what he had done for Christ than at what Christ had done for him? St. Paul insinuates that he felt the temptation to spiritual pride, and felt it so strongly that a special trial was in his case needed to prevent his being exalted above measure. When the life of a servant of God has special trials, he is compensated for them by special privileges. Jacob, the outcast and exile, driven to seek his fortunes in a far country away from home,1 and to toil there in servitude and exposure for many a weary year,2 Jacob lying under the open canopy of heaven with the stones of that place for his pillows,3 has his eyes opened to see the vision of the great bright ladder, the head of which was in heaven, while its base rested upon earth, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it.* And St. Paul is compensated for his "journeyings often," and for all the weariness and painfulness and cold and nakedness involved in them, by being transported in a heavenly vision to the immediate Presence-Chamber of God, and then to that Paradise, into which the penitent thief after his death had been admitted to companionship with the Divine Master.6 But an heir of honoured, was And as God 8 sinful flesh and blood, so tried and so liable to "be exalted above measure." 7 will have "no flesh glory in his presence," a thorn in this man's flesh is given to him (it may have been an impediment in his speech, or a dimness in his eyesight, or a nervous affection operating in some other humiliating manner) to buffet him, and thus to keep him in continual mindfulness that, though he preaches the Gospel he has nothing to glory of,10 and that the treasure of "the 1 See Gen. xxviii. 2, 10. 2 See Gen. xxxi. 40, 41. 4 Gen. xxviii. 12. 5 See 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3, 4. 7 See 2 Cor. xii. 7. 81 Cor. i. 29. 3 See Gen. xxviii. 11. 6 See St. Luke xxiii. 43. 9 See 2 Cor. xii. 7. knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," is lodged "in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of" man.1 And the state of mind to which he is brought by this discipline is represented thus: "Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ" (of God in Christ, the power for which the Collect prays as our defence against all adversities)" may rest upon me." 2 But one word must be said on the appeal here made to God's omniscience. "O Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust, etc.,"-" seest," because unto thee "all hearts be open, all desires known, and from thee no secrets are hid." 3 How great a profession do we make in some of these old forms of prayer; and how easy is it to take God's name in vain by making it rashly and insincerely! Every one who takes up this Collect into his lips should at least pause, before using it, to ask himself these two questions; "Am I doing or undergoing anything for Christ's sake?" and secondly, "Am I putting my trust in the things which I do and undergo for Him, rather than in what He did and underwent for me?" How grievous a sin it is to come before God with a lie—with an insincere profession-in one's mouth, let the doom of Ananias and Sapphira declare.* "Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity." What we must here be understood to deprecate, is not that chastisement, which God inflicts," for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness," "5 but the pressure, "out of measure, above strength," which might prove too severe a trial 2 See 2 Cor. xii. 9. 4 See Acts v. 5, 10 1 2 Cor. iv. 7. 3 First Collect in the Communion Service. 5 Heb. xii. 10. 6 2 Cor. i. 8. for our faith and patience. By such pressure it was that the great teacher of the Gentiles was thrown, in despair of his own resources, on the Divine power, and then delivered. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves," he writes, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us." 1 And this shows us the answer to a question which naturally suggests itself in reviewing this Collect, namely, how the two parts of it hang together,how is the petition for defence against all adversity connected with the plea that "we put not our trust in anything that we do?" The answer is that, when a man is beaten out of his own resources, then, and not till then, it is that he puts his whole trust in God. And trust in God it is, in His wisdom, providence, love, and protecting care,—which enlists the power of God in our behalf, and makes Him our auxiliary. When the sense of our infirmities is strong upon us, so that we confess from the ground of our heart our own nothingness, then it is that "the power of Christ "2 most signally rests on us,—then it is that the Red Sea of our troubles cleaves asunder before us, and a way is opened for us to march through dry shod. And so we realise in our experience the great truth, which "the teacher of the Gentiles" realised in his; "When I am weak, then am I strong.' 1 2 Cor. i. 9, 10. " 4 2 See 2 Cor. xii. 9. 3 See Exod. xiv. 13, 14, 21, 22, and 1 Cor. x. 13. 4 2 Cor. xii. 10. CHAPTER XIX. THE SUNDAY CALLED QUINQUAGESIMA, OR, THE NEXT SUNDAY BEFORE LENT. Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee: Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. [A.D. 1549.] THE old Latin Collect,1 for which our Reformers in 1549 wisely substituted this most beautiful production of their own pen, may be thus translated; "O Lord, we beseech thee favourably to hear our prayers, and, having loosed us by absolution from the bonds of our sins, defend us from all adversity." Two good reasons offered themselves for discarding this old form. First, one of the clauses had reference to an exploded, or at least an expiring, custom. This was the custom of confessing and being absolved (or getting shriven 2) on Shrove Tuesday, in preparation for the Lenten Communion, by which shrift it was sought to sanctify the forty days' fast. When the shriving on Shrove Tuesday fell into abeyance, and the day lost its 1 Preces nostras, quæsumus, Domine, clementer exaudi; atque a peccatorum vinculis absolutos, ab omni adversitate custodi. Per Dominum. -Miss. Sar. 2 To "shrive" is the Saxon word scrifan, which means to receive a confession, administer the Sacrament of Penance. religious character, and (strangely enough) became a day of sports and merriment, as if the mind could not bear the long strain of Lenten gravity and seriousness, unless it were first relieved by a burst of extravagant hilarity, it was thought well to dispense with all allusions to a custom now honoured in the breach rather than in the observance. Secondly, the original Collect betrayed soine poverty of thought, the ideas in it having been presented to the worshipper's mind in the two weeks previously. Its first part was the same as that of the Septuagesima Collect; its latter part the same as that of Sexagesima. The infusion of some new blood into this old series of Prayers was here also, as in Advent, felt to be necessary. And accordingly our Reformers framed a new Collect out of the Epistle for the day, thus bringing that noble passage of Holy Scripture into higher relief in connexion with the Lenten season, on the margin of which we are standing. Let us not omit to observe in the first place the interesting thread of connexion which links together (by design, I have no doubt) this Collect with its predecessor. In the Sexagesima Prayer we were taught that no trust can be put in human doings, even were they the labours of a St. Paul, undergone in the cause of the Gospel, and for the sake of the Lord Jesus;-"O Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust in anything that we do." Here the lesson upon which the prayer is built is, that these "doings," which break down under us when we lean upon them, are "without charity nothing worth," of no avail. This, of course, is one of the reasons why they cannot be trusted to. The verse of the Epistle to which reference is made is the third; " And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor" (break it all up into morsels, |