Immediately after the Consecration.

We offer unto Thee, our King and our GoD, this bread and

this cup.

We give Thee thanks for these, and for all Thy mercies; beseeching Thee to send down Thy HOLY SPIRIT upon this Sacrifice, that He may make this bread the Body of Thy CHRIST, and this cup the Blood of Thy CHRIST; and that all we who are partakers thereof, may thereby obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion.

And, together with us, remember, O God, for good, the whole mystical Body of Thy Son; that such as are yet alive may finish their course with joy; and that we, with all such as are dead in the LORD, may rest in hope, and rise in glory, for Thy Son's sake, whose death we now commemorate. Amen.

May I atone Thee, O GOD, by offering to Thee the pure and unbloody Sacrifice, which Thou hast ordained by JESUS CHRIST. Amen.

But how shall I dare to offer Thee this Sacrifice, if I had not first offered myself a Sacrifice to Thee, my GOD?

May I never offer the prayers of the faithful with polluted lips, nor distribute the Bread of life with unclean hands.

I acknowledge and receive Thee, O JESUS, as sent of God, a Prophet, to make His will known to us, and His merciful purpose to save us ;-as our Priest, who offered Himself an acceptable Sacrifice for us, to satisfy the Divine Justice, and to make intercession for us;-and as our King, to rule and defend us against all our enemies.

May I always receive the Holy Sacrament in the same meaning, intention, and blessed effect, with which JESUS CHRIST administered it to His Apostles in His last Supper.-Vol. ii. pp.

226-228.

LENT.

Meditations proper for a Clergyman at that season.

Give me such holy dispositions of soul, whenever I approach Thine Altar, as may in some measure be proportionable to the

holiness of the work I am about-of presenting the prayers of the faithful,-of offering a spiritual Sacrifice to God, in order to convey the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST, the trne Bread of life, to all His members. Give me, when I commemorate the same Sacrifice that JESUS CHRIST once offered, give me the same intentions that He had, to satisfy the justice of GOD,-to acknowledge His mercies, and to pay all that debt which a creature owes to his Creator. None can do this effectually but JESUS CHRIST. Him, therefore, we present to GoD, in this holy Sacrament. pp. 288, 9.

SHERLOCK (WILLIAM,) PRESBYTER.-Practical Discourse of Religious Assemblies.

66

For we may consider further, that as CHRIST has instituted this Holy Supper, so He has instituted it as an act of religious worship. It is a Sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving to GOD, and to our SAVIOUR. It is a commemoration of the Sacrifice of CHRIST the Cross, upon a showing forth the LORD's death until He come;" and therefore is a mysterious rite of worship, as all Sacrifices were under the law. But to explain this more particularly, though briefly, I shall consider this holy feast, both as it respects God, and as it respects our SAVIOUR.

1. With respect to GoD; and so we may consider it as a thanksgiving, or as a prayer.

As a thanksgiving to GoD for His great and inexpressible goodness in sending His SON JESUS CHRIST into the world, and offering Him up as an expiation and atonement for our sins. ... and what more proper Sacrament of thanksgiving and praise can we use than to present Him with the memorials of His stupendous love? You cannot more effectually praise any man, than to show the visible remains and monuments of his bounty and charity; as the widows, weeping, "showed the coats and garments which Dorcas made while she was with them." Thus, when we offer up to God the memorials of CHRIST'S Death and Passion, it is a visible Sacrifice of praise, and speaks such kind of language as this; "Behold, LORD, here is the token of Thy love to

us, Thy own SoN bleeding and dying for our sins; Thy eternal SON, the SON of Thy love, in whom Thy soul is well pleased, dying upon the Cross, a shameful, accursed, lingering, tormenting death; scorned and reproached of men, and forsaken of God. We will never forget such love as this; we will perpetually celebrate this holy feast, and offer up the memorials of a crucified JESUS, as a Sacrifice of praise to His FATHER, to His Gop, and to our GOD."

2. The LORD's Supper may be considered as a Sacrament of prayer; for so the Sacrifices under the law were always offered with prayers, which were accepted in virtue of the Sacrifice. . . . offered by the priests who were God's ministers; and now under the Gospel, GOD has sent His own SoN into the world, to be both our Priest and our Sacrifice; the acceptation of our prayers depends upon the power of His intercession; and the power of His intercession upon the merit of His Blood: for "with His own Blood He entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." We must now go to GoD in His name, and plead the merits of His Blood, if we expect a gracious answer to our prayers.

Now, for this end was the LORD's Supper instituted, to be a "remembrance" of CHRIST, or of the Sacrifice of the Cross, to "show forth the LORD's death till He come;" which, as it respects GOD, is to put Him in remembrance of CHRIST's death, and to plead the virtue and merit of it for our pardon and acceptance. It is a visible prayer to GoD, to remember the sufferings of His Son, and to be propitious to His Church, His body, and every member of it, which He has purchased with His own Blood. And therefore, the ancient Church constantly at His holy Supper, offered up their prayers to GoD, in virtue of the Sacrifice of CHRIST, there represented, for the whole Church, and all ranks and conditions of men. For this reason, the LORD's Supper was called a commemorative Sacrifice, because we therein offer up to GoD the remembrance of CHRIST's Sacrifice; and therefore, in the ancient Church, the altar, or the place where they consecrated the elements, was the place also where they offered up their

prayers, to signify that they offered their prayers only in virtue of the Sacrifice of CHRIST, and that the very remembrance of this Sacrifice in the LORD's Supper, by virtue of its institution, did render their prayers prevalent and acceptable to God, and therefore, in the very first account we have of the exercise of Christian worship, we find "breaking of bread and prayers" joined together. The efficacy of our prayers depends on the merit of CHRIST'S Sacrifice; and the way CHRIST hath appointed to give our prayers an interest in His Sacrifice, is to offer them in the holy Supper, with the sacramental remembrance of His Death and Passion.-pp. 316-322.

GRABE, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR.-MS. Adversaria 1.

Is the Eucharist a Sacrifice of the New Testament ?

It is agreed amongst divines, even those who differ concerning the question proposed, that "Sacrifice is a religious rite, whereby

1 Translated from papers "deposited, among the rest of his valuable remains, in the Bodleian Library, to which, after the deaths of Bp. Hickes and Bp. Smalridge, he had himself bequeathed them." See Preface to "De Formâ Consecrationis Eucharistiæ, &c.; or, a Defence of the Greek Church against the Roman, in the article of the Consecration of the Eucharistical Elements, &c. London, 1721." This paper, together with those from which extracts are given above, is contained in Dr. Grabe's Adversaria, of which there are three and twenty volumes preserved in the Bodleian Library. The seventh volume is headed, "Testimonia Veterum de Controversiis ad Theologiam Mystagogicam pertinentibus.

"I. De modis diversis quibus panis et vinum possint esse in S. Eucharistiâ corpus et sanguis Christi.

"II. De mutatione quæ in S. Eucharistiâ fit, contra Transubstantiationem Pontificiam.

"III. De Sacrificio Eucharistico, juxta sensum ejus genuinum vereque Catholicum."

These papers are marked No. 116, and they begin with the fragment of a translation of Mede's "Christian Sacrifice," containing the first chapter of the Discourse. There is a rough draft of this translation in Vol. xx. No. 29. together with a translation of part of the third chapter. It is there headed, "Sacrificum Christianum ex Malach. i. 11. descriptum et expositum a viro pio ac profunde docto, Josepho Medo, Theologo Anglicano."

The

a sacred person offers some creature, on the altar or holy table, to God in the way of a gift, to testify his own subjection, and that of those in whose behalf he offers, to Him as the Creator and Supreme GOD." The genus of Sacrifice, therefore, is oblation, and consequently whatever is properly called a Sacrifice must be, offered by a priest upon an altar, as a sacred gift to God; and that which is not so offered, is not truly a Sacrifice. The general end of Sacrifices is the testifying of our inward devoted subjection to God, as the supreme LORD, in like manner as tributes or gifts, are given to kings for the acknowledgment of their supreme outward dominion. Which comparison St. Irenæus uses, book iv. chap. 34. writing thus, "Therefore the oblation of the Church, which the LORD hath taught to be offered in the whole world, is esteemed by GoD a pure Sacrifice, and is accepted by Him; not that He wants a Sacrifice from us, but because he who offers is himself honoured in what he offers, if his gifts be accepted. For our honour and affection toward a king is declared by our gifts." And so all nations by means of Sacrifices showed themselves devoted to the service of those gods to whom they offered; so the Jews testified their devotion to the true God. But, in truth, in the Sacrifices of these [Christians] there was yet another general end regarded, namely, a representation of the oblation of CHRIST upon the Cross, through which all other oblations are accepted of GoD, whereas, without respect to that, they are hateful, or, at all events, useless. There were indeed besides,

The paper, No. 117, (in vol. vii.) from which extracts are given above, is headed" Qu. An S. Eucharistia sit Sacrificium Novi Testamenti ?"

On the opposite page is pasted a paper containing a rough draft, less fully expanded, of the first few sentences, down to the quotation from St. Irenæus. On the margin of this paper stands a list of names of English divines in alphabetical order, written wide, as though for further insertions. "Burnet, Brevint, Beveridge, Fell, Forbesius, Hammond, Hooperus, Laud, Medus, Montacut., Sherlock, Taylor, Thorndike, White." "Burnet" has been added afterwards,

and perhaps "Hooperus." This list, accidentally discovered, was, it may be mentioned, the groundwork of the present Catena.

No. 118, in the same volume, is the tract published, with a translation, in the volume referred to above. "De Formâ Consecrationis," &c.