 65, 228.
Prayer-book of Elizabeth, Latin trans- lation of, i. 183, 233, 234 n., 367, 417 ; illumination in, i. 233 and n.
Prayer-book, Greek translation, of 1638, ii 231 ; in 1665, under Bishop Pearson, i. 367 ; ii. 231 n.
Prayer-book, Latin translations of 1670, 1703, 1727, i. 367 n. ; ii. 231 n.
Prayer-book, manuscript, attached to the Act of Uniformity, i. 183 n. ; dissevered from the Act and lost, found again in 1867, i. 183 n., ii. 386 (see Prayer-book, Black Letter).
Prayer - book, Scotch, prepared by Archbishop Laud, 1637, i. 342 ; ii. 231 n., 305.
Preaching, the object of, to turn God's Word into His Voice, ii. 416.
Preventing grace, i. 359, 360 ; ii. 132- 134, 423, 424.
Pride, the source of impatience, i. 309.
Prideaux, Dean, his "Connexion," quoted, i. 29 n.
Priests, Ordering of, prayers in, i. 110, 113, 119 ; ii. 423, 425.
Procter's "History of the Book of Common Prayer," quoted, i. 57 n., 65 n., 399 n.
Propitiatio, miseratio, pietas, difference in meaning of, ii. 168.
Providence, foresight the original meaning of, ii. 274.
Prudentius, his " Apotheosis " referred to, ii. 451 n.
Psalm cvii., an enumeration of four kinds of trouble, ii. 175.
\pufj.l^u, exclusively Pauline, its mean- ing, i. 250 n.
Pupillus, meaning of, ii. 183 n.
Purity of heart needed for every approach to God, i. 83.
Pusey, Rev. Dr., his "Commentary on the Minor Prophets," quoted, i. 132 n.
Quadragesima, its meaning and deri- vation, i. 234.
Quasi modo Sunday, i. 363.
Queen's Accession, prayers in the Service for, i. 113.
Quietness, internal and external, a necessary condition of effectual ser- vice to God, ii. 40-42.
Reade, Sir Peter, Mayor of Norwich, bequeaths a sum in order that St. Peter Mancroft's bells might be rung as a help to benighted travellers, ii. 400 and n.
Recollectedness of mind essential to prayer, L 13, 14.
Reformation, the, opened the Scrip- tures to the laity, ii. 414 ; gave great prominence to preaching, ii. 415.
Reformers, the, Collects by7 t 54-57 ; translations of old Collects, i. 71 (see Cranmer and Prayer - book of Edward VI.)
Refreshment Sunday, i. 288.
Religion, meaning of the word ; occurs rarely in Scripture, ii. 54.
Remission and forgiveness, difference between, L 263.
Repentance the special gift of God, i. 260 ; the fruit of sorrow for sin, not the sorrow itself, i. 262.
Respuere, force of, L 384.
Restoration Collects, i. 62-68 ; inferior to Cranmer's, i 62-64.
Revision of Prayer - book in Henry VIII. 's reign, i. 56 and n., in Edward VI. 's, 1549, i. 56 n., 57 n., 265, 362, 396, 411 ; ii. 57, 83, 183 n., 225 n., 234, 321, 322 n., 357 (see Cranmer) ; in 1637, for Scotland, i. 342, ii. 231 n. (see Laud); in 1661-1662, i. 65 n., 125, 138, 142, 153, 156, 161, 169, 170, 183 n., 186, 212, 213, 226, 265, 291, 362, 388 ; ii. 43, 57, 83, 219, 222, 321, 324, 354 (see Cosin) ; in 1689, i. 296, 399; ii. 138 (see Patrick).
5o8
Index.
Revival, the, of our Church in early days of Methodism probably the re- sult of enforcing the doctrine of the real agency of the Holy Spirit, ii. 146.
Righteousness of Christ, the, the " rai- ment of needlework," L 202 n.
Rogation Days, when instituted, i. 397, 398 ; litanies and homily for, L 398, 399 ; Collect for, i. 399.
Roman Missal, the, L 77 n. ; ii 8 n. , 249 n.
Routh's " Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum opuscula," quoted, i 35 n.
Sabinus, effigy to him as an upright Publican, ii. 332.
Sacramentary, what it is, i. 23, 24 (see Leo, Gelasius, Gregory, etc.)
Sacrifices in the Mosaic Law, three ideas in — 1, Expiation, 2, Dedica- tion, 3, Thankoffering, L 372.
Saints, no evidence in Scripture for the tutelage of departed, i. 242 ; nor for their intercession, ii. 197-199 ; their death not lightly permitted by God, but when permitted prized by Him as the final act of self-sur- render, ii. 290, 292.
Saints' Day Collects needed special pruning from Roman error, L 54 ; ii. 194, 200 ; usually founded on some fact in the history of the saint, ii 202, 235 ; his faults not put forward, ii. 211, 312.
Sales, St. Francis of, "Vie Devote," quoted, L 232 ; iL 24, 42 ; "Pen- sees Consolantes, " quoted, i. 237, 360, 361.
Salisbury, the Bishop of, ex officio Precentor of the province of Canter- bury, L 52.
Salvian, ii. 121 and n.
Sanderson, Bishop, quoted, L 1.
Sarum Breviary, ii. 457 and n., 464, 477.
Sarum, Missal of, i. 48, 54, 62 n., 77- 79 and n., 90 n., 99, 108, 110, 133, 134 n., 139 n., 145, 146 n., 154, 169, 186, 192, 198, 219, 226, 233, 241, 265, 274, 281, 288, 295, 297, 311, 319, 326 n., 341, 354, 362 n., 369, 377, 388, 389, 396, 403, 410
n., 418 ; ii. 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, 43, 44, 50, 57, 64, 70, 77, 89, 96, 104, 111, 123, 130, 138, 145, 152, 159, 166, 173, 180, 187, 195, 201 n., 210 n., 217, 225, 234 n., 242, 243, 249, 256, 265 n., 273 n., 275 n., 293, 296, 297 and n., 311, 321, 322, 338, 349, 374 n., 392, 397 n., 406, 422, 446, 450, 457, 471.
Sarum Psalter. (See Chambers.)
Sarum Use, L 47-53.
Savoy Conference, the, i. 62, 125, 179, 181 ; ii. 2, 15.
Schaff quoted, ii 223 n.
Scrifan, the Anglo-Saxon word for "shrive," L 248 n.
Scripture, its designed pertinence to ourselves, L 118 and n. ; the right use of, a preparation for the Second Advent, i. 123 ; the devout recital of, a help against evil thoughts, i. 279.
Scupoli, Lorenzo, " The Spiritual Com- bat," quoted, i. 224.
Sealed Books, the, L 179, 182 and n. 183 ; iL 328 n., 386.
Septuagint, the, quoted, i. 131 and n., iL 236, 340 ; generally quoted by the Apostles, iL 358.
Service of God, in what it consists, ii. 99.
Seven, this number of Collects never exceeded at Mass in Sarum Missal, and why, ii. 388.
Shakspere, " King John, " quoted, ii. 405.
Shepherd, " Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer," quoted, iL 387.
Shrove Tuesday, custom of being shriven on, i. 248.
Sin, a bondage of the will, and de- gradation of the affections, i. 238 ; constitutes the devil's hold on us, i. 229 ; God's attitude towards it one of sufferance, ii. 213 ; not left un- visited because it is overruled for good, ii. 214 ; presents a difficulty to God, shown by the necessity of Christ's ransom and the Holy Spirit's agency to overcome sin, ii 78-82, 88.
Index.
509
Sinner, the conversion and salvation of a, God s highest act of power, ii. 82, 88.
Smith and Cheetham, "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," quoted, Art. Baptism, i. 378 n.
Snow, effect of seeing it, on animals,
i. 232.
Soames, quoted, i. 58 n. Songs of degrees, ii. 370, 393. Southey, "Book of the Church," quoted,
ii. 223 n.
Spiritual life, its vital organs, faith,
hope, and love, i. 95. " Spoiled," in Col. ii. 15, real sense of,
i. 414.
TirovSafa, only used in the New Tes- tament in St. Paul's Epistles, ii. 368 n.
Stanley, Dean, "Commentary on the Epistle to the Corinthians," quoted, i. 250 n. ; ii. 353 n. ; "Memorials of Canterbury," quoted, i. 41 n.
Starlight, guidance by, the type of guidance by faith, i. 189.
State Services for Jan. 30, May 29, i. 63, 64 ; the decline visible in them, i. 64 and n.
Stephens, Mr. Archibald J., Annotated Edition of Book of Common Prayer, quoted, i. 182 n.
Stillingfleet, Bishop, " Origines Britan- nicse," referred to, ii. 223 n.
Storms at Sea, prayers in Service for,
i. 102, 103.
Stroud, Dr., "Physical Cause of the Death of Christ," quoted, ii. 351.
Strype, " Ecclesiast. Mem.," quoted, L 57 n.
Subjection to God, man's truest no- bility, ii. 460. Suetonius, " Life of Vespasian," quoted,
ii. 332 n.
Suppliant, supplicate, the meaning of,
ii. 71, 72. Supplication, the name given to our
Lord's prayer in the garden, i. 195 ;
difference between it and prayer, ii.
399, 439.
Sursum Corda, "Paroissien Romain
Explique," i. 304 n. Symeon Stylites, ii. 124 and n.
Sympathy and unworldliness stand in the same relation to the Gospel as the Levitical ritual to the Law, ii, 55 n.
Terminations of Collects and Orisons
in Book of Common Prayer, i. 98-
113 (see Endings). Tertullian, quoted, i. 377, 378. Theodoric the Ostrogoth, i. 31, 32. Thomas, St., why his festival is fixed
for the shortest day, ii. 296. Thompson, Mr. E. Maunde, quoted,
L 78 n.
Three a sacred number, indicating
completeness, ii. 305. Three powers allied against us — evil
angels, evil men, evil self, i. 287 ;
ii. 140 ; three sources of temptation,
ii. 140.
Thurston, Abbot of Glastonbury, forces the Fecamp mode of chanting on his monks, i. 49, 50 ; recalled to Nor- mandy, i. 50.
Transfiguration, the, a presentment of Christ in His glorified state, i. 167.
Trench, Archbishop, quoted, ii. 229 ; "Notes on Miracles of our Lord," quoted, ii. 444 ; " Synonyms of the New Testament," quoted, ii. 45, 336; "English Past and Present," quoted, i. 103 n.
Trust in God, a moral leaning on Him, ii. 10.
TVXVt does not occur in the Greek Tes- tament, ii. 402 n.
Turk, the term in the Prayer-book not a natural, but a religious dis- tinction, i. 337 n.
Tyndale, his version of the Bible, ii. 364 n.
Unction in Confirmation, ii. 407 n.
Uniformity not unity, ii. 365.
Unspeakable, occurs three times in the Authorised Version of the New Tes- tament, each time represented by a different Greek word, ii. 384 n.
Use of Sarum. (See Sarum.)
Uses of Hereford, Bangor, York, and Lincoln, i. 48 n.
Usher, Archbishop, " Britannicarum
Index.
Ecclesiaruin Antiquitates," quoted, iL 223.
Veil, the rent, symbolism of, i. 307 ; ii. 263.
Yeni Creator, the, part of the priest's private preparation for the Holy Communion, L 77 n.
Vials, golden, a svmbol of prayer, L 2-4.
Vineyard, the keeping of a, an emblem of God's care of His Church and people, L 221.
Virgil quoted, ii. 168.
Virtues, theological, what they are, ii. 107 n.
Visitation of the Sick, prayers in, L 34 n., 104, 113, 309, 310 ; ii 248, 412.
Voragine, Jacobus de, "Legenda Au- rea, " quoted, ii. 203 n.
Vota, best rendered by "fervent de- sires," L 192, 284; two meanings of votum, L 284 n.
Vulgate, the, quoted, i 15, 187, 257, 293 n. ; ii. 50, 340 n., 365 n.
Waddi>-gtox, Dean, "History of the Church," quoted, ii 123, 124 n.
" Walk," in the Bible, used to express the conduct, iL 66, 468.
Walton's "Lives," quoted, L 1.
Webster and Wilkinson's Greek Testa- ment quoted, L 131 n. ; ii. 353 n.
Wedding-garment, the, a spirit of holy joy, etc., iL 155.
Wiclif, his version of the Bible, ii. 365 n.
Wilberforce, Bishop, Sermon at the Consecration of Bishop Colenso, iL 240 n.
Wilkins' "Concilia Mag. Britt et
Hib.," i. 40 n. Woollcombe, Archdeacon, quoted, L 78
n., 182 n. Word of God, the, took the form of
precept in the Old Dispensation,
and of reconciliation in the New,
iL 324.
Wordsworth, Bishop, quoted, iL 250 n., 353 n., 368 n.
Zeso, i. 32.
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.
7
Holland.— Works by the Rev. Henry Scott Holland, M.A., Canon and Precentor of St. Paul's.
GOD'S CITY AND THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM : Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
PLEAS AND CLAIMS FOR CHRIST. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
CREED AND CHARACTER : Sermons. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
ON BEHALF OF BELIEF. Sermons preached in St. Paul's Cathedral. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
CHRIST OR ECCLESIASTES. Sermons preached in St. Paul's Cathedral. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d.
LOGIC AND LIFE, with other Sermons. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
Hopkins.— CHRIST THE CONSOLER. A Book of Comfort for the Sick. By Ellice Hopkins. Small 8vo. 2s. bd.
Ingram.— HAPPINESS IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE ; or, ' The
Secret of the Lord.' A Series of Practical Considerations. By W. Clavell Ingram, D.D., Dean of Peterborough. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS ; or, Thoughts "on the Communion of Saints and the Life of the World to come. Col- lected chiefly from English Writers by L. P. With a Preface by the Rev. Henry Scott Holland, M.A. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
Jameson. — Works by Mrs. Jameson.
SACRED AND LEGENDARY ART, containing Legends of the Angels and Archangels, the Evangelists, the Apostles. With 19 Etchings and 187 Woodcuts. Two vols. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, 20J. net.
LEGENDS OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS, as represented in the Fine Arts. With 11 Etchings and 88 Woodcuts. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, \os. net.
LEGENDS OF THE MADONNA, OR BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. With 27 Etchings and 165 Woodcuts. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, 10s. net.
THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD, as exemplified in Works of Art. Commenced by the late Mrs. Jameson ; continued and completed by Lady Eastlake. With 31 Etchings and 281 Woodcuts. Two Vols. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, 20s. net.
Jennings.— ECCLESIA ANGLICANA. A History of the Church of Christ in England from the Earliest to the Present Times. By the Rev. Arthur Charles Jennings, M.A. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
8
A SELECTION OF WORKS
Jukes. — Works by Andrew Jukes.
THE NEW MAN AND THE ETERNAL LIFE. Notes on the Reiterated Amens of the Son of God. Crow?i 8vo. 6s.
THE NAMES OF GOD IN HOLY SCRIPTURE: a Revelation of His Nature and Relationships. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d.
THE TYPES OF GENESIS. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
THE SECOND DEATH AND THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
THE ORDER AND CONNEXION OF THE CHURCH'S TEACH- ING, as set forth in the arrangement of the Epistles and Gospels throughout the Year. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
King. — DR. LIDDON'S TOUR IN EGYPT AND PALES- TINE IN 1886. Being Letters descriptive of the Tour, written by his Sister, Mrs. King. Crown 8vo, y.
Knox Little. — Works by W. J. Knox Little, M.A, Canon Residentiary of Worcester, and Vicar of Hoar Cross. SACERDOTALISM, IF RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD,- THE TEACH- ING OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND : being a Letter originally addressed in Four Parts to the Very Rev. William J. Butler, D.D., late Dean of Lincoln. Crown 8vo. 6s. ; or in Four Parts, price is. each net. Part I. Confession and Absolution. Part II. Fasting Communion and Eucharistic Worship. Part III. The Real Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Part IV. The Apostolic Ministry.
SKETCHES IN SUNSHINE AND STORM : a Collection of Mis- cellaneous Essays and Notes of Travel. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d.
THE CHRISTIAN HOME. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
THE HOPES AND DECISIONS OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d.
CHARACTERISTICS AND MOTIVES OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Ten Sermons preached in Manchester Cathedral, in Lent and Advent. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
SERMONS PREACHED FOR THE MOST PART IN MANCHES- TER. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
THE MYSTERY OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d.
{continued.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERA TURE. o
Knox Little.— Works byW. J. Knox Little, M.A., Canon Resi- dentiary of Worcester, and Vicar of Hoar Cross. — continued. THE WITNESS OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY
REDEEMER. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. THE LIGHT OF LIFE. Sermons preached on Various Occasions. Crown 8vo. 3*.
SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Sermons preached for the most part in America. Crown Zvo. y. 6d.
Lear. — Works by, and Edited by, H. L. Sidney Lear.
FOR DAYS AND YEARS. A book containing a Text, Short Reading, and Hymn for Every Day in the Church's Year. i6mo. 2s. 6d. Alio a Cheap Edition, yimo. is,; or cloth gilt, is. 6d.
FIVE MINUTES. Daily Readings of Poetry. i6mo. y. 6d. Also a Cheap Edition, ytmo. u.; or cloth gilt, is. 6d.
WEARINESS. A Book for the Languid and Lonely. Large Type. Small 8vo. y.
THE LIGHT OF THE CONSCIENCE. i6mo. as. 6d. ytmo. is. ; cloth limp, 6d.
Nine Vols. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. each. The Revival of Priestly Life in the Seventeenth Century in France. A Christian Painter of the
Nineteenth Century. Bossuet and his Contempora- ries.
Fenelon, Archbishop of Cam- brai.
Henri Dominique Lacordaire.
CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES.
Madame Louise de France, Daughter of Louis xv. , known also as the Mother Terese de St. Augustin.
A Dominican Artist : a Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Pere Besson, of the Order of St. Dominic.
Henri Perreyve. By A. Gratry.
St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva.
DEVOTIONAL WORKS. Edited
Uniform Editions. Nine Vols, v Fenelon's Spiritual Letters to Men.
Fenelon's Spiritual Letters to Women.
A Selection from the Spiritual Letters of St. Francis de Sales.
The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales.
' H. L. Sidney Lear. New and 10. 2s. 6d. each.
The Hidden Life of the Soul.
The Light of the Conscience.
Self-Renunciation. From the French,
St. Francis de Sales' Of the
Love of God. Selections from Pascal's
' Thoughts.'
IO
A SELECTION OF WORKS
Liddon.— Works by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L..LL.D., late Canon Residentiary and Chancellor of St. Paul's. LIFE OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, D.D. By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D. Edited and prepared for publication by the Rev. J. O. Johnston, M. A., Vicar of All Saints', Oxford ; and the Rev. Robert J. Wilson, M.A., Warden of Keble College. Four Vols. 8vo. Vols. I. and II., with 2 Portraits and 7 Illustrations. 36J.
ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES : Lectures on Buddhism— Lectures on the Life of St. Paul — Papers on Dante. Crown 8vo. y.
EXPLANATORY ANALYSIS OF PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 8vo. 14?.
SERMONS ON OLD TESTAMENT SUBJECTS. Crown 8vo. $s.
SERMONS ON SOME WORDS OF CHRIST. Crown 8vo. 5s.
THE DIVINITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1866. Crown 8vo. y.
ADVENT IN ST. PAUL'S. Sermons bearing chiefly on the Two Comings of our Lord. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. each. Cheap Edition in one Volume. Crown 8vo. y.
CHRISTMASTIDE IN ST. PAUL'S. Sermons bearing chiefly on the Birth of our Lord and the End of the Year. Crown 8vo. y.
PASSIONTIDE SERMONS. Crown 8vo. y.
EASTER IN ST. PAUL'S. Sermons bearing chiefly on the Resurrec- tion of our Lord. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. each. Cheap Edition in one Volume. Crown 8vo. y.
SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. each. Cheap Edition in one Volume. Crown 8vo. y.
THE MAGNIFICAT. Sermons in St. Paul's. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
SOME ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. Lent Lectures. Small 8vo.
as, 6d. ; or in paper cover, is. 6d.
The Crown 8vo Edition may still be had. SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF H. P. LIDDON, D.D.
Crown 8vo. y. 6d. MAXIMS AND GLEANINGS FROM THE WRITINGS OF H. P.
LIDDON, D.D. Selected and arranged by C. M. S. Crown i6mo. is.
DR. LIDDON'S TOUR IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE IN 1886. Being Letters descriptive of the Tour, written by his Sister, Mrs. KING. Crown 8vo. y.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. ir
Luckock.— Works by Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D., Dean of Lichfield.
AFTER DEATH. An Examination of the Testimony of Primitive Times respecting the State of the Faithful Dead, and their Relationship to the Living. Crown Zvo. 6s.
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE BETWEEN DEATH AND JUDGMENT. Being a Sequel to After death. Crown 8vo. 6s.
FOOTPRINTS OF THE SON OF MAN, as traced by St. Mark. Being Eighty Portions for Private Study, Family Reading, and Instructions in Church. Two Vols. Crown Zvo. 12s. Cheap Edition in one Vol. Crown Zvo. $s.
THE DIVINE LITURGY. Being the Order for Holy Communion, Historically, Doctrinally, and devotionally set forth, in Fifty Portions. Crown Svo. 6s.
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. The Anglican Reform— The Puritan Innovations— The Elizabethan Reaction — The Caroline Settlement. With Appendices. Crown Zvo. 6s.
THE BISHOPS IN THE TOWER. A Record of Stirring Events affecting the Church and Nonconformists from the Restoration to the Revolution. Crown Zvo. 6s.
LYRA GERMANICA. Hymns translated from the German by Catherine Winkworth. Small Zvo. $s.
MacColL— CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO SCIENCE AND MORALS. By the Rev. Malcolm MacColl, M.A., Canon Residentiary of Ripon. Crown Zvo. 6s.
Mason.— -Works by A. J. Mason, D.D., Hon. Canon of Canter- bury and Examining Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
THE FAITH OF THE GOSPEL. A Manual of Christian Doctrine. Crown Zvo. y. 6d.
THE RELATION OF CONFIRMATION TO BAPTISM. As taught in Holy Scripture and the Fathers. Crown Zvo. ys. 6d.
12
A SELECTION OF WORKS
Mercier.— OUR MOTHER CHURCH : Being Simple Talk on High Topics. By Mrs. Jerome Mercier. Small 8vo. y. 6d.
Molesworth— STORIES OF THE SAINTS FOR CHIL- DREN : The Black Letter Saints. By Mrs. Molesworth, Author of 'The Palace in the Garden,' etc, etc. With Illustrations. Royal i6mo. 5J.
Mozley— Works by J. B. Mozley, D.D., late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.
ESSAYS, HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL. Two Vols. 8vo. 24s.
EIGHT LECTURES ON MIRACLES. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1865. Crown 8vo. js._6d.
RULING IDEAS IN EARLY AGES AND THEIR RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT FAITH. Lectures delivered to Graduates of the University of Oxford. Svo. 10s. 6d.
SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, and on Various Occasions. Crown 8vo. ' js. 6d.
SERMONS, PAROCHIAL AND OCCASIONAL. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
Newbolt.— Works by the Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt, M.A., Canon and Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral, Select Preacher at Oxford, and Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Ely.
SPECULUM SACERDOTUM ; or, the Divine Model of the Priestly Life. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. Being Ten Addresses beariDg on the Spiritual Life. Crown 8vo. is. 6d.
THE MAN OF GOD. Being Six Addresses delivered during Lent at the Primary Ordination of the Right Rev. the Lord Ahvyne Corapton, D.D., Bishop of Ely. Small 8vo. is. 6d.
THE PRAYER BOOK : Its Voice and Teaching. Being Spiritual Ad- dresses bearing on the Book of Common Prayer. Crown 8vo. zs. 6J.
Newnham.— THE ALL-FATHER: Sermons preached in a Village Church. By the Rev. H. P. Newnham. With Preface by Edna Lyall. Crown Svo. 41. 6d.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 13
Newman.— Works by John Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford.
PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS. Eight Vols. Cabinet Edition. Crown 8vo. y. each. Cheaper Edition, y. 6d. each.
SELECTION, ADAPTED TO THE SEASONS OF THE ECCLE- SIASTICAL YEAR, from the ' Parochial and Plain Sermons," Cabinet Edition. Crown 8vo. y. Cheaper Edition. y. 6d.
FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Cabinet Edition. Crown 8vo. y. Cheaper Edition, y. 6d.
SERMONS BEARING UPON SUBJECTS OF THE DAY. Cabinet Edition. Crown 8vo. y. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. Cabinet Edition Crown 8vo. y. Cheaper Edition, y. 6d.
*»* A Complete List of Cardinal Newman's Works can be had on Application.
Osborne.— Works by Edward Osborne, Mission Priest of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford. THE CHILDREN'S SAVIOUR. Instructions to Children onjhe Life
of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Illustrated. i6mo. 2s. 6d. THE SAVIOUR KING. Instructions to Children on Old Testament .
Types and Illustrations of the Life of Christ. Illustrated. i6mo. zs. 6d. THE CHILDREN'S FAITH. Instructions to Children on the Apostles' Creed. Illustrated. i6mo. zs. 6d.
Overton. — THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE NINE- TEENTH CENTURY, 1800-1833. By the Rev. John H. Overton. D.D., Canon of Lincoln, Rector pf Epworth, Doncaster, and Rural Dean of the Isle of Axholme. 8vo. 14J.
Oxenden.— Works by the Right Rev. Ashton Oxenden, formerly Bishop of Montreal. PLAIN SERMONS, to which is prefixed a Memorial Portrait. Crown 8vo. y.
THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE : An Autobiography. Crown 8vo. y. PEACE AND ITS HINDRANCES. Crown 8vo. is. sewed, 2s. cloth. THE PATHWAY OF SAFETY; or, Counsel to the Awakened. Fcap.
8vo, large type. zs. 6d. Cheap Edition. Small type, limp, is. THE EARNEST COMMUNICANT. New Red Rubric Edition.
ytmo, cloth, zs. Common Edition, ytmo. is. OUR CHURCH AND HER SERVICES. Fcap. 8vo. zs. 6d.
[continued.
14
A SELECTION OF WORKS
Oxenden. — Works by the Right Rev. Ashton Oxenden formerly Bishop of Montreal — continued. FAMILY PRAYERS FOR FOUR WEEKS. First Series. Fcap. 8vo. 2S. 6d. Second Series. Fcap, 8vo. zs. 6d.
Large Type Edition. Two Series in one Volume, Crown 8vo. 6s. COTTAGE SERMONS ; or, Plain Words to the Poor. Fcap. 8vo. as. 6d. THOUGHTS FOR HOLY WEEK. i6mo. cloth, is. 6d. DECISION. i8mo. is. 6d.
THE HOME BEYOND ; or, A Happy Old Age. Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. THE LABOURING MAN'S BOOK. i8mo, large type, cloth, is. 6d.
Paget.— Works by Francis Paget, D.D., Dean of Christ Church, Oxford.
THE SPIRIT OF DISCIPLINE : Sermons. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
FACULTIES AND DIFFICULTIES FOR BELIEF AND DIS- BELIEF. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
THE HALLOWING OF WORK. Addresses given at Eton, January. 16-18, 1888. Small 8vo. 2s.
PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS. By a Clergyman. With Prefaces by H. P. Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., and the Bishop of Lincoln. Crown 8vo.
The Holy Gospels. 4*. 6d. I The Psalms. 5*.
Acts to Revelations. 6s. \ The Book of Genesis. 4*. 6d.
PRIEST (THE) TO THE ALTAR ; or, Aids to the Devout Celebration of Holy Communion, chiefly after the Ancient English UseofSarum. Royal 8vo. 12s.
Puller. — THE PRIMITIVE SAINTS AND THE SEE OF
ROME. By F. W. Puller, M. A., Mission Priest of the Society of St. John Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford. Crown 8vo. js. 6d.
Pusey.— LIFE OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, D.D. By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D. Edited and pre- pared for publication by the Rev. J. O. Johnston, M.A., Vicar of All Saints', Oxford, and the Rev. Robert J. Wilson, M.A., Warden of Keble College. Four Vols. 8vo. Vols. I. and II. , with 2 Portraits and 7 Illustrations. 36J.
Pusey.— Works by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D.
PRIVATE PRAYERS. With Preface by H. P. Liddon, D.D. 32WW. is. PRAYERS FOR A YOUNG SCHOOLBOY. With a Preface by H. P. Liddon, D.D. 24OT0. is.
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 15
Sanday.— Works by W. Sanday, D.D., Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis and Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. INSPIRATION : Eight Lectures on the Early History and Origin of the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1893. 81/0. 16/.
THE ORACLES OF GOD : Nine Lectures on the Nature and Extent of Biblical Inspiration and the Special Significance of the Old Testament Scriptures at the Present Time. Crown Zvo. 4s.
TWO PRESENT-DAY QUESTIONS. I. Biblical Criticism. II. The Social Movement. Sermons preached before the University of Cam- bridge. Crown 8m 2s. 6d.
Seebohm. — THE OXFORD REFORMERS— JOHN COLET, ERASMUS, AND THOMAS MORE : A History of their Fellow- Work. By Frederick Seebohm. Zvo. 14*.
Stanton.— THE PLACE OF AUTHORITY IN MATTERS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF. By Vincent Henry Stanton, D.D., Fellow of Trinity Coll., Ely Prof, of Divinity, Cambridge. Cr. Zvo. 6s.
Swayne. — THE BLESSED DEAD IN PARADISE. Four All Saints' Day Sermons, preached in Salisbury Cathedral By R. G. Swayne, M.A. Crown 8vo. y. 6d.
Twells.— COLLOQUIES ON PREACHING. By Henry
Twells, M.A., Honorary Canon of Peterborough. Crown Zvo. 2s.6d.
Welldon. — THE FUTURE AND THE PAST. Sermons preached to Harrow Boys. By the Rev. J. E. C. Welldon, M.A., Head Master of H arrow School. Crown 8vo. js. 6d,
Williams.— Works by the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D.
A DEVOTIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL NARRA- TIVE, Eight Vols. Crown Zvo. each. Sold Separately.
Thoughts on the Study of the
Holy Gospels. A Harmony of the Four Gospels. Our Lord's Nativity. Our Lord's Ministry (Second Year).
Our Lord's Ministry (Third Year). The Holy Week. Our Lord's Passion. Our Lord's Resurrection.
FEMALE CHARACTERS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. A Series of Sermons, Crown Zvo. $s.
THE CHARACTERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Crown Zvo. $s.
THE APOCALYPSE. With Notes and Reflections. Crown Zvo. $s.
SERMONS ON THE EPISTLES AND GOSPELS FOR THE SUN- DAYS AND HOLY DAYS. Two Vols. Crown Zvo. 5*. each.
{continued.
16 A SELECTION OF THEOLOGICAL WORKS.
Williams.— Works by the Rev.ISAAC Williams, B.D.— continued.
PLAIN SERMONS ON CATECHISM. Two Vols. Cr.8vo. 5s. each. SELECTIONS FROM ISAAC WILLIAMS' WRITINGS. Cr. 8vo. y. 6d.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ISAAC WILLIAMS, B.D., Author of several of the 'Tracts for the Times.' Edited by the Venerable Sir George Prevost, as throwing further light on the history of the Oxford Movement. Crown 8vo. $s.
Woodford.— Works by J. R. Woodford, D.D., Bishop of Ely. THE GREAT COMMISSION. Addresses on the Ordinal. Edited,
with an Introduction, by H. M. Luckock, D.D. Crown 8vo. 5s. SERMONS ON OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT SUBJECTS. Edited by H. M. LUCKOCK, D. D. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 5s. each.
Wordsworth.
For List of Works by the late Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Bishop of Lincoln, see Messrs. Longmans & Co.'s Catalogue of Theological Works, 32 pp. Sent post free on application.
Wordsworth.— Works by Elizabeth Wordsworth, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE CREED. Crown 8vo. 5s. THE DECALOGUE. Crown Svo. 4s. 6d.
ST. CHRISTOPHER AND OTHER POEMS. Crown Svo. 6s.
Wordsworth.— Works by Charles Wordsworth, D.D., D.C.L., Lord Bishop of St Andrews, and Fellow of Winchester College.
ANNALS OF MY EARLY LIFE, 1806-1846. Bvo. 15s.
ANNALS OF MY LIFE, 1847-1856. 8vo. 10s. 6d.
PRIMARY WITNESS TO THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL, to
which is added a Charge on Modern Teaching on the Canon of the
Old Testament. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d.
Younghusband. — Works by Frances Younghusband.
THE STORY OF OUR LORD, told in Simple Language for Children. With 25 Illustrations from Pictures by the Old Masters. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
THE STORY OF THE EXODUS, told in Simple Language for Children. With Map and 29 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press.
10,000/4/94.
IN COMPLIANCE WITH CURRENT COPYRIGHT LAW OCKER & TRAPP, INC. AND
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRODUCED THIS REPLACEMENT VOLUME ON WEYERHAEUSER COUGAR OPAQUE NATURAL PAPER, THAT MEETS ANSI/NISO STANDARDS Z39. 48-1992 TO REPLACE THE IRREPARABLY DETERIORATED ORIGINAL. 1998
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