The Henson Journals

[47]

3rd Sunday in Advent. December 17th, 1922.

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O Lord Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee; Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight, who livest and reignest the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

This Collect was substituted (1662) for the translation of the old Sarum Collect, which had been used since 1549. viz:

"Lord, we beseech thee, give ear to our prayers, and by thy gracious visitation lighten the darkness of our hearts by our Lord Jesus Christ."

The new collect appears in the Durham book. (Brightman). It was composed by Bishop Cosin, and is an admirable specimen of the accepted type of collect viz. a mosaic of scripture. It is unusual in the fact that it is addressed directly to the 2 nd Person of the Blessed Trinity: and it identifies Christ with God in its use of the Pauline phrase in the Epistle. ("ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" becomes "the ministers & stewards of thy mysteries".) It is very definite in its reference to the "second coming to judge the world", a circumstance which raised no embarrassment in any Christian mind in the XVIIth century, but may perhaps be found rather difficult to explain intelligibly & intelligently in the XXth.

I celebrated the Holy Communion in the Chapel at 8 a.m. and did no more duty until the evening when I preached at St Andrew's, Spennymoor. The interval was spent in my study. I wrote to Harold Knowling and to Archbishop Söderblom, accompanying my letter in both cases with a copy of my Scott speech. Then, after a hasty glance at the "Observer" which is as oracular & gloomy as ever. (really. Garvin over does the role of inspired political prophet!)

I read Osmund's Life of Bishop Cosin . It is coloured by the Tractarian obsessions of the author, but is not uninteresting. Cosin must have been an extremely exasperating subordinate, and an extremely exacting superior. He was a hard, masterful man, who knew his own mind, and was not very scrupulous about his methods. Neile, Laud, and Sheldon, the three ecclesiastics with whom he was most constantly associated, were not the most considerate or the most spiritually–minded of contemporary English Bishops. His continual engagement in controversy hardened his heart and sharpened his tongue: and his experiences in exile did not sweeten his temper. He presented that admixture of sincere devoutness and calculating secularity which appears to be inseparable from the successful ecclesiastic. His domestic life, perhaps, was not really happy. His only son became a Papist, and one of his daughters was insane. Add that his health was wretched, and there is no need for further proof of his private unhappiness.

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