all the experiences through which the Church has passed since the day of Pentecost. It would be a great mistake (though it is one into which many fall) to conceive of the light shed abroad at Pentecost as if it were a grand blaze vouchsafed once for all to the primitive disciples, but not capable of increase or of extension to those who should succeed to their faith. The subsequent narrative of the Acts of the Apostles ought to correct this error. True, our Blessed Lord had expressly commissioned His Apostles to "make disciples of all the nations"; but divine words are like seeds, they require to lie long in the soil of the mind before they disentangle the germ, sprout, shoot, blossom, bear fruit. Even the Holy Spirit, when we are in full possession of His influences, only developes gradually to our apprehensions the words of God, and uses our experience in developing them. Pascal's celebrated dictum that Theology is a stationary science, set up in stereotype in the primitive age, and therefore incapable of receiving any accession as time goes on, requires a good deal of guarding to prevent it from insinuating what is erroneous. Holy Scripture, no doubt, and the Creeds of the Universal Church, are both immutably fixed, so that nothing can be added to or taken away from them. But the Church's understanding of Holy Scripture and the Creeds ought to grow larger and fuller with her experience; nor should we be at all staggered at finding occasion to modify, or even to retract some views of Divine truth which

we have hitherto held tenaciously. The foundations of the faith are not in the least affected by man's misunderstanding of them. Pentecost light is, in the experience both of the individual and the Church, a waxing light, "which shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

"Grant us to have a right judgment in all things." These last words, "in all things," were inserted by our Reformers, and most significant they are. Not in grave and sacred matters only, not alone in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, but even in our little secular affairs, and more especially in questions of a casuistical character, where the path of duty is not obvious, and two contrary principles, equally Scriptural, seem to lead in different directions,-even here we may seek to be guided to a "right judgment" by the Spirit, who taught the hearts of the faithful at Pentecost, if only we will submit to Him for His guidance an unbiased heart, the needle of which swings perfectly loose on the face of the compass, and has no attraction to any particular quarter. It is a mockery to ask light or counsel of the Spirit, when we have made up our mind to pursue a certain course, or to abide by a particular opinion.

“And evermore rejoice in His holy comfort." The "evermore and the "holy" are additional touches from Cranmer's pen, both of them expressive. The “evermore " which might seem a needless verbosity, reminds us most usefully of the Apostle's precepts, which extend to every

hour of our lives: "Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Rejoice." Nehemiah and Ezra would not allow the people to be sorry, because the joy of the Lord was their strength. The word "holy," as descriptive of the Spirit's comfort, opens an equally precious vein of thought. The comfort of the Spirit, unlike the comforts of the world and the flesh, is tempered, chastened, restrained by godly fear. To use the phrase employed in the Acts, descriptive of the early Churches after the collapse of Saul's persecution, he walks "in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost."

The appropriateness of the words, "in the unity of the Holy Ghost," which here make their appearance for the first and last time in the Collects, deserves a word of comment. Whitsun Day is the great festival of the Holy Ghost. It is meet and right, therefore, that the Church should give us on this day such a glimpse, as we are capable of receiving, into the mysterious relation of the Holy Spirit to the two other Persons of the Blessed Trinity. And the glimpse given us is this, that the Holy Spirit is the unifying principle in the Godhead--what the keystone is to the arch, what the orb of the sun is to its light and its heat. Thus, too, are we gradually led on towards the great doctrine which will next Sunday be proposed for our meditation, the doctrine that the Three Divine Persons are held together in Unity, that although three Persons, they are "not three Gods, but one God."

1885. May 31

Trinity Sunday.

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; We beseech thee, that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione veræ fidei æternæ Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia majestatis adorare Unitatem; quæsumus, ut ejusdem fidei firmitate ab omnibus semper muniamur adversis. Qui vivis. (GREG. Sac. MISS. SAR.)

THE

Amen.

HE Collect for Trinity Sunday, which comes down to us, like most of the other Collects, from the old Service Books of the Church before the Reformation, has been altered for the worse, not indeed by the Reformers but by Bishop Cosin after the Savoy Conference in 1661. His alteration takes away the point which the petition of the Collect had, as it stood formerly. In both Prayer Books of Edward VI., as in that of Elizabeth, the petition of the Collect ran thus: "We beseech thee that through the stedfastness of this faith we may evermore be defended from all adversity." This is the exact literal translation of the original Latin; and the breaking it up into two petitions, "We beseech thee, that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith, and evermore

defend us from all adversities," only weakens the force of the prayer, without really adding anything to it.

The prayer, as it stood originally, was, that through the stedfastness of our faith in the Holy Trinity we might be defended (the Latin word rather means fortified,-defended, as in a fortress or stronghold, by walls and bars) against all adversity. The deepest thing that God has taught us about His nature and character is that there are, in one single indivisible Godhead, Three Sacred Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Into the faith or belief of this Triune Godhead we were baptized, according to the precept of the Lord Himself: "Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name (observe, not into the names, for there is but one God, though within the precinct of His Infinite Nature there be three Persons,) "of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." But how is the Name of the Blessed Trinity a strong tower, or fortification, to the righteous man against all adversities? Suppose sickness threatens him, or poverty, or death, or that dear friends are taken away from him, and his hearth and home are made desolate thereby. If he stedfastly believes that God is His own most tender and loving Father, much wiser, and much more sympathizing, than any human parent can be-"able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think "-if he really believes this, and does not merely say he believes it, do you not