BISHOP KEN ON THE CIRCUMCISION.

89

and aimed at in all ages, although its spiritual significance was never so fully declared as after the death of Christ (Rom. ii. 25-29; Gal. v. 6; Col. iii. 11; and passim in the Pauline Epistles).

With the death of Christ, the obligation and necessity of circumcision determined; and if, in exceptional cases, it was either administered or withheld, its observance and non-observance alike were dictated by considerations of expediency (Acts xvi. 3; Gal. ii. 3-5).

Bishop Ken has a characteristic poem "On the Circumcision" in his "Hymns for all the Festivals in the Year." We offer the first five stanzas out of twenty, of which the whole poem is composed.

Upon the octave of Thy birth,

Since Thou, God-Man, didst shine on earth,
Thou, as the blissful light,

Immaculately bright,

Would'st a severity endure,

Contrived to teach lapsed men they were impure.

Thy heavenly Father it ordained,
Love to obedienee Thee constrained,
Our spirits to incline

To zeal for law divine;

From infancy Thy Father's will,
It was Thy care devoutly to fulfil.

Thou, our affections to excite,
Would'st stoop to an afflictive rite;
Thou early did'st foreshow

What Thou would'st undergo,

Thy cross and agonizing pains,

Which made Thy blood gush out at all Thy veins.

But, Lord, from sin all pain arose,

Sin is the cause of penal woes;

A Babe Thou did'st begin

To bear the weight of sin,

And by the circumcising steel,

Teach that Thy flesh our punishment should feel.

All heaven and earth which saw Thee bleed,
Saw Thee true Man and Abraham's seed:
He first received the sign

Of covenant divine,

And 'twas by Thee from him derived,
All dead in sin, to bliss should be revived.

"So mysterious were all the actions of Jesus, that this one [of the circumcision] served many ends: for, first, it gave demonstration of the verity of His human nature; secondly, so He began to fulfil the law; thirdly, and took from Himself the scandal of uncircumcision, which would have eternally prejudiced the Jews against His entertainment and communion; fourthly, and then He took upon Him that name which declared him to be the Saviour of the world; which, as it was consummate in the blood of the cross, so was it inaugurated in the blood of circumcision : for 'when the eight days were accomplished for circumcising the child, His name was called Jesus.'"* We are anxious to give a moment's prominence to the fourth and last of these purposes of the circumcision. It is to this namegiving incident, which sometimes is itself titular of the festival of the circumcision, that Ken devotes the other fifteen stanzas of the poem from which we have just extracted. The piety of the venerated bishop expands into a diffuse and affectionate rhapsody on the glories of the name of Jesus; as a "Hymn to the Name above every name—the Name of Jesus" is one of the most remarkable, the most rapt and saintly, of the productions of Crashaw. Crashaw's "Hymn" is, amongst other things, a sort of Benedicite, omnia opera Domini, adapted to the peculiar object of its inspiration. Its length makes it as unmanageable for purposes of reproduction here as its perfervid and passionate devotion makes it admirable. Yet it is with regret that we forbear to transcribe it, and content ourselves, as being more

*Bishop Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ.

THE NAME OF JESUS.

91

amenable to our laws of space, with a poem from the late Dr. J. M. Neale's "Medieval Hymns and Sequences." The translator, preserving the initial words-" Gloriosi Salvatoris "--by way of title, introduces it with a short paragraph, to the effect that it is "a German hymn on the festival of the holy Name of Jesus. All that can be said of its date is, that it is clearly posterior to the Pange Lingua of St. Thomas, which it imitated. This hymn has been adopted in several hymnals."

To the Name that brings salvation,
Honour, worship, laud we pay ;
That for many a generation

Hid in God's foreknowledge lay;
But to every tongue and nation
Holy Church proclaims to-day.

Name of gladness, Name of pleasure,
By the tongue ineffable,

Name of sweetness passing measure,

To the ear delectable;

'Tis our safeguard and our treasure,
'Tis our help 'gainst sin and hell.

'Tis the Name for adoration,
'Tis the Name of victory,
'Tis the Name for meditation
In the vale of misery;
"Tis the Name for veneration
By the citizens on high.

"Tis the Name that whoso preaches
Finds it music in his ear:

'Tis the Name that whoso teaches

Finds more sweet than honey's cheer:

Who its perfect wisdom reaches,

Makes his ghostly vision clear.

'Tis the Name by right exalted
Over every other name :

That when we are sore assaulted
Puts our enemies to shame :
Strength to them that else had halted,
Eyes to blind, and feet to lame.

JESUS, we Thy Name adoring
Long to see Thee as Thou art:
Of Thy clemency imploring

So to write it in our heart,
That, hereafter upward soaring,

We with angels may have part. Amen.

The peculiar offices which the Church has assigned to the day are admirably adapted to explain the history, to expound the doctrine, and to enforce the lessons of the circumcision of Christ. "The First Lesson for the morning gives an account of the institution of circumcision; and the Gospel of the circumcision of Christ: the First Lesson at evening, and the Second Lessons and Epistle all tend to the same end, viz.: that since the circumcision of the flesh is abrogated, God hath no respect of persons, nor requires any more of us than the circumcision of the heart. The Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the day were all first inserted in 1549."*

We know not how better to conclude this paper than by placing the Collect directly under the reader's eye, which, in its pregnant comprehensiveness, turns into one short prayer the converging precepts of the festival :

"Almighty God, who madest Thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man; grant us the true circumcision of the spirit, that our hearts and all our members being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey Thy blessed will, through the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

*Wheatly's Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer.

The Epiphong;

OR, THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST TO THE GENTILES.

JANUARY 6.

T is not uncommon for fasts and festivals to emerge first into view in the ecclesiastical firmament in the form of nebulæ, and gradually to shape themselves into distinctness and identity as proper and individual stars. Thus the feast of Epiphany was not originally a distinct festival, but formed a part of that of the Nativity; and the word Epiphany was originally applied to Christmas-day as well as to the day to which it is now peculiar. The idea common to both these seasons was that of manifestation-the Nativity commemorated the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, and, what we now call the Epiphany, His manifestation by a star to the Gentiles. Wheatly, however, maintains that the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany were always separate, and imputes it to the identity of the word used to designate them that they were ever regarded as having been one and the same; whilst Bingham contends for their primitive conjunction. It is not, however, beyond the limits of possibility to conciliate the statement of identity with the statement of difference. "The term 'Eripávia was used at first," says Mr. Riddle, "as equivalent to reviexia, Nativity; but afterwards a distinction was made between Epiphania prima et secunda, the first and second Epiphany; the former denoting Christ