which are to be obtained through its reception. In the Church these have been in some measure restrained by the existence of a liturgy, in which are to be found, in conformity with the early and later Canons, the essentials of a valid administration: but the extent to which these opinions have spread, where such restraint has been removed, and men have been suffered to follow whither they would their foolish judgment, is fearfully apparent in the irreverent and impious celebrations by which various sects in this country profane the Lord's Supper. On the other hand, it is not that our people disbelieve the great doctrines which the Eucharist involves, but they either are ignorant of them, or think them of secondary importance. The members of the Church of England, by God's blessing, well know that none but a priest can stand in their stead before the Holy Table, and offer in their behalf the solemn prayers and praises of the Office of the Communion; that none but a priest can consecrate the elements; they believe also that the blessings attached to a worthy partaking are very great; but how much is there which they forget, or which never has been taught them! They have been told and rightly told, that the natural Body and the natural Blood of Jesus Christ are not given them; but not with equal earnestness that the Body and the Blood are really given. They have been told and rightly told, that the elements of bread and wine remain after consecration unchanged in substance, but not also that after consecration those elements are no longer common bread and common wine, but that they are endued with another and mysterious efficacy, tending to a better purpose than the mere supporting of man's earthly life. They have been told and rightly told, that Jesus Christ made but one oblation of Himself once offered, but not that there is also in the Eucharist another commemorative but most true oblation of His Body and His Blood. They have been told and rightly told, that it is a dangerous deceit to say the priest does offer Christ in the sacrifice of masses, but not that all antiquity and all ancient rituals testify, that in the Eucharist the Body and the Blood of our Blessed Lord are offered as the efficacious and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead.82 82"The ancient Fathers were wont to call the Eucharist Sacrificium laudis et gratiarum actionis; not exclusively, as if there were no other sacrifice but that; for they called it also, Sacrificium commemorationis, and Sacrificium Spiritus, and Sacrificium obsequii &c: and which is more, Sacrificium verum et propitiatorium: all other ways but this the Eucharist, or any other sacrifice we make, are improperly and secundum quandam similitudinem, called sacrifices. The true and proper nature of a sacrifice is, to be an oblation of some real and sensible thing made only to God, for the acknowledging of man's subjection to God, and of His supreme dominion over man, made by a lawful minister, and performed by certain mysterious rites and ceremonies, which Christ and his Church have ordained.-Therefore as there never was, nor could be any religion without a God; so there never was nor could be any without a sacrifice, being one of the chiefest acts whereby we profess our religion to Him that we serve." Bp. Overall: in the Additional Notes to Nicholls on the Common Prayer: p. 49. "The Eucharist may very properly be accounted a sacrifice propitiatory and impetratory both, in this regard; because the offering of it up to God, with and by the said prayers, doth render God propitious, and obtain at His hands the benefits of Christ's death which it representeth; there can be no cause to refuse this, being no more than the simplicity of plain Christianity enforceth." enforceth." Thorndike. Epilogue. b. iii. c. v. p. 42. Again, the same writer : "It cannot be denied that the Sacrament of the Eucharist-is both propitiatory and impetratory.” And, once more: "If the profession of Christianity be the condition that renders God propitious to us, and obtains for us the benefits of Christ's Passion : and that the receiving of the Eucharist is the renewing of that profession, by virtue whereof the faults whereby we have failed of that profession, for that which is past, are blotted out, and we, for the future, are qualified for the blessings which Christ's Passion tendereth; then is the Eucharist a Sacrifice propitiatory and impetratory, by virtue of the consecration, though in order to the participation of it." p. 46. "There is one proof of the propitiatory nature of the Eucharist, according to the sentiments of the Ancient Church, which will be thought but only too great; and that is the devotions used in the As I have said just above, there may have been, and doubtless were, most weighty reasons why certain great doctrines of the Gospel should for a season be in a measure veiled: but if our present Service is obscure, and liturgies, and so often spoke of by the Fathers, in behalf of deceased souls: there is, I suppose, no liturgy without them, and the Fathers frequently speak of them.-The Ancients did not use these prayers, as if they thought of a purgatory: nor did they allow prayers to be made for such, as they thought ill men, either as to principles or practice: they prayed for the Virgin Mary, Apostles, Patriarchs, &c. and such as they believed to be like them.—The use I make of it is to prove, that the Ancients believed the Eucharist a Propitiatory Sacrifice; and therefore put up these prayers for their deceased friends, in the most solemn part of the Eucharistic Office, after the symbols had received the finishing consecration." Johnson. Unbl. Sacr. vol. i. p. 292. Nothing can be more true than the fact which this very learned writer states, that anciently the Apostles and the blessed Virgin especially among the dead Saints were prayed for; a point of the highest importance, and to which I shall briefly refer again presently. But how different, how absolutely contradictory is the modern practice and doctrine of the church of Rome which insists upon extending prayer for the dead far beyond any limits sanctioned by Scripture or antiquity, and forbids that use of it which is authorized by the one, and may reasonably be grounded on the other. "Martyri, vel cuilibet Sancto faceret injuriam ille, qui pro eo beatam in cœlo vitam degente, oraret." Angelo Rocca. Opera. tom. i. p. 139. (239.) This is a long note, yet these are but few out of many authorities to the same purpose: I shall however add but one more, the judgment of the present Bishop of Exeter. "Not only is the entrance into the Church by a visible sign, but that body is visible also in the appointed means of sustaining the new life, especially in that most sacred and sublime mystery of our religion, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the commemorative Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ; in which the action and suffering of our great High Priest are represented and offered to God on earth, as they are continually by the same High Priest Himself in heaven; the Church on earth doing, after its manner, the same thing as its Head in heaven; Christ in heaven presenting the Sacrifice and applying it to its purposed end, properly and gloriously; the Church on earth commemoratively and humbly, yet really and effectually, by praying to God (with thanksgiving) in the virtue and merit of that Sacrifice which it thus exhibits." Charge to the Clergy. 1836. p. 43. 13 all men must allow this, it is impossible to say how much of the omission of sound teaching, and consequent forgetfulness, has been caused by that obscurity. The direct prayers which were in the primitive Forms had the sure and good effect of keeping up in the minds both of the priest and people a remembrance of the solemn truths which were expressed in them. Plainly to pray for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine, and in plain words to offer up the sacrifice, could not but be followed by a corresponding faith. Practice and Belief would go hand in hand. But less plain words were to be used: deep mysteries which pass human understanding had been explained after a carnal manner, and it seemed right to the church of England that she should attempt to check the errors which were abroad, to correct the abuses which had followed such an explanation, by a less open declaration for a time of the truths themselves. She trusted also, that by the grace of God, the doctrines of which I speak might still be retained, not merely in the liturgy, but in men's minds. Unhappily, to a wide extent her hopes were disappointed. The plan adopted was not followed solely by good results. Its effects were similar to those which were produced by the more open violence of breaking down altars, and violating churches: "When men saw an altar broken down with every indignity, and all its costly furniture supplanted by a linen cloth, and the conveniences of a domestic table, no preaching could make them yield the latter a reverence denied by their teachers to the former." Both parties agreed in tracing this to the same cause. "John Bradford, when the harbingers of persecution were gathering round him, exclaimed, 'the contempt of the sacrament in the days of Edward hath caused these plagues upon us presently.' Brokes, in his sermon before Queen Mary, in like manner traced the death of religion to the defacing of churches, in spoiling their goods and ornaments, the breaking down ། ” altars, throwing down crosses-change in altars, change in placing, change in gesture, change in apparel. 84 983 Her liturgy is a sure test of the Catholicity of any Church. There may be canons, and articles, (more especially if they are chiefly negative) and forms even of Common Prayer, which if they touch not upon vital points may escape censure, and, answering the ends which they propose, be worthy of praise. But the liturgy is the great storehouse in which we are to look for and find the necessary declarations of the highest Catholic Truths, the unhesitating reception of the most deep mysteries, and the expressed confident expectation of obtaining the best gifts which have been vouchsafed to man. This may be relied upon as a mark which 85 83 Sketches of the Reformation: by the Rev. J. Haweis. p. 114. See also K. Henry's last speech to his parliament in 1545; Collier. vol. ii. p. 208 and the preamble of the Act. 1. Edw. VI. cap. 1: which was a penal statute, to such an ex cess had profaneness reached, against irreverent speaking of the Sacrament of the Holy Communion. 81"Sunt enim (says Renaudot, speaking of the Eastern Liturgies,) non unius quantumvis magni doctoris, voces et verba, sed Ecclesiarum, quæ cum unanimi consensu eam sacrorum formam, precesque probaverunt, legis illa vim obtinent, qua, si sacras literas excipimus, major esse nulla potest. Nec id noviter excogitatum est, cum precum Ecclesiæ testimoniis Augustinus Pelagianos confutaverit, ut a Coelestino Pontifice et aliis factum est." Dissertatio. 52. So Muratori: "In tot enim orationibus, ritibus ac cærimoniis iden tidem dignoscitur, quid Ecclesia orthodoxa credat de Unitate ac Trinitate Dei, de Divinitate, Incarnatione, cæterisque ad Dei Filium spectantibus, uti et de Divinitate ac potentia Spiritus Sancti, et de aliis Ecclesiæ Catholicæ capitulis. Propterea ad hunc ipsum fontem recurrebat sanctus Augustinus, quod et alii ex patribus prout occasio ferebat præstitere. Nam quæ ibi dogmata occurrunt, non unius privati doctoris sententiæ sunt, sed universæ illius Ecclesiæ, quæ iisdem Liturgiis utebatur." De rebus Lit. 101. 85 The Bishop of Exeter in his Lordship's late protest against the consecration of another Bishop of the English church at Jerusalem, makes one of his reasons to be the objectionable character of what is called the German Liturgy: as "being grievously defective in more than one momentous particular." p. 5. |