ger:-"This [Sacrament] is called by St. Paul the Apostle the Lord's Supper;' because this ceremony was instituted by the Lord in His last supper, and because therein is offered unto us the Spiritual banquet. The same Paul termeth it 'the Lord's Table,' and that doubtless for none other causes." Ridley :-"The controversy. . . ... is not .. whether the Lord's Table is no more to be regarded than the table of any earthly man. . . . All do grant that these words of St. Paul (when he saith, 'if we eat, it advantageth us nothing,' or, if we eat not, we want nothing thereby') are not spoken of the Lord's Table, but of other, common, meats." Archbishop Sandys :-" Shall we dare presume to press in, being aliens and strangers, to the Lord's, as most comfortable, so also most dreadful, Table?" This is quite in accordance with the language of the Fathers. Thus S. Augustine:+"He hath invited thee to His own great Table, the table of heaven, the table of the angels, at which Himself is the bread." S. Hilary :5" There is the Table of the Lord, from which we take food, of Living Bread, to wit; of which this is the virtue, that, living Himself, he quickeneth those who also receive Him. There is also the table of the Lord's lessons, at which we are fed with the food of spiritual doctrine," etc.

Until 1662 the Altar was not called the Lord's Table in the Rubric of the Order of Holy Communion; but it had been so called in the Marriage Service in the Book of 1552.

dTRULY REPENTED.]-When an impenitent sinner has dared to communicate, the profanation is not unavenged. Such an one eats and drinks a judgment to himself." But the certainty of God's judgment does not excuse the remissness of the Priest. Rather, the greater the injury to the sinner, the more grievous the guilt of those who should, but do not, prevent it. The offence of the unfaithful Priest is a many-sided sin. It dishonours the holy Mysteries of which God has made him the guardian and dispenser; it puts a "stumblingblock" in the way of the simple, "gives occasion to the enemy to blaspheme," makes him "a partaker of other men's sins," and involves the sinful Communicant in deeper condemnation. But while we affirm thus strongly the duty of

1 Decade v. S. ix. vol. v. p. 402; Camb. 1852.

2 Brief Declaration, p. 10; Camb. 1841.

3 Serm. xv. p. 304; Camb. 1842.

4 Serm. ccxxxii. tom. vii. col. 980.

5 Tract. in Ps. cxxvii. § 10, col. 428.

...

the Minister of God to repel the open and impenitent sinner, we ought with equal earnestness to insist on the necessity of charity and caution in the discharge of it. This is not forgotten by S. Chrysostom,1 in an oft-cited passage on the responsibility of "those who minister:"-" No little punishment awaits you if, knowing any wickedness in a man, ye permit him to partake of this Table. His blood will be required at your hands. . . . And how, saith one, do I know this man or that? I am not speaking of those who are not known, but of the notorious." Let the rule of the Church be interpreted in her own spirit, and obedience to it will seldom be a source of difficulty and trial. If a parishioner be defamed for "evil living" or "wrong done" to a neighbour, and the Curate fear that the charge is true, he is bound to use private admonition to bring him, if it please God, to repentance, and to dissuade him from coming to the Lord's Table until he has repented, but not until the fact is "open and notorious," and he has "knowledge thereof" himself, does it become his duty to "advertise" the sinner "that in any wise he presume not to come."

THE CONGREGATION MAY THEREBY BE SATISFIED.]—It is not enough, then, that the Curate be satisfied of his repentance. It must be known to the congregation, as the offence was; for every member is bound to be jealous of the purity of the body. Hence S. Paul reproached the Church at Corinth for the general indifference to the presence of a great sinner: -"Ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken from among you."2 When their eyes were opened by the rebuke of the Apostle they felt themselves dishonoured, until they had "put away from among them that wicked person:". "What carefulness it wrought in you; yea, what clearing of yourselves; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge." 3

SECTION V. Of the Repulse of those who are not in Charity.

RUBRIC I-PARAGRAPH III.

The same order shall the Curate use with those betwixt whom he perceiveth malice and hatred

1 Hom. lxxxii. in S. Matt. Ev. § 6, tom. vii. p. 891.

21 Cor. v. 2.

3 2 Cor. vii. 11.

to reign, not suffering them to be partakers of the Lord's Table until he know them to be reconciled; and if one of the parties so at variance be content to forgive from the bottom of his heart all that the other hath trespassed against him, and to make amends for that he himself hath offended, and the other party will not be persuaded to a godly unity, but remain still in his frowardness and malice, the Minister in that case ought to admit the penitent person to the Holy Communion, and not him that is obstinate. Provided that every Minister so repelling any, as is specified in this or the next preceding 'Paragraph of this Rubric, shall be obliged to give an account of the same to the Ordinary within fourteen days after at the farthest; and the Ordinary shall proceed against the offending person according to the 1 Canon.

a MALICE AND HATRED.]-This holy feast is at once the sign and means of our union with Christ, and with our brethren in Him. Hence to approach it while malice disunites us from a brother, is to sin against the leading intent of the Sacrament. It is through love that the soul becomes capable of receiving Him who is love, and through His indwelling that love grows in it. Where hate and malice reign, He cannot enter; rather, to invite Him into a heart thus defiled is to add sin to sin, to heap presumption on uncharitableness. Nor can the love of Christ subsist in the soul without the love of man. "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? "1 "If ye love Me," saith the Lord Himself, "keep My commandments;"2 and His great commandment is, "Love one another, as I have loved you."

с

b THE LORD'S TABLE.]-See Note in the last Section, p. 44.

© UNTIL HE KNOW THEM TO BE RECONCILED.]-Compare the following canon in the Capitulary of the French Kings:-" It

1 1 John iv. 20.

2 John xiv. 15.

3 John xv. 12.

has been decreed that of persons at variance none venture to draw near to the Altar of the Lord, or to receive the grace of the Holy Communion, until he be reconciled; but compensation shall be made by a penance twice the length of time that they have been at variance. But if one of them, though the other despise it, shall have met (his adversary) for the satisfaction of charity, let him be received into the Church as a peacemaker from the time that he is proved to have made effort for concord." 1

"3

d THE MINISTER.]--The Curate, or Priest in charge, is here styled the Minister, in accordance with an ancient, though not always common, usage. Lyndwood, explaining the word as it occurs in a Constitution of Peckham, says, "Understand this of those to whom the government of the people has been committed;" 2 and elsewhere, "Sometimes Minister is put for Rector or Governor." Bishops sometimes subscribed themselves by this title, as, "Ivo, by the grace of God Minister of the Church of Chartres." 4 Priests were called "Ministers of the Altar," e.g. in the Capitulary of Charlemagne,5 A.D. 789; when the Bishops, with express reference to Priests, are entreated to see that "the Ministers of the Altar of God adorn their ministry by good conduct." After the Reformation this title was much more frequently given to the Curate. Thus Bishop Andrewes tells us, "They are now called Ministers, whom the Church formerly more accurately called Curates, on account of the cure of souls." Of two clergymen going to the Altar he says, "If both Ministers or Priests, the one at one end, the other at the other: . . . if one be but a Deacon, he kneels at the door."7 Deacons and Ministers are distinguished in many Articles of Visitation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus Parker 8 in 1575 inquires, "Whether any admitted to the Deaconry usurp the office of the Minister?" "Whether any Deacon or Minister" entered his Diocese without testimonials? etc. So Richard Bancroft in 1601: "Whether doth any man, being neither Minister nor Deacon, read Common Prayer openly,

1 L. vii. c. ccxlii. tom. i. col. 1076.

3 L. ii. tit. i. p. 91.

2 L. i. tit. i. p. 2. 4 Ducange in v.

5 No. lxx. Capit. Reg. Franc. tom. i. col. 237; Capitul. L. i. n. lxviii. col. 714.

6 Notes on the B. C. P., Minor Works, p. 150.

7 Ibid.

8 Second Report of Ritual Commission, App. pp. 415-6, etc. 9 Ibid. p. 437. Sim. Babington, p. 454; King, p. 464; Howson,

pp. 477.

etc., that is prescribed to be executed particularly by such as are either Ministers or Deacons." Thornborough, 1603:"Whether any hath presumed to execute the office of a Minister or Deacon . not being a Minister or Deacon ?"Andrewes,2 1619:-" Whether is there in your Parish any Minister or Deacon, who hath forsaken his calling," etc.? Hence it is evident that for a long period, embracing at least the reigns of Elizabeth and James,3 the word Minister was commonly used as synonymous with Priest; although when a definition was given, "Deacons, Priests, and Bishops" were of course all declared to be "Ministers." 4 See in Part II. ch. ix. sect. i., a note on the use of this word in the Rubric after the Prayer of Consecration.

е

• PROVIDED.]-This clause was added at the last Reviewsee note b p. 40. It clearly recognises the power of the Curate to repel provisionally, and guards the exercise of it from abuse. The knowledge that the Ordinary must at once be called in as the judge of both, will in general be sufficient to restrain the rashness of an impetuous nature, and to prevent the intrusion of unworthy motives.

PARAGRAPH.-Cosin had written in the Prayer-Book (preserved in the Episcopal Library at Durham) which was used by him and the other Commissioners at the Revision of 1662, "The next preceding Rubric." The use of the word Paragraph was therefore deliberate, and it is certainly more

correct.

ORDINARY.]—The Ordinary of the place may be the Chancellor, Commissary, Archdeacon, or Official, to whose court the spiritual causes that arise in that place are taken. Hence generally the Ordinary of the text would be the Archdeacon, who in person, or by his Official, is bound to entertain the presentment and impose the penance. Presentations may be

1 Second Report of Ritual Commission, p. 440.

2 Ibid. 475, 495. Comp. Overall, p. 483; Davenant, p. 501, etc.

3 This usage, which had already the sanction of the Prayer-Book and other earlier authorities, was probably recommended to many by the glossary of Ecclesiastical terms appended to Nowell's Catechism, publishedin 1570: "Minister Dei, Minister Ecclesiæ, vel Minister Ecclesiasticus pro eo quem sacerdotem appellamus usurpari possunt. Sic enim Cicero loquitur, Ministri publici Martis, atque ei Deo consecrati." Enchir. Theol. tom. ii. p. 245. See Cicero, pro Cluentio, ? 15.

4 Reform. Legum Eccl. De Sacram. c. 6, p. 32.

D