"And make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life." Observe that Christ's manifestation has a twofold aspect. It is both destructive and creative, destructive of sin, which is the devil's work, and creative of Divine sonship. I say creative of sonship, because, though man, by the original construction of his nature, was a son of God, he forfeited his sonship by the admission of sin; and it has to be restored to him by the Sacrament of Baptism, and by the revelation to him of the fatherly love of God in Christ. When he lays hold of this revelation by faith, the Spirit of adoption within him cries, "Abba, Father," and draws him for everything he needs to the throne of grace, thus enabling him to realise his baptism. And heirship goes with sonship as a matter of course, according to that word to the Romans and Galatians, "If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;"2" If a son, then an heir of God through Christ."3

"Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure." This is the clause in the petition of the Collect, which corresponds to the destructive aspect of Christ's manifestation mentioned previously. "As Christ was manifested to destroy sin by His blood and grace, grant that we, co-operating with His grace, may destroy sin." And observe how completely St. Paul's language in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians harmonizes with St. John's. "Every man that hath this hope in Christ," says the latter, "purifieth himself, even as he is pure." "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved," says St. Paul, that God will be a Father and a God to us, if we separate ourselves from the unclean thing,-fastening upon these promises our faith and hope,-"let us 1 See Gal. iv. 6; and Rom. viii. 15. 3 Gal. iv. 7.

4

2 Rom. viii. 17.

41 John iii. 3.

cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." St. Paul expands and expounds St. John. The elements of Christian purification are two-cleansing ourselves from filthiness of the flesh, and from filthiness of the spirit. A man may be free from sensuality, through feebleness of temptation in that department of his nature, or through the stress of asceticism, which has subdued the flesh, and restrains its promptings; and yet may have much defilement of spirit in the shape of intellectual pride and spiritual pride, which are only so much the more dangerous as they shock the conscience much less than sensual sins. "We may keep the devils without the swine," says a good writer, "but not the swine without the devils." 2

That, when he shall appear again with power and great glory" (as is foretold by Himself in the Gospel of the day) "we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom." This corresponds to the notice of the creative aspect of Christ's manifestation in the earlier part of the prayer," that He might make us the sons of God and heirs of eternal life." To ask that we may be made like unto Him is to ask that we may be made, in the most consummate sense of the words, sons of God; for sons are known by their likeness to their parents. But we must not lose sight of the fact, which is clearly intimated by the Apostle, that the final manifestation of Christ to us, and our being made like unto Him, will stand in living relation to one another, that the first will be the engendering cause of the last;-" we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."3 When Moses held converse with God on the mount,

1 2 Cor. vii. 1. 2 Hare's "Guesses at Truth.' 31 John iii. 2.

the skin of his face reflected the Divine lustre; and when the risen saint catches sight of the glorified Saviour, that glance will in a moment transfigure him, in order to the fulfilment in his experience of those words of the Psalmist, "When I awake up after thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it." It is said that in polar latitudes animals grow white by always having the snow before their eyes; and he who gazes steadfastly upon the " King in His beauty "4 -upon the glorified Redeemer-shall be changed into the same image of beauty and glory "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye."5

3

The conclusion of this Collect, distinguished from similar terminations of the ancient ones by the direct invocation of the First and Third Persons of the Blessed Trinity, is peculiarly solemn and august, and has the effect of placing the mind of the petitioner full in front of the eternal throne, and leading him to prostrate himself before it in that spirit of profound adoration, which should pervade all our acts of prayer.

1 See Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30.

2 Psalm xvii. 16, P.B.V.

3 St. Francis of Sales founds upon this circumstance an exhortation to frequent Communion ("Vie Dévote," Part II. Chap. xxi.) :—

"Communiez souvent, Philotée, et le plus souvent que vous pourrez, et croyez-moi, les lièvres deviennent blancs parmi nos montagnes en hiver, parcequ'ils ne voient ni mangent que la neige; et à force d'adorer et manger la beauté, la bonté, et la pureté même en ce divin Sacrement, vos deviendrez toute belle, toute bonne et toute pure.”

4 Isaiah xxxiii. 17.

5 1 Cor. xv. 52.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SUNDAY CALLED SEPTUAGESIMA,

OR THE THIRD SUNDAY BEFORE LENT.

O Lord, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we, who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Preces populi tui, quaesumus, Domine, clementer exaudi: ut qui juste pro peccatis nostris affligimur, pro tui nominis gloria misericorditer liberemur. Per Dominum. -Greg. Sac.-Miss. Sar.

In the second year of her reign Queen Elizabeth gave orders for a translation into Latin of the Book of Common Prayer, which might be used in the Universities and Public Schools of the realm. Copies of this work still exist in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. The copy in the Museum has illuminated initials, after the fashion of the day. The Collect for Septuagesima Sunday begins with the word "Preces" (prayers), and the illumination of the initial P "represents a traveller in the act of receiving a letter from a venerable-looking man, through the bars of a cell in which he is confined."1

1 The copy in the British Museum has been reprinted by the Parker Society, from a note in which reprint these words are taken. [Liturgical Services of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth: Ed. Clay, Cambridge, 1847. P. 352, note 1.] We subjoin the Latin translation made in the second

There can be little doubt that this woodcut is designed as an illustration of the Collect, the key-word of which is liberemur, "that we may be mercifully delivered" (or liberated). Sin is thought of as a captivity or bondage, according to those words of a still more familiar prayer; Though we be tied and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of thy great mercy loose us.”1 The venerable captive in the cell is the sinner returning to a better mind. The letter with which he is charging the traveller is a supplication for deliverance. And probably the traveller, free to go about where he pleases, and ready to start for a distant country, is intended to represent an angel, charged to deliver the suppliant's message at the throne of grace.

One word is necessary upon the title of the Sunday for which this Collect is provided. As Lent consists of forty days, the first Sunday in that season used to be called Quadragesima (a word formed from quadraginta,

year of Elizabeth (1560), side by side with the modern one made by Canon Bright and Mr. Medd, three hundred and five years later.

1560.

Preces populi tui, quæsumus Domine, clementer exaudi, ut qui juste pro peccatis nostris affligimur, pro tui nominis gloria per misericordiam tuam liberemur. Per Dominum nostrum, etc.

1865.

Preces populi tui, quæsumus, Domine, clementer exaudi; ut qui juste pro peccatis nostris affligimur, pro tui Nominis gloria misericorditer liberemur. Per Jesum Christum salvatorem nostrum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

It will be seen that, as regards the body of the prayer, both translations are merely reproductions of the original Collect in Gregory's Sacramentary, though Elizabeth's translator has eschewed the unclassical word misericorditer, and substituted for it a periphrasis.

1 Among "Prayers and Thanksgivings, upon several occasions," immediately after the Litany.