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^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 Internet Archive

in 2015

https://archive.org/details/collectsofdayexp02goul

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.]

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.

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.

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.]

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.

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.

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.

52 The Seventh Sunday after Trinity.

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.

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.

The Ninth Sunday after Trinity. 67

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. 91

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.

92 The TwclftJi Sunday after Trinity.

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.

The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. 93

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.

94 The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.

" 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.

The Tivelfth Sunday after Trinity. 95

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."

The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. 97

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

VOL. IL H

98 The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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.

The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. 99

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.

ioo The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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.

The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. 101

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.

102 The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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.

The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. 103

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.

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. 105

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

io6 The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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.

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. 107

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

io8 The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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.")

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. 109

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.

iio The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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.

The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, (i) 113

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

1 14 The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. (1)

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.

The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, (i) 115

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.

1 1 6 The Fifteenth Stmday after Trinity, (i)

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

1 1 8 The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. (2)

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."

The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. (2) 119

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.

120 The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. (2)

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

The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. (2) 1 2 1

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.

122 The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. (2)

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

124 The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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.

The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity. 125

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.

132 The Seventeenth Sunday after Triinty.

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

200

On the Saints' Day Collects.

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.

202

St. Andrew s Day.

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.

Si. Andrew s Day.

203

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."

204

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.

206

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.

208

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.

St. Andrew's Day.

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.

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-

212

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

214

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.

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.

252

Si. Mark's Day.

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.

Si. Mark's Day.

253

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.

254

Si. Mark's Day.

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.

Si. Mark's Day.

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

St. Philip and St. James's Day.

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.

298

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.

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.

Si. Michael and All Angels.

339

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.)

342

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."

St. Michael and All Angels.

343

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.

344

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.

Si. Michael and All Angels.

345

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.

St. Michael and All A ngels.

347

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.

348

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."

352

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.

All Saints Day.

373

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.

374

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.

All Saints Day.

375

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

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.

376

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.

All Saints Day.

377

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.

All Saints Day.

379

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.

38o

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.

382

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.

All Saints Day.

383

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.

334

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.

All Saints Day.

385

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.

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.

337

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.

394

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.

4o8

The Second Collect at the End of

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.

4 1 o The Second Collect at the End of

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.

412 The Second Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service.

4'3

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,

4i 6 The Third Collect at the End of

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

4 1 8 The Third Collect at the End of

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.

420

The Third Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service. 421

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.

The Communion Service. 425

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.

426

The Fourth Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service.

427

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

428

The Fourth Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service. 429

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].

Fifth Collect at End of Communion Service. 43 1

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.

432

The Fifth Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service.

433

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

434

The Fifth Collect at the End of

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.

T/ie Communion Service.

435

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.

436 Fifth Collect at End of Commtmion Service.

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).

433

The Sixth Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service.

439

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.

440

The Sixth Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service. 441

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.

442

The Sixth Collect at the End of

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.

The Communion Service.

443

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.

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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Bonney, D.Sc. , Hon. Canon of Manchester. Crown Zvo. $s.

Boultbee. — A COMMENTARY ON THE THIRTY-NINE
ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. By the Rev.
T. P. Boultbee, formerly Principal of the London College of Divinity,
St. John's Hall, Highbury. Crown Zvo. 6s.

Bright.— Works by William Bright, D.D., Canon of Christ
Church, Oxford.
WAYMARKS IN CHURCH HISTORY. Crown 8w. 7s. 6d.
MORALITY IN DOCTRINE. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
LESSONS FROM THE LIVES OF THREE GREAT FATHERS:

St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine. Crown Zvo. 6s.
THE INCARNATION AS A MOTIVE POWER. Crown Zvo. 6s.

Bright and Medd.— LIBER PRECUM PUBLICARUM EC-
CLESLE ANGLICANS. A Gulielmo Bright, S.T.P., et Petro
Goldsmith Medd, A.M., Latine redditus. Small Zvo. 7s. 6d.

Browne.— AN EXPOSITION OF THE THIRTY^NINE
ARTICLES, Historical and Doctrinal. By E. H. Browne, D.D.,
formerly Bishop of Winchester. Zvo. 16s.

Campion and Beamont.— THE PRAYER BOOK INTER-
LEAVED. With Historical Illustrations and Explanatory Notes
arranged parallel to the Text. By W. M. Campion, D. D., and W. J.
Beamont, M.A. Small Zvo. 7s. 6d.

Carter.— Works edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., Hon.
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
THE TREASURY OF DEVOTION : a Manual of Prayer for General
and Daily Use. Compiled by a Priest. xZmo. zs. 6d. ; cloth limp,
zs. ; or bound with the Book of Common Prayer, y. 6d. Large-Type
Edition. Crown Zvo. y. 6d,
THE WAY OF LIFE : A Book of Prayers and Instruction for the Young
at School, with a Preparation for Confirmation. Compiled by a Priest,
\Zmo. is. 6d.

THE PATH OF HOLINESS: a First Book of Prayers, with the Service
of the Holy Communion, for the Young. Compiled by a Priest. With
Illustrations. i6mo. is. 6d. ; cloth limp, is.

THE GUIDE TO HEAVEN : a Book of Prayers for every Want. (For
the Working Classes.) Compiled by a Priest. iZmo. is. 6d. ; cloth
limp, is. Large-Type Edition. Crown Zvo. is. 6d. ; cloth limp, is.

{continued.

A SELECTION OF WORKS

Carter.— Works edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., Hon.
Canon of Christ Church, Oxford — continued.
SELF-RENUNCIATION. z6mo. zs. 6J.

THE STAR OF CHILDHOOD : a First Book of Prayers and Instruc-
tion for Children. Compiled by a Priest. With Illustrations. i6mo.
zs. 6d.

NICHOLAS FERRAR : his Household and his Friends. With Portrait
engraved after a Picture by Cornelius Janssen at Magdalene
College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 6s.

Carter —MAXIMS AND GLEANINGS FROM THE

WRITINGS OF T. T. CARTER, M.A. Selected and arranged for
Daily Use. Crown i6mo. is.

Conybeare and Howson. — THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF

ST. PAUL. By the Rev. W. J. Conybeare, M.A., and the Very
Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D. With numerous Maps and Illustrations.

Library Edition. Two Vols. Zvo. 21s.

Students' Edition. One Vol. Crown Zvo. 6s.

Popular Edition. One Vol. Crown Zvo. y. 6d.

Copleston.— BUDDHISM— PRIMITIVE AND PRESENT
IN MAGADHA AND IN CEYLON. By Reginald Stephen
Copleston, D.D., Bishop of Colombo. Zvo. i&r.

Devotional Series, 16mo, Red Borders. Each zs. 6d.

BICKERSTETH'S YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER.
CHILCOT'S TREATISE ON EVIL THOUGHTS.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.

FRANCIS DE SALES' (ST.) THE DEVOUT LIFE.
HERBERT'S POEMS AND PROVERBS.
KEMPIS' (A) OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST.
WILSON'S THE LORD'S SUPPER. Large type.
♦TAYLOR'S (JEREMY) HOLY LIVING.
» HOLY DYING.

* These two in one Volume, y.

Devotional Series, 18mo, without Red Borders. Each is.

BICKERSTETH'S YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.

FRANCIS DE SALES' (ST.) THE DEVOUT LIFE,
HERBERT'S POEMS AND PROVERBS.
KEMPIS (X) OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST.
WILSON'S THE LORD'S SUPPER, Large type.
•TAYLOR'S (JEREMY) HOLY LIVING.
• HOLY DYING.

* These two in one Volume. zs. 6d.

IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Edersheim.— Works by Alfred Edersheim, M.A., D.D., Ph.D.,
sometime Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint, Oxford.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JESUS THE MESSIAH. Two Vols.
8vo. 24s.

JESUS THE MESSIAH : being an Abridged Edition of 'The Life and
Times of Jesus the Messiah. ' Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.

PROPHECY AND HISTORY IN RELATION TO THE MESSIAH :
The Warburton Lectures, 1880-1884. 8vo. 12s.

Ellicott.— Works by C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Bishop of Gloucester
and Bristol.

A CRITICAL AND GRAMMATICAL COMMENTARY ON ST.
PAUL'S EPISTLES. Greek Text, with a Critical and Grammatical
Commentary, and a Revised English Translation. 8vo.

1 Corinthians. 16s. Philippians, Colossians, and

Galatians. 8s. 6d. Philemon, ioj. 6d.

Ephesians. 8s. 6d. . Thessalonians. 7s. 6d.

Pastoral Epistles, ios. 6d. ~~

HISTORICAL LECTURES ON THE LIFE; OF OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST. 8vo. 12s.

Epochs of Church History — Edited by Mandell Creighton,
D.D.,LL.D.,Bishopof Peterborough. Fcap.Zvo. is.bd.each.

THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN
OTHER LANDS. By the Rev. H. W.
Tucker, M.A.

THE HISTORY OF THE REFOR-
MATION IN ENGLAND. By the
Rev. Geo. G. Perry, M.A.

THE CHURCH OF THE EARLY
FATHERS. By the Rev. Alfred
Plummer, D.D.

THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL IN
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
By the Rev. J. H. Overton, D.D.

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
By the Hon. G. C. Brodrick, D.C.L.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CAM-
BRIDGE. By J. Bass Mullingek,
M.A.

THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE
MIDDLE AGES. By the Rev. W.
Hunt, M.A.

THE CHURCH AND THE
EASTERN EMPIRE. By the Rev.
H. F. Tozer, M.A.

THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN
EMPIRE. By the Rev. A. Carr, M.A.

THE CHURCH AND THE PURI-
TANS, 1570-1660. By Henry Offley
Wakeman, M.A.

HILDEBRAND AND HIS TIMES.
By the Rev. VV. R. W. Stephens, M.A.

THE POPES AND THE HOHEN-
STAUFEN. By Uco Balzani.

THE COUNTER REFORMATION.
By Adolphus William Ward, Litt. D.

WYCLIFFE AND MOVEMENTS
FOR REFORM. By Reginald L.
Poole, M.A.

THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. By
H. M. Gwatkin, M.A.

A SELECTION OF WORKS

Fosbery.— Works edited by the Rev. Thomas Vincent Fosbery,
M.A., sometime Vicar of St. Giles's, Reading.

VOICES OF COMFORT. Cheap Edition. Small Svo. y. 6d.
The Larger Edition ( 7s. 6d.) may still be had.

HYMNS AND POEMS FOR THE SICK AND SUFFERING. In
connection with the Service for the Visitation of the Sick. Selected
from Various Authors. Small Svo. y. 6d.

Gore. — Works by the Rev. Charles Gore, M.A., Principal of the
Pusey House ; Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.
THE MINISTRY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Svo. ios. 6d.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. Crown Svo. y. 6d.

Goulburn. — Works by Edward Meyrick. Goulburn, D.D.,
D.C.L., sometime Dean of Norwich.

THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL RELIGION. Small Svo. 6s. 6d.
Cheap Edition, y. 6d. ; Presentation Edition, 2 vols, small Svo, 10s. 6d.

THE PURSUIT OF HOLINESS : a Sequel to ' Thoughts on Personal
Religion.' Small Svo. y. Cheap Edition, y. 6d.

THE GOSPEL OF THE CHILDHOOD: a Practical and Devotional
Commentary on the Single Incident of our Blessed Lord's Childhood
(St. Luke ii. 41 to the end). Crown Svo. 2s. 6d.

THE COLLECTS OF THE DAY : an Exposition, Critical and Devo-
tional, of the Collects appointed at the Communion. With Preliminary
Essays on their Structure, Sources, etc. 2 vols. Crown Svo. Ss. each.

THOUGHTS UPON THE LITURGICAL GOSPELS for the Sundays,
one for each day in the year. With an Introduction on their Origin,
History, the modifications made in them by the Reformers and by the
Revisers of the Prayer Book. 2 vols. Crown Svo. 16s.

MEDITATIONS UPON THE LITURGICAL GOSPELS for the
Minor Festivals of Christ, the two first Week-days of the Easter and
Whitsun Festivals, and the Red-letter Saints' Days. Crown Svo. Ss. 6d.

FAMILY PRAYERS, compiled from various sources (chiefly from Bishop
Hamilton's Manual), and arranged on the Liturgical Principle. Crown
Svo. y. 6d. Cheap Edition. i6mo. is.

Harrison. — Works by the Rev. Alexander J. Harrison, B.D.,
Lecturer of the Christian Evidence Society.

PROBLEMS OF CHRISTIANITY AND SCEPTICISM ; Lessons
from Twenty Years' Experience in the Field of Christian Evidence.
Crown Svo. ys. 6d.

THE CHURCH IN RELATION TO SCEPTICS : a Conversational
Guide to Evidential Work. Crown Svo. ys. 6d.

IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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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
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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
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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
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Pusey.— LIFE OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, D.D.
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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
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Pusey.— Works by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D.

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PRAYERS FOR A YOUNG SCHOOLBOY. With a Preface by H. P.
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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/.

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Swayne. — THE BLESSED DEAD IN PARADISE. Four
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Williams.— Works by the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D.

A DEVOTIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL NARRA-
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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.

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THE CHARACTERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Crown Zvo. $s.

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SERMONS ON THE EPISTLES AND GOSPELS FOR THE SUN-
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{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.
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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.,
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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.

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With 25 Illustrations from Pictures by the Old Masters. Crown 8vo.
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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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