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PART II.

CHAPTER I.

The Placing of the Communicants, and the
Priest's Address to them.

SECTION I.-The Place of the Faithful at the Celebration.

RUBRIC X.

At the time of the celebration of the Communion, the Communicants being conveniently placed for the receiving of the holy Sacrament, the Priest shall say this Exhortation.

COMMUNION.]-The Ritual Commission, 1870, proposed to insert after this word the parenthetical clause, " (those who so desire having had opportunity to withdraw, and)”.1 The Lower House of Convocation, March 2, 1872, agreed that some such provision was desirable, but preferred to word it thus: " (Those who do not intend to communicate, etc.)"

The Commission also proposed to add this: "¶Note.This Exhortation may be omitted at the discretion of the Minister, subject to the control of the Ordinary."

b PLACED.]-The Second Book of Edward has no Rubric referring to the place which the Communicants are to occupy. The earlier Book gives the following order in the Rubric after the Offertory:-" Then so many as shall be partakers of the holy Communion shall tarry still in the quire, or in some convenient place nigh the quire, the men on the one side and the women on the other side. All other (that mind not to receive the said holy Communion) shall depart out of the quire, except the Ministers and Clerks." This Rubric

1 Fourth Report, p. 18.

has been pronounced inexplicable. It is asked, with reference to the order that the Communicants shall remain in the quire, and the rest leave it, How came all the congregation to be in the quire? This difficulty, however, is removed by the suggestion that all were supposed to enter the quire, to offer to the poor men's box," as the same Rubric directs, that box being at the time "set and fastened near unto the high Altar." This explanation is confirmed by an article of inquiry at the Visitation held by Ridley in 1550, while the First Book of Edward was in force:-" Whether any tarrieth in the quire after the Offertory other than those that do communicate, except clerks and ministers ?"2 Another difficulty arises from the wording of the last clause. All non-participants are to "depart out of the quire, except the Ministers and Clerks." If the definite article were omitted before "Ministers," as in Ridley's inquiry, all would be clear; but since the Celebrant himself is in this Liturgy styled a "Minister," a strict interpretation of the Rubric as it stood would imply that even he was not bound to communicate, which was certainly not the intention of the compilers. It is further objected that the general license given to "Ministers" not to communicate, if so disposed, is at variance with the provision of a later Rubric of the same Book, which directs that the Celebrant, after "receiving the Communion in both kinds himself," shall "next deliver it to other Ministers, if any be there present (that they may be ready to help the chief Minister);"-from which we might argue that all Ministers tarrying in the quire were bound to receive. It cannot be denied that the Rubric in question is at the least very "ill expressed." 3

The present Rubric deserves far more attention than it generally receives. In most Churches the Communicants, instead of being "conveniently placed," remain where they have been during the previous services, and come up from all parts at the reception. In some, however, a better custom prevails; viz., for the Communicants to gather in the Chancel and near it, when the non-Communicants have left after the

1 Cardwell, Doc. Ann. vol. i. p. 18; Injunction of Edward, No. 29. 2 This article is only found in the copy printed from the Ridley Register in the Appendix to Foxe's Acts and Monts. ; ed. Lond. 1846, vol. v. p. 783. Probably other reprints are from forms used at a later Visitation, when, from the Revision of the Prayer-Book, etc., this and other articles, also omitted in Sparrow, etc., had become obsolete, or were thought unnecessary. The above reference was kindly given me by the Rev. T. W. Perry.

3 Maskell's Ancient Liturgy, Præf. ch. v. p. lxxvii.

Offertory. This satisfies the Rubric, and (as will be seen,' when we come to the Invitation to "draw near ") has authority in its favour.

SECTION II. Of the Exhortation to the Communicants.

C THIS EXHORTATION.]-The Order of Communion, 1548, began with this exhortation. The Priest celebrated according to the old Latin Liturgy, but after he had communicated himself he was to "turn to them that were disposed to be partakers of the Communion, and thus exhort them." In 1 B. E. it was said after the Creed, Sermon, or Homily, if there was no exhortation to Communion in that. In 2 B. E. it came, as now, after the Prayer for the Church Militant, though "at certain times, when the Curate saw the people negligent to come," other exhortations (from which the two forms now used when notice of Communion is given are derived) were interposed.

With this Exhortation begins the more sacred part of this holy Office, the part which corresponds to the Canon of the Mass of our later Medieval Liturgies, and to the Missa Fidelium of an earlier period. "The Mass of the Catechumens," says Durandus,2 A.D. 1285, " is from the Introit until after the Offertory. But the Mass of the Faithful is from the Offertory to the Post Communion." Not that the Catechumens, when there were any, left after the Offertory, their dismissal taking place, as we have seen, after the Sermon; but that at a later period, when there were no Catechumens, and those terms were used to denote the two great divisions of the Liturgy, the one covered a little more ground, and the other a little less, than in strictness they should have done. Beleth, a century before Durandus, avoids the names, but divides the Office into two parts at the same place. This division of the Liturgy was accepted in England, and probably on the authority of Durandus, for we find Guest quoting him in 1559, when, in his well-known Letter to Cecil, he speaks "of the dividing of the Service of the Communion into two parts." "4

The second part of the old Spanish Liturgy began, like that of the Reformed English, with an exhortation, which, however, varied with the day. It came, like our own, after

1 See after, ch. ii. § i. p. 494.

2 Ration. L. iv. c. i. nn. 46, 7.

3 Div. Off. Explic. c. xliii.

4 Cardwell's History of Conferences, ch. ii. n. ii. p. 51.

"2 be

the Offertory, and acquired the name of "the Mass; cause, as Leslie3 remarks, "it is the first prayer that is offered in the Mass of the Faithful." By S. Isidore, A.D. 593, and by Heterius and Beatus, 785, it is called the Prayer of Admonition:-"The Prayer of Admonition is addressed to the people, that they may be stirred up to make effectual prayer to God." Only in a few instances of later composition, as e.g. on the Festivals of the Circumcision and of the Conception of the B. V., do those "Masses" take the form of prayers addressed to God. In the Gothico-Gallican Missal, once used in certain parts of Aquitaine, we find a similar exhortation occupying the same place, under the appropriate title of the "Preface." Twice it is called at length the "Preface of the Mass." 8 Here, however, it is often replaced by a prayer, which is generally much shorter. The old Gallican Liturgy, probably under Roman influence, substitutes a prayer in nearly every Mass extant; but there are instances of the old address to the people, and the prayer itself retained the name of Preface.10 In the Sacramentary found at Bobio, and supposed to have been used in the Province of Besançon, we have numerous examples of both forms. Few have any heading; but once11 an address is called the "Mass;" twice,12 the " Preface;" once,13 a "Collect." Once14 a prayer which has usurped the place of an exhortation is superscribed “the Preface." The Reichenau15 fragment yields six examples, three of which bear the title of Collect, the rest that of Preface. Only one16 of the six is a direct prayer.

These exhortations have no special reference to the Holy Communion, but generally bear on the day to which they are proper. The following is a brief example which does not pre

1 Leslie, tom. i. p. 3, 1. 59, p. 225, 1. 63; on which see the notes. 2 It is so headed passim in the Mozarabic Missal. "Hæc Oratio," says

Leslie, p. 475, "proprio nomine Missa appellatur."

3 Miss. Moz. p. 509.

4 De Eccles. Off. L. i. c. 15; Hitt. col. 188.

6 Ad Elipand. L. i. c. lxxiii. Migne, tom. xcvi. col. 939. Leslie, pp. 54, 414.

7 See the Missale Gothicum in Mabillon's Liturg. Gallic. L. iii. pp. 193, 204, 5, etc.

8 Liturg. Gallic. pp. 190, 252.

9 Ibid. pp. 329, 377.

10 Ibid. pp. 364, 6, 7, 8, etc. In p. 336, in the Preface for Christmas Eve we have an example of a long exhortation only partially converted into a prayer.

11 Mus. Ital. tom. i. p. 373. This is perhaps an error of the transcriber, especially as the phrase is Missa Dominicalis; but the example of the kindred Spanish Missal is in favour of the reading.

12 Ibid. pp. 371, 375.

13 Ibid. p. 286.

14 Ibid. tom. i. p. 366. 16 Gallican Liturgies, Neale and Forbes, Part i. pp. 2, 5, 9, 20, 1, 8. 16 Missa viii. Gall. Lit. p. 21. It is called Præfatio.

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