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THE Collects Of t\)t AN EXPOSITION CRITICAL AND DEVOTIONAL OF THE COLLECTS APPOINTED A T THE COMMUNION With Preliminary Essays on their Structure, Sources, and General Character, and Appendices containing Expositions of the Discarded Collects of the First Prayer Book of 1549, and of the Collects of Morning and Evening Prayer BY EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D.D., D.C.L. SOMETIME DEAN OF NORWICH IN TWO VOLS. VOL. I. CONTAINING THE PRELIMINARY ESSAYS, ANO THE COLLECTS FROM AOVENT TO WHITSUNDAY INCLUSIVE LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16th STREET I 89 I [Fourth Edition.] TO aaiHUam, 3Loro Btgi&op of Chester, A VERY OLD AND TRUE FRIEND AND A RIPE SCHOLAR IN ALL LORE CONNECTED WITH Boofe of Common draper, THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED WITH MUCH AFFECTION AND ESTEEM AND IN MEMORY OF MANY KINDNESSES RECEIVED FROM HIM IN HAPPY DAYS LONG PAST. PREFACE. Since Sir William Palmer led the way in his " Origirtes Liturgies," several works, and among them " The Prayer Book Interleaved," a most valuable compendium of Litur- gical information, have exhibited the original Latin of those of our Collects which are derived from ancient sources. But I am not aware that any one has entered upon a criticism of the translations which our Eeformers have given us of the old Latin Prayers, or has noted where each prayer has suffered, and where it has gained, in the process of translation ; what a loss of point, or breaking up of the unity of the sentiment, there has been in some in- stances, and what masterly and happy touches, in the way of developement and expansion, the idea has received in others. This criticism has much engaged and interested me for several years ; and in that portion of this work which deals with the translated Collects of the Communion Office, I have entered freely into a comparison between the original and the translation, in the hope that such a com- parison might prove, both indirectly and directly, useful to my readers ; indirectly, as keeping before their minds the viii Preface. venerable antiquity of a large number of the prayers, in which they habitually address the God of their fathers (a practical recognition of the fact that the God of their fathers is their God also) ; and directly, as exhibiting and bringing into full light many a fine shade of edifying significance which inheres in the original, but which no translation can convey. I wrote for the pulpit in the first instance (for these Chapters have, for upwards of four or five years past, formed the Saturday afternoon Lectures at Norwich Cathedral), and I seized therefore every oppor- tunity which the language furnished, of inculcating good and edifying sentiments. Indeed, I should hardly have done otherwise, had I been writing merely for the press ; for in vain will any one seek to understand and explain the prayers of the old masters of devotion, except in a devotional frame of mind. More and more the thought has grown upon me, as I have prosecuted this work, that the pastors of Christ's flock should systematically recognise it, much more than they do, as a part of their function to teach the people to pray. In the Church of England we have the most com- plete text-book for such instruction which the wisdom and devotion of man can compile, — a text-book comprising such a wealth of materials in a very brief compass as is probably unrivalled among uninspired works. But it has been too much the fashion to suppose that, while, indeed, the Bible is a fit subject for explanation and illustration, Preface. ix the Liturgy needs none, — that all we have to do as regards the Prayer Book is to use it in our devotional exercises, and to make it the vehicle of our devotional sentiments, as if any one could do this intelligently without some prelimi- nary study of, and insight into, its meaning. Indeed, in this respect the prayers of the Church have only come in for a fuller share of that misuse, or unintelligent use, which is made (though in a less degree, in proportion to its greater sanctity and authority) of the Lord's Prayer itself. To how few of the thousands of persons who are taught and enjoined to recite the Lord's Prayer, is a single peti- tion of it ever unfolded or explained ! How many repeat it glibly morning and night, without ever having the sur- face of their minds stirred or interested by its meaning ! Expositions, both ancient and modern, have been written upon it, so numerous and so profound, as in themselves to constitute a theological Literature; but, while these treatises lie on our shelves, and are consulted by the learned, how comparatively rare is the attempt even to inoculate the minds of the masses with the most cursory understanding of the formulary. Doubtless, clergymen often make it the subject of a series of sermons ; but is any methodical attempt made to imbue the minds of congrega- tions with its meaning, as if the intelligent use of it were a matter of prime importance ? This being the case with the Divine Prayer itself (than which what can be sweeter, what more elevating, what more consolatory, what more X Preface. absolutely exhaustless in its treasures of instruction and edification ?), it is no wonder that the prayers of the Church, which are but feeble transcripts and stammering reproductions of the Divine model, should have but little study accorded to them, even when they are familiar to the ear as household words, and lodged in the memory by frequent and periodical recital. I trust, then, that this work may be accepted as a humble contribution on my part to the great ministerial duty of teaching Christ's people to pray, and that it may be instrumental, under God's blessing, in opening the eyes of some to a wonder- ful depth and beauty and instructiveness in those old de- votional forms, which they have been acquainted with from their earliest childhood, but which hitherto have stirred in them little thought, and awakened no emotion. I trust that the reader will excuse the recurrence every now and then of the same thought in the Expositions, where the phraseology of two or more Collects happens to be the same (as, for instance, where the Latin " propitius " or " placatus " is rendered, and not quite adequately ren- . dered, " merciful," and in one and all cases of its occurrence it becomes desirable to warn the reader that the original conveys the notion of propitiation, or mercy shown through atonement). It was not possible to avoid this ; and. as the Chapters are intended for study separately during the week, or on the day for which the Collect is appointed, it is hoped that no disadvantage will accrue from it. Preface. xi I take this opportunity of expressing my cordial thanks to the Eev. John Henry Blunt, Author of " The Annotated Book of Common Prayer," and several other valuable theological works, for his communications with me on the subject of the Sealed Books, and on the existing Concord- ance to the Prayer Book ; as also to the Eev. W. E. Buckley, Eector of Middleton Cheney, who has given me such assistance in some of the notes as I could not have ob- tained elsewhere ; and to Miss Frederica Franks, who has most kindly undertaken the labour of a very copious and exhaustive index. As for Canon Bright's invaluable help, I cannot say how promptly and fully it has been accorded whenever I have sought for it. E. M. G. H Lansbowne Place, Brighton, April 28, 1880. xii ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. In preparing for the press a Second Edition of this -work, I have carefully considered such published criticisms of the First Edition as have been brought under my notice, and have endeavoured to correct mistakes pointed out, and to adopt (where I have found it practicable) suggest- ions made, by private correspondents. And through the kindness of a friend, I have had the advantage of con- sulting the late Dr. Neale's Paper on " The Collects of the Church " (Paper II. in " Essays on Liturgiology and Church History" [Saunders and Otley, London, 1863]), •which I was not previously acquainted with. I trust the work as thus revised may be found less imperfect than when it was originally issued; and it will be my endeavour, if life and health be spared me, to follow it up, at no long inter- val of time, by a companion volume containing a " Thought for each day in the year, arising out of the Gospel for the Sunday." It would be looking further ahead than in this world of uncertainties we are justified in doing, if I were to announce a further projected volume, having for its subject the Epistles ; but I should rejoice, if mercifully permitted to do so, to weave in this additional strand, so as to make a " threefold cord " of thought, whereby devout Church people might strive to raise themselves up to " those things which are above." E. M. G. Deanery, Norwich, Maunday Thursday {April 14), 1881. CONTENTS. BOOK I. INTRODUCTORY. CHAPTER PAGE I. — On the Excellences of the Collects . . 1 II. — On the Origin of the word Collect . ... 8 III. — On the Structure of a Collect, as illustrated by the Collect in the Burial Service . . 17 IV. — Of the Sources of the Collects : and first, of the Sacramentart of Leo . . . , 23 V. — Of the Sacramentart of Gelasius . . .31 VI. — Of Gregory the Great and his Sacramentary 39 VII. — Of the Use of Saruji, and of St. Osmund, its Compiler 47 VLII. — Of the Collects made by the Reformers, and of Archbishop Cranmer 54 IX. — Of the Restoration Collects, and of John Cosin, Prince-Bishop of Durham .... 62 X. — Of the Collects, as representing the Genius of the English Church 6ereB together in mj name, rfoete am 31 in tlie mtDSt of tljem.— S. Matt, xviii. 19, 20. The word Collect seems to be used in the Book of Common Prayer in a stricter and in a laxer sense. In the strictest sense of the word, those prayers only are Collects, which are used as the characteristic prayer of the week at the Holy Communion, and which have an Epistle and Gospel associated with them. These are called, in the heading of that section of the Prayer Book in which they are contained, "The Collects .... to be used throughout the year," and, at the first mention of Collects in the Morning Prayer, " Collects of the Day." The Collect in this, the strictest sense, is, as Archdeacon Freeman has shown, a Eucharistic prayer, condensing the devotional thought which is suggested by the Epistle and Gospel, and keeping it before the mind during the week. Under this first head will fall the last prayer in " the Order for the Burial of the Dead," which is in the strictest and highest sense a Collect, as having formerly had an Epistle and Gospel associated with it. This is shown more at large in the next Chapter, " On the structure of a Collect." — Next to " the Collect of the Day," the opening Collect at the Communion lays On the Origin of the word Collect. 9 claim to the name. It does not, indeed, summarise the teaching of the Epistle and Gospel ; but it may be justly said to summarise our preparation for the Eucharist, which must consist in the " cleansing of the thoughts of the heart by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit." — The next step of descent in the meaning of the word is its application to those prayers in " the Ministration of Publick Baptism," which precede the administration of the Sacrament. These are called " Collects " in the following rubric of " the Ministration of Private Baptism of Children in Houses ; " " First, let the Minister of the Parish (or, in his absence, any other lawful Minister that can be procured) with them that are present call upon God, and say the Lord's Prayer, and so many of the Collects appointed to be said be/ore in the Form of Publick Baptism, as the time and present exigence will suffer." And be it remarked that > the Collects here, as well as those of the Eucharistic . Service, are associated with, and summarise the teaching of, a Gospel, — either that of the Infant Office, which tells how little children were brought unto Christ, or that of the Adult Office, which sets forth the necessity of the birth of water and the Spirit. — Next in order come Collects which are not associated with, and do not (at least designedly) embody the teaching of any particular passages of Holy Scripture. Thus two Collects, besides that of the Day, are appointed to be said at Morning, and two at Evening Prayer, and in the Kubric regulating the use of those Collects which are " to be said after the Offertory, when there is no Communion," mention is made also of Collects of the Litany ; — " the same may be said also . . .... after the Collects either of Morning or Evening Prayer, Communion, or Litany, by the discretion of the Minister." The Collects of the Litany must, we suppose, IO On the Origin of mean its two prayers (orationes), " 0 God, merciful Father," and " We humbly beseech thee, 0 Father," , both of which are prefaced by " Let us pray " (Oremus), as distinct from its suffrages and its responsive supplications (jyreces). Both these are somewhat less compact, and more diffuse, than the Prayers called Collects in the stricter sense. — Diffuse in its subjects, as well as in its style, is the " Prayer for all Conditions of Men," which, in the heading of it, is called " A Collect or Prayer" the two terms being regarded as nearly equivalent, which, indeed, in the laxer use of the term " Collect," they are. — Least of all entitled to the name Collect are the two prayers for the Queen in the Office of the Holy Communion, which yet are unequivocally called so in the Eubric prescribing them, " Then shall follow one of these two Collects for the Queen." I say that they are least entitled to the name, because one of the characteristics of Collects is that they are prayers of general import, not of special application ; usually they embrace the wants of the entire community of Christians (as represented by the congregation in which they are offered), and therefore, in the strict sense of the word, Intercessions for particular persons, or classes of persons, are not comprehended under it. — Let so much be said at the outset as to the various shades of meaning which the word Collect bears in our Book of Common Prayer. It is only with the Collects of the Day, together with the opening and closing Collects of the Communion Office, that the present work proposes to deal As to the derivation of the word, it is a doubtful point, and the learned in such matters are divided in opinion. The Latin word is Collecta, which may mean a gathering of any sort — of money, as at a collection in church for some the word Collect. charitable object ; or of people, as when two or three are "gathered together" for common prayer; or of subjects of thought or study, as when an author at the end of a Chapter gathers up in a short summary or recapitulates what he has said. The question then arises, What is it which in a Collect is gathered up or collected ? Some say the prayers of the people, winch the priest, in using the Collect, gathers up into one compendium and presents before God. Some say it is the teaching of Holy Scrip- ture, and more especially of the Epistle and Gospel for the day, which is gathered up and condensed in a Collect. Other some think that the word may denote that col- lectedness of mind which is required in all true worship, and which the Collects, so full of thought, and yet of thought closely packed and succinctly expressed, well represent. While others, again, hold that the gathering denoted by the word Colleda is simply a gathering of people, and that the full name of a Collect, of which the word Colleda is merely an abbreviation, is oratio ad collec- tam, a prayer to be used at the gathering together of the people for divine worship. To my mind this last explana- tion of the word seems to be, not indeed the most attrac- tive, but the most likely to be the true one. But, as each of the above derivations has something to be said in its favour, and has found theologians to advocate it, it may be well to consider what useful lesson each of them, even if incorrect as a derivation, may have to teach us. 1. And, first, as to the gathering up into one com- pendious form the prayers of the people. Whether or not the Collects take their name of Collects from this circum- stance, certain it is that they do as a fact concentrate in one focus, and (as it were) bring to bear upon one point, the straggling rays of prayer. Three Collects at Morning and I 2 On the Origin of Evening Prayer immediately succeed the Versicles, that is, the brief petitions which the people use interchange- ably with the minister. It will be found that these three Collects sum up, if not all, yet many of the petitions made in the versicles. Thus, " Give peace in our time, 0 Lord," finds itself represented in the Morning and Evening Collects for Peace. The Collect for Grace at Morning Prayer gathers up into itself the versicles, " O God, make clean our hearts within us," "And take not thy holy Spirit from us." The Collect for Aid against all Perils is an echo of the touching plea which precedes, " Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, 0 God." While mercy, salvation, and blessing, the things sued for in other versicles, are the subjects of many of the Communion Collects, which at Morning and Even- ing Prayer always take precedence of the two others. This summarising of the people's aspirations by the priest may remind us usefully of that part of the Jewish ritual in which, while the priest in the holy place burned incense on the incense-altar, the whole multitude of the people stood praying without at the time of incense j 1 and still more usefully may this function of the merely human and sinful priest remind us of the great High Priest, who in the screened sanctuary of heaven mingles the fragrant incense of His intercession with the fragmentary, broken prayer-utterances of His people — an incense which comes with the prayers of the saints, 2 and ascends up before God with acceptance, finding a ready passage to His ear and His heart. If the Collects, offered by the priest after the brief joint petitions, speak to us of Christ's taking up into His mouth above the feeble halting aspirations, which we breathe towards God from the earth, we shall have derived 1 See St Luke i. 9, 10. 3 See Rev. viii. 3, 4. the word Collect. 13 edification from the position which in the Morning and Evening Prayer they occupy. 2. Secondly. The teaching of the Epistle and Gospel usually, and the teaching of some part of Holy Scripture always, is summarised and recapitulated in the Collect How deeply the Collects are imbued with Scriptural thought and phraseology was pointed out in the last Chapter; and attention will be further called to this point, when we come to consider the structure of these prayers. Eor the present, suffice it to say that, although in man's natural state prayer has always struggled up from his heart to the great Being above him, of whose existence and power reason has given him an inkling, yet the prayer of man under Eevelation must be something higher and more assured than this blind groping after God, — it must be a word of man to God, based and built upon a word of God to man. 3. Thirdly. It has been supposed that the word Col- lect is derived from that concentration of mind and feel- ing, which is required in the offerer of the Collect. WhUe this is too far-fetched to be the real derivation of the word, there can be no doubt that one of the principal features of the prayers called Collects is the compression of a very wide range of thought into the fewest possible words; it is as if the composer had always held that pre- cept of the wise man before his eyes, which so condemns diffuse, rambling, and repetitious prayers ; " Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God : for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth : therefore let thy words be few." 1 Nor can the lesson be ever out of place, that collectedness of mind is the first requisite of all prayer deserving of the name, 1 Zcoles. 7. 2 On the Origin of and is more especially demanded in those prayers which, like the Lord's Prayer supremely, and the Collects in a lower but still in an eminent degree, have a significance out of all proportion to their bulk This is the real reason why the excellence of the Collects eludes the observation of the shallow-minded religionist, and why it is so necessary that the stores of devotional feeling to be found in them should be, as it were, unpacked and exhibited, which indeed is our chief business in the present work. If the commissioners appointed in 1689 to revise the Book of Common Prayer, 1 though numbering among them such men as Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Patrick, laboured under so much false taste as to propose that Patrick should "make the Collects longer by way of making them more affecting," 2 how can ordinary minds, without any training in theology, be brought to appreciate their excellence, unless the teaching which is in them is developed, and attention called to it ? As to the recol- lectedness of mind, which is essential to all real prayer, our Lord exhorts to it when He says ; " Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret," 3 — 1 Of this Commission Lord Macaulay writes (" History of England," chap. xiv. vol. iii p. 470, London, 1855) : " Most of the Bishops who had taken the oaths were in this commission ; and with them were joined twenty priests of great note. Of the twenty Tillotson was the most important, for he was known to speak the sense both of the King and of the Queen. Among those Commissioners who looked up to Tillotson as their chief were Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's, Sharp, Dean of Norwich, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, Tenison, Rector of St. Martin's, and Fowler With such men as those who have been named were mingled some divines who belonged to the High Church party. Conspicuous among these were two of the rulers of Oxford, Aldrich and Jane." 3 Bright's "Ancient Collects," p. 197. [Oxford and London, 1869.] * St. Matthew vi. 6. the word Collect. 13 the " closet " meaning, as Augustine has well pointed out, not so much a private apartment as the screened chamber of the heart, 1 open to none but Him that seeth in secret, where the solitary lamp of the consciousness burns ever before God, like the seven-branched candle- stick in the holy place of the Jewish Tabernacle. 4. The last derivation of the word, and that which to my mind commends itself most, the others being, I think, too subtle to be probable, is that which takes Collecta to be short for Oratio ad Collcctam, 1 a prayer at the assem- bling of the people for worship. I may here mention that the word Collecta is used several times in the Vulgate (or Latin translation of the Scriptures, which may be called the Authorised Version of the Church of Eome) to denote those " solemn assemblies," with which (usually on the octave, or eighth day after their commencement) the J ewish festivals were closed. The Hebrew word employed is by the English translators uniformly rendered " solemn assembly." 3 And we may connect this derivation of the 1 See "Opp.," torn. iv. pars ii. col. 1579, E. F. Enarratio in Psalmum cxli. [Parisiis, 1691.] " What is it to shut the door ? " says Augustine. "This door hath, as it were, two leaves, one of desire the other of fear. Either thou desirest some earthly thing, and by this way he " (the devil) " entereth ; or thou fearest some earthly thing, and by this way he entereth. Shut, therefore, the door of fear and desire against the devil, and open it unto Christ. And how openest thou these leaves unto Christ ? By desiring the kingdom of heaven ; by fearing the fire of hell. Through the lust of the world the devil entereth ; through the desire of life eternal entereth Christ ; through fear of temporal penalties the devil entereth ; through fear of the eternal fire entereth Christ." 2 Another suggestion which has been made as to the origin of the word Collecta is that it may be equivalent to Oratio cum lectione (the prayer associated with the Epistle), the full title of the Epistle in the Missals being Lectio Epistoltz B. Pauli ad, etc. The Collect itself is always headed, not Collecta, but Oratio. 3 The word is J"n¥l? (ngatse-reth), a retention or day of restraint, from "IVy (nga-tsor) to restrain, shut up, hold in check, rule. The last days of the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles are especially called thus, either 1 6 On the Origin of the word Collect. word with one of the features of the Collects, which is, that they are all general prayers, applicable to the whole of God's household the Church, representing the spiritual necessities of all, and therefore offered by all in common. The prayers for the Queen, for the Eoyal Family, and for the Clergy, are not (strictly speaking) 1 Collects, because they have a special reference to certain classes of the community ; nor is such a reference found in any prayer styled a Collect, with the exception of a very incidental and altogether parenthetical allusion, which is made to the deceased in the magnificent Collect of the Burial Service. Thus the Collect, if we accept this as the true origin of the word, brings before us the precious promise of our Lord to the two or three who agree as to the object of their petitions, a promise by which He pledges Himself that, if they meet in His name ; — if the hearts of those who come together do so in recognition of Him, and design what they do as an act of homage to Him, — there shall be more than two or three ; an invisible and mysterious form shall stand in the midst of them, even the form of Him who was visibly present in the furnace with the three holy children, 2 and His presence and interces- sion shall open the windows of heaven, and bring down in God's due time the blessing for which the little flock have agreed to sue. because the people were retained to attend them, or labour was restrained on those days. The word occurs in Lev. xxiii. 36 ; Num. xxix. 35 ; Deut. xvi. 8; 2 Kings x. 20 (where the "solemn assembly" is one held to Baal) ; 2 Chron. vii. 9 ; Neh. viii. 18 ; Joel L 14, and ii. 15 ; in all which places it is translated "solemn assembly." The "solemn assem- bly" of Zeph. iii. 18 is represented by a different Hebrew word, which means simply a "gathering." 1 See what is said at the beginning of this Chapter on the application of the term " Collect " to the two prayers for the Queen in the Communion Service. In the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer, the prayer for the Sovereign, with those for the Royal Family, and the Clergy and people, are more accurately called " Prayers." s See Dan. iii. 25. Chapter III. ON THE STRUCTURE OF A COLLECT, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE COLLECT IN THE BURIAL SERVICE. The Collects are all of them framed on one plan, although in some of them the plan is imperfectly worked out. All are not perfect specimens ; some want one member, some another. The plan is well worth considering, not only as exhibiting what may be called the theory of a Collect, but also as teaching incidentally many edifying lessons respecting prayer. 1. Every house which is to stand securely must have a foundation ; every prayer, which is to reach to heaven, must be built on some part of God's revelation of Him- self. Man could never have spoken a word to God, except in the first instance God had spoken a word to him. And if I am reminded that prayer is known and practised by the whole family of man, heathens as well as others, my answer is that even to the heathen God has revealed Himself in Nature, and has spoken through their con- science. If nature did not give the heathen some intima- tions of the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful, and most beneficent Creator, and if conscience did not assure them that this Creator is a Judge to whom they are morally accountable, is it conceivable that they could pray ? The Syrophcenician built the renewal of her request to Christ upon a fact she had observed in nature, which was that even dogs were not neglected, that some pro- vision is made for them in the system of Divine Providence. 1 1 St. Mark vii. 26, 28. 18 On the Structure of a Collect. — The Collects, therefore, have their foundation laid in some word of God. In a perfect specimen, immediately after the invocation (that is, the name or title by which God is invoked 1 ), follows the recital of some doctrine or else of some fact, connected with, if not forming part of, the plan of redemption. As it is necessary to have before us an example, for the illustration of what is said, we will choose for that purpose the Collect in the Burial Office, which made its first appearance at the Eeformation, and, though not an ancient Collect, is framed with the greatest fidelity on the ancient platform. It is only necessary to say, by way of preface, that in the first draught of Edward VI.'s Prayer-Book, put forth in 1549, it was contemplated that very often there would be a celebra- tion of the Holy Communion at the Burial of the Dead ; that for this celebration a special Introit, Collect, Epistle, and Gospel were provided, the Epistle being that passage of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which St. Paul bids the Thessalonian mourners " sorrow not, even as others which have no hope," because God would " bring with" Jesus their friends who slept in him; 2 and the Gospel that passage of St. John, in which our Lord promises to raise up at the last day " every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him" 3 (both unspeakably consolatory pass- ages) ; but that every special provision for the celebration 'of the Holy Communion at funerals was ruthlessly swept away in drawing up the Prayer Book of 1552, out of a fear (not unreasonable, perhaps, nor, under the circumstances, unjustifiable, of giving countenance to masses for the 1 The reader will find the curious and interesting fact that in the Collects of the Communion Office it is almost always the First Person of the Blessed Trinity who is invoked, commented upon, and the ground of it assigned, under those Collects which are exceptions to the rule. See particularly the Collect for the Third Sunday in Advent (pp. 133, 134, 135) ; for St. Stephen's Day (pp. 153, 154, 155) ; and for the First Sunday in Lent (pp. 265, 266, 267). 1 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. • St. John vi. 40. On the Structure of a Collect. 19 dead ; and now, alas ! all that remains is the word Collect, prefixed to the last prayer of the Burial Service. If the Church will abuse God's holiest ordinances to superstition, she must smart for it by the forfeiture of some things which, though not essential, are precious and consolatory. — The invocation of the Collect in question is : " 0 Merciful God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ;" and the doc- trines upon which the petition is based, and which are drawn from the opening sentence of the Burial Service and from the Epistle appointed for the occasion, are — " who is the resurrection and the life ; in whom whosoever believeth shall live, though he die ; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in him, shall not die eternally; who also hath taught us, by his holy Apostle Saint Paul, not to be sorry, as men without hope, for them that sleep in him." 2. Next after the invocation and doctrine of a Col- lect comes the actual petition, which constitutes the body of the prayer. This is the central point of the composi- tion, to which all that goes before leads up, and out of which grows all that follows. In the present instance it is ; " "VVe meekly beseech thee, 0 Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness." Observe the olose connexion of thought with what has preceded. The life of righteousness is by faith, and it can only be led by the power of the principle called faith, according to the words of our Lord rehearsed in the doctrinal clause of the Collect, " I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." — Though we are only using the Collect now for the purpose of illustrating the general structure of these prayers, and therefore any observation on the phraseology employed is a little out of place, it is hard to refrain from 2o On the Structure of a Collect. calling attention to the adverb " meekly " in " We meekly beseech thee," which is somewhat peculiar and full of beautiful significance. What is a meek request ? Is it a humble request ? Is " We meekly beseech thee " exactly equivalent to "We humbly beseech thee?" Not quite. The " poor in spirit " of the first beatitude are not exactly the same characters as the " meek " of the third. 1 We are humble when we in some measure realise God's greatness and goodness, and our own littleness and vileness ; we are meek when, in addition to doing this, we wait upon Him quietly and patiently for what He sees fit to give, laying all our heart's wishes open before Him indeed, according to His precept, but not presuming to dictate to Him, and resigning our wills to Him in case He should not be pleased to gratify our desires. There is in meekness an element of acquiescence, which is not equally apparent in humility ; and acquiescence is the frame of mind suitable for mourners, who have just said, as they followed into the church the body of their departed friend ; " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the Name of the Lord." Now by the side of the grave they pray, " We meekly beseech thee, 0 Father," etc. 3. The next member of a Collect, and a very import- ant one, which is seldom wanting in any specimen, is the aspiration, or devout wish with which it closes. In the case before us, this grows most beautifully out of the petition. That petition is for the life by faith, which, as we have seen, is a life of righteousness ; " We meekly beseech thee, 0 Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the Life of righteousness." And this life of faith, if prosecuted to the end, will lead on to a Life of blessedness hereafter, a life which will have two sections — first, a 1 See St. Matt. v. 3, 5. On the Structure of a Collect. 2 1 porch (or vestibule) of repose, and then a mansion of royalty and glory. For both these the offerer of this Collect sends up at the close of it a devout sigh to heaven ; — " that, when we shall depart this life, we may rest in him, as our hope is this our brother doth." Here is the devout sigh for the Paradise-state, for the green pastures, -where the wearied, footsore pilgrim shall be made by the good Shepherd to lie down, and for the waters of comfort, 1 along whose quiet margin he shall be led when his eyes have closed on this world. " And that, at the general Eesurrection in the last day, we may be found acceptable in thy sight ; and receive that blessing, which thy well- beloved Son shall then pronounce to all that love and fear thee, saying, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world." Here is the devout sigh for the glories of the everlasting kingdom, offered up in the first instance for each one of us by the side of the font, as we now offer it for ourselves by the side of the sepidchre. For, from the side of the font this prayer rose for each one of us, " that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life, there to reign with thee world without end." The aspiration with which the petition of each Collect closes is as it were the wing to the petition, the feather which carries the arrow of prayer right up to the habita- tion of God's holiness and glory in heaven. It may well remind us of the indispensability of fervour to the accept- ance and success of our prayers — that, if we would have them answered, we must not only ask, but seek (with dili- gence and carefulness, as the woman in the parable sought for the lost coin *) ; not only seek, but knock, 3 as Peter " continued knocking " 4 when the door of Mary's house was 1 See Psalm xxiii. 2. 2 See St. Luke xv. S. 3 lb. xi. 9. * See Acts xii. 1G. 2 2 On the Structure of a Collect. not at first opened — assured that there is One within who hearkens, and only delays an answer in order to draw out importunity and earnestness. Winged with fervent aspira- tions, our prayers shall assuredly soar above clouds, and skies, and stars, to the very throne of God, and awaken the sympathy and draw down the succour of Christ. And if it be said almost despairingly that there are times when we cannot have fervour in prayer, when the mind is dry and hard, or hopelessly distracted, when all things seem to come to an end with us, and the will is almost para- lysed for any spiritual or moral effort ; this is most true, alas ! but the only remedy is to be found, not in giving over, but in persistence, until the necessary fervour comes, and the feather is put to the shaft of our prayer. Is it not said, " They that wait upon the Lord," meekly and patiently attending at the throne of grace, instead of put- ting off the application to a more convenient season, " shall renew their strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles " (the holy aspiration shall be the wing, while the Holy Spirit shall be the wind) ; " they shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint " ? 1 The constituent parts of a Collect, then, are — 1st, the invocation ; 2dly, the recital of some doctrine or fact, which is made the basis of the petition ; 3dly, the peti- tion itself, which rises upon this basis ; 4thly, the aspira- tion, which is the feather or wing to the petition ; 5thly, in all Collects addressed to the Father, the alleging of the Mediator's work on our behalf, and the pleading of His Name, which, it need hardly be said, is the alone procuring cause of the acceptance of any prayer. For the various forms in which this is done, and for the termination of Collects generally, the reader is referred to the Appendix to Chapter I. of Book II, Part II., p. 98. 1 Tsaiah xl. 31. Chapter IV. OF THE SOURCES OF THE COLLECTS : AND FIRST, OF THE SACRAMENTARY OF LEO. 2a a prince Ijagt thou poiner hurt) ©on ano totth men, ant> hast preoailen. — Genesis xxxii. 28. The sources of the Pre-Reformation Collects are to be found in the old Sacramentaries. What is a Sacrament- ary? For at least the first thousand years of the Church's existence there was no single book which con- tained the whole service of the Holy Communion or (as it was then called) the Mass. This service was contained in four books ; the Lectionary, containing the portions of Scripture which were read as Epistles ; the Evangelistary, containing the Gospels ; the Antiphonary, containing the Anthems (which were called Introits, Communions, or Post-Communions, according as they were sung at the opening of the service, or during, or subsequently to, the administration) ; and, finally, the Sacramentary, which contained the Collects, together with the body of the ser- vice, which never changed under any circumstances, and which was called the Canon of the Mass. 1 Imagine our 1 See Blunt's "Annotated Book of Common Prayer," "Introduction to the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," p. 68. [London, 1866.] Sir W. Palmer tells us that sometimes the Gospels, as well as the Epistles, were contained in the Lectionary (thus making only three books in all), and that it was not till "the eleventh or twelfth century" that "it was found convenient generally to unite these three books, and the volume obtained the name of the Complete or Plenary Missal, or Book of Missse." Palmer's " Origines Liturgicte," chap. iii. vol. i. r 308. [Oxford, 1836.] 24 Of the Sources of the Collects. Collects severed from their Epistles and Gospels, and printed in a separate volume with the " Order of the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion;" and that would be the Sacramentary of the Church of England. The earliest in date of the Sacramentaries goes under the name of Leo. I., who was Pope, or Bishop of Rome, from a.d. 440 to a.d. 461. We need not suppose that it, or any other Sacramentary, was entirely composed by the prelate whose name it bears. Many parts of it, no doubt, were so composed ; but in other parts the Sacramentary would be a compdation rather than a composition — an arrangement, that is, of previously existing materials, of much the same sort as was made by our Reformers, when they adapted the old Latin offices to the use of the Reformed Church. As five 1 of our Communion Collects come from Leo, that is, were either composed or adopted by him, and as these five are the oldest of all, some notice of him may be acceptable and useful Leo is the chief figure in the Ecclesiastical History of the fifth century ; he was the first of the Roman Bishops who was qualified by strength of will, force of character, insight into men's minds, and general political capacity, to influence widely the affairs of men ; a circumstance which posterity has acknowledged by assigning to him, in common with his successor Gregory I., the title of " the Great." His main faults of conduct and administration were due to that towering ambition, which has been the snare of many great minds. He it was who first con- ceived and asserted the claim of the Roman Bishop to supremacy over all the Churches of Christendom, vindi- 1 Those for the Third Sunday after Easter, and for the Fifth, Ninth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Sundays after Trinity. The substance also of the Collects for the Tenth and Twelfth Sundays after Trinity is found in his Sacramentary ; but Gelasius seems to have re-written them and given them their present form. See Bright's "Ancient Collects," pp. 208, 209. Of the Sacramentary of Leo. 2 5 eating to himself alone the title, which hitherto all bishops had borne, of Papa, that is, father of the Church. In exercising the powers, which he thus arrogantly usurped, he first imprisoned and then deposed Hilary of Aries (whose chief fault seems to have been that he main- tained the independence of the Gallican Church), and, while warmly approving of and sanctioning the defini- tions of faith made at the fourth General Council, that of Chalcedon, stoutly protested against its twenty-ninth canon, agreed to (as he said) when his legates had turned their backs, by which it was decreed that, as Constanti- nople was new Rome, its Patriarch should be independent, and take rank in the hierarchy second after himself. But the appearance of tares in the harvest-field, whether of the Church or of the individual soul, does not exclude the presence of wheat ; and there were better and far more Christian traits in Leo's character than these. He was a diligent and powerful preacher, and often mentions preaching as " the most indispensable duty of pastors," 1 more especially of the Episcopal order. He was exceedingly scrupulous in observing the Apostle's rule to " lay hands suddenly on no man," 2 insisting upon the importance of never raising to the priesthood any one not sufficiently tried, and who had not given sufficient proofs of submis- sion to authority and loving observance of discipline. And it is all of a piece with this last notice of him, that so large a proportion of his sermons should be on the Ember fasts. 3 But the great debt which the Church owes to Leo is the definition of the true faith on the doc- 1 See Alban Butler's "Lives of the Saints," St. Leo the Great, April 11, voL iv. p. 105. [Edinburgh, 1798.] 2 1 Tim. v. 22. 3 There are four Sermons on the Ember Days after Pentecost