And what are we to do?
Recollect my friends, what John the Baptist said, according to St. Matthew, after the words in the text—‘He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.’
The Collect asks him to do that—the first half of it at least. To baptize us with the Holy Ghost, lest he should need to baptize us with fire.
For the Collect says, we have all a race to run. We have all a journey to make through life. We have all so to get through this world, that we shall inherit the world to come; so to pass through the things of time (as one of the Collects says) that we finally lose not the things eternal. God has given each of us our powers and character, marked out for each of us our path in life, set each of us our duty to do.
But how shall we make the proper use of our powers?
How shall we keep to our path in life?
How shall we do our duty faithfully?
In short, so as St. Paul puts it—How shall we run our race, so as not to lose, but to win it?
For the Collect says—and we ought to have found it out for ourselves before now—Our sins and wickedness hinder us sorely in running the race which is set before us.
Our sins and wickedness. The Collect speaks of these as two different things; and I believe rightly, for the New Testament speaks of them as two different things. Sin, in the New Testament, means strictly what we call “failings,” “defects” a missing the mark, a falling short; as it is written—All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, that is, of the likeness of a perfect man. [75]