WHAT IT TAKES FOR GRANTED IN THE WORSHIPPER.
And then, think what the Book _does_ thus searchingly and helpfully "take for granted." It assumes a deep sense of sin, such a sense as is indeed "grievous unto us." It takes for granted our deep desire both for pardon and for spiritual victory. It assumes our desire to be "kept this day without sin"; to "follow the only God with pure hearts and minds"; to "be continually given to all good works"; to "be enabled by the Lord to live according to His will"; to have "all our doings ordered by His governance"; to have "such love to Him poured into our hearts that we may love Him above all things." It assumes our desire to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest all the Holy Scriptures." It assumes our readiness to "suffer on earth for the testimony of the truth, looking up steadfastly to heaven, and by faith beholding the glory that shall be revealed." It assumes our adoring devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ, and that we present "ourselves, our souls and bodies, a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice," to our God.
I heard a few years ago of a remarkable case of secession from the Church of England. A thoughtful and conscientious man left us because, as he said, he could no longer seem to concur in such words of intense spiritual reality and surrender _while he did not fully mean them_. On his principles, I fear there ought to be a large exodus from our Church. But that is not the fault of the Church, or of the Church's Book. It is the fault of the worshippers, and it is a solemn call to us not so much to criticize the Liturgy as to "examine _ourselves_."
In this connexion I am reminded of a characteristic saying of an honoured friend of mine, now at rest with the Lord after a long and faithful ministry. He was one of those men who instinctively speak strongly, perhaps sometimes roughly; but such roughness is often useful. "The Prayer Book," said he, "is always handy to throw at people's heads"; figuratively, of course, not literally. He slung it out in vigorous quotations from his pulpit, point blank at the unreality, and formalism, and pharisaism, and love of this present evil world, which too often underlies the most precise "churchmanship" and the most punctual church-going.