St. Jerome first arranged the Epistles and Gospels, and that his arrangement is extant in this Lectionary.

In the Comes there are Scriptures for twenty-five Sundays after the Octave of Pentecost, as in our Prayer Book and in the ancient Salisbury Use (though in both the latter they are numbered as after Trinity), but the Roman rite has them only as far as the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost. The Epistles and Gospels for these twenty-five Sundays and those for Advent exactly agree with the ancient and modern English, which (as will be seen in the tables annexed to every Sunday in the following pages) are quite different in arrangement from the Roman. The Comes also contains Epistles and Gospels for Wednesdays and Fridays in Epiphany, Easter, and Trinity seasons, which were in the Salisbury Missal, but are not in the Roman. It has also five Sundays before Christmas (that is, in Advent), instead of four, a peculiarity of notation which indicates very early origin, and which is reproduced in the "Sunday next before Advent" and four Sundays in Advent, of the English Use. These parallel peculiarities between the Comes and the English arrangement, differing as they do from the Roman, form a strong proof that our Eucharistic system of Scriptures had an origin quite independent of the Roman Liturgy; or, at least, that it belongs to a system which is much older than that now in use in the latter. It may be remarked, in conclusion, (and perhaps this is the most important fact in connexion with this diversity,) that the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for Trinity Season are all in harmony in the English Missal, while that harmony is entirely dislocated in the Roman.

The principle on which portions of Holy Scripture are selected for the Epistles and Gospels is that of illustrating the two great divisions of the Christian year, from Advent to Trinity, and from Trinity to Advent. In the one, and more emphatic division, our Blessed Lord is set before us in a life-like diorama of Gospels, which tell us about Him and His work, not as in a past history, but with that present force, wherewith the events of His life and suffering are pleaded in the Litany. In nothing is the graphic action of the Church (sometimes very truly called 'histrionic') shown more strongly, than in the way by which the Gospels of the season are made the means of our living over again, year by year, the time of the Incarnation, from Bethlehem to Bethany; while in the long-drawn season of Trinity, we see the Church's continuance by the power of the Pentecostal outpouring in the true faith of the Blessed Trinity, and in the faithful following of her Master and Head through a long probationary career.

The special bearing of each Gospel and Epistle on the day for which it is appointed will be shown in the Notes that follow. It is sufficient here to say, in conclusion, that the existing arrangement of them appears to be founded on some more ancient system

of consecutive reading similar to that in use for our daily Lessons, a system still followed out in the East: that the Epistles have continued to be used in a consecutive order, but that the Gospels have been chosen with the special object of illustrating the season; or, where there is nothing particular to illustrate, of harmonizing with their respective Epistles. Whatever changes were made at the Reformation may be seen by the tabular arrangement under each Collect. In 1661 the only changes made were in the Gospels for the Holy Week, some of which were shortened by Bishop Cosin; in the insertion of those for a Sixth Sunday after Epiphany; and in printing all Gospels and Epistles from the Authorized Version of 1611, instead of from that of 1540.

[The Introits printed at the end of the Notes for each Sunday and other Festivals, are translated from the Salisbury Missal, the more familiar name of Introit having been substituted for that of "Officium," by which they are there designated. The Salis. bury rubric directs them to be used in the following manner :"Officium missæ usque ad orationem prosequatur sacerdos: vel usque ad Gloria in excelsis: quando dicitur. Et post officium et psalmum repetatur officium: et postea dicitur Gloria patri et Sicut erat. Tertio repetatur officium: sequatur Kyrie." Some of these Introits are selected with a striking appropriateness to the days for which they are appointed, and show a deep appre ciation of the prophetic sense of Holy Scripture.

The Hymns are also those of the Salisbury Use, which, as is well known, it was the intention of Cranmer and his coadjutors to have translated into English with the Prayer Book. Most of the Hymns are to be found in the original Latin in "Hymni Ecclesiæ," published in 1865 by Macmillan. The references appended to each are to translations contained in the following well-known Hymn-books :

:--

See the rules given at

[A.D. 1549.]

p.

24.

Gen. xvii. 1.

James iv. 6. John iii. 19- 1.

2 Cor. vi. 2.

Note, that the Collect appointed for every

Sunday, or for any Holiday that hath a Vigil or Eve, shall be said at the Erening Service next before.

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

A

The Collect.

Hebd.

that we may cast away the works

Rom. xiii. 12, 13. of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this

Matt. xxi. 5.

Phil. ii. 5-8.

2 Tim. iv. 1.

1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.

Rev. i. 8. xix. 16.

Matt. xxv. 31, 32. mortal life (in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility); that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

This Collect is to be repeated every day with the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Eve.

EPISTLE. GOSPEL.

Modern English. Rom. xiii. 8-14. Matt. xxi. 1-13.

Modern Roman. Rom. xiii. 11-14. Luke xxi. 25-33.

Eastern. Col. iii. 4-11. Luke xiv. 1-11.

ADVENT.

From the first institution of the great Festivals of the Church each of them occupied a central position in a series of days; partly for the greater honour of the Festival itself, and partly for the sake of Christian discipline. Thus Christmas is preceded by the Sundays and Season of Advent, and followed by twelve days of continued Christian joy which end with Epiphany.

Under its present name the season of Advent is not to be traced further back than the seventh century: but Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for five Sundays before the Nativity of our Lord, and for the Wednesdays and Fridays also, are to be found in the ancient Sacramentaries, and in the Comes of St. Jerome. These offer good evidence that the observance of the season was introduced into the Church at the same time with the observance of Christmas yet there is not, properly speaking, any season of

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Advent in the Eastern Church, which has always carefully preserved ancient customs intact; though it observes a Lent before Christmas as well as before Easter.

Durandus (a laborious and painstaking writer, always to be respected, though not to be implicitly relied upon) writes that St. Peter instituted three whole weeks to be observed as a special season before Christmas, and so much of the fourth as extended to the Vigil of Christmas, which is not part of Advent. [Durand. vi. 2.] This was probably a very ancient opinion, but the earliest extant historical evidence respecting Advent is that mentioned above, as contained in the Lectionary of St. Jerome. Next come two homilies of Maximus, Bishop of Turin, A.D. 450, which are headed De Adventu Domini. In the following century are two other Sermons of Cæsarius, Bishop of Arles [501-542], (formerly attributed to St. Augustine, and printed among his works,) and in these there are full details respecting the season and its

observance. In the latter part of the same century St. Gregory of Tours writes, that Perpetuus, one of his predecessors, had ordered the observance of three days as fasts in every week, from the Feast of St. Martin to that of Christmas; and this direction was enforced on the Clergy of France by the Council of Maçon, held A.D. 581. In the Ambrosian and Mozarabic liturgies Advent Season commences at the same time: and it has also been sometimes known by the name Quadragesima Sancti Martini: from which it seems probable that the Western Churches of Europe originally kept six Advent Sundays, as the Eastern still keeps a forty days' Fast, beginning on the same day. But the English Church, since the Conquest, at least, has observed four only, although the title of the Sunday preceding the first seems to offer an indication of a fifth in more ancient days.

The rule by which Advent is determined defines the first Sunday as that which comes nearest, whether before or after, to St. Andrew's Day; which is equivalent to saying that it is the first Sunday after November 26th. December 3rd is consequently the latest day on which it can occur.

In the Latin and English Churches the Christian year commences with the First Sunday in Advent. Such, at least, has been the arrangement of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for many centuries, although the ancient Sacramentaries began the year with Christmas Day, and although the Prayer Book (until the change of style in 1752) contained an express "Note, that the Supputation of the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the Five and Twentieth day of March." By either reckoning it is intended to number the times and seasons of the Church by the Incarnation: and while the computation from the

Annunciation is more correct from a theological and a chronological point of view, that from Advent and Christmas fits in far better with the vivid system of the Church by which she represents to us the life of our Lord year by year. Beginning the year with the Annunciation, we should be reminded by the new birth of Nature of the regeneration of Human Nature: beginning it with Advent and Christmas, we have a more keen reminder of that humiliation of God the Son, by which the new birth of the world was accomplished. And as we number our years, not by the age of the world, nor by the time during which any earthly sovereignty has lasted, but by the age of the Christian Church and the time during which the Kingdom of Christ has been established upon earth, calling each "the Year of our Lord," or " the Year of Grace:" so we begin every year with the season when grace first came by our Lord and King, through His Advent in the humility of His Incarnation.

In very ancient times the season of Advent was observed as one of special prayer and discipline. As already stated, the Council of Maçon in its ninth Canon directs the general observance by the Clergy of the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday fast-days, of which traces are found at an earlier period: and the Capitulars of Charlemagne also speak of a forty days' fast before Christmas. The strict Lenten observance of the season was not, however, general. Amalarius, writing in the ninth century, speaks of it as being kept in that way only by the religious, that is, by those who had adopted an ascetic life in monasteries, or elsewhere: and the principle generally carried out appears to have been that of multiplying solemn services1, and of adopting a greater reserve in the use of lawful indulgences. Such an observance of the season still commends itself to us as one that will form a fitting prefix to the joyous time of Christmas: and one that will also

1 Our own Church had special Epistles and Gospels for the Wednesdays and Fridays in Advent, until the Reformation.

be consistent with that contemplation of our Lord's Second Advent which it is impossible to dissociate from thoughts of His First. In the system of the Church the Advent Season is to the Christmas Season what St. John the Baptist was to the First, and the Christian Ministry is to the Second, Coming of our Lord.

§ The First Sunday in Advent.

The four Sundays in Advent set forth, by the Holy Scriptures appointed for them, the Majesty of our Lord's Person and Kingdom. Christmas is to represent before us the lowliness to which the Eternal God condescended to stoop in becoming Man: and we begin on that day the detailed observance of each great Act in the mystery of the Incarnation. Before coming to Bethlehem and seeing the Holy Child in the manger, we are bidden to look on the glory which belongs to Him; and, ere we look upon the Babe of the humble Virgin, to prepare our hearts and minds for the sight by dwelling on the key-note which sounds in our ears through Advent, "Behold, thy King cometh :" a meek and lowly Babe, but yet Divine.

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In this spirit the old Introit for the First Sunday was chosen, Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes: O my God, I have put my trust in Thee...." though not without reference also to the humble dependence upon His Father with which the Son of God took human nature, and all its woes, upon Him. Lifting up our eyes to the Holy Child, we behold Him from afar, and "knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep," we hear the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh" to His Church in a first Advent of Humiliation and Grace, and a second Advent of

Glory and Judgment. For each Advent the Church has one song

of welcome, "Hosanna to the Son of David: blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord, Hosanna in the Highest; Even so come, Lord Jesus."

The Christian year opens, then, on this Sunday with a direct re-presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ to us in His Human Nature, as well as His Divine Nature, to be the Object of our

Adoration. We cannot do otherwise than love the Babe of Bethlehem, the Child of the Temple, the Son of the Virgin, the Companion of the Apostles, the Healer of the Sick, the Friend of Bethany, the Man of Sorrows, the Dying Crucified One: but we must adore as well as love; and recognize in all these the triumphant King of Glory who reigns over the earthly Sion, and over the heavenly Jerusalem. No contemplation of the Humility of the Son of Man must divert our eyes from the contemplation of His Infinite Majesty of Whom the Father saith when He bringeth in the First-Begotten into the world, "Let all the angels of God worship Him."

INTROIT.-Unto Thee, O Lord, will I lift up my soul; my God, I have put my trust in Thee: O let me not be confounded, neither let mine enemies triumph over me. Ps. Show me Thy ways, O Lord, and teach me Thy paths. Glory be.

Kingdom of God is nigh at hand." As the Kingdom of Grace it is in the midst of us, so that the signs of its summer beauty and strength are visible to every eye that will look for them: as the Kingdom of the Second Coming, it is nigh at hand to all, for all must soon pass out of the one into the other. And what though the latter be terrible to contemplate, " men's hearts failing them for fear?" One has arisen to reign even over the Gentiles, and in Him shall the Gentiles trust. The patience and comfort of God's Holy Word, the Personal and the written Word, give the Church sure faith to look up and lift up its head, knowing that its redemption draweth nigh. "Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth." [Rev. iii. 10.]

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The continuity of the Church under the Old and New Dispensation is strongly shown in both the Epistle and the Gospel for this Sunday. In the first, the Monarchy of Christ over each Dispensation is set forth in the second, the Parable of our Lord points to the Summer, which was to begin at His passing away. Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig-tree putteth forth her green figs. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." [Cant. ii. 11-13.] It looks, also, beyond to that time when the Tree of Life will give its fulness of fruit, and the Kingdom of God be known in that phase of its continuous exist

ence in which His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face, Who has been their Redemption.

INTROIT.-Behold, O people of Sion, the Lord will come to save the nations: and the Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard, and gladness shall be in your hearts. Ps. Hear, O Thou Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep. Glory be.

§ The Third Sunday in Advent.

The Signs of Christ's Presence with His Church are shown by the Scriptures of to-day as a continuation of the truth enunciated on the Second Sunday, that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Whether or not the faith of John the Baptist in the Lamb of God was imperfect, there were reasons why the faith of others should be made more perfect by means of the message which he sent to Jesus, "Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another ?" There was no outward show to signify the Infinite Glory that was dwelling in the lowly-born and lowly-living Man Who was in the midst of them. If indeed this was He that was to come, where was the fulfilment of all the well-known prophe cies about the Majesty of the Messiah? For evidence, Christ did not transfigure His human Person before the multitude, and exhibit to them an unbearable glory, that would be as convincing as the burning bush, or the fire of Sinai: but "in the same hour He cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil