rived. The Liturgy of the Church may usefully serve for a model in our private devotions, as well as for a guide in our public. And, when studied as a model, it teaches us this, that it is useful to have a general framework of prayer, and occasionally to vary that general framework by insertions suitable to the occasion. Selfexamination will usually furnish topics for these insertions. Have I committed special sins this day? I will confess them. Have I received special answers to prayer? I will acknowledge them. But there are certain seasons in the Christian's life, with which peculiar associations connect themselves, and which should be allowed to give rise to special expressions of devout sentiment. Such are a Birthday, a New Year's Day, a Wedding Day, the day of the Baptism or Confirmation of a child, the anniversary of a friend's death, or of the day (if it have been a marked one) when we were first brought under the influence of Religion. Let some allusion to the event in the way of humiliation, or petition, or thanksgiving, be woven into our daily prayer; and thus let the transaction be taken up into, and become part of the aliment of, our spiritual life. For not only the Church in general, but each individual soul, has its own seasons of special humiliation and special joy. And to avail ourselves of these seasons, as incentives either to a deeper penitence or a livelier thankfulness, is a point of holy policy, which will be found to contribute greatly to the liveliness and reality of our devotion.

For the besetting snare of all stated prayers offered at set times is formalism; and this snare is best avoided by a certain amount of variety, while the general platform of our prayer is the same. Our minds at different periods are in a different key. When we tune them for

devotion, let us manage them adroitly in reference to that key, and try to bring out its peculiar character, so that all their moods may be made (under Grace) to minister to God's glory. Thus shall we conduct our private devotions in the spirit of the Proper Preface, which gives to the Church's Thanksgiving Service a different complexion at different seasons, celebrating at one time the Incarnation, at another the Resurrection, at another the Ascension of our Lord, now the descent of the Holy Ghost, and now the Revelation of the full mystery of the Godhead.

LECTURE II.

OF OUR COMMUNION WITH THE ANGELS, AND OF THE TERSANCTUS.

"Xe are come . . . to an innumerable company of Angels.” Προσεληλύθατε μυριάσιν ἀγγέλων.—HEB. xii. 22 (part).

THE Holy Communion, as its name denotes, is that Ordinance of the Church, in which we have the most intimate communion with Our Lord, which it is possible to have upon earth. The assimilation of the elements to the body, their absorption into the system in the ordinary process of nutrition, is a sign of the closeness of our union with Christ, which is by this Sacrament cemented. Now communion with Christ involves communion with all those who are at one with Him; the Communion of Saints is wrapped up in it. Communion, first, with distant saints, separated from us, it may be, by mountain range and ocean, by many a weary tract of land and sea.

One great feature, therefore, of the Communion Service, is a grand intercession with the "God who has taught us to make prayers and supplications, and to give thanks, for all men," "for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth." Communion, next, with departed saints. Their place upon earth knows them no more; their relations with those who are left behind seem to be altogether suspended; they have ceased to be, what they once were, living influences, shaping the character of those among whom they sojourned; even their memory becomes less and less vivid with time, and fades in the mind of those once intimate with them, till it approximates to a name; but they are with Christ, and we, too, being with Him in the Holy Communion, if we receive this Ordinance faithfully, they are certainly (although invisibly) with us in the union of His Mystical Body. We definitely call them to mind, therefore, in the celebration of the Rite, "blessing and praising God's holy Name, for all His servants departed this life in His faith and fear, and beseeching Him to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of His heavenly kingdom."

But finally, in Communion with Christ, Communion with the Angels is involved. And accordingly this Office contains two Angelic Hymns, one of which precedes, and the other follows, the administration, the first being the Hymn which the Prophet Isaiah heard the Seraphim chanting in the Temple, the other the jubilant Song of the Angels, who appeared to the shepherds on the night of the Nativity.

Of the Communion of the Church of Christ with Angels, a doctrine which is brought out by this feature of the Service, the secret and history is as follows. It

is true indeed that, before the Incarnation, angels were occasionally sent on errands to God's faithful servants for their warning, encouragement, or succour. But at that time the union between Heaven and Earth, which was to be made by the Incarnation of the Son of God, lay only in the Divine Counsels,-had not yet been effectuated; and therefore the participation of the Church in the worship of the Heavenly Host could not be as yet declared,―man could not as yet be formally admitted to join in the services of Heaven. A glimpse of what those services were, had indeed been afforded to the Prophet Isaiah. 66 "In the year that King Uzziah died," he saw the Seraphim surrounding the throne of the Lord, and crying one to another, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts: the whole Earth is full of His Glory." The Evangelist St. John, in referring to this striking scene, informs us that his Master was the Person in the Divine Nature, whom Isaiah on that occasion saw; "These things," says he, after quoting some of the words of the sixth chapter, in which the vision is recorded, “said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him." The information is most interesting; for it not only establishes most clearly the Divinity of Christ, but also furnishes a connecting link with what follows in the history of man's participation in the worship of Angels. From all eternity, "before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made," Christ, the Representative to creatures of the Invisible God, had been adored in these strains by the Seraphim. Now when He came down from heaven to undertake the work of our Redemption, these worshipping Seraphim must of necessity attend Him hither as His heavenly esOne of them goes before, and announces His

cort.

Nativity to the Virgin. And as soon as that Nativity actually occurs, the full choir is heard hymning the great event,—not in the Temple (which represented Heaven), but in the outlying fields of a small town in Judæa. Now observe how their language is modified by their circumstances. In the hymn which they chanted in Heaven they had indeed made mention of the Earth, but merely as the theatre of the glory of God, the stage on which all that is proceeding, even the disturbing agencies of the human will, work together for the accomplishment of His purposes and the triumph of His cause. But while there is a glorification of God in the heavenly hymn, there is no indication of any mind of love or kindness towards man. The interests of Humanity do not there come into view; for even the condemned will glorify God in His Justice. But in the Hymn of these same angels, when drawn down to earth in the train of the Redeemer, while still the glorification of God occupies the chief place, mercy towards erring man is proclaimed in no indistinct tones: "Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, goodwill towards men.”

The change of tone is very striking. The Angels seem to imply, even if they do not say, "Since God is now at peace with you through His union with your nature, we, the Angels, God's heavenly worshippers, joyfully salute you, and admit you into the fellowship of our worship, and bid you join your voices with ours." But not only at the Nativity do the Angels appear in attendance upon their Master, but, as you well remember, at all the more critical periods of His career. Angels ministered unto Him after the Temptation; they strengthened Him in His Passion; they waited at His sepulchre, to assist and announce the great trans