ON THE COLLECT-EPISTLE AND GOSPEL,
THE NICENE CREED, &c.

JEREMIAH XXXVI. 8.

Reading in the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.

We enter now on that important office of our Church which comprises the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, of the day. We here read portions of God's holy word specially selected for our edification, to which the Church prefixes a prayer, containing a supplication for the relief of some of our necessities, introduced by, and grounded on, some special praise of God's holy name. The whole office is suited to the occasion, marking out according to the divisions of the year in our Scriptural history, some one of the events of our Lord's life, or perhaps a testimonial to the acts or character of some of his Disciples. The portions of Scripture read relate to and delineate these: the Collect prefixed accords

with these objects, and not unfrequently by its expressions intimates its analogy. Of the Collects it has been before observed, that they are almost all of one form: each contains one petition, and each recites a special attribute or act of the Deity, on which that petition rests its hope of success. They usually begin with an address to our heavenly Father, lauding his greatness or his goodness; calling to remembrance some of the marvels of his mighty acts, or the transcendent excellence of some of his adorable attributes: on these we beseech him to receive our supplications, and of his grace to give us that deliverance in peril, that support under temptation, that strength in our infirmity, that comfort in our adversity, which he alone can bestow. Each Collect concludes by virtually deprecating all self-sufficiency, all merit on our part, inasmuch as it represents us, as looking only to the merits of our gracious Redeemer, and by his intercession and for his sake alone, entertaining the hope of our prayers meeting acceptance. Thus in the Collect which begins by declaring, that God "by his never-failing Providence ordereth all things both in Heaven and Earth," we beseech him "to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”*

* Collect for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity.

But the Collects were composed, and are to be studied with the Epistle and Gospel, from which in general they are considered as collected. To these some of them have in direct terms an obvious relation: in others the relation though much less obvious, is yet on closer examination discoverable. Take a beautiful example of the first of these, in the Collect for the third Sunday in Advent. Here calling on the Lord Jesus Christ, who "at his first coming had sent his Messenger to prepare his way before him," we entreat "that the Messengers and Stewards of his Mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready his way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at his second coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable people in his sight." Now in the Epistle we have this precise designation given to the Preachers of the Gospel "Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God," and we have the second coming of our Lord to judgment distinctly pointed out; while the Gospel of the day gives our Lord's character of John the Baptist, and description of his office, as the Messenger who was to prepare the way before the coming of the Messiah. Take an example now of a reference less obvious. A short portion of the eighth chapter of St. Matthew contains two remarkable miracles of our Lord; the one, his

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I beseeches the God "mercifully ities, and in all our ities, to stretch forth his P and defend us, through JeLord."* Does not a little conSew us here a reference to the Gosfurnishes an example of our Lord's to put forth his hand, to cleanse him shipped him, and to do as he would done to him, who shewed his belief in

Many of these Collects are prayers of very high antiquity-some of them occupying their present places for a period of twelve hundred years. At the Reformation, all the services of the Church underwent an accurate scrutiny, and of Collects in use from the fifth and sixth centuries, not less than forty-three have been transferred without any alteration into our Liturgy; while the erroneous doctrines were expunged, and the superstitious additions removed, which in the middle ages, had crept into and sullied the purity of the earlier * Third Sunday after the Epiphany.

In the place of Collects deformed by radition and false interpretation, the of our Liturgy added twenty five themselves, in the genuine prinpiety. In the Collects genethe great body of the Church devotional: they give faithful ex

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ons of the Christian doctrine, clear of obscurity, with which at any time the aracles may have been charged; and in the true spirit of meekness and of understanding, they inculcate the love of God and the love of the brotherhood. We read in them the insufficiency of man to do any thing that is good of himself, and we read the assurance, that God will give his grace to those who put not their trust in any thing that they do, that God is the Almighty Protector, the strength and refuge, both outwardly in their bodies and inwardly in their souls, for such as ask in his Son's name, that he gives the aid of his holy Spirit to help their infirmities, to lead them to the knowledge of divine truth, and to stir up the wills of his faithful people, to the bringing forth of good works. They give the high authority of the Church* in special services where nothing is compromised, to the mysterious doctrines of the Incarnation, of the Trinity, of the Sacrifice of Christ our Passover for the sins of the world, and of the comforts * Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.