St. John Baptist's Day.

Almighty God, by whose providence thy servant John Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Saviour, by preaching repentance; Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (A. D. 1549.)

THE

HE only word in this Collect, which differs from what our Reformers wrote in 1549, is "repentance." This word was substituted by Bishop Cosin for "penance." The word had undergone a deterioration of meaning before the time of the Reformation, having come to signify the punishment imposed by the priest for sins confessed by a penitent in the so-called Sacrament of Penance. He who went through the actions of self-denial or devotion prescribed in the confessional, and as a condition of the validity of his absolution, was said to "do penance." Penance was something done rather than something felt a satisfaction for sin rather than a "godly sorrow for it. It was necessary that this whole circle of unscriptural ideas should be banished from the offices of the Reformed Church; and the word " penance," therefore, was never allowed to stand.

Almighty God, by whose providence thy ser

vant John Baptist was wonderfully born." St. John Baptist's birth had been foretold in prophecy, and was signalized by miracle. First, it had been foretold in prophecy, by the mouth of Isaiah, seven hundred years before it came to pass. His birth was like the first bright streak in the east, which precedes the rising of the sun, and the announcement of it might well be prefaced, as the Prophet prefaces it, by the cheering accents, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." But three hundred years elapsed after Isaiah's prophecy of John, and then his career was once more predicted by Malachi, and predicted at a most solemn crisis, the closing up of the Canon of the Old Testament. The oracles of God were about to be closed up and sealed, until He should come, to whom all the Law and the Prophets did testify. Old Testament prophecy expired with the name of John upon her lips; for John, says our Lord, "is Elias which was for to come. 'Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet," one in the spirit and power of Elijah, one costumed as he was outwardly, and minded as he was inwardly, and whose ministry shall have similar effects to his, "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

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But John Baptist's birth was to be predicted yet a third and last time, not only in the holy

city, but in the temple, which was the very heart and core of the city, nay, in the holy place, which was the very heart and core of the temple. It was predicted at a most critical moment of the service, at the time when the priest of the week drew aside the first veil, and went into the sanctuary to offer the symbolic incense, while all the people without the veil were sending up from their hearts those prayers, which were being symbolized within, and waiting in silence for the return of the priest to give them his benediction. For Gabriel at that critical moment came down from heaven, and presented himself on the right side of the altar of incense, and foretold John's birth, and the joy which it should create, and his greatness, and his manner of life and his sanctity, and his work and the success of it, identifying him, moreover, with the subject of Malachi's prophecy by quoting it of him. So that there was a miracle,-even the appearance of the angel, and the result of his colloquy with Zacharias, —in the prediction of the birth of St. John as well as in the birth itself.

The man whose ministry God designed to make use of, to prepare the way of Christ in the minds of those to whom He came, occupied a position altogether peculiar, and had the destiny of the human race suspended upon him in a way in which it never yet was suspended upon any mere man. No wonder that Prophecy announced his birth beforehand, and that Prophecy and Miracle together ushered it in; he was great, not

with that factitious greatness with which this world invests its heroes, its statesmen, its rulers, but "great in the eyes of the Lord," and in the eyes of truth; great, moreover, from the magnanimity of his character, no less than from his critical position in the history of the human race.

"And sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Saviour." That the Baptist fulfilled this mission, that he did by his preaching prepare the way of our Saviour, is shown by the first Chapter of St. John's Gospel, where we read that he pointed out Jesus to two of his disciples, who were standing by his side, as "the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world,"-the Lamb foreshadowed by the Paschal Lamb, and foretold by Isaiah as brought to the slaughter. Some of the most influential of our Lord's disciples had been prepared for the reception of Him by the ministry of St. John the Baptist.

"By preaching repentance." In speaking of the repentance which the Baptist preached, great care should be taken not to confound it with that repentance, which cannot be attained by any soul of man until it is first acquainted with Christ, and has by faith received Him. The repentance, to which John exhorted, was not that which St. Paul describes as the fruit of "godly sorrow." It was eminently practical; and, if we are to draw up a definition of it from the data which the Gospels furnish, we should say that it was a hearty willingness to put away all known sin, and to adopt every practice which commends itself to the con

science as prescribed by God, and therefore right. The rationale of John's ministry was just this, that without real religious earnestness the Saviour cannot be embraced by faith. This is the first step. See that you have really taken it, before you propose to go on to anything higher.

"Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life." His doctrine and life were both of a piece. He bade people be in earnest about their souls; and he showed his own earnestness by giving himself up unreservedly, first to the preparation for his ministry, and then to the exercise of it. When asked for general advice as to how people should exhibit their repentance, he answered, "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." And his example went considerably ahead of his advice; for as for clothing, he had only the rough camel's hair mantle, which formed the prophetical costume, with the girdle of skin round his loins; and as for meat, his sustenance was only of nature's furnishing and what all had a right to equally with himself"his meat was locusts and wild honey."

But I apprehend that when mention is made of St. John's "doctrine," we are to understand by the term not only the repentance which he inculcated, but also, and more especially, his indication of Christ as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The Baptist did not inculcate repentance as the goal to be reached,

but only as the racecourse that led to the goal.