cion, and glorious ascencion, entyerely desyringe thy fatherly goodnes, mercifully to accepte this our Sacrifice of prayse and thankes geuinge."

We know that of these services the more ancient were derived, by a constant succession, from the very earliest antiquity, their source being no less than Apostolic: and of the latest it will be sufficient to remember, how acknowledged and undenied at any time in the Church of England is the excellence of the first Book of King Edward the Sixth. I have already spoken of the assertion that it was compiled by the aid of the Holy Ghost, but more than this, (the evidence of friends) is the testimony given by the very Act by which it was unhappily superseded in 1552: which, whilst it enjoins the observance of another Form, expressly recognizes the excellence of the one which it abolished, as being " a verye Godlye ordre, agreeable to the woorde of God, and the primative Churche;" and declares that it had been made (to use its own language) "fully perfect" to please too scrupulous and tender consciences: and to set at rest doubts which had arisen "rather by the curiositie of the minister and mistakers, then of any other worthy cause.”6

In all these Forms we find then the essential rites which I have spoken of: to this fact let us add an extract from the Homily of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament; and it will indeed appear, as I have said, of no slight importance according to what Order we administer the Eucharist, and make the inquiry an anxious one, whether we do in the first place administer rightly and validly consecrate; whether, secondly, we give due prominence to all, and have not obscured any of the neces

64 The Act for Uniformity. 5th and 6th Edw. VI. cap. 1.

sary particulars of the celebration of so great a Mystery. The Homily declares: "Before all things, this we must be sure of especially, that this supper be in such wise done and ministered, as our Lord and saviour did, and commanded to be done, as his holy Apostles used it, and the good fathers in the primitive church frequented it."

" 65

There have been for many years most lax opinions prevalent with respect both to the nature of the Holy Eucharist and to the blessings which are to be obtained through it. In the Church these have been in some measure restrained by the existence of a Liturgy, in which, however they may be hidden, we can still find, 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 will their foolish judgment, is fearfully apparent in the irreverent and impious celebrations by which various sects in this country profane the Supper of the Lord. The members of the Church, by God's blessing, still know that none but a Priest can stand in their stead before the Holy Table, or 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

65 Book of Homilies. Edit. Oxf. 1832, p. 404.

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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.

It is impossible to say how much of this omission of sound teaching, and consequent forgetfulness, has been caused by the obscurity of our present service. The direct prayers which were in the ancient Forms had the sure and good effect of keeping up in the minds both of the Priest and people a remembrance of the great truths which were expressed in them. Plainly to pray for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the sacred Elements, 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: and, if possible, the doctrines to be still retained, not merely in the Liturgy, but in men's minds. And the effects were similar to those which followed 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.'” 66

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

66 Sketches of the Reformation: by the Rev. J. Haweis, p. 114. 67 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 Cœlestino Pontifice et aliis factum est." Dissertatio. 52.

So Muratori: "In tot enim Orationibus, Ritibus ac Cærimoniis identidem 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.

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 very highest gifts which have been vouchsafed to man. This may be relied upon as a mark which cannot deceive: ambiguous statements in other formularies, comprehensive yet half-doubting Confessions of Faith, cannot supply the evidence which a Liturgy alone can give. During the Holy Office, in all ages, even from the earliest, from the dark days of heathen persecution, the Priests of Christ's Church, knowing that they are surrounded by tried and approved believers, knowing that the timid, and the scoffer, and the half-instructed, and the merely-curious, and the unreconciled, have been dismissed and put forth from among them, remove without reserve the veil which covers the secrets of the Gospel, praise God for all His mercies from the beginning of the world, speak of the Flesh which must be eaten and of the Blood which must be drunk if we would live eternally, and hiding nothing, obscuring nothing, consecrate by the power which has been given to them the simple elements, and endue them with the very efficacy of the very Body and the Blood of Christ.

Well would it have been for the members of the Church of England if the reviewers of her Liturgy had remembered no less the openness of the early disciples than their doctrine in the celebration of the Eucharist: if they had not only been anxious to secure what the testimony of every age assured them were essentials, but