A Nightly Prayer

1831

Almighty God, by thy eternal Word my Creator, Redeemer and Preserver! who hast in thy free communicative goodness glorified me with the capability of knowing thee, the one only absolute Good, the eternal I Am, as the author of my being, and of desiring and seeking thee as its ultimate end; – who, when I fell from thee into the mystery of the false and evil will, didst not abandon me, poor self-lost creature, but in thy condescending mercy didst provide an access and a return to thyself, even to thee the Holy One, in thine only begotten Son, the way and the truth from everlasting, and who took on himself humanity, yea, became flesh, even the man Christ Jesus, that for man he might be the life and the resurrection! – O Giver of all good gifts, who art thyself the one only absolute Good, from whom I have received whatever good I have, whatever capability of good there is in me, and from thee good alone, – from myself and my own corrupted will all evil and the consequents of evil, – with inward prostration of will, mind, and affections I adore thy infinite majesty; I aspire to love thy transcendant goodness! – In a deep sense of my unworthiness, and my unfitness to present myself before thee, of eyes too pure to behold iniquity, and whose light, the beatitude of spirits conformed to thy will, is a consuming fire to all vanity and corruption; – but in the name of the Lord Jesus, of the dear Son of thy love, in whose perfect obedience thou deignest to behold as many as have received the seed of Christ into the body of this death; – I offer this my bounden nightly sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in humble trust, that the fragrance of my Saviour's righteousness may remove from it the taint of my mortal corruption. Thy mercies have followed me through all the hours and moments of my life; and now I lift up my heart in awe and thankfulness for the preservation of my life through the past day, for the alleviation of my bodily sufferings and languors, for the manifold comforts which thou hast reserved for me, yea, in thy fatherly compassion hast rescued from the wreck of my own sins or sinful infirmities; – for the kind and affectionate friends thou hast raised up for me, especially for those of this household, for the mother and mistress of this family whose love to me hath been great and faithful, and for the dear friend, the supporter and sharer of my studies and researches; but above all, for the heavenly Friend, the crucified Saviour, the glorified Mediator, Christ Jesus, and for the heavenly Comforter, source of all abiding comforts, thy Holy Spirit! O grant me the aid of thy Spirit, that I may with a deeper faith, a more enkindled love, bless thee, who through thy Son hast privileged me to call thee Abba, Father! O, thou who hast revealed thyself in thy holy word as a God that hearest prayer; before whose infinitude all differences cease of great and small; who like a tender parent foreknowest all our wants, yet listenest well-pleased to the humble petitions of thy children; who hast not alone permitted, but taught us, to call on thee in all our needs, – earnestly I implore the continuance of thy free mercy, of thy protecting providence, through the coming night. Thou hearest every prayer offered to thee believingly with a penitent and sincere heart. For thou in withholding grantest, healest in inflicting the wound, yea, turnest all to good for as many as truly seek thee through Christ, the Mediator! Thy will be done! But if it be according to thy wise and righteous ordinances, O shield me this night from the assaults of disease, grant me refreshment of sleep unvexed by evil and distempered dreams; and if the purpose and aspiration of my heart be upright before thee who alone knowest the heart of man, O in thy mercy vouchsafe me yet in this my decay of life an interval of ease and strength; if so (thy grace disposing and assisting) I may make compensation to thy church for the unused talents thou hast entrusted to me, for the neglected opportunities, which thy loving-kindness had provided. O let me be found a labourer in the vineyard, though of the late hour, when the Lord and Heir of the vintage, Christ Jesus, calleth for his servant.

Our Father, &c.

To thee, great omnipresent Spirit, whose mercy is over all thy works, who now beholdest me, who hearest me, who hast framed my heart to seek and to trust in thee, in the name of my Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, I humbly commit and commend my body, soul, and spirit.

Glory be to thee, O God!

Notes on The Book of Common Prayer

Prayer

A man may pray night and day, and yet deceive himself; but no man can be assured of his sincerity, who does not pray. Prayer is faith passing into act; a union of the will and the intellect realizing in an intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is wishing, or lip-work; a charm or a mummery. Pray always, says the Apostle; – that is, have the habit of prayer, turning your thoughts into acts by connecting them with the idea of the redeeming God, and even so reconverting your actions into thoughts.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist

The best preparation for taking this sacrament, better than any or all of the books or tracts composed for this end, is, to read over and over again, and often on your knees – at all events, with a kneeling and praying heart – the Gospel according to St. John, till your mind is familiarized to the contemplation of Christ, the Redeemer and Mediator of mankind, yea, and of every creature, as the living and self-subsisting Word, the very truth of all true being, and the very being of all enduring truth; the reality, which is the substance and unity of all reality; the light which lighteth every man, so that what we call reason, is itself a light from that light, lumen a luce, as the Latin more distinctly expresses this fact. But it is not merely light, but therein is life; and it is the life of Christ, the co-eternal son of God, that is the only true life-giving light of men. We are assured, and we believe that Christ is God; God manifested in the flesh. As God, he must be present entire in every creature; – (for how can God, or indeed any spirit, exist in parts?) – but he is said to dwell in the regenerate, to come to them who receive him by faith in his name, that is, in his power and influence; for this is the meaning of the word 'name' in Scripture when applied to God or his Christ. Where true belief exists, Christ is not only present with or among us; – for so he is in every man, even the most wicked; – but to us and for us.

That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

John i. 9-14.

Again

We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

John xiv. 23.

As truly and as really as your soul resides constitutively in your living body, so truly, really, personally, and substantially does Christ dwell in every regenerate man.

After this course of study, you may then take up and peruse sentence by sentence the communion service, the best of all comments on the Scriptures appertaining to this mystery. And this is the preparation which will prove, with God's grace, the surest preventive of, or antidote against, the freezing poison, the lethargizing hemlock, of the doctrine of the Sacramentaries, according to whom the Eucharist is a mere practical metaphor, in which things are employed instead of articulated sounds for the exclusive purpose of recalling to our minds the historical fact of our Lord's crucifixion; in short – (the profaneness is with them, not with me) – just the same as when Protestants drink a glass of wine to the glorious memory of William III! True it is, that the remembrance is one end of the sacrament; but it is, Do this in remembrance of me, – of all that Christ was and is, hath done and is still doing for fallen mankind, and of course of his crucifixion inclusively, but not of his crucifixion alone.

14 December, 1827.

Companion to the Altar

First then, that we may come to this heavenly feast holy, and adorned with the wedding garment, Matt. xxii. 11, we must search our hearts, and examine our consciences, not only till we see our sins, but until we hate them.

But what if a man, seeing his sin, earnestly desire to hate it? Shall he not at the altar offer up at once his desire, and the yet lingering sin, and seek for strength? Is not this sacrament medicine as well as food? Is it an end only, and not likewise the means? Is it merely the triumphal feast; or is it not even more truly a blessed refreshment for and during the conflict?

This confession of sins must not be in general terms only, that we are sinners with the rest of mankind, but it must be a special declaration to God of all our most heinous sins in thought, word, and deed.

Luther was of a different judgment. He would have us feel and groan under our sinfulness and utter incapability of redeeming ourselves from the bondage, rather than hazard the pollution of our imaginations by a recapitulation and renewing of sins and their images in detail. Do not, he says, stand picking the flaws out one by one, but plunge into the river, and drown them! – I venture to be of Luther's doctrine.

Communion Service

In the first Exhortation, before the words 'meritorious Cross and Passion,' I should propose to insert 'his assumption of humanity, his incarnation, and.'

Likewise a little lower down, after the word 'sustenance,' I would insert 'as.'

For not in that sacrament exclusively, but in all the acts of assimilative faith, of which the Eucharist is a solemn, eminent, and representative instance, an instance and the symbol, Christ is our spiritual food and sustenance.

Marriage Service

Marriage, simply as marriage, is not the means 'for the procreation of children,' but for the humanization of the offspring procreated.

Therefore in the Declaration at the beginning, after the words, 'procreation of children,' I would insert, 'and as the means for securing to the children procreated enduring care, and that they may be' &c.

Communion of the Sick

Third rubric at the end.

But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, &c.

I think this rubric, in what I conceive to be its true meaning, a precious document, as fully acquitting our Church of all Romish superstition, respecting the nature of the Eucharist, in relation to the whole scheme of man's redemption. But the latter part of it

'he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth'

seems to me very incautiously expressed, and scarcely to be reconciled with the Church's own definition of a sacrament in general. For in such a case, where is

'the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace given?' ²

XI Sunday after Trinity

Epistle. – 1 Cor. xv. 1.

Brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you.

Why should the obsolete, though faithful, Saxon translation of be retained? Why not 'good tidings?' Why thus change a most appropriate and intelligible designation of the matter into a mere conventional name of a particular book?

Ib.

how that Christ died for our sins.

But the meaning of is, that Christ died through the sins, and for the sinners. He died through our sins, and we live through his righteousness.

Gospel, Luke xviii. 14.

This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

Not simply justified, observe; but justified rather than the other, , – that is, less remote from salvation.

XXV Sunday after Trinity

Collect.

– that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded. …

Rather – "that with that enlarged capacity, which without thee we cannot acquire, there may likewise be an increase of the gift, which from thee alone we can wholly receive."

Psalm VIII

v. 2.

Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies; that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

To the dispensations of the twilight dawn, to the first messengers of the redeeming word, the yet lisping utterers of light and life, a strength and a power were given because of the enemies, greater and of more immediate influence, than to the seers and proclaimers of a clearer day: – even as the first re-appearing crescent of the eclipsed moon shines for men with a keener brilliance, than the following larger segments, previously to its total emersion.

Ib.v. 5.

Thou madest him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship.

Power + idea = angel.

Idea – power = man, or Prometheus.

Psalm LXVIII

v. 34.

Ascribe ye the power to God over Israel: his worship and strength is in the clouds.

The 'clouds' in the symbolical language of the Scriptures mean the events and course of things, seemingly effects of human will or chance, but overruled by Providence.

Psalm LXXII

This Psalm admits no other interpretation but of Christ, as the Jehovah incarnate. In any other sense, it would be a specimen of more than Persian or Moghul hyperbole and bombast, of which there is no other instance in Scripture, and which no Christian would dare to attribute to an inspired writer. We know, too, that the elder Jewish Church ranked it among the Messianic Psalms. N.B. The Word in St. John, and the Name of the Most High in the Psalms, are equivalent terms.

v. 1.

Give the king thy judgments, O God; and thy righteousness unto the king's son.

God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the only begotten, the Son of God and God, King of Kings, and the Son of the King of Kings!

Psalm LXXIV

v. 2.

O think upon thy congregation, whom thou hast purchased and redeemed of old.

The Lamb sacrificed from the beginning of the world, the God-Man, the Judge, the self-promised Redeemer to Adam in the garden!

v. 15.

Thou smotest the heads of Leviathan in pieces; and gavest him to be meat for the people in the wilderness.

Does this allude to any real tradition?³ The Psalm appears to have been composed shortly before the captivity of Judah.

Psalm LXXXII vv. 6-7

The reference which our Lord made to these mysterious verses, gives them an especial interest. The first apostasy, the fall of the angels, is, perhaps, intimated.

Psalm LXXXVII

I would fain understand this Psalm; but first I must collate it word by word with the original Hebrew. It seems clearly Messianic.

Psalm LXXXVIII

vv. 10 – 12.

Dost than shew wonders among the dead, or shall the dead rise up again and praise thee? &c.

Compare Ezekiel xxxvii.

Psalm CIV

I think the Bible version might with advantage be substituted for this, which in some parts is scarcely intelligible.

v. 6.

the waters stand in the hills.

No; stood above the mountains. The reference is to the Deluge.

Psalm CV

v. 3.

Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.

If even to seek the Lord be joy, what will it be to find him? Seek me, O Lord, that I may be found by thee!

Psalm CX

v. 2.

The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Sion; (saying) Rule, &c.

v. 3. Understand:

'Thy people shall offer themselves willingly in the day of conflict in holy clothing, in their best array, in their best arms and accoutrements. As the dew from the womb of the morning, in number and brightness like dew-drops; so shall be thy youth, or the youth of thee, the young volunteer warriors.'

v. 5.

'He shall shake,'

concuss, concutiet reges die iræ suæ,

v. 6. For

'smite in sunder, or wound, the heads;'

some word answering to the Latin conquassare.

v. 7. For 'therefore,' translate 'then shall he lift up his head again;' that is, as a man languid and sinking from thirst and fatigue after refreshment.

N.B. I see no poetic discrepancy between vv. 1 and 5.

Psalm CXVIII

To be interpreted of Christ's church.

Psalm CXXVI

v. 5.

As the rivers in the south.

Does this allude to the periodical rains?⁴

As a transparency on some night of public rejoicing, seen by common day, with the lamps from within removed – even such would the Psalms be to me uninterpreted by the Gospel. O honored Mr. Hurwitz! Could I but make you feel what grandeur, what magnificence, what an everlasting significance and import Christianity gives to every fact of your national history – to every page of your sacred records!

Articles of Religion: XX

It is mournful to think how many recent writers have criminated our Church in consequence of their own ignorance and inadvertence in not knowing, or not noticing, the contra-distinction here meant between power and authority. Rites and ceremonies the Church may ordain jure proprio: on matters of faith her judgment is to be received with reverence, and not gainsaid but after repeated inquiries, and on weighty grounds.

Articles of Religion: XXXVII