CHAPTER V.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Wirgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by the Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. (A.D. 1549.)

In the Missal of Sarum (that is, in the Communion Office of the English Church before the Reformation), provision is made for three masses on Christmas Day-one at cockcrow, one at break of dawn, and one in full day.1

1 The Collects for the two first of these masses were as follows:

Ad Missam in gallicantu. Deus, qui hanc sacratissimam noctem veri luminis fecisti illustratione clarescere: da, quæsumus, ut cujus lucis mysteria in terra cognovimus, ejus quoque gaudiis in cœlo perfruamur. Qui tecum.

At the Mass at cockcrow. God, who madest this most sacred night to shine with the brightness of the true Light; Grant, we beseech thee, that, as we have known the revelations of the Light upon earth, so we may also have the fruition of his joys in heaven. Who with thee.

At the Mass at dawn. Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, to us upon whom the new light of the Word made flesh is shed forth, that the light which shines by faith in our hearts may also shine brightly in our works. Through the same.

Our present Epistle and Gospel are taken from the third of these masses; and it is not without interest to consider why the Collect was discarded by our Reformers. In an English translation it runs thus ; " Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the new birth of thy only-begotten Son through the flesh may set free those, who are held fast by the old bondage under the yoke of sin." Not only is there nothing here superstitious or unsound in doctrine, but the sentiment is beautiful and edifying. Christ was sent by the Father, as He Himself said at the opening of His ministry in Nazareth, to preach deliverance to the captives (of Satan), and to set at liberty them that were bruised 2 beneath the galling yoke of sin. And the way in which He effected this deliverance was by taking our nature upon Him, yielding obedience in it to the precept of the law, and submitting in it to the curse of the law, which human disobedience had drawn down. But the thought was a little too far-fetched; and on so very high a festival as Christmas a more explicit and palpable reference to the great fact commemorated was thought desirable. Our present Collect, one that does the highest possible credit to the composers, has the one thought of the birth of Christ running throughout it. This birth, it is intimated, must be repeated in the Christian. The experience of Christ our Head must be ours throughout. We too must ascend into heaven (“in heart and mind "); we too must rise (unto "newness of life "4); we too must die ("unto sin "5); and, as the be

1 The original is as follows:- Concede, quæsumus, omnipotens Deus, ut nos Unigeniti tui nova per carnem nativitas liberet: quos sub peccati jugo vetusta servitus tenet. Per eundem. Qui tecum." Miss. Sar. 2 See St. Luke iv. 16, 17, 18. 3 Collect for Ascension Day; and see Eph. ii. 6. 5 See Rom. vi. 10, 11.

+See Rom. vi. 4.

ginning of all things, we too must be born again,1 just as Christ, "begotten of his Father before all worlds," underwent a new birth in the flesh. Without at all denying the beauty and excellence of the Pre-Reformation Collect, surely we can see that we are gainers by the exchange.

"Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin." In the original draught of the Collect the words had stood thus; "this day to be born of a pure Virgin." Cosin, at the last revision, substituted "as at this time to be born;"--a minute alteration, but not an insignificant one. For, not to speak of the uncertainty whether Christmas Day is the real historical anniversary of our Lord's birth, learned men differing very much as to the exact period of the year at which He was born," this time" reminds us, as "this day" would not do, that the Lord appeared exactly when, in the counsels of Eternal Wisdom, the time was ripe for His appearing, when the period long anticipated in the designs of God and in the hopes of His Church had arrived ;— "when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman.'

"3

He was "made of a

Observe, "His Son, made of a woman.” God's Son then, before He was born, or woman;" God's Son, not only as "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;" but as begotten of the Father before all time. The somewhat peculiar phraseology of the old Collect indicated this very pointedly by speaking of our Lord's "new birth through the flesh;" if our Lord had a NEW birth through the flesh, then, before He appeared in the flesh, He must have been (as Scripture inti1 See St. John iii. 3, 5. 3 Gal. iv. 4.

2 Nicene Creed.

mates that He was) begotten from everlasting of the Father.1 And thus is established a second point of similarity between the Head and the members; the Son was begotten from everlasting of the Father before He was born of the Virgin; the members have a natural birth according to the flesh, and a new birth of water and the Spirit, transacted in the laver of regeneration. If any man ask the ground of the relationship which subsisted eternally between the First and Second Persons of the Blessed Trinity, all we can say, with our present limited understanding, is (what has been said by an eminently devout and thoughtful person of our own day), that there is no form of goodness of which God is not the fountain, and which is not to be found within the precinct of His nature; that, unquestionably, trust, veneration, submission, and so forth, are forms of goodness; that these and similar forms of goodness must therefore be represented in the nature of God, and that they are so represented in the distinct Personality of the Son. And if any man ask the practical value of this doctrine of Christ's eternal generation, I say that, without this doctrine, we should not have the same assurance of God's exceeding great love towards us. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."2 Parents know what it is to give up a child,—how it wrings their hearts to part with him even to fair prospects and a bright future. But to part with a child on an enterprise, which can only end in a hard life, an agonizing struggle, a cruel and shameful death -how dear must any object be to a father's heart, for which he consents to make such a sacrifice as this! And this,the sacrifice, if I may so say, not of a Person in the Godhead 2 St. John iii. 16.

1 See St. John i. 18.

unconnected with Him, but of a Son-a Son in affection, in dutifulness, in confidence-is exactly the sacrifice which has been made for each one of us. But this Divine Son, who stood from all eternity in the relation of a Son, and exemplified from all eternity the virtues of sonship, had a "NEW birth through the flesh"-a birth of a pure virgin. By means of this birth He, as the Collect reminds us, took our nature upon Him, so as to establish between ourselves and Him a perfect sympathy. And it should not be overlooked that this nature was taken from the tenderer side of humanity, that it was drawn out of a mother, and that no human father shared in its generation. The Seed of the woman, though Himself a man, was thus endued with woman's tenderness, compassion, and patient endurance; and qualified, more abundantly than would otherwise have been the case, to have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way. This is a point too apt to be overlooked, when we are speaking or thinking of Christ's birth of the Virgin.

"Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace." Our Reformers clung to the ancient and universal phraseology of the Church from the earliest times, in representing all the baptized as regenerate, and made God's children by adoption and grace. Our Blessed Lord speaks of baptism as a birth of water and of the Spirit.1 In His own new birth" the Spirit operated, inasmuch as He was "conceived by the Holy Ghost;" but there was also a human and earthly instrument employed in producing the effect-" a pure Virgin." Similarly the Spirit is the prime agent in our new birth; but there is also a human and earthly instrument which the Spirit condescends to employ-pure

See St. John iii. 5.