Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous Pieces

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 doctrine, 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?”

XI. Sunday after Trinity

Epistle.—l Cor. xv. 1.

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

Why should the obsolete, though faithful, Saxon translation of εὐαγγέλιον 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 ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν 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, ἤ ἐκεῖνος,—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.”

Ps. 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 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 reappearing 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.

Ps.  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.

Ps.  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!

Ps. 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 the Leviathan in pieces; and gavest him to be meat for the people in the wilderness.

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

Ps. 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.

Ps. LXXXVII

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

Ps. LXXXVIII

Vv. 10–12.  Dost thou show wonders among the dead, or shall the dead rise up again and praise thee? &c.

Compare Ezekiel xxxvii.

Ps. 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.

Ps. 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!